‘How much does he know about this contraption?’
‘He test-flew it from scratch.’
Crooke pulled at his beard, and allowed exactly five seconds to obliterate themselves.
‘All right. It’s a chance. Get on the radio.’
Chapter Six
Stephen Gregg saw the last of his guests into their taxi and began the slow, painful walk along Cadogan Place back to his flat.
It had not been strictly necessary to cover the two hundred yards or so in quest of a cab; but Gregg waged a constant war with his bones.
He hated his bones; and he treated them as if they comprised some external enemy, rather than his own structure. His bones would so much rather have remained in the comfort of the library, where they had been folded to outline the contours of a comfortable leather chair. Warmed by an open fire and irrigated with some very good brandy, his joints had only thrummed with a snarling, cowed brand of pain which signified only a temporary truce. They knew what they were in for, because Gregg never gave in to mere arthritis.
He had his reasons. The tragedies which life had dealt him, blow after blow, as if in fury that he withstood so much without defeat, had stacked themselves into an impregnable pyramid of philosophy which rendered physical aches tolerable enough by comparison. He had learned, in almost fifty years of living, that grief is as much a part of the routine of living as is laughter; and that the nutcrackers upon which fate so frequently tightens the pressure are as unavoidable a part of the sideboard as the decanter of port, with which destiny had been less generous.
Gregg loved London and he loved the tottering tradition of Belgravia most of all. He saw it as he had known it, and not as it had become. As he limped, contented in his way, along the eastern side of the gardens, which were flanked on the other by Sloane Street, he pinged his walking stick against every third railing, as he had done for countless years. He listened to the slight brush of wind through the trees, and to the roar of a sports car scorching along the main road, and to the voice of memory.
Sonia—tall, feline, exquisitely beautiful—had died of cancer, just after the war, at the age of thirty-two. She had roared about in a ferocious-looking Bristol, which had sounded just like that.
Death had never been in her eyes, those dazzlingly defiant slits which challenged you everlastingly, but denied you nothing once you understood the veiled joke. She taunted with her lips for the sheer purpose of making life exciting, which with her it never failed to be.
And yet for the last five years she had known she was dying, and had permitted herself in this era exactly five weeks of unfaithfulness. He had never known until long after her death, when Ken Woodford had let it slip by accident. He explained why.
*
The occasion of its telling had been just before the first Jet-Four took-off for her trials. It had been a day of acute tension. Fleming, who would be flying second string to the chief test pilot, had found a fault in the undercarriage a few days before, and some frantic re-engineering had resulted. After that, the usual spate of minor snags followed—none of them serious but nevertheless fraying for the nerves. At last all was set for a possible take-off the next day, if all went well during the ground checks.
At dinner, Gregg and Woodford found themselves left alone together. There was nothing left to say about the Jet-Four that hadn’t already been said. So they drank port and smoked cigars in silence, until a servant, to whom the nervous tension had been inevitably transmitted, dropped a tray of dishes and broke the spell.
This was the directors’ dining room at the factory. It was very seldom used in the evening but on this occasion a meal had been arranged because nobody felt like returning to London and an early start was to be made in the morning.
Sonia’s portrait, a superb recapturing in oils of a woman who concealed with the arts of grace the qualities of a tigress, hung solo in a position which dominated the room. Gregg had never referred to it before this moment.
Now, he looked up at the painting, as if asking some question of her. Ken Woodford looked away. The intercourse between man and memory was too intimate for intrusion.
But Ken was Gregg’s closest friend; and this was the first time they had sat together, of an evening, in that particular room. The port did not bring with it the zenith of sorrow born of her remoteness in death, but perhaps as a result of the continuum that a good port maintains from its year of harvesting, Sonia seemed to be there in the room.
The sensation was private to Gregg, though Woodford guessed that his chief’s once and only wife existed in the man’s mind far more than Gregg would ever have confessed.
