The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [91]
Mr. Sinclair held out a pair of binoculars. “And is that boy, Todd, part of what makes it home?”
“Thanks to you”—I took the binoculars—“I hardly know him. It’s Nora who asks me to their house. Besides, he’ll be going back to university soon.” For a moment through the lenses I saw nothing but sky. Then a bird appeared, and another.
“How deftly she fails to answer my question. You should be a barrister.”
“Why did Coco get so upset at the party? One minute she was busy being a mermaid, the next she was furious.”
Suddenly the sky was gone; a navy blue shirt filled the lenses. Lowering the binoculars, I saw that Mr. Sinclair was on his feet, moving towards the edge of the cliff. “Do you know,” he said, “that there are people who can’t go near high places not because they’re afraid of heights but because they feel such a lure to jump?”
“I’m not afraid of heights—at least not usually—but I don’t want to jump either.”
“Fearless Gemma.”
I wanted to tell him all the things I was afraid of: forgetting my uncle, being confined in a small, dark place, leaving Blackbird Hall, not going to university, being cursed, his departure. Instead I said, “So do they believe they can fly, like Peter Pan?”
“I’m not a member of that particular tribe, but I’m guessing that it’s about some kind of irresistible urge, the same one that draws people towards excess and ruin. Happily most of us never experience it. My sister did. Life didn’t feel real unless she was on the edge and then—again I’m only guessing—being on the edge was almost too painful to bear.”
As he spoke, Mr. Sinclair took another step towards the cliff top. “Please,” I said. “Come and sit down.”
“Do you wonder why I’m not married? Why I haven’t produced an heir?”
“Servants always gossip about their masters, but it’s none of my business. Mrs. Pirie, at the post office, thinks you know the Queen.”
“Everyone in London knows the Queen.”
A bird flew by so close that its wings seemed almost to brush his hair. “Would you like a sandwich?” I said.
“Spoken as if to a four-year-old. Yes, I’d like a sandwich.”
To my relief he stepped back and sat down again. As I handed him the sandwich, I noticed little beads of sweat on his upper lip. I pointed out another skua and then what I thought might be a razorbill. The sight of the birds rising and falling and rising again was almost hypnotic.
“So that’s what I am,” said Mr. Sinclair. “Your master?”
“No, because that suggests you control every aspect of my destiny. You’re my employer. You give me money. I provide a service.”
“Like having lunch with me. Are you here now because I’m your employer?”
“I don’t remember you giving me a choice.”
He laughed. “And a good thing too. If I had, you’d have said something disparaging about how you’d seen puffins before. Or that you needed to prepare lessons.”
“I’ve never seen a puffin. Where are they anyway?” I recalled the puffin pictured in Birds of the World with its burrow and its vivid beak.
“They’re on the east side of the island, or they used to be.” His mood had shifted again, like the day itself, and whatever darkness had drawn him to approach the cliff top was gone. We watched the birds and ate our sandwiches. I asked about being in the RAF: Had he felt like a bird?
“Not for a second, but I wasn’t dashing around in a Spitfire. I was one of seven men crammed into a Lancaster bomber. It was cold and noisy and you could smell the engine. The best moments were coming back in the early morning, seeing the countryside laid out—fields and cows and little villages and church spires—and knowing exactly where the landing strip was. I felt supremely lucky. I doubt birds feel that way.”
“Could you see people?” On the rare occasions when a plane flew over Blackbird Hall, Nell and I always stopped what we were doing to wave.
“When we came in to land.”
He poured us both more lemonade and asked what countries I would like to visit. Iceland, I said, and he said, naturally, and after that? Remembering the long-ago lyre-bird,