Hurrying across the airport’s tarmac aprons, not even noticing the roar of the planes overhead, Billie skidded to a halt outside the Sullivanair hangar. Both Shorts and the Skyvan, fully liveried and logoed, were there, still heat-shimmering from their recent exertions, but there was no sign of human life. In spite of the turmoil, Billie looked at the row of three silver, emerald and purple planes with a sense of pride. Well, OK, second-hand pride. They were Jonah’s babies, really . . .
Jonah’s babies! She exhaled. She had to find him – and quickly.
She jumped into the Nova and drove recklessly along the perimeter fence towards the sheds. Both Stearmans were still outside unit six surrounded by the warehousers, and she could see Gaynor strapped into Lumley’s rig, and Vinny and Barnaby on the ground, looking up at her, laughing. She screeched the car to a halt. ‘Where’s Jonah?’
‘Oh, hello, my dear.’ Barnaby waved. ‘Have you seen the fleet? Watch out Virgin Atlantic, is all I can say!’
‘Yes, I have, and they’re lovely, but where’s Jonah?’
‘Trying to find the Middlehurst Nursing Home.’ Vinny reluctantly dragged his eyes away from Gaynor. ‘Oh, and he’s not best pleased with you.’
Jesus! She couldn’t imagine why. She hadn’t even told him yet. ‘Where’s the Middlehurst Nursing Home?’
‘Haven’t got the faintest idea,’ Barnaby said. ‘Jo said that was all Claire had told him. She obviously hadn’t expected to go into labour quite so quickly, so he’s gone to seek it out. It’s all very exciting, isn’t it?’
Billie slammed the Nova into reverse, then wound down the window again and leaned out. ‘If he gets in touch, or turns up here or something, can you tell him to ring me on my mobile? Cheers!’
And leaving them gaping after her, she hammered the Nova back towards the airport buildings. Where to go next? Should she look up the Middlehurst Nursing Home in the Yellow Pages? Would they tell her if Jonah was there? And if he wasn’t, where else would he be? Home? She knew his address. Maybe he’d gone home to change or telephone or see if Claire had left a message. Well, it was somewhere to start. Billie pushed her foot flat to the floor and tore away from Whiteacres.
Jonah’s flat, in a block of symmetrically identical flats, wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined it would be. Somehow, she thought that, being a pilot, he’d live in leafy luxury. She couldn’t see his car outside either, but perhaps there were parking bays at the back of the building. Taking a deep breath she pressed the door bell.
When he yanked the door open she almost stumbled inside. She really hadn’t expected him to be there.
‘Oh – er – I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Really?’ Jonah didn’t smile. He was still wearing his uniform shirt and trousers and his hair was all spiky like he’d been running his fingers through it over and over again. ‘You’d better come in. We need to talk.’
She stepped into a sea of beige. Like the outside of the flats, it didn’t go with Jonah at all. ‘Yes, we do. Look –’
‘Why the hell did you book the flying circus for a display in two weeks’ time? You and Gaynor haven’t even flown together yet.’
‘No, but we’ve flown separately loads of times, and Gaynor’s brilliant, and we’ve practised the routines for ever on the ground and we’re inch-perfect – Jesus, Jonah! Why the hell are we talking about flying? What about Claire?’
‘Ah, yes – Claire . . .’ Jonah shrugged. ‘Well, Claire is probably being well looked after by her Middlehurst midwives as we speak. She left me a note. She says she doesn’t want me to be there at the birth, but that she’ll ring as soon as it’s over.’ He gave an ironic smile. ‘Sounds about right, actually. She’s even diddled me out of pacing up and down outside the delivery suite. So, seeing that I’m redundant in that area, shall we get back to discussing why you took it upon yourself to act on my behalf and book us into a show when we’re nowhere near ready?’
‘Stop being so bloody pompous! And stop talking about bloody flying! I took the booking because the money was astonishing, and because it’ll be great publicity for when we start up properly in the spring, and because I thought you’d be pleased, and because I can’t wait until next year to do it again – so there! Now, let me tell you about Claire –’
‘Christ! I’ve told you! She’s at the Middlehurst and –’
‘No she isn’t. She’s on her way to Southampton.’