‘There was a part of her,’ said Gregg eventually, ‘which never belonged to me. When she used to climb into that Bristol and go hurtling away on her own. I knew it was as necessary to her as anything else in her life. I never questioned it.’ He filled his glass again, then skidded the decanter across to Woodford. ‘Sometimes she would get up, in the middle of a meal, and drive off without a word. She’d go away for days at a time. Once she was gone over a month. I still don’t know where she went.
‘When she came back she was the most loving creature you could possibly imagine. She had made up her mind about something.’
‘Yes.’
The two men stared at each other over the length of the table. What Gregg saw in the other man was not exactly guilt; it was something more honest than that. The exchange lasted a long time.
Gregg’s exact feelings were indiscernible from his expression. ‘I wonder why I’m not angry?’ he said eventually.
Ken gave no direct answer. He said: ‘She arrived at my place in Bresham without warning. It was two in the morning, and she had been crying her heart out.’ He looked up. ‘Stephen, she was absolutely terrified.’
‘Of death?’
‘Not quite. Her fear was for you. If you remember she’d been holding it all back from you at the time.’
‘Yes. It wasn’t long after that when she told me.’
‘She came inside and I stoked up the fire and made her some tea. Then it all came out. Like everybody else, I had absolutely no idea how ill she was. It came as a terrible shock.’ He looked away because he didn’t trust himself for a moment. ‘You see, I knew she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And I couldn’t bear the idea of her dying.’ He faced Gregg again. ‘She knew how much in love with her you were, and she didn’t know how you’d take it, or whether to tell you at all.’
‘You were in love with her . . . I didn’t know that.’
‘Didn’t you? . . . But then everyone was, Stephen. In those days you couldn’t open the Tatler without seeing her face. She was the photographer’s dream.’ Ken indicated the portrait. ‘I remember when that painting was reproduced in one of the papers. You could hardly call it a pin-up, and yet there was hardly a man at Biggin Hill who didn’t gaze at it for minutes at a time. They shot down an awful lot of Messerschmitts that night.’ Woodford paused, and drank some more port while he gazed at the picture. At last he went on: ‘It was sheer animal with her, Stephen. To be honest, I wanted her desperately and I couldn’t have prevented myself if I’d tried—and I didn’t try.’
‘You are very frank.’
‘I’ll be even more frank—I’ve had a lot of port. To tell you the truth I never regretted it. Though I’ve never had such a month of happiness in my life—despite the shadow which was never really forgotten—I knew it was what she needed, and I knew that she was doing it for your sake . . . or rather, because she had kept things from you for your sake, and suddenly couldn’t stand it any longer. And I knew, of course, that she would go back to you. I confess that I dreaded it most of all. At the time it was more important than the fact she was going to die. That shows how selfish one can be.’
‘How did she leave you?’
‘The way she came . . . Suddenly—without any warning. I was telephoning in the other room. I heard the car starting, up. I knew what had happened. I just kept on talking. It
wasn’t until after I’d hung up that I realised it was exactly what I’d expected. But there was one thing, at least, that I knew all along. She was more in love with you than I thought any woman could be with any man. Do you understand it?’
‘Of course.’ Gregg got up from the table, walked to the window and looked out. He could see the Jet-Four, and for the first time realised how beautiful it was. There were still men working on it. ‘I’m glad it was you,’ he said.
Ken got up to leave the room. ‘The other times you mention she used to come to me and I sensed there was something. She wasn’t quite ready. I was puzzled of course . . . particularly as I knew she was happy.’ He had his hand on the door-handle. ‘I suppose it isn’t easy to tell someone you’re dying.’
Gregg turned around and as he spoke his voice shook a little. ‘Thank you, Ken,’ he said.
*
Gregg tapped another railing with his stick. Across in Sloane Street the sports car, which had slowed up for the lights at the Pont Street intersection, let forth a double belch from its exhaust and then sizzled up toward Knightsbridge and was gone.
With it went the sharp, sudden recollection of that evening with Ken Woodford. And no portrait hung in the mind of Stephen Gregg as he completed the last few defiant strides, past the hideous new lamp-post which replaced the familiar old one, to the entrance of the converted house which contained his flat.
