I shook my head, at a loss for an answer, and when I read the last letter for a third time I realised that in all probability he didn’t know either. Life, for Jamie, had piled confusion upon confusion, and just now the kindest thing I could do was talk to him.
The kitchen was empty. I took the cordless phone, and the local directory with the international codes, and returned to my bedroom. This time, I dialled my own mobile number, assuming that Jamie had hung on to it.
It rang and rang. I sat on the side of the bed, trying to picture where he might be. Down at Ralph’s bungalow? Out on a run? At last, the number answered.
‘Hallo?’
The sound of Jamie’s voice brought the blood to my face, a big, whole-hearted, warm feeling that told me everything I wanted to know. I did miss him. A lot. And I wasn’t quite as independent as I might have thought.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the car. Hang on, I’ll pull over.’
There was a pause while he parked, then - within seconds - I found myself telling him about the adventures of the last ten days, partly out of excitement, and partly as an apology for not getting in touch. When I got to the more dramatic bits - bombs, rockets, dogfights - Jamie couldn’t stop laughing.
‘I thought the war was over?’
‘Not here it isn’t. Harald says it’ll be good for my flying. He thinks every pilot should drop a bomb or two. He says it’s like aerobics. He says it tones you up.’
At the mention of Harald, the laughter stopped.
‘How is he?’
‘He’s fine. And before you ask, he’s been the perfect gentleman. We go flying every day. He’s taught me loads. He’s made me realise what a lousy pilot I’ve been. But that’s just about it. You’ve got him wrong, Jamie. He’s old enough to be my father.’
I winced at the phrase. Jamie’s letters were still all over the bed. Jamie was asking me again about Harald. He couldn’t keep him out of the conversation. Why was he bothering to teach me all this stuff? What was the point?
‘I don’t know. Yet.’
‘Will he ever tell you?’
‘I’m not sure. He has this theory about stretching the envelope, but actually I think it’s much simpler than that. It’s boy’s stuff. He never grew up.’
There was a long silence. Outside I could hear Monica’s voice, and when I took the phone to the window she was out there again with the metal cage, alone this time.
‘So when are you coming back?’
The date on my ticket was 5 June. I confirmed there’d been no change of plan. Jamie sounded relieved.
‘Back for your birthday, then?’
‘Absolutely. Bet your life.’
I asked him whether he was missing me. I was looking at the letters.
‘Hugely. All the time. And the flying, too. Life’s a drag at ground level.’ He paused. ‘You got my letters?’
‘I just read them.’
‘You don’t mind, do you? Me telling you all that stuff?’
I frowned, thinking of that first letter. Should I get it off my chest? Give him a chance to explain why he’d had to stoop to fiction to explain how much I meant to him?
‘Why didn’t you tell me about London to begin with?’ I asked him. ‘Why pretend you’d been back to the island?’
‘I… don’t know…’ I could hear his voice falter. ‘I was just confused, I suppose.’
‘But you could have told me, couldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why lie?’
He hated the word lie and he told me so. He hadn’t tried to deceive me, hadn’t tried to hide anything. Rather than broach what he called ‘the whole bloody shambles’, he’d thought it better to invent a bit. The fact that I might talk to Andrea hadn’t occurred to him.
‘OK.’ I was trying hard to play the older woman. ‘But next time you want to put me off the scent, just think it through, eh? Lying’s not part of the deal, my love. We talked about it. Remember?’
I was referring to Adam, and I was cross, and he knew it. The affair with Gitta, he assured me, was over. The only problem was the baby.
‘It’s not a problem, Jamie. Not if you don’t let it be.’
‘How come?’
‘She has an abortion. She gets rid of it. And she’s right, too. If there’s no father, no support, what kind of life could she offer?’
‘Lots of single parents manage OK.’
‘But she doesn’t want to. Not as I understand it.’
‘Who says it has to be her?’ I stared at the phone. Yet another little surprise.
