The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [147]
In making the journey I faced almost as many obstacles as the skalds in their small boats; the first was my lack of a passport. I asked Marian if, by any chance, she knew how to obtain one, and she said the post office had forms. She had got one for Robin last summer, just in case they suddenly had to go to Rome. The next day I bought some stamps I didn’t need and, while the postmistress was counting my change, picked up a form. Later in my room I discovered that the questions, like those on the hotel application, were fraught with unexpected rocks and whirlpools. Besides money and a photograph, I needed a birth certificate. For the first time since leaving Yew House, I sat down and wrote to my aunt. The first version of the letter read:
Dear Mrs. Hardy,
I wonder if you remember me, your late husband’s niece. You sent me to the dreadful Claypoole School when I was ten. Even the hard-hearted headmistress said she’d never seen a guardian show less interest in her ward. I hope you will not be disappointed to learn that I am still alive and making my way in the world . . .
I tore up the page and wrote, as politely as I knew how, begging her to send my birth certificate and enclosing a stamped envelope addressed to Miss Harvey, c/o MacGillvary. I did not dare to use my real name for fear Archie would notice, but I trusted that my aunt would not study the envelope. In the days following my trip, he had gradually forgiven me and, as if sensing the turn my thoughts had taken, had begun to speak of Iceland more often. Why not go there this summer? Two could travel more cheaply than one, he added, turning a page of Ovid. It would be a reward for my exams.
“I may not deserve a reward,” I said, but I could feel the smile spreading across my face. I had never before coveted something so expensive. In Pitlochry I had learned that money could be turned into almost anything, but that clothes and books and watches were not so easily turned back into it. In all his wonderful stories Ovid had forgotten to write about the ultimate alchemical substance.
I knew that in talking about Iceland I was encouraging Archie, but not, I thought, in an inappropriate way. He was Hannah’s brother, my tutor, we were friends. Then one evening, walking back from Aberfeldy, I glimpsed a couple on the grass beside the Black Watch Memorial. “Jamie, don’t,” the girl said, her voice signalling the opposite. “Come on,” the boy said softly. “You know you want to.” Their two shadows merged again.
As I crossed the bridge, I ran my hands along the parapet in order to feel something—anything—other than longing. If the self was a mass of sensations then I could be rough granite, soft moss, the smooth concrete seams between the stones. But what I was longing for was not Archie. I did not want to lie on the grass with him and let him put his hands inside my clothes. And he, I was convinced, did not want that either. When he touched me, to take a cup of tea or retrieve a book, his touch was no different from Marian’s. But I also remembered my journey from Kirkwall: how easily things could go awry, how quickly people became predators. It would be good to have a protector in that country, where I no longer spoke the language or knew the customs. I began to allow Archie to utter sentences like, “When we go to Reykjavik we must visit the cathedral.” I began to make remarks about visiting Thingvellir, going to see the hot spring.
A week passed with no word from my aunt. I was on the point of writing again, when one