The Flight of Gemma Hardy (6 page)

I stood up straight and said I was strong for my age.

Ross smiled, not pleasantly; her two front teeth were longer than the others and one was chipped. Miss Bryant's expression did not change. “Arrange things as you see fit,” she told Ross. “Be sure she works hard.”

She departed with the same clip of heels and swish of skirts that had accompanied my aunt's entrances and exits. A moment later the chandelier and the wall sconces went out, leaving us in gloom. Ross seized my arm. “Got any grub?”

Before I could answer she plunged her free hand into my pockets, first left, then right, and triumphantly retrieved the chocolate biscuits. “My favourites. Come on. Let's dump your coat and you can start in the kitchen. I hope you're not a whiner.”

“I don't whine,” I said, trying to pull free. “Please let go of my arm.”

She only tightened her grip.

S
oon I would discover that the main building of the school, like Gaul, had three regions. The hall where I had entered was in the grand part, which contained the dining-room, the library, several classrooms, and the rooms where the Bryants and the senior teachers lived. On the lower level was a warren of kitchens, cloakrooms, and, facing the garden, more classrooms. At the top of the house were the dormitories. But on that first day it was all confusion. Ross dragged me down a dark staircase and along a corridor to a room that smelled of shoes. She threw my coat on a peg, and dragged me along another corridor to the kitchen. Three broad-shouldered women—sisters, I later learned—and several girls were at work. Ross brought me before the largest of the women, who was standing at the stove, face flushed, bosom heaving, as she stirred a gigantic pot.

“Cook, here's the new girl. What should she do?”

“Potatoes,” said Cook, without ceasing to stir.

In the scullery Ross handed me a grubby apron, tipped a mound of potatoes into the sink, and fetched two huge saucepans. Single-handed, I was to peel the potatoes for 120 people. I wrapped myself in the apron and set to work as Mrs. Marsden had taught me, washing each potato in the icy water, peeling it thinly (the vitamins were right below the skin), and carefully taking out the eyes. However many I peeled, the mound grew no smaller.

“Cripes,” said Ross, “you're a slow-coach. These need to be on the stove by five sharp.” She pointed to the clock over the door—it was already four-thirty—picked up a knife, and began to peel potatoes in a slap-dash fashion.

“What happened to Montrose?” I asked.

“You don't want to know.”

I tried another line of questioning. “Are you an orphan too?”

Ross hooted with laughter. “Shut up and peel the frickin' potatoes.”

C
laypoole had been built to be occupied by a few lords and ladies waited on by an army of servants. Now the proportions were reversed; a dozen working girls struggled to take care of more than a hundred regular pupils, and the teachers. Happily the laundry was sent out, but we were entirely responsible for the housework and we helped to prepare and serve meals. All the food had to be transported by lift up one floor to the dining-room, where portraits of men and women in evening dress gazed down benignly on girls in ugly uniforms, eating ten to a table. I was not among them. My job was to carry out plates of food as fast as I could. At first I felt shy in my role as waitress—Ross had set me to serve the younger girls—but they ignored me except when I accidentally slammed down a plate. At last everyone was served, and Cook handed me my portion of mince, potatoes, and turnip. I sank onto a milk crate too exhausted to eat. Only my limp pigtails testified that my breakfast with Veronica had taken place hours, not weeks, ago.

“Get a move on,” said Ross. “We clear the tables in five minutes.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“You'll get nothing else till breakfast and that's just bread and jam.”

When I still didn't move she seized my plate and devoured the contents. I watched wonderingly. Whatever my tribulations at Yew House, meals had been a constant. Not so at Claypoole. Working girls got the last of everything. By the end of three days I had learned to eat at top speed. Someone was always hovering, ready to snatch whatever I left. Often I saw Ross and the other girls scooping food from the dirty plates the way I had done at Yew House for the dogs. But that evening all I wanted was to lie down and figure out how I had ended up here.

