Walking on Air

by Christina Jones

Billie shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I just want to know if I can have an option on leasing unit six at Whiteacres, that’s all.’

  ‘And you couldn’t pick up the phone and ask me that?’

  ‘Of course I could,’ Billie shrugged. ‘I just didn’t particularly want you to come out to the warehouse to discuss it with me, that’s all. So, can I? Will you draw up the paperwork like Maynard and Pollock did when I leased the first one? Oh, and I trust the terms will be lower – the place is a tip.’

  Reuben grinned. ‘I know. I’ve seen it. You’ll have to have a small army of cleaners in before you can start storing. What exactly are you planning on storing?’

  ‘It’s for the Sullivanair planes, actually. The original Stearman and the new one they’ve just bought.’

  ‘Is it indeed?’ Reuben looked interested. ‘Quite a coup then, Billie. Of course I’ll think it over and put together a deal that should suit all parties. I’ll ring you as soon as I’ve fixed a figure, OK?’

  ‘Fine. Thank you.’

  ‘No problem. I’m just delighted that your business is taking off. And it seems as if Sullivanair is doing a nice little rescue job on my ex-employees too.’

  Miranda, who had listened to the ping-pong conversation and felt slightly giddy trying to read the body language at the same time, sensed the change in atmosphere.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean . . .’ Billie was suddenly vigilant, her eyes fastened on Reuben’s face. ‘Sullivanair aren’t doing me any favours. They’re my customers. They pay me the going rate and –’

  ‘Exactly,’ Reuben smiled his closing-the-deal smile. ‘They’re probably your largest customer and as such are taking care of you. Like they’re also taking care of Veronica O’Dowd.’

  Miranda wrinkled her nose. Who the hell was Veronica O’Dowd?

  Billie looked just as mystified. Well, for a split second at least. ‘Veronica? Vee – from the cabs? The one you sacked?’

  ‘The same,’ Reuben beamed. ‘Sullivanair have taken her on as an office manager. Goodness, didn’t you know? I had to supply references yesterday – and yes, before you ask, I did. Excellent ones. Now, would you like a drink to seal the warehouse deal? On the house, of course.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Billie was still icily polite. ‘I’m sure it would choke me. I’d better be going home.’ She looked at Miranda. ‘Thanks for a great evening. We’ll have to do it again. And thanks for listening . . .’

  ‘No sweat. You’ve done it enough times for me, doll. See you soon.’

  She watched Billie duck and dive her way through the dancers, then turned to Reuben. ‘Why did you sack this Veronica, then?’

  Reuben stroked her cheek and pulled her towards him. ‘I had to, sweetheart. The woman just didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. Now, what do you fancy to drink?’

  Chapter Forty-three

  The summer was coming to an end. The last days of August were golden and blue, like a faded Indian tapestry. Billie, having received a surprisingly good rental price from Reuben for the lease of unit six, was up to her armpits in sugar soap and caustic soda.

  She felt liberated and happy. Apart from her mother’s implication in the Kieran Squires affair, which she still had to ferret out, the spectre of her stupid dalliance had at last been laid to rest. Not only that, but she had two warehouses, some truly good friends, was getting used to living alone in the flat, and was coming to terms with fact that Jonah was now totally out of reach.

  Well, almost. She sat back on her heels, wiping a dripping Marigold across her forehead. She and Jonah were still withdrawn from each other when they met. He seemed very preoccupied these days, which she supposed was understandable, as his life had tumbled upside down. The two new Sullivanair planes were being delivered in a month’s time; his forthcoming elevation to the Whiteacres Aviation Incs was now, with Antony Archibald’s defection, merely a formality; and he still had the flying circus to plan. Billie supposed that all these things – not to mention impending fatherhood – would make anyone twitchy. But she sadly mourned the passing of their previous easy-going friendship.

  And yes, OK, she still fancied him like mad. It was impossible not to. Which now made the Sullivanair dealings so much easier when they took place with Barnaby. Barnaby, burstingly proud of his Stearman, which they had christened Lumley, in keeping with Jonah’s being called Joanna, had joined Sullivanair full time and would be piloting one of the new Shorts while Vinny took charge of the Skyvan. Unlike Jonah, Barnaby still spent most of his days off at the warehouse, apparently over Miranda and growing more tanned, more scruffy, and far more relaxed as he tinkered with bits of the plane.

