Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  Tomorrow’s flight plan called for an eight o’clock take off. Harald, as far as I knew, never drank and I was stone-cold sober too.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,’ I said carefully. ‘And I’m not sure I want you to explain.’

  A frown briefly shadowed Harald’s face, then he sat back, almost -I thought - relieved.

  ‘You must have wondered about the flight programme, all the stuff we’ve been doing.’

  ‘You’re right, I have. In fact I’ve asked you a couple of times, you know, where it all leads.’

  ‘OK.’ He nodded. ‘This is where it leads.’

  ‘This?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I looked round. His buddy, Al, was back behind the bar. Was I Pamela-Ann? Was Harald in my six o’clock? His finger on the firing trigger? Me in his sights?

  ‘We’re friends,’ I told him. ‘Good friends. I’d do anything for you. You know I would.’

  ‘OK.’ He nodded again. ‘Then I want you to become my wingman.’ That could have meant anything and I told him so. Harald frowned. ‘You think I’m some kind of poet? Some candy-ass guy says one thing, means another?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then listen to me. I want to put together a display team. Nine Mustangs. I want to call them the Blue Angels. And I want you to fly as my number two.’

  I tried to hide my confusion. Coming from Harald, this was a far bigger compliment than I could ever have expected. It meant that he really did rate my flying. There was no way I was up to that standard yet, but he obviously thought it was in me.

  ‘You’re sure I could hack it?’

  ‘I’m certain.’

  ‘OK,’ I said carefully. ‘So tell me more.’

  Harald leaned forward across the table. He had a shortlist of pilots. He’d lined up eight machines. He had the makings of a display circuit, the team flying from country to country, continent to continent, performing in front of crowds of hundreds of thousands. Naturally, there’d be business spin-offs. He’d be crazy if he didn’t integrate something like this with his commercial activities. But the heart of it, the raison d’etre, was the Mustang itself. What it had done. What it represented. That’s where the raw appeal lay. That’s why I should say yes.

  Something was bothering me. I put my hand on his arm.

  ‘You said nine aircraft.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And then eight.’

  ‘Sure. That’s because you own the other one.’

  ‘You want our plane as part of this? Our Mustang?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled rather awkwardly. ‘Please.’

  ‘But what about…’ I shrugged, ‘… Mapledurcombe? Old Glory?’

  ‘You wouldn’t need it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t?’

  ‘No, you’d be with me, the Blue Angels, full time.’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘My wingman.’

  ‘You mean your partner,’ I said quietly. ‘Don’t you?’

  There was a long silence. Al had disappeared.

  ‘It’s kinda the same thing.’ Harald smiled bleakly. ‘Isn’t it?’

  I withdrew my hand. At last I understood why Harald had been so provisional, so uncertain, about my departure date. It wasn’t just the fact that my birthday was coming. It wasn’t the thought that we might squeeze in a couple more days’ flying. It was something infinitely more long-term. Most people would have called it marriage. But Harald Meyler wasn’t most people.

  ‘I can’t, Harald.’

  I said it as gently as I could. There was something so fatalistic in his face, so resigned, that he didn’t even look disappointed.

  ‘I had to ask,’ he murmured at last. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at him for a long time. ‘Tell me something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How long have you felt this way?’ ‘Years.’

  ‘Years?’ It felt like I’d only known him a couple of months.

  ‘Yes, ever since Adam introduced us.’

  ‘I see.’ I was trying to remember the occasion but I couldn’t.

  ‘It was down in Devon. The Exeter air show. I was flying a Jug.’

  Dimly, it began to come back to me. Jug is the American nickname for the P-47 Thunderbolt, a big unbreakable World War II fighter. Harald had pulled off a wonderful display. Adam, who barely knew him at all, had raced across to say well done. I, as ever, was in tow.

  ‘You were wearing jeans,’ he said. ‘And you had the loveliest smile.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes. The one thing I always knew was that somewhere out there was the person I was going to fall in love with.’ He ducked his head. ‘Just happens it was you.’

