It is hard to describe the excitement and freedom we felt. We were the suffragettes of the air, competing with men as equals, swishing around in our goggles, helmets and those marvellous long leather coats. And it wasn’t just in Britain that we were gobbling up the attention of the press. Amy was flying all over the place, breaking and making records in the process. Russia, Japan, Australia, South Africa, the United States, where didn’t that girl fly to? She probably would have been one of the first to fly to the moon if she hadn’t been killed in the war. The Winged Duchess was no slouch either making it to India and South Africa in her sixties while Kiwi Jean flew to Brazil and broke records from England back home to New Zealand. Over in East Africa, Beryl was quite the mistress of the air, pioneering routes where no man, woman or road had ever gone, scouting out the elephant herds for the wealthy hunters.
As for me, I guess I was a stay-at-home girl most of the time, confining my flights to the British Isles for I neither had the private wealth nor the sponsors to take me further. Still there was money to be made as a pilot in those Wild West times. The public were only too happy to pay to be taken skywards for a bit of joyriding. I worked part-time for an air-taxi firm, hooked up with an air circus on a tour of the country, performing fly-pasts, taking up stunt men for wing-walking and parachute jumps.
And the male pilots? What a bunch of handsome, daring rogues they were, these knights of the sky, ferrying their titled lady passengers here and there, forever cited as co-respondents in divorce cases, pushing the boundaries of height and distance, inventing new manoeuvres with which to dazzle the public, testing the latest aeronautic innovations, racing each other (and we women) all over the globe. I had experienced this kind of ebullient dynamism and glamorous excitement before as an actress but as an aviatrix there was an added ingredient… and that was danger. So many of the people I knew around that time lost their lives in crashes or just literally disappeared into thin air. Brave pioneers who were prepared to prove the limits of their skill and their equipment like trapeze artists without the benefit of a safety net. That extra element of peril added an edge to everything we did, forced us to live out our lives as if there were no tomorrow. Down at the Hanworth Club, we were renowned for the zeal and zest we threw into our parties and pageants where pilots and engineers mingled with royalty, diplomats, politicians and celebrities in a fabulous combustive mix. It was at one of these parties at Hanworth Park House that I met my own knight of the sky.
I had just come down from my plane after a fly-past, literally dropping into a party on a sunny, dusty afternoon, tea and drinks on the balconies, picnics on the lawn, guests sitting on the broad front steps or stretched out in deckchairs in front of the House. I was buzzing and tingling from my flight, my blood pumping hot, all my senses working at full throttle when this gentleman appeared from under my wing with an ease that showed a familiarity around aircraft, and stepped out to block my path. No introduction. Just the statement:
‘I’ve a proposition for you, young lady,’ he said. Which was a compliment in itself as I no longer considered myself particularly young.
He was tall, taller than me at least, and quite handsome – not in that dashing, strong chinned, sleekly groomed, moustachioed look of the time – he had quite a long face, clean-shaven, soft brown eyes. His mouth creased into a broad smile as if he had found something amusing about me rather than in the strangeness of the statement just made.
‘Don’t you think we should get acquainted first?’ I said, feeling all swaggering and confident in my leather jacket, jodhpurs and high boots, twirling my goggles as if they were a string of pearls.
‘What would you like to know?’
‘Name, please.’
‘Roland Paxton-Jones. Call me Rollo.’
‘Are you married?’
‘That’s a rather forthright question, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘It takes the conversation along a route I was not initially intending.’
‘Well, there you are then,’ I said, still feeling all swelled up and reckless from the obvious tension passing between us. ‘As long as your intentions are honourable.’
‘I’m not sure that they are now.’
In my memory, it seemed only a matter of minutes before we were smooching on the back stairs of the House but I imagine it had to be longer than that for I was able to ascertain the following additional information before any hanky-panky occurred:
Rollo was two years older than me, also an only child, who had recently inherited a fortune on the death of his mother. His late father had made his money importing indigo from India for textile dyeing until the Germans came along with a synthetic version, forcing him into a wealthy retirement but early death. Rollo was passionate about photography and was training to be a photographic officer over at the RAF School of Photography in Farnborough. He had borrowed (I later discovered it was stolen) a state-of-the-art Fairchild F-8 Aerial camera from an American aircrew, was desperate to use it. He had his own airplane, wanted to hire me to take him up on it so that he could take pictures from the air.
‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked him, anticipating a joyride over the city.
‘The Holy Land,’ he said, with that same smile of amusement.
‘The Holy Land. As in Palestine?’
‘Is there any other?’
‘And why the Holy Land?’ I asked, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice.
‘Nothing like a bit of an adventure.’
‘Why choose me? I’m not really a long-distance flyer.’
‘I’ve had my eye on you for a while,’ was his vague reply. And then he kissed me.
