The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [153]
“Just like Will owes my uncle thousands of pounds. Fathers aren’t cheap.”
“Rubbish,” she said faintly.
I stared at her lips bright with lipstick, the rings rattling on her thin fingers. “Do you know anything about my parents? Where they lived? What my father’s name was?”
“Gemma, I never liked you. I never liked your mother. I’m ill. Remembering your family history was not my favourite thing when—”
Before she could finish, Robin piped up again. “Don’t speak to Jean that way. She came all this way to see you.”
“Hush,” I said. “May I go and look in the study now?”
“You may. Come back and tell me what you find. I’m going to close my eyes for a minute.” She leaned back in her chair and did so.
I gathered up Robin’s toys, moved the radio back to the table, and leading him by the hand, stepped out of the room and across the corridor to my uncle’s study. Here, to my huge relief, nothing had changed. His desk, the bookcases, the thick green curtains, the armchair beside the fire, even the ashes in the grate looked exactly the same. I asked Robin if he would draw me a picture of the room. “It belonged to someone I was very fond of,” I said.
I settled him in the window-seat and turned to search the desk for the second time. The sermon about no man being an island still lay on top, facedown. “We each begin as an island,” I read, “but we soon build bridges.” I slipped the pages into my notebook. I worked slowly down through the drawers of notes, sermons, and letters. If I had not discovered the box years before, it would be waiting for me now. Finally I had no choice but to open that last drawer. As Audrey had said, it was empty, or almost. In the bottom lay a faded magazine with a boat on the cover. I recognised the strange words as Icelandic. How had it come into my uncle’s possession? I wondered as I turned the pages showing photographs of boats and ponies. And there, between a page of print and a picture of a box of herring, was a faded brown envelope addressed to Charles Hardy at Yew House. I drew out a piece of paper folded in three. My mother’s name, my father’s name, my Icelandic name, and the name of the hospital in Edinburgh where I had been born were written in meticulous black copperplate. A second piece of paper showed that my uncle had legally changed my name to Gemma Hardy.
“What happened?” said Robin, sliding off the window-seat and running to my side. “Did you get a splinter?”
“No,” I said, though I did feel as if something had pierced me. “I found what I was looking for.”
“Oh, good,” he said comfortably. “Jean, I need to go to the loo.”
When he agreed that he could wait for five minutes, I sat down in my uncle’s chair, pressed my palms to the desk, and silently began to speak. I’m sorry, I said, that your life was so much harder than I knew and that there were so many things I didn’t understand. I could never do what you did, marry someone I didn’t love, but I admire you for paying your brother’s debts. If there is an afterlife I hope you’ve met people who cherish you. Thank you for coming to Iceland and for taking me into your home.
Then I picked up his fountain pen, something he had used every day, and put that too into my bag, along with the magazine, the precious envelope, and the sermon. Hastily—Robin had repeated his request for the loo—I approached the bookshelves and retrieved Birds of the World.
When we emerged from the W.C., Audrey Marsden was waiting in the kitchen. So, unfortunately, was Louise. Beneath her watchful gaze, Audrey and I greeted each other. She looked younger than I remembered. Her hair, no longer pulled into a severe bun, fell in soft waves around her face, and instead