by Rosie Thomas
They climbed in, and the car roared through the Saturday morning traffic. Julia looked up at the red buses looming over them, the pigeons strutting on ledges and the boys on Vespas trying to outpace the MG, and sank back into her leather bucket seat with a sigh of satisfaction. It was like being in an Audrey Hepburn film.
They left London behind, and wound out through the neat suburbs that reminded Julia of Fairmile Road. It was an added satisfaction to be zipping past the identical semi-detached houses where men were sweeping the fallen leaves off the paths. Josh was beside her in his brown leather jacket with the worn sheepskin collar turned up around his chin. The wind blew his hair back off his forehead and sharpened the handsome lines of his face. He was whistling as he drove.
‘I’m so happy,’ Julia said.
Josh look sideways at her. ‘I’m happy too.’ Then he glanced up into the thin autumn blueness of the sky. ‘It’s a great day for flying.’
Happy because of me, Julia wondered, or because of the sunshine?
They drove on through the Kentish lanes, and then at last they swung through a pair of tall gates and out on to an airfield. There was a cluster of low huts, and a row of light aircraft drawn up with the sun reflecting off their windshields. A windsock hung limp in the mild air. There were men in overalls moving between the huts, and one of them lifted his arm in a half-salute as the MG stopped. In the sudden quiet that followed Julia could hear a plane somewhere overhead. The ones on the ground looked very small and fragile.
Josh was already out of the car, calling out greetings and shaking hands and joking with the men. Julia followed him shyly, not looking at the waiting planes.
Josh put his arm round her shoulders. ‘… and this is Julia. Making her first flight today. I can tell she’s going to be a flier, just by looking at her.’
Julia shook hands. Her knees were going wobbly with fear.
‘Welcome to the Kent Aero Club,’ a man with a handlebar moustache boomed at her.
‘It’s an amateur club,’ Josh explained. ‘I like this kind of flying, as well as the stuff I do for Harry. I started out on planes like these.’
‘Is it safe?’ Julia asked. She hadn’t meant to, but the words just escaped.
The moustache man roared with laughter. ‘You’ll be safer in the air with Josh Flood than you are on the ground with him. She’s all ready for you, Josh.’ He laughed so much at that that his face turned crimson.
‘Let’s go.’ Julia could feel Josh’s eagerness crackling beside her. She turned and followed him, over the wide concreted space of the apron. Josh’s strides in his baseball boots seemed to cover yards at a time. Her own legs were leaden.
They reached a plane parked to one side of the line. It was white with spruce red lines along the fuselage, and the letters G-AERO near the tail. Josh ducked under the wing and opened the cockpit door. The whole aeroplane looked no bigger than the MG.
Jump in,’ he smiled at her. ‘Are you excited?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Julia’s voice was faint.
She climbed into the tiny space and settled herself into her seat. Josh swung in on the other side. He leaned across her and pulled the webbing straps over Julia’s shoulders.
‘This is the quick-release catch, look.’ He showed her the lever on her lap-buckle.
Julia looked at the hump of the instrument panel, and then over the plane’s tilted nose to the stationary tip of the propellor. ‘Don’t I get a parachute?’ She tried to make it sound like a joke.
He looked at her properly then. ‘You don’t need a chute in a crate like this. Didn’t you believe what Jimbo said? You’re quite safe.’ He kissed her on the corner of her mouth and Julia thought, if I’m going to die I’m glad it’s with Josh.
Josh gave the thumbs-up sign to a mechanic waiting at the nose of the plane. The engine coughed and the propeller turned, then spun into a blur as the engine note rose and settled into a steady roar.
‘What kind of plane is this?’ Julia tried to focus on something, anything other than the thought of pitching into the air in this little shell.
‘Auster Autocrat. Powered by a one-hundred h.p. Cirrus Minor Two engine. Okay?’
Josh was busy. He touched the rows of switches and watched the dials, turning his head to look at the tail-flap and the wing-tips. Julia sat and waited, hoping that he couldn’t hear her heart banging. She hadn’t expected to be afraid, and the surprising fact of her terror somehow made it worse.
