Airs Above the Ground

by Mary Stewart

  W. S. Gilbert: Fallen Fairies

  In the event, Timothy’s father proved very easy to locate. He was in the telephone book. It was Tim himself who discovered this, while I, sitting on my bed in the large, pleasant, and rather noisy room of the hotel Am Stephansplatz, was telephoning our first tentative enquiries down to the reception desk about banking hours in Vienna.

  ‘It must be him,’ said Timothy, pushing the directory page under my nose. ‘Look, there it is. Prinz Eugenstrasse 81. The telephone number’s 63 42 61.’

  ‘And the banks are shut now, so he may be there, or someone’ll be there who knows where he is. He’ll have a housekeeper, surely?’ I cradled the receiver, and swung my legs down off the bed. ‘Well, if only Lewis is as easy to find, all our troubles will be over by dinnertime. At least,’ I amended it, ‘some of them. Go ahead then, it’s all yours . . . and the girl at the switchboard speaks English.’

  ‘It’s not that. My German’s not bad, I did it for “A” levels; and as a matter of fact I’m panting to try.’

  ‘Well, then?’ Then, as he still hesitated: ‘Be your age, Tim.’

  He made a face at me, then grinned and lifted the receiver. I went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Under the circumstances it seemed a remarkably short conversation. When I went in again he had put back the receiver and was leaning on the window-sill, watching the crowds thronging the pavement outside St Stephen’s Cathedral.

  He said, without looking round: ‘He wasn’t annoyed.’

  I opened a suitcase and began to lift my things out. ‘Oh, he was there, was he? Good. Well, that’s one trouble on the way out. I’m very glad. Is he coming for you, or will you get a taxi?’

  ‘He was just going out, as a matter of fact,’ said Tim. ‘He won’t be in till pretty late. He’s going to a concert with his fiancée.’

  I shook out a dress rather carefully and hung it away. ‘I suppose you didn’t know about her?’

  ‘No. I told you he never wrote. Her name’s Christl. I think it’s short for Christina.’

  ‘Oh? Austrian?’

  ‘Yes. Viennese. It’s a rather pretty name, isn’t it?’

  I lifted another frock from my case. ‘I don’t suppose he’d tell you much about it on the phone.’

  ‘Not much. I told him you were here. He said he couldn’t get out of the concert, but would we meet them afterwards for supper at . . . I wrote it down . . . at Sacher’s Hotel. It’s by the Opera House. Eleven o’clock in the Blue Bar.’

  He had turned back now from the window and was watching me. His face gave no clue to what he was thinking. I raised an eyebrow. ‘Flying high on your first night out of the nest. “Eleven o’clock in the Blue Bar”. It sounds like something out of Ian Fleming. What price the apron strings now?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s what I wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘My dear,’ I said, ‘do you mind?’

  ‘To be quite honest, I don’t know. Should I?’

  ‘It would be very understandable if you did. It’s rather a thing to have thrust at one just like that, a parent marrying again.’

  ‘Yes, my mother’s going to marry again, too.’

  It was one of those things to which there seems no reply at all. I couldn’t think what to say. I just stood there with my hands full of stockings, and probably looking as stupid as I felt. ‘I had no idea,’ I said at last.

  ‘Oh, it’s not official, and as a matter of fact she said certainly not when I asked her flat out, but I’m pretty sure. In fact I’d take a small bet.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘He’s all right. It’s John Linley, the publisher; do you know him?’

  ‘No, but I remember your mother did mention the name.’ I hoped I hadn’t sounded as relieved as I felt: compared with some of Carmel Lacy’s ‘men-around-town’, a publisher sounded the height of respectability. Not that it mattered to me what happened to Carmel Lacy, but I was beginning to find that I rather cared what happened to Timothy.

  He didn’t pursue the subject. He said: ‘What does this hotel charge for bed and breakfast?’

  I told him. ‘I suppose your father won’t have had time to make arrangements for you? I was wondering whether we’d have to take your case along to Sacher’s, or call for it here later.’

