The Flight of Gemma Hardy (25 page)

After lunch I sat down and wrote to Miss Seftain, telling her that, much to my surprise, I was going to be married next week. “It'll be a small ceremony in Kirkwall,” I wrote, “just in the registry office. Later I hope we'll have a proper church wedding and you can come. Don't worry! I still plan to go to university. Mr. Sinclair says he'll help me take the exams and apply.” Before I could change my mind, I addressed the envelope and fetched Nell. Together we bicycled to the village and she slipped the letter into the pillar-box. I heard the soft sound of it landing, already as far from me as if it had travelled a hundred miles.

T
hat evening, sitting on the bench under the beech trees, Mr. Sinclair told me we would be married at the registry office at 11
A.M
. the following Monday. We would catch the afternoon flight to Edinburgh.

“Why would we go to Edinburgh?” I asked. Above our heads the white scar left by the broken branch shone, and all around us the wind was shaking the plants and trees.

“For our honeymoon, Gemma. People don't just come back to the house where they've been living as though nothing has changed. Wouldn't that feel odd to you? Vicky and Nell wondering what we were up to?”

“Everything feels odd. How long will we be away? I have to make plans for Nell.”

Then he explained, as if it had been understood all along, that we wouldn't be coming back. We would go directly on to London. His house was in a neighbourhood called Holland Park. It had four bedrooms, a garden; there were shops and restaurants nearby. Of course I knew he was needed at his office, but I had pictured us spending a few more days on the island. And then my visiting him in London, getting my bearings, before Nell and I moved there, irrevocably.

“But I won't know anyone,” I said. “And what about Nell?”

“I have to work. All this”—he gestured towards the house in front of us, the fields behind—“costs a pretty penny. It's not Seamus's fault, but every year the farm loses money. As for Nell, she can come too, if that's what you want.”

“Isn't it what you want? Your sister's child, your only relative. And don't”—I raised my hand—“say I'm too young to understand.”

“Touché. I was going to say I'm too old to understand.” He planted a kiss near my ear. “You've done wonders with her, but she should go to school, have friends her own age. And if you want to go to university you'll have to study. You won't be lonely, I promise. I have lots of friends. You already know Colin and Jill.”

But they don't see me as a friend, I wanted to say; they see me as the au pair. All the items on my list were still true—I was a girl with no money or obvious talents; he was a middle-aged man with both—and in London there would be new entries.

As we spoke, the rustling in the branches overhead had been growing louder; the leaves too were having a conversation. Now Mr. Sinclair looked up. “My great-grandfather planted these trees on his wedding day,” he said. “Heaven knows the secrets they could tell. Come, let's walk.” Arm in arm we began to circle the house, dodging the croquet hoops that still dotted the lawn.

“I know you love this place,” he said. “It's one of the many bonds between us. And we'll come here often. But if we stayed now it would be hard for our friends and neighbours. By going away we give them time to get used to our new situation, and you and I get a chance to practise being in the world together.”

“Vicky thinks we have to get married,” I said.

“We do, but not for the usual reason.”

We passed the fountain, and I caught the musty smell of the basin full of water after the recent rain. Tonight Seamus's window was dark. Was he lurking in there? Or walking the cliff tops towards some secret tryst? I could not imagine any possible world in which he would welcome the news that I was the future mistress of Blackbird Hall. The wind was still rising, rushing past the house, rushing past us and the flowers in the garden, the grass in the fields. I heard a sheep bleating and, for a few seconds, the sound of Vicky's radio. Around the corner came a small white figure, moving over the lawn towards us. Even as I gasped I recognised Nell.

“What are you doing here?” I said, letting go of Mr. Sinclair and hurrying to meet her.

“I couldn't sleep.” She threw her arms around me. “I couldn't find you.”

“I went for a walk with Uncle Hugh. Vicky was nearby.”

She pushed her head against me. “Mummy went for walks,” she said in a muffled voice. “She went for a walk the night she died.”

I felt Mr. Sinclair beside me, his hand on my arm, squeezing.

“Did she?” I said gently. “Do you know where she went?”

“She said she was going to the river, but sometimes she said that and changed her mind. Sometimes she came back smelling of smoke from the pub. But she didn't smell smoky that night.”

The wind tangled my hair across my face. Mr. Sinclair's grip tightened. There was another question, something else he wanted me to ask. “Did she go alone?” I suggested.

