Gemma's Journey

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Aren’t they lovely,’ Gemma said.

  ‘Well we think so,’ Catherine said. ‘But then, we’re biased.’

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ Andrew asked.

  The answer was entirely accurate. Now. ‘Very much.’

  ‘Come and join us,’ he suggested as the dance ended. ‘We’ve got a table over there. I think we could squeeze you in. You too, Nick.’

  She was quite surprised when Nick agreed. Affection for his sister must have made him more affable.

  So they were both seated at the table and given another drink and Nick spent the next few minutes talking to his father about ‘a difficult case’ while the floor gradually refilled with dancers. Now Gemma didn’t worry about sitting it out. She was in good company and that was pleasure enough.

  After a while, Nick wandered off to dance with his sister while Rob partnered his daughters, one after the other, and Andrew ‘took a turn’ with Catherine. The dances went noisily on, growing steadily faster and less and less inhibited. Soon, Rob’s three sisters were prancing in line like chorus girls and Sue was hanging round Rob’s neck, cheerfully squiffy Rob’s brother Tom flung his jersey to the ground and danced on his own, to raucous applause, shirt-sleeves flapping. Even the little girls shed their solemnity and began to sing and smile. The dance floor was visibly heaving under the weight of so many stomping feet and the bar was doing continual trade.

  Then the DJ turned the volume down to announce that the next dance was by special request. As soon as the song began there was a roar of recognition and the dancers scrambled to sit on the floor, legs astride and one behind the other. It was ‘The Rowing Boat Song.’

  ‘Oops upside yer head,’ they sang. ‘I said, Oops upside yer head.’

  Andrew appeared beside the table, grinning broadly. ‘This one is for you,’ he said to Gemma. ‘And don’t say you can’t do it. Come on!’

  The announcement startled her. The thought of being down on the floor with the tenderness of her stump exposed to all those trampling feet made her tense with alarm. What if it gets kicked? she thought. What if I can’t move it out of the way in time? Yet the thought of being part of a dance again was terribly tempting.

  ‘I’ll carry you there,’ Andrew said and he bent towards her to lift her out of the chair.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Nick’s voice rebuked him from somewhere behind him. ‘You’ll give yourself a hernia. Let me.’

  And before Gemma could protest, he was standing in front of her, lifting her bodily out of the chair, carrying her to the dance floor.

  The impact of being so close to him took her breath away and spun her thoughts into an impossible turmoil. He can’t be doing this, she thought. But he was. I shouldn’t be feeling like this. But she was.

  ‘Put your arm round my neck,’ he said, and even his voice was different.

  She did as she was told, overwhelmed by sensation. However this had happened, she wanted it to go on for ever.

  But in ten strides they were at the end of the line of seated dancers and he was lowering her to the floor behind Gill, ‘the little sister with the loud voice.’

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, sitting behind her. It surprised them both but her obvious vulnerability had roused his protective instincts and he was obeying them almost without thought. He leant forward, guarding her injured leg with his arm as more dancers rushed to sit behind him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

  ‘I don’t know how to do this dance,’ she admitted. Now that he was being so gentle it was possible to let him know how exposed she felt.

  ‘There’s nothing to it,’ he told her, his cheek against hers. ‘Just follow Gill. She’s an expert.’

  So she followed the movements of the dance and nobody trod on her and after a while she relaxed and began to enjoy herself. Soon she was singing along with the rest and dancing with abandon. It was the best fun she’d had in a very long time. So much so that when the record came to an end, hers was the loudest voice demanding a repeat performance. ‘I don’t believe you wanna get up and dance,’ they sang. And she sang with them, thinking how very apposite the words were. If she could dance on the floor, she didn’t want to get up and dance. By the end of the second playing she was stupid with laughter. This time, when Nick picked her up to carry her back to her chair, she put her arm round his neck, without being told. And this time he looked straight into her eyes and they were both caught up in the sudden magic of desire. He wanted to kiss her and she knew it. She wanted to stay in his arms for hours and he knew that.

