Airship

by McAlan, Peter

  ‘You don’t look ecstatically happy to see me,’ she replied with a cynical smile.

  ‘I’m not ecstatically happy to see anyone right now,’ he admitted. ‘Want a drink?’

  Shaking her head, she dropped onto the couch and examined him carefully.

  ‘You look as though you have a large head start.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’ he demanded harshly.

  ‘Oh, touchy about it?’

  There was an irony in her voice which made Saxon feel a sudden and intense dislike for the girl.

  ‘None of your damned business,’ he replied. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve been invited to Colonel Carson’s party. I understand that you are supposed to be the honoured guest. I thought I’d call by and we could go together.’

  He made no movement.

  ‘Well?’ pressed the girl. ‘Are you ready?’

  Claire Ashton, gazing into his eyes, suddenly realised that she had made a mistake; damn it, she was always making mistakes. The other day, in New York, she had acted on impulse, out of an immediate physical attraction to Saxon. She had also fantasised a little, perhaps. Now she saw that Saxon wasn’t in the least bit interested in her. She had simply provided him with a good lay in New York — if he had been sober enough to remember — but he was more interested in the booze bottle and whatever it was that had driven him to it.

  ‘I need a shower first,’ replied Saxon slowly when she repeated her question.

  Claire Ashton stood up and assumed a look of indifference.

  ‘Fair enough,’ she said.

  Saxon watched her slam out of the room and bit his lip. Maybe he should have handled things more gently. He was not too impervious to the situation to realise that Claire Ashton was a rather unstable young woman. In fact, when Carson had picked him up from Portland Airport the previous day and been introduced to Claire, he had shot a strange kind of look at Saxon. Later, after they had dropped Claire, and Carson had driven him down Maine Mall Road to the Sheraton, he had asked Saxon pointedly:

  ‘How well do you know Claire Ashton?’

  ‘Not very,’ he had answered. ‘We just met in New York and discovered that we were heading for the same destination.’ Carson had pulled a face.

  ‘You know that she is the daughter of our British vice-president Sir Ashley Ashton? Scuttlebutt says he has sent her over here because of some trouble back in England.’

  ‘Some grapevine you have, Garry,’ Saxon had laughed. Now, as Saxon threw off his clothes and went into the shower, he realised that the last thing he wanted was to get embroiled in some affair with someone like Claire Ashton. And he certainly didn’t want trouble in the guise of an irate father who just happened to be one of the executives of the company he was working for. Not with all the other crises in his life. Damn! Should he go to Carson’s barbecue or not?

  Chapter Sixteen

  The ‘Town Taxi’ cab deposited Tom Saxon outside the low bungalow whose address Carson had given him. He paid off the driver and tried to saunter nonchalantly up the short driveway to the door. He could hear the sounds of music and noisy laughter from somewhere at the back of the house. He pressed the doorbell and waited, trying to steady his racing pulse. How would Helen react to him? What would he say to her? The door opened.

  Smiling at him was a very attractive negro woman.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Is this, er, Garry Carson’s house?’

  The woman’s smile broadened.

  ‘Guess you must be Tom Saxon,’ she replied. ‘Come on in, I’m Lisbet Heath, Billy’s wife.’

  Saxon awkwardly held out his hand.

  ‘How d’you do?’

  Lisbet Heath chuckled.

  ‘Couldn’t mistake you for anything but English,’ she commented. ‘Come on through. The folks are expecting you.’

  She guided him through the lounge and kitchen where food and drink was spread on tables. A few people he didn’t know, but who nodded to him as he passed, were hovering around. In the yard beyond the French windows about twenty people or so were gathered — talking, laughing, seemingly enjoying themselves. Saxon gave a panic-stricken look around but did not see Helen. Lisbet Heath was propelling him to where Garry Carson, in a loose shirt, slacks and baseball cap, was turning over pieces of chicken on a smoking barbecue fire.

  ‘Hi, Tom. Glad you could make it.’

  ‘What’ll I get you to drink, Tom?’ asked Billy Heath’s wife.

  He asked for whisky.

