‘What’s it saying?’
Her face quickened with concentration. ‘Let’s see – How does that old poem go?
The sleep that I have and the rest that I have
- though death will be but a pause
For the youth of my life in the long green grass,
is yours and yours and yours.’
She rolled over on to him, put her hand gently on his cheek.
‘It’s not like the England of old is it, the decent innocent gentle place we all struggled for? Now it’s so different: ill-mannered, drugs, violence – all of it. We don’t belong any more in this age where sex is more important than love.’
He took the stalk from his mouth.
‘Every generation says that, darling – it’s just we’ve been lucky enough to grow very old and are able to look back through rose-coloured spectacles to our youth.’
She shook her head.
‘I’m aware of that and know there are a lot of good people out there, but I truly believe the world is not so nice as it was. We’ve all gained materially but we’ve lost something – our spirit – in the process.’ She paused, then touched his lips with hers, this man who had been her only lover – the only one she had ever wanted. ‘Do you remember that night in the garden of the cottage – back in forty-four?’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
She whispered softly: ‘Stars by the millions – big and bright. You don’t see them much now, do you, with all the light we flood the heavens with? Well, who knows, where we are going, maybe the stars really will be beneath our feet. No …’ Her warm voice that he knew so well was suddenly the old forties, cut-glass English of their first meeting in the library: the no-nonsense bluestocking.
‘We don’t belong in this world any more, darling. Let’s find out what awaits us in the next – together.’
She gave a mock salute.
‘Our last mission.’
Mary was free of pain – having swallowed a day’s worth of tablets with the gin-and-tonics she brought ready-mixed for them both. Bill had doubled the strength of his dose, remarking at the label: ‘Hmm, I’m not to drive a car it seems.’ He grinned and pushed his chin into his chest – just like Cary Grant. ‘It says nothing about flying a plane.’
With her strapped beside him, he faced the controls. ‘Right, let’s see if we can get this old bird off the ground again.’
She smacked his leg.
‘Don’t you talk about me like that. Have you got the CD player?’
He brought it up from the floor and gave it to her.
‘All set?’
She nodded.
The engine burst into life. Bill checked his Ts and Ps. Everything was functioning as it should. ‘The old strip’s not what it was, so hang on to your hat.’
He gunned the engine, holding the little plane hard on its brakes. It trembled at the bit like a horse before a race, then he yelled:
‘Brakes off, here we go into the wild blue yonder – like the old days.’
The plane leapt forward, slamming both their heads back against the rests. The runway passed under them faster and faster as a warehouse loomed larger, finally seemed to fill their whole world. Bill pulled back the stick, Mary’s eyes widened; both gave an involuntary yell….
They skimmed over the roof of the building, where men taking a smoke flung themselves flat on the deck.
Neither of them saw the police cars with flashing blue lights, which had been alerted by the pilot. He had guessed where Bill might have headed. The drivers got out of their cars, talking on their radios as the plane circled above them.
Bill looked down at the strip, gave a final salute, and headed for the coast as Mary turned on the CD.
To the tune of American Patrol they left the airfield.
On the ground, silence came again, except for the returned skylarks – and the whispering grass.
They flew around great cloud-castles, swooping and soaring, the sea sparkling below like molten silver where it was caught by the falling shafts of sunlight.
The music changed. With Moonlight Serenade he cut back the engine. The roaring gale outside slowly subsided.
Mary looked across at him. Their hands found each other, clasped tightly. Bill swallowed, and mouthed silently: ‘I love you.’
When the nose dropped Mary squeezed his hand even harder.
‘Hold me.’
Bill pushed the stick forward and rammed the throttle through the gate.
Mary reached out, and Bill threw his arms around her. Faces pressed hard together, tears streaming down their cheeks, they held on tightly.
The plane passed into a cloud, engine screaming as the dive increased. When it came out into the open the glittering sea was rushing up at them.
Neither of them saw it.
Only each other.
EPILOGUE
The little group stood in a fine rain. Moisture hung in the warm air like a mist. Among them were Mr and Mrs Clark Anderson, Vivien Hayes, neé Anderson and her husband, and Dr Mary Jean Anderson-Smith.
Earlier, in the little Church of Saint Gregory the Great, where their mother and father had gone in the midst of a terrible war, they had held a small memorial service.
Clark had spoken of his parents, and how they had met, and his father’s recollections of the very peculiar war his generation of young flyers had fought – every bit as dangerous, every bit as lethal, every bit as nasty as any war that had gone before. Over 200,000 aircrew of all nations had fought and died in the skies over Europe.
Yet each time, immediately a mission was over, they went back to nearly normal living – as normal as it could be in wartime, with food, relatively warm and dry rooms, girls, tea in Cambridge, shows in London – and pubs.
There never had been a war like that in the history of the world. Probably never would be gain.
Then, in accordance with the wishes expressed in the letters that had been sent to each of them and to the family solicitor, which had carried instructions on compensation if the aeroplane owner incurred any costs above the insurance pay-out, they had gathered outside.
Clark read a poem, its author unknown, and reached the last lines – modified by his father and mother.
Do not stand by our grave and cry
We are not there
We did not die
In the silence that followed a very strange thing occurred. The sound of a single piston-engined aircraft came from the west, grew in loudness, the noise eventually reverberating directly above them.
One of the little group, an eighty-four-year-old veteran of the Eighth Air Force knew a P51 Merlin-Packard engine when he heard it.
They all looked up, searching the lowering clouds.
But there was no sign of the aircraft. The engine noise receded, droned away into the east, towards a free Europe, and finally died.
Some physicists have postulated that there is an infinite number of parallel universes as the only way of explaining certain problems in cosmology. Therefore, it is entirely possible that even now a fresh-faced young woman with dark wavy hair, clasping several books to her bosom, is about to enter the library of her university. Inside, a young man in the uniform of an American pilot….
Mary’s spiritual interludes continue.
By the Same Author
The Homosaur
Child of Vodyanoi
(The Nightmare Man)
Genesis II
Under John Bedford
Moment in Time
Operation Trigeminal
The Generals Died Together
The Titron Madness
The Nemesis Concerto
BBC TV Production
The Nightmare Man
Copyright
© David Wiltshire 2006
First published in Great Britain 2006
This edition 2012
ISBN978 0 7090 9935 2 (epub)
ISBN978 0 7090 9936 9 (mobi)
ISBN978 0 7090 9937 6 (pdf)
ISBN978 0 7090 81
11 1 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of David Wiltshire to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Beneath Us the Stars Page 17