Walking on Air

by Christina Jones

  WALKING

  ON AIR

  Christina Jones

  CHIVERS

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the Author

  Epub ISBN 9781471309007

  Copyright © Christina Jones 2000

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Jacket illustration © iStockphoto.com

  Contents

  Summer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Autumn

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Winter

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Spring

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Summer

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Autumn

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  The only child of a school teacher and a circus clown, Christina Jones has been writing all her life.

  As well as writing her novels, Christina contributes short stories and articles to magazines and newspapers. She is also a regular panellist on TVFM’s topical humour show, Week At The Knees. Her first novel, Going the Distance, was chosen for WH Smith’s Fresh Talent promotion.

  After years of travelling, Christina now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband Rob, daughter Laura, and seventeen cats.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you –

  To everyone at Harper Collins, especially Susan Watt, Fiona McIntosh, Jane Harris, Martin Palmer and Yvette Cowles, for all their hard work, patience, and their wonderful friendship.

  To Sarah Molloy, my agent and a very brave lady. I owe her one or two . . .

  To The Utterly Butterly Barnstormers – the most intrepid and incredible wingwalking outfit in the world. To Helen Tempest, Rachel Huxford, Sara Mozayeni, and Juliette Pendleton, the stunningly glamorous wingwalkers; Vic Norman and Mike Dentith, the no-less-glamorous pilots; Helen Holness in the Engine Shed office and Tony and Andv the engineers (also all glamorous – of course!). Thank you all a million times for trusting me in the Boeing Stearman, for giving up so much of your precious time to make sure I got everything right, for the amazing hospitality at Rendcomb Airfield, and for becoming my friends.

  To Michael Owen (no, not that one), ace aviator at Jersey Aero Club, who was fearless enough to take me up in a two-seater plane and teach me the technical bits.

  To all the additional people who helped with the wing- walking information, especially Marilyn Fountain, Katrina Hocking and John Johnson.

  To the Essex Belle – the most beautiful Shorts in the air – and her crew, who flew me backwards and forwards across the English Channel and gave me some of the most unforgettable experiences of my life.

  To Chris, the KLM pilot, who taught me so much about happy landings.

  To Faith and Stan Hardy, my friends since childhood, who allowed me to nick them and borrow their perfect lives.

  To Clare Cooper and Gaynor Davies for their unstinting support and friendship, and for being such good sports.

  SUMMER

  Chapter One

  ‘Whiteacres Industrial Estate, please, dear.’ The taxi’s rear door was yanked open by a plumpish figure wearing khaki shorts: ‘You do know where it is, dear, don’t you?’

  Billie Pascoe, jolted from some serious daydreaming in the driving seat, did her customary customer eye-meet – which was slightly hampered on this occasion by sunglasses through the rear-view mirror. ‘Yes, of course. Oh, would you like me to put your luggage in the boot?’

  ‘No thanks, dear. It’s only a few bits and bobs, and anyway you really don’t look strong enough to be humping baggage.’

  The woman, who could have been anywhere between forty and seventy, was accompanied by various carrier bags, a shocking pink sombrero, and a small vanity case. After an indecisive tussle with the sombrero, she rammed it on her head and thumped heavily on to the rear seat.

  She beamed kindly at Billie through the driving mirror.

  ‘I always like to get a cab with a female driver because you can’t be too careful, if you know what I mean, dear, but to be honest, I thought you were someone’s child. You simply don’t look old enough to be driving a taxi . . .’

  Billie grinned as she moved the Granada smoothly away from the Spicer Centre taxi rank and into Amberley Hill’s mid-morning traffic. She’d heard the same remarks at least three times a week, every week, for the year and a half that she’d been driving for Reuben’s Cabs. Being a smidgen over five feet tall, weighing a smidgen over seven stones, and with layers of short blonde hair, she’d probably pass for Zoë Ball on an off-day.

  She’d never felt it necessary to reassure her passengers that she was all of twenty-six and a half, and having been brought up on a farm she’d been shifting sacks of sheep feed and hay bales since she was old enough to walk, and therefore stowing the average weekly shop or holiday suitcase in the Granada’s boot would pose her no problems whatsoever.

  Leaving the town, and heading for the bypass which linked Amberley Hill to Whiteacres, Billie glanced again in the mirror. Her passenger was now nursing the sombrero, gazing out of the window and showing no inclination to chat, which suited Billie fine. There were things she needed to think about. Things that needed mulling over . . . Things like changing direction, taking stock, getting a grip; things like jacking in the taxi-driving and being in control of her own destiny. Again.

  ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ The lady suddenly loomed forward, interrupting Billie’s mental letter of resignation to Reuben Wainwright, proprietor of Reuben’s Cabs, slimeball, and long-term bane of her life. ‘Flaming June with a vengeance. It always make one yearn for silver sands and transparent turquoise seas on days like these, doesn’t it?’

  Billie nodded as she overtook a string of lorries heading for the retail village and inhaled vast quantities of toxic fumes through the open window. ‘Not much chance of that round here, though. We’re totally land-locked.’

