The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “You have patriotism mixed up with loyalty to horses,” Harry explained to him. “It’s the fault of your old regiment.”

  “Why are you going to Ireland, Uncle Joe?” Hester asked quickly.

  “Business. There’s a man over there; he owns some cinemas, and he’s looking under the fauteuils every night for television sets, so now he wants to have a nervous breakdown in Jamaica and I buy his cinemas. I have to go quickly because already he begins to draw television aerials by accident when he tries to sign his name. But Aer Lingus is booked up. Then I remember meeting a pilot with a plane to charter. In fact, it was you, Harry, who made me buy this pilot a drink at The Sheaf of Wheat.”

  “What, are you flying with old Lee?” Harry asked. “Why, I know him. Suppose I come along for the trip, as cabin boy or something?”

  “When I met him with Harry,” Joe explained to the others, “he gave me his card. If you ever want to charter a plane, he says, remember me. So I remember him. Then my directors are very annoying, and don’t come. But the plane has only four seats, and now Morgan and Maurice come with me.”

  “Morgan!” Harry repeated.

  “Maurice!” Hester said. “Oh, yes, I heard you on the phone.”

  “Maurice! I thought you had to be in London tomorrow?” Wade said uneasily.

  “I had a sudden idea I’d like to see Dublin again,” Maurice said lightly. “And there’s nothing I have to do myself in London. I must give instructions to my broker. That’s all.” He glanced at his watch. “I know his home number. I’ll go out and make a London call now, with your permission.”

  He walked out of the room. Hester saw her father watching him with anxious eyes. People had once been afraid of their lives in this way; they had gone banqueting with their enemies; laying aside their swords; waiting, vulnerable, for the entrance of the murderous retainers. Her father, now, was beginning to suspect betrayal, but it was only his money that was in danger. It was monstrous that money should mean so much, she thought, while the tension in the room mounted until it was felt as a physical force, like the pressure of the water fifty feet below the surface of the sea.

  Moira was speaking in a languid, petulant voice. Hester, not listening, looked speculatively at the flesh that hung like the rich fruit of autumn from her chin; at the built-up, dewy complexion and the lines that showed heavily through it like pencil marks. She was a woman who could have no enthusiasms apart from the preservation of her exterior, but when Harry smiled at her tenderly, her face became animated. Hester was shocked by the realisation that a woman of Moira’s age could still be interested in love. Harry must see her for what she was.

  Hester jumped up. “Morgan—Morgan gave me some money for you. I must get it.” She hurried from the room, brushing past Maurice as he returned.

  “I’ve telephoned London,” he said, “that’s fixed.”

  Harry followed her, and stood beside her in the dark hall.

  She turned on him. “He’s going away with Father’s money. He won’t come back. He’ll go to Ireland, we’ll never hear of him again. Be quiet. I don’t want comfort. I want Father’s money back again.”

  “There’s a lot of worry about money. It may be easier in the end to have no money at all. It’s a rash thing I’m doing, to try to change my manner of living just because I love you, Hester. It’s for you I’m grossly interfering with things that would be better left alone. We’ll have money to last a time,” Harry said confidently.

  Hester didn’t listen. “I don’t believe Maurice was telephoning his broker. I’d like to find out whom he was telephoning,” she said fiercely, looking at Harry, trying to force the thought from her head to his.

  “You could ask the Exchange.”

  “Oh, no,” she protested in a shocked voice, still looking at him intently.

  “Your standards are too high,” he said ironically, and she saw that he understood that she was begging him to do what she wouldn’t do herself. “It seems that by having no moral qualities at all I’m just the man you want. A little spying will leave my self-respect quite intact.”

  He went to the telephone. “Hello, Operator? I want to find out how much that call to London cost? All right, I’ll hang on.” He turned back to Hester, still holding the telephone. “You didn’t tell me Morgan was going to Ireland. I’m not sure, Hester, but will you mind if I leave you for a couple of days? I think I’ll have to be on that plane myself. There’s the money question, again. Do you suppose your father would like to lend me fifteen pounds?”

