The Infinite Air

by Fiona Kidman

  When her turn came to perform, she walked over to one of Cobham’s Moths, climbed in, went through her checks and started the engine. The engineer who was conducting the trials, and seemed not to have been taking much notice of the candidates themselves until they were in the air, started towards the plane, waving his arms. She waved back to him, smiled and rose in the air. She looped and rolled, dived and inverted, all the tricks she had learned above Auckland. When she landed, there was clapping and cheering. As she waved and climbed out, the engineer stormed across the field towards her. ‘We don’t take women,’ he said.

  ‘Was there something wrong with my flying?’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘But it is the point,’ Jean said. ‘Surely it’s the whole point.’

  By now, Cobham had joined his engineer. His eyes rested briefly on Jean with a certain admiration. ‘You were good,’ he said. ‘But you can forget it. I wouldn’t put a woman up there. You’ll be married and having babies in next to no time.’

  Jean walked away, aware that her hands were shaking.

  Her voice was bitter as she recounted the day’s events to John that evening. He was distracted, barely seeming to hear her. He was filming Men Like These, a submarine disaster film that required him to be waist deep in water for much of each day. He was cold and hungry in the evenings, waiting for her to cook dinner. Although there was always talk of movie stars around the clubroom, living with one was different. Her existence seemed suddenly to be collapsing into a halflife. She depended on John’s goodwill and income to keep a roof over her head, but on his terms. There were times when she felt that he was irritated by her presence. Of late, he had been spending time with a young novelist called Madeleine Murat. Although she was only nineteen she had written a novel called Sidestreet, hailed by the critics as brave and compelling. It featured movie sets and film directors, homosexual men having complicated relationships with women, and a cynical critic to whom the main character becomes pregnant, although she really loves someone else. Jean wondered where she had done her research. She had only met Madeleine once, a restless, pretty girl who exclaimed a lot and made dramatic gestures with her hands. ‘Are you in love with her?’ Jean asked her brother. Love was on her mind a lot these days, both its absence, and too much of it.

  John had been evasive. ‘What’s love?’ he’d said. ‘It’s nice to be seen around town with a girl. She’s famous, you know.’

  ‘She talks a lot,’ Jean said.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘You don’t like it that she’s famous.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous, John,’ she said, stung. ‘Wait until I break Amy Johnson’s record.’

  He gave her look bordering on condescension. ‘It’s been done,’ he said. ‘Why bother doing it again?’

  ‘So I should be writing books about sex?’ she said.

  They were very close to a quarrel.

  ‘Madeleine’s breaking new ground,’ he said. ‘She’s daring and fearless. The critics think so.’

  Jean stormed out of the room, though that was barely out of sight, and threw herself on the bed. If this kept up, she supposed she would have to find somewhere else to live, although so far John hadn’t brought Madeleine to the flat. She wondered if he were waiting for Jean to leave, so that he could bring her here.

  Frank Norton wrote her a letter care of Stag Lane.

  My darling beauty,

  My life without you is so lonely. I can’t tell you how much a fellow can want to be with a woman the way I want to be with you. I think of you every minute and strike the days off on the calendar until this time in Quetta is over. Baluchistan is a harsh and difficult place. There are no white girls here, but even if there were I wouldn’t give any of them a sideways look. I know you have said there is nothing between us, but if we were together again I’m sure I could change your mind. Are you all right for money? I have nothing to spend mine on here. You must tell me if there is anything you need.

  Always yours,

  Frank

  She screwed the letter up in disgust. As if she wanted his money. Early the following morning she got up while John was still asleep, and began preparing a pot of soup. He was sleeping deeply on the couch, his blanket pulled up to his chin. For a moment, she saw the old childish John, his glee as they dressed up in their parents’ clothes. She wanted to touch him in his sleep, like their mother did when they were children, brushing hair back from his face, settling a kiss on his forehead with the end of her finger. It seemed better not to disturb him.

  She began to peel vegetables, but her movement at the little kitchen bench woke him anyway.