Before bed, however, came another Herculean task: the washing-up. A stout girl named Smith and I were assigned to the cutlery. “Hurry up,” she kept saying, and ignored my requests for a clean tea towel. Only when every plate and every knife and fork had been washed and dried and the tables laid for breakfast did Ross lead me to the Elm Room. The other dormitories—Beech, Poplar, Pine, Willow, Holly, Maple, Oak, Birch, Fir, and Lime—were filled by age, but the working girls were housed together, although I was ten and Ross nearly seventeen. She led me up three flights of stairs, first the dark one we had come down, then a broader, more elegant flight to the floor where the regular pupils slept, then a narrower and steeper one. The Elm Room was just wide enough to accommodate two rows of beds beneath its sloping ceilings. By the light of a single bulb several girls were playing cards.

“Here's the new girl,” said Ross.

“I'm Gemma.” Despite my weariness, I longed to make a good impression.

A couple of the girls grunted and one—she had olive skin and sharp features—approached. “So this is what they got instead of Montrose. A little rat.”

“Beggars can't be choosers,” said Ross. “I doubt she'll last the year.”

The girl gave my left pigtail a fierce tug and drifted back to the card-players.

Ross steered me to the bed by the door, the noisiest and draughtiest in the room. My school uniform was already lying there: a dark green tunic several sizes too large, a light green shirt clearly too small, a brown belt, and brown knee socks. Veronica would have gnashed her teeth at the sight of such ugly garments. The colours reflected the school crest: a brown acorn and a green oak leaf. The motto, predictably, was that small things lead to large ones.

While I unpacked into the small chest of drawers at the foot of my bed, Ross explained that Sunday was the easiest day of the week for working pupils. Serving breakfast was followed by church, followed by lunch, followed by cleaning the classrooms. Supper was an hour earlier so that we had a free hour before bed. I laid out my pyjamas and dressing-gown. Ross fingered the latter, a cast-off of Louise's made of nice, thick flannel. “Watch out for Findlayson,” she said. “She'll have this off you in the bat of a pig's eye.”

She picked up the dressing-gown and led me back downstairs. In the bathroom I washed my face and hands with cold water and bitter yellow soap, and brushed my teeth. At the next basin Ross did the same, spitting out the toothpaste with gusto. Back upstairs the Elm Room was already dark. The school matron turned off the light at nine-thirty on the dot; only in case of fire or flood were we allowed to turn it on again. I undressed, glad to be shielded from the girls' scrutiny, and climbed into the narrow, lumpy bed.

Gone were the owls and the wind in the trees, my cousins' chatter and my aunt's laughter. The girl in the next bed was already snoring. Someone else was laughing, or perhaps crying. I heard floorboards creaking, and a muffled gasp. The thought that had come to me as I waited for the train in Edinburgh returned even more acutely; not one person in this room, or indeed within a hundred miles, wished me well. But on Monday there would be lessons. I would meet the teachers and the regular girls and start to make friends.

When the only sounds around me were sighs and snores, I climbed out of bed and, carrying my suitcase, tiptoed down the stairs. Locking myself in one of the toilets, I used my penknife to make a slit in the lining of the case and slipped my precious photographs into hiding.

chapter seven

I
woke to the clang of a bell and the groans of the other working girls dragged from sleep. Rain was drumming on the roof, and in a bucket beside my bed, water pinged steadily. The uniform, as I had guessed, was a disaster. The buttons of the shirt gaped and the sleeves stopped several inches short of my wrists. Meanwhile the tunic slipped off my shoulders and hung well below my knees. The socks drooped. The tie was absurd. Only the cardigan fitted.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” chortled the sharp-featured Findlayson.

Smith, the stout girl of last night's washing-up, giggled.

