The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [48]
I glared at the horses. A member of their species had helped to kill Miriam. I hope you all fall at the first fence, I thought, and break your stupid legs.
“I know you’re angry with me,” he went on, “but why should I risk my job and my home for a lassie I don’t even know? Would you do that for me?”
I wanted to say he could have refused to take the letter, but I sensed that he felt bad and that my not answering made him feel worse. Halfway up the hill, without warning, he pulled into the gateway of a field of corn. I reached for the door handle, ready to run if he turned towards me, but he stared straight ahead.
“Children are so bloody uncompromising,” he said quietly. “You think everything’s black and white, that I’m on one side and you’re on the other, but, Hardy, you’re more like me than you know. One day you’ll see something you want—money, or someone else’s husband, or a beautiful vase—and you’ll think you’ll die if you can’t have it. You’ll be ready to risk your whole future for a few hours, a few days with whatever it is. When that happens think of me: working out my sentence.”
I did not understand his words—why would I want a vase or someone else’s husband?—but the hair rose on my arms. Briefly Mr. Milne had removed the armour of everyday life and was allowing me to see his naked self. Since my uncle’s death I had clung to the belief that I was making my way through the rough country of childhood to the safe, fertile land of adulthood. Now I glimpsed that what Miriam had said was true. The years ahead would change not only my circumstances but also my self more than I could imagine, and not necessarily in the ways I hoped.
We drove on in silence, but it was the silence of truce, not of battle. As we slowed down to pass the lodge, I saw a woman in the garden. Grey-haired and almost as stout as her husband, Mrs. Milne looked up from a row of peas. I felt a beam of unmistakable hatred streaming towards me.
The bell for morning break was ringing as I stepped through the back door. I went directly to the classroom and sat down at my desk, waiting for Mrs. Harris and the next lesson. Alone in the room where Miriam had first smiled at me, the realisation that she was never, ever, coming back rolled over me. I stood up and approached the map of Scotland. The word Galashiels was just as sturdy as the last time I looked. I pressed my finger to the black circle of the town.
chapter fourteen
The day after I returned to Claypoole Miss Bryant called out my name in assembly. “You’re in for it,” Balfour whispered, and I thought so too, but for once I didn’t care. I knocked on the white door and made my way across the blue carpet. Performing her usual trick of looking and not looking at me, Miss Bryant said how sorry she was about Goodall. She did not want to know any details of what had happened—perhaps my visit to the hospital was connected to the sleepwalking that had led to my stay in the infirmary?—but she hoped I would settle down into being a diligent working girl.
“I fear we’re stuck with each other, Hardy,” she said, unwittingly echoing Sister Cullen. “Let us do our best to achieve a modus vivendi. Do you know what that means?”
“Way of life.”
“Or way of living. There’s a story you’ll learn in Latin next year, a fable about the Republic of Rome. Picture the Republic as a large, able-bodied man. One day the limbs get exasperated with constantly feeding the stomach. They decide they won’t bother to gather food; they’ll just enjoy themselves. But quite soon they begin to feel dizzy and can no longer take pleasure in anything. ‘See,’ said the stomach, ‘we are all related. If you don’t feed me, you suffer too.’ Claypoole is the same. All the parts of the school are related, and all the parts need to work together.”
“Yes,