by Alix Nathan
The balloon moves with speed towards lines of light and dark.
He stands close to her. ‘Sarah, look. We’re approaching the sea, I’m sure of it. Before it’s too late, before we descend, I must tell you something. I understand everything now.’
‘How strange! I feel exactly the same!’
‘You do? How wondrous! The light, the atmosphere, makes everything into a vision, doesn’t it? You look so beautiful in this upper air. Like a goddess, serene and noble.’
She doesn’t hear, exulting still. He hesitates, but only for a moment.
‘Oh Sarah, I know now without doubt. I love you. You, Sarah.’
She stares, unseeing.
‘This journey, sailing in the ether, has helped me understand. Lucy was just a model for my work. I had a mistress who satisfied me, but she was coarse. You are the woman I love. The only woman I can love. You are the woman I need. You are a widow, free to marry; Lucy and I never married so I am free, too. And I am rich now, Sarah. You need never work again. Let us marry. Will you? Say you will. Oh, say you will!’
She looks at him. This young man, strong in body, charged with feeling, charming, skilled, of whom she’s grown fond in recent weeks. He, seeing only assent, clasps her to him and for a moment the embrace claims her: she has lived on memories for so long.
She pulls back.
‘No! Good God, no, Joseph!’
Sees his shock. Regrets what she must do.
‘You don’t know me, Joseph. You know nothing about me, do you? Tom was my husband. Tom Cranch. Yes, he’s dead but I shall be true to him always. For three years we lived as husband and wife though we couldn’t be legally married. I am his widow, not Wintrige’s. Wintrige was a spy and a liar. The marriage was a sham. I loved Tom from the moment we fled the country; no, much earlier, though I didn’t realise it. I loved him then, I love him now and always shall.’
Oh, she is struck by sadness. To use his name to hurt! Fierce certainty subsumes it.
‘I have decided to return to America. I shall sell Battle’s and leave as soon as I can.’
Joseph, white, sways with the blow. Clutches the basket edge with both hands, for his vision has skewed, his mind is blind. He staggers. His bulk crumples, shrivels. His body is bones, his ecstasy a husk: he could be tossed out of the basket.
‘I didn’t know this. I didn’t know. It’s true I know nothing about you. I see you as I want to see you. A guiding star, a cynosure. Oh, what have I done? What have I done? You will hate me now. Oh Sarah, I’m sorry. How foolish, how crass! Will you ever forgive me? Please forgive me, Sarah! Sometimes my feelings overwhelm me; I cannot help myself. Then I regret it.’ He groans heavily, covers his face with his hands, his head bowing down below his shoulders.
‘Joseph!’ Jacques shouts. ‘For God’s sake, we must descend. Look, la mer, la mer!’ The wind has driven them eastwards, over the marshes of Essex, extremely close to the sea. At the same time a summer storm cloud wells up immediately beneath them, black, heavy with disturbance.
Although Jacques shows no sign of panic, indeed he never feels it, he is coolness personified, he must keep the worst from Madame Battle.
‘Il faut que nous passions a travers de ce drôle la,’ indicating the cloud. ‘Accrochez vous ferme car nous allons nous casser le col.’
‘He says to hold on tight,’ Joseph tells Sarah as Jacques pulls on a rope to open the valve at the top of the balloon. ‘We shall have to pass through this storm.’
Gas spurts, they plunge down into the cloud and the squall’s centre, beaten by wind and rain as they descend with sickening velocity. They grip the sides of the basket and Sarah cries out as a particular buffet hurls her onto the floor.
Both men help her up. ‘Vite, vite! We strike the ground in a moment,’ Jacques yells above the wind. ‘Hold the hoop, so. Lift the feet!’
The basket is held by a hoop attached to the net around the balloon. Joseph lifts Sarah up, bids her hold onto the hoop for dear life, raise her legs, does the same himself. Jacques, monkey-like, jumps up, tucks his feet into the net, holds an arm out to Sarah and the three of them, new-fangled acrobats, swing from the massive gas-emitting globe as they hit the ground.
Sarah, her bonnet long gone, her dress soaked against her body, her muscles jarred, is too cold to cry. Survival is all. Gusting wind pulls the balloon across fields, the car dragging behind it at speed, banging over the ground, knocking against trees while they hang on to ropes with both hands, glad to be down, though jolted mercilessly. At last the grappling iron fastens its claw-hooks onto a tree stump.
‘Madame Battle, you are well?’
‘I am alive.’
‘We could have done with your parachute, Jacques,’ says Joseph, watching Sarah with fear.
‘Mais non. Only madmen jump in this weather. Regardez!’ People are running out of a nearby farmhouse and stand gawping and pointing. Not too close.
‘Surely they will help, will take us in?’ Sarah says.
Jacques and Joseph throw ropes towards them.
‘Anchor us! Tie the ropes to your trees!’ Joseph yells. The people stare. Some of the men confer with each other, gesture violently to the women who turn and run back to the house. A woman stumbles, shrieking.
‘They think we are Napoleon’s invasion! With our Tricolours,’ says Sarah, for the Union Jacks blew off some time before. ‘We are friends!’ she shouts, ‘please help us!’ But her voice is lost in the wind’s roar.
‘They think we’re devils dropped from the sky,’ Joseph says grimly. ‘I’ll jump out and secure a rope, Jacques.’
‘You cannot, alone, Joseph. You are not strong enough, even you. So much gas is still in the balloon. Many are needed to secure it. Ils sont idiots, ces gens!’
And then a sudden blast of wind grabs them like a hand, breaks the anchoring cable and with extraordinary speed shoots them hundreds of feet into the air. Tosses them back in the direction from which they came. The flight resumes just when they want it to end.
Jacques stretches for the gas-release valve rope, but it’s out of his reach.
‘It have slipped away,’ he shouts. ‘I cannot make us descend. We shall continue.’
Sarah pulls her cloak about her tightly to calm her shivering body.
‘Madame Battle, have courage.’
‘There is no braver woman, Jacques,’ shouts Joseph, shaking with despair. ‘But look, we all need courage now. We’re being blown back to the coast.’ He fastens the clasps of his sketchbook, wraps it in oilcloth, ties it firmly.
‘At least what I have drawn may survive even if I drown,’ he tells himself. ‘Someone may find the sketch of her. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.’
‘Put on the cork jackets. There will be ships, boats,’ Jacques proclaims, confident.
Sarah longs for Eve, for Tom. Rejoices in her plan of hope and reuniting as the damaged balloon scuds rapidly towards a lucent sea.
Parthian, Cardigan SA43 1ED
www.parthianbooks.com
First published in 2015
© Alix Nathan 2015
ISBN 978-1-910409-61-9 ePUB
ISBN 978-1-910901-07-6 Mobi
Editor: Claire Houguez
Cover image: Mrs Anne Hart, Henry Raeburn, 1810, oil on canvas, 135 x 109 cm © Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin
Cover design by Mark Jennings
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