African Sky

by Tony Park

  ‘Despite your crude Australian way of putting things, you’re quite perceptive, you know.’

  ‘Were you going to arrest him when he came home?’ he asked, trying not to sound flippant.

  ‘Right again. A small fantasy of mine, to see him in court, before a judge. However, I’ve also learned as a police volunteer that first-time offenders are often given lenient sentences – an admonishment or a fine. If I’d reported him – or even arrested him myself – and he hadn’t gone to gaol, I’m sure he would have killed me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He held a gun to my head once, when he was very drunk. He made me do things . . . But I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you, Paul?’

  ‘The evil that men are capable of? Yes. The way some men can’t control their emotions, and how drink brings out the very worst in them? Yes. Do I understand that power and the abuse of it can be part of sex? Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever hit a woman, Paul?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I believe you. Did you hurt Catherine De Beers the other night, at her ranch, when she crept into your room?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no to that second drink, Pip. A beer would be fine, though. I don’t need hard spirits right now. And, for the record, no, I did not hit Catherine De Beers the other night, or on any other occasion.’

  She didn’t move from the garden table. Instead, she looked hard at him, her gaze boring into him, searching for his soul. ‘I didn’t ask you if you hit her. I asked you if you hurt her.’

  ‘No, I did not hurt her.’

  Pip rose and walked back inside, taking his empty glass with her. He looked up into the cloudless African sky. Such perfect weather for flying. Such a clear, uncluttered, perfect blue. If only things on earth were as transparent, as simple, as liberating as flying.

  ‘What are you thinking now?’ she asked as she sat a dewy bottle of Lion Lager down in front of him.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Oddly enough, I was thinking about flying. Something I haven’t done for a long time. You asked about Catherine.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a longish story.’

  ‘I’ve told you mine and you, as I recall, were going to tell me yours before the Widow De Beers interrupted us yesterday.’

  ‘A promise is a promise. Am I talking to Pip Lovejoy here, or Constable Lovejoy?’

  ‘We’re one and the same.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he shrugged. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a long swig. ‘Hard to imagine it all only started a couple of weeks ago.’

  Pip had fetched herself a glass of iced water. ‘I got the impression you two had, what’s the word, known each other for longer?’

  ‘No. Not long at all. It was just after she’d crashed her plane, on the airstrip at Isilwane. She drove down to Bulawayo and came to an officers’ mess dance at Kumalo. I only went because it was expected of me, as adjutant.’

  ‘She couldn’t keep doing her aerial displays with Felicity, after her crash?’

  ‘That’s right. She cornered me at the dance and asked me to let her fly a Harvard, and for Felicity to jump out of it. I said absolutely no way on earth was I going to sign over a valuable trainer for her to joyride in. She was sulky, but she stayed with me for an hour or so. We danced, and we had a couple of drinks together, and, well, one thing led to another.’ He looked at the floor.

  Catherine had worn the blue dress, the silky one that slid over every curve the way the ocean caresses a golden sandy shore. When another pilot had twirled her on the floor, in a jitterbug, nearly every man at the dance had seen tantalising glimpses of bare flesh above the tops of her nylon stockings. She’d danced and flirted with several other men, he didn’t recall them all, but she’d come to him for the last dance of the evening, to ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

  ‘I’d do anything to fly in one of your aircraft, Paul,’ she whispered in his ears as he guided her across the concrete floor. The small of her back was damp with perspiration.

  ‘I can’t change the rules, Catherine,’ he replied.

  ‘I said, “anything”, Paul.’

  He saw the look in her eyes and knew she meant it. He felt his body start to stir just as the dance ended and he shepherded her to a quieter corner of the hangar, behind the parked aircraft, grabbing fresh drinks on the way from a steward carrying a tray.

  ‘What would it take, Paul?’ she pressed, sipping her brandy and dry, her free hand brushing a strand of hair from his forehead.

  ‘An act of parliament that allowed women to fly, and your enlistment in the air force, I suppose.’

