Flightsend

by Linda Newbery

  When she’d mentioned this vision to her mother, once, Kathy was amused. ‘Why see yourself as the maid? Why not Miss Charlotte, the pampered daughter of the house, going to dances and garden parties and looking for a rich husband?’

  But it hadn’t even occurred to Charlie to think of herself as rich and idle. It seemed no more likely in the past than it did in the present.

  A flagged path from the courtyard led to the utility room, walk-in larder and kitchen. Jon, who did all the cooking, was already stirring something in an enormous saucepan. Charlie knew better than to expect friendliness or conversation – he always became frantic at this early stage of a meal, giving curt instructions, darting about the kitchen on fastforward. He was only twenty-five, and dreamed of being a highly-feared autocrat in the kitchen of a trendy London restaurant. Later, when desserts and coffee had been served, he’d award himself several glasses of wine, share a meal with Charlie and Suzanne, and wind down.

  ‘Lettuce,’ was all he said now, furiously grinding pepper.

  Charlie nodded and fetched the box of lettuces from the store room. While she was washing them at the sink, Suzanne arrived. Through the sound of the running tap, Charlie heard her explaining to Jon: ‘Sorry I’m late, it’s just that I had to pick up Jason from the child-minder because Sam had to collect his car from the garage, you see it was having its full service and they hadn’t finished on time because of a problem with the transmission—’

  ‘Quiches,’ Jon said. Suzanne, pulling a face, arrived at the double sink beside Charlie, with a sieve full of tomatoes to slice thinly for garnishes.

  ‘Black mark for me. I should have known he wouldn’t listen. The thing was …’

  She went into a fuller explanation of her domestic problems. Charlie, only half-listening, said, ‘Never mind. You were hardly late, anyway. What are the courses this weekend, did you see?’

  ‘I did look at the programme. Creative Writing was one, and the other was Landscape Painting. One of the tutors was just going into the Well House.’

  ‘Writer or painter?’

  Suzanne giggled. ‘Couldn’t really tell. Could have been either. Anyway, he looked all right. Very all right.’ Suzanne widened her eyes. She was always on the lookout for male talent. Just as a sort of hobby, she’d told Charlie; like window-shopping. The only man she actively flirted with was Jon, which was perfectly safe, since Jon lived with a partner called Andrew and wore a wedding ring with J and A entwined on it.

  Charlie finished making up the bowls of green salad and went to lay the table. The long, narrow dining room had once been a library; it still contained shelves of leather-bound books and had a stone fireplace with a mirror over it. The guests and tutors – forty or so, when the place was full – all sat at one long table, which made serving the meals quite straightforward. While Charlie was fetching the laundered tablecloths and napkins from the trunk, Fay came in, wearing an elegant navy-blue dress and a slightly strained expression. She was holding a buttoned shoe of Rosie’s.

  ‘Hello, Charlie. I’ve got a favour to ask. We’re fully booked for the next few weeks – it’s marvellous really, but a bit much for Suzanne on her own. I was wondering if you’d like extra hours during the week? Your exams are nearly finished, aren’t they? It’d be mornings, evenings and Sunday lunchtimes. Sunday evenings off and all day Monday. Give it some thought – you don’t have to decide now.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll do it,’ Charlie said. ‘Apart from a couple of mornings the week after next, when I’m back in school for a sixth-form induction thing. But I can still come for those evenings.’

  ‘Good! That’s sorted, then. Tell Jon exactly when you can come and he’ll draw up a rota. I want to ask your mother something, too. She does garden design, doesn’t she, as well as plant-growing? I wonder if she’d do some work for us? The garden needs a good sorting-out, by someone who knows what they’re doing. And we want to redesign the patio.’ She waved a hand at the small terrace outside the library, overlooking a sloping lawn. ‘Make more space for people to sit out. Perhaps have a pool. Do you think she might take it on?’

  ‘I’ll ask,’ Charlie said, thinking: at least it’ll earn her some money, but what about Rosie? How will Mum feel about seeing Rosie, Rosie’s toys, Rosie’s shoes?

  Fay saw her looking at the red buttoned shoe she was absent-mindedly holding. ‘Oh – I picked this up on the stairs. Rosie must be around somewhere with only one shoe on – I’d better find her. Ask your mum to give me a call if she’s interested, could you?’