  ‘What are you doing, Jean?’

  ‘I thought I’d prepare dinner before I went out. I know you like it early.’

  ‘Oh, do what you like. Don’t you always?’ He crawled out from under the blanket, his face grey.

  ‘That bed’s too short for you,’ Jean said. ‘Why don’t I sleep there tonight?’

  He seemed about to say something but thought better of it. She turned her back while he put on a dressing gown and collected some coins for the bathroom. When he left the room, she scrawled a note, telling him to turn the gas down on the stove when the soup was ready, and left for Stag Lane.

  There was a party that night. One of the pilots was turning twenty-one and he ordered champagne for everyone. Nellie’s familiar refrain about the dangers of alcohol stirred in Jean’s brain. She didn’t need much reminding, having seen the way Frank Norton behaved when he’d been drinking, but the idea of champagne was seductive, just this once. The bubbles looked pretty in the wide glasses. The young man, who was called Mostyn, with a double-barrelled surname that Jean never could remember when she thought back to that night, insisted that she try a glass. Hadn’t she drunk champagne when she turned twenty-one, that’s if she were that old, though he could believe she mightn’t be yet? ‘Oh, I’m ancient,’ she quipped, ‘Twenty-two is as old as the grave.’

  Someone said, on a sombre note, that they might as well drink up, because who knew when their turn would come. There had been an air accident up north just the week before and two people had died in the crash.

  Mostyn said, ‘Not on my birthday, please.’ He filled Jean’s glass to the brim. She sipped and the champagne seemed as light as lemonade, not harmful at all.

  Charles Ulm was in town, reconnoitering for a flight he was planning the following year. He recognised Jean immediately, singling her out with kisses on each cheek. ‘La belle femme from New Zealand,’ he cried. ‘Well, little Jean Batten, you’ve made it all the way to Stag Lane.’ He held her by the hand, pinning her to his side, while he told the crowd how she had tracked him and Smithy down for her first flight. ‘I knew she was going to make it,’ he said. ‘You could tell from the look in her eye that there’d be no stopping her.’ This attention served to draw her more into the circle. Ulm whispered into her ear, at one stage, ‘Have you got yourself a boyfriend yet?’

  By this time she had had three glasses of champagne. They rustled down her throat, giving her the illusion that she was drinking nothing but bubbles. She turned to him and bit his ear in a playful way. ‘Charlie, if you weren’t married you’d be my very first, you naughty boy,’ she said.

  ‘Charlie, indeed,’ he said.

  There was dancing in the cramped little space near the fireplace, although there wasn’t room for more than one or two couples at a time. She danced with Ulm, and felt her head floating free of her neck. ‘I think I’m drunk,’ she said. He held her close for a moment, his cheek resting on hers. ‘May the first one know what treasure he reaps,’ he said, and let her go.

  Mostyn volunteered to escort her home. It was too far out of his way, she objected, and he would have to go on the train with her. This was all the more reason that someone should escort her, it was decided, as if by committee. She wasn’t the only person who needed help to get home. Others sang as they lurched into the starry night. Charles Ulm watched Jean leave, blowing kisse
s off his hand.

  ‘Goodnight, Charlie boy,’ she called.

  If she had been asked to describe him, Jean would remember Mostyn as a slight young man, fair, with a touch of ginger in his hair, and brown eyes, but then his image would blur. Nothing appeared clear, and as the train sped them towards London, the shape of things became even less distinct.

  John was still up when Mostyn escorted Jean in. His eyes ran over the pair of them.

  ‘She needs to lie down,’ Mostyn said.

  ‘I can see that. Jean, since when did I say you could bring people here in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mostyn said. ‘I just brought her home.’

  John looked at him properly then, his eyes resting on the visitor. The room went deathly quiet. Mostyn was looking back at John, deep colour flooding his cheeks. In spite of her confusion, Jean had a moment of startling clarity. There was something about the way John looked at Mostyn that reminded her of the way her father had looked at her friend, as he held the girl’s waist that day at the beach when she was fifteen. There was longing in the expression, but something more than that. A reckless certainty that he could get what he wanted if he chose. This was the way John was looking at his unexpected visitor, and Mostyn wasn’t turning away from her brother’s gaze.