  But then Rob came lolloping over to tell them they were going to have another floor dance later, and the moment was lost.

  The rest of the evening was a happy blur. There was a lot of singing and two more floor dances, as Rob had promised. And on each occasion Nick carried her to the floor, as slowly as he could, and bore her back again taut with desire. The smallest children fell asleep, some in their mothers’ laps, some across two chairs; the bar staff struggled to collect empty glasses; a young man fell on the floor and couldn’t get up again, so they left him where he was and walked round him; and most of the couples, including Rob and Sue, were dancing in a dream with their arms about each other. It seemed for ever and no time at all and it was midnight and time for the last waltz.

  Rob and his guests walked home along the empty lane, carrying children and happily exhausted. Gemma was so tired she hadn’t even got the energy to clean her teeth or to drink the coffee that Sue had left beside her bed, ‘as a nightcap.’ She’d forgotten about her mother, the compensation offer, the return of her father, even her injuries. All she could think about was the extraordinary events of the day, their long silent journey and their quarrel in the car, the amazement of being in his arms. There was no sense in any of it and yet it had all happened. She would have to think it all out. She tossed her clothes on the floor, fell back into her luxurious bed and was asleep before she could pull the duvet over her plastered leg.

  Chapter 16

  The spare bedroom where Nick was supposed to be sleeping was directly above the den. It was the room he was usually given when he came to visit his sister and until that night he’d occupied it without giving its position a thought. Now, muddled by drink and the conflict of unexpected emotions, he’d been wakeful most of the night. Wakeful and horny, because there were sounds of love-making emanating from all the bedrooms around him, smothered giggles, throaty murmurs, amorous creaking. Sitting up, plagued and open-eyed, it occurred to him that there was hardly a room in the house that wasn’t occupied by a loving couple, except his and Gemma’s, and she was so close that he could visualise the space she was occupying in the room below him, fancied he could hear her breathing, even imagined he could feel sparks flying up towards him through the carpet. How could he be expected to settle with all that going on?

  Eventually he must have slept, because he woke with a start to the sound of frantic weeping and the crash of breaking china. He knew it was Gemma, even before he was capable of thought, and was out of the bed at once and straight down the stairs, alarmed and alert, pulling on his bathrobe as he went.

  Down in the den, Gemma had woken weeping in terror as she so often did these days. She couldn’t remember where she was and as she turned and twisted, her arms flailing, her hand hit the edge of a table. From the corner of her eye, she saw a cup spinning in the air, throwing up a curve of brown liquid as it fell, heard the smash as it hit the wall, and looked down to see the broken halves of it lying on the pink carpet among a scattering of small white chips, and an ominous dark stain where the liquid was seeping into the pile.

  She was furious at herself for being so clumsy. Oh Christ! she scolded, as she hauled herself into a sitting position. What a thing to do in her beautiful room! How could you be so stupid? She knew she had to clean it up quickly before the stain spread any further and looked around desperately for something to use as a mop. But there was nothing. Her discarded clothes were too fa
r away. I’ll have to get up, she thought, and see if I can find a cloth in the loo or somewhere.

  There was someone outside the door, calling her name. ‘Gemma! Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she called back, feeling caught out. ‘It’s nothing.’

  The voice insisted. ‘Gemma?’ And this time she recognised it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, trying to sound dismissive.

  But he came in anyway, in a blue bathrobe, with his feet bare, his chin dark with overnight stubble and a large expanse of hairy leg visible below the robe. Two legs, for God’s sake! He should be so lucky! She didn’t know whether she was cross or relieved to see him.

  ‘I heard a smash,’ he said, tactfully ignoring the cries. ‘Are you all right?’ She was sitting on the edge of the bed, getting ready to heave herself into her chair, and his flesh rose just to look at her, those round arms rosy with sleep, her breasts under that T-shirt, her lovely thick hair bushy and tousled, that chin jutting with determination – her breasts under that T-shirt.

