The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [132]
“I’m sure you’ve heard,” she said as she led the way upstairs, “that George has been poorly. He’s still convalescing.”
“Archie told me.”
I was bracing myself to confront a nightmare, but the man I saw when she opened the door might have been on his way to an office. He was seated in an upright armchair, dressed in a three-piece suit, a handkerchief folded in his breast pocket, his tie neatly knotted, his shoes polished. Only as I came closer did I take in his drooping mouth, his unfocused eyes. On the floor beside his chair lay two books: a paperback and a hardcover. The thuds.
“Dear, this is Archie’s friend, Jean Harvey. She’s going to help with Robin.”
“Hello, Mr. MacGillvary. I’m looking forward to teaching your grandson.”
He swayed slightly. Perhaps he was nodding.
In the hall Marian pointed out her bedroom. Robin had a little bed at the foot of hers. Then she showed me the bathroom and led me down the hall to her daughter’s old room. She hadn’t had time to get it ready, but she thought it would give me the most privacy. At first sight the clutter of boxes and furniture only compounded my despair, but by the time Marian called me to lunch a vase of late roses stood on the chest of drawers, the bed was made, the carpet clean, the bookshelves orderly. I had even dragged in a small desk and appropriated a couple of lamps. The result was not as pretty as my blue room, but as long as I took good care of Robin, it was mine.
Marian and I had agreed that I would mind Robin every morning except Sunday, and on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons when she gave piano lessons. “Be sure to tell me if you need more time off,” she had said. “I don’t want to wear you out.” On my first Thursday Robin and I were in the kitchen when Archie showed up to read to George; Robin scurried under the table with his colouring book.
“Hello, Jean. Hello, Robin,” Archie said and set to making tea. He was as at home here as at his sister’s. “How are things going?”
“Fine.” Eager to change the subject, I asked if he and George discussed their reading.
“No, he won’t talk to me, or to anyone but Marian. I think he’s afraid of slurring his words. I’m not always sure how much he listens either.”
“So why do you keep coming? If he doesn’t speak or listen.”
Kettle in one hand, teapot in the other, Archie said simply, “For Marian. I hope it’s a small comfort that someone is still paying attention to the person named George. But these days I read whatever I want.”
Before I could ask what that was, Robin emerged from beneath the table and flung his arms around my knees. “Garden,” he implored.
The next day Marian returned from the shops pale and distraught. While Robin played with his cars, she confided that something awful had happened in Wales that morning: in a town called Aberfan a colliery tip had slid into a primary school. More than a hundred children had been buried alive. “It’s just unbearable, Jean,” she said. “Please try to make sure Robin doesn’t hear about it.”
“How dreadful,” I said. In all my worst imaginings of prisons and tunnels I had never pictured the earth itself engulfing me.
Even as I tried not to think about children like Nell and Robin buried alive, a small part of me registered that Marian was treating me as an adult. But that night, after Robin was in bed, when I wanted to talk to her about the disaster, she was sequestered with George. And that was how it was night after night. When I wasn’t looking after Robin I found myself lonely in a way that I had not been since Claypoole. I read, I went for walks, I made lists of birds. I tried not to complain on my visits to Honeysuckle Cottage, but those evenings were the only times I forgot my unhappiness. If I had had enough money I would have left for Oban immediately. One morning Robin kept asking to change his clothes. Finally—he was on his third sweater—I led him over to the mirror.
“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?” I asked.
He pointed not at his reflection but at mine. “You look sad,” he said.
He was changing his clothes, I understood, in the hope of changing my mood.