The Flight of Gemma Hardy (29 page)

I had come and gone so often from the church that when the door didn't open, I thought the latch was sticking. I turned the ring again; again there was some obstacle. Only on the fourth attempt did I understand. The door was locked. I was on one side of it and my suitcase was on the other.

Not caring who saw me, I knocked on the door and, when there was no answer, pounded with the flat of my hand. A few flakes of faded red paint fell to the ground. A woman passing in the road below called out, “It's Friday. No service until Sunday.”

“But a church ought to be open at all times. It's a place of sanctuary.”

The woman turned off the road and, a shopping bag in one hand, a black umbrella in the other, approached the steps. She looked vaguely familiar, but after my day spent wandering the streets of the town many people did. It did not occur to me that I too, in my navy blue coat, might be a recognisable figure.

From beneath her umbrella the woman studied me. “You're the girl who was asking for work at the co-op,” she said. “You gave your address as Seven Newholme Avenue. Are you Shona Ross's niece? Why are you trying to break into the church?”

“I left my scarf.”

Before she could ask further questions, I hurried down the stairs and slipped past her back to the road. My only thought was to escape before she too threatened to call the police. Dodging a milk van, I darted across the main road and down under the railway bridge. My flight brought me to the park I had seen the day before. The grass was already sodden and in the distance a couple of football nets hung limply, but nearby a low building with a bench under the eaves offered refuge. I sat down. Was it possible that only a week ago I had woken in my luxurious bed, eaten a lavish breakfast, taught Nell her lessons, walked with her to the village, then Mr. Sinclair and I—

I stood up and did twelve jumping-jacks. As I turned to sit down again, I noticed in one corner of the bench a brown paper bag. Opening it, I discovered a roll filled with some kind of meat paste, only one bite taken. The bread was a little dry but the paste was still moist. I devoured it. Alert to new possibilities, I approached the rubbish bin at the far end of the building. Two half-eaten bags of crisps and a chocolate biscuit rewarded my efforts. I rinsed my hands at the outdoor tap and sat down to eat my booty. Then I took out one of my few remaining possessions: my notebook. On a clean page I wrote:

1. Get back suitcase.

2. Leave Pitlochry.

3. Go to Oban.

4. Find Mr. Donaldson's sister.

It was a short list but each item was Herculean. After my various crimes—using a false name and address, sleeping in a place of worship—I did not dare go to the police again. As for the minister of the church, all I could picture was Mr. Waugh towering over me, shaking me with red-faced fury. I closed the notebook and put it carefully away in my bag. Would I never see my beloved keepsakes again?

All at once I remembered that the vestry had a back door. I jumped up and hurried back the way I had come. Rain had emptied the streets and I saw no one as I trotted up the hill and around to the rear of the church. Water spouted from a leaky gutter. Dodging the spray, I reached for the doorknob. It turned in my hand.

For a moment I simply stood there.

Inside I tiptoed over to the vestry door and peered into the church. When I was sure that nothing moved among the pews, I returned to use the W.C., suddenly a matter of urgency, and fill the kettle. I let the tea-bag steep for a little longer than usual and added an extra spoon of sugar. As I sat in my pew, sipping the hot, sweet liquid, I pictured the dry clothes I would put on: socks, jeans, my green sweater. Then I would wait for the rain to ease before I started hitchhiking. I got out my notebook and ticked off the first item on my list. And soon, I thought, item two would be accomplished: leave Pitlochry. I set the cup on the shelf beside a hymnal and reached down.

My hand met emptiness.

I went up and down every pew—even the ones at the front, even the ones on the other side of the nave where I had never sat—but my suitcase was gone. I checked the piles of hymnals, the window-sills, the font, the pulpit, the organ. Suddenly I noticed—despair had blinded me—that the floor was damp in places. Someone had come, at last, to wash it. I sank down in the nearest pew and buried my head in my hands. How stupid I had been not to take the case to the jeweller's. And only to have Mr. White sneer at my watch. I pictured the stern policeman looking at my photographs.

