The Infinite Air

by Fiona Kidman

  When they were back on the ground, he turned and nodded briefly. ‘That’s not bad for the first time up. I can make a flier out of you if you want it badly enough. It’s over to you.’

  ‘Of course I want it,’ Jean said. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m planning to fly from here to New Zealand.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He laughed. ‘You’re quite something, aren’t you?’

  In the mornings, she would line up with other students outside his tiny office near the field, sitting on a wooden bench, waiting for her turn to fly with him. The rule was that they turned up rain or fine, because the weather could change. If there was no visibility, he cancelled their flights. In the evenings, she went to classes in the school to study aerodynamics, compass swinging, rigging … She enrolled for them all, essential or not.

  Nellie shifted them out of the rooms in James Street to others near the aerodrome — cheaper, deal furniture, rough horsehair mattresses, discoloured lace antimacassars on the backs of stiff chairs. She began what had become a ritual each time they moved, scrubbing every inch of the rooms they were to inhabit. It was goodbye to Piccadilly Circus, the parks and museums, the glowing shop windows they had lingered in front of in the afternoons. But Jean could walk to and from her flying instruction and evening classes. By now both Jean and Nellie had realised that six or eight flying hours might be optimistic. The hours, at best, took a long time to accumulate, while Nellie’s funds slipped away. Sometimes Jean could fly for only an hour or so a week. Nellie’s pencil and pad were busy all the time, saving a penny here, a shilling there.

  Amy Johnson, true to her word, had flown to Australia. She had set off from Croydon airfield on the fifth of May and landed in Darwin on the twenty-fourth. Her intention had been to break Bert Hinkler’s record of sixteen days, but that hadn’t happened. All the same, she was the first woman to make this solo flight, and now she was an instant heroine, the toast of Britain.

  ‘So where did she get the money?’ Nellie fretted, as the tributes poured in. Jean said she had heard at the club that Amy’s father had raised the money to buy a plane with sponsorship from Viscount Wakefield, who headed Castrol Oil. Amy’s plane had cost her six hundred pounds.

  ‘Well, at least her father helped,’ Nellie said, her voice sour. They had met up with Fred’s sister Ida, who was visiting London at the same time. Ida, who had means, took them out to dinner in a restaurant.

  ‘So why haven’t you seen more of John?’ Ida asked. She had Fred’s licorice eyes, without the warmth. ‘He seems quite put out that you’ve hardly seen him. It doesn’t seem natural.’

  Nellie flushed and looked away.

  ‘Well, Ellen? Surely I have a right to know. He’s flesh and blood to both of us.’

  ‘Ida, can you keep a secret? Please. It’s very important.’

  Ida glanced at Jean. ‘She’s not in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘No … well, she would be if Fred found out. You see, Jean’s not studying music.’

  Ida put down a spoonful of blancmange in her plate with a clatter. ‘What on earth is she doing here, then?’

  ‘Learning to fly.’

  ‘Oh, my Lord. You don’t say so. Fred was always afraid she’d get up to something like that.’

  ‘Please,’ Jean exclaimed. ‘It’s not Mother’s fault. She knew I’d find a way, and she’s just helped me, that’s all.’

  Ida was wiping her mouth with furious swipes of her linen napkin.

  ‘So you see,’ Nellie said, ‘it wouldn’t be fair to John if he had to keep a secret from his father. We just thought it better not to tell him. We’ve tried to keep everything to ourselves. We have all our mail addressed care of Thomas Cook in Berkeley Street, so nobody can track us down.’

  ‘It’s preposterous,’ Ida said.

  ‘You promised,’ Nellie said, her tone righteous.

  ‘I did not,’ Ida said.

  ‘But of course you did, or I wouldn’t have told you,’ Nellie said. ‘You know you did, Ida.’

  Ida looked from one to the other, her lips pursed like a coin bag, as she waved for their bill.

  ‘It’s just not fair,’ she said, as they parted, ‘not to John or to Fred.’ She was pulling on her kid gloves. ‘I never have worked out why you and Fred don’t live together,’ she said. ‘You do know it’s caused unhappiness in our family, Ellen. A good husband like Fred.’