  ‘Did I wake you up?’ she asked. Now the others would be down. And the stain was growing by the second.

  ‘No,’ he reassured her. ‘I was awake. Do you want a hand?’

  No, she didn’t and said so crossly. ‘I’ve broken a cup,’ she explained, as she manoeuvred into the chair, ‘and there’s coffee on the carpet.’

  The doctor in him took over. She was his patient, she needed care and she wasn’t in any fit state to clean carpets. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said, walking round to the side of the bed to examine the stain. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll wash out if we’re quick. This is washable carpet. It’s her speciality. I’ll get a cloth.’

  ‘Tell me where it is …’ she was beginning.

  The door opened and Andrew appeared, massive in the door frame, wearing a paisley dressing gown and an inquisitive expression. ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

  They answered him with one voice, neither of them pleased to see him. ‘No. We can manage.’

  ‘Nightmare, was it?’ he said to Gemma.

  His assumption was so certain she had to admit it. ‘But it’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I’m over it now. I broke a cup. That’s the only problem.’

  ‘And I’m going to clear it up,’ Nick said, heading for the door. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

  ‘Post traumatic stress,’ Andrew diagnosed. ‘It’s very common after what you’ve been through. I should have thought of it before. You probably need counselling. I’ll get on to John Barnaby and arrange it for you.’

  ‘No,’ Gemma said at once, alarmed to be put under pressure. The one thing she didn’t want was counselling. The idea of telling her deepest fears to a stranger was abhorrent. ‘I can cope. It’s been much worse. I’m getting over it.’

  ‘What she needs is a cup of tea and some breakfast,’ Nick told his father firmly. ‘Which we’re going to get as soon as I’ve cleared up the carpet. If I were you, Dad, I’d go back to bed and finish off your beauty sleep and just let us get on with it.’

  It was a direct challenge and all three of them knew it, Andrew weighing up the situation, thinking hard, Nick emboldened by his own daring but alarmed by it too, Gemma watching them with some trepidation in case they had a row. The moment held for a very long time, as the two men stood eye to eye. Then suddenly and rather to Gemma’s surprise Andrew backed down.

  ‘OK,’ he said, grinning at his son. ‘I’ll leave it in your hands, then.’ He gave Gemma a smile and went.

  She could see the tension leaving Nick’s shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this cleared up and then we’ll put the kettle on.’

  I’ll bet that’s the first time he’s ever stood up to his father like that, she thought. He was holding his head in such a cocky way, as if he’d taken on the world. But she didn’t comment. Matters between them were too delicate for that. She wheeled out to the washroom to get dressed and left him to clean the carpet and pick up the chips of china. If there was anything to say, they could say it over breakfast.

  After the drama of her waking, the house was quiet and very peaceful. As they ate their cornflakes, they could hear trains in the distance, but they were too faint and far away to be alarming and there were no other sounds at all: no traffic, no feet on the stairs and no voices. Outside in the garden, pale sunshine striped the lawn and patterned the trunks of the trees with streaks of palest green. The bare branches were richly brown against an autumnal sky. It’s going to be a lovely day, Gemma thought. If only I hadn’t begun it so badly.

  She hasn’t got over that nightmare, Nick thought, reading her expression. She probably doesn’t know it, but she does need to talk. And that gave him an idea. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, as he put their dirty cups and bowls in the dishwasher, ‘why don’t we go for a walk? The others won’t be up for ages and this weather’s too good to waste.’

  It was an excellent suggestion but she didn’t want to annoy her hosts. ‘Won’t they miss us?’

  ‘We’ll leave them a note.’

  That solved the problem and the note was written – with a PS.

  Dear Sue, I’m sorry about the damp patch on the carpet. I knocked over a cup of coffee. I hope it won’t stain. Nick has cleaned it.

  Gemma

  Then Nick got dressed, they found their coats in the hall and, whispering like conspirators, off they went.

