*
Fleming made a sudden movement and Julie looked up sharply from her place on the carpet in front of the quiescently warm electric fire. Her voice sounded jagged and anxious, and somehow even the words she spoke now seemed a part of the compulsive prescription. ‘Where are you going?’
He followed it to the letter. ‘To pack,’ he said, and knew as he left the room that it was intrinsic with his own blueprint for disaster that he had left it far too late.
*
The next morning it had been perfect flying weather . . .
The chilled sun threw crisp shadows down from the hangars on to the tarmac. The Jet-Four, well ahead in her test programme, immaculate in her record and only differing in her performance in the degree to which she exceeded in excellence the promise of her specifications, shone in the winter sunlight.
Fleming, for the first time in his memory, failed to warm to her lines. It was as if a chemical reaction, which had never been known to fail before, petered-out before the eyes of a laboratory audience so accustomed to its inevitable success that they were stupefied.
Fear had never stood in the way of Fleming’s flying hitherto because it was something which disintegrated the moment the first engine responded to compression and came alive. You knew this on your way to the airfield; and the tension you felt mounting inside you as you reached the black and white painted barrier at the entrance of the field swung through several emotions in rapid succession until it registered excitement and anticipation. By the time you had been through the briefing room and arrived on the ramp and caught the first glint of alloy as the aircraft became visible, tucked round the corner behind the hangars, your fear was submerged and it didn’t matter.
You could feel it, yes, when you climbed aboard the aircraft. You could dream about it at night, and wake up sweating—only to go over the joy of the previous day’s flying and look forward to more. You could brood about it in the abstract; or feel the jolt of it when reading through an accident report.
But you flew with fear and you understood it. And part of your pleasure, upon entering the polished hull of a prototype aeroplane, stemmed from the succulent conviction that you were about to respond to a challenge.
Until now.
You see Jimmy Truman coming across the apron from the weather office and you loathe his guts. He is the man you least want to fly with in the world, yet you know you must. You echo his cheerful smile and easy greeting and you try not to give away that you know his place in the plan of your defeat. Nor do you realise, at that point, that it takes more than one participant to evolve a plan which commits two people to a contest they only half know about. You do not know, as yet, that you are on a see-saw, whose very essence is that of instability, so that one must rise while the other falls.
Yet you know, within yourself, that you are sinking; that your own stature in your own eyes has shrunk. And also you see, in the eyes of Jimmy Truman, that he knows it. For an instant you wish you were testing down at the factory near Bresham, instead of here, because Ken Woodford has always believed in you and has never been sure about Truman. Somehow, the unspoken alliance would have helped. But you are away from the home farm now; and the green fields of Hertfordshire, the territory of a powerful rival whose factory lies only a few miles away, seem alien and remote.
You climb into the aircraft behind Truman who strides up the steps with an arrogant bounce, and you falter for a moment in the cockpit because you feel unsuited to the left-hand seat. The man who has taken your woman with your kind permission is the man you must now give orders, because you are in command of the aeroplane. And the mockery of this is both in your own heart and in his face.
So you wonder, while you go through the familiar preflight drills, whether you will be restored to confidence, as you always have been in the past, when the first engine throbs its heartbeat into the airframe. Then you hesitate, when it’s time to start up, because you’re terrified it won’t. You know that your insecurity cannot be assuaged by the power of jet turbines; and now you are praying there is something more to it than that, because otherwise you have merely been dependent on something which should have been dependent on you.
You give the order to start engines; and then, surging through you, taking you utterly by surprise for the shock of it, so that a ripple of electricity streaks along your spine and stimulates the roots of your hair until the back of your neck is tingling, the formula is restored.
And as the rising note of the first engine thrums along the main spar and grasps the aircraft and alerts each of its nerve centres until what had been inert is a living thing, you understand.
You understand that you are experiencing what everyone else does . . . the actor upon the rise of the curtain, the surgeon upon the administration of the anaesthetic, the golfer on placing the ball on the first tee. You are responding to a conditioned reflex which cannot fail you; and you realise that you are not a drug addict dependent upon the combustion of fuel in an engine bay, but that you are awakened by it and through years of training, of flying experience, of basic technical knowledge and craft, you cannot defeat yourself that easily.
You look across at Jimmy Truman, and he returns your glance. Momentarily, a curiously translucent look comes into his eyes which you have seen once or twice before. And you remember three words: . . . It isn’t him . . .
You execute a perfect take-off and you climb, not particularly steeply, into a frosty sky. You give your orders and you see them carried out. And while you fly, you study opportunity . . . If you are sure you must fail . . . Do you feel you must fail now? Do you feel that the plan you made, apparently so inevitable, must be followed through to its ultimate conclusion? Are you sure you interpreted Clare aright, when she spoke words that came from intuition, and which she herself did not fully evaluate? You know she was right: you felt it. But the word which came first in the sentence was the one word whose significance rests with you.
The word If.
*
Scrivens poked a beaky face round the door of the communications room and focused harassed eyes on Fleming. ‘Mr Gregg is here and would like a word with you immediately.’
