The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [92]
“Russia for the culture,” he said. “And Iceland, to see you.”
He spoke lightly, but I felt myself blush. Muttering something about the lighthouse, I scrambled to my feet and set off towards it. Todd was right, I thought bitterly. Only a feudal overlord would joke about such matters. Away from the cliff top the ground was hummocky. Several sheep, scarcely pausing in their grazing, stepped out of my path. Gradually, as my cheeks cooled, so did my anger. It was just the way Mr. Sinclair talked, I thought. Without looking, I knew he was following me. The lighthouse, no taller than a two-storey house, was painted like a sailor suit in blue and white.
“It hasn’t changed in thirty years,” he said, coming up beside me. “And out there”—he waved towards the endless Atlantic—“is what our ancestors called the Far Islands: their version of Paradise. The place we sail to after death. They smell of apple blossom all year-round.”
“I found a book of old Orkney maps in the library,” I said. “One showed the last great auk on an island called Papa Westray. Another showed a man in a coracle, heading towards the edge of the world.”
“Oh, I remember that. He looks quite cheerful, doesn’t he?” Mr. Sinclair took off his jacket, spread it on the grass, and sat down. “The summer before the war our father took Roy and me on a tour of the lighthouses that Robert Louis Stevenson’s father built on the west coast of Scotland.”
I too spread out my jacket and sat down. Overhead an invisible lark unspooled its thread of song. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was one of my uncle’s favourite books,” I said. “He thought everyone had to struggle between the good and bad parts of himself.”
Mr. Sinclair lay back. I noticed again how dark his eyelashes were. “Coco got drunk at the party,” he said, “because the Gypsy told her something she didn’t want to hear.”
“How do you know?”
“She came and asked me about it, and I told her it was true.”
“You lied to her. That makes you as bad as her.”
“I agree, but anyone who believes that some random Gypsy holds the key to the future—especially a Gypsy who bears me a grudge because I wouldn’t give her family more winter grazing—is an idiot. If there were a way to find out the future, wouldn’t we all know it?”
I was about to say that nothing justified a lie—truth beareth away the victory, my uncle used to say—but even as I formed the words I remembered that I too had wanted to be one of those idiots who consulted the Gypsy. To cover my confusion I lay back and closed my eyes. Nearby I could hear the bees buzzing in the little yellow flowers; farther away the sea pounded on the cliffs below. I pictured us as the lark must see us: a man and a girl, lying on the grass a few feet apart, on an island shaped like a cake.
“You’re cross,” he said. “You think I behaved despicably.”
A shadow crossed my face. I felt his breath on my skin but still I did not open my eyes. “It was despicable—deceiving Coco—but mostly I’m embarrassed because I wanted to have my fortune told.”
“You’re brave to admit it, Gemma, when I’m ranting away. Do you know why I misled her?”
Behind closed lids I considered the question. “You wanted to find out something about her,” I ventured.
“What a veritable Sherlock Holmes you are. And do you have any theories as to what that something might be?”
An idea appeared in some distant corner of my brain, but I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bring it into focus. “No. You’ll have to tell me.”
“At the risk of sounding vain,” he said, “I had begun to notice that Coco seemed very enamoured of me on very brief acquaintance. I was flattered—lovely golfer worships curmudgeonly banker—but I couldn’t help wondering if her attentions were entirely to do with my charms. So when she asked me if what the Gypsy told her was true—that Blackbird Hall was about to be seized by bailiffs—I said yes. What you saw, what I’m afraid everyone saw, was the effect of that information. Coco was a gold digger. I’m not proud of my deception, but I was in danger