  ‘But did I ever…’ I did my best to find the right word, ‘… encourage you?’

  ‘Never. You couldn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t?’

  ‘No, because that’s not the person you are. You were married, happily married. You loved the man, you adored him. Everyone could see that.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now?’ He shrugged. ‘Now you’re not married.’

  ‘And you think that makes a difference?’

  ‘Sure. I thought it might.’

  Thought. Past tense. He’d made his pitch. We knew where we stood. All I could say, for the second time in two days, was sorry.

  My hand went out again, some small comfort. I could feel him trembling.

  ‘It was probably my fault,’ I said. ‘I should have made things clearer.’

  ‘No problem.’ He produced a long white envelope and slipped it across the table towards me. I recognised the United Airlines logo on the front.

  ‘Is this the ticket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘I mean it, Harald.’ I raised my glass to him. ‘Here’s to tomorrow.’

  He studied me for a moment or two, the strangest smile curling one corner of his mouth.

  ‘You mean the old guy? Brokenka?’

  ‘No, I mean the future, yours and mine. We’ll stay friends. Promise me that.’

  ‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘Oh, sure.’

  Next morning, as planned, we flew up to Chicago. We landed at another tiny airport - windy and much cooler than down south - and I re-read Ralph’s letter while Harald organised a cab to take us to the nursing home.

  Shoreview was one block back from the road that ran beside Lake Michigan. The blooms in the immaculate flowerbeds were nodding in the breeze and the nurse who met us in reception asked us whether we’d prefer tea or coffee.

  Karel Brokenka had a room at the front of the building on the second floor. The nurse had warned us that he was still recovering from a minor stroke, but when we met him I was surprised by how fit he looked. He was much smaller than I imagined, and he was completely bald, but as soon as he struggled to his feet and extended a hand, I recognised the lop-sided smile I’d seen in the photo that Ralph had shown me.

  He’d obviously been looking forward to our visit because there was a huge stack of papers piled beside his armchair, and I kneeled on the carpet, going through his mementoes one by one, while Harald sat in an armchair by the window, watching us.

  He’d said very little all morning. In certain ways he reminded me of someone recovering from a serious accident. Real life took a lot of getting used to. He didn’t want to trip up again.

  Karel was telling me about a sortie he’d done in our Mustang a couple of weeks after he’d shot the Messerschmitt down. He kept referring to it as Little Ceska, which was a bit confusing at first. The nurse was right about the stroke, because he kept losing the thread.

  Harald suddenly bent forward, interrupting him.

  ‘Mr Brokenka, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind going through the story again. For my benefit.’ He produced a small cassette recorder and I stared at it, wondering why he hadn’t used it before.

  ‘What story?’ The old
man was sounding vague again.

  ‘The Messerschmitt. The 109.’

  ‘Ah… so. You want me to… ?’

  ‘Tell me what happened…’ I saw Harald press the Record button,’… again.’

  Karel gathered his thoughts a moment, then went through it all a second time. He was flying P-Popsie. P-Popsie was Little Ceska’s call sign. His squadron were supplying withdrawal support on a big B-17 raid. It was a lousy day, snow first thing. He remembered the weather because it was 1 January and snow was supposed to be lucky.

  ‘Lucky?’ There was a small, cheerless smile on Harald’s face.

  ‘Sure, and it was too. We found the bomber stream real quick. That didn’t always happen.’

  ‘And the 109s?’

  ‘Five of them. Way over in the Ulzen area.’

  ‘They were below you?’

  ‘Yeah, but hard to spot against those damned trees.’ He offered Harald a gap-toothed grin, warmed by the memory. Harald’s smile had gone.

  ‘You bounced them?’ ‘Sure.’

  ‘They saw you coming?’ ‘At the end, yes.’

  ‘The one you chased, the guy you shot down, he saw you coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Harald nodded, saying nothing. I could hear a slight squeak from the machine. Brokenka was looking blank again.

