The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey Page B

Selina and she applied to be a housekeeper to a man with one daughter.”
    M iriam was almost four inches taller than me, and three years older, but most of the time I forgot these differences, and I was sure she did too. One evening, though, when I described my aunt and how she’d gradually banished me from the family, Miriam suggested she might be jealous. “Like Titania with Oberon,” she said. We had been reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream .
    â€œJealous? What could she be jealous of? I didn’t have a changeling boy, or anything else she wanted.” I scratched my calf, wiped my forehead. How could Miriam be so mistaken?
    â€œI’m only guessing,” she said calmly. “As you get older, Gemma, you’ll understand things that don’t make sense now. Think how much you’ve changed since you left Iceland. You’re going to change that much again in the next ten years.”
    She had never before pointed out my youth, and I was stung. “I’ll be older soon,” I said. “My birthday’s next week. Tell me the things I don’t know.”
    Miriam patted my knee. “Don’t be grumpy. I’m just saying that people’s feelings aren’t like arithmetic; they don’t always add up. As for telling you, I don’t know if I can. Some things you can learn from other people and books; some you have to live through. I’ll never know what it’s like to live in Iceland and have feet and feet of snow.”
    She said all this so nicely that I stopped being upset and told her about the “No man is an island” sermon my uncle had been working on when he died. “He said words are the stepping-stones between one person and another. Sometimes they’re under water and you have to wait for them to surface again.”
    â€œI like paddling,” said Miriam. Then she quizzed me about Puck’s role in the play.
    T he next week, when the Bryants were away and Ross had the other girls playing hockey, I led Miriam to the working girls’ bathroom. “There’s something I want to show you,” I said. While she laboured up the stairs I ran ahead to pull my suitcase from beneath the bed. For a moment I was terrified that my precious photographs would be gone—my penknife had been stolen the week after I arrived—but I reached into the lining, and there they were. I took only the one of my uncle and mother together. Downstairs Miriam was leaning on a basin, breathing hard. I asked if she needed her inhaler.
    â€œNo, I just took the stairs too fast.” She had by now explained to me about her asthma and how, when an attack came, it felt as if a giant hand was squeezing her chest. The inhaler helped loosen the hand.
    â€œHow pretty your mother is,” she gasped. “And your uncle looks as if he’s just about to laugh. You can see they’re brother and sister, can’t you?”
    I had not dared to look at the photograph since I came to Claypoole. Now, gazing over Miriam’s shoulder, I saw my uncle’s kind smile, my mother’s bright eyes, and behind them the azaleas in bloom. “Do you have a picture of your mother?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s on the wall above my bed in Galashiels. When I go there in July I’ll bring it back to show you. We’d better go downstairs and look busy.”
    Despite her dreaminess Miriam was good at remembering that we had to be careful. She set off towards the library and I carried the photograph back to its hiding place. No one could ever replace my uncle, but as I slipped the suitcase under the bed I cherished the confidence with which Miriam had spoken of a shared future. That evening in the common room she handed me a small package. “Happy birthday, Gemma.”
    When I removed the wrapping paper I found a pocket guide to Scottish birds.
    â€œSometimes you’re not quite sure what a bird is,” she said shyly. “I