by David Beaty
The thatch dripped rain like a sodden sheep. But inside all was warmth and cheerfulness. A log fire roared in the open fireplace, and Madge was pushing a chintzy sofa nearer the blaze.
‘In a way,’ she said, holding Belinda’s hand and Paul’s at the same time, ‘this is a little thank you to Stephen. He’s done so much to help Archie. Archie is a new man.’
The psychologist arrived before Archie had time to fold the umbrella away.
‘I want Stephen to have a good time this evening,’ Madge whispered to Paul as Belinda rushed along to the kitchen to sponge a spot of mud off her new shoes, and Slade with Archie in attendance began to admire the horse brasses and the copper warming pans.
To ensure Stephen had a good time, the wine flowed freely. Stephen was invited to pronounce upon it from the pre-dinner sherry onwards.
‘I’m serving a ’68 Burgundy with the roast,’ Archie told him after he had declared the Chablis a worthy accompaniment to the watercress soup. ‘ I think you’ll like that too, Stephen. But I would value your honest and uninhibited opinion.’
As the meal progressed, Slade gave his uninhibited opinion and not just on the wine. As the wine flowed ever more freely, so did his opinions.
In general, his opinions were uncontroversial. He thought Madge’s cooking was superb, Thatched Cottage quite charming, the airline management niggardly, the government’s aviation policy disastrous, Madge’s dress most elegant, and in answer to a rather drunken question from Archie … yes, indeed Belinda was quite the most beautiful young woman Slade had seen in years.
It was all good fun and jolly. But he answered that silly question with a special and dangerous sincerity that made Paul’s hair stand on end, like some old dog about to be driven off by a young whippersnapper.
The old dog simile again, he thought, clasping his brandy glass, not to warm the liquor but to give his itchy hands something to do. Why did Slade make him feel like this? Because Slade was some latter-day Merlin with his bunch of secret psychological tricks? Because he made him feel old and redundant, his weaknesses exposed? Because he was attracted to Belinda? Or because, more nebulous this, he seemed to convey to Paul the certainty that Slade with his ringmaster’s whip, his Merlin’s wand, was taking them all round and round, nearer and nearer … but to what? Everything on the surface seemed comfortable and controlled.
Now coffee was being served at the table. ‘So much nicer now we’re all so cosy together,’ Madge said, passing round the After Eights in the wake of the coffee cups. ‘I do like it when the conversation never lags.’
Belinda was telling them amusing stories about the days when she was a stewardess. The awful passengers, the bell-ringers, the men who pinched your bottom.
‘I remember the days when we first had stewardesses, Belinda,’ Archie said, ‘and that’s going back a bit. Oh, my word did we have fun with them! Telling them the Captain needed the Centre of Gravity urgently and sending them to look for it. I don’t know what you trick-cyclists would have made of our little tests! I remember one girl pulling the hydraulic pump to and fro from Cairo to Basra because Buddy Waterton told her that was the only way of flushing the Elsans.’
The psychologist’s keen bright eyes watched him splutter with laughter. Then he asked smiling, ‘On what sort of aircraft?’
‘Liberators, old chap. Damned fine aircraft! But the pump was huge. And that poor girl …’ He went off into gales of laughter.
Almost imperceptibly, the ringmaster seemed to tighten his circle.
‘What other aircraft have you flown, Archie?’
‘Dozens,’ Madge said proudly.
Archie began to reel them off, tightening the circle at the master’s bidding till without a flicker he said, ‘Boeing Sky-cruisers,’ and the psychologist seemed to reach the point he had been circling round. He asked innocently, conversationally, ‘ Wasn’t that the aircraft you crashed in, Archie?’
Paul saw Madge shoot Archie a fearful glance at mention of the unmentionable, but he seemed to take the question calmly.
‘That’s right,’ he said, slurring his words but not raising his voice. ‘Taking off at night from Tecuma.’
‘Wasn’t there a fatigue factor in the accident?’ Slade asked sympathetically.
‘There was, old boy! Certainly was!’
‘Disorganisation too, I believe.’
Archie’s pale eyes suddenly glittered angrily.
‘Disorganisation? What d’you mean?’