  Away from Amberley Hill, with its gently undulating roads and quiet crescents of greystone houses, the countryside had quickly become flat and barren. It was a grimly desolate area, commandeered in the sixties for London overspill housing and providing just that. Whiteacres, with its industrial estate, retail village, and scrubby airfield, was as far removed from bucolic bliss as it was possible to get.

  Her passenger beamed. ‘Physically, yes – but I’m a great believer in dreams, dear. In wish-fu
lfilment. If we want something badly enough I believe we all have the power to achieve it.’

  Billie wasn’t sure. She was pretty convinced that however much her passenger may long for seaside splendours, all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to bring coastal erosion galloping across the county to engulf the urban wasteland of Whiteacres.

  Anyway, she’d had the sea, and the sand, and the glorious countryside at home in Devon, and she’d left it, because – well, because, among other reasons, at twenty-five she’d thought that by moving away from the cosiness of the farm, and her undemanding post as the most junior reporter on the Devon Argus, she could prove that she was a person in her own right, and could stand or fall alone. Oh, and because of Kieran Squires, of course, but she’d rather not think about that . . . No, she’d thought that London was going to provide everything she’d ever wanted. London had lasted for four short, amazing, exciting, heart-breaking weeks.

  She shook her head sadly at the foolishness of that long-ago innocence as she indicated to turn the Granada onto the Whiteacres slip road. There had been so many dreams – most of them, she admitted miserably, connected with Kieran Squires – and they’d all turned spectacularly to dust.

  Still, at least now, with the small inheritance left by Granny Pascoe, and the careful stashing away of her cab tips and her overtime payments, she had a reasonable sum of money to invest in her future, which was, she thought, a big step forward from last time. Last time she’d left London with nothing but the clothes she was wearing; last time she’d arrived in Amberley Hill without even the price of a hot meal or a cup of tea; last time she’d made every mistake it was possible to make. This time there would be no mistakes; this time she’d do things properly –

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  A tiny plane had suddenly slithered low overhead, dipping its wings, it seemed, almost onto the Granda’s bonnet as it skimmed the slip road. The sun burnished it with dazzling silver stars as it tipped sideways and made its approach to Whiteacres airfield. Billie, her hands damp on the steering wheel, instinctively waited for the crash.

  ‘Made you jump, did it?’ Her passenger scrabbled her way free of the sombrero. ‘You get used to them round here. Such pretty little things, aren’t they? I love to watch them and imagine where they’re going. I do so envy people who can fly away, don’t you?’

  Billie didn’t. Flying, as far as Billie was concerned, if it had to be undertaken at all, should be done in semiconscious comfort with at least four hundred other passengers, a nail- biting Nicholas Cage film, intravenous gin and tonics, and a scorching resort waiting at the end of the terror. Flying had absolutely nothing to do with these flimsy airborne sofas enclosed in Perspex and fuelled by Calor gas.

  ‘Um – I’m a bit of an aerophobe, actually,’ Billie smiled shakily into the mirror. ‘I think if I was going to make my escape it would have to be on foot.’

  Settling the Granada into the tailback of traffic heading for the industrial estate, Billie sighed. What exactly had she got to show for nearly two years’ independence? The London disaster, followed by humiliation – and now a job she disliked, a boss she disliked even more, and a share in an Amberley Hill basement flat with Miranda the man-eater. She also had predictable social life – yo-yoing as she did with the rest of the girls between Mulligan’s Genuine Irish Ale House and Bazooka’s Nite Spot – and no man, which was understandable after the débâcle with Kieran Squires, and no prospects of anything happening to change the pattern.

  Even if she gave up driving for Reuben’s Cabs, what on earth was she going to do? She was hardly qualified for anything. Driving, at least, gave her some freedom. Maybe she’d start up her own minicab firm if Reuben’s reference wasn’t too damning . . . She’d employ lady drivers to take children to school, and OAPs to out-patients, and harassed mothers to Tesco. Or maybe – just maybe – she’d become a proper chauffeur . . . hired by the rich and famous to sweep up to the palatial porticoes of the Savoy or the Dorchester . . .

  Her passenger slid forward again. ‘Turn in here, dear. Just through those gates on the airfield’s perimeter fence. It’s the back way into the units and much quicker. Just drive on past Arrivals and Departures and follow the road round.’

  Billie turned, sweeping beneath the archway that proclaimed they were now entering Whiteacres Airport – a grand misnomer, she felt, for the small airfield with two tarmacked runways, a couple of grass landing strips, and the sort of ramshackle outbuildings that should have Kenneth More stomping about with a white scarf. Not even the perfect blue sky and spiralling June sunshine could quite relieve the look of neglect. Notice boards slapped dismally backwards and forwards against flaking paintwork; the light bulbs illuminating the signs had gone out; the buildings were all decorated in sepia shades; and everything had an air of desperate desolation as small clumps of whey-faced people clutched hand luggage and looked understandably apprehensive. The various planes dotted around on the scrubby grass appeared to belong to the post-war era, and probably seated two people at a push. Who, Billie wondered as she drove past, issued the passengers with their helmets and goggles?

