The Flight of Gemma Hardy

by Margot Livesey

  I knelt beside him. “Are you awake enough to remember something?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tomorrow, very early, I have to go away to find my family, but I’ll come back soon. Ten days or two weeks. So what you have to remember is that I haven’t disappeared. I’ve gone away to do something that’s very important. I’m going to write a letter to Granny and Grandpa.”

  “Okay,” he said and rolled back into his pillow.

  In my own room I packed my clothes and my precious photographs, and sat down to write to Marian and George. Of the few letters I had written in my life this was by far the hardest. As I laboured over the sentences, I kept thinking I should put the money back and ask for a loan. But what if they refused? I remembered Mr. Milne’s words the day he had driven me back from the hospital. He had turned out to be right. I was prepared to go to almost any lengths to get what I wanted.

  Dear Marian and George,

  Forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye to anyone but Robin. Don’t forgive me for taking all your money, Marian. It’s a terrible thing to do and I promise to return it as soon as I can. I am no longer engaged to Archie—I never should have been. He mistook one feeling for another. Whatever he says about me is probably too kind.

  I took the money because I want to go to Iceland to find my grandparents, or any other members of my father’s family. I don’t think I can go forward until I know what lies behind me. I am sorry not to explain better. I will be back in two weeks, or less, if you still want me to work for you. I’ll understand if you don’t.

  Thank you for giving me a home and for being so kindto me.

  Love, Jean

  P.S. My real (Scottish) name is Gemma Hardy.

  Then I wrote a short note to Hannah and Pauline; I would post it in the morning on my way to the bus. I tried not to think of the irony that Archie would be the one to slide it through their letter-box. As for him, there was no need to write.

  PART V

  chapter thirty-two

  Since childhood I had waved whenever I saw a plane pass overhead, and while I waited at Glasgow airport, I had witnessed half-a-dozen of the huge machines rush down the runway and rise into the sky, but as I sat in my window-seat, and my plane hurtled over the tarmac, it seemed impossible that even the most vigourous engine could lift all these people and seats and suitcases into the air. On and on we bumped. Then, just as it began to seem that we would do nothing more than circle the airport and return for a cup of tea, a giant force was pushing me back in my seat; my arms and legs were suddenly twice as heavy. The buildings and cars grew smaller with astonishing speed. We passed through the clouds, which had looked so solid from the ground, into dazzling sunlight.

  The seat beside me was empty, and except when the air hostess brought me a neatly quartered shrimp sandwich and a glass of water, I gazed out of the window. Once or twice the clouds opened and I caught a glimpse of the distant sea but no sign of the Far Islands with their blossoming apple trees. Mr. Sinclair had been right. This kind of flight was not at all like that of a bird; it was too noisy, too purposeful. Sitting there, in my seat paid for with stolen money, looking out at the endless sky, I allowed myself to picture him, just for a moment, standing on the tower of St. Magnus, pointing out the old shoreline to Nell and me.

  The skalds had taken months to sail from Iceland to Scotland, but after barely two hours the pilot announced our descent into Reykjavik. I leaned forward to catch my first sight of the country where I had spent three years and about which almost everything I knew came from poems written seven hundred years ago. Grey sea, black rocks, and occasional clumps of reddish weeds or shrubs filled my gaze. Of the city there was no sign.

  On the steps of the plane the wind lifted my hair. I breathed in the smell of hot engines and the perfume of the woman in front. Over her shoulder, beyond the airport building, I saw a line of bare, angular mountains. Then I was inside the building and a man in uniform was stamping my new passport. “Welcome to Iceland, Miss Hardy. Enjoy your holiday.” My suitcase too had made the long journey. Again I followed my fellow passengers, this time into the customs area. The two men on duty waved me through without a glance. I found myself in a large hall with windows along one side, a row of desks on another. The travel agent in Edinburgh had advised me to change money at the airport, but looking around I saw nothing that resembled a bank. Behind one of the desks a woman in uniform was knitting something green. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you speak English?”