  It was a crisp Sunday morning, and they had it entirely to themselves. Frost tipped the long grass with white feathers, the lane was dew-damp and edged with squashy mud, cattle blew steam from their nostrils, placidly observing the world from behind the denuded hedges. The sky was the colour of a thrush’s egg. A lovely, lovely day.

  ‘I’ve been having nightmares too,’ he confessed, hoping that would make her feel easier.

  ‘I’m not surprised. It was pretty hairy.’

  ‘Worse for you than me.’

  ‘You’re not going to suggest counselling, are you?’ The question was half warning, half hope of a sensible reply.

  ‘Not everyone needs it,’ he told her. ‘Depends if you get depressed.’ And he gave her a grin. ‘I’d say there’s too much anger in you for that.’

  They were both remembering their journey. ‘You can say that again,’ she admitted. Nightmare still lurked in the lower reaches of her mind and she needed something else to talk about – but not the journey and not their ridiculous row. In the clear light of this gentle morning it shamed her to remember it.

  But at that moment, they turned a bend in the road and there was the inn. Just the thing. ‘Good Lord!’ she said. ‘Is that the Fox?’

  ‘That’s the Fox.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have recognised it,’ she said. ‘It looks different.’ And ordinary, now that there were no lights and no music and no excited party-goers. The concrete expanse of the empty car park looked vast in the daylight and totally out of place beside the neat grass verges that fronted the Georgian houses further up the road. ‘Quite different.’

  ‘Come and see the garden,’ he said. ‘That’s pretty. They’ve got a little gazebo.’ A quiet private place where they could be on their own and she could talk if she needed to. It might even have a seat so that she could get out of that damned chair. He was beginning to realise that one of the difficulties in talking to a girl in a wheelchair was that you couldn’t get near her.

  She looked puzzled. ‘A what?’

  ‘A gazebo. Come and see.’

  It was a circular summerhouse, made of stone with a curved wall on the landward side and four slender pillars to face the river and hold up a round flat roof. It was circled by a pathway romantic with lichen but too broken to allow the passage of a chair. Worse, as he realised the moment he stepped inside the little building, it was much too dank and cold inside to encourage conversation.

  ‘What’s down there?’ she asked, looking down the slope of the garden.

  ‘The river.’

  She could just see a gleam of pale blue water between the dark me
sh of the branches. ‘Could I get down?’

  ‘You could try.’

  They walked and wheeled until they came to a series of steps leading to a small jetty. But the steps were a disappointment too. Although they were gently spaced, there were far too many of them to be tackled in a wheelchair. Nick was beginning to get irritated. Wasn’t there anywhere around here where they could sit and talk?

  At that point he heard a motor boat approaching the jetty and the noise of American voices, talking excitedly.

  A pleasure boat from York was pulling in, full of elderly tourists ready for their pub lunch. Plump and cheerful, they stomped up the path, the women in brightly coloured shell-suits, the men in anoraks and baseball caps, all of them hung about with cameras and all talking at once.

  ‘Hi!’ they said as they passed. ‘Swell place you got here.’

  ‘Are you staying long?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Just for lunch,’ they told him. ‘Then we got a coach drive to a place called Knaresborough. Gonna see Mother Shipton’s Cave. Neat, eh?’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Nick said to Gemma. ‘That boat’s got to go back to York. Right? And it’s empty. Right? So it can take us. We’ll have a day in York.’

  It was a preposterous, wonderful, impossible idea. A day in York. Instead of spending her time in Sue’s Ideal Home, feeling ashamed of herself for ruining the carpet, and out of place in her wheelchair, a day on the town. But practical as ever, she asked, ‘Won’t they wonder where we’ve gone?’

  ‘We’ll phone them when we get to York.’

  There was another worry too. ‘How am I going to get down all these steps?’

  Steps didn’t deter him in the slightest now. ‘I’ll carry you. Wait there!’ He was already on his way down to the boat, leaping past the Americans and calling to the boatman: ‘Two for the return journey.’