After the sparse breakfast Ross had predicted, the entire school walked to the village church under the supervision of the prefects. The Bryants drove in a sleek black car; the teachers followed in assorted vehicles. The rain was heavy, and before we reached the bend in the drive, my coat was soaked and my hair dripping. Everyone else had a raincoat with a hood. The girl next to me, her name was Gilchrist, hummed tunelessly and ignored my questions—how old are you? how far is it? what's your favourite subject?—until I fell silent. I soon understood why the older girls marched ahead. The radiators were at the front of the church where the parishioners sat, and the teachers and seniors occupied the pews immediately behind them. Then there were the younger girls. We working girls shivered in the rear. Wedged between Ross and Gilchrist, I was grateful for their warmth.

My uncle had given lively sermons, often drawing on recent events, and led the hymn singing in his pleasant tenor voice. His successor, Mr. Cockburn, had been inferior in every way, but his sermons had been brief, his singing passable. Now, as the organ started to play, a large man, his surplice like a tent, mounted the pulpit. Mr. Waugh did not even pretend to sing the first hymn. As soon as it ended he shouted, “Let us pray,” and proceeded to yell requests at the heavens.

The sermon too was delivered at full volume. The text was the commandment to honour thy mother and father, and Mr. Waugh explained what one should do if they weren't available, namely, honour one's minister, one's teachers, and grown-ups in general. And how should one do this? Why, by working hard, doing as one was told, never speaking out of turn, being clean and neat. On my left Ross dozed; on my right Gilchrist fidgeted; overhead the church clock chimed. Mr. Waugh began his sermon soon after ten-thirty and was still going strong at eleven-fifteen. My feet went from cold to numb. Standing for the closing hymn I stumbled and, save for my companions, would have fallen.

Outside it was still raining. Almost trotting, Ross led us working girls back to the school. We were passing the lodge when the Bryants' car swept by, spraying us with water. In the kitchen a woman wearing a yellow raincoat, whom I'd spotted near the front of the church, was waiting to address us.

“Girls,” said Mrs. Bryant, with a broad smile, “one of our governors is coming to lunch. Cook has made something delicious, and I want everyone to put her best foot forward. Clean aprons all round.” Clipboard in hand, she continued to issue instructions. “And you, new girl,” she concluded, “get a uniform that fits and stop slamming the plates on the table.”

Mrs. Bryant, I soon learned, had perfected the art of using a single expression—a smile—to convey a whole range of emotions: rage, disapproval, anger, boredom, sarcasm. Only when she was with her sister-in-law did her face relax into a kind of vacancy, which perhaps signalled genuine pleasure.

Lunch passed, mercifully, without incident. For the rest of the day I swept corridors of which I could not see the end, and mopped floors, which looked just as dirty when I finished. My only brief respite was dusting the library. Later I would overhear parents who were being shown around exclaim over this book-lined room with its tall windows, but working girls weren't allowed to use it. When Ross discovered me reading
The Thirty-Nine Steps
she moved me to scrubbing bathrooms. Still I clung to the idea that tomorrow lessons would begin, and, thanks to Mrs. Bryant, Matron issued me a new uniform.

The sole adult living among the dormitories, Matron had no eyebrows—she drew them on each morning—and almost no capacity for surprise. Only utter mayhem could make her look up from the romances she read incessantly, and almost nothing could make her finish a sentence. “I don't see what . . . ,” she said, surveying my drooping tunic. “But if Mrs. Bryant . . .”

She led me to a wardrobe filled with tunics and intimated that I should choose the two that fit me best and were in the best repair. Then she produced two shirts only a little too large. As for the socks, I would have to use garters. Finally she handed me an Alice band.

O
n Monday morning Ross detailed Findlayson to take me to Primary 7. She led me to a classroom on the lower floor, knocked once, and, with a quick grin, ran off down the corridor. “Come in,” said a voice. I stepped inside to see the teacher at her desk, writing. While I waited for her to acknowledge me I examined the rows of girls. Even beyond the uniform, they looked oddly similar. Each girl's hair, I realised, irrespective of length, was scraped back, like my own, in an Alice band. Only at weekends were girls allowed to wear their hair as they wished.