“She wouldn't let me come.” Nell spoke more loudly as if rehearsing an old argument. “He said the same when he brought her home. Not the same,” she corrected, “but that she'd said the same to him.”

I felt Mr. Sinclair's breath hot against my ear. “Ask her who ‘he' is.”

I did.

“You know,” Nell said. “We see him all the time, with the cows.”

For a moment I had no inkling who she meant. Then, even as I heard Mr. Sinclair whisper, “Seamus,” I understood.

chapter twenty-four

I
took Nell back to bed with me, and in the morning she was propped up beside me, reading. “You slept in, lazybones,” she said. As we washed and dressed, she chattered away. She could hold her breath for forty-nine seconds; she was going to give her doll, Cilla, a new name. What did I think of Lulu? Or Dusty? When I asked if she remembered coming out to the garden the night before, she said yes, it was so windy she had wanted to pretend to be a pony. “I wanted to trot around,” she said, “and toss my mane.” Before I could ask further questions, she added that she'd been thinking about what to wear at the wedding and she'd decided on the pink dress with smocking that Vicky had made her for Easter. What was I going to wear?

In all my daydreaming about the future I had, oddly, given this question no thought; now it drove out everything else. Even for a simple ceremony my Sunday skirts and blouses were too ordinary. Indeed every garment in my wardrobe seemed limp and unappealing. I recalled the turquoise dress Coco had worn to the dance, and ruined in the rain. Might one of the guest room wardrobes contain a dress that would serve? But I was much smaller than Coco, and I shrank from wearing a dress whose history I didn't know. What if, unwittingly, I chose something Alison had worn right before her accident? Then I remembered the dress Matron had given me as a farewell gift. It had belonged to a prefect, one of the most elegant girls at Claypoole. I had never so much as tried it on, but I pictured the lustrous paisley fabric transforming me into a forest bride.

As soon as lessons and lunch were over I went to my room. The dress, when I lifted it down from the back of the wardrobe, was as pretty as I recalled, the delicate pattern of leaves and flowers conjuring up a lush jungle where a lyre-bird might sing. But when I pulled it over my head I could tell at once it was too large, and the mirror revealed a lost cause. The bodice gaped, the sleeves dangled, the hem drooped. Worst of all, the green gave my skin an olive tinge. I looked exactly like what I was: an orphan in a borrowed dress.

Silence greeted my knock at Mr. Sinclair's door. He must, I thought, be out in the fields, or meeting with a neighbour. I was almost back at the far end of the corridor when the lock clicked. I turned to see him standing in the doorway. He was wearing the clothes he had worn the night before, his shirt crumpled, his trousers creased.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“I'm fine,” he said abruptly and then, as if remembering our relationship, came forward to kiss me. His eyes, I noticed, were red-rimmed and bloodshot.

“Hugh,” I said. “May I call you Hugh?”

“What else would you call me? Now out with it. You're bursting with something.”

I repeated Nell's question. “I know the dress is meant to be a secret from the groom but I can't ask Vicky for help.”

His forehead grew smooth. “I'm an idiot,” he said. “Of course you must have a dress. We'll go and buy one this afternoon.”

“But you can't see it, not until our wedding day. That's bad luck.” My uncle had officiated at many weddings, and I remembered the lore.

“I will drive you to the best shop in Kirkwall, hand you my wallet, and then take myself off to read the paper at the pub. I'll be ready in five minutes.”

Startled by his alacrity, I hurried to my room to change—even to buy a dress I needed to look respectable—and then to the kitchen to ask Vicky to mind Nell. She looked up from the shell she was carefully threading with wire. “Of course,” she said. “She can help me sort the stamens. You'll be needing new outfits now.”

Again I glimpsed a hidden meaning. “I don't need new outfits in general,” I said. “I haven't grown in three years, but I do want to look nice on Monday.”

Vicky's expression softened. “I suppose you do. Will you pick me up a pair of tights, medium, not too light?”

Between morning lessons and my sartorial distraction, there had been no opportunity to ask Mr. Sinclair—Hugh—about our encounter with Nell the night before. Now, once we were safely through the gate, I said I didn't understand why he had wanted me to question her. “And what did she mean about Seamus? Was she saying he was there when Alison died?”

“That's what it sounded like, but I've asked her about that night over and over and she's never mentioned Seamus before.”