Unlike Max, Rollo was not a talkative man. While Max used to smother silences with his various harangues and polemics, Rollo relished the quiet. It was the legacy of being a pilot I suppose, the drone of the engine making speech redundant, the wonders of this planet from above rendering worldly chatter below insignificant. It was a talent I had begun to acquire myself which meant Rollo and I could enjoy each other’s physical presence without constant conversation. Also unlike Max, Rollo was extremely rich. He took me to the best London restaurants. Not only a return to Boulestin, but also Quaglino’s and L’Aperitif Grill. He had a box at the Opera House but avoided the glamour and gossip of the London night clubs. Instead, he drove me out to the countryside or down to the coast in his sleek automobile where we would go on long walks, hand-in-hand, very little spoken between us. It was a whirlwind romance that lasted just ten days before we had to prepare earnestly for the trip to Palestine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Matinee Idol
After what turned out to be a stilted lunch at the Tate Modern, Laura abandoned Quentin in a Blackfriars side-street to take a taxi back up north. She had the manila envelope with his play in her shoulder bag as well as a whole lot of pent-up anger in her gut. Sal had been right. Quentin was not a delicate being. He was a hard-nosed toad of a man who knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. What right had he to make these demands? Was this how the trustee of an estate behaved? How could he manipulate her in this way? Because she was desperate. That was why. He could probably smell it off her in the same way Sal had. Perhaps she should market it as her own fragrance. Desperation. It will allow a man to do exactly what he wants with you.
The traffic was all snarled up going along Charing Cross Road, the interior glass panel was slid open so she could hear the afternoon DJ providing her with everything but music, the driver busy eyeing her up in his mirror and she just knew he was about to ask her if she was on the telly or something. She tied up her hair in a silk headscarf, slipped on her sunglasses, paid him off with twice what it said on the meter, stepped out on to the street just past the National Portrait Gallery. She immediately regretted her decision. The hot air was thick with vehicle fumes and the aroma of fast food, the taut atmosphere from the frustrations of trapped drivers seeping into her own mood. Crowds of mainly young people – or at least younger than she – moved in swarms acros
s traffic lights, forcing her to choose one particular throng that pulled her along into Leicester Square towards another mass of bodies. It was only when she saw the lit-up arc lamps (even though it was still daylight), the crash barriers, the police cordons, the hysterical fans, the held-up mobile phones, the TV film crews on their cranes, the porcupine bristling of camera lenses, the red carpet, did she realise she had walked into the middle of a film premiere. She quickly turned away from the madness towards one of the other cinemas in the Square. A giant poster read: An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful. Starring Jack Muirhead. Her Jack. She escaped inside.
She hadn’t seen Jack for over a year, knew that he had returned to Japan to complete the shoot on the very movie she was about to watch. She wondered what he had felt being back there among the backdrop scenery to the beginning of their love affair. Not much, knowing Jack. For Jack, life rolled on easy. He was one of the lucky ones, there were very few of them about in her profession, probably in any profession. He was one of those remarkably gifted and charismatic persons who could just sit back, let the world come to him. Rather than the other way around for those mere mortals – of which she was one – who had to work so hard for every morsel of work or money or recognition or reward that was granted them. After every movie, Jack would retire to his small estate in Athens, Georgia, where he would read, meditate, practise yoga, swim in his lap-pool, tend his garden, smoke a bit of dope, drink the finest malt whisky, entertain his friends, play guitar, hang out with rock stars, send out cheques to various charities, convince the woman he was with that she was the most important person in his world. He might grow his hair long, stop shaving, dress up in grubby clothes and sandals, head off to India or South America where a few people might say ‘Isn’t that Jack Muirhead?’ but then dismiss as preposterous the idea this old hippie could possibly be a cinema A-lister. That was Jack. Eschewing the world of the movie star, yet every time he opened up his inbox or picked up his mail there would be script offers, festival invites, interview requests, nominations for this, awards for that. How did he do it? And the answer was that Jack didn’t do anything. Jack was Jack was Jack. And everyone – including herself – loved him for it.
She was glad to find the cinema almost empty, settled into her Premier seat, draped her headscarf over her bare shoulders to ward off the air-conditioned chill. The film opened with some plinky-plonky music played out on the strings of a Japanese koto and the camera swooping over a majestic curved-roof building cascading out of the hillsides. She had read the book on which the film was based. An ageing writer returns to the hotel in the Japanese mountains where many years previously he had written his most famous novel and fallen in love with a young chambermaid. If she remembered correctly, the novelist in the book was in his mid-seventies. The role must have been aged-down for Jack for there he was, still managing to stir up her feelings as he stepped out of a taxi in the hotel forecourt. He was fifty-two years old. Two months younger than she was. That was their running gag when they were together, that she was a baby-snatcher, that he was her toyboy.