Twenty minutes later I was standing beside a lay-by just south of the town, holding out my hand. I stopped counting after eighty-three cars. Some vehicles, I noticed, even sped up at the sight of me. Several came so close that I had to jump back to escape being splashed. I was of no more consequence to them, I thought, than the nearby litter bin. I wanted only to flee this awful place, and even that seemed impossible. Finally a red lorry pulled over a few yards ahead. The door opened and a man called out, “Where are you going?”

“Oban.”

“I can get you started. I'm on my way to York.”

I scrambled up into the warm fug of the cab and, exclaiming my thanks, settled into the threadbare seat. My companion smiled at me and I saw that, like Ross, he had a chipped tooth. He did not look like a kidnapper, or a rapist. We introduced ourselves; his name was Grant.

“Why are you going to Oban with no luggage?” he said. “You're not running away, are you? I don't want any trouble.”

“I'm eighteen,” I said. “I'm too old to run away.”

“But Oban's not a day trip, even if you get a lift in a sports car.”

“My suitcase was stolen.”

“Stolen? Who would steal from a lassie like you? Did you tell the police? You should only take lifts from lorry drivers. That way you know who a person works for. We may not be the speediest vehicles on the road but we get there in the end.”

“
Festina lente
,” I murmured. “I'll talk to the police when I get to Oban. They're all connected nowadays.”

“More's the pity.” He embarked on a story about how he'd been pulled over in Aberdeen for carrying too much weight and later, when he'd been stopped in Glasgow, the police had known about it. I did my best to listen but, despite my wet clothes, I had begun to feel as if my face might burst into flames. I pressed my palm to the cold window and then my cheek. Something twisted in my stomach. The lie I had told the man on the bus was coming true.

“Och aye,” said Grant. “The Glasgow police are—”

“I'm sorry. I'm going to be sick.”

“Bloody hell. Hang on.”

He pulled over. Still holding my bag, I scrambled out of the cab. I had taken only a couple of steps before I doubled over. Everything I had eaten at the recreation ground flew out of my mouth. Presently I heard Grant's voice.

“I need to be on my way. Are you well enough to come along?”

My body answered for me.

“You're in Ballinluig,” he said. “You can maybe get a cup of tea at the garage. Here's a little something. Good luck, Jean.” He handed me two coins and was gone.

When I was well enough to stand upright again, I put the half-crowns carefully away in my pocket. I was on the edge of a village of a few dozen houses. I saw signs for the garage Grant had mentioned, and a shop. At the former a man in greasy overalls told me that I couldn't shelter there. “Damned Gypsies,” I heard him say under his breath. In the shop a woman kept her arms tightly folded. No, she didn't serve tea. No, I couldn't wait there. When I stepped back into the road the houses on the other side tilted alarmingly. I leaned on the window-sill and put my head between my knees.

Behind me the shop bell rang. “I told you, you can't stop here.”

I felt too ill to get another lift and yet this village was the worst place to be stranded. There was no church, no library, not even a bus shelter where I could wait to recover my strength. The feeling of being on fire was gone; instead my teeth were chattering. One house had a rowan tree outside like the one at Yew House and I knocked on the door. The curtains at the window twitched but no one answered. At the next house a woman said she was sorry and closed the door before I had uttered a word.

Back in the road I leaned against a parked car and waited for someone else to shout at me. The rain had closed in and the hilltops were shrouded in mist. My mind was as grey and empty as the sky. Everything I wanted—love, a slice of toast, a warm bed, a job, my suitcase—was far, far out of reach. I was gazing vacantly in the direction of the main road when I noticed a flash of colour: a red telephone box. One evening at Blackbird Hall Vicky had reported that someone phoning Mr. Sinclair had reversed the charges; it was a way, she explained, to make a phone call with no money. I knew the number, I thought. I could phone. Explain that I was in this place called Ballinluig, ill, penniless. And then Mr. Sinclair would rescue me. One of the passing cars would suddenly be his. I would be warm, dry, safe. I bent over, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to stop shivering. I heard Mr. Sinclair repeating the number over and over, as if he knew my plight and was urging me to phone.

Suddenly there was a different voice, the voice that had led me to Miriam years ago, that had warned me about the causeway. I had not heard the young man since I left Claypoole. Now he was saying something about cows.

“Go to the cows, Gemma. The cows will help you.”