  The two men walked out of the room, their footsteps echoing in the passage, then disappearing down the stairs. Jean lay down on the bed without taking off her clothes, her head spinning. She wondered, briefly, if people died from getting drunk. Then it was morning, and late at that.

  John was nowhere to be seen, but his shaving brush stood drying on the windowsill, and a cup and saucer rinsed and left out on the bench. There was nothing to indicate how long he had been gone the previous night. Her head was still spinning but she had a vague memory of what had happened. She remembered her flash of intuition: John really didn’t want her around any more.

  She packed her suitcase, not leaving a note as she put her key on the bench and pulled the door behind her. At the post office along the street, she sent a telegram to Frank Norton. Your offer of loan gratefully accepted. Could you manage twenty pounds? Love Jean. She took out the word ‘gratefully’ because it was cheaper. After some reflection, she deleted the word ‘love’.

  In the afternoon, she pawned the watch that Nellie had given her for her twenty-first birthday. In the evening she found a room at Hendon, not far from Stag Lane. The rent for a week was a pound, leaving just three shillings in her purse. The view from the window was appealing — cottages with gardens, a bustling street — but the room was like so many that she had inhabited, with dust in the corners and thin grey blankets on a mattress that had slept many. This time she was alone.

  The events of the night before were foggy. Had she imagined the look between the two men? John had had enough of her in his flat, that much was clear. But he was her brother and she determined to write him a note and tell him where she was. Sooner or later they would be friends again.

  She gazed at her reflection in the mirror hanging above the dressing table. The paint behind it had begun to flake, making spots in the glass, giving her a pock-marked appearance. A woman with a pale, pretty face looked back at her, but the eyes were startled, as if she were seeing herself for the first time. A grown-up woman, with flaws, even if she hid them well from the rest of the world. And a person who, for the moment, was on her own, her splintered family nowhere to be seen.

  A bank draft from Frank arrived within days, and she could eat again. She wrote to thank him in her round, perfect handwriting, which had begun to develop little flourishes, taking care not to be too effusive. Soon, she wrote to him, she would have her commercial licence, and would be able to start earning money. Well, she did still need some more hours, but he could trust her: this money would see her through a bad patch. Before long her mother would set out for England and, as he knew, once she arrived, all would be well. She did not write the fatal word ‘love’ at the end of this letter either. It was unsettling to receive a telegram shortly afterwards that said, My darling, you must not go without anything. I worry about you. More money coming next week.

  Nellie was already on her way to England.

  Frank’s money continued to arrive, week by week.

  CHAPTER 17

  VICTOR DORÉE HAD BEEN SELLING SILK AND LINEN wares in Australia, the place where he first learned to fly. This was now one of his regular destinations. There was talk of him settling there and establishing a branch of the family business in Sydney. On his first night back in London he made his way to the clubhouse at Stag Lane.

  On seeing Jean, he said, with a note of accusation, ‘You disappeared. I looked everywhere for you.’

  She explained the hurried trip back to New Zealand. A family crisis, now resolved, was how she put it. They would have dinner the very next evening, he declared. Nellie, reunited with Jean, and installed in the room at Hendon, was impressed.

  Victor bought Jean a corsage, and drove her into the city to dine at a restaurant near the Ritz. He ordered oysters for their first course, and poached salmon with mousseline sauce and cucumbers, followed by roast duckling, at which point Jean cried, ‘Enough. I couldn’t possibly eat more than that.’

  By candlelight, he coaxed her to tell him what she had been doing in the last year or more, apart from vanishing to New Zealand, how her flying was progressing, what she hoped to do next. He gave a low whistle when she told him that she was within hours of obtaining her B licence.

