Flightsend

by Linda Newbery

  ‘Mm.’ Charlie hadn’t really been thinking of her mother and Dietmar when she said that age didn’t matter. What had struck her about Sense and Sensibility was that the age difference between Marianne and Colonel Brandon was bigger than the gap between Sean and herself.

  ‘As for Kate Winslet in the film,’ her mother continued, ‘running over the moors in daft shoes – no wonder she sprained her ankle. Anyway, she may have married Colonel Brandon but that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry Dietmar or anyone else. Unlike Marianne, I’ve tried it once and I’ve no great desire to try again.’

  Charlie saw that there was a parallel between Marianne and Mum. OK, Marianne was much younger, but had found happiness with Colonel Brandon after having a breakdown and becoming seriously ill when her first love affair ended. That part fitted, anyway, sort of. The rest didn’t. It was handsome, dashing Willoughby who’d broken off with Marianne, not the other way round. Charlie had thought Willoughby was too good to be true, right from the start, especially in the film. Marianne was the loyal, faithful one, even if she loved the wrong person. Charlie was reading Emma now, and was about to suggest getting the film of that, but her mother wasn’t going to be distracted from the topic of Dietmar.

  ‘I thought I’d invite him for lunch next Sunday. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Charlie said. It came out on a doubtful note.

  ‘Dietmar’s a friend. A good friend. At the moment, that’s all I want. Him being so much older is fine. He’s mature, in charge of his life. He’s been married, he’s got grown-up children. He doesn’t make demands. He’s happy the way things are.’

  ‘So that’s OK,’ Charlie said flippantly.

  She didn’t like the implication that Sean had been unreasonably demanding, wanting to stay when everything went wrong. But she wasn’t going to argue today.

  ‘Did he ever tell you why he left Flightsend, when he liked it so much?’ she asked.

  ‘He was lonely,’ Kathy said. ‘He’d always lived in a city till he came here. He bought Flightsend just after his wife left him. But he realized it was a mistake to bury himself in the depths of the country, when he wasn’t used to it.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’ Charlie asked.

  Kathy looked at her. ‘She left him for a much younger man.’

  It was August now, the summer holidays proper. Sean was away in North Wales; Rowan, back from Tenerife, was spending a few days with Russell and his Scottish grandparents. Dietmar had been visiting family in Germany since the week after the fête, which was why the Cessna flight had waited till now. It was the time of year when normal life was on pause.

  Charlie missed Sean so badly that she felt ill. Sick, dizzy, floaty, like having a high temperature. She walked the footpaths with Caspar, she studied the map and found new routes. She walked down by the river, where the water slid darkly beneath overhanging trees, between banks lush with reed and willowherb. Sean, Sean. His name throbbed in her head like a pulse; it was in the rustle of leaves and the stillness of the river and the whisper of her feet brushing through grasses.

  All the time, she stored things up in her mind to tell him. Ordinary, everyday things; things to make him laugh. She wasn’t going to tell him how completely he occupied her thoughts. They’d met once since the end of term, just before he went away. He’d kept his promise and had taken her and Caspar up to Dovedale, in the Peak District. They had walked and clambered over rocks and eaten a picnic, and Sean started teaching her how to navigate with a map and compass. Charlie knew that people who passed them saw a young man and a girl, boyfriend and girlfriend, out for the day together. She could pretend.

  She kept replaying the day in her mind, holding on to it.

  She tried to draw him. Never before had she drawn a portrait without the person sitting in front of her; it was impossibly difficult. When she closed her eyes she could see Sean quite clearly, could visualize a whole range of his expressions; but when she tried to commit any one of them to paper, Sean disappeared and was replaced by a set of features that bore no resemblance to his. She tried to draw him from the Great Gable photograph, but that was too small and blurry. What came from her pencil was a smiling face that could have been anyone’s.

  Oliver Locke was staying in the Well House while he completed the sketches for the Nightingales brochure, and was running courses most weekends. That afternoon, when Charlie arrived, he was carrying a box of groceries into the store room. He told her about his Watercolour group at the weekend, and asked if she’d like to join in. Charlie thought she would. At school they always used acrylics, and she liked the delicacy of watercolours.

