The Dust That Falls From Dreams

by Louis de Bernières

  ‘And buzz her on a bicycle? I’d rather she remembered me in all my glory.’

  ‘Take the Tripehound,’ said Daniel, ‘everyone knows you don’t officially have it.’

  ‘Ah, my lovely Tripehound,’ sighed Fluke. ‘Who needs a woman if one is blessed with three wings and a lovely warm Le Clerget and a clean pair of Vickers? Remember I can’t go as fast as you can.’

  ‘You lead, I’ll follow. That means you get to do the navigating. Never my strongest point. When we get to Eltham, waggle your wings and I’ll take over.’

  Thus it was that Mr and Mrs McCosh, the sisters, the Reverend Captain Fairhead, Millicent and Cookie, a skillet still in her hand, witnessed a most wonderful display of mock combat over their house. Daniel had taken over from the Squadron Leader as soon as the Tarn and Eltham Palace hove into view, and he and Fluke had rolled in unison, side by side, as they roared above the lawns at just one hundred feet. Then Fluke had broken away and climbed almost vertically, spinning once at the top, and then coming down behind Daniel machine. Daniel’s flipped his Snipe sideways, with Fluke on his tail, and they seemed to go in ever tighter circles until it was hard to know who was attacker and who defender. Suddenly Daniel looped and came down behind the triplane, whereupon Fluke dived. This was most unwise in a real combat, unless you could dive faster than your opponent without shedding your wings, because an enemy can simply dive straight after you and fill you with bullets, but this was for show after all, and he and Daniel came down as low as they dared, swooping up into the air just when it seemed they were going to clip the elms at the end of the garden.

  Fluke and Daniel flew wingtip to wingtip, and did their celebrated shuffle. When Fluke turned starboard towards Daniel, Daniel dropped beneath him and came up on his port side. That was how you compensated for the inner plane’s turning circle being too tight to fit inside the arc of the outer one. They did it going the other way, and then back again, over and over. It was elegant and neat and humorous, and those below clasped their hands together and laughed with delight. They flew side by side, Daniel’s two wings tucked inside those of the triplane.

  The two planes separated, and the folk below – now most of the neighbourhood – were horrified to see that the two aircraft were hurtling inexorably into a head-on collision. At the very last moment Daniel dived and Fluke went up, almost vertically. At the top the triplane seemed to shudder and stall, and then it started to descend, spinning and rocking slowly, as if the pilot were dead.

  Those below gasped, putting their hands to their mouths and clutching each other. Mrs McCosh found herself clinging to Cookie, skillet and all, and got flour on her morning dress.

  Daniel’s plane circled Fluke’s as it descended, stricken and helpless. The two vanished somewhere near the Tarn. ‘Oh God,’ said Rosie, fully expecting to see a plume of smoke as Fluke’s craft smashed into the ground and caught alight. Captain Fairhead muttered a prayer.

  There was nothing. It seemed as though the whole town had fallen silent. Then the triplane, waggling its wings jauntily, sped over the house with the Snipe corkscrewing behind it in hot pursuit. The two planes returned, looped the loop together, rolled at the top, and disappeared.

  ‘Oh my goodness, oh my goodness’ was all that the women could say, and Mr McCosh said to Fairhead, ‘I had no idea that aircraft could be used to such humorous effect.’

  ‘Two gallant spirits in the prime of life,’ observed Fairhead wistfully, knowing that, for all his own bravery and fortitude, he could never hope to match the wondrous natural elan of the pilot of a scout.

  A few minutes afterwards the roar of a rotary was heard again, and they all rushed out into the garden to see the Snipe circling the garden with Fluke nonchalantly sitting between the struts of the starboard wing, his legs dangling over the tip, apparently absorbed in a book. Then the plane disappeared, and not twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door, which Millicent answered, to find the two pilots still in their flying gear, their faces and garments dripping with blackened castor oil, grinning at her together.

  ‘We landed on the golf course,’ said Fluke.

  ‘Probably a par five,’ added Daniel.

  ‘Tucked the babies into the rough,’ said Fluke, ‘on the left-hand side. More people slice than hook, eh? Hope nobody minds. Did you enjoy the Immelmann turn and the falling leaf?’