  In the last few weeks Billie had found out more about the comings and goings at Sullivanair from Barnaby than she had from Jonah. Neither of them, however, had mentioned Vee being Estelle’s replacement, which she found odd, especially with the Reuben’s Cabs connection, but she’d just put this down to further evidence of the gulf that had widened between Jonah and herself since the day of the air pageant.

  ‘Wakey-wakey . . .’ Isla, who was washing years of encrusted grime from the windows, chucked a chamois at her. ‘I didn’t know you were into transcendental meditation.’

  Billie chucked the chamois back. ‘I was merely reflecting on the joys of being a warehouse owner, that’s all.’

  ‘And you’ll ruin your skin if you let those suds drip, my dears.’ Sylvia, lounging in a deck chair, was watching the ablutions through the pulled-back doors with the critical eye of one who went nightly to bed smothered in Nivca Visage. ‘You want to get a man in.’

  Billie grinned. ‘No way!’ A man – in or out – was the last thing she needed. She gave a sigh, chucked her Marigolds into the nearest bucket of scummy water, and stood up. ‘Come on, Isla. Let’s call it a day. The windows look great and I’ve almost finished the walls.’

  Isla followed Billie out of the warehouse and pushed tendrils of her snaky hair away from her face, blinking in the sudden rush of sunlight. She smiled gently at Sylvia. ‘You know, Billie’s right – we don’t need men. Well, at least not for things like this. Women just get on and do what has to be done; men always spend ages planning and measuring and weighing things up – especially if they’re an old worry-guts like Zia.’

  Sylv and Billie stared at her. This, from the devoted Isla, was like hearing the Archbishop of Canterbury say that there was nothing wrong with a bit of devil worship just so long as it was done on the quiet and in the privacy of your own home.

  Billie, aware that Zia had been away for almost a week on a clothes-buying mission in the Fens, laughed. ‘Don’t be too hasty. Yours is only away temporarily. You’d feel differently if he’d left you for good, believe me.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Isla shrugged and continued to look defiant. But he’s always such a wet blanket about anything innovative, isn’t he? Like your first warehouse, Billie, and then the planes, and well, everything. He’s supposed to be all New Age and cosmic, but he uses dental floss and reads the Daily Star.’

  Sylvia adjusted the chin-strap on her sombrero and chuckled. ‘Can’t get much more cosmic than the Daily Star, dear. And at least your Zia has his uses – he’s a damned hard worker and you’d never be making Zi-Zi’s such a success without him, would you? There’s good men and bad men, and you’ve got one of the former, so count your blessings. Anyway, it was more Billie I was worried about.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Billie said cheerfully, wiping her hands on her dungarees and skirting Lumley’s wings. ‘I’ve done without one for long enough. I’m not going to start panicking about the lack of male company now.’

  Sylvia looked hopeful. ‘But, I thought, maybe Jonah . . .’

  ‘Jonah’s probably, as we speak, at the antenatal clinic with Claire, going through the rigours of panting and pushing, and not pushing, and timing contractions, and how to staple Pampers, and –’

  ‘God Almighty!’ Sylvia leaned dramatically against the Stearman’s silver, purple and emerald tail fin.
‘Spare me the gruesome details. I never was the slightest maternal.’

  ‘Weren’t you? What a shame – you’d have made a lovely mum. Did Douglas not want children, either?’

  ‘Not unless he could have putted the little bastards off a tee with a nine iron, no.’ Sylvia pushed the sombrero to the back of her head. ‘And by the way, did I mention that Douglas and I are getting divorced?’

  It was Billie and Isla’s turn to look shocked. Billie shook her head. ‘No, you bloody didn’t, Sylv! You kept that quiet! When did all this come about, then?’

  ‘It hasn’t yet. It’s being dealt with by my solicitors.’ Sylv looked stoical. ‘It was bound to happen, dear, really. You see, Douglas is having intercourse with Myrtle.’

  Billie blinked. ‘Who the hell is Myrtle, and how do you know he’s – um –?’

  ‘Myrtle’s the lady from the Inner Wheel he got in to do a bit of cooking and cleaning after I left.’ Sylvia pursed her lips. ‘She’s obviously extended her duties. My sister Ethel caught them at it in the conservatory. Our Ethel had only popped round to water the yuccas because Douglas is a bugger when it comes to house plants – and there they were! Bold as brass. Having intercourse on my cane and rattan three-piece!’

