‘Yes,’ I said, ‘seven. Our capacity’s eight but we’ve given Mr Olafsson a whole suite to himself.’
‘And charged him single rate?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why do that? Isn’t the point of any business to make money?’
I blinked. I’d been expecting a little light flak from Andrea but nothing this concentrated, or this soon. Old Glory was mine now. I ran it. I made the decisions.
‘He came over with his wife last time,’ I said defensively. ‘She died before Christmas.’
‘Is that why he’s over again?’
‘Yes.’
Andrea was bending down now, peering at my list of bookings. I could feel her breath on the nape of my neck.
‘And did you give them the Mitchell Suite last time?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s why he wants it again?’
‘Of course.’ I got up, pushing back my chair a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary. ‘Breakfast?’
Andrea sat on the edge of the kitchen table smoking a cigarette while I made her scrambled eggs on toast. She was much taller than me and the sight of her in one of Adam’s dressing gowns was oddly disconcerting. Already, in twelve brief hours, I felt Mapledurcombe somehow slipping away from me, shadowed by her presence. Now, in what I suspected was a bid to shift the conversation back to Hamish, she asked me how it had been in my own marriage.
I heaped the scrambled eggs on to a couple of slices of toast and ground black pepper over the top.
‘It was bloody wonderful,’ I said quietly. ‘If you really want to know.’
Andrea pulled the dressing gown a little more tightly around her. Despite the weight loss, she still had a lovely figure.
‘You were always the lucky one,’ she said glumly.
‘You think so?’
‘I know so.’
‘Lucky to lose him?’
‘Lucky to nab him in the first place.’
I carried the plate of scrambled eggs across to the table while she crushed the half-smoked cigarette in my saucer. Since that first night Adam and his Sea King crew had invited themselves over to Gander Creek for the party, Andrea had never forgiven me for what happened. She’d fancied him on sight and done her best to make a play for him. They’d had a couple of dances and shared a plate of muttonburgers, and while the boy who played lead guitar in our settlement band was mending a broken string, I’d overheard her telling Adam about her plans to try for a university place at Oxford.
At this point, of course, neither of us knew that Adam was bored witless by anything remotely bookish or academic, and when the band struck up again and Adam seized me rather pointedly by the hand and led me to the very middle of our shabby old community hall, I remember all too clearly the expression on my sister’s face. There was bewilderment there, and a measure of disbelief, but as the music slowed, and Adam gathered me closer, Andrea’s scowl grew darker and darker. Since we were toddlers, there’d always been a pecking order, an unquestioned acceptance of just who had first place in the queue. Whether it was the biggest spoonful of trifle at tea time, or the best ride at the annual sports weekend my father always organised, Andrea grabbed it. Adam, bless him, put paid to all that, and the insult was all the more wounding because of the way he so obviously didn’t care. At the end of that glorious evening, as he tugged me towards the looming bulk of his waiting Sea King, he caught sight of Andrea standing in the lit porch that led into the community hall.
‘Look after your little sister,’ he yelled back to her. ‘The big bird will return.’
Andrea ate scarcely half the scrambled eggs before pushing the plate away. Her cigarettes were in the pocket of the dressing gown.
‘You’ll miss him,’ she said casually, reaching for the big box of matches I always kept on the side.
‘I will.’ It was a simple statement of fact. ‘I miss him already. I miss him more than I thought it was possible to miss anyone. There’s a hole there I can’t begin to describe. He’s just…’ I shrugged miserably,’… gone.’
Andrea nodded, sucking in a lungful of smoke, inspecting my little confession for the point of maximum weakness.
‘Divorce is like that,’ she said finally. ‘In fact I think it’s probably worse. At least you’ve got your memories. That’s more than I have.’
‘Memories mean nothing. Not for the moment, anyway. Memories are for old people. We weren’t old. We were young. We had plans. Not memories.’