Josh gave another thumbs-up to the mechanic. He stood to one side and beckoned them on and the Auster taxied forward.
Josh was whistling again, the same tune as behind the wheel of his MG. They reached the end of the tarmac runway.
‘Here we go, baby. Hold tight.’
The plane darted forward and then skipped into the air.
Julia saw the tarmac lurch and drop away beneath them, and then she saw the roofs of the huts and the treetops beyond the perimeter fence, swaying drunkenly, then a scatter of houses and the scarlet blob of a telephone kiosk. The ground seemed to swoop sideways and upwards, pushing the horizon into the wrong place, terrifyingly wrong, so that the empty space of sky was beside her instead of over her head. Julia lurched sideways, wanting to grab hold of Josh, but her seat straps held her down. She was amazed to see that he was still smiling.
The horizon swung again, and then titled into its proper place. The brown and gold and pale green squares of fields unrolled towards it, and Julia looked down to see white threads of roads, thick dark curls of woodland and a village laid out around a church. She could even see the pale flecks of gravestones under the shadow of the spire.
Above the plexiglass cockpit bubble the air shimmered. The air felt solid all around them, bumping against the plane’s skin, lifting them up. They were flying.
Julia opened her clenched fists. Her fingernails had left red arcs in the skin of her palms and she was sweaty between her shoulder blades, but she felt her fear loosening its grip.
Josh took his hands off the controls and casually unfolded a map. The plane hummed on, pointing its nose into the blue haze.
‘I thought we’d head out over the Channel,’ Josh announced, ‘and then take a look at the French coast.’
‘That sounds fine,’ Julia murmured. She thought, France. She had never left England in her life. Fascination overcame Julia’s fear.
The Channel appeared beneath them, the sheeny water dotted with tiny ships that drew a white gull’s feather of wake behind them.
Josh pointed ahead and said, ‘Look, there’s France. Cap Gris Nez.’
A headland pointing into the sea, with brackets of beaches on either side of it. Then came the French countryside, bigger fields lined with poplars instead of fleecy elms, whitewashed villages instead of grey ones. When Josh said that it was time to turn back Julia was ready, and the roll of the horizon and giddy veering of the landscape didn’t bring the sweat out on her skin.
‘Do you like it?’ Josh asked her.
She nodded carefully. ‘It makes everything look so beautiful.’
‘We’re almost home,’ he told her at last.
Julia was wondering how he would find the strip of tarmac amongst the little, domestic jungle of the English countryside when she heard Josh say, ‘Shall we have five minutes’ fun first?’
She just caught sight of his face, his white smile and a new glint in his eyes, before everything overturned.
The wing-tip beside her flipped up and the blue, innocent dome of the sky revolved and disappeared under the earth, where fields and trees leapt up at her and she fell helplessly towards them so that her stomach sprang suffocatingly into her mouth, and her mouth opened, gagged by terror. She felt her seat straps bite into her shoulders and she was pressed into the hard contours of her seat, and then they were over and sky was coming up again to take its place over her head.
She heard Josh laughing. ‘Better than the fairground, any day. That’s a sideways roll. Now the other way, and over she goes.’ Th
e same terrifying plunge, the same displacement of earth and sky. Julia closed her eyes and she heard herself whispering, Stop. Please stop.
‘Those are the simplest aerobatics manoeuvres,’ Josh was saying, as if they were strolling safely with their feet on a London pavement. ‘Now let’s try this one.’
Tipping forwards now, so that the ground leapt for them again, greedy beneath them and then over their heads. There was a cough, like the engine’s apology. Then nothing but awesome, whistling silence. Julia saw a blade of the propellor motionless with the exquisite, remote safety of the Kent countryside etched behind it. They swooped downwards in the silence.
Julia screamed, just once. ‘Josh!’
The engine started up again at once. The white wing-tip steadied itself at the edge of the her field of vision and they were flying instead of falling. Julia’s head fell back against her seat. She was cold now, and wet down the length of her back and between her thighs. Josh’s hand touched her fist. How could he be so warm, so sure of what he was doing?