‘Gregg?’ Fleming had been so totally absorbed in his thoughts that it was like being awakened from a dream. ‘Mr Gregg is here? Why?’
‘You’d better ask him.’ Scrivens held the door open and waited for Fleming to go through. The Ministry man’s mood seemed to have changed, and he showed a spark of ironic humour. ‘In your padded cell,’ he explained. ‘Only he doesn’t happen to think you are the lunatic.’
‘Who is?’
‘I’m the one he’s hoping to certify.’ Scrivens led the way to the elevator.
During the ride Fleming said nothing. His mind had come up against a peculiar barrier.
He couldn’t remember a thing about that flight after the take-off.
As the doors opened again Scrivens said, in an oddly apologetic voice: ‘Of course, you must realise that Mr Gregg has no official say in this matter whatsoever.’
‘I understand.’
‘However, since he’s here, and is a man who commands a good deal of respect, I see no reason why we should not take his views fully into account.’
Scrivens was slightly red in the face as he said this, but refrained from conveying to Fleming the reason for his smarting cheeks. Instead he opened the door of the little room which was by now so familiar to Fleming, showed him in, and shut the door with a snap behind him.
Gregg was poring over the table at some sheets of paper and did not look up as he spoke. ‘Are these your workings?’
Gregg had given his bones a temporary reprieve after the swift drive from town. They ached within him, so he sat at the table smoking a cigarette which sagged unattended from his lips and smelled of menthol, which chemical for a while would hold-off his other disability. He half-cowled his eyes in order to study the jottings through the exhaust fumes, as if it were a necessity to make the task more difficult than need
be.
But this was the way he had always worked—crouched, rather than seated, slow and measured in his speech except when a rapped order was required of him by the sheer progress of a stop-watch, consistent in attitude in a way which made his more volatile colleagues feel cheated out of something. But he understood them, and respected the talent that went with the associated personality. Patiently he would permit a temperamental man spew out extraneous matter in preparation for the fruitful oil that lay deeper in the gusher. First came the steam and the hot air. He would wait patiently for the pressure of this to give itself vent; and then switch his full attention to the rig when the true mineral belched out with an original idea.
‘It’s a rough outline of what I think could be done,’ Fleming said.
‘Then why aren’t they doing it?’
Fleming held himself in check. Gregg had been one of the few with whom he had never erupted in the full sense. There was a mutual respect between them—despite Fleming’s decision to leave the company—which precluded this, and Fleming fought the temptation to destroy this now. He spoke carefully. ‘It does mean,’ he said, ‘that once they’ve committed themselves to my plan there’s no way back. It’s a difficult decision for the captain and I can quite see his point of view.’
‘Don’t talk absolute balls. You don’t agree with his point of view and the man is only wasting time and he hasn’t much of it. Who is his flight engineer?’
‘A man called Simmonds. I don’t know him but I had a brief word with him on the RT. He didn’t seem very impressed.’
Gregg slooped himself over the sheets of paper and picked up the telephone. ‘Bresham 54,’ he said, and hung up. Then he swivelled painfully around and faced Fleming. ‘I told Ken I’d phone him when I got here. I must say it’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it? Have you spoken to this chap Dawlish?’
‘No. Who is he?’
‘A director of the airline. I personally wouldn’t employ him to deliver the milk. He’s making things awfully difficult for Scrivens. After all, this isn’t a Ministry decision and all Scrivens can officially do is to make sure that every possible aid is given to the captain, whichever way he lands. What did you do to put them off their rice pudding! Undo your flies in the passenger lounge?’
‘Not quite. But I can see why they’re worried——’
‘My dear chap, that’s your trouble. You see everybody’s point of view except your own. Don’t try to take-off on half power, if you see what I mean . . . Wait a minute, that must be Ken now.’ He reached out an arm behind him without turning round, and found the telephone receiver as if he had noted its exact position on the table in advance. ‘Gregg here.’
Woodford’s voice cracked along the line with the staccato urgency of a teletype machine. ‘Any news?’
‘Not yet. We have opposition and I’m just in for a battle royal with Dawlish, who has been talking to Captain Crooke on the radio and explaining he mustn’t trust anybody.’
‘What about Fleming?’
‘With me now.’
‘Is he all right, or can’t you talk?’
Gregg acted it well. ‘I’ll let you know in a few minutes. But I think they have a good chance.’
‘I follow.’
Gregg hung up. ‘You’d better be ready with this stuff, Robert. By the time I’ve broken through the idiot-barrier there isn’t going to be much time to spare.’ He heaved himself out of the chair with a psychological shoe-horn. ‘Incidentally, what on earth is that girl Julie doing here?’
‘She thought she could help.’
Gregg limped toward the door. ‘Why are you so useless with women, Robert? The only one who was any good you dropped like a hot potato.’
‘If you mean Clare, I knew she wanted me to go.’
Gregg’s expression marked the vast gap that existed between their respective patterns of experience. ‘Yes, I suppose you would think that. But of course, if you signal frantically to a girl that you are about to slit your own throat, what’s she supposed to do?—hide all the kitchen knives?’
‘She spoke to you about it, then?’
