The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “It will be all the better tomorrow. We can have it cold,” he said with a pleasant smile.

  “I’ll rush out and buy a refrigerator,” Hester suggested.

  Prudence blinked several times, then recovered. “Where’s Vogue?” she asked dramatically. “Where’s Harper’s Bazaar? I’m going to begin on clothes now.”

  “I’ll make the coffee,” Hester said quickly.

  She stood up, then bent her head forward, listening.

  “I thought I heard a noise upstairs.”

  Everyone listened.

  “I think you’re right,” Maurice said.

  “It’s that damned Harry, searching my room again!” Morgan shouted.

  “But he’s not in the house,” Wade said.

  “Yes, he is. He’s in the bathroom,” Hester said.

  “He’s not, he’s up in my room,” Morgan said, surrendering himself entirely to rage.

  They all began to move out of the room. In the hall they met Harry, coming, not from the bathroom, but the kitchen.

  “Did you hear something?” he asked blandly. “Because I thought I did.”

  They went upstairs, moving far more cautiously now that they feared the existence of a real burglar.

  Morgan, followed by the others, rushed into his bedroom. There was no one to be seen. Maurice ran along the passage and opened another door. It was Wade’s room. He hesitated briefly, then pounced at the far side of the bed.

  “I’ve got him,” he cried, looking in some bewilderment at what he’d got.

  It was a small, fair youth in green trousers and a yellow pullover. He stood with his face sunk on his chest while the others crowded into the room.

  “Ring for the police, Morgan,” Wade said, but when he looked around, Morgan wasn’t to be seen. “Then, Hester, will you ring?”

  “Don’t call in the police, Guv’nor,” the boy whined. “It’s m’first job, and I’ve stolen nothing. Why don’t you kick me round the room? You’d like to give it to me, wouldn’t you? Go on, give me a good kicking.”

  He made an appealing gesture of martyrdom. Wade shrank away.

  “Ring for the police,” Maurice, the voice of society, repeated.

  The boy still stared at his toes. “I’d never have done it, except I thought I’d pick up a watch or a fur coat. I’ve no money and no job and m’mother’s ill. I’m a waiter, see, I was away ill and lost m’job and m’mother’s in hospital. I’d be working if I had the chance. All I need is a chance, see, and I’d work as well as anyone.” He stood drooping before them, one of the system’s rejected serfs.

  Harry laughed. Wade looked at him reproachfully. Harry was always striking the wrong note.

  “Give him a job,” Harry said cheerfully. “You need help in the house, don’t you?”

  “I’ll go straight,” the boy said eagerly. “Honest, Guv’nor, it’s m’first time up a ladder and it’ll be m’last. If I had a job and some money…”

  “Perhaps I could find you work with someone else,” Wade suggested weakly.

  “It’s up to you,” Maurice said crisply. “I’ve no patience with his kind. I’d ring the police and be done with it.” The Wades didn’t sympathise with this intolerant attitude, but by some strange process it made Maurice seem more admirable than ever—a man whose support for society and the law was automatic and unyielding.

  Wade hesitated. “Do you think he’s speaking the truth?” he asked weakly. “Hester?”

  “I don’t know. The police—I’m sure we ought to tell the police. No. Couldn’t we just let him go?” She thought for a minute, then assumed responsibility, as she always would. “Give him a job,” she said firmly. “We must give him a job, Father. I see that now.”

  Prudence had been standing aside, delighted by the drama.

  “If it means someone will wash the dishes, by all means give him a job,” she said in a splendidly bored voice.

  “Give him a job,” Harry agreed. “He might be an honest man. You’ve got the fact that he broke into the house to encourage you.”

  Wade looked unhappy. “We’ll talk it over,” he said.

  “I’ll take the poor fellow into the kitchen and give him a cup of tea,” Harry offered, in a concerned voice.

  Hester, following the others downstairs, thought she heard her name as the echo of a whisper. She turned. About two inches of Morgan’s face was visible through his partially-open door.

  She went back.

  “Hester,” he said, and groaned.

  “If you’re not well, Morgan, why don’t you lie down?” she suggested.

  He put a handkerchief to his lips. He seemed too ill to speak.

  “Are you in pain? Where is it?” She guided him towards his bed.

  He slumped abruptly, like a man on the verge of unconsciousness. She wasn’t sure that she could feel any sympathy for him, but she tried. He must be a very miserable man if his only pleasure lay in pretending to be ill.

  “I think it’s here,” he said, touching his heart fearfully. “And other times it’s in the small of my back.”

  “I think you had better lie down until you have decided,” she said patiently.

  “Hester, have you sent for the police?”

  She sighed. “No, we’ve decided to let him work here for a little. He might change, if he was given a little human sympathy.”

  “First Harry, then a ladder boy! I wonder what your father will collect next? Hester, I’ve been feeling very bad. Do you think a change of air would do me good?”

  “It would depend on the air,” Hester said.

  “Didn’t you say that Ferguson had chartered a plane to go to Ireland?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s looking for someone to share it with him?”

  “He’s looking for three people.”

  “But all the formalities are over already? I wouldn’t have to meet anyone? I mean if I decided to go.”