  Billie, not daring to look at Isla, wondered fleetingly if that hadn’t been rather uncomfortable, and tried to make appropriate sympathetic noises. Sadly, they all sounded like derisive snorts.

  Sylvia clapped her hands. ‘So anyway – c’est la vie and all that. Now we’re all manless – well, Isla isn’t really, but temporarily – and we’re all doing nicely, so maybe I’m wrong and you’re right. When do you think you’ll have the unit ready?’

  ‘In a couple of days,’ Billie said. ‘Hopefully by the end of the week, anyway. Then Barnaby and Jonah can move both planes in here and I can spend the Bank Holiday weekend sorting out unit three.’

  Sylvia pulled a face. ‘You shouldn’t spend every hour working – you should get away for a little break.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Actually, I’d like to go home for a couple of days in September – there are a few things I need to sort out with my mum – but I can’t see it happening. I’ve got no one to take over here and –’

  ‘I’m sure our Ethel would love to help.’ Sylvia looked animated, ‘I would have suggested her before, but I thought you’d want someone sort of younger and sparky with a string of GCSEs. I mean, she does all my tax and VAT stuff brilliantly. Of course, she’s well past retirement but she’s itching to have a little job. She’s ex-civil service, dear, like me, and she’s done computers at night school and she’d be very reliable.’

  Billie grinned. ‘She sounds perfect. But would she want to work out here? I mean, this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, is it?’

  ‘She’d love it, dear, believe me. She’s been widowed for years and is bored to tears with the Evergreen’s lunch club and daytime telly. A couple of hours a day, say, doing your paperwork and answering the phone or whatever, to free you up . . . Shall I give her a ring? Ask her to come and see you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Billie nodded enthusiastically. If Ethel was only half as enterprising as Sylv it would mean her warehouses would be in good hands – and she could arrive unannounced in Devon to find out exactly how her mother knew about Kieran Squires. ‘Shall I put the kettle on for a celebration?’

  ‘Shouldn’t bother.’ Isla squinted across the cracked concrete. ‘Not unless you’ve got a lot of cups. We’ve got company.’

  Billie groaned. Jonah’s car had just screeched to a halt beside the burned-out hatchbacks. She really wasn’t in the mood to see Claire in her immaculate maternity best. Billie’s dungarees barely covered her vest and her vest scarcely covered her chest, and she knew there were streaks of water snaking up her grubby arms and down her face.

  ‘Heavens above!’ Sylv peered from beneath the sombrero. ‘Has Jonah gone into the white slave trade?’

  Billie frowned. None of the four beautiful, svelte women pouring from the innards of the car and teetering across the cracked concrete in Jonah’s wake looked anything like Claire. Maybe, she thought, he’d gone off the mumsy look and was auditioning spares.

  ‘Billie – just the person!’ Jonah’s voice was false with bonhomie and his smile only just reached his upper lip. ‘Glad to catch you – or maybe I should have phoned. I’ve been telling Amber and Sophie and Gaynor and – um – oh yes, Nikki, all about you.’

  Sylv and Isla were still staring at the posse of women. Billie smiled rather sketchily, not actually catching anyone’s eye. ‘Really? That must have been a brief conversation.

  Jonah frowned. ‘What? No – oh, right . . . Look, I wondered if you were busy?’

  Billie stared down at her filthy clothes and her dirt-streaked arms. ‘Busy? Me? No, of course not. God, Jonah, I’m working myself into a frazzle getting the warehouse scrubbed out so that Barnaby’s Stearman doesn’t have to stay outside a minute longer than necessary. Of course I’m bloody busy.’

  The women all looked rather disappointed at this outburst. Isla had pulled up another deckchair beside Sylv. Jonah jerked his head towards unit six. ‘Could we have a word? In private?’

  Billie, gagging for a cup of tea, sighed heavily but walked back to the warehouse anyway. ‘If you’ve come to complain that I’m taking too long getting the shed ready, you’re not my only customer and –’

  ‘Christ!’ Jonah shook his head. ‘For God’s sake, don’t you start. I have enough nagging from Claire at home. It’s got sod-all to do with the bloody warehouse. You’re doing fine – brilliantly – OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Billie was slightly mollified. ‘So, if it’s not to do with the warehouse, what is it – and who the hell are they?’