  “No, Harry, I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

  “Well, I can hardly borrow it from Morgan. I want it to be a surprise for him to find I’m on that plane too. I want to stick as close to him as the hairs on the back of his neck.”

  “Why are you so interested in Morgan? Everyone in this house is mad,” she said despairingly.

  Harry swung back to the phone. “Hello, Operator. What? No calls to London, no trunk calls from this number. You’re certain? Well, thanks.”

  He hung the receiver back. “Got that?” he asked Hester. “Now things are heating up. I’ll ring old Lee and tell him I’m flying with him tomorrow. I might as well get that bit fixed before I begin to worry about how to raise the money.”

  Hester was lost in a labyrinth of futile plans. She decided that she must attack Maurice at once, in front of them all; that it would be better to wait by his car and confront him alone. She heard Harry’s voice explaining to someone at the other end of the line that he was flying in the plane tomorrow, but she didn’t stay to listen. She fetched the money Morgan had given her and went back to the sitting-room with it. Harry had finished his phone call, and was sitting now in a chair close to Moira’s.

  “Cheltenham is a fine monument to the limited liability company,” Joe was saying. “Moira wants to spend the day there. She’s driving me in early tomorrow, and then I take the train to Brickford.”

  “Shall I come with you for the ride?” Harry asked. “Or will you lend me one of your other cars? To get to the airport.”

  “The other cars are in London. Did you say airport, Harry?”

  “Yes. I was thinking of flying with you, when I get the money.”

  “Yes, Harry, when you get the money you shall fly with me,” Joe agreed quickly. “But this trip is business. I should like you to come, Harry, but when I make up my accounts it is necessary they should be exact. So if you give me the money tonight, you shall come tomorrow.”

  “You mean that?” Harry asked, grinning.

  “Of course. When you have paid the money, I shall be so happy to have your company,” Joe said heavily. He looked at his wife, who began to polish her fingernails by rubbing them together. She studied the result, then yawned.

  There was a tap at the door, and Jackie’s voice was heard to ask meekly if anything else was wanted.

  “Come in, Jackie, and show your shirt,” Harry called, taking on himself readily, as usual, the duties of the head of the household.

  Jackie came in meekly, and stood with his eyes downcast. Hester thought for a moment she saw triumph in his face.

  “That’s a wonderful shirt,” Harry said. He stood up lazily and went to the blue vase that stood on the table. He took out two roses and tucked them into one of Jackie’s button-holes. Jackie stood meekly, like a child being prepared for the Sunday school play in the church hall.

  “Flowers to add to the garden of your shirt,” Harry said.

  Jackie’s face became very pinched. “I heard you had a sense of humour,” he said. He looked humbly at Hester. “They’re very pretty, Miss,” he said. He peered down at the roses. “I never had a chance to have a garden. Never saw nothing but parks and don’t touch the flowers before. I’ll keep these,” he said, touching the roses with one of his thick fingers. He walked softly out of the room.

  Hester looked at Harry. This was the time to
conceal absolutely the depths of her pain and disillusionment. She smiled fixedly, as though she was being photographed, while the memory of the morning in the garden blackened and withered. She saw that Harry’s agile mind had danced away from the rose garden.

  “You’ve given away two years of my life,” she said to him, in a voice that was meant to be light, but that sounded instead hard and glittering, like granite.

  Joe looked at her quickly. “I have a new rose, Hester. Do you like it? See, it is snow-white, tipped with this angry red. I put it in my button-hole to show you. My gardener is very proud. I want to name it for Senator McCarthy, but he wants to call it Mabel Spick, after his aunt. Maurice has a button-hole too. We are very festive, except your father, and Harry.” As always, he appeared to wince when he mentioned Harry’s name.

  Maurice looked up, smiling. “Hester gave it to me this morning. Roses mean England to me,” he said, touching his rose with a gesture of affection that seemed to expose an inner man, untarnished by the bitter air of cities. “They grow them in other places,” he added, in a tone that carefully mocked his own display of sentiment. “Have you ever been in Australia, Joe?”