‘On the flight deck. Disorganisation. I read the report. That’s what I gathered.’
‘Then you gathered wrong! Never any disorganisation on my flight deck!’
‘I mean in the psychological sense. You were tired. You were interrupted. And you became disorganised.’
‘Never! I’m not the sort to become disorganised! You said so yourself! That test. Best results ever! Your words.’ Archie looked betrayed. ‘Disorganised! You don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t know what the hell happened!’
‘I can’t, unless you tell me,’ Slade said reasonably.
It was just as if he had turned some soft silent key. Out it all came, words gushing like water from Archie’s twisted lips, while he clasped and unclasped his hands.
‘It was pitch dark …’
Harker knew the report. Clearly Slade knew it too. Madge, who had borne with Archie through his nightmares, knew it better than any of them.
‘We’d come in from London at midnight,’ Archie went on, ‘ and we were returning there after an hour on the ground, refuelling and loading the passengers. Tiger Laycock was my First Officer, a jolly good chap. Well, we started the engines, got cleared to Runway 26. Hell of a long taxi with Tiger joking all the time! Peter Pratt was the Engineer. He was engaged to Drusilla Edwards, the Chief Stewardess. We were a happy crew … a good crew … not the crew to make a silly mistake … no!’
‘A happy crew is a safe crew,’ Slade prompted when Archie paused, his eyes glazed, his mouth open but wordless.
‘I think Archie’s had enough,’ Paul put in. ‘Anyway it’s almost time we left.’
‘No. Let him go on,’ Slade said. ‘Don’t stop him now.’
‘So Tiger read out the Before Take Off Check. Everything was done. Take off flaps. Everything! Control cleared us to go. I was just opening up the throttles when they called us and said, ‘‘Stop! The runway’s been changed. Proceed to Runway 35’’. Well, that was all right. I lifted the flap so it wouldn’t be damaged by stones being thrown up by the props … Tecuma taxiing was damned bad for that. ‘‘Hurry,’’ Control called us. ‘‘We’ve a 707 seven miles out on final.’’ We hurried all right, got to Runway 35, wheeled into position. I opened the throttles. Then we went on and on and on.’
‘You couldn’t get airborne?’ Slade asked.
Archie shook his head.
‘Up came the red boundary lights. Then I just pulled. Nothing else to do. Oh, we came up all right. Staggered into the air. Then the port wing slipped. I could feel us falling.’
Paul saw the sweat break out suddenly on Archie’s forehead, grey eyes protruding now and staring. He wanted to shout, to stop the performance. He put his hand on Archie’s arm.
But Archie was oblivious to everything. He was back in Tecuma on that dark night ten years ago.
‘Next moment out of the corner of my eye,’ his voice had gone higher, more urgent, ‘I saw the wall of a house. I tried to lift the wing. No use. The tip touched and over we went. A hell of a sound, then … like the world splitting! We cartwheeled in the air. Next thing I knew, I was hanging upside down by my straps. The flight deck was filled with smoke. I shouted, ‘‘Tiger, Peter!’’ There was no answer. My eyes were watering. I could just see two shapes hanging in the smoke. I yelled ‘‘Tiger … Peter! …’’ ’
Archie was shouting at the top of his voice. Sweat was pouring down his face. He pushed back his chair, jumped up from the table and peered up at the raftered ceiling as if he could see the two shapes
hanging there. He even stretched up his hands as if to try and free them. Then his hands dropped to his sides. Tears were streaming down his face.
‘They were dead.’
‘We know, Archie,’ Paul said gently. ‘That’s enough now. Give it a rest.’
‘No! Don’t stop me! I’ve got to tell you!’ He wiped his eyes, and swallowed, biting his lower lip to stop it trembling like a child’s. ‘I got my straps off. I wriggled through the window. There were people around. I shouted, but they didn’t understand. I tried to open the passenger door at the rear of the aircraft, but it was jammed. I could hear voices. They were alive … shouting … crying. I could hear Drusilla’s voice trying to calm them. I shouted, ‘‘I’ll get you out! Don’t worry!’’ A fire engine came up. They had axes. I grabbed one. I hacked at that door. I could hear them screaming inside. I shouted to the firemen about petrol. I could smell it. Oh, God!’