‘Clare is a wise young woman. She didn’t have to say much. Only next time you take a girl up that hill, Robert, talk to her on the way up; then there won’t be so much to say on the way down.’ He didn’t wait for comment. ‘This man Crooke is one of Statelines’ best captains. Next time you get on to the RT to him, don’t apologise for yourself. People like Crookey-Boy prefer to take people’s self-doubts for granted.’
‘I’d prefer you to speak to him.’
Gregg studied him from the doorway. ‘I bet you would! Nothing doing.’ He looked Fleming up and down humorously. ‘You look as if you could use a few steaks,’ he said, and hobbled out of the room. In the corridor he found Scrivens. ‘Anything fresh?’
‘No.’ Scrivens thumbed toward the door Gregg had just closed. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’m going to leave that for you to decide, Mr Scrivens. It’s up to him to influence you. If he can’t, it means that he’s not going to be a help.’
Scrivens acknowledged this silently and pushed the button for the elevator. ‘This story is getting round fast. Just had the navigator’s wife on the phone, though I don’t know how she knew. People should know better than to worry wives at a time like this.’ The elevator arrived and slid its door across phlegmatically. ‘I reassured her as best I could. I hope I didn’t mislead her . . .’
*
Jeannie Perkins felt terribly small in the big bed.
It was such an enormous place to be, on your own, and wherever you lay in it you felt lost in a forest of sheets and things, and every now and then you came across a pillow, and that made you feel lonely for a moment. Then you didn’t feel lonely because that was Roger’s pillow and Roger would be back in three days.
It was a place of great importance, this bed. Jeannie had not shared one before her marriage. Since it seemed that all her friends, on the other hand, had, she felt a bit ashamed, as well as nervous almost to the point of being frightened—except it was impossible to be frightened by Roger.
The wedding night had started off by being a puzzling disappointment. She had got over her diffidence as soon as Roger had come out of the bathroom in a brand new pair of pyjamas. Then it had suddenly become such a romantic idea to be alone with him, in this particular way, after all the hectic business of the wedding and the reception and speeches—including one made by Captain Crooke which, to be honest, had seemed to her a bit bawdy for such an occasion.
But he seemed far away now. And all the excitement and the noise and the champagne belonged to another world.
For she was about to be changed into a woman.
The idea fascinated her for its own sake and was italicised in her own mind. It was like crossing a bridge, and then looking back across the river and finding the bridge no longer there. It seemed dreamily exciting that she and Roger would be crossing it together.
A few days before they got married he had become tense and self-conscious and was trying to tell her something. And when he had at last confessed it both ended up smiling and holding hands.
Now, as Roger emerged from the bathroom it didn’t seem to be worrying him at all. He said something terribly loving and she found herself in his arms and she had replied without searching for words.
And then, suddenly, she had this feeling that she didn’t want to let him down; because he was so terribly excited and she couldn’t understand why she was not excited in the same way. He was trying so desperately hard to be gentle and patient and she felt ashamed because she was just tense. And Roger was saying some reassuring things and this made it worse for the fact that she should have to be reassured.
And then he was on a wave of love that he couldn’t help, and she couldn’t swim with him but could only be the means of his own ecstatic voyage.
She fell silent and thoughtful, and had to pretend. She looked back at the bridge and it was still there, just the same. But she ha
d this feeling that Roger was on one side of it and she the other.
She lay there with her arms around him which felt wonderful. Then she ebbed into a shallow sleep; until she woke up because Roger had got out of bed and was standing by the window. And for an awful moment she thought it was because she had disappointed him, and searched for words which might help make up for it.
But before she could speak, he said: ‘I was just thinking——’
Tensely, she managed one monosyllable. ‘Yes?’
‘You know all those poems I used to write you? . . . I never knew, when I wrote them, how beautiful anything could be.’ He walked over and sat on the bed and began to caress her. ‘I tried to imagine what it would be like—to be alone with you. I used to day-dream, up there in the sky, and think about you and what it would be like to make love.’ He looked at her, and his voice was so different and so soft and so secret. To her it began to seem unreal, as if it were she who was dreaming now. ‘Then, when I saw you lying there, and watched your face reveal so much more than I had known, and when I touched you and found that it was true, I realised that all the poetry in the world couldn’t convey how I feel now, and couldn’t express what I can only express with my body.’
She looked across the river, and saw that she had been wrong about the bridge, and what it meant. For now it seemed to her that she and Roger were running toward each other, from either side of the bridge, and that its apex was their meeting point. And as the imagery changed in her mind and took on a different significance, she was there in Roger’s arms, and the clear stream flowed on, bearing their reflection until the shimmering surface of the water melted the picture into infinity, and carried it down to the sea.
*
Into the memory of this intruded the harsh demands of the telephone bell.
At the other end came a panting. Then a child’s voice which betrayed horror and tears. ‘Jeannie? Is that you, Jeannie? This is Ann.’
Jeannie Perkins sat up with a start, and snapped on the light as she spoke. ‘Ann Crooke?’
‘Jeannie! Please come! Please!’
The Higher They Fly Page 11