  ‘Aren’t you going on holiday?’ she asked him. ‘It doesn’t seem much of a break for you, all these courses.’

  ‘Can’t afford it this year,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got a lot of big expenses coming up. Next year, when I’m settled, I’ll go to Tuscany. Anyway, I like it here.’

  Charlie collected Rosie, and took her down to feed the ducks; afterwards they settled in the courtyard, sitting together on the bench with Rosie’s picture-book.

  ‘There’s Wosie,’ Rosie said, prodding a damp forefinger.

  And then Charlie jumped as a shadow fell across the book and a warm hand cupped her shoulder. Oliver, again.

  Rosie was delighted. ‘Orriver! Orriver! We’re having a story!’

  For the first time, Charlie felt a tremor of irritation. He liked to do that, she realized; sneak up on her, surprise her. How long had he been there? She felt embarrassed at the thought of him listening while she talked to Rosie about the pictures in Rosie’s Walk.

  ‘You know,’ he said abruptly, ‘it looked so picturesque when I came along. The two of you, absorbed in the book. The sunlight on your hair. Like a sentimental Victorian painting.’

  Charlie looked at him, puzzled at his tone. It was faintly sarcastic – his choice of words, picturesque, sentimental; but there was something else. Sadness? Envy?

  There wasn’t room for him on the bench, where Rosie sat next to Charlie with her legs spread out. He sat on the arm, close to Charlie. A little too close. She moved nearer to Rosie.

  ‘I’ve seen your mother here a couple of times,’ he said. ‘Talking to Fay about the garden plans. You know when you mentioned your mum, and Sean Freeland – you didn’t tell me about the baby. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who did tell you?’ Charlie said sharply. ‘Not Mum, surely?’

  ‘No, it was Fay. She and your mum seem to be getting quite friendly.’

  They must be, Charlie thought, if Mum had talked about Rose; usually she kept the subject tightly zipped up inside. And to Fay, of all people, with Rosie around … perhaps Rosie’s presence had been the prompt. But Charlie didn’t like the idea of her mother being gossiped about at Nightingales.

  ‘Fox,’ Rosie said, stabbing a finger at the picture. Clumsily, she turned a page.

  ‘That’s right, Rosie,’ Charlie said. She returned her attention to the story, but Oliver spoke again.

  ‘It must have been tough for you, as well as for Kathy,’ he said. ‘So all this—’ he waved an arm at Rosie, the bench, the book – ‘is sort of therapy?’

  ‘For me, you mean? I don’t know. I mean, it just happened. Fay asked me, and I said yes.’

  ‘You like coming here, don’t you? As much as I do.’ Oliver bent to pick up her sketchbook from the ground, and started to leaf through the pages. ‘And these?’ He’d found the sketches of Rosie. ‘Therapy?’

  It had become a habit for Charlie to show him her drawings, but this time she hadn’t offered them. These weren’t for him. Charlie watched him in silence. Rosie said, ‘Tarm-yard.’

  Oliver studied the drawings carefully, turned the pages. ‘These are nice – these quick little line drawings. Catching the pose.’

  ‘It’s difficult, like you told me,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Mmm, I can see.’

  ‘I was having a go at drawing in pen. I like it. You can’t fiddle about like you can w
ith pencil.’

  He continued looking. Too late, she realized that he’d turned the page to her ineffectual sketches of Sean. She went to snatch the book back, but he smiled at what he saw, then said, ‘You must let me return the compliment, some time soon. I’d love to draw you. Paint you, even better.’

  Was there something suggestive about the way his gaze swept down her body? And he thought—

  ‘No. No,’ she said, her cheeks burning. She didn’t want to explain that the drawings were of Sean, not of him. Fortunately they were too bad for him to tell. She tugged at the sketchbook and turned back to the Rosie sketches. He liked to think she spent her time dreaming about him; she saw that now.

  He looked amused at her embarrassment. ‘The pen drawings are much better,’ he said, as if she didn’t know. Then, ‘You look after Rosie quite a lot now, don’t you? D’you think you might look after Kieran for me, this Friday afternoon?’

  ‘Kieran?’

  ‘My son.’

  She didn’t know he had a son. They’d talked quite often, but he’d never mentioned Kieran.