Andrea touched the corner of her mouth with her little finger, her body bent at the table, her long legs crossed. It was a gesture and a pose I remembered from countless other conversations, the smoke from her cigarette curling upwards, her head cocked to one side, her eyes narrowed in inner contemplation.
‘There must have been bad times,’ she said at last. ‘Must have been.’
‘Very few.’
‘Did you trust him?’
‘I loved him.’
‘That’s not the same thing.’ She frowned. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Funnily enough, it is. We never really rowed, not - you know - in a serious way, because there was never any point. Oh, sure, we disagreed sometimes, small things, domestic things, the business maybe, but it never developed into anything serious, anything major, because we never let it. Life was too short. And he was away a lot, remember.’
‘Away?’ The word was like a flash of silver after a grim morning’s fishing. Andrea had baited her hook and now, at last, there was the possibility of something on the end of the line.
I made another pot of coffee and told her about Adam’s adventures in southern Africa. Most of this stuff Andrea knew already - I’d talked about it in telephone calls, mentioned it in letters - but my sister had never had much patience with the small print of other people’s lives and she expressed her usual grudging interest, waiting for me to bring the story up to date.
‘But was he helpful?’ she asked. ‘Did he do his bit?’
‘Where?’
‘Here.’ She gestured round. ‘With the business.’
‘Of course.’
I told her about our heroic efforts in the early days, securing the roof, putting the window frames to rights, sorting out the garden, salting my praise for Adam with the frank admission that DIY wasn’t altogether his thing.
‘So there were problems?’
‘Not problems, no. Disasters, plenty of them, but never problems. We always coped. And we always laughed afterwards.’
‘Laughed?’ Andrea’s head went back. ‘God, we could have done with a bit of that. I don’t think I can remember when Hamish and I last had a laugh, you know, a proper laugh, let our hair down.’
‘It’s important.’ I was studying the calendar again, more in hope than expectation. ‘More important than sex in some ways.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yes. Making love’s, you know, wonderful but the thing I miss most is the sound of Adam laughing. He didn’t even have to be here. Just on the phone would be enough. He’d laugh at the oddest things but it was so infectious. You just went along with it. Times could be hard, really hard, everything falling apart, often literally. It might be something around the house, or a crisis with the bank manager, or one of the aircraft going U/S, or a booking falling through, or any bloody thing really, but Adam would always see the funny side of it. Always. He never failed me. Not once.’
The memories caught up with me and I reached for the edge of the table, choked with emotion. I heard the scrape of Andrea’s chair and I turned my face away as she got to her feet, ashamed to let her see me like this. Then I felt her arms closing around me, and I smelled the faintest hint of aftershave in the folds of Adam’s dressing gown, and I buried my face in her shoulder, howling with grief. It was the first time I’d cried, really cried, since the news first came through, and afterwards Andrea sat me down, and finished making the coffee, and then fetched the remains of last night’s brandy from the snug next doo
r.
‘We’re in the same boat,’ she said softly as she coaxed the glass into my hand, ‘you and me.’ I dried my eyes. I felt weak, and cold, and empty.
‘You really think so?’ I queried.
We spent the rest of the day itemising all the jobs, big and small, we had to tackle before May came and the first guests arrived. I walked Andrea around the house again, a proper tour this time, room after room, and afterwards I showed her what we’d been able to do outside. In all, Mapledurcombe boasted nearly three acres of gardens, front and rear, and it had been Adam’s job to turn our doodled plans into reality.
Access from the little country road that wound up from nearby Shorwell lay between a pair of big stone pillars guarded by tall wrought-iron gates. From here to the courtyard at the rear of the house, Adam had resurfaced the crumbling drive and dug wide borders on either side. Beyond the borders lay an expanse of badly neglected lawn, and it had taken Adam and a couple of young lads from the village a good month to level the ground and then returf it with fresh grass. The garden as a whole was contained by a seven-foot wall built in a wonderfully mellow red brick. The wall, centuries old, was trellised in wisteria and honeysuckle, and on certain summer evenings, after we’d all had a bit to drink, I’d swear that the wisteria looked like drifts of pale-blue woodsmoke.