He took the elevator up to the third floor, clinked his keys and snapped open the lock of Flat D. And as he opened the door it was as if Sonia were there.
The impression was deeply real. Surely he had just heard her speak, the friction of silk on silk as she moved? A cruel cascade of senses recalled, reproduced in quick succession the associated responses . . . a lingering suggestion of Carnet de Bal, so elusive that the fragrance vanished back into time almost as it alerted him . . . the mingling of phrases, borrowed from a thousand conversations, swelling to a warmth and then ebbing into infinity. The vision of Sonia in a Balmain creation, a breath-taking sunset red—not assigned for queen or princess, but for a woman who could throw such an intensely private look across a room crowded with cocktailers that he could feel actually solemn within himself. Those around him then would have observed nothing except a great steadiness in his eyes and the arresting of a gesture half-begun.
Gregg stood in the doorway, motionless. If he could have spoken then, he would have uttered her name. But after a second or two the impression had departed, and a cold shiver went through his body. It spread quite slowly, embracing the nerves of every limb.
And then that had gone, so that he felt in some way more alone than ever in his life. The flat, as he entered it, was cold and bereft of atmosphere.
Gregg felt suddenly more tired than he had realised. It had been a long day; after which his guests of the evening had demanded of him those qualities which they had grown, through habit, to expect . . . the prophecies of an aviational visionary, the fire of a man who split red tape with no less a force than physicists split the atom, the deeply considered answers to questions which were asked not merely as part of the routine of dinner conversation.
He had sat erect in the high-backed chair, both arms laid along those of the chair and strong hands gripping the ends. His expression, on such occasions, would be deceptively stern and unresponsive until, after deliberations which followed an ordered sequence and left nothing to vague expedience, he would pronounce his answer . . . ‘I think you’re wrong to blame the manufacturers, Clive. The future of supersonic aircraft rests on economics, not aerodynamics. Nowadays it costs more to develop a new type than at any time; and cash is harder to come by than human inventiveness. That didn’t use to be so: we were limited more by technical and theoretical ignorance than by the balance sheet. I have an airliner on the drawing board now which could outfly anything we or the Americans or anyone else can possibly afford to build, though I never give up trying. But who’s going to pay for it? How would anyone fill its two hundred and forty seats? . . . You say we’re behind the times—so we are. We’re forced to build you aeroplanes that require about as much imagination to design as a furniture van does. But if that’s all you can pay for, that’s all you’ll get. And who cares whether a furniture van has its engine at the front, middle, or the rear? If it’s properly designed, it’ll still carry the same weight of sofas and brass beds for the same distance at the same cost . . .’
The argument had pursued itself right up to when Gregg had showed his guests into their taxi, and this was the way he liked it. At the next meeting they would take, up the matter where they had left off, and in the end contribute something which would lead to a new aeroplane whose performance and cost lay somewhere between that of the dream on the drawing board and the practical requirements of the buyer. In this way the Jet-Four had emerged; but as far as Gregg was concerned that aircraft was already obsolete.
Gregg sauntered across the room and poured himself a drink. He felt more restless than thirsty. The illusion of Sonia’s presence had disturbed him and heightened his sense of loneliness.
But it had done something else, too. It had changed his respiration rate, circulated a fraction more oxygen, infinitesimally altered the pin-point balance of an alert brain and tipped it perceptibly in the direction of statistical fact.
Not that he would have recognised that he was computing, any more than he would have connected a sudden impression that Sonia had been there with an ill-explained anxiety about the Jet-Four. But to him, Sonia had come for a purpose . . .
Sonia, my darling, haunt me if you will. But give me more to go on. What is it you’re trying to tell me?
. . . Had the phone been ringing all the time? Had it rung, even as he opened the door of the flat?—and had he felt her presence, through some trick of his mind, because of it?
But he was very alert when he answered the phone.
‘That you, Stephen?’