  ‘Well,’ said Timothy, ‘that’s rather the point. He didn’t say anything about my joining him. In fact, I got the impression that it was the last thing he wanted. Oh, I don’t mean my coming to Vienna, he took that in his stride, after he’d got over the surprise; and as a matter of fact he was rather decent about it. He – well, he obviously isn’t going to send me back or anything, and I’ve got a feeling he might even be pretty helpful about the job. There wasn’t time to talk about it, because he was in a hurry getting ready to go out, and he just said something about work permits, and thinking it over later on, but why not simply have a holiday to start with, and was I all right for cash.’

  ‘I like the sound of that last bit,’ I said. ‘Well, anyway, I expect you’ll get things fixed up when you see him tonight. He’ll probably want you to move in there tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s just what I wouldn’t bet on,’ said Timothy. ‘I told you he was pretty nice about my suddenly turning up like this, but I think it rather threw him. He wanted to see me, all right, but I’m certain he didn’t want me staying with him, and that’s one reason why he was so dashed forthcoming about money.’ This wasn’t cynicism, but merely a matter-of-fact observation of the kind that would paralyse most parents if they could know what their children know about them. ‘Actually,’ he added, ‘I got the impression that he has someone living with him already.’

  I looked at him for a moment, was satisfied with what I saw, and said: ‘Then let us hope, Tim dear, that it’s Christl, or things will begin to get altogether too complicated.’

  ‘Poor father,’ said Timothy unexpectedly, and laughed. ‘I’ve put him in a spot, haven’t I? I expect he’s sweating on the top line now. Well, I’d better see if I can book that room. I hope they’ve got one; they’ve probably only got suites, or something with private bathrooms and all that jazz.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit late for you to find anywhere else, and I gather your father’s prepared to finance you. I’d go ahead. Dash it, he owes you the night’s lodging at least!’

  ‘Dead right he does. And then there’s always blackmail. I’ve a golden future, haven’t I?’ And Timothy crossed to the telephone.

  Well, I thought, as I stowed away the last pair of shoes, this was indeed what he had wanted. But there must be easier ways of growing up than tearing oneself loose from the apron strings, and then being thrown into the cold and foreign winds by a careless male hand, with a few coins flung after you. It was surprising, really, how normal and nice Timothy appeared to be . . .

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Timothy, putting down the receiver. ‘Number 216, one floor up. That’s me settled. Now, what about you? Are you going to stay and do your telephoning now, or go out and get something to eat first? I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait till eleven. I’m starving.’

  I glanced up. ‘You’re being very tactful. Does it hurt? You must be wondering like mad what I’m playing at.’

  He grinned. ‘Well, I don’t just feel I’m in a position to criticise.’

  I shut the wardrobe door and sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘If you can hold off from food for five minutes, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Only if you want to.’

  ‘Fair’s fair. Besides, I’d like to tell somebody. It’s very simple and rather depressing and probably a bit sordid, and I dare say it happens every day. Only I thought it wouldn’t ever happen to me. We were going away on holiday, Lewis and I, and it was the first really long break since we were married just over two years ago. I told you he works for PEC, and they slave-drive him, only they pay pretty well, and he’s always enjoyed the travelling. He never knew whether he’d be sent to Hong Kong or to Oslo nex
t, and it suited him. Then we got married. And he said he’d change his job, only it would take time to train his successor, so we decided we’d just take it as it came for a couple of years. It was Lewis who suggested giving it up, not me. I know I’ve not behaved particularly well, but it was his idea in the first place. You see, we both want a family, and, the way things are now, it wouldn’t be fair on them . . . the children.’

  He didn’t say anything. He was back at the window again, and appeared to be tracing out with his eve, stone by stone, the massive façade of St Stephen’s.

  ‘Well’ – I tried hard to stop sounding defensive – ‘he told told me finally he was leaving the department in mid-August this year, and we were going to have a holiday, a whole month, and go just where I wanted – he didn’t care, he’d seen it all, he said he just wanted to be with me. It was, you know, another honeymoon. The first was only ten days. Then, just before we we were due to go, they asked him to take on one more assignment. A week, two weeks, they couldn’t be sure how long it would take. Just when we were getting ready to go; we’d got the tickets, I was packing, and everything.’

  ‘What a rotten thing,’ said Timothy to St Stephen’s.

