The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [59]
“Actually I think someone’s glad to see the back of me.”
“Well, with enemies like that who needs friends?”
While she returned to her magazine, I examined the sheet of paper, wondering if it contained a final blessing, or curse, but there was only an address in Coldstream with a phone number. Once again I glimpsed the way in which departure ripped the veil from ordinary life, revealing things that were normally kept hidden. Why else had the young man appeared last night, and Mrs. Milne this morning? We passed through Perth, and a few minutes later I saw the familiar line of hills and the circular wood above the village. For a moment I longed to be back at Yew House, climbing the fort with my uncle, walking by the river. Then the hills were gone and I was travelling, untrammelled, towards the future. I opened my book.
By the time we reached Thurso, it was past seven in the evening and the train was almost empty. One of the few remaining passengers, a bearlike man who worked for the forestry commission, helped me carry my suitcases to the bed-and-breakfast. An unsmiling landlady showed me to a surprisingly cosy room and said she had my supper waiting. I had had grand thoughts of how I would spend my first night of freedom—a pub, a conversation with a tall, dark stranger—but after a watery steak and kidney pie, bed seemed the only possibility. I fell asleep amazed at how silent the night was without my fellow working girls.
In the morning I explored the town, stopping often to gaze in the shop windows that lined the main street. After my years of privation the most ordinary goods—a rake, a tea-cup, a pork chop—were like the relics of a lost civilisation. At noon I retrieved my luggage and took a taxi to the ferry terminal. The St. Ola was waiting; the man who sold the tickets carried my suitcases up the gangway. I joined the other passengers on deck to watch the cars being winched aboard one by one; they looked oddly small and helpless, dangling above the water. Then the foghorn sounded, and in a swirl of engine fumes, beneath windy skies, we pulled away from the dock. The other passengers retired below; I clung to my place at the rail. Never again, I vowed, would I live in a place where I couldn’t see the sea. Or at least bicycle to it. As we rounded the harbour wall a shaft of light broke through the clouds, pointing the way to my destination.
I have no idea how long I stood there before a voice said, “So what brings you to the Orkneys?”
I turned to discover a man in a duffle coat, leaning against the rail a few yards away. “How do you know I don’t live there?” I said.
“I’ve lived in Kirkwall all my life. No native would stand out here, getting blown to bits, when they could be downstairs having a nice cup of tea.”
“You are.”
“Och, well”—his eyebrows disappeared beneath his woolen hat—“I’m a freak. I lost my boat last year. I miss the water.”
His slight build gave him a boyish look, but from the dark shadow on his jaw and the lines around his mouth, I guessed him to be thirty at least, perhaps even forty. A pair of binoculars hung from his neck and a small, clear drip from the end of his nose. “How?” I said. “Were you shipwrecked?”
“No, God forbid. It’s a long story. The short version is money and sibling rivalry.”
“Like Cain and Abel?”
“Maybe.” He sounded doubtful. “It’s a wee while since I was in the Sunday school.” He buried his face, briefly, in a capacious white handkerchief and then said it was my turn to answer his questions. I told him I was going to Blackbird Hall.
“Ah, you’re looking after Mr. Sinclair’s niece.” His face brightened as he understood how I fitted into his world.