He recognised Ken Woodford’s voice. ‘Yes. What’s happened?’
‘Oh, then you already know?’
‘Know what? You sound awfully faint. Can you speak up a bit?’ He added: ‘Where are you?’
‘Bresham. Stephen, there’s some trouble. Statelines Flight Forty-Six. Undercart badly damaged on take-off.’
So that was it, Sonia!
‘Can they get down with what they have?’
‘It doesn’t sound like it.’ Woodford’s voice conveyed tension along the line and turned to a grimmer hue. ‘That’s not all they’re up against, either. Jimmy Truman is playing up. He’s co-pilot on this flight.’
Gregg snapped: ‘What happened?’
‘All I know is that Crooke has turfed him out of the cockpit. He panicked, or something.’
Gregg stuck to essentials. ‘What is being done?’
Woodford became hesitant, but after a second or two he resumed: ‘I was hoping you might be able to do something with Fleming. He’s down at the airport and might be able to help, only they won’t trust him. What the devil is up with the man?’
‘I’ll tell you sometime. There’s something I never told you which concerned both him and Truman. Now I wish I had . . . What could Fleming do, from the ground?’
‘It depends . . . But he’s had enough experience with that undercarriage. If you remember, it was he who spotted the trouble way back when——’
Gregg cut him short. ‘—I remember. Who else have you spoken to at the airport about this?’
‘There’s a man called Scrivens——’
‘Don’t know him.’
‘Ministry chap. Then there’s the London director of Statelines—he’s just got there apparently . . . a fellow called Dawlish.’
‘Hell, I don’t know him either.’
‘And Stephen, Julie’s there.’
‘Oh, her!’
‘I phoned her at her house, after I’d talked to Robert, because he seemed to be in such a bad way. But I gather I was rather tactless . . . I didn’t know that had all broken up.’
&n
bsp; ‘Yes, ages ago.’
‘I think it would help if you could get over to the airport yourself, Stephen. If Fleming really is unfit then we’re scuppered, I should think. But you’ll know—I haven’t seen him since he left the company. If the man really is out of commission we’re in for our first . . .’ He left it unsaid.
Gregg said: ‘They have a good chance, even if they have to come down with nothing.’
‘It’ll tear them to pieces—unless they have more luck than they’ve had so far.’
‘It might.’ Gregg paused. ‘All right. ‘I’ll get down there. I’ll call you from the airport in about forty minutes. By the way, how much fuel have they aboard?’
‘Enough for over six hours.’
‘That’s a lot better than nothing.’ Gregg slapped the receiver down.
And as he left the flat, quite clearly, quite unmistakably, came her voice.
‘You’d better take the Bristol, Stephen!’
Chapter Seven
‘There’s no doubt about it,’ said Crooke, ‘we only need Groucho Marx in the right-hand seat and we’ve got the lot. I’ve never known anything like it. Never. He damn near had us in the drink. Did you think he’d do that last thing, Geoff?’
‘I thought he was boiling for something.’
‘What did it?’
‘Perhaps the idea of a detrimental report.’
Crooke exploded. ‘Augh! I would never have slung it in if he’d pulled himself together. I thought he would; that’s why I threatened it.’ He eased off a little. ‘How is the poor chap now?’
Perkins answered. ‘Susan’s given him a stiff dose of sedatives.’
‘Well, let’s hope she didn’t overdo it. I don’t suppose even Geoff can operate a stomach pump. Can you, Geoff?’
Simmonds smiled slightly to acknowledge the kind of joke he didn’t really go in for.
They had turned back. The weather at most of the western airports was, Crooke said, ‘perfectly foul. They’re stacking everything including the seagulls. Anyway we want that nice long runway. Let’s beat it for home.’ So he had climbed back to cruising altitude and switched back to automatic flying. Geoff had moved up into the co-pilot’s seat. He divided his attention between carrying out at least some of the co-pilot’s chores, and keeping an eye on the big engineering panel behind him.
The Higher They Fly Page 8
