by David Beaty
Just before they were cleared to the stack at fifteen thousand feet, the stewardess cleared all their trays away as efficiently as a magician.
It had started raining. The wipers clanked over the windscreens, leaving two clear crystal fans in a foggy curtain of raindrops. Worse, there was a crosswind from the south across Runway 31, and Runway 22 was under repair.
As the Astrojet descended, it began swinging in the uneven, crosswind air. The First Officer suggested it was ‘going to be tricky, sir’.
After that disastrous Check, after his period at home worrying, Harker would have expected to have felt at the very least a little tremulous. As the aircraft edged lower from four hundred to three hundred to two hundred feet, then began flying level over the blurred green and white carpet of the threshold lights, in fact he felt exhilarated. Far from doubting his flying ability, he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t make a mistake. In spite of the blustery crosswind and the uncertain visibility, he would bring off a perfect landing.
‘Full flap,’ he called to the First Officer.
A whine from the hydraulic pump indicated the flaps being extended.
‘Speed one hundred and thirty, sir.’ And seconds later, ‘Over the threshold.’
Harker began gently easing back on the stick. The nose went higher, then higher still. He kicked off half the drift. There was the very softest hissing sound.
‘Nice landing, sir,’ said the First Officer.
‘Reverse thrust.’
The huge roar of the four Rolls-Royces echoed his own feelings of triumph. For some reason, a landing is regarded as a medical by a pilot – a bad one and he’s failed, a good one and he’s as fit as a fiddle. As Harker taxied to the ramp, he was on top of the world.
We all have our bad days, he was saying to himself. And we all have our good ones. That’s all there is to it. Possibly something to do with the adrenalin, absence of fatigue or just a sudden psychological boost to morale. Nothing whatever to worry about.
On the trip into the city, Belinda sat right at the back of the bus. She didn’t say a word to him when the catering crew got off at the Shelton Hotel. As for the stewardess who had acted as go-between, she seemed quite unaware of the fact.
At the Plaza, he asked for – and received – the company’s best room, the one he had had on his last trip. He had a snack in the restaurant, then went up to 5116 for a bath and bed.
Next morning was bright and sunny. He slept late, had a couple of sandwiches brought in by Room Service, and then he took the lift down to the ground floor.
She was sitting on a sofa in the foyer. She got up the moment she saw him. He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock exactly.
‘At least you’re on time.’ He saw she was looking at him warily. ‘Do you always use that jungle telegraph system for your assignations?’
She lowered her eyes. ‘ I’ve never made assignations before, Captain Harker.’
‘Come off it, Belinda! Don’t pretend to be frightened.’
‘But I am frightened.’
He led the way through the glass swing doors. ‘You should be, but you aren’t.’ He stopped on the pavement and held up his hand for a taxi. ‘A young lady called Miss Daphne Lister was supposed to be on my crew, but mysteriously she disappeared.’
‘That must have been most inconvenient, Captain Harker.’
‘Not as inconvenient as it could have been. You turned up in her place.’
‘How fortunate.’
A yellow cab slowed to a stop. He opened the door for her.
‘Coney Island,’ he told the driver as he climbed in after her. As they turned off Fifth Avenue, he said, ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Do what, Captain Harker?’
‘Swap on the roster.’
She stretched out her small right hand and studied the five scarlet nails as carefully as if they’d been rubies. Then she said slowly, ‘I wanted to see you. I hadn’t had a glimpse of you since coffee at the Training Section. I heard bits of news about you from bods on my trips.’
‘What news?’
‘Oh, that you were working terribly hard on very important business and naturally hadn’t a moment to spare for insignificant little stewardesses.’
‘So you swapped on the roster to come with me?’
She hung her head. He looked at her, legs neatly together, hands now clasping each other as though in entreaty.
Suddenly he laughed and took her hand.
‘Guilty! Sentenced to two continuous sessions on the big dipper!’
‘You’re suddenly very merry. What’s the matter? Is it me?’