‘Southampton? Why the hell does she want to go to a maternity hospital in Southampton?’
‘Southampton Airport, Jonah. She’s flying to Paris.’ There. She’d said it. She closed her eyes and told him what she’d been able to find out from the rest. The iffy minicab firm, which had picked up Claire at Whiteacres and taken her to Amberley Hill railway station. To catch a train to Southampton from where, she’d told the driver, she’d be flying out to Paris.
‘But she’s in labour! She’ll have the baby on the train – or the plane!’
‘I don’t think she will,’ Billie said gently. ‘I’m no expert, but I honestly don’t think she’ll be having the baby today.’
Jonah ran his fingers through his hair again. ‘But why? What’s going on? I don’t understand.’
Neither did Billie. She’d given him the facts, but she was as confused as he on the abstracts. Jonah shook his head. ‘We’ll have to get down there – to Southampton – try to stop her. I knew she was acting strangely, but I thought it was just because of the baby.’
Billie didn’t like the sound of the ‘we’. ‘But surely, her flight will have gone by now, won’t it?’
‘Doubtful. They’re not scheduled to fly direct to Paris from there. It’s probably a special. I’ll ring and find out. Here –’ he threw a bunch of keys at her while he was punching out numbers on his mobile – ‘go and get my car – it’s round the back – it’ll be quicker than yours.’
Yes, sir! she thought, but decided not to say it. Anyway, she reckoned, even if he intended to do a Schumacher down the M27 he’d never make it to Southampton in time.
By the time she’d driven Jonah’s Vauxhall round to the front of the flats, Billie found that he was already waiting on the pavement, impatiently shifting from foot to foot. Yanking the door open, he slid into the passenger seat. ‘You drive. We’ve got three-quarters of an hour.’
‘Christ, Jonah, we’ll never do it. Not with the traffic and –’
‘We’ll do it in tons of time. Drive to Whiteacres and we’ll grab the Slingsby. We can fly there in fifteen minutes.’
There was only one moment of total terror. It came somewhere between her insisting to Jonah that there was absolutely no need for her to go with him, and the moment that the Slingsby belted along the runway. For the rest of the time she was merely petrified.
Jonah, clamped into his headset and snapping indecipherable messages into his microphone, had strapped her into her tiny seat, said he’d be glad of the company and the Slingsby was a piece of cake after the Stearman, and didn’t seem to notice that her teeth were rattling. Apart from knowing that she was going to die, Billie really didn’t want to be in on the scene where Jonah begged Claire to come back. There were only so many horrors a girl could cope with in one day.
As the air-traffic controllers gave their clearance, and the lighter-than-air plane skimmed across the tarmac, Billie gripped her seat and stared at the floor. The seat kept slipping away from her and she hoped it was simply because her hands were sweating profusely and not an aviation design fault.
This was nothing like the Stearman. It was nothing like flying in a jumbo to foreign shores, and it was sure as hell nothing like wingwalking. This was appallingly scary.
Billie closed her eyes, clamped her teeth together in case she screamed, felt the ground rush past them, heard the change in power, and knew they were airborne.
‘I’ll have to keep tuned into Southampton’s ATC,’ Jonah said tersely as Billie opened one eye and watched as Whiteacres dipped and swayed into miniature beneath them, ‘just to let them k
now that we’re coming into land.’
‘Already?’ Billie felt her spirits rise slightly and opened the other eye. ‘Goodness, that was quick.’
‘We’ve only just taken off . . . I mean when we get there.’ Jonah fiddled with something unseen on the dashboard. ‘But they’re going to give us a slot. They owe me a favour or three from way back. You OK?’
No, of course not, you insensitive sod, didn’t seem to be the best answer. ‘Yes, I think so – oooh!’
They’d banked sharply to the south-west and straightened up just as quickly. Billie felt that her stomach was left somewhere behind just over the A34.
‘Fine. We’re on the correct heading,’ Jonah seemed to relax a bit. ‘There – it’s great, isn’t it?’
Great it certainly wasn’t. But once they stayed level, Billie could appreciate that someone without the required amount of brain cells might find it relatively amusing. One advantage was that the Slingsby had a transparent roof which meant she could see the sky and the ground at the same time without the wind ripping her head off and her mouth being filled with insects. Another was that the seat was surprisingly comfortable. And Jonah looked relaxed. He’d surely start to twitch if there was a problem, wouldn’t he?