  Once the guests came in, bringing the glasses of wine Fay served in the entrance-hall, there was no time for conversation. Charlie and Suzanne dashed in and out with starters, warm bread rolls, offers of second helpings, and tried to remember who’d asked for vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free food.

  Charlie had occasionally helped out on Friday evenings before. These first meals, when people didn’t yet know each other, were always polite and reserved, with conversational openers of the ‘Have you come far?’ and ‘Have you been on one of these courses before?’ variety. Charlie felt that her waitress role made her invisible; most people, apart from the odd word or smile of thanks, barely registered her existence. From this perspective, she found it interesting to watch the group dynamics over a weekend: to guess who’d be revealed as an extrovert by Sunday lunchtime, who the grumpy, dissatisfied one, who the gossip. At this stage, they all looked dull and middle-aged to her; most of Nightingales’ clientele was her mother’s age or older, with many of them well into retirement. Fay and Dan were considering offering Nightingales to school parties, but at present guests under the age of thirty were an extreme rarity.

  Carrying a hot vegetable dish to the far end of the table, she was surprised by a youngish man catching her eye and winking. No, she hadn’t imagined it; he was definitely looking at her, smiling. She did a double take, recognizing one of the art teachers from school. Mr Locke, Oliver Locke. Not her teacher; she’d been in Ms McGrath’s class, but the art staff were a friendly lot, always drifting in and out of each other’s classes to chat and to look at the students’ work. Mr Locke, she remembered, had admired the still life she’d done for one of her exam pieces. Now, he broke off his conversation, and called out: ‘Charlie! Didn’t know you worked here.’

  ‘Hello! Yes, just weekends, but more in the holidays.’ She put down the dish and lifted the lid, releasing a steamy, fragrant cloud. She ought to be used to meeting teachers out of school, her mother’s and Sean’s friends, but it still made her feel awkward.

  ‘Charlie’s at Westbury Park, where I teach, for my sins,’ Mr Locke explained to the people either side, who nodded and smiled. ‘She’s going to do Art next year, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ Charlie stalled. She hadn’t committed herself yet.

  ‘Let me tell you,’ Mr Locke said, ‘that it’ll be a terrible waste of talent if you don’t.’

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway? Are you—?’

  ‘Tutoring Landscape Painting. I’ve known Dan and Fay for years. They’ve persuaded me to take on a fair whack of courses this summer. I’m staying in the most delightful cottage in the grounds. The Well House, it’s called,’ he explained to the guests. ‘Come and see what’s going on in the workshop, if you’re around,’ he added to Charlie.

  She met Suzanne head-on in the kitchen doorway, balancing three plates. ‘Hey! Just found out who it was you saw earlier – the Art tutor,’ Charlie said in an undertone. ‘His name’s Mr Locke – Oliver Locke. He’s a teacher at my school.’

  Suzanne’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Lucky you, then. Can I join the sixth form?’

  ‘Why wait that long? There’s time for a quick enrolment in Landscape Painting,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Anyway, here’s a challenge for you. Guess which one’s the Creative Writing tutor? Female, I’ll give you that as a starter.’ Suzanne hurried on with her plates. She was very quick on her feet, in spite of wearing high-heeled, pointy-toed sh
oes which Charlie wouldn’t have been able to walk in.

  Serving the main course and dessert, Charlie surveyed the guests. For her and Suzanne, this was a regular game, identifying the tutors; Suzanne even kept the score. Charlie, so far, had proved best at birdwatchers and herbalists, while Suzanne specialized in long-distance walkers and bridge players. Jon was usually too busy to take part, but had once scored with an egg-painter.

  ‘It’s the youngish one with long hair and a floaty scarf and long silver earrings,’ she told Suzanne, when the dessert plates had been cleared.

  ‘Nope! Knew you wouldn’t get it. It’s the short, squat one with a tweedy jacket. I heard her introducing herself to Fay. Have a look when you take the coffee in.’

  Charlie looked. The only woman who fitted Suzanne’s description was stout and fierce-looking, with orange lipstick, and iron-grey hair pinned back in a bun. ‘Of course most Rottweilers have super temperaments,’ she was telling someone. That fitted: she looked more likely, Charlie thought, to be running Dog Obedience.