  “I suppose you’d have to meet the Customs authorities, like everyone else. But do you want to go to Dublin?”

  “It would make a change. Yes, I’d like to go. Just for a few days. I’d come back, you know.”

  She stood with her hand on the door, bored and uneasy, anxious to help, anxious not to be asked to help too much.

  “Why don’t you go and see Uncle Joe about it now?”

  “I’m not well enough to walk all that way.”

  “You could telephone.”

  “I don’t want to see Harry. He’s downstairs.”

  “Harry’s in the kitchen with the burglar, so far as I know.”

  “Hester, do me a favour. Keep them in there while I telephone. For ten minutes. Only for ten minutes, Hester. I don’t want them hanging about, listening and worrying me.”

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “Just for ten minutes.” She disliked being involved in even elementary conspiracies.

  Wednesday (8)

  When Hester went into the kitchen Harry was sitting with his feet on the table, talking to the blond burglar, who looked wispy and immature, like an exploited child, as he stood labouring by the sink. He had taken off his yellow jersey and was exposed in a flowered shirt, reminiscent both of the fashions advertised for Florida and of the waistcoats worn by young bloods in the bound volumes of nineteenth-century Punch. Hester felt mournfully responsible even for his taste in clothes and his lavishly-styled hair. She knew it was Society that made juveniles into delinquents; she represented Society; it was her fault that he had attempted to steal.

  “He’s called Jackie,” Harry told her. “He always washed the dishes for his Mum. That’s why he’s so good at it.”

  “What’s your other name?” Hester asked gently.

  “Daw, Miss.”

  “Change it,” Harry advised seriously. “There are other names that go
with Jack. Try Sprat, or Cade. What about Built? This is the house that Jack Built. Or Broke? This is the house that Jack Broke into. Do you remember the story, Hester? This is the What that lay in the House that Jack broke into. This is the Who that tried to get the What that lay in the House that Jack Broke into.”

  Hester looked at him impatiently. “You’re being silly, Harry.”

  “Am I? Let’s have some coffee. We’ll have it in the kitchen and Jack can tell us the story of his life.”

  Hester filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

  “I haven’t had what you’d call a life,” Jackie said. “This is m’first chance since m’father died. I used to go round with him, see.”

  “What was your father’s job?”

  “He was a lay-about.”

  “How interesting,” Hester said, trying to look enlightened. “What does a lay-about do?”

  “He waits till people go out and leave the door unlocked, then he nips in and takes a handbag or a clock, or the change off of the mantelpiece. His idea was that he’d lay-about and I’d nip in, but I wouldn’t do it.”

  “But of course you wouldn’t,” Hester said, her mind already far away, worrying about the children of burglars. Would they learn to steal? If they admired their fathers, perhaps they would.

  She went out of the kitchen and stood at the bottom of the stairs, and called up softly to Morgan, who was waiting on the landing. He came down absolutely noiselessly, and went to the telephone. She stood by the kitchen door, making mental plans for the protection of burglars’ children. A suppressed part of her mind was wondering what Harry had meant about the What and the Who.

  “I am speaking up,” she heard Morgan whispering into the telephone. “Look, I want to fly to Dublin with you on Friday. Expensive? No, I don’t think that’s too much. Oh, I’ve just taken the fancy to see the place. I’m not sure where I’ll be coming from. I’ll meet you at the airport… Brickford? I’ve never heard of it. What? What did you say the pilot said? A place called the Fairway Arms?”

  He was backing steadily away from the instrument, as though it frightened him. By now he had the flex pulled out as far as it would go. In the dim light of the hall he looked like a monstrous fish tugging weakly against the pull of the line.

  She was listening with a detached part of her mind to the voices from the kitchen. She had an impression that Harry had been making jokes at Jackie’s expense. Morgan was beginning a discussion about the cost of a seat on the plane. She didn’t want to hear his financial views. She turned her attention back to the kitchen.

  “Life is made up of moments of weakness,” she heard Harry saying. “History would never get anywhere at all if it wasn’t.”

  She stopped with her hand on the door. She was too tired to listen to Harry’s interminable theories.

  “Just in case you’re as weak as the rest of us, would you like to take off the dainty gun you have strapped under your shirt?”

  Hester was appalled. It was impossible that a mere boy like Jackie should carry a gun.

  “You know there’s no reason to fire it at me,” Harry said in a coaxing voice. “You’d only be destroying innocence. I’m not trying to turn you in. You’ll get in bad trouble if you’re found with a gun on you now. Old Bailey trouble.”

  “I’ll do you in, you slimy bastard,” Jackie said.

  “If you pull that gun on me, I’ll run for my life, screaming,” Harry said. “That’s a threat.”

  Hester tried to open the door. Someone was standing against it. She thought of Harry, bravely waiting to be shot, defending her.

  “Let me in,” she said desperately.

  She pushed. The door opened suddenly. Harry, with one hand in his pocket, stood smiling at her. Jackie was turning back to the sink.

  “Jackie’s going to be very happy here,” Harry said blandly. “He looks happier already, don’t you think?”