  She said, straight-faced: ‘I can’t wait. You know there are women flying military aircraft in England and the United States. There was a picture of Pauline Gower, the commandant of the British Air Transport Auxiliary, in last Friday’s Chronicle. The ATA fly bombers and fighters from factories to operational squadrons.’

  ‘True, but we don’t have a branch of the ATA here in Rhodesia, and we don’t have any aircraft factories.’

  ‘Flying excites me,’ she said, moving closer to him.

  He felt the touch of thigh against his leg. He looked around to make sure no one else saw. ‘I used to like it too,’ he said.

  ‘It excites me a great deal. I do what I have to in order to fulfil my pleasures, Paul.’

  ‘How’s your drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Finished.’ She crouched and placed her empty glass on the floor. She looked up, her dark eyes fixed on him. As she stood she ran a fingernail along the crease in the front of one leg of his uniform trousers. Her finger stopped at the belt of his tunic. The arc lights in the hangar roof were all on, illuminating the drunken partygoers, some of whom were in mid-kiss. ‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.

  ‘Right now? Go to bed, I expect,’ he said, checking his watch. It was after eleven.

  ‘If you’re not going to let me fly one of your aeroplanes, will you at least let me use your telephone?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We can go back to the orderly room. It’ll be empty.’

  ‘Can you direct me to the ladies’ room first, please?’ she asked.

  When she’d finished they walked together to the orderly room, close, but not holding hands. Had he guessed, he wondered later, what would happen next?

  He sat behind his desk, switched on a small lamp and pushed the phone across to her. He riffled through some papers, inwardly groaning at the mountain of administrative work waiting for him the next day. She sat on the desk, opposite him, and picked up the receiver. Instead of dialling, though, she slowly, casually, brought her left leg up until her foot was resting next to his in-tray.

  He stared at the expanse of bare skin as the blue silk slid down her thigh. She adjusted the suspender and looked at him. ‘You can touch it, if you like.’ She held the telephone by its cord, the handpiece dangling in front of his eyes like a swinging hypnotist’s watch. She moved her foot in an arc across the desk, sweeping aside some paperwork. She was seated there now, in front of him, her other foot on the table, knees raised near her chin, her hands behind her, supporting her.

  He looked at her face, then down, over her breasts.

  She said: ‘I took my knickers off in the ladies’ room. I do hope you don’t mind?’

  He stood and she reached for the fly buttons on his uniform trousers. He grasped her hips and pulled her to him, sliding her bottom across what remained of his day’s work. She lay back, arms flung wide as he entered her in one fluid movement.

  ‘It was just one of those things,’ he said to Pip.

  ‘Like buzzing a young lady four times in your aircraft?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘It sounds like she was trading sex for a ride in a Harvard,’ Pip said, unable to conceal an equal measure of surprise and disgust.

  ‘She persisted, but I told her I still couldn’t let her fly an airforce aircraft.’

  ‘It all seems rath
er businesslike to me,’ Pip said. ‘The woman was practically prostituting herself.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never paid for it, and I wasn’t about to,’ he said. ‘She told me that whether or not I relented she still wanted to see me again. She invited me over to dinner, for the following night.’

  ‘And you went, of course,’ Pip said, rolling her eyes skyward.

  ‘I am a man, Pip.’

  Pip laughed at his candour. She hadn’t thought about Charlie for a few moments, which was nice. What was not so nice, and more than a little embarrassing, was the way she’d felt a warm tingle deep in her belly, the first sign of her own arousal, as she’d imagined Paul and Catherine De Beers making love. Perhaps that wasn’t the most appropriate term. One word would describe it better. She felt her cheeks start to colour.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, setting his beer bottle down on the wrought-iron table, ‘I went around the next night, bouquet of roses in hand . . .’

  ‘Ever the gentleman.’

  ‘Don’t know about that. I thought gentlemen weren’t supposed to tell.’