  ‘He does an excellent falling leaf,’ said Daniel.

  Millicent let them in, not understanding a word of what they were saying. They might as well have been speaking French. As they entered the drawing room they received a round of applause, and bowed ironically.

  Later on, Ottilie expressed some curiosity about Maurice Beckenham-Gilbert. ‘Why is he called Fluke?’ she asked Daniel.

  ‘He’s had some extraordinary escapades,’ replied Daniel. ‘He never gets hurt. He attacks whole jastas on his own, head on, and scatters them like chaff. He attacks one plane and one of his stray rounds hits the pilot of another one altogether. His guns jammed once, and he actually brought down a Rumpler with his revolver. He was as reckless as Rhys Davids. Or Albert Ball. He really ought to be dead several times over.’

  ‘A revolver? You still carry revolvers?’

  ‘Or an automatic. You have to. In case of fire. If you can’t jump and you don’t want to burn. If you can jump, you unbuckle and turn the plane on its back.’

  ‘You commit suicide?’ asked Rosie, more horrified by the breaking of God’s law than by the thought of the deed itself.

  ‘Obviously,’ replied Daniel coolly. ‘Oh, and another thing, Fluke was a complete balloonatic.’

  ‘A balloonatic?’

  ‘Nothing he loved more than pipping a sausage. Used to come back with his bus completely sieved, and not a scratch.’

  ‘They’re just sitting ducks, aren’t they?’ said Christabel.

  ‘Oh good Lord no. They have motorised winding gear. The Boches got them downstairs in seconds, and if you tried to follow, you got peppered all the way down. And they ring them with archie because they know a balloonatic like Fluke is going to turn up, and more often than not there’s a couple of scouts hiding up in the sun just waiting to pounce. It’s about the most dangerous thing you can do.’

  ‘How many did he get?’

  ‘Ten, I think. He’d come back with his fabric in shreds and holes through his struts. He’d be up there looking for balloons every time we got a delivery of Le Prieur rockets or Buckingham rounds. If you crashed in Hunland and the Huns found those on you, they’d shoot you on the spot.’ He saw their looks of puzzlement and explained. ‘Incendiary ammunition.’

  ‘What does someone like him do in peacetime?’ asked Mr McCosh. ‘What does someone like you do? You’re not the kind of young men who are going to put on slippers, are you?’

  ‘Fluke’s staying in,’ replied Daniel. ‘I’m thinking of getting out.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea, my boy,’ said Mr McCosh, taking Daniel’s arm and leading him out into the conservatory.

  ‘Daddy’s got another plan,’ said Christabel, smiling a little sideways at Fluke, and widening her eyes.

  After tea Sophie sidled up to Daniel as he smoked out on the lawn. ‘Daniel?’ she said ‘Yes, old girl?’

  ‘Would it be frightfully imprudent if I asked you a little something about your friend Maurice?’

  ‘Do you mean impudent?’

  ‘Gosh, how would I know? Words are such slippitty-slidey things, don’t you think? I am terribly cacoeptical. Anyway, what I want to know is this…’ and she whispered, ‘Is he married?’

  ‘Sophie, what about Fairhead?’

  ‘I’m not asking for myself, silly. It’s Ottilie.’

  ‘Ottilie? Well, well. Wife and two children, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Sophie sadly. ‘All these years of being hopelessly devoted to Archie…I really think she’s taken a fancy to this Fluke of yours.’

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ said Daniel. ‘Just you wait and see. One da
y she’s going to surprise us all.’

  From inside the house there came the sound of glass shattering, and then Mrs McCosh’s voice raised in anger. ‘Let’s go back in,’ said Sophie, ‘I think there might be some fun going on.’

  In the hallway they found Mrs McCosh berating her husband. ‘You’re just like Mr Toad!’ she cried.

  ‘I have only one craze,’ replied Mr McCosh. ‘Mr Toad has a great many, one after the other.’

  ‘How many times have I asked you – no told you – not to play golf indoors? Now look what you’ve done!’

  ‘I will get a new chandelier, my dear, an even nicer one.’

  ‘You’ve destroyed our best chandelier! How can we possibly afford another one? Look at all these pieces! There’s even one on the top of that portrait of your father!’

