The Infinite Air

by Fiona Kidman

  The newspapers had not finished with her yet: Miss Batten seems oblivious to the vast amount of money and resources, and the risk to the lives of others that would be involved in a search for the Gull if it goes down in the sea.

  In the afternoon of that last day in Sydney, Fred Batten rang his daughter from his dental practice in Auckland, with reporters listening in.

  ‘Do you promise not to take off unless the weather’s perfect?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Dad, I promise.’

  ‘Are you feeling up to it?’

  ‘Dad, I’m in the pink,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you in Auckland about four tomorrow afternoon. No, Dad, no. I won’t come if the weather is bad.’

  She had a late lunch with Beverley in the seclusion of her rooms. He had wanted to take her to Darling Point to see his mother, but she reminded him she had to get to Richmond, where she had been offered a bed in the officers’ mess, and some sleep. ‘I’m still waiting,’ he said, as he kissed her. It was a peace offering of sorts.

  ‘I love you,’ she said. But already he had gone.

  At Richmond more telegrams were waiting. All these wished her good luck, and Jean wondered if the secretary who had been assigned to her had sifted out all the negative messages. One from Nellie: My prayers go with you and I am confident you will succeed. Telegrams from Lord Londonderry, and Viscount Wakefield, from the French Air Minister, and a group of ex-servicemen. Good on you, Jean, they said. Don’t be put off by all the Jeremiahs. You will make it all right. She laughed out loud.

  At half past two she rose and spent a long time looking at the weather chart. An intense depression was moving over her route. The decision had to be made quickly: wait for the weather to pass, or alter her course and land at New Plymouth. In the back of her head, a small voice was asking why Smithy had not listened to the weather report that he must have surely received that morning in Allahabad.

  ‘I’m going,’ she said.

  The Gull was wheeled out. She did the last check of her maps and charts.

  A long line of flares burned brightly along the runway, lighting a path in the darkness. A small crowd had assembled. As she turned the Gull into the wind, pausing to make a final check, a man ran forward with a microphone. ‘Say a few words, Jean,’ he shouted.

  ‘Very well,’ she shouted above the roar of the engine, ‘but I want the group captain to hear what I have to say.’ She cut the motor and spoke to tense white faces looking up at her. ‘Listen, if I go down in the sea no one must fly out to look for me. I’ve chosen to make this flight, and I’m confident I can make it, but I have no wish to imperil the lives of others or cause trouble or expense to my country. Goodbye for now. I’ll be back.’

  She released the brakes, gave the engine full throttle. The bright line of flares flashed past. Nearing the last one, she eased the plane off the ground. The Gull climbed swiftly through the darkness.

  CHAPTER 30

  IN LONDON, NELLIE BATTEN LEANED CLOSE to the radio to hear the broadcast from New Zealand. The announcer was honking with excitement.

  ‘Jean Batten is arriving. They can just see her way down on the horizon, right away, miles away, but she is coming along very fast and bearing straight down on the clubhouse, coming straight through. Here comes Jean Batten right now … her silver plane is shining away there and round she comes. She’s taking a circle round the aerodrome and losing height and round she comes.

  ‘… the first message we got was that she was sighted from New Plymouth flying north at 4.04. She did not land at New Plymouth. The next message we got was that she was … Mokau 4.15, then … three miles south of Kawhia at 4.35 and well out to sea.

  ‘Here she is, coming just past the tent now on the right-hand side. She is coming over the crowds and is losing height all the time. Everybody is tensed up and they are all ready to cheer her. It won’t be long before you won’t be able to hear me for the cheer they give Miss Jean Batten, the New Zealand aviator … The crowd surges forward, a large crowd of police, mounted police, foot police and traffic inspectors and they are having a great job to keep the crowd back. Here’s Mr Batten very anxious to get down and meet her.

