The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  “The last time I was in Dublin I didn’t go to bed for forty-eight hours,” Harry said reminiscently. “Moira says you’re chartering a plane. Why don’t you both go?” he asked in a generous manner.

  “And leave you alone in this house? No, Harry.”

  “I wouldn’t be quite alone. There are the servants.”

  “I don’t want them corrupted. In any case, Moira is not coming with me. I wouldn’t want you to stay alone in the house, with her. The neighbours would talk.”

  “I could stop their lying mouths with gin and tonic,” Harry suggested.

  Joe very markedly didn’t smile.

  “Have a cigarette?” Harry said, holding out the box.

  “I don’t smoke cigarettes, Harry. I am going to Ireland on Friday. Would you like to pack now?”

  “If I can find my clean shirts,” Harry said. He looked at Joe, measuring him. “Anyway, this is Wednesday. I don’t have to pack until tomorrow. I have to make arrangements,” he said in a reasonable voice.

  “All this time you have had to make arrangements, Harry. Now we do not wait for the arrangements. You understand.”

  “Right,” Harry said briskly. “Shall we have a farewell drink?”

  Wednesday (6)

  Hester and Prudence were in the kitchen, preparing dinner. It had to be a special meal, because Maurice was coming, and a man of many virtues should be honoured.

  The whole family, in a way, depended on Maurice. He was the man who knew what to plant in the garden; when to ask the low-spirited out for a drink; how to do the maths homework. He looked reliable as a Rolls-Royce and steady as a lighthouse. Above all, he seemed to like the Wades enormously. He certainly deserved a good dinner, Hester thought, but it was a pity that good dinners involved cutting up so many things into such small pieces.

  “Next dice the raw, fat pork,” Hester said gloomily. “Do you think it would be better if I used a razor blade? I’m getting blisters. Mix it with the remainder of the diced meat. Chop carrots and shallots very fine. Now remove skins and seeds of eight small tomatoes. Chop pulp of small aubergine previously fried very lightly. Have you previously fried it, Prudence?”

  Prudence didn’t look round. “You’ll have to do that. Don’t forget the olive oil and the garlic. I’ll murder you if you overdo the garlic.”

  Hester sighed. “Isn’t there some simpler way of preparing food, Prudence?”

  “When we have simpler meals, you can make them by yourself,” Prudence said. “There’s no satisfaction in throwing some fish into a frying pan. If a meal can’t be a poem, it isn’t worth cooking. When we’ve finished this, we’ll feel like artists. Please cut those carrots a bit smaller. What should we feel if we’d been content to fry a piece of bacon?”

  “That we’d provided food with less expense of time,” Hester said. “You can’t be a perfectionist in everything, Prudence. Life isn’t like that. You’ll find out.”

  “I’ll find what I choose to find. Did I tell you I was taking up clothes next? If life was nothing but grim essentials, I’d be content to dress for ever in a white blouse and a school skirt. Oh horror horror horror! I think I may go in first for a terribly elegant simplicity and then branch out into dernier cri clothes. That reminds me, Hester. Those tight bodices and full skirts you’re always wearing make you look awfully like a student, and an art student, at that. I suppose when you’re a doctor you’ll wear tailored suits all the time.”

  “You sound exactly like a schoolgirl who glues pictures of Paris models inside her science notebook,” Hester said coldly.

  “Ah, the elder sister line,” Prudence said, sighing. “I warn you, Hester, in a few years you’ll come to me for advice. I’ll give you some now, if you like, while you stir the sauce. Don’t have anything to do with Harry. He’s not good enough for you. If you marry him, you’ll spend half your life looking through a wire grating.”

  “Wire grating?”

  “Visitors’ day at prison.”

  “You’re an insufferable adolescent, Prudence, and I hope your damned dinner burns,” Hester said angrily.

  “Oh, Hester, I’m only saying it because you’re so good you can’t see when other people are bad. Please go on stirring the sauce. I’m beating the egg-whites and I can’t stop. Maurice is coming to dinner. I do want it to be perfect. You think you can change Harry, but I know you can’t,” Prudence said, beginning to cry.

  “You’re dropping tears in the soufflé. You’ll spoil it,” Hester said. “I’ll go in and see if Mrs Timber set the table before she left.”

  She took off her apron and went to the dining-room, thinking sadly how much easier life was in term-time, when she lived alone. She had a bed-sitting-room in a dingy house in an undistinguished street and there, whatever else happened, she was free from economic pretences. At home her father still dreamt of the easy past when he had sat in the manor house like a benevolent ornament; and even Prudence felt it was a social necessity to provide elaborate meals cooked with butter when they could afford to eat only bread and margarine. With the slightest encouragement her father would have insisted on dressing for dinner. She didn’t see this as going down with the flag flying: it was more like struggling to live underwater in a sunken ship. The pressure was too great; the quarrels were inevitable.