  The white silk dress, worn for this special occasion, was fraying and bedraggled. ‘You’re finding things a bit tough, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I mean, financially?’ She wondered if he had caught the whiff of cheap talcum powder. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to pry.’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know how you make ends meet,’ he said ‘Flying’s a pretty expensive pastime.’

  ‘My mother’s a remarkable woman,’ Jean said. ‘She’s living here in London with me. She’s had to sell property in New Zealand to pay for all this.’

  ‘That makes you all the more special,’ he said, full of admiration. ‘Two determined women. You’d honour my family if you brought your mother to visit us.’ The drawing room at Oakleigh was long, with an ornate ceiling and fine furniture worn to a patina with care and the passage of years. The lampshades were made of embroidered silk, the rugs came from Persia, statues stood at intervals in alcoves. The filtered light gleamed through stained-glass windows above a Steinway piano standing at the end of the room.

  ‘Do you happen to play?’ Victor Dorée’s mother asked, on Jean and Nellie’s first visit. She carried herself with the pleasurable certainty of a woman who has successfully raised five sons. Her pepper-andsalt streaked hair was caught up in a loose soft style, small tendrils escaping round her face. The dress she wore that evening was made of a satiny fabric with elaborate pin tucks over her bosom, expensive yet slightly dowdy. ‘I play, of course, and so do the boys, but they seem to grow out of it when they’re older. Sometimes I wonder if any of them have retained a tune in their heads.’

  Nellie said, ‘But of course. Jean can play now if you would like.’ Jean seated herself in front of the piano and immediately began to play her favourite Chopin prelude. Mrs Dorée’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘Exquisite,’ she breathed. ‘Mrs Batten, you have a very accomplished daughter. But I’m sure you know that.’

  Jean continued, while Victor and his family — some of his brothers, like him, still lived at home — listened with rapt attention. They appeared bantering, cheerful young men, but they sat in deferential silence while Jean played.

  ‘Why, you could be a concert pianist,’ Mrs Dorée cried, clapping her hands.

  ‘That was the intention. Jean is one of those young women who can do anything she sets her mind to,’ Nellie said, her voice full of pride. The pair of them slid into the life of the Dorée household as if they had always been part of it. Jean s
howed Victor the outside of the building she and her mother occupied. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t ask you in,’ she said, and he had understood.

  ‘There’s no need,’ he said, ‘when you can visit me. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to live any further away from me. Closer still would be nice, but we’ll have to wait until we’re married.’

  So there it was again. Marriage. This wasn’t even a proposal, rather an expectation, taken for granted. She looked at his closely shaven chin, his broad, seemingly kind face, caught the scent of his expensive cologne. She supposed it might be possible. She wasn’t yet convinced that she loved him as much as he imagined, but surely it would happen in time.

  Nellie had met Madeleine Murat and disapproved. She thought her a flighty, show-offy kind of girl. John, she told Jean, had mentioned the possibility of marriage, which Nellie thought outrageous. The girl had a dirty mind; it was clear she was hanging around the film studio at Elstree in order to gather material for more of her rubbish. She didn’t know how he could entertain the idea of marrying her, although it was clear Madeleine had set her cap at him.

  ‘He can’t marry her,’ Jean exclaimed.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose there’s nothing to stop him, except common sense,’ Nellie said. ‘Well, is there?’

  ‘Not that I know of, darling,’ Jean said, wondering who she was soothing, her mother or herself. If Nellie wondered at the silence between Jean and John, she didn’t dwell on it. She could understand, perhaps, that Jean found the girl’s company intolerable, and besides, they had their own friends now.

  This business of marriage, Jean reflected. It happened to everyone sooner or later, or so it seemed. She thought she might be falling in love with Victor Dorée, but how could one be sure?

  Amy Johnson had just married a man called Jim Mollison. They had met on a commercial flight and agreed to marry within eight hours of setting eyes on each other, while the plane was still in the air. Jim had set a new record flying from Australia to England the year before. Earlier in the year he’d set an England to South Africa record.