  ‘The barbecue sauce is my own recipe, remember?’ grinned Carson. ‘Mind you, I’ve improved on it a bit since the old days.’

  Saxon took his whisky and looked round the garden again. He still couldn’t see Carson’s wife. Harry Maclaren was there and introduced him to his wife, a small homely and pleasant woman named Anne. Just the sort of wife a man like Maclaren would have, mused Tom. Stable. Secure. No problems. Jack Lane, the assistant project manager, a staid north country Englishman who had worked for ten years in America, was also there. Saxon had met him earlier in the day. He also caught sight of Oscar Van Kleef in a corner, looking very unhappy. He was staring moodily at a vivacious red-haired woman who was dancing very closely with a rather suave-looking man. Billy Heath was standing by the food table, tackling the snacks as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks, and Danny Macmillan, the Albatross flight engineer, was engaged in conversation with Claire Ashton. The English girl seemed to be making a point of ignoring Saxon — not that he cared. Carson was introducing him to other people — names and faces no longer meant anything to him. He smiled automatically, shook hands or said ‘hello’ and passed on. Carson was called back to his chicken and Tom Saxon found himself manoeuvred into a corner of the yard.

  ‘Hello, Tom.’

  He turned with an uneasy lurch of his stomach.

  She had not changed at all during the intervening years. She was still as slim, dark and attractive as ever. She stood regarding him with those big, ice-grey eyes; a faint smile on her lips.

  ‘Hello, Helen.’

  ‘Have you been keeping well, Tom?’

  He gestured defensively.

  ‘I made out, Helen. And you?’

  ‘I’ve made out, too.’

  She did not ask whether he was happy. She could read the answer in the lines around his mouth and eyes; they had not been there two years ago.

  ‘I was surprised when I heard that you had accepted Garry’s offer.’

  He shrugged off her question with its hidden meaning.

  ‘I needed the job. It was a great opportunity for me.’

  ‘Helen!’

  Garry Carson was waving to her across the yard.

  She smiled apologetically.

  ‘I’ll see you later, Tom.’

  He raised his glass in acknowledgment.

  It had been restrained, so much left unsaid. Well, at least he was sure that Carson did not know. Perhaps things might turn out alright; perhaps his feelings of unease were unjustified.

  ‘Well, Saxon, what do you think of her?’

  Saxon turned to meet the dour face of Van Kleef. It took him several seconds before he realised that the designer was talking about the Albatross and not Helen Carson.

  Saxon smiled winningly.

  ‘She’s a beauty, doc. Really impressive.’

  Van Kleef accepted the compliment as his natural due. ‘Aeronautical engineers have been talking about such a ship for years but I have made the concept into a reality.’

  Saxon accepted that most designers were egocentric.

  ‘What made you go for a ship as big as the Albatross, doc?’ he asked.

  ‘Back in the 1960s it was agreed that while aeroplanes had proved to be extremely efficient for carrying large numbers of people at high speeds, airships were the only craft able to carry large quantities of cargo quickly and efficiently to any point you cared to name. Aeroplanes were more or less obsolete when it came to carrying cargo. Aeroplanes carry only 0.04 per cent of the world�
�s total cargo tonnage. Just think of that! They invariably suffer from the mathematics of the square cube law. That’s why a big airship was the answer.’

  Saxon looked at him blankly.

  ‘The square cube law,’ explained Van Kleef, like a teacher instructing a particularly backward pupil, ‘is that lift or carrying capacity rises as the square of their linear size but the structure weight increases as the cube.’

  ‘Oh,’ commented Saxon, trying to work out the equation. ‘On the other hand,’ went on Van Kleef, ‘an airship becomes more efficient as it gets bigger. That’s why the Albatross will be one of the most efficient cargo transports the world has seen.’ They were joined by Jack Lane.

  ‘Talking about the efficiency of airships as freight earners,’ he interposed, ‘airship cargo would travel faster than seaborne cargo but, of course, slower than aeroplane freight. Now where the Albatross can become really cost-effective is by carrying medium bulk and weight goods … all manner of manufactured products, mainly in containers. You know the sort of thing: smaller consignments will probably always go by aeroplane while primary products will always go by sea. But airships can take over the middle and biggest chunk of freight-carrying work.’