  “Never. And now you will tell me of the hanging gardens of Wagga Wagga,” Joe said in a resigned voice. “I have never been in New Zealand, America, any part of Asia or Africa. In all these places you will tell me about the roses. You are a travelled man. I am at your mercy. How can I answer you? I have nothing to tell. I come of a family that travels only when it is forced to.”

  “I hope you’re not being forced to go to Dublin,” Maurice said easily.

  “I am going for business,” Joe said, watching Harry, who sat now on the arm of Moira’s chair, with his hand an imperceptible inch from hers. “I’d give you a lift to Brickford, Maurice,” Joe said, looking smoothly away again, “but I’ve told you I’m going to Cheltenham first with Moira,” he said, speaking her name so loudly that she started up, with a movement that carried her fingers away from Harry’s. “It would be too early for you,” Joe said. “You probably prefer to drive yourself.”

  Maurice shook his head. “I shan’t drive,” he said. “You know the car isn’t mine. I have a standing arrangement with Ames at the garage here to hire it when I’m down this way. I’ve always found it pays to hire a car on the spot. But now I’m thinking of settling down at last I’ll have to buy a reconditioned taxi or a jeep or something humble.”

  “Don’t you own a car at all?” Moira asked in a voice of horrified sympathy, as though she had discovered he had no legs.

  Maurice smiled denial. “Taxis in London, hired cars everywhere else. I travel a lot,” he apologised, looking gravely at Hester, asking her to appreciate the exaggerated importance of owning a car. She smiled back at him, wondering what he would do, what they would all do, if she stood up and screamed accusations to his face.

  “I suppose you’ll go by bus?” she enquired pleasantly.

  “Yes,” Maurice said. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment I think I should telephone Ames at the garage—he lives above it. I’d better get him before he goes to bed. I’ll ask him to pick up the car at my cottage tomorrow.”

  Hester considered the certainty that there was nothing to hold Maurice, not even a car, while she listened with an air of intelligent interest to Joe’s instructions. “Ten-fifteen at the Fairway Arms by the airport. The plane leaves at ten-forty-five.”

  Harry followed Maurice out of the room, and she sat, watching her father’s face. It wore his devout missionary aspect, as it usually did when he was thinking about money. She jumped up, saying something wild and inconsequential about Prudence, and ran out of the room.

  In the dark hall she could barely see the two men.

  “If there was a pawnshop in this delightful village,” Harry said. “Hello, who’s that?”

  “It’s only me. Hester.”

  “Oh, all right, Hester, don’t go away. I was explaining to Maurice if there was a pawnshop in the village my worries would be over. I have a natural suspicion that he doesn’t want to lend me fifteen pounds.”

  “Correct,” Maurice said easily.

  “So I was going to offer him this splendid gun as security.” Harry felt around his pockets and dragged out the gun.

  “Come into the light,” Maurice said. They moved across the hall into the dining-room.

  “It’s a nice little gun. Loaded, too, if you’re thinking of murder,” Harry said cheerfully.

  “But a gun is no use to me, Harry,” Maurice protested. “Still… Do you need that fifteen pounds desperately?”

  “You heard me. I want to fly with you tomorrow.”

  Maurice grinned across Harry at Hester. “I won’t buy it. I’ll lend you fifteen pounds, and keep the gun as security.” He took the gun, weighing it in his hand, looking suddenly cautious and a little frightened, as though he wasn’t used to guns. “I’m always afraid of those things,” he explained. He put the gun in his pocket, took out his wallet, and counted out fifteen notes. He gave them to Harry.

  “We don’t need to sign any documents,” he said. “Hester can be the witness. You can have the gun back if you ever have any money.”

  “I’ll have the money all right,” Harry said, speaking not to Maurice but to Hester.

  Maurice smiled at them both indulgently and left them alone together, like a kindly uncle who sympathises with calf love.