  ‘I was only taking some practice swings, my dear, as I usually do.’

  ‘And you’ve frightened the cat! He’s up on the pelmet again! And you’ve worn a patch in the carpet! It is threadbare from your divots! This must stop, my dear, or there will be me to answer to!’

  ‘My dear, I have never had to answer to anyone else quite as much as I answer to you. And I’ve never hit the chandelier before.’

  ‘That is a driver in your hand! What man of any brain would choose to take practice swings indoors with the longest club in the bag? You should never swing anything longer than a niblick inside the house! Where is your common sense?’

  ‘I had to abandon it, my dear, when I had the good fortune to marry. I was wise before I wed, and now I am otherwise.’

  Sophie nudged Daniel with her elbow and whispered, ‘Best leave them to it. I’ll ring for Millicent and tell her to get her dustpan and brush.’

  69

  The Telephone (2)

  When the telephone rang, Millicent was not in the vicinity to answer it, and as Rosie was at the foot of the stairs on her way to the drawing room, she picked it up herself. It was the kind where the mouthpiece is fixed to the apparatus on the wall, but the earpiece has to be detached and applied to the ear. It was an impractical design because it made no allowance for the height of the speaker, and this one had been mounted at Millicent’s height, since it was her job to answer it.

  Rosie said, ‘Eltham 292,’ and a faint and distant voice said, ‘Is that you, Rosie? Rosie?…’ and then the connection was lost. Rosie depressed the hook several times, but it was not restored. She stood quite still for a few moments, and then replaced the earpiece. She felt a cold tremor run up her spine, and the urgent need to sit down and be alone.

  She went to the morning room and sat at the window seat, remembering when she had been waiting for the cats’ meat man, and Daniel had turned up on his combination instead. Caractacus came by and chirruped as he sprang on to her knee.

  She stroked the cat’s head absent-mindedly as she questioned herself about the voice on the telephone. It had been a bad line. Did it really have an American accent? Her head began to hurt, as if her brain had turned to lead. She felt hopeless. To whom could she speak about this? Fairhead, perhaps. She had resolved not to go back to Madame Valentine. She certainly could not tell Daniel. She might be able to tell Ottilie and Christabel, but she knew what they would say.

  Just then the cats’ meat man went by, full of strength and ebullience, with a basket of horseflesh on his head, bawling his latest verse in his loud Irish voice

  ‘Cats’ meat, cats’ meat,

  Make your cats fat meat.’

  Everything was unbearably strange. The whole world was out of kilter. Rosie put Caractacus down and ran to get her coat and scarf and hat, and hurried down to the Tarn.

  Sitting on the bench where she had once sat with Ash, and more recently with Daniel, she looked out over the water and thought about that poor old dead dog. She wondered what had become of the Romany girl. How strange that this small lake should have played so great a part in all of their lives. It had been everything to them: a place of recreation, a place for confidences, for being in love, for grieving, for contemplation. It seemed to have a consciousness of its own, oblivious to those who stood on its banks and walked its path, as if it knew something that they could not. Rosie wondered if, in a hundred years’ time, the Tarn would still be the same, with someone just like her beside it, revolving similar thoughts.

  70

  Ottilie and Mr McCosh

  Hamilton McCosh was sitting motionless at his desk before the window, looking out over Court Road. Caractacus was sitting in the middle of his blotter, bolt upright like a statue of Bast, making work impossible, and he was playing with the cat’s ears. Outside it was raining heavily, and the tradesmen were hurrying by wearing shining mackintoshes, and sou’westers. The fingers of his left hand rested limply round a glass tumbler containing a dram of his favourite Bladnoch. He was, as it were, trying to listen to his own body, to attend to its machinery. He had been having pains in his chest fairly frequently, and thought it unlikely to be indigestion. That would not explain the bouts of dizziness that could fall upon him at any time. He was expecting Dr Scott to call in at any minute. There was a tap on the door, and Ottilie put her head round it. ‘Daddy, can I come in?’ she said.

  ‘Hello, lassie. Is it teatime?’

  ‘No, I just wanted to talk to you about something, now that Fairhead’s asked you about Sophie.’

  ‘It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?’ said Mr McCosh. ‘Couldn’t be better. I’m very glad about it, I’m bound to say.’