When the bout of shivering passed, I raised my head and looked around. On the far side of the main road was a field of brown and white cows and a smaller road winding away into the countryside. Perhaps the cows would have some kind of shelter where I could rest. My own species had proved hopeless. Why not try another?

chapter twenty-six

W
hat I saw first was not her face but three hollows, one at the base of her neck, one above each collarbone. Each could have held a small egg, a robin's perhaps.

“You're awake,” she said. “Can you sit up and drink some lemon barley water?”

With her help I managed both. She turned my pillow and another part of her came into view: two hands, large for a woman, no rings. I sank back against the pillow, so relieved to be in a bed that I did not care where it was, or how I'd got there. But as the woman kept talking, I grasped that her name was Hannah. Her brother, a postman, had found me lying near the road. When he couldn't rouse me, he had brought me here, to the house she shared with her friend, Pauline, in the town of Aberfeldy. At the unfamiliar name I at last raised my eyes. Hannah's face was long and pale save for a smudge of colour high on each cheek. The grey-blue of her eyes matched her faded shirt. Her straight brown hair hung untidily down her back.

“We searched your bag,” she said. “I'm sorry, but we were looking for a name and address. Is there someone I can telephone to let them know you're safe?”

“No. When did your brother find me?” I felt so weak that I would not have been surprised to hear that I had been in bed for a month, but Hannah said that Archie had shown up with me yesterday afternoon. They had called the doctor.

“He said you were suffering from exhaustion as much as anything else.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Are you sure there's no one we can notify? Family? Friends? A teacher?”

Her anxious tone made me want to reel off the names of people to contact, but each, for different reasons, was forbidden. “I'm sorry if I'm being a nuisance,” I said. “I'll leave as soon as I can.” Even as I spoke, I sank lower in the bed.

“Goodness, you're not going anywhere at the moment. Pauline and I never use this room. We just don't want anyone worrying about you. Let's see if you can eat some toast.”

Her footsteps descended four stairs, paused, descended more stairs. Alone, I took in that I was lying in a single bed in a modest room. A desk and a chair stood in one corner, an armchair in the other. On the pale blue walls hung several paintings. As I gazed at them, the bright swirls of colour became familiar flowers: sweet peas, delphiniums, nasturtiums. Nothing in the room was new but everything was well cared for. I was relieved to think I had found refuge with people who did not have much money; they seemed more likely to be kind, less likely to have any connection with Mr. Sinclair.

Footsteps ascended—already I was getting to know Hannah's heavy tread—the door opened and she reappeared, carrying a plate of toast and a glass of milk. “I forgot to ask your name,” she said, setting them on the bedside table.

In the first moments of consciousness I might easily have forgotten my new identity. Now I announced myself as Jean Harvey. While I ate, taking the small bites Hannah urged, she sat in the armchair. She asked if I had been to Aberfeldy before and when I said no she told me that the town was on the river Tay, ten miles west of the main road between Perth and Pitlochry. After all my travels I had ended up less than thirty miles from Yew House.

“We moved here four years ago,” she went on. “You could have knocked me down with a feather when I read the solicitor's letter. I'd never even spoken to my cousin, just Christmas cards, and here he was leaving me Honeysuckle Cottage. He thought it would be good for my work.” She gestured towards the paintings. “And it is. We turned the garden shed into a pottery.”

“I like the delphiniums,” I offered shyly.

“Juvenilia,” said Hannah, pushing back her hair. “But there is something that interests me about the blue. The nasturtiums look like they might be about to eat you.”

I asked if Pauline was an artist too, and Hannah said no; she worked at the local chemist's. When the toast was gone, she helped me out of bed and across the landing to the bathroom. I stared in amazement at the circles round my eyes, my thin cheeks. I could have been twenty. Even thirty. What would Mr. Sinclair think if he could see me now? I turned on the hot tap and my face disappeared in a cloud of steam.

For the rest of the day I dozed and looked out of the window at a row of fir trees tossing in the wind. Soon after five I heard voices in the room below, then quick, light feet on the stairs and a tap at the door. If Hannah was an angular heron, the woman who entered was a plump wren. Her hair was curly, her cheeks pink, her figure a neat hour-glass.