At last the teacher raised her head. “Who are you?”

“I'm Gemma Hardy.”

“And what class do you think you're in?”

“Primary Seven.”

“Two doors down,” she said, and returned to her writing.

Closing the door I saw the label,
PRIMARY 6,
and understood, yet again, that I must be on my guard at all times. At my knock the door of Primary 7 flew open. Beside the blackboard stood a woman wearing a black gown, holding a pointer. Like Mr. Milne, Mrs. Harris had neither neck nor waist; a small sphere, her head, was balanced on a larger sphere, her body. She asked the same question as the last teacher; once again I introduced myself.

“Hardy, you're five minutes late.” Her voice was surprisingly high-pitched.

“I went to the wrong classroom.”

“I am not interested in excuses. Bring the late sign, Andrews.”

A girl rose from the front row, went to a box in the corner, and returned carrying a piece of cardboard emblazoned with the word
LATE
. She slipped the string over my head and I was made to stand at the front of the room for the first period: arithmetic. My cheeks were burning but I did my best to focus on the sums Mrs. Harris was writing on the board. Several times I raised my hand to answer a question; she never looked in my direction. The bell rang for second period and she gestured to an empty desk in the front row.

“Turn to page twenty-seven of your English books.”

I raised my hand again. “I don't have a book.”

“What a nuisance you are, working girl. Share with Balfour for this period. At break she'll take you to fetch your books.”

Reluctantly the girl at the next desk slid over. Mrs. Harris stood at the blackboard parsing sentences, asking questions round the room. At last her head swiveled towards me. “Give the rules for using a semicolon.”

I knew a semicolon was a combination of a comma and a full stop, but I had no idea when to use one. “My old school hadn't got to that yet,” I said.

“First late, now a dunce.”

“It's not my fault we did things differently.”

Suddenly Mrs. Harris was standing over me. She bent down so that her large face was inches from mine. Except for a single crease beneath each small dark eye, her skin was very smooth. “What did I say?”

“First late, now a dunce?”

“No.” Her eyes grew still smaller. “When you first arrived what did I tell you?”

“You're not interested in excuses.”

“Exactly. No one cares about where you went to school before today. You must catch up as quickly as possible. You're a working girl, aren't you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Harris.”

Her chin sank into her gown and emerged again like that of a tortoise. “Girls, we've never had a working girl in Primary Seven before. We must do our best to educate her. Andrews, you know which card to get. Balfour, the rules for using a semicolon, please.”

Balfour reeled them off, or so I gathered from Mrs. Harris's approving nod. Standing once again at the front of the room, this time with the card
DUNCE
around my neck, I was too miserable to listen. Most of the girls—I counted fourteen—ignored me, but one girl in the third row gazed at me steadily. Her brown hair stuck out untidily beneath her Alice band and her velvety eyes reminded me of Celeste's.

Another bell rang, and Balfour led the way down the corridor at breakneck speed. Later I discovered she was a vigilante on the hockey pitch.

“Why is everyone's hair the same?” I asked as I trotted behind her.

“It's a school rule, ever since a girl set fire to her hair with a Bunsen burner.”

“Is Balfour your Christian name?”

“Idiot. Miss Bryant thinks that calling us by our surnames is better for discipline. Like in boys' schools.”

I could have happily spent the day in the book room, with its brimming shelves, but Balfour led me to the section marked
PRIMARY
7 and started handing me books pell-mell: English, grammar, scripture, geography, history, arithmetic, nature, writing. Several of the books were tattered; one fell into two parts. As Balfour reached for another copy, the bell rang. “Hurry,” she said. “If we're late Mrs. Harris will kill us.”

We ran down the corridor, each clutching an armful of books and reached the classroom just as our teacher turned the corner. Everyone stood as she came into the room. The next subject was geography, and to my relief the topic was fiords, which I had studied last year, but the lesson had barely begun when there was a knock at the door and Ross appeared.