  ‘Daddy, I’ve had an idea and I wanted to see what you thought of it.’

  He looked up at her. ‘Fire away, lassie.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. It’s an horrendous expense to have two weddings one after the other.’

  ‘That has also occurred to me. I’d have to sell a lot of shares. It’s extremely worrying. Naturally I’d have to do them proud, and one wedding can’t be seen to be better than the other. Very worrying indeed.’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to say this, but one wedding is bound to be much happier than the other, isn’t it? I mean much more joyous. It’s going to be terribly obvious to everyone.’

  ‘I fear you’re right, Ottie bairn. But what can be done about that? We’re stuck with it.’

  ‘That’s the thing, Daddy. We’re not stuck. We could have a double wedding.’

  ‘A double wedding! Now there’s a thought! I believe you might be on to something. It’s not as if it’s never happened before.’

  ‘Well, if you think about it, it would be largely the same guests coming to both. And the novelty of it would be rather thrilling. And…well…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, the fact is that Rosie will be so happy for Sophie and Fairhead that it will make the day much happier for her too. She’ll get caught up in all that happiness, don’t you think? And that’ll make it happier for Daniel. It’ll help to give them a better start.’

  ‘I do wish Daniel and Rosie weren’t going ahead with it. It can’t come to any good.’

  ‘I think it could work,’ said Ottilie, ‘but it all depends on Rosie, doesn’t it? She’s got to cut the cord that drags the ghost of poor Ash along with her wherever she goes. But a double wedding’s a good idea, don’t you think?’

  ‘We’d have to talk to everyone and see what they think,’ said Mr McCosh.

  ‘I’ve already done it,’ said Ottilie. ‘Everyone rather likes the idea.’

  ‘Gracious me, Ottie, you could have been a diplomat. Or in business.’

  Ottilie smiled and said, ‘Actually, I haven’t suggested it to Mama yet. I’m sure she’ll kick up about it, so I haven’t dared. But I do have a plan, if you’d like to hear it.’

  Accordingly, Hamilton McCosh approached his wife as she made up her face before dinner, and was peering intently into the mirror. Her reaction to the idea was one of horror. ‘Why,’ she cried, ‘this has certainly never been done in my family before! It can’t possibly be! A thousand times no!’

  ‘A thousand times, my dear?
That seems an unduly large number, when only a few hundred will do.’

  ‘I will not be mocked!’

  ‘Perhaps not, my dear, but I do have to tell you that two weddings would be unmanageably expensive. It couldn’t possibly be done without personal economies.’

  ‘Personal economies?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been scratching my head about this, and I’ve realised that we could do two separate weddings if you were to forgo your dress allowance for eighteen months.’

  ‘My dress allowance?! For eighteen months?!’

  ‘The sums work out very neatly, my dear. I’m sure you could bear the sacrifice, for the children’s sake.’

  ‘Well!’ she huffed. ‘I never…well, I never did!’

  ‘I’ll leave you to think about it,’ said her husband. ‘Now I must go and change for dinner.’

  After dinner, when Mrs McCosh left the room to ‘powder her nose’, Hamilton McCosh said to the girls, ‘I think we might have pulled it off.’

  ‘I told her that the daughters of a Scottish duke had a triple wedding to three Montenegrin princes last year,’ said Christabel. ‘I think she was impressed.’

  ‘You lied to her?’ protested Rosie, amused but scandalised.

  ‘Only a little white lie.’ Christabel held up her hand with the forefinger and thumb half an inch apart ‘A tiny little white lie only this big.’

  Sophie came over to Rosie and put her arms around her, kissing her on the cheek. ‘It’ll be the best day of our lives,’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased. I wish we could all be married at the same time. All Eltham would be agog. We’d be the gazingstock of Kent.’

  ‘Has anyone asked Daniel?’ said Rosie, over her sister’s shoulder, a little horrified. ‘We can’t possibly decide this without consulting him first.’

  Ottilie put her hand up. ‘Exchange of telegrams. I said “DOUBLE WEDDING QUESTION MARK HOW ABOUT IT QUESTION MARK” and he sent back “WONDERFUL IDEA STOP SO PLEASED NO QUESTION MARK STOP LOOPING THE LOOP STOP.” ’