He buried his face in his hands. His voice came out muffled. ‘Then there was a whoosh. A flash. A blinding flash. The blast blew us all backwards. Then just burning, burning, burning …’
Madge got up and put her arm round his shoulders.
After a moment Archie composed himself. He looked at Slade and said loudly, ‘They were all burned alive. All of them. Burned alive.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Slade nodded.
Archie spread his hands and looked down at them. ‘That bloody Inquiry Commissioner said it was my fault. Pilot Error. I did it.’
‘Only technically. You were disorganised.’
‘Christ! You’re saying it again! That’s what he said! That between Tiger and me we didn’t put that flap down. Because of the interruptions. The change of runway. But I’ve thought about it since. Ever since. I wasn’t on form at the Inquiry. I couldn’t really tell them. I was dazed. Confused. What happened was we put the flap down all right, but the flap crept back. That was it. Yes!’
Paul closed his eyes. He wanted to shout at Slade … leave it there! Leave it alone! You’ve taken your subject as your victim through his nightmare. Taken off the six veils. But Archie still has one to cover his nakedness. One life-lie he’s invented and accepted so that he can just live with his twenty-seven ghosts. Not live jovially, not live contentedly, not live happily … but just live. So for God’s sake leave him that!
But the clever young man couldn’t.
‘But how could that possibly happen?’ Slade asked reasonably. ‘It couldn’t, could it Archie? Face facts. There’s a catch and a slat on the bracket of a Skycruiser to hold take off flap in place.’
Archie looked at him in total blankness. Then he flung his arms on the table and buried his head in them.
‘I think we should go.’ Harker stood up. ‘I’m off tomorrow, Madge. Come on, Belinda.’
He pressed Archie’s shoulder as he passed, and Archie lifted one hand, covered his and returned the pressure.
‘I’ll say goodnight and thank you, Madge.’ Slade lowered his voice. ‘Don’t worry about Archie. He’s had his catharsis. A much-needed one. I’ve taken him right through his experience. He’ll be better from now on.’
‘I hope he’s right,’ Paul murmured to Belinda on their way home.
‘So do I,’ Belinda retorted. ‘Archie’s weird. I couldn’t do with him getting any weirder!’
Chapter Eighteen
Harker woke in a sweat the following morning. He had been dreaming that Archie and he were trying to get the old Skycruiser airborne. She wouldn’t budge. Alarm bells were shrilling. He opened his eyes, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The alarm bell was only the bedside clock. He switched it off quickly lest it wake Belinda. These days he preferred getting himself off on a trip alone.
Shaving, he surveyed himself in the mirror above the washbasin. His face didn’t seem to have changed much despite the events of the last year. Maybe it ought to have done. Maybe that was what Belinda would call weird.
She appeared in the kitchen wearing a fluffy blue dressing gown when he was halfway through his breakfast. She looked like a cuddly doll, sweet and harmless. She pulled up a chair and sat opposite him.
‘I thought I smelled toast. I’m hungry.’ She made a pretended pout. ‘You weren’t just going to swan off without saying goodbye, were you?’
‘No. I never have, have I?’
‘There’s always a first time for everything.’
He buttered a corner of toast and when she opened her mouth and leaned forward, he popped it between her white even teeth, as if she were a child. She crunched happily. She smiled. She was on her best behaviour. Suddenly he thought sadly of Jane, nostalgic for her honest bloody-mindedness.
‘I’ve got a shopping list for you.’ Belinda dived into the pocket of her dressing gown and brought out a piece of paper. She handed it to him. ‘Earrings are the most important item on that list. Gold with pearl drops if the exchequer will run to it.’
She smiled and walked towards the door preparatory to returning upstairs. He felt a sudden wave of irrational anger.
‘At least I’m what’s called a good provider.’
Her eyes widened theatrically with exaggerated indignation. He expected an outburst. But all she did was to give him a strange smile and say restrainedly, ‘What a funny thing to say, Paul! Now who’s being weird?’