  ‘Go on,’ Harald prompted at last. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘He dived, like they all did. I went after him.’

  ‘What kind of speed?’

  ‘I don’t know. Fast. I was in the dive, remember. Hell, you know…’ he lifted a thin hand and waved it in the air, ‘… four hundred knots? More? I don’t know.’

  ‘And the 109?’

  ‘Fast, too, and clever.’ The hand began to weave and turn.

  ‘A good pilot?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes.’

  ‘A brave guy? Stuck with it? Didn’t bale out?’

  ‘Not then, not for a couple of seconds, no.’

  ‘But he could have done?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know. That kind of speed? It ain’t so easy…’ He squinted at Harald, trying to keep up with this volley of questions, but Harald had his back to the window and his face was masked by shadow. ‘Anyways, I was firing pretty good, bam bam, and the stuff was socking into him. You could see it in the movie shots, the combat footage…’ he nodded, smiling,’… bam, bam.’

  ‘You’ve got this film?’

  ‘Hell, no. It belongs to the Air Force.’

  I glanced across at Harald.

  ‘Ralph’s got some stills. They must come from the film. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘What do they show?’

  I frowned, trying to remember the exact sequence.

  ‘The plane’s falling apart,’ I said. ‘It’s disintegrating. You can see fire, flames. In one of them, the pilot’s just baled out.’

  Harald went back to the old man. ‘He definitely baled out? You saw him?’

  ‘Sure. Just like the lady says. It’s all in the movie.’

  ‘And you think he survived?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Any parachute?’

  The old man stared at him, mystified. The expression on his face suggested he was having second thoughts about our little interview. He’d been expecting an hour or so of gentle reminiscence. Not the third degree.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I was diving. Everything happens very fast. You say you fly Mustangs?’ His hand was shielding his eyes as he looked across at Harald.

  Harald nodded.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then you sure as hell know how it is. Four hundred knots? Ground coming up to meet you? This guy’s buddies out there somewhere? No, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘I saw no parachute open.’

  In the sudden silence I could hear the clatter of a trolley in the corridor outside. Finally, Harald stirred.

  ‘But he flew well,’ he said quietly. ‘This guy?’

  ‘Sure, they were good, these boys, all of them. I never met a guy who didn’t fly the shit out of those 109s.’

  The sudden violence of Karel’s language gave me a jolt. Something had angered him and it showed.

  Harald got to his feet. He stood over the old man for a long time. Then he extended a hand.

  ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, sir. I want to say thank you.’

  Brokenka peered up. The anger had gone. In its place, fresh confusion.

  ‘I didn’t catch your name,’ he muttered. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Harald. Harald Meyler.’ He bent towards me and helped me to my feet. ‘We should be going, Ellie. I don’t want you to be late for that plane.’

  Chapter sixteen

  Jamie met me at Heathrow next morning. He told me he’d been camping all night in case the plane got in early but I didn’t believe him. The weather back home had obviously been fabulous. He looked incredibly fit - tanned, lean, clear-eyed - and I was really surprised, because this wasn’t at all the face I’d begun to associate with the lost little voice behind the letters.

  We retrieved Ralph’s car from the multistorey and made our way through the muddle of signs towards the exit tunnel. On the link road to the M4 I was still trying to explain the principles of dive-bombing when Jamie swung the Peugeot left, into the car park that served the huge Post House hotel.

  I’d got to the roll-in point where you slap the stick sideways and stand the Mustang on one wing. The last thing on my mind was breakfast.

  ‘I had something on the plane,’ I told him. ‘I’m not at all hungry.’

  Jamie was laughing.

  ‘I’ve been saving up,’ he explained. ‘I thought we could say hallo properly.’

  He’d reserved a room on the top floor. We pulled the curtains shut and took a long shower together before tumbling into bed. He felt like a stranger at first - even his smell was slightly exotic - but the way he touched me was wholly familiar and afterwards I clung to him, stilled by the flooding warmth inside me. I slept until midday. My dreams were horribly vivid, lit by wild flashes of lightning, and seconds before I awoke the Mustang was upside-down, irrecoverable, plunging earthwards through an eternity of grey while I reached out, fighting certain death.