“I'm Pauline. How are you feeling?”

“Better, as long as I don't try to do anything.”

“That's your body's way of making sure you stay in bed. You were so ill that you lost consciousness. But you're young. You'll be up doing the Highland fling in no time. Can you tell me what happened? Can we telephone your family?” From behind spotless spectacles her green eyes studied me with concern.

I tried to come up with an answer and then gave the best possible one: tears.

“There, there,” said Pauline. “I didn't mean to upset you. Would you like something to read?”

When I nodded, she disappeared and returned ten minutes later with a stack of books: an Agatha Christie, a Georgette Heyer, a book about Highland Perthshire, and Rider Haggard's
King Solomon's Mines
. I had read this last at Claypoole, and I seized it with delight. In the midst of so much turmoil Haggard's dramatic story remained unchanged.

The next morning I begged Hannah to let me get up. At first she said not without consulting Pauline, but when I persisted, she said what harm could it do so long as I promised to go back to bed the moment I felt poorly. She brought my clothes, which had been washed but not ironed. I dressed slowly—I was weaker than I had expected—and, keeping firm hold of the banister, descended the stairs.

“In here,” Hannah called. I stepped through the nearest door and found myself in a smaller, cosier version of the kitchen at Blackbird Hall. Hannah was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper. “Sit, sit,” she said as she stood. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“The traditional invalid's reply.” She aimed her chin at me. “Really?”

I confessed that I had counted the stairs, and that when I moved too quickly everything blurred. As I spoke something nudged my leg. A black Labrador was gazing up at me with soulful eyes. I stroked her glossy head.

“Emily, don't be a nuisance. She's called after Emmeline Pankhurst and, like her namesake, I'm afraid she can be pushy. You're light-headed. We'll ask Dr. Grady about that when he comes by. For now let's get you some breakfast.”

“There's no need,” I said, meaning the doctor. But Hannah was already at the stove. As she stirred the porridge, she said the town was lucky to have a doctor, a dentist, and almost everything else one might need: shops, a school, a cottage hospital, and a library. “And of course,” she added, “our famous Birks.”

“Birks?” At Claypoole the girls had often called each other a stupid birk.

“Birch trees,” said Hannah, gesturing towards the window, although there were none in sight. But the Birks of Aberfeldy, she explained, was a gorge just outside the town where the Falls of Moness tumbled down the hill. Robert Burns had immortalised the place in a song. “When you're better,” she concluded, “we'll walk up there. It's lovely at this time of year.” She set a bowl of porridge on the table and again reminded me not to eat too fast.

I had worried that, now that I was upright, I would have to give an account of myself, but Hannah announced she was going to her pottery. “If you need anything, come and find me.” Then she left me in the company of Emily and two cats, one calico, one grey. Under their combined gazes, I ate the porridge slowly, avoiding the lumps.

When I had finished, I washed the bowl and the saucepan and set out to explore. Downstairs, besides the kitchen, there was a small room with a cluttered desk and bookshelves and a living-room with a view over the garden to the hills. The stairs went up the middle of the house to a landing where they divided. To the left four more stairs led to my room and a bathroom; to the right were two more bedrooms, each with a double bed and a fireplace. The one with the carelessly made bed and hastily drawn curtains I guessed to be Hannah's. In the other room the books were stacked neatly on the bedside table, the clothes folded on a chair.

I fetched
King Solomon's Mines
and lay down on the sofa in the living-room. With the grey cat at my feet and Emily asleep on the hearthrug, I too soon drifted off. I woke to a hand on my forehead.

“Jean,” said Hannah, “this is Dr. Grady.”

“How do you do, young lady. You gave us quite a scare.”

With his flyaway hair and prominent Adam's apple, Dr. Grady looked like a man in a hurry, but he set down his bag and, talking all the while to Hannah, examined me in a leisurely fashion. “I was in that pool just below the big willow tree—take a deep breath, good girl—when I felt a tug on my line. Bend forward.”

His stethoscope, to my relief, revealed nothing untoward. All I needed was rest and food. “But if you rush around,” he said, “you could end up with pneumonia. You must take it easy for the next week. If that's all right with you, Hannah,” he added.