  When everything had been stacked and cleared away, Charlie walked home in the midsummer dusk. It was past ten, but difficult to believe that it would ever be really dark tonight. Upstairs, she opened her bedroom window and looked out. On some of the warm nights recently she’d seen a bat flitting after insects near the cottage eaves. The flicky, swooping shape darted in, too agile and too late for a bird, so quickly that her eyes couldn’t keep up.

  She leaned against the window frame, reluctant to go to bed. No bat tonight; but Frühlingsmorgen, spread against the back fence, called to her senses. Its flowers, like pale stars, gleamed in the twilight, and she could imagine that the warm air carried its scent to her even at this distance.

  Runway

  ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that you might sell barbecue equipment?’

  The woman called across the yard as if summoning a servant. Charlie, who’d just changed into jeans after the breakfast stint at Nightingales, saw her mother come out of the polytunnel to explain that no, this was a nursery, not a garden centre, and that barbecues could be bought from the big place on the Northampton road.

  ‘Oh.’ The woman managed to convey, in a single syllable, weary resignation to life’s hardships and the suggestion that she deserved better. ‘Any bedding begonias?’

  ‘No. I don’t do bedding plants, only hardy perennials.’

  The woman gave a tut but no Thank you, swished an irritable arm at Caspar, who was only being curious, and went back to the car parked across the yard entrance. She was just the sort of person, Charlie thought, to complain about the bad manners of the younger generation. Kathy greeted Charlie with a wry smile and brushed potting compost off her hands.

  ‘Another one. I had one last week asking for garden furniture. I mean, isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘You’d think so,’ Charlie said, placing her feet more firmly to avoid being knocked over by Caspar. ‘There’s a village fête next month, did you know? Fay and Dan are doing refreshments, at the house, and Henrietta from the shop is having a stall. You could have a stall.’

  ‘Not if I have to do bedding begonias,’ Kathy said.

  She was wearing jeans and a loose, checked shirt and her hair was freshly-washed, gleaming coppery lights in the sunshine. Charlie looked at her, thinking, for the first time in ages, that her mother looked healthy, young, even pretty. Her face had lost the haggard look that Charlie had thought was here to stay. Her new way of life must be doing her good, regardless of tiresome customers.

  ‘Shouldn’t you get bedding begonias, if that’s what people want?’

  Kathy scratched Caspar behind the ears, making him wriggle and smile. ‘Oh sure. Would you like me to sell gnomes with fishing rods, as well? I phoned Fay, by the way, about doing her garden. I said I’d go round tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Yes, she told me.’ Charlie had been surprised, relaying Fay’s message over their early-morning mug of tea, by her mother’s ready agreement. Perhaps the recent visits from non-connoisseurs were making her desperate for money.

  ‘Oh, Rowan phoned while you were out. Not important, but could you phone back, she said.’

  ‘I’m taking Caspar out first,’ Charlie said. Rowan’s offhandedness yesterday deserved a cool response. ‘Coming? Or are you too busy?’

  ‘I am a bit. You won’t forget your Geography revision, will you? Now that you’re doing this extra work at Nightingales.’

  ‘I’m not likely to forget, am I? Don’t worry. I’m devoting the whole afternoon to Urban Development and Land Use. Come on, Caspar! Walk!’

  Caspar bounded ahead as she went to the kitchen for his lead. She decided on one of their favourite walks, along the lane past Lordsfields Farm and over the stile into the disused airfield. She knew from the local map that there wasn’t really a right of way across the airfield, but she saw other people walking their dogs there, and no one seemed to mind. Caspar squirmed in anticipation as she turned into Lordsfields Lane. He loved the airfield, where rabbits grazed on the grassy edges, especially in the mornings and evenings. Charlie didn’t think the rabbits were in actual danger. Caspar was so hopeless as a lurcher that he’d have little idea what to do with one if he got close; their bobbing white scuts as they dashed for cover made him leap about excitedly but without much sense of purpose. If he ever caught one, Charlie thought, he’d back off in alarm, or else give it a friendly lick.

