The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [45]
I knew where I was—in bed with Miriam, in the hospital—and I tried not to know that one side of my body, wrapped in the blanket, was warm, the other, pressed against her, cold. Please, Miriam, I thought, wherever you are, take good care of yourself. Don’t worry about getting sums wrong, or being untidy. Maybe your mother’s there too, and you can grow beautiful blue flowers together and play with Spencer and never have to see your father. I hope your leg is better. I hope you don’t have asthma.
A hand touched my shoulder. The uniform of the woman standing over me was the same lustrous blue as the flowers I had just imagined Miriam tending. She was older than the first nurse, but her fair hair, beneath her white hat, was as short as a boy’s. I had never seen a woman with such short hair before.
“Hello,” she said quietly. “Who are you?”
“I’m Gemma Hardy, Miriam’s best friend. I knew she was ill and I walked from Claypoole to see her last night. I didn’t want her to be alone. Please don’t be cross.”
“I’m not cross,” she said, holding out her hand. “You’re a very brave girl but you have to say goodbye to Miriam and get out of bed.”
Like Miss Bryant, this woman was used to being obeyed. I climbed out of the bed and went around to the other side. Miriam was still propped against the pillows, slumped slightly to one side, her chin resting on her chest. Hesitantly I reached for her hand. It felt mysteriously different: heavier, denser. I kissed her pale cheek but I could not bear to say the word goodbye.
The woman stood beside me. “Do you know that poem by Robert Louis Stevenson?” she said. “ ‘Home is the sailor, home from the sea, / And the hunter home from the hill’? Miriam didn’t sail or hunt, but we hope in some sense she’s gone home. We’re just sorry that home is so far away.”
“We used to say his poem about the shadow when it was sunny,” I said. “He was ill as a boy and he got better. My uncle showed me his house in Edinburgh.”
I was still telling her what I knew about Stevenson as she led me between the curtains, across the shiny linoleum, and into the hallway beyond the beds. In the bathroom, she started the bath, and handed me a towel. “Call if you need anything,” she said.
As the youngest working girl I was last in line for our weekly bath and by the time my turn came the tepid water was filmed with scum; I would leap in and wash at top speed, flailing madly to keep the grime of the other girls at bay. Now the water was hot and clear and the bath so long that I could make swimming motions and move myself from end to end. My hair floated around me and my mind became liquid and dreamy. I remembered swimming one summer day with my uncle and cousins in the pool above the weir; I had towed Veronica around in a rubber ring. Through the window I saw a seagull arc by, followed by a dozen grey pigeons. It was still early. Six o’clock perhaps. No more than seven. I shampooed my hair and rinsed it, first at one end of the bath, then the other.
A voice at the door called, “Breakfast in five minutes.” Reluctantly I climbed out, dried myself, and dressed in my mud-smeared blouse and trousers. For the first time since my train journey, I studied my reflection without fear of interruption. Beneath my wet hair, my eyes were still grey, my features still plain, but my cheeks were thinner, my forehead higher; my months at Claypoole had aged me beyond my years.
In the corridor the woman in blue was waiting. “I forgot to tell you my name. I’m Sister Barbara Cullen. Breakfast is served in my office.”
Few meals, no matter how lavish, have given me as much satisfaction as that breakfast: two fried eggs, two sausages, bacon, grilled tomato, and white toast. I ate in ravenous silence. Meanwhile Sister Cullen worked at her desk. Only when my plate was empty save for a few tomato seeds did I raise my head to take in my surroundings: the broad desk, the filing cabinet, the cupboard with a key in the lock, and, most intriguingly, a poster, taller than