  Jonah looked at his glamorous entourage, who were now milling round Sylv and Isla and giggling a lot. ‘They’re the potentials . . . for the wingwalking team, you know? I advertised in the Pilot and various other magazines, and that’s the shortlist.’

  Billie stared more interestedly this time. Possibly Vinny had done the final selection, then. They were all very buxom despite the slenderness. ‘Right, and they’ve come to have a look at the plane, have they? Come to see exactly what they’ve let themselves in for? Well, don’t mind me. I’ll keep out of your way . . .’

  ‘Well, actually, you won’t.’ Jonah looked a bit shiftly. You see, as we’re going to be a team, and you’ve actually done the wingwalking routine, and you know what’s expected, I sort of wondered if you could put them through their paces?’

  ‘Me? You’re joking? I don’t know the first thing about it. Mine was just trial and error – and how many of them are you taking on? Not all of them, surely?’

  ‘Just one. Whichever one you think you can work with best.’

  Oh God. Billie shook her head. It was like being asked to choose just one from a litter of gorgeous and hopeful puppies. ‘We’re not going to be flying, though?’

  ‘No,’ Jonah looked agitated. ‘Well, not to start with. Just on the ground, and then the – um – pootle . . .’

  Billie tried not to grin. Ah yes, the infamous pootle . . .

  ‘So? Will you?’ Jonah looked very tired. ‘Just go through the basics with them? Please, Billie?’

  She stared at him. She’d never forgive him for not believing her when she’d told him about Kieran. He was the only person she’d been honest with and he hadn’t believed her! She’d even more never forgive him for deciding to create a baby with Claire.

  ‘Yes, OK. Are you using your plane or Barnaby’s?’

  ‘Barnaby’s. It’s got the rig fixed and it’s already out here, so shall we get started?’

  Billie exhaled. This really was the most ridiculous situation in the world. Initially she’d been happy to volunteer for the air pageant wingwalking – just to save Whiteacres from the clutches of Aerobatic Archie and Claire, and to help Jonah become an Inc. Oh yes, and if she searched the secrets of her soul, because she’d fancied the pants off Jonah and would have t
ied herself naked to a space shuttle if it had made him happy.

  She’d achieved the first two – despite her terror – and didn’t have a hope in hell of ever managing the third. Why on earth should she do any more for him now?

  Jonah leaned against Lumley’s wing and smiled properly for the first time. ‘You did get a kick out of the display, didn’t you? Really enjoyed it? Found it easy?’

  She glared at him. ‘Yes, you know I did, but . . .’ There wasn’t really a but. She’d loved the buzz, yes, OK, and enjoyed the showing off. She just wished Jonah would stop smiling. It was easier to hate him when he snarled. She shrugged. ‘Oh, go on then – wheel them in . . .’

  Two hours later, with an interested knot of onlookers gathered from across Whiteacres, Billie was feeling distinctly inferior. All four women were slender, supple, fearless and very keen to be chosen; all four had managed to climb elegantly from the cockpit, walk along the wing, wriggle themselves into the harness and stand looking graceful on top of the Stearman. Amber and Nikki had even got to grips with the swivelling rig without shrieking or disturbing their lip gloss.

  Billie, remembering her own fumbling and clumsy early attempts, felt very second division. True, all four contenders obviously had season tickets to the gym and never let anything other than lettuce and Evian water pass their lips, but even so, she’d have expected some trepidation.

  ‘They’re all excellent, Jonah. They’ve listened to everything I’ve said, done exactly the right things, and looked great. They can climb and slide and smile and haven’t got a single nerve. Any one of them will be far better than I am.’ Billie shrugged. ‘Tell you what, why don’t you pick two of them for the team and leave me out of it altogether?’

  ‘They haven’t pootled yet,’ Jonah said cheerfully, climbing into the cockpit. ‘That’s the real test – not to mention actually flying. Don’t be so hard on yourself. And I’m sorry, but as a founder member of Sullivan’s Flying Circus, you’re not allowed to quit.’

  She knew he was joking. She wished he wasn’t. She also wished he’d looked more shocked when she’d mentioned not being a wingwalker any more. Surely he could have made some sort of half-hearted protest?