  ‘’Scuse me,’ Lisbet Heath caught Tom Saxon’s arm and guided him away, smiling an apology at Lane and Van Kleef. ‘There’s someone I want Tom to meet.’

  Once in the lounge of the house she grinned.

  ‘I thought you might like to get away from those two. They can become absolute bores when they get going about the Albatross. You’ll have plenty of time for talking shop but this is supposed to be a get-to-know-you party.’

  Saxon answered her grin.

  ‘I’m grateful.’

  ‘Well, you can show your gratitude by dancing with me. Everyone here seems to just want to talk, including that everloving husband of mine over there. Will you look at him! You’d think I starve him all week the way he’s wolfing down that food.’

  Saxon indicated the vivacious redhead who was still dancing with the suave young man.

  ‘Not everyone seems to want to talk,’ he observed.

  Lisbet Heath sighed.

  ‘That’s a fact.’

  ‘Tell me, why does Van Kleef keep looking at that redhead like a fox who hasn’t had a square meal for some time?’

  ‘The redhead is Lesley Van Kleef, Oscar’s wife,’ explained Lisbet Heath. ‘Now, are we going to dance or not?’

  ‘I … I’m not very good,’ protested Saxon. It was years since he had danced. Not since … Lisbet Heath was taking charge again, propelling him into the middle of the floor.

  Across the room, Helen Carson was talking to Harry Maclaren and his wife but watching Tom Saxon out of the corner of her eye.

  She was thinking that he had not changed a great deal in general appearance. Superficially, he was still the same athletic, tousle-headed Englishman she had welcomed to her home when she and Garry were based at the USAF airbase at Syderstone in Norfolk. Garry had been commanding the 33rd Pursuit Squadron and Tom Saxon had been the squadron’s RAF liaison officer. For a few months Garry and Helen, Tom and his wife, Jan, had enjoyed a friendly foursome — parties, dinners, explorations into the countryside. Then Garry had been away on a squadron training flight to West Germany. Tom had called by to organise a golfing weekend. After a few drinks — it seemed quite natural at the time — they had gone to bed together. It was then that Helen had realised that her marriage to Garry Carson was a sham.

  She had married Carson soon after she had left high school, having dated the young Air Force officer since she was sixteen. The Carsons had been neighbours and friends of her family since she was born. Everyone assumed that she and Garry would eventually get together. She had grown up with that assumption; Garry, too, had grown up with it and neither of them had ever questioned it. Not that Helen had been unattracted to Garry. They had been friends, very good friends, but, being young, did not realise that simple friendship was not in itself an adequate basis for marriage. They had drifted into an engagement because it was expected of them.

  After they had been married for a year, Helen began to feel dissatisfied and bored with her relationship. She had no yardstick to judge by, no other experiences she could compare. She suffered her feelings without articulating them. One thing she did make clear — she wanted no children and now, six years later, she still refused to contemplate the idea in spite of a natural pressure from Garry, the sly remarks of Garry’s mother and the more pointed questioning of her own mother.

  When Garry had introduced her to Tom Saxon, Helen had felt an immediate physical attraction, a fluttering in her stomach. That first night, when Tom and his wife, Jan, had come round for a meal, she had gone to bed and made passionate love to Garry who, unused to such fervour, had been surprised and delighted, thinking that he had finally managed to stir the dormant passions of his bride. Helen, however, was fantasising that she was making love to the English Wing Commander.

  When Saxon and Helen did go to bed together, the experience had been shattering for both of them. The affair grew in intensity; they shared not only physical passions but intellectual ones as well. Tom was everything Helen had ever wanted in a relationship with a man.