  ‘Nice name. How old is he?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘It’s a bit different from looking after Rosie.’

  ‘Not an awful lot,’ said Oliver. ‘He’s no real trouble.’

  ‘Does he live with his mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you see him much?’

  Was this the reason for his reticence? The failure of his marriage, separation from his son? He rarely mentioned his ex-wife. Another relationship ended, Charlie thought. What’s wrong with everyone?

  ‘Not very often,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult.’

  ‘Is he staying the whole weekend?’

  ‘No, I’m just having him on Friday. Rosalind’s got an appointment and her usual child-minder can’t have him. But I need to sit down with Fay and Dan and go through next year’s programme. So if you could keep an eye on him, just for an hour or two …’

  ‘OK, then,’ she said. It could be a repayment for all the free tuition; besides, she was curious to see Kieran.

  ‘Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it.’

  He touched her arm, and let his hand rest there for a moment. She was uneasy about the way he kept touching her; a pat on the shoulder, a hand on her waist to guide her, his hand over hers while she was drawing. At first, flattered by his interest, she’d taken it for friendliness. Now, especially since the conversation with Sean, she knew he shouldn’t do it. He was assuming some sort of right over her. She thought of saying, ‘Please don’t touch me,’ but saw at once how he’d take it. He was only being friendly, affectionate; she’d be neurotic, even conceited, to imagine she was so desirable that he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

  But no one should touch her if she didn’t want them to.

  It would be easy enough to be assertive if the person doing the touching were a stranger, or someone drunk at a party, but the grey areas were more difficult. When you knew – even liked – the person, or when the gestures might express nothing more than friendliness or reassurance, it was impossible to shout, or be aggressive. Even more difficult when you weren’t sure whether you liked it or not.

  Was she making too much of it? Probably. She didn’t seriously imagine he was planning a steamy affair, to be conducted in the Well House between workshops. He was a teacher and she was a schoolgirl.

  ‘Right. Friday, then,’ she said abruptly. ‘Come on, Rosie. Let’s go indoors.’

  ‘What have you been drawing lately?’ Kathy asked, that evening.

  An impulse made Charlie push her sketchbook across the table.

  ‘These. Have a look.’

  At once she wanted to take it back.

  Kathy got no farther than the sketches of Rosie. Saying nothing, she looked at each one, then turned back to the most detailed portrait, the one Charlie had finished at home. The one that didn’t really look like Rosie.

  Finally she said, ‘You know who she makes me think of?’

  ‘No.’ Charlie dreaded the answer. She looks like Rose. Rose as she would have been. That’s what Kathy would say. What had possessed her to hand over the drawings? She’d have done better to tear them into shreds.

  ‘She looks like you. When you were that age,’ Kathy said. ‘Thank you for showing me.’

  She closed the sketchbook and went upstairs.

  Charlie, who’d expected tears, reproaches, even anger, stood uncertainly at the bottom of the stairs. She waited to hear the bedroom door closing, but instead she heard Kathy rummaging about in cupboards. A few minutes later she came down again, carrying a cardboard box.

  ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Photos,’ Kathy said.

  She dumped the box on the kitchen table and tilted it towards Charlie. Inside, Charlie saw two large scrapbooks, and dozens of photographs – some loose, most still as they came from processing, in their paper wallets.

  ‘I should have sorted these out years ago, and put them in the scrapbook,’ her mother said. ‘Do you want to help?’

  It took them until half-past one in the morning. Sorting, identifying, writing captions. Some of the photographs went into the scrapbook; others stayed in their wallets, labelled and dated.

  Most of the pictures that went into the scrapbook were of Charlie. Charlie as a baby, with her father – a strange, remote figure he seemed now, as distant as someone in a Victorian aquatint. Charlie at about three, sitting on a pony with Kathy supporting her. Charlie in the nativity play at her infant school, a sturdy, scowling angel with wonky tinsel wings. ‘I love this one,’ her mother said, holding up the one of Charlie on the pony. ‘We stayed on a farm in Devon, just you and me. The pony was called Bumble and you wanted to bring her home. Do you remember?’

  ‘Very vaguely.’