  “I’m flying tomorrow,” Harry said with the satisfaction of someone who visualises a changing scene. “I’m coming back, Hester. I’m not going to miss the train this time. This is something I’m going through with, tonight, if I can. Everything’s fixed. Cross my heart with diamonds, choke me with pearls, your worries are nearly over. Have you any food in the house? I’ve had practically nothing to eat all day.” He put his arm round her; he seemed to think it was a natural gesture. She remembered the roses, and shook him off.

  He followed her to the sitting-room.

  “Simple Simon brings his penny,” he said, bowing to Uncle Joe.

  Joe made an involuntary movement with his hands, like a woodcutter trying to ward off a falling tree.

  “Thank you, Harry,” he said in a low voice. He took the money. “I should have known,” he said humbly. “Old Joe is not so smart. Harry, I shall see you tomorrow between ten and half past at the Fairway Arms, Brickford. Until then we shall not meet.”

  “But tonight—I’ll come back with you now and pack,” Harry said, with an air of decision.

  Moira began to laugh. “Yes, Harry, that would be best. You mustn’t go without your shirt.”

  Prudence came in, talking fast, cutting through all the tensions like a pneumatic drill going through rock, preparing the way for the dynamite.

  “Hello everyone the tennis dance was absolutely stinking you should have come Hester you could have mooned about under the trees holding hands I really think these old people are terrible I hope I don’t behave that way in ten years’ time. The people I danced with their conversation was absolutely asinine. But if you don’t mind terribly Father I’m going to a dance in Campden next week the first time I was asked I was expected to go on a pillion. Can you imagine me on a pillion? But it’s all right now I’m going with that ghastly Peters boy in his mother’s car.”

  “But doesn’t school start next week, Prudence?” Wade asked.

  “Oh, that! The irregular verb and the war of the Austrian Succession? I’m not worried about that. Rosemary and I have decided not to wear our brains out when we’re too young,” Prudence said airily, but it was obvious she had been humiliated by the reference to school. “Talking about wearing things out, Maurice, I suppose you’re aware that you’ve left the lights of your car blazing away?”

  Maurice hurried out of the room.

  “How odd of Maurice the motorist to have the wrong reflex action. Has he had a shock?” Harry asked, with his usual laz
y insight. “I wonder if he’d like to give me a lift tomorrow? But he’s turning his car in, isn’t he? Do you suppose he’s giving up that cottage, too, as from Saturday? On to fresh friends and problems new? How do I get to Brickford tomorrow?”

  “There are two bus routes and a railway line,” Joe said.

  Harry felt in his pockets, brought out one coin and an empty cigarette packet. “I wonder if Maurice would like a game of Donegal Poker?”

  Prudence was working her way towards the door, moving spasmodically, as though she was being washed out of the room by small waves. She hadn’t yet solved the problem of how to say a collective Good night.

  Moira looked at her, concentrating, trying to remember where she had last seen the blue-and-white dress.

  “I do like your dress. And what a pretty brooch,” she said.

  Prudence, brought to a stop, flushed. “It’s only Woolworth’s.”

  “But it’s lovely. Do let me see.”

  Prudence took off the brooch.

  “Woolworth’s!” Moira repeated.

  Joe bent over her shoulder and peered at the brooch, like a man whose profession was always to know a bad thing when he saw it.

  “Woolworth’s is in the high-class trade now. These stones don’t look like Woolworth’s. They look like real paste to me.”

  Harry looked at the brooch. “Are you sure you haven’t been heaving a brick in Bond Street?” he asked. “Where did you get it, Prudence? Did Morgan give it to you?”

  “I got it in Woolworth’s,” Prudence repeated angrily. “May I have it back? I’m going to have a glass of milk and go to bed.” This time she swept out of the room like a surf-board rider.

  Harry looked as though he would follow her, then stopped. “I’m not an expert,” he said, irresolute. He sat down again, as Moira began to make the social noises that precede departure.

  “Do stay,” Hester said. “We were going to play some Bach on the gramophone, weren’t we, Father?”

  Wade didn’t hear her. He was waiting. Then he heard Maurice’s step, and his face began to relax. He listened in relief as Maurice came in, explaining that he had moved his car, in case Joe wanted to leave first.