‘You’d take the baby?’
‘Why not?’
I sat down on the bed again, robbed of an answer. Sometimes it occurred to me that Jamie himself was scarcely out of nappies. The thought of him bringing up a child of his own was a joke.
‘It’s a real commitment,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Have you really thought this thing through?’
‘Yes.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does she say?’
‘She won’t hear of it.’
‘So where does that leave you?’
‘I’ve no idea. I’ve been thinking of taking legal advice but I just don’t know.’
He began to talk about abortion, how evil it was, how he couldn’t bear to think of any baby, least of all his own, being torn from the womb and flushed down the pan. The language was pretty graphic - I could hear the emotion in his voice - and I asked myself yet again whether this baby was real. Jamie, beyond doubt, had a flair for the dramatic. Maybe this was just another way of getting close to me, just another torn-up snap in his rich imagination.
Abruptly, he said he had to go. He’d promised to pick up Ralph from the bridge club and he was already half an hour late.
‘One thing I forgot to mention,’ he said. ‘Grandpa wonders whether you’d have time to go up and see a bloke called… I can’t remember… I think it’s foreign, Czech or something.’
I frowned, upset by this sudden change of subject. Why couldn’t we carry on talking while he drove? What nerve had I touched now?
‘Do you mean Karel Brokenka?’ I said at last. ‘The pilot who flew our Mustang?’
‘That’s him. I think he lives in Chicago. Grandpa says he gave Harald the address.’
‘What does he want me to say?’
‘I dunno. Apparently there’s a letter on its way. It’s all in there. Some stuff to do with the book as far as I can gather.’
‘And this is urgent? Important?’
‘I think so.’
I tried to place Chicago in my mind. It was way up north somewhere. I bent to the phone again and said I’d wait for the letter. One way or another I was pretty sure we could sort something out. Jamie said Grandpa would be pleased. Then he asked me whether I’d phone again.
‘Of course.’
‘Brilliant.’ I heard the car engine starting. ‘I love you. Remember that.’
I was looking down at the litter of airmail pages scattered across the sheet, the bold green Pentel, the cries for help. He was just as needful, just as young as ever.
‘You too,’ I said softly. ‘Take care, my love.’
When I took the phone back to the kitchen, Monica was sitting at the table, stripping the flesh from an over-ripe mango. She waved me into a chair and offered me a piece.
‘I want you to know that Harald’s really pleased with you, my dear. He says you’re one of the best pilots he’s ever put through the school.’
The compliment came out through a mouthful of mango. A thin trickle of juice was dribbling down her chin, dissolving the layers of make-up. I offered her a tissue from a box on the table but she ignored it.
‘So what do you think about that, my dear?’ She bent towards me, her voice shrill, demanding an answer.
I was thinking about the metal cage she’d carried out to her little patch of wilderness. What was in it? And why was this daily ritual so exactly
timed?
‘I think he’s very kind, your son. And if you’re looking for brilliant pilots, then you should be thinking about him.’
‘Harald?’ It was more of a scoff than a laugh. ‘You really think he’s any good?’
‘He’s better than that. He’s excellent.’
‘In the air? As a pilot?’
‘Yes, and as a teacher too. I teach a bit myself. It isn’t easy.’
Monica was poking at the mango with a knife. Her hands fascinated me, the stick-thin fingers, the perfectly painted nails, the rings encrusted with diamonds and little slivers of emerald. I wanted to know more about her. Where she’d come from. What had brought her down here to Florida. How long she’d been living like this with her son.
‘Harald was a good boy.’ She plunged the knife into the last of the mango. ‘Always a good boy.’
‘He’s your only son?’
‘Yes, my husband…’ She frowned. ‘Harald was the only child.’
‘And you’re close, obviously.’
‘You think so?’ The knife, raised, was dripping juice all over yesterday’s edition of the Christian Science Monitor.