Trying not to even think about Granny Pascoe’s negative disaster theory, Billie stared up at the scudding clouds, then down at the shrunken landscape. It wasn’t too bad, really. In fact, if someone could just convince her that they weren’t going to plummet from the sky, she might actually enjoy it.
‘Flying is dead simple,’ Jonah shouted some minutes later during a lull in the crackling of the air-traffic controller’s instructions. ‘Maybe if you understood a bit more about Isaac Newton’s third law of motion and Bernoulli’s Principle . . . No seriously, that’s what makes flight possible. It’s just a question of aerodynamics and drag and airflow and the angle of attack. It’s like most things – they’re never so frightening once you understand how they work.’
‘Like spiders, you mean?’
Jonah glanced at her and poked out his tongue. Billie suddenly wanted to grab him and kiss him, and probably would have done if they hadn’t been breaking the sound barrier at about twenty million feet.
She stared out of the window instead. ‘Yeah, great. Maybe we should have another meal at the Dil Raj and talk about it. The analysis of our phobias and a dissertation on advanced physics. I’m sure Claire wouldn’t mind – or maybe she’d like to come along too. I’m positive they could provide a highchair for the baby and mash his tikka masala.’
‘Don’t, Billie.’ Jonah looked at her. ‘Don’t even joke about it. Oh shit – here we go. Hold tight . . .’
As she hadn’t been holding loose, Billie clung onto her seat even more, irrationally annoyed that Southampton had loomed up so quickly – and especially at that enigmatic moment.
Once they’d landed and parked between two KLM giants, and Jonah had pulled all number of avionic-old-pals strings, they hurtled into Southampton’s departure lounge. Claire, still visibly pregnant and definitely not in labour, was sitting gazing out of the huge plate glass windows surrounded by a plethora of hand luggage. Billie, unsure whether she should be in on this most intimate of moments, hung back.
Jonah stopped and smiled at her. ‘Please come with me. I still need the company, if you don’t mind.’
She shrugged and followed him, feeling very de trop. Claire looked up. If she was surprised to see them, she certainly didn’t show it. She merely gave a resigned smile and patted the seat beside her.
‘Sit down, Jo. I was taking the coward’s way out, as usual, but I almost hoped you’d come. Oh, hello, Billie. And I thought I’d covered my tracks so well.’
Not well enough for the Pascoe sniffer dogs, Billie thought, and inconsequentially wondered whether this was another talent she’d inherited from her mother.
‘You’re not having the baby,’ Jonah said. ‘Well, I mean, not today . . .’
‘Not for another two months, Jo, no.’ Claire still smiled. ‘Which means, of course, that it’s not yours. I’ve been talking to Antony for some time now, and naturally he’s delighted that the baby is his. I’m going to join him . . . We’re going to be married in Paris.’
Billie couldn’t have been more shocked if Claire had stood up and delivered a swift uppercut to the windpipe. Jonah looked equally astounded. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.
Claire fluffed up her cloudy hair. ‘I know we’re finished, Jo. I might have spent a lot of time stoned but I’m not totally stupid. I know you’d fallen out of love with me – at last. When I found out I was pregnant it just seemed ideal . . .’
‘Ideal for what?’ Jonah sounded as though he’d got a mouth full of gobstoppers. ‘Messing up everyone’s lives?’
‘No!’ She shook her head. ‘Quite the opposite. I’ll always love you, Jo, but you were right: Antony can give me more. So, being selfish, I thought I’d go for it all. You wanted Whiteacres and Antony stood in your way – so, don’t you see? Telling both of you that the baby was yours meant that he cleared off to start up his display team – which means I get the travel and the glamour and the excitement – while the way was then clear for you to firm up everything at boring old Whiteacres. So now –’ she stood up, easing the small of her back – ‘we’ve all got what we wanted, haven’t we?’
Billie was speechless, watching as Claire wandered away towards the window, seemingly oblivious to the maelstrom of emotion she’d left behind her.