  “I thought I heard—some kind of argument,” Hester said.

  “We were only getting to know each other. What are you going to do when you’ve dried the dishes, Jackie? Cosh your benefactor with a bicycle chain? Or do you mean to stay?”

  “Stay.”

  Hester looked at them both uncertainly. It was impossible that they should be so calm if they had just been fighting over a gun. She looked at Jackie’s flowered shirt. It had no menacing bulges, but it was unbuttoned down the front.

  “It’s hot tonight,” Jackie said apologetically. “Excuse me, Miss.” He buttoned the shirt up to the neck again.

  “What brought you this way?” Harry asked.

  “Just walking about. Haven’t been in the country since I was a kid, see. Then I wanted a place to spend the night. I thought I’d doss down in that bedroom.”

  “Like Goldilocks,” Harry said approvingly.

  Hester was suddenly so tired of the conversation that she turned and left the room. Morgan had finished his telephoning. There was no one in the hall. She thought she heard her father’s voice. He was probably talking to Maurice about money.

  She was anxious to avoid all of them. She didn’t want to be confronted with another problem that night. She needed time to think of herself, to let her mind move slowly out of the climate of anxiety. She went out into the garden, and along the path to where the roses grew. They sprawled and twisted in a riot of neglect; in the dusk of the faintly star-lit night they had no colour, but their scent proclaimed them. She bent and picked a rose that dropped under the weight of its unfurled petals. She sat down on the grass and held the rose to her face, while the petals fell silently, like shadows, on her lap. She wondered what it would be like to go to Ireland alone, to charter a plane and leave and stay on the plane for months, like a hermit in his hut, only flying free, with no old problems to solve and no new problems to meet.

  She sat for ten minutes or more, with the scent of the rose in her head, her mind slowly emptying, then filling again with languid dreams, imprecise and enchanting. Then she stood up and strolled across the grass towards the trees that were black shadows floating into the nearly black sky. She heard someone move.

  “Harry?” she asked uncertainly.

  “I’m not Harry,” a man’s voice replied.

  She turned to run.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “I’ll go away. Look, I’m walking back towards the gate.”

  Hester stopped. It was a sign of hysteria, to run away from strangers in the dark.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. She could see him now, dimly. He turned towards her. “Don’t come near me,” she said quickly.

  “I won’t come near. I’ve been watching you in the garden. I know I’ve no right to be here.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I saw a man climb up a drainpipe.”

  “Are you a policeman?”

  “No, but I’ve been watching your house. He didn’t climb down again. Are you interested?”

  “He’s in the kitchen. He’s going to work for us.”

  “Do your servants always arrive by drainpipe?” he asked, and Hester laughed.

  “Why were you in the garden?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer the question immediately. “Tell me something? What’s the name of the man who came here to dinner—who came by car?”

  “Reid. Maurice Reid.”

  “Reid.” He sounded satisfied. “Have you known him long?”

  “I don’t see why I should discuss—”

  “Oh, you’re getting in a weak position,” he said. “Now you’ve told me his name, you’ll have to justify yourself. I don’t mind how long it takes you, I like your voice. In gratitude for the name, I’ll tell you why I’m here. I saw him in an underground in London, and I’ve followed him all day. But I didn’t know if it was the right man.”

  “And is it?”

  “Yes
.”

  “I’ll tell him you’re following him,” she said.

  “Yes, I wish you would.”

  “Why?”

  “It will give him something to think about.”

  “If you mean to do him harm, I’ll ring the police.”

  “If I leave your garden, you’ll have no reason to ring the police. I’ll go now. Don’t forget to tell him he’s being followed. What’s your name?”

  “Wade.”

  “That can’t be all of it.”

  “Miss Wade,” she suggested.

  “Miss Wade, good night.”

  “Wait,” she called, but he went away.

  She went back into the house. Her father and Maurice were still talking. She knew it was possible to interrupt, to tell Maurice he was being followed, but he would look at her in amazement, he would think she was mad, there would be more questions and answers. The stranger had wanted her to tell Maurice—it was surely better not to act on the advice of strangers. The arguments swirled round in her head, then cleared away, leaving her to see that doubts of some kind were forming in her mind about Maurice. She watched his face carefully while she said:

  “Maurice, there was a man in the garden. I spoke to him. He said he was there to follow you.”

  She saw Maurice’s eyes drop swiftly with the effort of concentrated thought, then he looked up, still smiling.

  “Some madman, I suppose,” he said. It seemed to her he spoke with great effort. “Perhaps we should search the garden?” he suggested slowly.

  “He’s gone,” Hester said quickly. “He didn’t know your name at first. He may have been making it all up.”

  “You told him my name?” Maurice asked sharply.

  “What does it matter?” she said wearily. “It’s not as though you had anything to hide. I told him my name, too.”

  “Hester! What—how could you come to talk to a strange man in the dark? He—might have been dangerous,” Wade said.

  “Here I am,” she said impatiently, “so he wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I rather liked the sound of his voice. No, Father, don’t be upset. I’m not really as silly as I sound.” She crossed the room and kissed him. “He seemed very safe. And he’s gone now. I promise you.”