  ‘I’m a police officer, remember. I’m soliciting a confession out of you.’

  ‘As long as that’s all you’re soliciting,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘I’ve never flown in an aeroplane before and, much as I’d like to, I’m not prepared to go that far.’ She was glad she’d stopped at three gin and tonics. One more and she might really have started flirting with him. It felt so nice, she thought, to be alone with a man and not be afraid.

  ‘So we have dinner at her place. All above board, you understand, until we get to dessert,’ he said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘After dinner, we . . . well, we weren’t alone.’

  ‘Felicity lived in Catherine’s Bulawayo town house, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she came home? Nothing unusual about that.’

  He looked at the ground. It seemed he was unwilling, or unable, to meet her eyes. ‘I told you at the funeral that Flick and I had been close.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ It suddenly dawned on her. She saw his embarrassment and suddenly understood – at last, she thought she was beginning to understand.

  ‘You and Felicity made love in Catherine’s house that night?’ She couldn’t hide her shock, or her disapproval. ‘But they were best friends, Paul.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t behind Catherine’s back. This is coming out all wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be a right way to explain it to a stranger, let alone to myself.’

  Pip put her hand over her mouth. ‘You don’t mean that she . . . that you . . . that Felicity . . .’ It was her turn to feel embarrassed when he looked at her and nodded his head.

  The whole thing had been so unreal as to be like a dream. He and Catherine were in the bedroom, undressing each other, when Felicity walked in on them. Not a knock, not a word. At the time he was dumbfounded, had reached for his clothes, then been speechless himself when Flick and Catherine kissed.

  The young woman whom he’d seen time and again at Kumalo, had spoken to during her preparations for her parachute jumps, had admonished once for being late for duty, was now naked, in bed with him and her closest friend.

  Catherine was the only one to speak. Not words of love, not even of lust. Commands. She instructed and Felicity obeyed. When he and Catherine had been together, at the ranch, she had wanted him to take the lead in their lovemaking. With Felicity, it was Catherine who was very much in charge.

  Images reeled in Pip’s mind, like the dirty postcards Charlie had kept hidden in his bedside drawer. There was one of two women together, one pretending to strike the other, whose hands were tied in front of her, on the buttocks with a cane. It had been taken in Egypt during the last war, handed down to him by some filthy old uncle. She’d never felt attracted to other women, but had known girls at school who had kissed and held hands more often than polite friendship might dictate necessary.

  ‘So,’ Pip asked, ‘did you . . . I mean . . . with both of them? Did they?’

  ‘Gentleman don’t go into that level of detail, Pip. I can tell you, though, that there was something incredibly strong between Flick and Catherine. Maybe even love, in a strange sort of fashion. Cath misses her like hell. It’s why she’s leaving town.’

  ‘What about you? Doesn’t she care for you, too?’ Pip asked him, trying yet failing hopelessly to comprehend the strange tangle of relationships.

  ‘She wanted to fly that aircraft a great deal. I like to think we had fun, and that we each enjoyed our time together – Catherine and I, that is – but in the end I think she was just using me.’

  ‘Well, now you know how most of the world’s women have felt at one time or another,’ Pip said.

  ‘I know. Catherine explained that to me yesterday, as well.’

  ‘Did you see either of them separately?’

  ‘I spoke to Felicity at the base a couple of times, as Susannah Beattie probably told you. I was trying to make sense of what had gone on, and to decide for myself why she’d become involved with Catherine and me. But no, Flick and I were never together again in that way.’

  ‘Why did you lie about that, out of interest, about not knowing her?’ Pip asked.

  ‘I was shocked by Flick’s murder and, to tell you the truth, a little bit guilty about what had gone on. In a sense, it was true, I didn’t really know Flick, and we hadn’t had a relationship. I was ashamed, too, that Catherine might have been using her bond with Flick to help get her own way. I think the unspoken promise was that Catherine would let me into the world she shared with Flick, if I caved in to her request. How could I explain all that to a copper the day after Flick had died?’