I nodded, trying to give the conversation a fresh direction. Harald had done well. Standfast was the living proof. She must be very proud of him.
‘Perhaps. But compared to his father…’ She shook her head and spread her hands wide, a gesture - I thought - of exasperation.
‘His father died recently? Your husband, I mean?’
‘Not so recently. Harald and I, we see each other through.’
It was a strange way of putting it. Was the world out there so hostile they had to stick together? As tactfully as I could, I tried to voice the thought. Monica rewarded me with a vigorous nod.
‘Harald needs someone to look after him. Always, always. Me? I need someone to look after. So…’ she beamed at me,’… there you have it.’
I nodded, pretending to understand, but the notion of Harald needing comfort and protection seemed, at the very least, unlikely. Most of the time I’d known him, he’d been a list of phone numbers on Adam’s office pad - Jersey, Zurich, Moscow, Sofia, Belgrade - endless excursions to outposts of his business empire. Was I to believe that this elderly, bird-like woman with her walking sticks and her wardrobe of black dresses accompanied him everywhere? Watched over him day and night?
‘He’s a very busy man,’ I murmured. ‘You must be glad to have him home for a while.’
‘Home?’ She was amused again. ‘Here?’
This, at least, was a clue of sorts. I was about to pursue it when I looked up to find Harald standing at the open doorway. I hadn’t heard the Jeep.
‘Mom keeping you fed?’ He gestured at the wreckage of the mango. ‘Only the boys across the way have been roasting a hog or two.’
Harald stepped across and retrieved the tissue I’d left on the table. Then he knelt beside his mother, mopping her chin. She might have been a cat, the way she tilted her face up, enjoying the attention.
‘Boys across the way?’ I queried blankly.
‘Yep. First solo on a Mustang?’ He got to his feet again and nodded towards the open door. ‘We owe ourselves a little celebration.’
The party was taking place in a compound on the southerly edge of the airfield. Beyond a line of pine trees there was a big open square of low, flat-roofed chalets built around a swimming pool. I’d never been here before, and from a distance, bumping along the cinder track between the pines, it looked like a motel. The sweet pungency of charring pork drifted towards us on the wind and when Harald stopped the Jeep and turned off the engine, I could hear the hot, tropical rhythms of a salsa band. I was wearing denim shorts and a Standfast T-shirt and I suddenly felt as if I’d gone on holiday. Time to relax. Time to have a little fun.
The barbecue pit lay beside the furthest hut. The men were gathered round, drinking and talking. I recognised many of the faces but out of uniform they looked younger, just another set of eager young tourists up from the south.
Harald led me from group to group, doing the introductions. A lot of these men seemed to know my name already and they greeted me with extravagant Latin courtesies, bowing low and kissing my hand.
One or two of them spoke a little English but my Spanish was good enough to understand very quickly that this party of theirs was in my honour.
They’d been following my progress all week. They’d seen me taking off, or in the air, or back on the apron, waiting for the refuelling bowser. That a woman should fly such a plane was, to them, a revelation and as the days went by they’d laid bets on when I might go solo. To my immense satisfaction, not one of them had been brave enough to put his money on such a rapid conversion, and when a sweet young pilot stepped forward and toasted my lunch-time sortie, the clink of our bottles of Sol brought a huge smile to my face.
‘De nada,’ I murmured. ‘You’re welcome.’
The party lasted all evening. The men lived in the compound - the accommodation was part of the Standfast deal - and I drifted from chalet to chalet enjoying the small talk and the hospitality. The men, without exception, were gracious and attentive. They drank sparingly and they laughed a great deal, a laughter fuelled by that very special kinship that pilots seem to share. I’d met it back home with Adam and I’d often tried to work out just why it was so powerful. Maybe it had something to do with the tests that flying set us. How difficult it was. How we were always having to juggle height, and speed, and power, and wind direction, and the million and one other factors that always threatened to get out of hand. Or maybe it was infinitely simpler than that. Defy gravity, play God, and the laughter just keeps bubbling up.
