Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Because you’ll get a better view from the front.’

  ‘What about you? Don’t you need the better view?’

  ‘No problem. Just promise me you won’t throw up.’ He gestured at the open cockpit. ‘First time I flew, I covered the guy behind in breakfast.’

  The story made me laugh and I clambered into the front cockpit, making myself comfortable while Adam ran through the controls. I did my best to memorise the basics - stick, rudder, throttle - but sitting there listening to Adam explaining the way the seat harness buckled and unbuckled, I remember thinking how odd the whole exercise was. Another reason for being so fed up with living in Britain was because of the restrictions, the feeling of being so hemmed in. Yet here was my beloved husband, binding me hand and foot on the promise that flying would give me back my freedom.

  He finished the briefing with a word about the parachute. If we got into trouble, he’d let me know on the intercom. If the intercom didn’t work, he said playfully, he’d reach forward from the rear cockpit and tap me on the shoulder. Three taps meant bale out. Two taps meant stand by.

  ‘And one tap?’

  I remember him squeezing my gloved hand.

  ‘Means I love you.’

  The bellow of the engine terrified me. I hadn’t expected it to be so loud, so obviously powerful. The propeller was a blur in seconds and the wind gusting back around the cockpit suddenly tasted of burnt petrol. We bumped out across the grass. It had been raining for most of the winter and over the cackle of the engine I could hear the wheels squelching through the puddles of standing water. Because of the way the aircraft’s nose was tilted up, neither of us could see a thing and Adam had to weave the plane from side to side, checking left and right to gauge the turn for the marked strip down the middle of the field that constituted the runway. The Moth seemed clumsy, ungainly, poorly balanced, lurching from side to side every time we hit a divot or a rabbit hole, and I remember thinking how unnatural the whole thing felt. Smoko and I had been friends in seconds. Flying, on first acquaintance, seemed a pretty grim substitute.

  Hard against the hedge at the end of the strip, I listened to Adam murmuring to himself as he ran through some kind of checklist. He seemed completely at home, completely happy, and after he’d told me to adjust the little rearview mirror attached to the top wing, he gave me a grin and a thumbs-up before revving the engine and turning the aircraft into the wind. The Moth began to gather speed and I became aware of the control stick moving between my legs as Adam pushed it forward to lift the tail. I gazed out, feeling the slipstream tightening the skin around my goggles, watching the grass blur beneath the wing. We were racing along now, the bumping beginning to ease, then suddenly we were airborne, the little biplane crabbing sideways for a moment or two until Adam kicked it straight.

  I felt myself grinning, and I looked back, straining against the harness straps, watching the Portakabin, and the tractor, and our battered old Sierra grow smaller and smaller until they disappeared altogether. I’d flown a lot in the Falklands, sometimes in planes little bigger than this one, but flying in the Moth, with its open cockpit and churning engine, was something so different, so new, that I began to understand why Adam had recommended it with such vigour.

  The needle on the altimeter was passing 1,200 feet. Away to the west I could see the shadowed wall of the Cairngorms. Beneath us, a perfect line of breaking surf stretched north towards Peterhead and Fraserburgh. Adam was singing now. He had the worst voice in the world, and absolutely no memory for lyrics, so he made them up the way he improvised so much of the rest of his life, and he was still murdering one of the early Beatles numbers when he dropped the little biplane’s nose, revealing a fishing boat and a cloud of seagulls several thousand feet beneath us. I watched the boats get bigger quickly. The note the wind was making in the wires that cross-braced the wings got shriller and shriller. Then the stick came back towards me, and my stomach fell away, and Adam pulled the nose of the Moth up and up until I could see nothing but sky. For a moment we were upside-down, the beat of the engine much slower, then the Moth came off the top of the loop and I watched the coast revolve around us, a whole 360 degrees, until we’d levelled out, the engine churning away again as if nothing had ever happened. The noise Adam could hear in his earphones was quite unprompted, a spontaneous round of applause, my own glad admission that - yet again - my lovely husband had been right.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he yelled.