  ‘Here she is coming down, she is down about twenty feet now, about ten feet, she is nearly on the ground, just very near the tops of those motor cars and nearly touches them. A beautiful three-point landing she is going to make … Here she comes … I don’t know whether you can hear me or not … We can see a white … a white helmet …’

  IN AUCKLAND, THE SPEECHES HAD BEGUN. First the mayor spoke. ‘Words fail me to express adequately to you the feelings of all the persons here today. But Jean, you are a very naughty girl, and really I think you want a good spanking for giving us such a terribly anxious time here. We knew you could do it, but we did not want you to run the risk.’

  Jean decided to let this go. What was the point of a quarrel when she had barely landed? In Australia, she had been reminded forcibly that, here in the Antipodes, she was in a man’s world.

  This had been one of the loneliest flights of her life. The storm had broken soon after she left Richmond. The rain was intense, just like the tropics, only very cold. The cabin began to leak, and the water soaked her shoulders. She was flying blind in low cloud. An albatross provided some company for a few moments. Soon after, emerging from the cloud, she had looked down at what appeared like a wreath in the water, and saw that it was a whale swimming just beneath the surface, so that its back looked green. She thought of the spirit of Moby Dick, and wished intensely that she could see land. At this time of year, whales swam through Cook Strait, and she had a sudden fear that she was passing through the strait and out beyond towards the Pacific Ocean. In a few minutes, in teeming rain, she had seen that her course was true, as she flew over New Plymouth.

  She was tired and cold, and there were still speeches from dignitaries of every kind, the government, and women’s organisations, and the air force. There were cheers for her father, whom it seemed must now be counted as one of her very best friends in the world.

  Finally, her teeth chattering with cold, she was able to speak. ‘Ever since I had my very first flight,’ Jean said to the huge gathering, ‘I had in mind the linking of Great Britain and New Zealand by air. I left England on October fifth, and although I wasn’t trying to break the solo record to Australia, I was able to break the men’s record and arrive in Australia just a little over five days after leaving London’.

  The crowd screamed with delight, an animal herd braying.

  ‘By continuing my flight from Darwin the following day I was able to fly on to Sydney and arrive there from London in the fastest time ever — one week. Before I left England I didn’t think of the Tasman as a separate flight but just as one hop of the complete flight, and I had in my mind the thoughts that, as you all know, New Zealand is the only dominion of Great Britain that has not yet been linked, that had not yet been linked to Great Britain by air in direct flight.

  ‘I’m very happy to arrive in New Zealand today, and incidentally, nine and a half hours after leaving Australia, thereby creating another record, and actually today I am just ten days, twenty-one hours out from England, so in this flight, I was able to fly through from England to New Zealand in the fastest time in the history of the world.’

  The mob had become hysterical. Ambulances were moving in to pick up people who were being trampled.

  ‘I don’t need to add how pleased I am to see you all here to greet me, and I think I can say without doubt this is the very greatest moment of my life.’

  The crowd now began to sing ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. The mounted police carved a path through the crowd as she was driven in a motorcade to her hotel. If it were peace she was seeking, it wasn’t there. Already, the first of thousands of telegrams and letters had begun to arrive. The reception area was heaped high with flowers. Within a day or so, four secretaries would be employed by the government to help her deal with the correspondence.

  The London n
ewspapers had new classical names for her. The Times dubbed her the New Diana, while the Morning Post referred to her as the Atalanta of the Air. She wasn’t sure that either of these descriptions applied to her, but the image of herself as Atalanta, the virgin huntress, unwilling to marry, was particularly unsettling.

  There was a cable of congratulation from Beverley, followed by his silence.

  NEWS OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY BEGAN TO SURFACE. Harold had gone bankrupt and shifted further north. John and Madeleine were living in Tahiti, where Madeleine could write in peace and the living was cheap. Fred was cagey about this. He said something to the effect that Madeleine was planning to spend some time on her own. Freda Stark was working as a clerk somewhere. There had been a scandal when Thelma Trott, Freda’s lover, was murdered by her husband Eric Mareo. Freda had been a star witness for the prosecution. Valeska said Freda was thinking about dancing again, and how nice it would be if they got together. Jean agreed, but there were days when she was overcome with a great lethargy, and when she thought about the drama of Freda’s life, and that of her own, she found it hard to muster the energy to pursue this meeting. Malcolm MacGregor, whom she had got to know in the days following the Melbourne Air Race, had died in an air crash in Wellington. She had heard this, of course. He was part of the roll call.