  ‘Why would Felicity have just “let you in” to her relationship with Catherine, anyway?’ Pip asked.

  He nodded, as though he had been expecting the question and had given it much thought. ‘The way I saw it, Catherine made the decisions. It seemed that Felicity would do anything Catherine told her to, and let Catherine do anything to her, no matter how bizarre. It seemed like they both enjoyed their respective roles.’

  ‘Catherine got you to tie her up when you made love at the ranch, didn’t she?’

  ‘Look, can we change the subject? This is getting a bit too embarrassing now.’

  ‘Tell me. I saw the marks on her wrists when we left,’ Pip said.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough truth for one day. How about a little escapism?’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘I’ll show you how I escape my bad memories these days. Come outside.’

  ‘I am not getting on that death trap with you!’ she said when he straddled the Triumph.

  He kick-started the bike and revved it hard. ‘Get on!’ he yelled over the noise.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’

  She looked at him, and then at the farmhouse. She turned and walked back towards the front door. She heard the note of the engine drop and looked over her shoulder. She saw the look of disappointment, then smiled cheekily. ‘I’ll just fetch us something for the road!’

  He gave a whoop, gunned the bike again and did a spin around her circular driveway, kicking up sand. He finished outside her front door just as she emerged with two cold quart bottles of Lion and a calico bag. ‘Put them in the panniers,’ he said.

  She stowed the food and drink, having no idea where they were going or for how long. The important thing was that she was leaving the farmhouse that had become a prison, the life that had, until this morning, seemed more like a sentence. She was free. She climbed onto the bike and, unsure where to hold on, tried to grasp the seat under her.

  Bryant let out the clutch, and the bike leaped forward like a thoroughbred leaving its gate.

  Pip squealed, a shriek of pure joy, mixed with a little real panic as the force threw her backwards. She wrapped her arms around his waist in order to stay on.

  H
e knew the trick would work. It always did. Now he felt her pressed against him, her breasts brushing his back, her chin almost touching his shoulder as she yelled into his ear, ‘Where are we going?’

  Away,’ he said.

  She closed her eyes and savoured the feel of the sun on her face as they sped back towards Bulawayo. For a moment she worried that someone from the police camp, either on duty or off, might see them, might say something. She was supposed to be a widow in mourning. The hell with them all, she thought. She hadn’t done anything this wild since university.

  The bush, the shanties, the houses, shops, people out for a Sunday stroll were all lost in a blur as he took her back towards town. He slowed momentarily to turn right onto the Matopos Road, the bike tipping so low she could have reached down and brushed the Tarmac with her fingertips.

  He gave the machine its head, making conversation impossible on the miles of undulating hills between Bulawayo and the Matopos reserve.

  She thought it an almost eerie place, full of precarious, naturally balanced granite boulders, prehistoric rock paintings, and the bones of Rhodesia’s founder, Cecil John Rhodes. She’d visited the place a couple of times with Charlie and friends of his, for picnics. A semblance of domestic normality. A lie. The Matopos held no fond memories for her, but no one who visited the reserve could doubt its raw natural beauty.

  He looked back over his shoulder at her. ‘Let’s find a quiet rock.’

  They motored, slower now, through the reserve, past a family who had stopped for a picnic, until they found a broad, flat-topped boulder, with a mix of shade and sun. Paul stopped the bike and held out his hand to help her dismount. She took it and held onto it for a second after she’d regained her balance. ‘Thank you for this,’ she said.

  ‘You’re the one providing the food and booze, so thank you.’

  He took the beer bottles from the pannier and held them in one arm. He leaped up onto the boulder and extended his free hand to her again.

  ‘I can manage, thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Suit yourself. You can see for miles from up here.’

  She scrambled up onto the warm, smooth lookout and set down the calico bag of rolls and cold chicken. When she stood again she surveyed the brown scrubby bush. There was a waterhole a couple of hundred yards in the distance. ‘Look. Eland.’