  At the time Tom Saxon had been married four years and had a four-year-old son, Tom Junior. He told Helen, somewhat guiltily — he was always guilty when he talked about Jan and Tom Junior — that Jan was a nice enough person but was too involved with domesticity, too involved with her child. Jan never referred to Tom Junior as ‘their child’ it was always ‘hers’. Nor did she ever make any attempt to share Tom’s flying interests or hobbies. On the other hand, she demanded that Tom’s interest in herself and her home should be total. At one stage Tom had admitted that he should have had an affair with Jan and ended it while they were still ahead and happy. But when Jan had become pregnant they had both allowed themselves to use it as an excuse to marry and, instead of finding that the child, marriage and a home was a bond to cement their relationship, they discovered it was divisive, a means of levering everything apart. They presented a superficial front to the world while their marriage inwardly rotted.

  The affair between Tom and Helen continued for several months until Garry Carson announced that he was being posted back to the States for demobilisation. He was planning to join Pan Continental Airways as a pilot. Tom and Helen discussed the situation. Both talked of divorce. A day or so later, Tom Saxon had gone home and discovered that Jan had found out about the affair; how, he didn’t know. She had left a curt note and gone, taking Tom Junior with her. She was going to stay with her parents in Perth until things were sorted out. Hardly had Tom Saxon recovered from the surprise when the police were on his doorstep. Jan’s car was a mangled twist of wreckage on the Ml motorway. She had driven into the back of a lorry. Both she and Tom Junior had been killed outright.

  Helen had seen Tom Saxon just once after that: a pitiable figure of guilt and remorse, already trying to dull his senses with whisky. There was no talk about divorce between them then; no talk of making a new life for themselves. Tom simply wanted to drown his guilt. Frustrated at his attitude, Helen had gone back to the States with Garry, secretly hoping that Tom Saxon would pull himself together and come after her. He had not. She then tried to forget him. At first it had been a hopeless task. Tom Saxon became a vague shadow, a dark symbol of her frustrations, and her relationship with Garry had gone from bad to worse.

  Now, almost out of the blue, Tom Saxon had reappeared. It was ironic to think that it had been Garry who had brought this about. Garry, still innocent about her affair with Tom; still ignorant of the events which had led to Jan Saxon’s tragic death. The situation had the quality of a Greek tragedy.

  She looked across the room and studied Saxon once more. No, he had not changed much. Not physically, that was. But he brought with him an aura of tragedy. His eyes held a deep-set self-accusation which two years of boozing had not eradicated. The ghosts of Jan and Tom Junior
still sat firmly on his slightly stooped shoulders.

  It was at that moment that she realised that for her the intervening two years had been mysteriously wiped away as if they had never passed; with a sense of astonishment and perhaps excitement, Helen realised that she was still in love with Tom Saxon — if love was the correct word. As much in love with him as she had been during the days of their tempestuous affair in England.

  *

  ‘Hey, pigrone!’ yelled Maria Terrasino. ‘We’re going to be late for Helen and Garry’s party. Is that nice?’

  Terrasino came out of the shower, wiping soap from his eyes with a towel, and grimaced in amusement at his wife.

  ‘Okay, okay. What do you want me to do … go to the party smelling like a paesano straight from the farm, huh?’

  Maria Terrasino grinned.

  ‘Why not?’ she countered mischievously. ‘You look like one.’

  She dodged behind the door laughing as he threw his towel at her. Then she poked her head round the door and rolled her eyes theatrically at his nakedness.

  ‘Rapidamenti! Hurry now, eh?’ she urged.

  ‘Not before you come here and give me a kiss,’ insisted Terrasino.

  Maria put her hand over her heart and assumed a virgin-like expression.

  ‘What? Enter the bedroom of a naked man to kiss him? Oh, signore, you cannot be serious. I have my honour to protect!’

  Laughing, Terrasino made a run at her, but she dodged behind the door and slammed it shut.

  ‘Buffuno!’ she yelled. ‘Get ready!’

  The telephone rang.

  ‘That will probably be Helen and Garry to find out where we are,’ she called in dismay and went to answer it.

  ‘Pronto?’ she said, then, correcting herself, ‘yes, hello?’

  She frowned, trying to understand the voice on the other end of the line.

  ‘A minute, please.’

  She turned to where Terrasino stood uncertainly in the doorway, a towel wrapped round him now.

  ‘Someone from the project site,’ she said, holding the receiver towards him.