‘The engine …’ she whispered.
‘I cut it out. We were gliding. It’s nothing. I’m sorry to frighten you. Look, I’ll take us down now.’
When Julia opened her eyes again the airstrip was ahead and below, and she could see the Nissen huts and the mechanics in a group, and the MG waiting for them beyond. The ground came closer, and the perspectives were almost right again; she felt a gentle bump as the wheels made contact with solid earth and the huts and trees whisked past them as they slowed, ran to the edge of the strip, and then swung round and taxied back to the line of aircraft.
Julia sat very still, trying to swallow against the pressure that was rising in her throat. Josh cut the engine again and undid her seat buckle for her. Another mechanic opened the cabin door and held out his hand to help her out. The fresh air blew in her face. Julia stood on the tarmac but it swayed under her feet, and then tilted upwards. Her knees were buckling.
‘Josh. Where’s the …?’
He took one look at her face. ‘Over there. Near door in the nearest hut.’
Julia couldn’t run, but she reached the hut somehow. She pushed the door open and saw a roller towel, a cracked mirror and a washbasin.
She ran the last steps, and was sick into the basin.
She was leaning against the wall, empty and shaking, when Josh came in.
‘Oh, darling,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
He put one arm around her waist, and with his free hand he ran the taps in the basin. He took a handkerchief out of the pocket of his leather jacket and soaked it in cold water. Then he wiped her mouth with it, and held it against her forehead.
Julia closed her eyes. If the lino floor would just open up and swallow her, that would be enough.
Josh smoothed the strands of hair back from her face and murmured, ‘Will you forgive me? I was just showing off to you, like some dumb kid. And you were being so brave.’
She laughed shakily. ‘Brave? That’s not what I’d call it.’
‘Sure you were. Everyone’s scared the first time. I was sick the first time, too.’
‘Did Harry Gilbert sponge your face?’
Joshua grinned. ‘He was nowhere around, thank God. Or else I’d still be hearing about it.’
He’s kind, Julia thought. As well as everything else. Oh, Josh. ‘Do you feel better now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was going to go up again, but now I won’t, as a penance. Is that good enough?’
‘Go up, if you want to.’ Julia would have given him anything, if only she could.
‘No, we’ll go walking instead.’
He took her arm, and led her out to the little black car. The spring came back to Julia’s step, matching itself to Josh’s.
It was an idyllic afternoon. They walked through a beechwood where the falling leaves made ochre and gold tapestries under their feet and the sun slanted in fretted bars through the trees. Josh didn’t talk about aeroplanes or ski-slopes now. He told her about the little town in Colorado where he had grown up, and his mother and father, and the men who worked in his father’s timber business, and their wives and the children who had gone to school with him. Julia imagined the place as a huddle of wooden-framed houses under a mountain ridge, set amongst black pines and empty snowfields. The lights spilling from the windows would look very warm on the snow.
‘Were you happy?’ she asked.
He thought for a moment. ‘I guess so. It was a good life. But I always had itchy feet.’
‘Why?’
He put his arm round her shoulders and the leather sleeve creaked against her ear.
‘I don’t know why,’ he said softly, ‘but I have to keep moving on.’
Julia knew that it was a warning. And it was a warning he had delivered often before. She jerked her head up and looked at the sky through the canopy of beech. It was fading to pearly grey as the light went. She didn’t need a warning, and she would take whatever came. A fierce determination took hold of her. She would spend tonight with Josh. She would make him hers, somehow. She could do it because she wanted it so badly.
She listened carefully to the sound of their feet brushing through the leaves. She had the sense of crossing some divide, here, under the beech trees. I’ve grown up, she thought simply.
Josh felt the set of her shoulders. He was looking at the angle of her face, turned away from him. The skin of her cheek and throat was silky white under her dark hair. Josh knew that he had frightened her and made her ill, and he felt protective as well as drawn to her.
His arm tightened. ‘Come on,’ he ordered her. ‘Let’s go home now.’