  ‘That’s what I thought. And said. The thing was, they couldn’t order him, they made it a request, but he said he couldn’t turn it down, he’d have to go himself, there was no one else. So I said what about the man they’d been training, but Lewis said this was something that had come out of his last job, and he’d have to do it himself. And of course I was so disappointed that I went all feminine and unreasonable and threw a scene, one of those classic scenes, “you think more of your rotten job than of me”, and that sort of thing. And I’ve always despised women who did that. A man’s job is his life, and you’ve got to take it as it comes and try to be as loyal to it as he is . . . But I wasn’t.’

  ‘Well,’ said Timothy, ‘I don’t blame you. Anybody would have been upset.’

  ‘The trouble was, of course, that Lewis was furious, too, with having to change his plans. He said couldn’t I see that he didn’t want to go at all, and that it wasn’t anything to do with not wanting to be with me, but that there was no alternative. So I said well, why couldn’t he just take me with him this time for a change, and when he said he couldn’t, surely I knew that by this time, I really blew up. Then he got furious, and we had the most dreadful row. I said the most awful things, Tim, I still think about them.’

  He looked at me with a gravity that somehow seemed enormously youthful. ‘And now you’re just torturing yourself all the time because you’ve hurt his feelings?’

  ‘Lewis,’ I said, rather too carefully, and forgetting momentarily who I was talking to, ‘is selfish, obstinate, and arrogant, and has no feelings of any kind whatsoever.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Timothy, ‘I mean no. But if you know he doesn’t want you to join him, why did you come, especially if you’re still so furious with him?’

  I looked down at my hands, which were clasped together rather too tightly on my knee. ‘That’s more sordid still, I’m afraid. I think he’s with a woman, and that’s something I can’t quite laugh off the way we did with your father.’

  ‘Vanessa—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tim, I’m not behaving well. I’m certainly not a fit and proper person to chaperon you, let alone preach to you, with the damned nerve I had, but I’m so unhappy I’ve got to do something. That’s why I came.’

  ‘Please don’t be unhappy.’ He was as awkward with his comfort as any man is at any age, but touchingly kind with it. ‘I’m sure you must be wrong. Whatever anyone’s been telling you, you’ll find there’s nothing in it.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I sat up straighter in the chair, as if by doing so I could shake off my thoughts. ‘And it wasn’t anything anyone told me, it was just an impression I got, and I’m sure it was wrong; all that’s the matter with me is that I do feel guilty about the things I said. It would have been all right if he hadn’t had to go straight away. When you get married, Timothy’ – I managed a smile at him – ‘never part on a quarrel. It’s hell. When I think about it now . . . He just went storming out of the flat, and then, when he got to the door, he stopped, as if he’d suddenly thought of something, and came back to me. I wasn’t even looking at him. He kissed me goodbye, and went.’

  I looked up at him sombrely. It was a relief to put it at last into words. ‘It only came to me afterwards, but it was the way a man would act if he knew he was going to do something dangerous, and he didn’t want to part like that. And now I know that’s true. That’s why I came.’

  He was staring at me. ‘What do you mean? “Dangerous”? What sort of danger could he be in? How can you know?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let me tell you the rest; I’ll be as quick as I can.’ And I told him all about the news-reel and the chain of events which had made me decide to come out to Austria and see for myself what was going on.

  He listened in silence, perched now on the arm of the other chair.

  When I had finished, he was quiet for a minute or two. Then he pushed the hair back from his forehead with a gesture that I was beginning to recognise as a signal of decision.

  ‘Well, as far as locating the circus is concerned, that’ll be dead easy. There are hardly any tenting circuses – that’s travelling circuses – left these days, and everyone in Austria will probably know where this one was. We can ask the hall porter, and we can go on from there. Shall we go and do it now?’

  I stood up. ‘No, we’ll eat first. We’ll go out and find a real Viennese restaurant, and do ourselves proud, shall we? Then when we feel a bit stronger, I’ll tackle the Case of the Vanishing Husband, and you can take on the Father and the Fräulein.’