At the front of the house, the land sloped away to the south-west and Adam had hired a small mechanical digger to build a succession of terraces. Some of the terraces we’d given over to rosebeds and elegant stands of lilies and flag iris. A couple, on the smallest possible scale, had provided a hole or two of pitch-and-putt. While the very bottom of the garden, carefully levelled, had given us enough room to install a modest heated swimming pool, with space on the paved surrounds for sunbeds and our one real extravagance, a rambling nineteenth-century gazebo we’d spotted at a country-house auction in Wiltshire. Dismantled, shipped south and re-erected at Mapledurcombe, the gazebo offered perfect views over the lower slopes of Brighstone Down, and the bright-yellow fields of rape that jigsawed the south-west corner of the island.
In the gazebo, on rainy days, our guests could tuck themselves in on the cane recliners, inspecting the weather as it rolled up the Channel, while Adam and I pored over the airways maps, tailoring the individual flight plans that would become - quite literally - the high spot of their vacations. These sorties back over Europe in the Mustang or the Harvard were, of course, the real reason for Old Glory’s success, and as our afternoon wore on I could sense that Andrea had spotted a way we could divide our responsibilities without driving each other barmy. By now, she’d made it clear that she’d be staying for the whole summer. She couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the Falklands, and in my heart I didn’t blame her, but already we both knew that working together on the domestic side simply wasn’t on. There was too much history between us for that. Andrea was too headstrong and impatient to bend or mend her ways, and for my part I saw absolutely no reason to abandon a winning formula just because my bossy big sister had turned up. The flying, on the other hand, was way out of Andrea’s league and it made obvious sense to let me take over where Adam, all too sadly, had left off.
I’d told Andrea about Harald’s offer on the Harvard, and about his insistence that I should learn to fly the Mustang. We were sitting in the gazebo, sipping tea I’d brought down from the house.
‘Is it a handful then? Flying this Mustang?’
I told her it wasn’t. Dozens of women had flown them during the war, delivering the planes to front-line squadrons. Some of these women had been half my age, and most of them - at least to begin with - had far fewer hours in their log books than me.
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one. It’s a tricky aircraft. You have to work at it. And it’s bloody expensive, too, if you get it wrong and bend it. But planes are planes. It’s like riding a bike. Learn to fly one, you’re halfway to flying the lot.’
I paused to nibble a biscuit. The confidence I’d voiced was borrowed, in truth, from other pilots. I’d heard the same theory at countless airshows, that lovely hour or so when the aerobats and the fighter jockeys gather in the beer tent or the bar and debrief each other on the afternoon’s adventures. Listening to them reliving loops, or flick rolls, or stall turns in umpteen aircraft types, it was hard to believe that any of it was really difficult. But in reality, I knew different. Every aircraft I’d ever flown had its own repertoire of foibles, little lapses of good behaviour that could steal up on you, and take you by surprise, and - on a bad day - kill you. The Mustang, of course, was no exception and the flights I’d shared with Adam - a handful, three at the most - had taught me that all-important link between an aircraft’s performance and your own chances of survival. The faster the aircraft, the sharper your reactions had to be. The cockpit of a Mustang was no place for second thoughts.
‘What’s he like, then? This Harald?’
I was still airborne, still flying the Mustang, Adam’s laconic commentary piping through my headphones. Give or take the odd gentle turn, I’d never tried anything more demanding than straight and level flight but even so I’d learned enough to admire afresh my husband’s flawless three-point landings.
‘Harald?’ I said idly. ‘He’s fine. He’s been a good friend, especially this last week.’
‘But what’s he like?’
At last I gave the question some thought. Describing Harald, his build, his physical appearance, the way he dressed, was easy enough, but beyond that things got blurred. The essence of the man, who he really was, still eluded me.