  Afterwards, Nellie had lain awake and worried as to whether she could trust Ida or not.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told her about the flying lessons,’ Nellie said. ‘I’m a fool. Or perhaps I should have told her what antics her brother gets up to. That would have fixed her.’

  ‘It wouldn’t, Mother,’ Jean said. ‘She wouldn’t have believed you.’

  This hadn’t contributed to Nellie’s peace of mind. ‘How come this Miss Johnson won favours from Lord Wakefield?’

  Jean didn’t know. She never stayed long at the clubhouse. Sometimes she stood at the edge of the crowd and heard snippets of information. She was there the night everyone raised a toast to Johnnie, their very own girl. One thing she learned was that Amy Johnson had been a skilled engineer before setting off on her flight. It was when she became the first woman to qualify as an engineer that she had caught Wakefield’s eye.

  Jean decided to take a leaf from Amy’s book, and enrolled in more classes at the technical school, taking a course in the general maintenance of aircraft and engines. Here she learned the importance of inspecting the aircraft and the engine before each and every flight, and how to correct malfunctions. When the aeroplanes were wheeled out of the hangars and the propellers swung each morning, she felt alert to the throb of the engines, listening intently for the smallest miss or murmur. She surprised herself at the pleasure she took in getting her hands and overalls covered with engine grease. One morning, she was bent over a crankshaft, her hands thick with oil, when a tall, loose-limbed figure loomed above her, watching what she was doing. ‘Miss Batten? You’re doing well, young lady.’ Jean instinctively tried to wipe her palms on her overalls, in order to shake hands.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Just stick with what you’re doing. I’m de Havilland, by the way, I’ve heard good things about you.’ He had a slight hesitancy in his manner and a reputation for shyness in spite of his status. Jean thought his eyes generous in their expression. He bent down to run a finger along the crankshaft, nodding his head. ‘Yes, that’s all right.’ He squatted on his heels, looking like an oversized school boy. ‘You know, I used to make model aeroplanes when I was a youngster. I didn’t really believe people would fly in the planes I made. Not then. Keep up the good work, young lady.’ And then he sprang lightly to his feet and made his way to the next student.

  ‘Geoffrey Just-Call-Me-God de Havilland,’ her instructor said, when he’d gone, but there was admiration in his voice. Praise from the great man wasn’t offered lightly.

  ‘De Havilland’s all very well,’ Nellie said, when Jean recounted the meeting, ‘but you need to meet Viscount Wakefield.’

  Despite the small snippets of praise coming her way, this was beyond Jean’s current reckoning. So many people at Stag Lane were so famous, so self-confident. So rich and so well dressed. Nobody said the word ‘colonial’, but that was how she saw herself. When she opened her mouth she didn’t sound nearly as eloquent as she thought she had back in Auckland.

  Amy returned later in the summer, radiant with success, mobbed by her fellow club members. She had assumed a new aura of glamour. Her eyebrows were plucked finely, her hair floated stylishly in a long bob. Men flocked around her, offering her drinks, cigarettes, opening doors, as if they could absorb her success. Jean would have liked to speak to her, but when she approached there was always someone else there ahead of her. And, somehow, she felt her voice stuck in the back of her throat before she even tried to open her mouth.

  Amy was honoured by the King. When she returned from Buckingham Palace on the afternoon of the ceremony, the new medal o
n her breast, there were more rounds of drinks and applause. ‘Johnnie, Johnnie,’ everyone shouted, the swirl of noise rising like the shriek of seagulls. Jean, standing outside the circle, her flying helmet in her hand, felt as if she were standing at the edge of the water back home, a child with no particular direction. She turned and walked out of the clubhouse.

  THE SUMMER PASSED, MONTHS OF HEAT AND WORK. Jean had watched the oak leaves round Edgware Road turn from pale sprigs to dark green canopies, and now autumn was upon them, the leaves beginning to fall. Late one afternoon, she and Travers were doing circuits and landings on Stag Lane, gliding in without using the engine and putting the Moth down in a three-point landing. The two wheels and the tail-skid touched the ground gently at the same moment, the plane coming to rest in a climbing position. It was a manoeuvre that required practice and skill. If the speed was too high when the control column was pulled back on approach, the Moth would stall; if it were too low, it would land on two wheels and hurtle down the runway. The aircraft had no brakes to slow it down. If either seemed about to happen, Travers pressed the engine throttle forward to avoid a catastrophe, and round she would go again.