  Charlie reached out for the photo, but her mother held on to it.

  ‘I’ll see if I can find the negative. I’ll get it enlarged and framed.’

  Charlie was assistant, letting her mother do it her own way; she sorted and glued and labelled according to instructions. It was more than the carrying-out of a job long overdue; it was a journey into their past. When Sean began to appear in the pictures Kathy made no particular comment, other than to identify the time and place where she could. Charlie wrote captions, looked briefly, said little. Now that she knew where the photos were, she could find them again later.

  ‘Me pregnant,’ her mother said, matter-of-factly, passing over a print.

  Charlie didn’t know how much that casual tone could be trusted. Sorting the photographs had put her mother in a strange mood: nostalgic, a little sad, but with a sort of hypnotized calm.

  ‘You should have been in bed long ago,’ Kathy said, when Charlie had stuck in the most recent pictures – those of Flightsend, mainly of the nursery at various stages of development, and one or two of Caspar. ‘I hope you won’t be worn out tomorrow. Thank you. That was a good thing to do.’ She kissed Charlie and picked up the box.

  Lying in bed and contemplating the strange evening, Charlie thought about the word scrapbook. The books of photos weren’t really scrapbooks but albums; a real scrapbook would contain things other than photos – letters, tickets, programmes, wrappers. But the word stuck in her mind. Scraps. Scraps of their lives. Scraps that could have been discarded, but hadn’t been.

  Kieran

  Fridays were always busy at Nightingales, with one lot of guests leaving after lunch and a second batch arriving for dinner. In today’s changeover, Creative Collage and Feng Shui gave way to Watercolour Painting and Be More Assertive.

  ‘We’ll easily tell who’s here for Assertiveness,’ Jon said at breakfast-time. ‘It’ll be the ones who look meek and helpless when they arrive.’

  ‘And get more and more bolshy as the weekend goes on,’ Suzanne added. ‘Expect trouble with the orders by Sunday lunchtime.’

  Charlie, having arranged to look after Rosie and Kieran from three o’clock till just before di
nner, wore jeans and the batik top from Henrietta’s, bringing her waitressing clothes and shoes in a carrier bag. She found Fay in the office and collected Rosie. Having seen no sign of Oliver, she went over to the Well House to see if he was there.

  ‘Orriver! Orriver!’ Rosie ran ahead towards the open door, arms flailing.

  ‘Hello there, Rosie Rascal.’ Oliver appeared from inside, picking Rosie up and lifting her high above his head. She squealed and wriggled until he put her down. Then he said, ‘Hi, Charlie. Kieran’s in here.’

  A large, thick-set boy was sitting on the floor. He looked round slowly as Charlie entered. She saw the slackness of his mouth, the rather prominent eyes, slow to focus; the clumsy movement as he struggled to his feet. His arms and legs were short in proportion to his body. It was like looking at a younger version of Oliver that had become blurred and distorted.

  ‘This is Kieran,’ Oliver said.

  Kieran stared at Charlie, his mouth open. She thought: Down’s Syndrome? Why didn’t Oliver tell me?

  ‘Hello, Kieran,’ she said; then Rosie went up and took him by the hand.

  ‘Tieran, Tieran! Tieran come with us.’

  ‘They know each other?’ Charlie asked Oliver, who stood back watching.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘They’ve played together quite often. You see what I mean, about it not being much different from looking after Rosie.’

  ‘What does he like to do?’ she asked. ‘What would you like to do, Kieran? Come and feed the ducks?’

  ‘Yeah, go and feed the ducks,’ Oliver said. ‘You needn’t bother too much. He’s usually quite happy to sit and stare.’

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ Charlie told him. ‘Right, I’ll see you back here at half-past five.’

  ‘Have fun,’ he said. ‘If he needs the loo, bring him up to the office. I’ll have to take him.’ He locked the Well House behind them and walked off towards the house.

  Charlie, with her two charges, went down the sloping lawn to the pond, one hand holding Kieran’s, one holding Rosie’s. Rosie clutched the bag of stale bread; Kieran stumbled on the uneven ground, and Charlie adjusted her pace. Adjusted her thoughts, too. Was this why Oliver never mentioned Kieran? Was he ashamed of him?