  ‘Nothing.’ I tried to stop giggling. ‘You just changed my life.’

  Later, we flew inland, up the valley of the Dee towards Balmoral and Braemar. I sat hunched in my cockpit, glad of the leather helmet and the extra sweater, fascinated by how responsive and alive the aircraft felt beneath my fingers. Adam had given me control after half an hour or so. I was to fly straight and level, ignoring the instruments in front of me, selecting a landmark way ahead and keeping it lined up with a point on the aircraft’s nose. The landmark I chose turned out to be the shoulder of Lochnagar, a distinctive mountain easy to spot amongst the surrounding peaks, and I watched it drift slowly closer, nudging the biplane back on course from time to time with tiny little movements on the stick or rudder.

  The feeling of being in charge, of being able to float up or down in three dimensions, was quite overpowering and after a while I became bolder, experimenting with the rudder pedals, marvelling at how I could crab the Moth sideways with a little pressure from my right or left foot. It was fun, this new game, but it was scary, too. Climbing over Lochnagar, we disappeared briefly into windblown rags of cloud. They tore past the open cockpit, plunging us into a very different world - cold and grey - and I was glad to be out in the sunshine again, the Cairngorms still beneath us, the bare shoulders of rock and heather mottled with those same clouds.

  We landed back on the coast forty minutes or so later and Adam, I think, was pleased. That night, in bed, he said what a good pair of hands I had, and when we talked about how delicate flying was, how it needed a lover’s touch, I understood at once what he meant. In my head, the Moth was already stabled with Smoko, my beloved horse. Airborne, it had become a friend.

  Blessed with clear weather, we flew for the rest of April. Delighted with my progress, Adam deferred his departure for the next contract, and after twelve hours of instruction, I went solo. Three months later, with Adam in Africa, I sat the various tests for my Private Pilot’s Licence. Oddly enough, the first leg of the Navigation Flight Test took me back towards the mountains. The examiner was flying in the front cockpit. I had control from the back. The first leg was pretty undemanding - fifty miles on the same heading - and I had time to look down, still fascinated by how slowly the landscape seemed to unfold beneath us, still amazed at that strange, God-like feeling that flying imparts.

  Adam had been right. The Moth had uncaged me. I was free again. I was happy. I had lots to think about, lots to confront. Learning to fly had never been less than a challenge but instinctively I felt at home in the aircraft. I loved the feeling of freedom she gave me, the feeling that we could outrun the wind and the weather, scroll glorious pictures in the sky, cheat gravity itself. We trusted each other. We respected each other. We’d see each other through to wherever this extraordinary journey might take us. Poetic? Of course. But real, too. More real than I have the talent to describe.

  An hour or so later, when I side-slipped into Dyce for a perfect three-point landing, I knew the Nav Test was in the bag. I was right. More tests followed. I passed those, too. And when the examiner finally confirmed that the PPL was mine, I couldn’t wait to tell Adam.

  Trying to get a line through to Angola, where he was based, was a nightmare, and when the international operator told me she’d given up, I sat down and wrote him a long letter. In it, I tried to express what flying had come to mean for me. It was a way of saying thank you, of course, but it also obliged me to take an honest look at the first twelve months or so that we’d spent together. Our marriage was fabulous but I’d made
a pretty rocky start in the UK and I knew it. I’d been weak. I’d been feeble. I’d let myself buckle under all the pressures that most people seemed to take for granted. Now, though, things would be different. Whatever Adam wanted to do with our lives, I was with him. Whatever he planned, I promised to make it work. And I did.

  Chapter three

  By the time I got back from Ralph’s, it was nearly nine o’clock. I fed the cats, brewed myself a pot of tea and then sat beside the ansaphone, wondering whether I had the strength to cope with the fourteen recorded messages. Some, doubtless, would be friends and relatives, all of them well-meaning, few knowing quite what to say. One or two, judging by this afternoon, would probably have come from the media, yet more bids to tear a little flesh off the bone and expose it to the public view. For that, I had no taste whatsoever, and I finally solved the problem by phoning Adam’s parents in Vancouver.