  That afternoon, she had completed the final three-point landing of the day and begun to taxi towards the hangar. Travers’ voice carried down the tube to the earphones on her leather flying helmet. ‘Wait, Miss Batten,’ he said. ‘Stop the plane.’ He began to climb out of the front cockpit, the dual control column under his arm.

  ‘Over to you,’ he shouted. ‘She’s all yours.’

  She watched as he walked away, without seeming to look back. There was an unnatural stillness in the air, punctuated only by the staccato note of the propeller turning over. Everyone had gone, the doors of the factory were closed. From the nearby fields a light evening mist was advancing slowly, like a sluggish, milky tide.

  Jean taxied the Moth back to the edge of the aerodrome, and turned it into the wind. For a moment, she sat quite still, taking in this moment that would never happen again, her very first solo flight. She reached out her gloved hand and gave the engine full throttle. The Moth taxied forward, gaining speed, and the tail rose. She eased the joystick back. After a very short run she was airborne. This time there was nobody to hear her shout of exhilaration. The sound of her voice was carried away, but inside she felt a joy so intense she could hardly breathe. Three words flashed through her mind: Never look back.

  As she banked the Moth in a left-hand turn, circling the aerodrome in preparation for landing, she looked over the side of the cockpit to the landscape beyond. In the twilight she could see the silver outline of the R101, the airship being built at the Cardington base, to the north of Stag Lane. The huge craft, moving through the descending mist, appeared as a great whale swimming in a calm sea.

  Travers was waiting for her on the ground. For a moment his hand rested lightly on her shoulder. ‘Very good, Miss Batten. If I may say so, a quality performance.’

  CHAPTER 14

  THE CRASH COULDN’T HAVE COME AT A WORSE TIME. Nellie’s cash was down to twenty pounds. How many more solo flights would Jean need, she wondered, before she got her A licence?

  ‘Another two flights,’ Jean reassured her. ‘Not long now, darling.’

  She and Nellie had taken to calling each other darling with a tenderness that had grown between them since their arrival in London. At least three young men at the club had now invited Jean for outings, to go to town, see a film, have a drink perhaps. People were at last beginning to notice her silent presence. There were moments when she was tempted. But when she thought about Nellie, alone in their rented room near quiet Edgware Road, counting their pennies, it seemed unfair. Besides, she had never gone out with a young man. At Madame Valeska’s, she had put what she called a professional distance between her and those who mooned around her. Pity poor Freda, who hadn’t had that sense. She wondered now and then what had become of her friend. And those offering the invitations were mere boys, eighteen or so. If she wanted to be seen with a man, he needed to have a little maturity, she told her mother, who agreed. ‘You’re not to waste your time with beginners, darling,’ she said. They’d had a thin soup and some green beans for dinner, and an extra cup of tea for warmth, when this discussion took place. The time had come for some change in their situation, and only Jean’s licence could make a difference.

  But just when the licence seemed within her grasp, she flew too low as she was coming in to land. The plane’s undercarriage clipped and caught on a low boundary fence, tipping the machine on its nose. She pitched forward, her head connecting with the compass, before releasing her straps and tumbling onto the ground. Jean made a little mewing sound, crouched on hands and knees on the grassy field. It was hard to imagine worse humiliation. Around her gathered a group of fliers, concerned at first that she was safe, then laughing when they saw her plight. Among them was one of her admirers. With a small shriek she threw herself into his arms, sobbing wildly.

  Travers came to lead her away. ‘A bit bold today, were we, Jean?’

  ‘Will I have to pay for the damage?’

  ‘You got lucky, not a mark on the plane. You came off worse. Come on, dry up those tears.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m British. I shouldn’t cry.’

  ‘British?’ He looked at her and laughed. ‘You shouldn’t have got over-confident. You’re going to have a cup of tea, and then you’re going to get up in another plane. You understand?’

  She nodded. ‘So will I have to pay for the extra time?’