They drove a short distance through the lanes, and came to a field gate. Josh heaved it open and the car bumped into a rutted track. Peering into the dimness ahead Julia saw a little house at the end of the track, fitted into a corner of woodland. It had two windows below and two gables above, and a door in the middle.
‘It’s like the three bears’ house.’
Josh laughed. ‘It isn’t big enough for three of anything.’
Outside the front door it was cold, and the air smelt of frost and smoke. Julia shivered but it was a shiver of anticipation.
She was certain of what she was doing, and she was exhilarated by it.
Inside, the little house was less like a fairytale. It was furnished with utilitarian, modern furniture and there were contemporary print curtains, a telephone and a gramophone, and a scatter of books and papers. Julia wandered around, trying to gain an impression of Josh’s life from the thin layer of his possessions.
‘Is it your house?’ she called. Josh had gone through into the kitchen.
‘Nope. It’s rented, for as long as I need to be here.’
No roots, of course. How long would be as long as he needed?
Josh was making tea, whistling and moving briskly from the cupboards to the stove. ‘Let’s have anchovy toast. I love it, it’s so British.’
‘Is it? I’ve never had it in my life.’ Julia remembered Betty’s teas. Betty favoured Robertson’s jams and thin, sweetish lemon curd. She seemed a very long way away from here, and what was going to happen.
‘Don’t disappoint me.’
Josh lit the fire. It was already laid, and the flames shot up through the dry kindling. The room looked more homely in the firelight, with the tea tray on the coffee table. Julia perched on the red and black sofa.
‘Shall I pour the tea?’
She was reminded of Betty and Vernon again, Betty pouring out the tea and handing Vernon his special cup.
Now Julia was pouring the tea herself, and she would give herself to Josh. She felt her own power, and fear and anticipation and excitement dissolving deliciously inside her. The anchovy toast tasted salt and exotic on her tongue. And she knew that Josh was watching her. She felt beautiful, and a little in awe of herself.
Josh took her plate away, and her cup. The fire had settled into a red glow. He knelt in front of her for a mo
ment and they looked at each other. Then Josh took her hand, turning it over very gently, as if to ask, Well?
Julia leaned forward and kissed his mouth.
‘Julia,’ he said softly. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’
There was no need for her to answer. In the fireplace a log fell, sending up a scarlet fountain of sparks.
Josh was very gentle, and very deliberate. He unbuttoned her clothes, understanding the hooks and fasteners, and laid them gently aside. In the past, in her awkward grapples with boys, Julia had wondered why it was all so uncomfortable and undignified. It was different with Josh, of course. He made undressing seem simple and natural. Yet when she felt the cool air on her skin, she was suddenly embarrassed. She wrapped her arms around herself, to defend her nakedness.
‘I would like to look at you,’ Josh whispered. ‘May I do that?’
Slowly, Julia let her arms drop. She faced him, innocence overlaid with boldness. The firelight brought a glow of colour to her pale skin. Josh heard his own breathing in the stillness.
He looked at her, greedy, but holding himself back.
Josh loved women, but Julia wasn’t like the girls he usually chose. He liked full-breasted girls with rounded hips and peachy flesh that he could bury himself in. For Josh, ever since he had turned twelve, the varied appeal of women’s bodies had depended on their utter difference from his own. But Julia had no opulent curves, and her hips and stomach were as flat as a boy’s. She was tall and he was surprised now, seeing her naked, by her fragility. Her bones looked fine enough to snap under his hands, and her breasts were tiny, with pale pink nipples. The separate parts of her were like a boy’s, and yet they added up to nothing like a boy at all. Just in the way that her legs crooked, in the way that her shoulders sloped, and the way she looked at him under her dark eyelashes, she was more female than any woman he had ever seen.
And just as knowing. She had picked him out, after all, with total conviction. There was an added charge in that.
Josh breathed out, a long breath. He couldn’t hold himself back from her any longer. He put his mouth to one of her small, hard breasts. Her skin tasted faintly sweet, like honey. He felt her breath warm in his hair, and then he pulled her against him, she was supple, like a sappy willow wand.