It probably was, he thought, but said nothing, not wanting to explore that question further. The day had started well and the sun was shining. He intended to enjoy himself, to try to build a reserve of pleasure and confidence against possible dark days to come. He intended to forget Harriet, forget Jane, forget Colin, forget the Truscotts, forget Osborne and his Check. These two days stand off were going to be a refurbishment of his spirit. He was going to go back refreshed, all fears and worries put to bed, a new man altogether.
Belinda held on to his hand lest he take it away in the taxi, but otherwise behaved very decorously. But now there was an air of expectancy about her, a bubbling of subdued excitement that exploded as soon as they found themselves beached in the dirty garish village that was Coney Island.
She insisted on going on everything twice. She shrieked as they dived down on the big dipper. She clung to him as they whirled on the whip. She hurled balls at coconuts so accurately that he could hardly walk for holding them. On the dodgem cars, she insisted on driving and the last thing she did was to dodge. She drove full tilt into everything she saw, and he had to beseech her to stop before the continuous head-on collisions knocked his teeth into the back of his head.
He could never remember laughing so much, never remember eating so much pop-corn, drinking so much Coca-Cola. In the darkness of the Ghost Train, she kissed him hard, keeping her long soft arms entwined round his neck. She even got him on the merry-go-round. They were tightly packed together on the tiny saddle of a painted bronco that reared up and down as it galloped round and round to the brassy sound of She’ll be comin’ round the mountain coming from a barrel organ at the hub of their whirling universe.
She simply wouldn’t get off. Whenever the thing slowed to a stop and the population changed, she clung onto him harder and anchored them both to the saddle.
‘I’ve told you, I liking riding. I love horses.’
It was on their sixth trip that suddenly, as the painted equine monster was going full tilt, she groaned, ‘Oh my God!’ and pointed. ‘Look, Paul, look!’
‘What’s the matter?’ he shouted back at her above the din of music and machinery.
‘Can’t you see?’
On the next circuit, he saw. Standing alone, just to one side of a bunch of youths in funny hats, was First Officer Adams.
In the circumstances, Adams would have been the last person in the world he would have wanted to see at that moment. But in some extraordinary way – perhaps it was the exhilaration of the last ninety minutes – he didn’t give a damn.
‘He’s waving at you, Belinda,’ he shouted.
‘Then he can go on waving. As far as I’m concerned, he can get lost … fast!’
The merry-go-round slowed to a stop. ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling him up. ‘Let’s give him the slip.’
‘We can’t do that, Belinda.’ They walked together over the wooden parapet and down the steps. Her attempted avoidance of Adams, the rejection of a man half his age, pleased him, added to his confidence. When Adams intercepted them, he gave a knowing, ‘Why hello, sir! Didn’t know you were keen on riding!’
‘Wonderful for keeping fit, Mr Adams. Why don’t you have a go?’
‘I’d rather have a beer, sir.’
‘I’m sure Belinda wants one too. That bar, the Golden Horseshoe, sounds just the place.’
He led the way over
and sat himself down on a high stool between the two of them, where he ordered three Heinekens. He had taken complete charge. Quite unruffled, he made it appear that taking a turn on a merry-go-round horse with a junior stewardess was his normal relaxation on a New York stand off.
‘Come down here often, do you, Mr Adams?’
‘No, sir, no.’ The man looked quite shocked as though accused of an addiction to drugs. ‘First time actually.’ He took up his beer. ‘But I’ve bumped into four Atlanta characters today besides you.’ He turned his head, ‘We’ve started a new fashion Belinda.’
The big blue eyes gave him an old-fashioned look, as much as to say, don’t get too friendly.
‘Any more of your crew with you, sir?’
‘Nobody else wanted to come, Adams.’
‘I’d have come if I’d been on your crew, sir.’
‘We’d have been glad to have you with us, wouldn’t we, Belinda?’
Belinda studiously drank her beer.
‘I think it’s a good thing when Captains take their crews out on stand offs between trips, sir. Makes for a good matey atmosphere on the flight deck, don’t you think so, sir? Everything relaxed. No tensions.’