I had always assumed Nell was afraid of Seamus—like me she tended to avoid him—but perhaps her avoidance signalled a more complicated relationship. “So were Seamus and Alison friends?” I said.

“Not really. Remember our bargain, Gemma. On our wedding night we'll tell each other our secrets.”

For the rest of the journey he beguiled me with talk about the farm, and a client in Edinburgh he was hoping to meet on our way south. I remembered the lapwing on the Brough of Birsay, feigning injury to lead me away from the nest, but I followed uncomplainingly. Our conversations, which I had thought so free and far-ranging, had, I'd begun to notice, certain boundaries. Hugh did not care to talk about his sister, or the war, or, save for odd stories, his childhood. He pulled up outside a shop near the cathedral—“the only place on the island to buy a dress”—handed me sixty pounds in crumpled notes, and told me he would be in the lounge bar of the Kirkwall Hotel.

As I stepped into the shop, a wave of perfume transported me back to that time when I had still accompanied my aunt on shopping expeditions. And there behind the counter, as if memory had conjured her, was a woman whose blond hair was coiled around her head in exactly the same style as my aunt's. She was talking to a customer in a neat shirtwaist dress. Neither of them noticed me and I ducked behind a rack of jackets. I was looking at the price tags—one was thirty pounds, the next thirty-five—when I spotted a girl cleaning a mirror. I made my way over.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I'm looking for a nice dress.”

In the mirror the girl studied my pleated skirt and flowery blouse. “Do you have a particular occasion in mind?” she said.

“My wedding.”

“Your wedding?”

Was no one but Nell pleased about my marriage? I turned to leave, thinking perhaps Vicky could alter the green dress; if not, I would wear my church clothes. Hugh wouldn't mind. Over and over he had said there would be no fuss. But the girl was still speaking.

“Congratulations,” she said. “Do you have a favourite colour? A favourite style? You're either a small or a petite. Let me show you some possibilities.”

For the next hour Deirdre brought a stream of dresses to the changing room and praised or rejected them as I tried them on. She had never met Mr. Sinclair but, being Kirkwall born and bred, she knew the name. Finally we settled on a dress the colour of the sea on a sunny day with tiny pink rosebuds around the neck, cuffs, and hem. Then she urged new underwear, new tights and shoes. I refused to buy a handbag but succumbed to a nightdress. When everything was packed in boxes and bags, including Vicky's tights, the bill came to fifty-three pounds. Deirdre walked me to the door of the shop.

“I hope you get the good weather,” she said. “And I hope you'll be very, very happy.”

As I walked down the winding street, people kept smiling at me—first two middle-aged women, then a woman with a baby, then a grizzled man in a tweed cap and anorak, then two girls my own age. When a boy on a tricycle beamed at me, I finally understood it was because of my own broad smile.

T
he last days of my unmarried life passed as slowly as a snail creeping along a wall, as swiftly as a gannet diving into the sea. Every morning I gave Nell lessons; in the afternoons, when it was fine, we visited our favourite haunts. With Vicky's help I drew up a timetable for the week of my honeymoon: piano lessons were arranged, visits to two families with children Nell's age. Meanwhile Hugh worked long hours at his desk and paid several visits to Kirkwall. In the evenings we sat in the library or sometimes walked across the fields down to the cove. In moving to London I was breaking my vow to always live beside the sea, and I tried to store up the sights and sounds and smells of the ocean. One evening as we walked along the shore, I asked why he kept his door locked. Months ago Vicky had confessed that she'd cautioned me about locking mine, not out of the fear of Seamus sleepwalking but because Nell had ransacked Miss Cameron's room.

Hugh bent to examine a starfish, its pale pink arms curled stiffly in a strand of seaweed, and I thought perhaps he would dodge my question. But when he had put it back in the water he said, “I'm afraid you have an anxious husband.”

“Fiancé,” I corrected. I had only a few days to use the word.

“Fiancé,” he said, kissing my hand. Then he told me he'd been looking into finding a tutor to help me prepare for my exams—“you'll have to decide what subjects you want to study”—and, in the excitement of discussing my choices, I forgot to ask what he could possibly be anxious about.