  The last time I’d seen them was back in September, the morning we’d driven them to Heathrow. Adam’s father, himself ex-navy, had run a yacht brokerage in Torquay. Far too honest for his own good, he’d finally tired of Thatcher’s England, sold the business, and swapped a view of the River Dart for an acre and a half on Vancouver Island. He was a hard-working, intensely practical man and in her letters home Adam’s mother had written glowing reports of what he’d been doing to transform the garden. With a little boat and a mooring in the nearby anchorage, their new life would be complete. They’d been incredibly lucky. In five brief months, they’d found their feet. Canada already felt like home.

  When I got through, it was Adam’s father who answered the phone. He sensed at once that something was wrong. When I told him what had happened, he didn’t say a word. For a moment I thought he’d rung off, or put the phone down, then I heard him clearing his throat. When he spoke again, it was an old man’s voice, tired, almost resigned, as if I’d given him news he’d been expecting for years. He wanted to know, absurdly, whether I’d be OK for money. I gulped. Money was the last thing on my mind.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You must promise to let us know,’ he said, ‘if things get sticky.’

  ‘Of course.’

  We talked about a funeral. I said that there wasn’t a body. He said we’d have to have a memorial service. I said I supposed we would. Then he went quiet again and the next voice on the phone was Adam’s mother. She sounded shocked, and when I explained again she said she didn’t believe it. At that point I was back in familiar territory and after we’d both finished crying, she said she was sorry, so sorry, but she’d have to ring off. We’d talk again soon. There’d be so much to sort out. Would I be sure to keep eating? Would I be getting in touch with Leslie, Adam’s sister? I said yes to everything, keen to end the conversation, and after we’d said our goodbyes I began to wonder about Adam’s father again, how well he’d cope. He’d always come across as immensely strong but I was beginning to realise that even a lifetime of military service and self-discipline can’t shield you from the shock of losing a child.

  Across the hall from the snug is the room that Adam and I had converted to an office. I’d gone in to check Adam’s sister’s number but the moment I got to the desk I saw the fax waiting in the machine. At first I thought it was a booking confirmation from the States but then I realised it had come from Dennis Wetherall, our accountant in Jersey. He’d been trying to get through since mid-afternoon but there’d been no response to his pleas for me to ring.

  I turned on the Anglepoise over the desk and sank into the chair. The second paragraph was even brisker than the first. He’d heard about Adam. He was very, very sorry. But there was a problem with the company’s liquidity and certain steps had to be taken at once. Urgent, he added, wasn’t a term he ever used lightly.

  After the longest weekend of my life, fending off more media phone calls, I flew to the Channel Isles. The early-morning Monday flight out of Southampton was booked solid and it was nearly midday before I got to Jersey. Dennis Wetherall was waiting for me inside the terminal building.

  Dennis has never looked like an accountant. He’s short and slightly squat in build. He goes in for designer jeans, cowboy boots, collarless shirts, and he wears his hair in a long ponytail, secured with a length of scarlet ribbon. Amongst his clientele he numbers a couple of rock stars and a millionaire novelist or two, and he seems to view the rest of his profession with a kind of bemused resignation. Adam, predictably enough, loved him, and socially he was never less than amusing. The occasions he came to stay at Mapledurcombe, we were rarely in bed before three.

  Dennis drove me into St Helier in his new Porsche. Blunt as ever, he spared me the laboured consolations I was beginning to dread.

  ‘Can’t think what got into him,’ he said. ‘Not his style at all.’

  ‘Spearing in?’

  ‘Dying.’

  ‘Exactly.’ I nodded. ‘So what happened?’

  Dennis shot me a look. Even in winter, he affected top-of-the-range Ray-Bans.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at length. ‘But I’m glad you got the fax.’

  He took me to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Inner Harbour. It was called Le Corniche and he’d booked a table in the long, sumptuous conservatory that seemed to suck in the light. Just sitting there with him, I began to feel a bit better, a little passing bubble he wasted no time in puncturing. From his briefcase, he produced a file. I saw our names on the top right-hand corner.