  “You will tell me,” she said, needles still clicking. “How may I help?”

  “I have only Scottish money, pounds. And I don’t know how to get into the city.”

  “See behind you—Change—they will change your money. The bus to Reykjavik goes outside. One hundred kronur. You buy ticket on the bus.”

  I thanked her and, encouraged by her friendliness, asked if she could recommend a cheap place to stay. I worried she might not understand cheap, but she nodded. “Change money, come back, I will phone.”

  When I returned a few minutes later with my kronur carefully tucked into my purse, she held out a piece of paper. “Get off when the bus stops. This is the house of my aunt. One night, seven hundred kronur. Her English is better than mine. She will aid you.”

  She had printed the address and drawn a map, beginning with the bus station and ending with a little house. I thanked her profusely.

  “I am glad to help,” she said. “My aunt asked why you visit.”

  It was absurd to think the first person I met would have the answers, but I got out my notebook and showed her the page on which I had written my father’s name. “I’m looking for this person’s family,” I said.

  She set aside her knitting—it was obviously a scarf—and studied the page. “No,” she said. “I do not know Einar Arinbjornsson.”

  “Please, say that again.” I had hoped that Icelandic, the language I had heard and spoken for several years, would sound familiar, but even at second hearing my father’s name was only a rumble of syllables.

  “Who is this person to you?” said the woman.

  “My father. He died in 1951. I’ve never heard his name before.”

  “So you look for your family as well as his. But go. The bus is soon. Good luck. When you fly home, stop and tell me what happens.”

  I promised I would. Outside, the bus was waiting. I fumbled over my money until the driver plucked out a note and gave me a ticket.

  Iceland, Iceland, Iceland, I kept thinking. Through the windows of the bus the landscape looked very old, but I knew from my reading that it was the other way round: geologically Iceland was a young country. The soft hills near Claypoole were old volcanoes; these jagged mountains were new ones. We passed mile after empty mile of the black rocks I had seen from the air. Lava, I guessed. Once I saw a herd of brown ponies. Was this the country my mother had fallen in love with? Then, almost suddenly, we were in a town, a city. An odd rippling church spire rose above the brightly coloured houses. At last there were trees.

  When I got off the bus, the driver looked at my map and, after a brief consultation with another passenger, pointed me across the square. With two wrong turns I made my way to a quiet street lined with houses. Number eleven was much smaller than its neighbours; with its walls of green corrugated iron and its red corrugated roof, it reminded me of a garden shed. Lace curtains hung in the two front windows, and along one window-sill stood half-a-dozen cacti. The sight of these last gave me the courage to knock. Almost at once I heard firm footsteps. The door opened and a pair of bright brown eyes stared at me alertly. The owner of these eyes was an inch or two shorter than me and wore a black dress, with a cream-coloured cardigan over her shoulders. Around her neck hung a pendant with a bright red stone. She held out a hand with a ring on every finger.

  “Welcome, Scottish girl. I am Hallie, short for Hallgerd.” Her cheeks, when she smiled, pleated into many tiny lines.

  I told her my name was Gemma.

  She
led me to a small plain room with five pieces of furniture: a narrow white bed, a chair, a bedside table with a lamp, and a low chest. The window was the one without the cacti, looking out onto the street.

  “Don’t worry,” Hallie said. “You will sleep well.” She waved her hand, as if casting a spell. “Rest now. Supper will be in one hour.”

  I had planned to begin my quest immediately, perhaps question a few people in the neighbouring streets, but at her words I realised how tired I was. I lay down, pressed my cheek to the plump pillow, and closed my eyes.

  I woke to Hallie calling, “Supper. Five minutes.” In the bathroom across the hall I studied my reflection as I washed my hands and brushed my hair. If I was on the other side of the mirror, then I must be on this side too, here, at last, in Iceland. When I stepped into the sitting-room, a table beside the window was laid for supper. Hallie insisted that I sit while she brought in some kind of meat, peas, and potatoes. “Simple food,” she said.