F
rom the weddings at my uncle's church I had memories of flowers and organ music, white dresses and throngs of guests. My own wedding promised to have none of these, although Vicky had presented me with a shell brooch she'd made to match my dress. She and Nell would attend, and Hugh, I assumed, would invite the Laidlaws and some of his island friends, but I was content to leave the arrangements to him. In a few days I would be his next of kin and he would be mine. Later I would go to university and later still, much later, we would have children who would play on the Sands of Evie as Nell and I had done. An enormous sun dwarfed the few dark stars of worry. My dress hung in the wardrobe, my new underwear waited. I packed my smaller suitcase with clothes for Edinburgh. On top I put my precious photographs of my uncle and my mother, and my bird book. Everything else I packed for Vicky to bring when she brought Nell to London. Already my room was beginning to look as if no one lived there.

On my last evening at Blackbird Hall I went over Nell's lessons one more time, laying out the books and marking the tasks for each day. Then—Hugh was busy in his study; Nell was in bed; Vicky was at her choir meeting—I wandered outside. I had already said goodbye to the calves but I decided to visit them one more time. They loped over at the sight of me, and I offered my hand to each in turn. Herman rasped my hand with his long purple tongue and Petula nuzzled me with her whole head. “Be good,” I admonished. “Don't bully the other cows.”

As I turned to leave, the clouds in the west shifted and the windows of Blackbird Hall gave back the last flare of the sun. For a moment it looked as if the house were on fire, each window scarlet and dazzling. Red sky at night, I thought, shepherd's delight. Then a lamb bleated in the next field. Not shepherd, I thought, sailor. Maybe we would get the fine day Deirdre had wished us. I pictured us walking arm in arm down the main street in Kirkwall, then on a plane, seeing the island spread out below.

I was crossing the farmyard on my way back to the house when I heard voices coming from one of the buildings. Keeping to the shadow of the granary, I crept closer. With each step, the conversation grew louder not only with proximity but with anger. At last I edged around the corner and there, standing in the wide doorway of the hay barn, facing each other like boxers between rounds, were Seamus and Hugh.

“I'm telling you once and for all,” said Seamus, “if you go ahead with this charade I'll no longer—”

“No longer what?” I said, stepping forward. “Why are you threatening Hugh?”

Seamus did not even glance in my direction. “Damn and blast you both,” he said and strode off towards the tractor shed. A few seconds later we heard the growl of the Land Rover.

“Gemma, I've been looking for you.” Hugh hurried over, breathing hard, his colour high.

“What's wrong with Seamus? Why is he so upset?”

“He wants a new bull, and I had to tell him we can't afford it this year. Let's go and have a drink in the library.” He took a step towards the house, but I stood firm.

“What's ‘this charade'?” I said. “Surely he was talking about us?”

His eyes darted towards the shed, as if to make sure that Seamus really was gone; then once again he met my gaze. “I'm sorry you had to hear that,” he said. “He's got it into his head that I chose our wedding over his bull. I was trying to tell him that the former has nothing to do with the latter. The farm hasn't had a good year, what with the ferry strike and the storm ruining the barley. Come.” Again he motioned towards the house.

“You don't think you should try to find him? Make another attempt to explain?”

“No, he'll drink and be furious for a few hours. Then he'll come round. He knows the economics as well as I do. Are you all packed and ready?”

Not waiting for an answer, he tucked my hand firmly into the crook of his arm and led the way indoors. From the trolley of bottles and decanters in the library he poured me a modest glass of wine, and for himself what he called a wee goldie, and we raised our glasses.

“Here's to a hundred years of happiness,” he said fiercely. “We won't let anyone spoil our life together.”

“A hundred years,” I echoed.

He caught my grimace—wine still tasted bitter—and teased me about preferring Ribena. I was telling him what I remembered of Edinburgh, asking if we could visit the castle tomorrow, when we heard the first distant rumble of thunder. And then, even as we were exclaiming, came a flash and another peal much closer. A heavy-footed giant was stalking the heavens.

“It's a celestial celebration of our nuptials,” I said. “Like in Shakespeare. Let's go outside.”

“Gemma, the storm is almost overhead. We could be struck by lightning. When you're as old as I am, you can go out in thunderstorms.”

I was laughing, pulling him towards the window, when the room filled with dazzling light and, almost simultaneously, a huge bang shook the house. For a few seconds the shelves of books shone on the inside of my eyelids. I couldn't move or think. The storm was suddenly not just a brilliant spectacle but a terrifying threat. Then Hugh drew me down behind a chair.