  He regarded her with deeper concern, appeared about to say something, then led her in silence to the clubhouse. Inside, he drew her close to the fire, took her hands and rubbed them between his. ‘You’re very cold, you’re in shock,’ he said. At the bar he ordered hot milk with a dash of brandy and two egg sandwiches. When she had eaten, he told her that when his students did something reckless or foolish, there was a price to pay. He couldn’t make an exception of her. What she had done was serious, she must understand. ‘In a few minutes you’ll be in the air again, repeating today’s exercise. You’ll have to pay for your time, all right?’

  ‘I’ll have to go home and ask Mother,’ Jean said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he said, his voice gentle. ‘I’ve already cancelled the payment on your first flight.’

  This kindness, so unexpected and generous, restored her. In the air, she said it to herself, the mantra, the words she had promised herself: Never look back never look back. All the same, she stayed away from the clubhouse for the next few days, preferring to leave the field as soon as she had flown.

  She mightn’t have gone back at all, had another woman, a very distinguished woman, not had a spectacular mishap the same week. The Duchess of Bedford had set a record, years before, flying to Cape Town in a Fokker F.V11 with an accompanying pilot. A picture of her hung in the clubhouse, taken when she was young, wearing a sweeping gown, cut low at the neck, masses of hair piled up on top of her head with a tiara perched above — a romantic-looking figure. Now she was plump and elderly, her face weatherbeaten. She saw no reason why she couldn’t fly to Cape Town alone in a Gipsy Moth, but first she had to learn to fly one. If that young Johnnie woman could fly to Australia, she saw no reason why she couldn’t make such a journey, she told everyone. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the way. Setting records was one thing, she remarked, but they were something of a Pyrrhic victory if somebody else did the work.

  Reporters gathered around the Duchess’s red and gold Moth as she prepared to leave. She climbed into the cockpit and taxied across the aerodrome, giving waves and salutes. Rain had been falling in the night and the ground was sticky underfoot. Before she got to the boundary fence, she was stuck deep in mud, did a ground loop and was left hanging upside down from her safety belt. Jean watched in horror as the crowd surged forward to help. She could break her neck if she falls, someone muttered beside her. The Duchess did fall, without breaking her neck, but letting forth a stream of invective. Her face was
puce, as she staggered to her feet. ‘Go to buggery hell,’ she shrieked, kicking the plane. ‘Bastard thing.’ The reporters scuttled away, pocketing their notebooks.

  Jean knew how the Duchess felt. But when she had fallen out of the plane, she had been wearing thick flying trousers. The Duchess, on the other hand, was wearing a skirt and thick red bloomers, revealed for all to see.

  Jean made a mental note. Never wear clothes that will reveal one’s private affairs to the world. Never use bad language in a public place. These were things she didn’t need her mother to teach her. She would, she decided, prefer to look like a film star, who also happened to fly planes. Surely, she could do both. If possible, she would like to avoid being gossiped about as well. The ground staff loved to pass on rumours to their favourites, and she could tell she was becoming one of them. She always said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, words often overlooked by her fellow fliers.

  The awful news that the R101 had crashed in France on its first overseas flight, killing forty-eight passengers, had cast a pall over everyone. When Jean did go back to the clubhouse, it was not to relive the Duchess’s misfortune, but to join in a long minute of silence for those lost. They reminded each other of the perils of the air, and the dangers they faced when they trusted it to hold them aloft. For the first time Jean felt close to her fellow fliers. Her own scrape with the fence seemed risible.

  The Prince of Wales was still turning up at Stag Lane, usually in his Bentley, despite his father commanding him not to go solo again until his flying improved, to take his princely duties more seriously, and not to place his life at risk. The young women who worked in the fabric and glue factories came streaming out to see him every time he turned up, until their forewomen sent them back to work. He basked in these impromptu welcomes.

  A hapless group captain, a man by the name of Fielden, had been charged with the responsibility of keeping the wilful Prince safe and not letting him fly alone. One morning, when the pair was practising circuits and bumps, and as the royal Moth was about to take off, the Prince looked appealingly at Fielden and said, ‘Bother, I’ve left my handkerchief in the clubhouse.’