The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [39]
chapter eleven
The next day Matron gave me breakfast and sent me back to Primary 7. I think she was a little sorry to lose me. She patted my shoulder, told me to come back if I felt poorly, and allowed me to borrow the book I was reading about Milly, a music teacher, and Edward, a postman. I smiled my thanks. What had I needed speech for? The first period of the day was arithmetic. When Mrs. Harris started to go round the room, asking girls for their answers, I readied myself to go to the blackboard to write mine, but she skipped over me as if my desk were empty. Miss Bryant must have warned her.
In the Elm Room that evening the working girls pretended to ignore my return—they were playing a noisy game of snap—but as I undressed I caught Findlayson eyeing me uneasily, then Drummond, then Gilchrist.
“You all right?” said Gilchrist.
I went to brush my teeth. No one followed.
For a few days the girls questioned me at odd moments, jumped out from behind doors. Once, when Findlayson sprang up beside my bed, I screamed, but otherwise I managed to remain silent. Soon they lost interest and I became what I had wanted: almost invisible. In assembly I did not pretend to sing although I silently repeated the Lord’s Prayer, which my uncle had laboured to teach me during those early months at Yew House. Only Cook was concerned. One afternoon she took me into the larder and said, “Hardy, tell me what’s wrong. Did those brats bully you? Are you hurt?”
In the notebook I had started carrying I wrote, Thank you. I’m fine!
That evening I hid in one of the bathrooms and wrote my long-rehearsed letter to Mr. Donaldson.
Please tell everyone it’s all my fault and I would be happy to tell them that too. They won’t give me a letter from you but if you write to Miriam Goodall, my best friend at Claypoole, she will pass on whatever you say.
Then I wrote, Please forward if necessary, on the envelope.
The next afternoon, as I washed rhubarb, I kept a careful eye on Cook. Half-a-dozen times a day, when she was sure Mrs. Bryant wasn’t around, she would nip out for a cigarette. So when I saw her put down a colander and head for the door, I followed. I found her standing near the flowering currant, puffing smoke towards the nest. I held out the letter in both hands.
For a few seconds she studied my offering with the same expression she wore when a sauce curdled. She was going to refuse me, report me. Then she smiled. “Aren’t you a sly one?” The next thing I knew she had slipped the envelope beneath her apron. “I’ll make sure this sees the inside of a pillar-box tonight.”
I bowed my thanks. Then I pointed out the nest with the bright-eyed bird. Cook stepped forward to look more closely. “So this is what you and Ross are in such a state about. I shouldn’t be blowing smoke at the poor thing. Hard enough being a mother without that. How many blackbirds does it take to make a pie?”
I held up my hands and flashed two tens and a four.
Cook sighed. “I suppose you’ll talk when you’re ready. Well, back to the salt mines.”
Publicly, like the other working girls, Ross ignored me, but when we were alone, she pelted me with uneasy questions. Did people who couldn’t talk hear better? Was I cross? Had something happened in the infirmary? I shook my head, or shrugged, and eventually she too was lured into speech by my silence. As we were carrying slops to the pigs she told me what had happened the night of the ambush.
“One minute you were screaming bloody murder, then suddenly you passed out cold. Even when I pinched you, you didn’t move.”
So that was the bruise on my forearm, I thought, stepping around a thistle.
“I was scared you’d kicked the bucket,” she went on, swinging the actual bucket she was carrying. “In our street once a bloke fell over, digging a hole. He never got up again. So I lugged you down the stairs and fetched Matron.”
Of course Matron wouldn’t have found me on her own; she never left