  Her spirits surged as she walked past the farm. It was a perfect day, the early freshness giving way to the promise of heat. Placing her feet carefully, she smelled the sweetness of cow-dung where the Friesian herd had recently crossed from the yard after milking. Now the cows were in the meadow, knee-deep in buttercups. Charlie knew that modern farming wasn’t as idyllic as it sometimes seemed, but when she saw cattle grazing by the willows that fringed the stream it was hard to feel anything other than deep, cow-like contentment.

  She climbed the stile and watched Caspar dither – leap over or wriggle through? – before flattening himself into an undignified squirm, all the time looking up at Charlie’s face for approval. A trodden path led to the airfield’s perimeter track. Here, she let him off the lead and watched him trot off, snuffling in the long grass.

  Charlie didn’t know much about the airfield, only that it was in such a derelict state that it couldn’t have been used for decades. The triangle of runways intersected a crop of barley. At the far end, where a lane led in from the road, there was a crumbling brick structure that could once have been a control tower. Farther back, in what was now a dense coppice, were the curved roofs of Nissen huts. It all made her think of old war films, black-and-white, with officers barking out, ‘Scramble! Scramble!’ and pilots dashing for the cockpits of their Spitfires. Those brave young men – not much older than she was – had taken to the skies to fight off enemy invaders. It seemed a war-film cliché now – the ultra-British accents, the heroism, the tragic losses – but nevertheless it had once happened. Happened here? Someone would know. Some of the pensioners in the village would remember. Might even have flown the aircraft themselves. It was hard to believe that the dashing young pilots in RAF uniform could now be as old as the leathery-faced men she saw in the village shop buying their newspapers and tins of dog food, but simple mathematics said that it was so.

  She walked along the main runway, intending to go round by Devil’s Spinney at the other end and make a circuit back through the village. The concrete was worn and corrugated under her feet, cracked here and there with grass and mayweed growing through. She could smell the pineapple scent of the crushed mayweed as she walked, and the air was so still that she heard each footfall, with a background of Caspar’s snufflings, and birdsong from the wood. It was so peaceful here – there was almost, she thought, a timeless hush about the place – that it was hard to imagine the air disturbed by the clamour of aircraft engines.

  And then she heard one. An insect-buzz in the back of her consciousness at first, deepening to a drone. She looke
d up, shielding her eyes from the sun. A tiny plane, mosquito-like at this distance, but coming closer, lower. Heading straight for her. For a few seconds her heart pounded and she almost dashed into the barley for cover, back in the war films again where Stukas screamed down on fleeing refugees. Caspar was barking, excited but anxious, his tail between his legs. Charlie realized that the plane was coming in to land; the runway wasn’t the best place to be standing. She grabbed Caspar’s collar, tripping over him as he tried to dash round her in a circle; the aircraft levelled out, not landing after all, but skimming low over the runway and flying on past. A light aircraft, white, with red stripes on the wings and tailpiece. No, she wasn’t day-dreaming, or conjuring up some aerial ghost from the airfield’s past; it was a real, modern-day light aircraft. Most likely the pilot was aiming for the flying club closer to Northampton and had made a mistake. Charlie felt rather ashamed at her panic, and was glad that no one had seen.

  She released Caspar and walked on, thinking of a brief conversation she’d had with Mr Locke at breakfast. While most people had been tucking into the traditional egg, bacon and tomato, he was peeling an orange and drinking black coffee. When she’d said, ‘Hello, Mr Locke,’ he’d smiled at her and said, ‘Call me Oliver, for God’s sake, Charlie. Mr Locke makes me feel all crusty and school-teacherly and about fifty. If you insist on calling me Mr Locke, I shall call you Miss Steer. Good name for an artist, by the way.’

  She hadn’t understood that. Did he mean that it would be a good name for an artist, or that there was already an artist called Steer; or was he saying that she was an artist? She hadn’t wanted to seem ignorant by asking, but the Rottweiler writing woman, next to him, had asked for Worcester sauce and she’d forgotten the remark until now. Perhaps Mum would know. When she’d told Kathy, with the early morning tea, about Mr Locke – Oliver – being a tutor this weekend, Kathy had woken up properly. ‘Oh yes? Young Lochinvar?’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’ Charlie asked.