  I had one arm round Jamie’s neck. He was bent over me, telling me that everything was going to be OK.

  ‘The radio,’ I muttered. ‘I should have called earlier. I should have known.’

  ‘Known what?’

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes. The feeling of relief was indescribable. Jamie had been up already. The tea he’d made tasted wonderful.

  ‘I’ve really missed you,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Did you know that?’

  We drove south, to Mapledurcombe. By the time we arrived it was nearly seven o’clock, a beautiful June evening, the garden transformed by early summer. My sister met us at the front door. She’d hung strings of little American flags around the entrance hall and I was really touched by the gesture until it dawned on me that they were really for the benefit of our guests.

  We split a bottle of Côtes-du-Rhône in the kitchen while she busied around with the evening meal. She’d put on a bit of weight since I’d last seen her and - like Jamie - she looked wonderfully well. Not only that but she’d very obviously got the business completely taped. The latest bunch of guests, she said, had taken to Mapledurcombe like ducks to water. They loved the feel of the place, the things she’d done to it, the little bits and pieces of antique furniture she’d managed to pick up through various local contacts. They were so appreciative, these Americans, so discriminating, so bloody nice. One wife from Milwaukee, herself some kind of society hostess, had been practically on her knees, demanding the recipe for Andrea’s special osso buco.

  I sat beside the window, listening to this flood of other people’s compliments, the presents I’d brought back still unopened on the kitchen table. I was enormously grateful to Andrea for letting me go off like that but by the time Jamie and I had finished the Côt
es-du-Rhône it occurred to me that I was virtually a stranger in my own house. Andrea, true to form, had grabbed Old Glory for herself. Without her very special touch, the business would plainly be in deep, deep trouble.

  Tonight’s menu featured blanquette de veau and Andrea was nearly ready to dish up. The girl she’d hired to help out - a nineteen-year-old called Katie from the village up the road - was draining the courgettes and tipping them into a hideous silver bain-marie.

  ‘How about the flying?’ I enquired.

  Andrea was making cooing noises over her hollandaise sauce.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The flying. The Mustang. The Harvard.’

  ‘Ah, that’s Jamie’s department. Boys’ toys.’

  I looked across at Jamie. I’d asked him already, of course, on the way down but he’d seemed oddly vague about the details. In my absence, Dave Jeffries - our engineer - had been in charge of arranging flights for our guests, calling in one or other of the handful of pilots we trusted when their own work schedules permitted. Dave’s link to our eager American veterans was evidently Jamie.

  ‘Well?’

  Jamie said the Harvard had been up a couple of times a week. The longest sortie had been over to Munster, and so far - touch wood - there’d been no maintenance problems.

  ‘But what about the Mustang?’

  Jamie and Andrea exchanged glances. Whatever little secret they shared was beginning to irritate me.

  ‘It’s been out for a bit,’ Jamie muttered. ‘Just recently.’

  ‘Out? What do you mean, out? Has something happened? Has someone bent it?’

  ‘God, no.’

  ‘What’s wrong then?’

  There was another silence. I looked at my watch. It was half past eight, still plenty of daylight left.

  ‘Well?’ I was angry now. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’

  Underneath his tan, Jamie began to colour.

  ‘It’s a bit awkward. Why don’t you give it a couple of days?’

  I stared at him. The Mustang was the very middle of Old Glory, the jewel in Adam’s crown. He’d built the business around it. I’d just spent six extraordinary weeks learning to fly the thing. Give it a couple of days?

  ‘Are you going to tell me? Either of you?’

  Jamie was looking at his empty glass. Andrea was issuing instructions about her pommes duchesse. I left the room. The phone was still in Adam’s study. I found the number of the local taxi firm and I was still waiting for them to answer when I became aware of Jamie standing behind me.