Harker saw the little brown eyes watching him. What’s he up to, he thought. Is he trying to be friendly? Is he trying to tell me that the episode with Jane, when I practically booted him out of the house, is forgiven?
‘So much safer don’t you think, sir?’ The brown eyes were still watching him. ‘ So much less likely for someone to make a mistake.’
The incident with Jane might be forgotten history, but clearly that Check was not.
‘I passed on my repeat, sir.’
‘So I see. Who did you do it with?’
‘Captain Tilsley. Wonderful pilot, Captain Tilsley.’
Harker heard the implication which you’re not in his voice.
‘Captain Tilsley and Captain Osborne said I’d done a first class Check, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it. Osborne told me that in his opinion you weren’t Captain material.’
Adams flushed. ‘He’s changed his mind now, sir!’ He leaned further over the counter so he could see the stewardess. ‘You see, Belinda, I failed a Check with Captain Harker.’ There was no doubt now of the hostility in the brown eyes. ‘But neither of us was on form that day, were we, sir?’
Harker was about to open his mouth to deal with that one, when out of her silence, Belinda suddenly erupted:
‘He was on form yesterday! His landing at New York … none of the passengers knew they were down! It was the best landing I’ve ever experienced.’
The man looked suitably abashed. He’d tried to get a dig in and been squashed. The episode with Jane was not after all forgiven. Neither was the failed Check. The brown eyes had dropped now, darting shiftily over the counter like little mice. He’s still afraid of me, Harker thought. Like a young bull, he’s had an underhand go at the old bull and been routed without me having to raise my hand. Wet, Jane had said. How right she was.
‘How about another one, Mr Adams?’
‘Not for me, thank you, sir.’
‘Belinda?’
But she had already climbed off her stool. ‘ I think perhaps it’s time—’
‘To get back?’ Harker looked at his watch. ‘Practically five and I’d promised to have a word with Captain Baker before he took out the Bermuda shuttle this evening. Tell you what—’
He was still in complete charge. He was sweeping the skies clean of any suspicions of assignations with stewardesses and clandestine dates away from wife and home. In this euphoria of total confidence, he was showing that everything was above board, that on Atlanta everybody was friendly and that nothing was better for morale and safety than the gang going off to enjoy themselves together on an overseas stand off between trips.
‘—why don’t we all get the same taxi into New York, eh Mr Adams, and I’ll drop you and Belinda off at the Shelton and then go on to the Plaza? Save a few dollars …’
He simply did not wait for a yes or no, but shepherded them out of the fairground into Evergreen Avenue where he hailed a taxi and bundled them both inside before him.
He talked practically the whole way into the centre of the city, hardly ever allowing them to get a word in. He joked, laughed, pointed out the Whitestone Bridge and the UN buildings, aware all the time of Belinda from her corner watching him admiringly and a subdued and silent Adams wedged between them like a hostage. At the Shelton, Adams put his hand in his pocket. ‘Meter says twenty-one dollars, sir. Split three ways that’s—’
‘No, no!’ He waved them both away. ‘Leave this to me. My idea, after all. Bye, Mr Adams. See you on board the Kennedy bus tomorrow, Belinda.’
The cab door slammed. They were gone. He was left alone on a little cloud of confidence, scented with the last waft of Belinda’s perfume coming from the corner seat.
‘Plaza, now?’
‘No, Macy’s please. Just remembered I’ve got to do some shopping.’
Ten minutes later, Macy’s enveloped him. The crowds, the glitter, the hurrying feet, the swarms of counters, the lifts, the noise. He looked for the food store, eventually found it, bought the fudge and pecan sauce that Harriet had asked for, and then went over to the jewellery counter. If he bought her something, a ring or a brooch, would she now think that some woman had helped him again? The stuff was artificial anyway. Quite good, but not really what Harriet would like. He went up to the fashion floor, but hesitated over buying her anything in the clothes line again. There was nothing anyway that she would really like there. She’d have to make do with the carton of sauce. Pity, but he’d tried.