‘I don’t know,’ I said carefully. ‘He’s very kind. Very able. He doesn’t say much. He’s not very demonstrative, you know, conversationally. He’s obviously done lots with his life, he’s made oodles of money, but it doesn’t seemed to have changed him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t. But he’s very, I don’t know, solid. I can’t imagine him ever being very different somehow. He’s lumbered, like we all are. Once Harald, always Harald.’
‘Do you like him?’
I suppose I should have anticipated the inflection in Andrea’s question. It went with a lifting of the eyebrow and the lightest of nudges in the ribs. ‘Like’ meant ‘fancy’. Divorcees’ talk. Widows’ talk.
‘Yes, I do,’ I admitted after a second or two. ‘I like him a lot. But not that way.’ I looked across at Andrea. She had the grace to nod. ‘I like his seriousness,’ I went on, ‘and I like his weight.’
‘He’s fat?’
‘God, no. He’s lean, really trim. Not thin, not fat, but just…’ I studied my teacup,’… right. He keeps himself together, you can see it. He probably works out, weights and jogging and all the rest of it. That would be his style, actually. I can imagine him doing it. Same time every day. Early mornings, probably. There’s something very spartan about him.’
‘You’re telling me he’s boring?’
‘Not at all. Quiet, yes. But not boring.’
‘And will you… take him up?’
‘On what?’
‘On this offer of his. This Mustang thing. Learning to fly it.’
I paused again, weighing the question, recognising the subtext. Say yes, and I’d be getting myself out of Andrea’s hair, giving her what she wanted, what she needed, a clear run at making Mapledurcombe tick. Say no, and I’d probably be consigning both of us to a summer of nonstop rows. That Andrea could cope with our little enterprise was beyond doubt. One of her real gifts was a talent for organisation, and she’d never been frightened of hard work. She knew her way around a lot of excellent cookery books, and when the mood took her she could be surprisingly hospitable. With her catwalk figure and her throaty laugh, our Americans would love her.
But would I really be able to master the Mustang? I looked out at the view. The morning’s cold front had gone through and the weather was clearing from the west, the blue foam-flecked Channel waters pocked with the fat black shadows of
the racing clouds. I thought of the last time Adam and I had been together in the air, one icy day just after Christmas, flying back from an impromptu celebratory lunch at a little country airfield near Bordeaux. Typically, Adam had insisted on taking the Mustang, telling me to forget the expense, telling me it was the least he could do to celebrate my thirty-sixth birthday. Maybe Ralph Pierson was right, I thought. Maybe Adam hadn’t, after all, been in love with some sex-mad bimbo. Maybe he wasn’t forever squandering our hard-earned money. Maybe he really was the man I’d always assumed I’d married. Loyal. And tender. And hopelessly, gloriously, over the top.
‘Yes.’ I turned round, half-convinced. ‘I’ll give it a shot.’
At the weekend, to my surprise, I got a call from the AAIB, the accident investigation people up at Farnborough. The caller said his name was Grover. He happened to be passing through Southampton that afternoon and he wondered whether he might pop across for a chat. Popping across, as far as Mapledurcombe’s concerned, isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. Add up the time you spend waiting for the ferry, making the long haul down Southampton Water, then negotiating the queues of geriatric drivers that choke the island’s roads, and you’re probably looking at a journey of not less than a couple of hours.
I glanced out of the window. It was a beautiful day.
‘I’ll fly over,’ I said on impulse, ‘I’ll meet you by the BA ticket desk at three.’
‘Ticket desk where?’ Mr Grover sounded surprised.
‘Southampton Airport.’ I heard myself laughing, ‘Will that be OK?’
Grover turned out to be a small, rotund, cherry-faced man in his mid-fifties. The shoulders of his suit were flecked with dandruff, his shirt collar was slightly too tight for his neck and he had a nervous habit of continually feeling for his watch. The fact that I’d rolled out my beloved Moth and hopped across from Sandown seemed to have put him at a disadvantage, because he insisted on taking me across to the restaurant and buying me a huge cream tea.
I was halfway through my second scone before we abandoned the inevitable small talk and turned to the real reason he’d asked to meet me.
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