The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [162]
Robin and I were at the kitchen table, writing rows of Rs, when we heard Marian’s car. A moment later she came into the room, almost running, and embraced me. “Jean, I was at the chemist’s, picking up George’s prescriptions, and Pauline told me the wonderful news.”
Even as I apologised for not telling her I could not help contrasting the response to my second engagement with that to my first.
“No, no,” said Marian, “it’s my fault. I said to Pauline I’ve been in such a state about George. You could have told me you were going to the moon and I’d have said, ‘Can you buy some milk?’ Many congratulations.”
“What about?” said Robin. “What’s happening?”
“Jean and Archie are getting married,” said Marian. “Isn’t that nice?”
He shook his head vehemently. “You’ll drown.”
“Robin, what are you talking about?”
“He’s thinking of the Little Mermaid,” I explained. “That was a made-up story. Mermaids don’t exist. People thought they did because sometimes fishermen mistook seals for women. They both have long eyelashes. Look, I’ll draw you a picture.”
I did, carefully giving the seal whiskers and the mermaid a scaly tail. Robin protested that they didn’t look at all alike. How could anyone confuse them? “Maybe,” I said, “a seal got some seaweed stuck on its head and a sailor thought it was hair.”
“Like your aunt.” He giggled.
When I telephoned the travel agent again, he said I could fly from Glasgow to Reykjavik at the end of June for 195 pounds. Since coming to the MacGillvarys’ I had saved 83 pounds.
Day by day more people learned that Archie and I were engaged, and day by day I felt more helpless to explain that we weren’t. By virtue of his job he was a well-known and well-liked figure in the valley. Several elderly people claimed to owe him their lives. He had been the one to notice curtains still drawn, milk on the doorstep, and raise the alarm. Two women credited him with getting them to the midwife in time. Once he had interrupted a burglary. People were glad that he was getting married and glad that he was marrying the girl he’d rescued. It was, as Hannah had said, a romantic story, and gradually, I too became swept up in it. Archie was a kind, truthful, clever man. He would help me at university, encourage me to pursue my interests. I pictured evenings like the ones we had spent when George was in hospital—Archie cooking supper, both of us reading and studying. As a married woman, I told myself, I would have certain freedoms. I would never again have to sleep in a church. But at night I dreamed of barred windows and small, dark rooms.
On Saturday Archie suggested an outing to the village of Fortingall. It was a nice walk, and the hotel there did afternoon tea. We left his van parked in a lay-by and set off down the narrow road. In the fields on either side the cows and sheep drowsed in the heat. Nearby bees buzzed among the buttercups and scarlet campion. Archie remarked that he’d like to keep a hive or two, maybe after I finished university when we lived in the country again. He began to tell me his ideas for our honeymoon. A week, he thought, would give us a couple of days in Reykjavik and time to visit various sites in the western part of the island. Maybe we could go to Reykholt, where Snorri Sturluson, the author of several sagas, had lived. He was said to have received visitors in his bathing-pool.
“Archie,” I said, bending to examine a clump of purple vetch, “couldn’t we go to Iceland as friends? I’ve been saving. I can—”
“Friends?” he exclaimed. “But we’re not friends. We’re engaged to be married.”
I picked a flower for courage and held it to my face. “I’m so grateful to you. But I’m not sure I have the right feelings. This trip will be a chance for us to make sure we’re suited.”
“Are you