  ‘Here.’

  He passed me a photocopy from the file. I found myself looking at some kind of form. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A loan guarantee.’ His finger stabbed at a line near the bottom. ‘And that’s your signature.’

  I stared at the scrawl. Ellie Bruce. It certainly looked like my signature but on closer inspection the ‘B’ and the ‘r’ of the surname weren’t quite right. I sign with less of a flourish.

  ‘Not me,’ I said.

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No.’

  Dennis tried to reclaim the form. I hung on to it. Adam’s signature was down there too, though this time it looked genuine. I began to study the rest of the form. According to the neatly typed figures on the third line, we’d guaranteed a bank loan of £300,000.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘From a bank.’

  ‘Here in Jersey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I was still staring at the figure. It was enormous.

  ‘Who’s all this money for?’

  ‘Steve Liddell. Like it says.’

  Dennis drew my attention to the top line. He was right. For reasons I didn’t begin to understand, we’d staked our all on Liddell Engineering, Steve’s company.

  I looked up. Dennis and I talked regularly on the phone. When it came to business, we’d established a certain candour.

  ‘How long have you had this?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours.’

  ‘It’s dated last October.’

  ‘I know. I can read too.’

  ‘So why didn’t you know before?’

  ‘Good question.’

  Dennis was staring at me, openly belligerent, and I realised that this was some kind of test. As our accountant, he had a right - indeed, an obligation - to know everything about our financial affairs. So why were we risking the business by helping out Steve Liddell? When we’d only recently been in such lousy shape ourselves?

  ‘I know nothing about this,’ I said carefully. ‘That’s definitely not my signature.’

  ‘You’re telling me someone faked it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like who?’ He was still staring at me. I refused to answer. At length, he took the form and laid it on the tablecloth between us. Butter from his finger left a greasemark beneath Adam’s name.

  ‘Is that signature genuine?’

  ‘Yes, as far as I can see.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He nodded, tearing at the remains of a bread r
oll.

  ‘That’s what the bank manager says, too.’

  ‘How would he know?’

  ‘He watched Adam sign it.’

  I looked again at the form. I’d never heard of Gulf Banking Services Corporation.

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘It’s a small offshore outfit, incorporated in the Caymans. They do a lot of business here, most of it high-risk.’ He paused. ‘You’re serious? You’ve never dealt with them?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘And Adam didn’t mention the name ever?’

  ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t.’

  Dennis pushed his chair back from the table and brushed crumbs from his lap. The hostility had gone. I’d evidently passed the test.

  ‘It gets worse,’ he said. ‘Did you hear about Steve Liddell?’

  I shook my head. Steve Liddell was the young engineer who’d lent Adam the Cessna. I knew he’d recently moved into brand-new premises on the edge of Jersey airport, but this was the first time I’d realised that we were underwriting his business expansion plans. Adam, it’s true, had once suggested that we take some kind of stake in his company, convinced that servicing classic warbirds would be immensely profitable, but when I’d said no, I’d assumed that would be the end of it.

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘To Steve?’

  ‘He had a fire. A week or so back.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Serious enough. He was working on Harvey Glennister’s Spitfire. Apparently there’s not very much of it left.’

  It was my turn to stare. Harvey Glennister was a Lloyd’s broker who dabbled in warbirds, one of a growing number of the new rich for whom a classic fighter like the Spitfire had become the ultimate fashion accessory.

  Dennis had started on another bread roll. He said he was amazed I hadn’t known about the fire.

  ‘Didn’t Adam tell you?’

  ‘No.’ I frowned. ‘Maybe he didn’t know.’

  ‘Come on, Ellie.’ Dennis barked with laughter. ‘He was over here for most of last week. He was in and out of that hangar, I know he was. There are scorch marks up to the ceiling. Part of the roof practically melted. Hell, I was up there myself a couple of days ago. Even then you could still smell it.’ He picked up the bank form, then let it flutter to the table. ‘Not know? With a third of a million quid at stake? Are you kidding?’