‘It must be really weird to see your lover up there on the screen?’ That was a question her friend Victoria always used to ask her for Jack was merely one of a handful of ex-lovers who had been film actors. It was a good question, one with no easy answer. She reckoned her response depended on two criteria – how strong were her feelings and how good was the actor? If she was really besotted with someone and all loved-up when she came across one of their movies while idly flicking through the channels, then yes, she probably did see the actor more than the role he was playing. But once she had emerged from the first excited throes of a new love then it would be his qualities as an actor that were more important. She looked at Jack now, his face taking up most of the screen, searching and searching for him in his giant eyes and he was just not there. He had disappeared completely and in his place was some ageing writer, full of remorse, weary of life, trying to find the love and the creative spark that had once so invigorated him. My God, you’re good, Jack, you’re so bloody good. He had never won an Oscar though, said it was because he didn’t play nice with the Academy. He said he didn’t care but she thought he really did.
She missed him. How could you not miss someone like that? They had been good together although not for very long. The month of the movie shoot then a few weeks back at his place in Georgia. It was unusual for either of them to be seeing someone their own age and in the end they turned into each other’s mentors rather than lovers. When he wanted to take her on a trip down to Central America, she decided instead to go back to London. There was no heart-rending farewell. It wasn’t as though the relationship had officially ended but it seemed they had tacitly agreed it wouldn’t go any further. If their coupling had been filmed as a movie it would be high-quality indie with two excellent leads and no chance of a sequel.
And yet, deep within herself, in that place where the secret truth is told, she knew that her retreat from Jack hadn’t been as simple as that. She remembered once when the two of them were lazing out on the deck of his Georgia property as the day began to cool, the evening shadows had started to creep in, the air thick with the sweet pineapple fragrance of Cherokee Rose – the white flower of the native shrub – that scrambled up one side of the porch. She was laid out on a hammock, Jack seated not far away, reading Tolstoy, wearing nothing but a pair of tattered shorts and horn-rimmed glasses. As the gentle rock of the hammock brought Jack in and out of her view, she watched him wrapped up in the intensity of his reading. He was probably capable of attracting any women on the planet from legal age of consent upwards with an interest in the Western concept of what constituted a good-looking man. Jack sat there barechested (albeit with a fair amount of tufts of grey hairs), not an ounce of flab on him, his strong legs stretched out before him while she was wearing loose cotton pants, a smock top and an extremely helpful push-up bra. For her age, she knew she was still an attractive women but she knew she would never be able to compete with the younger, more beautiful members of her gender who constantly flirted with him. She might be able to fend off this competition for a while but she would be exhausted by it and someone was bound to eventually break through. Better to bail now while things were still good between them, better to sabotage their relationship now before she got hurt.
‘I’m going back to London,’ she told him.
He looked up from his book with no more concern than if she had said she was going to take a shower. ‘Why spoil things?’ he asked.
‘That’s the point. I don’t want to spoil things.’
He took off his glasses, stared thoughtfully across at her. It was just the kind of thing an actor would do in the same situation. Sometimes with Jack she wondered if she was playing out her real life or just a part in his movie. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said softly. ‘We’re doing well here.’
‘That’s why I want to leave now. Before we’re not doing well.’
‘What are you frightened of?’
‘I’m not frightened of anything,’ she said, although she could hear the sudden lift in her voice betraying her fear. ‘I just want to get out before we hurt each other.’
‘Well, I’ve no intention of hurting you. So it must be you who’s out to hurt me. Is that what you’re telling me here?’
‘See, we’re spoiling things already.’
‘I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.’
‘And you’re not listening. It’s time for me to go. Capisce?’
He put his glasses back on. ‘Have it your way then.’
She left the next day.
It was still light when she emerged from the cinema, brighter still for the contrast with the darkness inside. It had been a good decision to see the movie, to take her mind off the awful lunch. She fumbled in her bag for her sunglasses, was unfortunately reminded of Quentin by the presence of the bulky envelope hosting his play, realised she had left her scarf back on the seat. Suddenly, she heard her name being called.
She looked up into the flash of a camera from a paparazzo who must have stayed back in the Square for the end of the premiere. Her photograph – hair dishevelled, eyes wide open like a startled fawn, her knees crooked and bent as she searched for her sunglasses, the poster for the movie smack bang behind her head – was all over the online edition by the time she got home. The tag line read: Lonely Laura Desperately Seeking Jack.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Hepburn Archives
Extract from an unpublished memoir
According to my old aviation logbook, Rollo and I set off in his Gipsy Moth 60G from London Air Park on a 2,000-plus mile trip to Palestine at 10.30am on the 12th September 1934. Rollo had the route all mapped out. Le Bourget (just outside Paris), Marseilles, Rome, Naples, Taranto, Athens, Crete, Alexandria, Cairo, then across the Sinai to Kalandia, a tiny airport situated between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Altogether the trip was meant to take ten days. That was all theory, of course. The weather would play an important factor, as would the availability of fuel and our ability to maximise its use. Some sections of the trip were way beyond the basic range of a Gipsy Moth (300 miles) so we often had to take on an overload of petrol. This extra fluid weight together with all the camera equipment and baggage made some of our take-offs quite scary at times. It turned out I was the better pilot so it was up to me to handle these manoeuvres but Rollo was a whizz with navigation. With a few basic maps, watch, compass and altimeter, we never once lost our way.
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