Either way, it was a glorious evening. We swapped notes about the Mustang, and about how wonderful it was to fly here, and I listened to pilot after pilot telling me what a difference the Standfast course had made to them. None of these men was keen to talk about the uses they’d make of their new-found skills once they got back home, but I got an impression of small, rugged backyard wars - some of them declared, some not - and when one young flyer from Bogota hinted darkly at the surprises awaiting some of the key honchos in the drugs business, I believed him. If you were wanting to stretch the arm of the law into the mountains of Colombia, there were worse mounts to ride than the Mustang.
Towards the end of the evening, Harald mounted a chair beside the pool and put two fingers in his mouth. The piercing whistle brought the conversation to a halt, and when he proposed a toast to the guy who’d roasted the pig there was a roar of applause. Throughout the evening, I’d had glimpse after glimpse of Harald as he moved from group to group. It was obvious - to me at least - that he loved these men, the respect they gave him, the way they smiled with pleasure as he traded a joke or a compliment, but it was obvious too that even here - amongst the music and the laughter - he was alone. Even Chuck, his lifelong buddy, was careful to preserve a certain distance. Not because of anything specific - a row of some kind - but because that’s the way Harald was. A man apart. Way up at altitude. Forever keeping the score.
Now, from God knows where, he’d produced a cake. The men crowded around. It was a big cake, a square thing. On top, in blue icing, someone had carefully reproduced the Standfast logo - an outstretched hand clasping the torch of liberty - and underneath, in pink, was my name. Ellie Bruce, it read, Mustang Aviator.
I stared at it. I’d drunk rather a lot by now and it took me a while to realise that the cheering and the cries of ‘Bravo!’ were for me. I reached up for Harald’s hand. Getting two people on to a chair isn’t easy but we managed it. Harald had his arm round me. He was calling for quiet. Then he began to speak, very softly, in Spanish.
Harald’s Spanish was much better than mine but the drift of what he was saying was obvious. I’d climbed a mountain. I’d joined a club. I was one of the boys. I gazed down at the sea of faces around me. I was acutely aware of being the only woman amongst all these men but I couldn’t remember when I’d last felt so much
warmth, so much simple human fellowship. Harald’s speech came to an end. There was a silence. They expected me to say something. The faces began to blur.
I rubbed the tears from my eyes. Harald’s grip had tightened. I did my best to clear my throat.
‘I come from the Falklands,’ I began haltingly. ‘I grew up on a farm.’
It wasn’t the most tactful way to begin, not when there were one or two Argentinians on the course, but I didn’t care. This was an evening for home truths, and mine couldn’t have been simpler. I told them about Smoko, my beloved piebald grey. I described the days we’d spent out by ourselves, miles from anywhere, a happiness so complete I thought I’d never find it again. I paused. I could feel how tense Harald had become. Everyone was looking up at me, watching, waiting.
I raised my bottle.
‘To Smoko,’ I said. ‘And to our Mustangs.’
Applause broke out. First a ripple, then a storm. I could see one of the young pilots asking for a translation, wondering exactly what it was I’d said, and the expression on his face when he found out was an image I’ll treasure for ever. They understood, these men. They understood about solitude, and challenge, and coming home safe at the end of it all. To have joined them was an enormous privilege.
An hour or so later, Harald drove me back to the Casa Blanca. I was drunk by now, and I hung on to the grab rail on the dashboard of the Jeep as we bounced across the grass towards the runway. I’d never seen Harald so relaxed. The party had also celebrated the certification of his rebuilt Messerschmitt and he was now making plans to ship the plane over to the UK. I was still on cloud nine, reliving those endless days on the Falklands, and mention of the Fighter Meet brought me back to earth. Harald seemed to be suggesting that I, too, might form part of the display team.
I tried to focus on his face.
Permissible Limits Page 33