Claire stared out at the busy runways, watching the takeoffs and landings, then she turned round again, and looked sorrowfully at Jonah. ‘It was a risk, of course. But it’s paid off. It’s amazing, isn’t it, Jo? The lengths we’ll go to – the horrors we’ll put ourselves through – for the people we love?’
Chapter Forty-six
And ladies and gentlemen, in half an hour’s time, we at Winchester Harvest Carnival are proud to present the one and only–Sullivan’s Flying Circus!!!’ The Tannoy was loud enough to be heard thirty miles away. ‘Yes, Sullivan’s Flying Circus – never seen before in this country – with a daring aerial display!!! Death-defying stunts of wingwalking and barnstorming, ladies and gentlemen! Every hour on the hour! First show immediately after the West Minton Brownies’ country dance troupe!’
The crowds packing the field cheered and applauded. Billie and Gaynor, who were easing themselves into their costumes in the relative privacy of the cricket pavilion, pulled nervous faces at one another and grinned foolishly. It had been a very strange couple of weeks.
Billie and Jonah had flown back to Whiteacres from Southampton without speaking. They’d waited with Claire until she’d climbed into her Aurigny Special, bound for Paris and Aerobatic Archie and glamour and motherhood, then retraced their steps to the Slingsby. Billie had wondered whether Jonah would be fit to fly, but she was too rattled to ask him. He’d sighed a lot, but kept a steady course, and Billie had been too wrecked to feel frightened. Neither of them had mentioned Claire or the baby when they’d landed, and Billie had collected the Nova from outside Jonah’s flat and driven home and cried.
They hadn’t seen much of each other since. She’d gathered from everyone else that Jonah had said Claire had had a false alarm, that the baby wasn’t due yet and wasn’t his, that she’d returned to Antony, and also gathered that his expression when delivering this bulletin had done away with the need for any further questions. There’d been a fair amount of gossip and speculation privately, of course, and Jonah had been sympathised with while Claire had been regularly and soundly vilified, but now the scandal seemed to have run its course. Only Billie knew the sacrifice Claire had made, and why, and understood. But then, she thought, she was bound too, wasn’t she? She’d have done the same thing. She loved Jonah even more than Claire did.
The realisation had come as something of a shock. Great timing, Billie, she’d thought, as always, and wondered if she should volunteer her services to Jerry Springer.
The
y’d had three flying circus dress rehearsals over the airfield at Whiteacres, and each time, she’d been with Barnaby, and Gaynor had been with Jonah, and everything had gone swimmingly. Jonah seemed resigned, at least, to putting on today’s display, even though he’d said on more than one occasion that he still didn’t think they were ready to go public.
Billie, who was sure they were, hoped she’d fly with Jonah for the display – like the first time – but secretly wondered what it was going to be like carrying out the precise manoeuvres when they were in a state of such emotional disharmony.
‘Stand still.’ Isla, who had miraculously produced Gaynor’s Sullivanair serpent costume as an exact replica of Billie’s, was trying to fasten them into the fluffy undersuits. ‘It’s like trying to stuff a pair of mushrooms.’
They giggled, but obediently stood still. Ethel and Sylv, Pam and Vee, watched the proceedings with surrogate- motherly eyes, while the rest of the warehousers and Vinny had been relegated to the pavilion’s veranda – even though Zia and the Guspers had insisted that filming the dressing wouldn’t be voyeurism at all, but an important and integral part of the whole flying circus ethos. Isla had told them they were just smutty and shooed them outside.
‘Billie? Can I have a word?’ Jonah stuck his head round the door. ‘And I’ve got my eyes shut.’
‘Liar,’ Billie said. ‘Not that it matters, we’re both dressed.’
She suddenly wanted to slither out of the skin-tight bodysuit and prance about before Jonah in the scarlet and black underwear that she’d selected for today from Sylvia’s collection. Fortunately, it was only a temporary aberration.
She picked up her helmet and the silver gloves and walked outside. Jonah closed the door. He almost smiled. ‘You look great.’
‘So do you. Very Waldo Pepper.’
Both Jonah and Barnaby had rigged themselves up in genuine Irvin World War Two leather flying jackets for the display. Jonah, Billie felt, looked even more gorgeous than ever – if that was humanly possible.
Walking on Air Page 50