  ‘Just here, dear. Stop anywhere. I want the second one along from the far end.’

  The industrial units were in a towering row behind the airfield’s perimeter lights. Each one was the size of a large aeroplane hangar, and built uncompromisingly from grey breeze blocks with sky-high corrugated iron roofs. There were six in all, and they cast massive sombre shadows across the brilliance of the morning. Billie pulled the Granada to a halt on the parking area of unevenly slabbed concrete, just managing to avoid the carcasses of two burned-out hatchbacks which seemed to provide the only spot of light artistic relief.

  ‘Lovely, dear. Thank you so much.’ The plump lady started to scramble from the back of the taxi, collecting her scattered belongings as she did so. ‘Now, how much do I owe you?’

  Billie told her, gazing at the surrounding ugliness. How could anyone bear to work here? ‘Oh, no –’ she looked down at the wodge of notes in her hand – ‘I can’t take this much.’

  ‘Of course you can,’ her passenger beamed. ‘You’ve given me a lovely ride – and to be honest, if I hadn’t seen you sitting there on the rank, I might not have had the courage to do this.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Billie furrowed her brow. ‘I don’t understand – Oh, not again!’

  Another two-seater plane suddenly spurted into life on one of the runways, bounced a bit, then hurled itself into the sky at a suicidal angle. Billie held her breath, waiting for it to plummet earthwards, but with a sputtering roar it vanished into the steely grey clouds. Her palms were sweating with second-hand terror.

  ‘Goodness – you really don’t like aeroplanes, do you?’ Her passenger laughed kindly. ‘Look, dear, unless you have to dash off, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? You look like your nerves could do with calming . . . I’m Sylvia, by the way.’

  There were strict rules that Reuben’s Cabs’ drivers never, ever, on pain of death, accepted hospitality from customers . . . Oh, sod Reuben and his rules. I’m Billie Pascoe. And a cup of tea would be lovely. I’ll just radio into the office and tell them where I am . . .’

  She did, speaking to Veronica, Reuben’s radio operator, explaining that she’d just dropped off at Whiteacres and would be available to pick up a return fare at the airport or the retail village in about half an hour.

  ‘All sorted?’ Sylvia, wearing the sombrero and a pair of Chloe diamante sunglasses, tugged her double doors open. ‘Good-oh. Welcome to paradise.’

  Billie stepped through the doors. Although it was scorchingly hot outside, inside Sylvia’s unit the temperature was throbbing at equatorial. Verdant palm trees fronded into plastic pools of ludicrous blue, a fountain trickled into a turquoise waterfall, and every inch of the warehouse was vibrating with spicy colour. Vivid pinks and oranges, scalding yellow and searing red: every inch of the walls was awash with tropical splendour. Two plastic parrots and an evilly grinning
monkey swung listlessly from a tangle of vines. Billie wouldn’t have been at all surprised to spot David Attenborough.

  Totally bemused, she smiled warily. ‘I – um – seem to have wandered into a parallel universe . . .’

  ‘Bit of a stunner, isn’t it?’ Sylvia picked her way through a maze of polythene-wrapped bundles and lodged the sombrero on a raffia-roofed cocktail bar. ‘Watch where you step, dear. I’m a bit overcrowded. I could do with more space, really.’ She waved at a full display of highly coloured bottles behind the bar. ‘Piña colada? Small chartreuse? No? I suppose not if you’re driving. We’d better stick with a cuppa . . .’

  As Sylvia rattled through a multicoloured bead curtain, Billie had to make an effort not to pinch herself. She’d probably wake up in a moment in the flat, with her Winnie-the-Pooh pyjamas all of a tangle, and find Miranda with her early morning bug-eyes raiding her dressing table in search of a stale Marlboro Light.

  ‘There now,’ Sylvia said, her head on one side through the beads like an inquisitive budgie. ‘That’s got the kettle on. Now let me explain, dear . . . I’d had a bit of a row with Douglas, my husband. I’d flounced out of the house all full of burning indignation, like you do, saying that I was going to work and not to wait up.’ She indicated the vanity case. ‘I’d even made a big show of packing a few things to make him think I was leaving. But my courage had almost deserted me by the time I’d reached the taxi rank. And, you see, if you’d been a man, I wouldn’t have got into the cab, and I’d have slunk home again, and Douglas would have won. But it was you, and I’m here, and I haven’t lost face. So, it was fate, don’t you think?’

  ‘Er – well – yes, maybe . . . So, have you? Left him, I mean?’

  Sylvia shook her head. ‘I haven’t got the guts, dear, sadly. No, I’ll just hang on here for a while and hope that when there’s no meal on the table this evening he might miss me. Then I’ll go home and we’ll spend three days not speaking . . . It’s all a bit of a bugger, to be honest.’

  Billie, feeling nothing but sympathy, squeezed herself between the packages, staring at huge posters for Goa and the Maldives and the Florida Keys. ‘What exactly do you do here? Are you some sort of travel agent?’