He was in no hurry to get back to the Plaza. He wanted to savour this new-found confidence, alone. He was restored to himself, cured of some mysterious illness. For the present he needed no one. Leaving Macy’s, he could still feel the steadiness of that confidence within him. Down Fifth Avenue, he threaded his way through the last of the office workers hurrying home. He mounted the steps of the Plaza slowly, thinking pleasurably of dinner in his room, a bath and bed.
As he pushed through the glass swing doors, he saw Belinda sitting meekly on the first sofa in the hall, and immediately, as if the spinning glass doors had been a kaleidoscope, the pattern and colour of his thinking changed.
‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you?’ She stood up. ‘I mean I wouldn’t have come,’ she fell into step beside him as he continued towards the lifts, ‘ if I thought you’d be angry.’
For a moment, he said nothing. Her sudden appearance had unbalanced the delicate structure of his confidence. Now that she was here, he saw suddenly that all that newfound confidence was her, her admiring eyes, her loyalty, her sweetness.
‘I’m not angry,’ he said as steadily as he could, and pushed his way through the crowd in front of the lifts to press the up-button.
‘You seem angry.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ He didn’t look at her, though he was aware that she had changed into a low cut dress in a dark inky colour that made her look a trifle cheap. When the lift came, he got in with everyone else jostling behind. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder to see if she was there. He knew she was. Like an inky little shadow. Like destiny. He knew what was going to happen, what now had to happen.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she said, following him out at the fifty-first floor. ‘I mean, it did all end rather abruptly with Adams turning up like that. I thought you’d probably have given me dinner if he hadn’t come.’
‘I was going to have dinner in my room, Belinda,’ Harker said, despising his own hypocrisy and guile.
‘Can’t we both have dinner in your room?’
Unhurriedly Harker put the key in the lock of 5116. ‘ If you’d like that.’ He threw the door open. The curtains had not been drawn. Beyond and below the window gleamed the pattern of New York’s many-coloured lights. He looked down for a moment on them as if from the flight deck of an aircraft. He felt Be
linda’s presence beside him. Twin excitements of dizzying power suddenly took hold of him. He was a young pilot again and a young, vigorous man. The world was miraculously his oyster. He swung round and caught Belinda’s eager little body to him.
‘I’m not very hungry,’ she said, releasing herself and sitting on the bed. ‘Let’s not bother to eat.’ She caught his hand and pulled him gently towards her.
Chapter Five
A west wind, stiff as his guilt, speeded them home. Belinda was, by chance or design, discreetly absent from the flight deck. Breakfast was brought up to the crew by Margaret Fisher herself, in honour, he hoped, of old times. She stayed to chat, asked about Harriet, sent her love. They arrived over London ahead of schedule and landed almost immediately.
Their arrival was probably too early for Harriet. But no, peering out of the glass corridor in the Operations block, he spied his Citroën drawn up outside. This time he took a moment deliberately to compose his face – the next step, he thought wryly, down the deceiver’s path.
Opening the main door of the building, and stepping out into the blustery September morning, he was beginning to stride over to his car with a buoyant and eager-looking step, when he saw that Harriet was not alone in the car. To his chagrin, he saw the ample form of Madge Truscott sitting in his own seat behind the wheel.
She saw him, waved heartily, opened the driver’s door and heaved herself out, complete with tweed trouser suit, brown sweater and Liberty scarf, her gold bangles and chains jangling unmusically as she moved. She straightened as he approached, held open the door for him, and gave a mock salute.
She was a tall, heavily built woman and the top of her grey hair came to his nose. It smelled of setting lotion or spray or whatever they used to get those stiff waves.
‘It’s all right, Paul old chap,’ she boomed. ‘ Don’t panic. Harriet isn’t really hurt. Cracked a bone in her foot, that’s all. Can’t drive on it though. That’s why I came. No, don’t worry about me. I’ll get in the back. Leave you two love birds in the front.’
‘How did it happen? How bad is it?’ Paul asked, climbing into the driving seat. In sudden tenderness, not unmixed with guilt, he cupped Harriet’s face and pulled her nearer to him. He kissed her lips slowly, then released her.