He drove all the way to Heathrow Airport with that single word hammering in his head. Weird. He hardly noticed it had begun to rain again, though when he got around to switching on the wipers, they, damn them, joined the chorus, squeaking out that bloody word, weird, with every rubbery sweep of their blades.
‘Weather not so hot, eh, sir?’ the First Officer said when they went along to Met.
Harker looked at him coldly.
‘I can’t say it’s been bad enough for me to notice,’ he replied truthfully, which impressive nonchalance at least shut up the First Officer for a while.
Yet the Met report when he studied it made him notice. There was a heavy build-up of cumulonimbus clouds waiting west of the airport and stretching unbroken for a hundred miles, with reinforcements surging up from the Atlantic if they weren’t bad enough. Typical change-of-season weather, the clouds and the weather fronts keeping pace with the autumn swell of the tides below.
The rain had turned to hail by the time they got out to the aircraft. The morning sky began to look like night. He thought of his dream, and Archie, and his dream again. Determinedly, he emptied his mind of them and told the First Officer to begin the Before Take Off Check.
When it came to it, the take off was nothing like his dream. Two-thirds of the way down the runway, he pulled back on the stick and up she rose into the black cloud as effortlessly as a gull. He was surprised to find that his hands were sweating and his mouth dry. He hoped the First Officer hadn’t noticed.
Archie’s story, his tears the night before and the dream must have haunted him more than he realised. It was bumpy. But he didn’t mind that. He kept the climb shallower than usual to minimise the punch from those black beasts of cloud.
The break into sunlight above the cloud carpet was always a little miracle. That morning, rather longer delayed but nevertheless still a miracle. From bucking around like Fandango at his worst the aircraft settled as smoothly as a Rolls Royce on an autobahn. The stewardess brought him up his usual iced orange juice.
Halfway across the Atlantic they picked up a small convenient jet stream, unusual in that direction, and though they were held up in the stack over New York, they landed dead on time.
The First Officer said, ‘Nice trip, sir. Went like clockwork. Thanks.’ He looked as if he meant it, and pointed out that the Atlanta afternoon flight was just loading for London.
The sun was shining. Manhattan glittered in sharp contrast to the rain in London. Harker felt restored, at least to the outer reaches of wellbeing.
Then, reporting in at Atlanta Operations, the Duty Officer hailed him importantly.
‘Oh, Captain, I have a message for you, an urgent message. There
was a telex. You are to return to London immediately.’
‘But why?’ Harker was dumbfounded.
‘I don’t know, Captain.’
‘Doesn’t it say?’
‘No, sir. Just that a substitute Captain will be flown out. You’re to catch the flight that’s loading now. You’re to fly back as a passenger.’
Fly back as a passenger. In other words relieved of your command. Did the Operations Officer say those last words with a special significance? Was he being relieved, like any captain of the sea or air, pending inquiry? But for what? Unlike Archie he hadn’t lost his ship or damaged it in any way. So why was he being relieved or recalled or whatever they liked to call it?
Sitting in his comfortable first class seat, Harker pondered these unanswerable questions. He waved away the food the stewardess offered him, but drank the tea. She kept coming back to refill his cup. He smiled at her gratefully, abstractedly, going through in his mind all the things he might have done wrong.
The flight out had been without incident surely? Or had there been an incident he’d not seen? A near miss? Was his perception going, as Slade hinted it did in middle-age? Or had something been said to him that he hadn’t heard?
He’d not climbed steeply enough out of LAP. Of course! The noise abatement wallahs were howling for his blood. Maybe someone in the suburbs beyond the runway end had complained. Or they reckoned he’d gone too low over Windsor Castle. Well, he knew he’d taken off in the safest way, and if they wanted to make a fuss, he’d defend himself. He felt for a moment self-righteous and aggressive and quite determined.
Halfway across the Atlantic, he was less sure it was the shallow climb and noise abatement. Tilsley was the Captain, and he came back for a natter with Harker.
‘Why are you going back, Paul? You lucky so and so!’
‘I was going to ask you that,’ Paul smiled.
‘Haven’t a clue. Maybe they’re going to offer you a place on the board. Or a golden handshake. Or maybe there’s a royal flight they want you for. The ways of the management are weird and wonderful.’