  Fred Batten, now a doting father, appeared at her door late one afternoon. He had special access to his daughter, and nobody questioned his right to knock whenever he came up the stairs by the side entrance.

  ‘A quiet word if I may,’ he said to Jean. ‘Something private.’ He looked around with a meaningful glance at the secretaries, and a photographer who had just finished a sitting with Jean.

  ‘I wish you’d called up, Dad,’ Jean said when the room was cleared. ‘You can see what a lot I’ve got to deal with. Is this about the family?’

  ‘It might be if something isn’t done.’ He held his hat by its rim and turned it around carefully with the tips of his fingers. ‘I had Frank Norton to see me this morning.’

  ‘Frank Norton? That man …’

  ‘I seem to remember you liked him well enough once.’

  ‘I can’t bear to even think about him. What does he want?’

  ‘He tells me you owe him a lot of money. Five hundred pounds.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘He says he paid for your commercial flying lessons.’ There was a silence. ‘Well, Jean?’

  ‘It’s not quite like that, Dad.’

  ‘I have to know.’

  ‘Why? Why do you have to know?’

  ‘Because he’s downstairs now, and he says he’s going to the press if you don’t pay up. He says he met some woman he wants to marry and that it’s impossible because all his pension is gone, and he can’t support a wife.’

  Jean jumped up from her chair, shaking, her fists clenched, the muscles in her neck taut with fury. ‘The pig. The rotten blackmailing pig. And don’t you look at me like that. I’m not your sweet little girl any more.’ She collapsed onto a sofa, and put her face in her hands. ‘He did help me with some money. It wasn’t five hundred pounds, nothing like it. He had five hundred when he came out of the RAF. God knows what he did with it. Drank it, probably.’

  ‘Why didn’t you pay him?’

  ‘He had his money’s worth.’

  ‘Jean. What are you saying?’

  ‘Oh, never mind. You say he’s downstairs?’

  When her father nodded, she said at last, ‘Tell him I’ll bring him down a cheque in a few minutes. Please, stay with him. Don’t let him near me. Do you promise?’

  After her father left the room, she gathered herself together as best she could. Her hands were still shaking as she wrote a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds. As she emerged from the lift, she saw the two men talking, and wondered what Frank had told her father. He looked at her, his face bloated and red.

  ‘Hello, Jean,’ he said, his voice too hearty.

  Jean held out the cheque without saying a word, turning away without waiting to see what he made of it and retreating up the stairs. As she left, she heard him say, ‘Well, I know when I’m beaten. She always was a tough bitch. A man-eating bitch, if you’ll forgive me, Mr Batten.’

  Her father returned to her room.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

  ‘I came to see if you were all right. I’m worried about you, my little Mit. Look at you, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Your little Mit, no, I told you those days are over. You shouldn’t have interfered.’

  ‘I didn’t ask to be in the middle of all this,’ he said, his tone sharp. ‘I’d been quite content with my life until you brought all this on me.’

  ‘You should go now.’

  They stood gazing at one another, her expression steely, until he made a futile gesture and left.

  THE TOUR OF THE COUNTRY SHE HAD PROMISED to make now began, but the crowds turning up to hear her were not as great as in the past. There was a certain dull resentment in the eyes of some in her audiences. She was rich and they were on the bones of their backsides. The prospect of flying around the country was daunting. She couldn’t understand why she felt so tired. Instead, she asked that she go by train or by car from one destination to another. She made it to Hamilton on the train; from there she was driven by a chauffeur to Wellington. In the middle of the Desert Road, with the mountains high and white in the distance, and the purple heather dark with spring growth at the edge of the red clay banks lining the road, a car came towards them. The chauffeur called out to say that he knew who it was.