  For several minutes all I did was eat. Meanwhile she told me she had grown up in the village of Kirkjubaejarklaustur, a place famous for disaster. In 1783 a volcano had erupted nearby at Lakagigar. While the lava flowed towards their houses, the villagers had gathered in the church to listen to the minister deliver what came to be known as the Fire Sermon. Miraculously, the lava had stopped short of the village.

  “But his preaching did not stop the volcano,” said Hallie. “It erupted for eight months. Almost a quarter of the people in Iceland died and many, many animals. The sulphur turned their feet yellow, poor things. Even faraway places, like England and France, had clouds of ash. Iceland has many volcanoes. Did you see the lava on the way from the airport?”

  “Yes,” I said, pleased to have my guess confirmed.

  When she grew up, Hallie continued, she had moved to Reykjavik to study, and there met her husband. He had worked in a hotel; that was how they both learned English. His heart had stopped five years ago and now she did the accounts for several local businesses. She had no children, and the woman at the airport was her favourite niece.

  “Now tell me your story,” she said. “Where you come from, why you are here.”

  She gazed at me steadily while I told her how the deaths of first my parents and then my uncle had severed me from the Icelandic side of my family. “I’m going to university in the autumn,” I said. “I wanted to find out if I have any relatives—grandparents, perhaps an aunt or uncle.”

  “Did you know that Scotland is part of our sagas?” said Hallie. “Earl Thorfinn was greedy and ugly and ruled the Orkneys from a place called Birsay. Some say he was Shakespeare’s Macbeth.”

  “Birsay?” I recalled the red sandstone ruins on the edge of the village.

  Hallie nodded; her pendant flashed. “Yes, the gods were on his side for a while. How many days do you have to find these people?”

  “A week. I’m worried it’s not long enough to search an entire country.”

  “If there is any place this is possible,” Hallie said, tapping the table, “it is here. We are a not large island with a not large population. People know each other and know each other’s families. In one way or another many people here are related.”

  “In Scotland,” I said, “we have a registry of births, marriages, and deaths.”

  “We have the same. Tomorrow morning I will take you and translate. What became of your parents’ house?”

  “My aunt said no one answered my uncle’s letters about it.”

  “If the house belonged to your father,” said Hallie meditatively, “then it should belong to you.”

  “But it’s all so long ago. Sixteen years. Someone else must be living there now.”

  “Still, you are a daughter of Iceland. Tell me your father’s name.”

  I fetched my notebook. Like her niece, Hallie said the name aloud: Einar Arinbjornsson. By the end of the week, I thought, I would be able to say it. “What about your name?” she said. “Did you always have a Scottish name?”

  “No. But I’m not sure how to say my own name either.” I turned the page and showed her.

  “Fjola Einarsdottir,” she said. “It is a good name. Fjola is a flower—white or purple—called a violet. And Einar—your father’s name—means ‘he who fights alone, a great warrior.’ So your name has a soft part and a hard part.”

  “Fjola Einarsdottir,” I repeated.

  “I wonder why you were not called Violet in Scotland,” said Hallie. “It is a name for girls, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, for flowers and girls. I don’t know why. My uncle chose my name, and I never thought to ask.”

  “You can be Fjola here,” said Hallie. She stood up from the table and announced that she was going for an evening stroll. “We will start to spread the word,” she said. “I have neighbours who like to talk. Could you clean the plates? The door is open. Go for a walk if you like, or go to bed. We have breakfast at eight.”