A
s I soon learned, working girls were the lowest form of life at Claypoole. We were constantly being taken out of lessons to prepare meals and then being punished for being late for class, or for not finishing our homework. Mrs. Harris seldom called on me and barely heard when I gave the correct answer. I knew the other working girls experienced the same treatment but, it seemed to me, with greater cause. Several of them could barely read the hymns we sang each morning in assembly.

The regular fee-paying pupils were mostly from middle-class families; many had parents who worked abroad in Hong Kong or Nigeria or Kenya. While I cooked and cleaned and slept in one-twelfth of a bare, leaky room, they lived in a much more comfortable fashion. Their dormitories had radiators, rugs on the floor, and pictures on the walls. Their doors closed. They received parcels of food. On Saturdays they wore their own clothes and were allowed to go to the shops in Denholm. These differences made friendship between a regular pupil and a working girl virtually impossible. A girl who failed to say please or thank you to Cook had to write out a hundred times, “I will be polite to Cook,” but anyone could say anything to us.

Even the regular pupils, however, were carefully monitored. The school grounds were surrounded by a high wall; no one could come in or out without permission. Nor was it easy to communicate with the outside world. The only telephones belonged to Miss Bryant and Matron. Every Sunday evening an hour was given over to letter writing, but the letters had to be put, unsealed, in the mailbox in the hall. Girls who wrote anything critical about Claypoole soon found themselves in Miss Bryant's office.

Of course a few people knew about the school—Mr. Donaldson, after all, had warned me—but private schools were not subject to inspection, and Miss Bryant was very skillful in managing her educational experiment. The working girls were presented as a stroke of philanthropic genius. Here was a way to give scholarships to a dozen girls. The school would raise us up to be hospital orderlies or maids or, like one star former pupil, work for the post office. The entrance exams I'd prided myself on passing were irrelevant. I could have claimed that Moses gave the Sermon on the Mount and Henry VIII invaded Scotland; once my aunt had determined to send me to Claypoole, my fate was sealed. Pupils were cheaper than maids. The other working girls were the daughters of farmers, factory workers, or disabled soldiers. Several, like Ross, came from homes that made being at the school a relief. Their main recreation was to periodically, for no obvious reason, gang up on one of their number. For several days they would play tricks on the victim, ambush her in the bathroom, sing stupid rhymes, make fun of her bra and a mysterious article of clothing called a sanitary belt. Then, just as suddenly, the attacks would cease. Presently a new victim would be chosen.

The week after I arrived, Drummond was the victim. A stolid girl with beautiful red hair, she was almost as old as Ross but much less forceful. Even the simplest question—is it still raining?—brought her to a standstill. Now I watched, mesmerised, as the girls surrounded her and undid her shirt.

“Look, Hardy,” called Ross, “this is a bra. And this”—I glimpsed pale skin, a nipple—“is what's under a bra.”

Drummond shrieked and half-a-dozen girls pulled her to the floor and fell on her, tickling and pinching. All I could see were two feet in brown socks, kicking. As quietly as possible I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my head. At last Matron came to turn out the light.

“Girls,” she said mildly, “ . . . detention.”

If such a thing were to happen to me, I thought, I would die, but the next morning I saw Drummond laughing with another girl as she knotted her tie. I was staring at her in amazement when Ross sidled up. “Got an eyeful last night, didn't you?” she said.

“Why doesn't she report you?”

Ross grabbed my wrist and bent my arm behind my back. “What do you think happened to Montrose?” she demanded.

T
he following day Drummond was in charge of taking me to feed the pigs. We carried the buckets of scraps across the small stream at the back of the school and past the tennis courts. Just beyond was an enclosure with five pigs. They rushed over, grunting, as we emptied the slops into their trough. Drummond jumped back, but I leaned across the fence to scratch their woody skin. They were the nicest beings I had met at Claypoole.