  ‘Does it matter?’ she said, as he pulled over to the side of the road, hooting the horn.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the man said, jumping out to open the door for her. The other car pulled to a halt and the two chauffeurs greeted each other. The passenger, a slim man with a shock of fair curls got out, and walked towards them. Jean saw no option but to get out, too.

  The passenger held out his hand. ‘Hello there, good to meet you, Miss Batten. I’m Jack Lovelock.’

  ‘Well, what about that,’ Jean said. ‘Goodness, what would the cartoonists make of us now? You should be running and I should be flying.’

  He grinned. There seemed nothing more to say. They climbed back into their respective cars, and drove off in opposite directions from each other.

  Jean made it to Wellington, but the ominous stretching of her nerves had reached breaking point. Something inside her snapped. It was time to stop. The Prime Minister, Michael Savage, on learning of her state, offered her a holiday at the expense of the government, and suggested that a hotel on the West Coast of the South Island might be an ideal retreat. He had not been told the exact nature of her illness (it was first reported as pneumonia), but he seemed to sense her need to be relieved of the public’s attention. A bachelor who lived a secluded private life, he, too, was mobbed wherever he went. At the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, she might have privacy and complete rest. In the meantime, he intended to take up a public collection on her account.

  Fred sent a telegram care of Thomas Cook in London, praying it would find its way to Nellie. I am worried about our daughter. Please telephone me. Here is my number. The phone woke him in the early hours of the following day, Nellie’s voice crackling over a distance that seemed as long as the time since they had last spoken.

  They spoke at length. Jean could not manage alone, he said, and what he had to offer seemed inadequate. He thought she was half crazy, or worse, and now it had come to this, that the Prime Minister had got involved. Savage was probably a madman himself, who knew, but he was kind. Could they not, he suggested, put their differences aside, and try to help Jean? If they could spend Christmas together as a family, it might heal some of the wounds of the past. There was a very long silence at the other end, punctuated by Fred saying, ‘Are you there? Are you there, Nellie? Nellie, it’s a bad line, can you hear me?’

  ‘I can hear you, Fred,’ Nellie said. ‘I understand
what you’re saying.’

  She was standing in a little booth in the post office at Hatfield. She put the phone down, and paid the postmistress the enormous bill for the call.

  When she got back to her flat, Nellie picked up her suitcase, which she kept packed for emergencies, walked out the door and pushed the key through the letterbox, waiting only an instant to hear it land on the floor. She walked to the Tube and caught a train to Kings Cross, where she made a booking. In the morning she boarded a ship bound for New Zealand.

  AT FRANZ JOSEF, THE HOTEL WHERE JEAN WAS NOW in hiding was almost deserted, the winter season over. She walked by the lakes, or watched the great river of ice, framed with dark green bush and ferns, with a fixed fascination. The glacier, pale green, thrust like a gigantic tongue out of the mountains. It was known to advance and retreat, sometimes quickly, other times inching backwards and forwards. When the days were clear in the mountains, the snow-covered peaks of Mounts Cook and Tasman could be seen; as the sun set they glowed with dazzling orangeade reflections, while down below, at the level of the glacier, the evening turned dark purple. On other days, the rain fell in steady insistent downpours and the fog lingered on the valley floors.

  The quietness began to fill the empty spaces in Jean’s head. A pure and absolute silence descended on her — a white silence was the way she saw it. She sat for long periods of time, absorbing the stillness. This was how it must be, she thought, time to rest from fame and move to the next chapter of her life.

  When she had been there for ten days or more, she wrote a letter:

  My darling Bev,

  I long to hear from you. Our meeting in Australia was not as either one of us expected. What did I expect? I don’t know, really. I suppose that I wanted everything to carry on just where we left off. But how could it, with me dashing off to New Zealand? I know that I flew here against your better judgement, and, if we are to be together, I need to pay more attention to what you think about things.