  ‘We’ll both tackle them both.’ He uncoiled his length from the arm of the chair and stood up. He was a half a head taller than I was. He looked down at me, suddenly shy. ‘I was an awful ass this morning. I – I’m terribly glad we came together after all.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ I said, reaching in the wardrobe for my coat. ‘For heaven’s sake, let’s go and eat.’

  Not only did Tim’s German prove more than equal to the occasion, but the hall porter was every bit as helpful as the telephone directory had been. He identified the circus immediately as the Circus Wagner, and the village where the accident had taken place as the village of Oberhausen, situated some way beyond Bruck, in the Gleinalpe, the hilly region that lies to the west of the main road from Vienna to Graz and the Yugoslav border.

  ‘Really, there’s nothing to this detective business,’ said Timothy, relaying this information to me. My own German is of the sketchy variety which allows me to understand public notices, and to follow simple remarks reasonably accurately if they are made slowly enough, and preferably with gestures; but Tim’s schoolboy German, though certainly slow and liberally laced with pantomime, seemed fairly fluent, and it got results.

  ‘Ask him about the fire,’ I said. ‘It may have been a serious one if they know so much about it up here in Vienna.’

  But no, this was not the case. The hall porter’s very gestures were reassuring. The only reason he knew so much himself was because he himself came from the village near Innsbruck where the Circus Wagner had its winter quarters, and not only did he know the owners and some of the performers, but he seemed to have a fair idea of their summer route through the country. The fire? Ah, that had been a terrible thing; yes, indeed, two men had been killed, a fearful affair it was, a living-wagon burned in the night, and the men with it. Who were they? Why, one of them was the horse-keeper. The hall porter, it appeared, had known him, too, a good man, good with the horses, but he drank, you understand . . . No doubt he had been drunk when the accident happened, knocked over a lamp, been careless with the bottled gas . . . these things were too easy to do in such cramped quarters, and something of the sort had happened once before . . . The only reason they kept him on, poor old Franzl, was because he was some sort of relatio
n of Herr Wagner himself, and then he was such a very good man with the horses . . .

  ‘And the other man?’

  But here the hall porter’s information ran out abruptly. I didn’t need German to understand the lifted shoulders and spread hands. This, he did not know. It was no one belonging to the circus, or the village. Herr Wagner himself had not known him; he had not known, even, that there had been a second man in old Franzl’s wagon that night. There were rumours – he himself had heard them – that it had not been an accident, that Franzl had been involved in some crime, and that he and the other man had been murdered as a result; but then there were always such rumours when the police would not close a case straight away; whereas anyone who had known old Franzl would realise that such an idea was absurd, quite out of the question . . . As for the other man, he believed that he had been identified, but to tell you the truth, he had not read about this in the papers, or had forgotten it if he had . . .

  He smiled deprecatingly, and shrugged his wide shoulders once again. ‘It is over, you understand, gnädige Frau, and the newspapers lose interest. Indeed, they would hardly have taken the trouble to report poor old Franzl’s death, if it had not been for the elephant . . . A circus is always news, and particularly if there is an elephant . . . You saw some of the stories, perhaps? The truth of the matter was that there was only one elephant, a very old one, kept just for the parades, and she had in fact broken her rope, but had gone only a little way into the village, and had touched no one. The little girl, who was reported to be injured, had fallen down while running away in terror; the elephant had not touched her at all.’

  ‘Ask him,’ I said, ‘ask him if he’s ever heard of a man called Lewis March.’

  ‘Never,’ said the hall porter, for once mercifully brief.

  I wouldn’t have ventured the question but that it was obvious that the man was so delighted to have an audience for his story that it never occured to him to wonder at our interest. A few more questions, and we had gathered all that we had wanted to know. Two days ago the circus had still been in Oberhausen, detained there by the police; its next stop was to have been Hohenwald, a village some fifty kilometres deeper into the Gleinalpe. There was a train at nine-forty next morning which would get me into Bruck before midday, and it was even possible that the local bus service might operate as far as Oberhausen, or, if necessary, Hohenwald, by the very same night. It was certainly possible to find somewhere to stay in any of these villages; there was an excellent small Gasthof in Oberhausen itself, called (inevitably, one felt) the Edelweiss, and I must, also inevitably, merely mention the hall porter’s name to Frau Weber, and I would be more than welcome . . .