  The sun was still high, and after I had washed the dishes and put them away as best I could, I went for a walk. In the nearby streets many of the houses, like Hallie’s, were made of corrugated iron and had roofs of different colours; some were whitewashed or harled. Beyond the rooftops I saw the jagged mountains, and between the houses, from two different directions, I glimpsed the sea. Reykjavik, Hallie had told me, meant “smoky bay.” While the houses looked different the trees were familiar—rowans, birches, firs—and so were the flowers—lupins, snapdragons, roses, daisies, marigolds, and pansies. As I walked, I recounted the momentous events of the last forty-eight hours. I had broken things off with Archie, who had saved my life; I had stolen from the MacGillvarys, who had been nothing but kind to me; I had ruined my friendship with Hannah and Pauline. How could I tell them that their beloved brother had refused to kiss me? Perhaps, I thought, his preferences followed Hannah’s but he didn’t know it yet. Or perhaps he was like Miss Seftain and didn’t care about anyone in that way. And now I had flown to Iceland and was walking down a street in Reykjavik, the city where my parents had met. Only Marian and George, if they cared to think about it, knew I was here.

  A man was approaching with a small white dog, similar to the one I had seen in Pitlochry. As we drew level, it tugged towards me. The man nodded and said something—Good evening, I imagined, or He’s friendly—and I nodded back, delighted to be taken for an Icelander.

  At breakfast over slices of bread and cheese and sweet, dark coffee, Hallie reported that she had called upon four of her neighbours and told them about my search. “It is like a saga,” she said. “Scottish girl seeks lost family. Soon, you will hear, people will come knocking on my door.”

  “You’re very kind. I should tell you that I don’t have much money. You shouldn’t give me so much to eat.”

  All the little lines in her cheeks bunched together. “Not kind,” she said, shaking her head. “The truth is I am old and bored. This is an adventure, and Icelanders like adventures. That is how we got here in the first place. So today”—she clapped her hands and I heard the click of her rings—“we will go to the registry and see what we can find. At the central post they have books with telephone numbers for everyone in Iceland. We can look there too.”

  Ten minutes later Hallie and I were walking down the street. She pointed out the huge church spire I had noticed the day before. They had been building the Hallgrimskirkja since the end of the Second World War. “It is a homage to God and to a volcano,” she said. “Here in Iceland we have many things that shoot up: geysers, volcanoes.”

  “And you have puffins.”

  “Yes, you ate last night.” She saw my face and laughed. “You think we should not eat birds with their pretty beaks, but there are so many of them, millions, and they taste good.”

  In fact the meat had tasted of fish, but I said yes, it was good, and that I was glad I hadn’t known sooner. As we walked, Hallie insisted on pointing out various sites. “I know you are not a tourist,” she said, “but I must show you my city.”

  We pa
ssed a lake with swans and mallards, then an olive-coloured church: the Dominican cathedral. In the nearby square Hallie pointed out a statue of a man in a frock coat; I did not catch his name. A street lined with shops led us to a large white house—“the strongest house in Iceland,” Hallie said. Once a prison, it was now used by the government. Slowly we climbed a hill towards another statue. This man wore a horned helmet and carried a shield. Ingólfur Arnarson was the first settler, Hallie told me. Like him, we stopped to gaze out over the harbour. My job was to admire the view while she got her breath back.

  Two more streets brought us to an official-looking grey building. Inside Hallie waved me to a chair and, taking my notebook, approached the desk. I heard my father’s name, and the woman behind the desk—she had the same broad cheeks as Hallie—turned to look at me. She disappeared and returned, disappeared and returned. Periodically Hallie asked me questions: The month and year of his death? Was I his only child? Did he have siblings? The woman consulted a large black book, then another. She took my notebook and dashed off a couple of lines.

  “What’s happening?” I asked Hallie. She told me to wait.

  After nearly half an hour she came and sat beside me. “It is possible I will drop dead on the way home,” she said, “so let me tell you what we know. Your father was born in June 1919 in the village of Stykkisholmur on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. His father was a fisherman. He had an older sister, Kristjana. His parents were both dead when he died. See”—she held out my notebook—“I have written down the names here.”