“Of course,” she said. “Jean will just lounge around with the cats.”

And that was what I did. I read and dozed and played with the animals. I gave little thought to the future. Whenever I told myself I must make a plan, I fell asleep. As for the past, I did my best to pretend that the events of the last few months had never occurred, but whenever the phone rang, I seized a book or played with a cat until the call was safely answered. Happily my hosts seemed to notice nothing. My strength began to return, and soon I was helping with household chores. On my fifth day I was making apple crumble, trying to peel the apples in a single sweep, when a man with the same long nose and chin as Hannah stepped into the kitchen without knocking.

“Hello,” he said. “You look a hundred times better.”

As he helped himself to tea, I did my best to thank Archie. “Don't thank me,” he said. “If I'd given up smoking, like I vow to do every year, then I'd never have found you. I stopped to roll a cigarette, and there you were. I was afraid you were dead.”

Cigarettes were Archie's sole vice, at least in his own eyes. Three years ago he had followed Hannah to Aberfeldy and taken rooms a few miles away in the village of Strathtay. He rose at six, winter or summer, took a cold shower every morning, and was a vegetarian. His postal route took him around the valley, to many small farms and hamlets. Last spring he had produced a pamphlet about the early road builders in this part of Scotland. At supper he asked if I'd seen Wade's Bridge. When Hannah said not yet, he explained that General Wade was an English general who had come to Scotland in the eighteenth century and built 240 miles of roads and forty bridges, including the one in Aberfeldy.

“Was that before or after Bonnie Prince Charlie?” I said. I could tell from the shift of Pauline's shoulders and the pointing of Hannah's chin that this was a familiar topic, but if Archie had held forth on the manufacture of toothbrushes I would have urged him on; I was so glad he was not asking difficult questions. While he and Hannah squabbled about Bonnie Prince Charlie, I looked from sister to brother. In Archie's case the bony nose and long chin combined to create a remarkable handsomeness.

As we ate the stew, his portion made with vegetables, the conversation turned to their neighbour Hamish, who, whenever a car backfired, dived for cover. “He thinks we're still fighting the war,” said Pauline, and Archie said he'd stopped driving up to the house for fear of alarming him. After supper I excused myself to bed. I fell asleep to the sounds of their conversation, hoping I was not the subject, fearing I was.

The following morning Hannah was at the kitchen table. After the first day she had left my porridge on the stove and gone to her pottery. But today she was waiting. I moved to the stove, dumb with apprehension, and lifted the saucepan onto the hot burner. She was going to tell me to leave and I was going to have to pretend that that was fine. Once again I would sleep in a pew, or worse, and stand beside the road while cars sped by.

“Jean, forgive me, but I must ask you some questions. You're living in our home, but we know almost nothing about you. Obviously something happened that sent your life off the rails, and obviously you don't want to talk about whatever that was. You're not the kind of person who would normally be wandering, penniless, in the rain.”

The heat of the stove beat against my face.

“Did you run away from home, or school?”

“No.”

“Can you tell me how you came to be lying by the road near Ballinluig?”

“Not really. It involves too many other people.”

“Is someone looking for you?”

“I don't know, but if they are, they don't deserve to find me.”

“Did you commit some crime, or unkindness, that led to your present situation?”

Turning to face her, I dropped to my knees. “I swear I didn't. I did do things I'm not proud of, but nothing criminal. As for unkindness—” Mr. Sinclair's face appeared before me. “There are people who might claim I'd been unkind, but whatever I did, I believed was necessary.” While I delivered my speech, the cats had sauntered over and were arching against me, purring. They forgave me, but did Hannah?

“For goodness sake, get up.” She half-rose, as if to help me. “That's what we told Archie. Pauline and I both see how considerate you are. Whatever you've done, you're not a bad person.”

On the stove the porridge began to bubble. I jumped to my feet and seized the saucepan.

“But our neighbours,” Hannah continued, “are asking about the girl who nearly died in a ditch. Yesterday a woman came into the chemist's and said she'd heard that you'd lost your memory and didn't even know your own name. Someone else claimed you'd run away from school and asked if we'd notified the police. So you need to come up with a story about your origins and stick to it. You can try it out on us.”