  She heard a tapping on the dining-room window. Harry was outside, making expressive faces. She opened the windows and let him in.

  “Hester,” he said, “I couldn’t keep away. I get pulled to you like the tides following the moon.” He held out his arms to her. She didn’t respond.

  “You’ll have noticed that the ocean follows the moon for eternity but it never gets much closer,” he said. “Do you suppose it’s content with that?”

  She moved dreamily towards him and he caught her wrist with one hand. She heard a step outside the door and pulled her hand away. She moved quickly to the table and began to rearrange the knives and forks with excessive concentration like a child who had almost been caught smoking.

  Prudence came in, sniffing the atmosphere suspiciously. “Harry! I thought you’d gone home hours ago.”

  “Home?” he said harshly. “You mean Uncle Joe’s? Don’t worry, Prudence, I’m going away again.”

  “You must stay to dinner,” Hester said doubtfully.

  “Oh, Hester! Father would be furious.”

  “You needn’t worry about me,” Harry said heavily. “I’ll wait. I needn’t eat. Tell me a room that’s empty. I’ll wait there. Maybe I could sit in the bathroom if no one plans to have a bath at dinner-time. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll take a book and sit on the edge of the bath.”

  “Prudence, there’s no pepper left in this thing. Will you get some more?” Hester said.

  “We can bring it in later.” Prudence lingered by the door, glowering at Harry.

  “Please, Prudence. I want it now,” Hester said angrily.

  “Oh, if you’re going to make a scene about pepper,” Prudence said, “I’ll oblige by leaving the room. But I’m coming back right away with your pepper.”

  They watched her march out.

  “Harry, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Only that Uncle Joe is turning me out. He thinks I’m not his nephew after all. But that’s nothing. I came here about you.”

  “Me?” Hester asked in amazement, as though it had never occurred to her that Harry was more than an acquaintance.

  “I had an attack of conscience. I’m not used to it—I feel very queer. What I thought was it would be all right if your father wasn’t your father. I don’t believe in interfering with the course of nature. But I know what Maurice is. He’s practically got it embroidered on his shirt. Hester, he’s a crook of the simplest kind. Can’t you see it?”

  “Why don’t you attack him to his face?” she asked contemptuously.

  “Because he’s not a
ttacking me,” Harry said in a reasonable voice. “Look, I’ve met a dozen Maurices. He could sell a horse a sack of paper oats for its lunch, and steal the shoes off its feet while it was counting out the change. Your father—”

  “Leave my father out of this.”

  “He won’t leave himself out. He’s a glutton for money. He’s the kind of man who’s doomed to spend his life exchanging wallets with strangers as a sign of confidence. Maurice won’t hit your father on the head to get his money. He’ll just stand still, and your father will ram it into his pockets. All Maurice has to do is look excited, as if he was on to something big, and your father will be standing on his head trying to get the hook into his mouth.”

  “It’s not true. I know Maurice. I trust him. What have you got against him?”

  Harry suddenly grinned, like a man enjoying a private joke. He tried to look serious again, but the intensity had gone out of him, as though he had changed his mind about climbing to the top of a mountain. He looked round him, easy and relaxed, enjoying the view.

  “Maurice is disguised as a man who would remember to send his old Nannie peppermint creams at Christmas,” he said lightly.

  Hester walked out of the room. She was shaking with anger. There was nothing in her experience to explain Harry’s changes of mood. Talking to him was like discussing the scenery with a fish, or a bird.

  Prudence was waiting in the hall, clutching the pepper shaker. “I can hear the car!” she said in a warm voice. “It’s Maurice.”

  “I’ll go and see what’s happening in the oven,” Hester said. She went quickly along the hall and back to the kitchen. She needed a few minutes to practise her smile of welcome. She was already struggling to bury Harry’s remarks, but they kept reappearing in her mind like the shoots from a vigorous weed. She reminded herself again how easy it was to like Maurice; what relief his company gave to her father, who needed so badly to talk about war and money with another man who understood these subjects. Maurice treated Prudence and herself with an avuncular affection that was always understanding and never presumptuous. What brought him so close to them all was his air of having the same values; of believing in the same virtues, loving the same countryside, taking the same level-headed interest in music, painting, archaeology. When they had met him first he was only an occasional visitor to the village inn, since then—and it proved how much he loved the Cotswold country—he had rented a small cottage on the far side of the village. Harry would probably never earn enough money to rent a barn. It was natural that he should resent such a solid member of society as Maurice.

  Wednesday (7)

  When she had helped Prudence to take in the dinner, Hester was able to look on Maurice with what she thought was the old, untroubled affection. She was surprised to find herself saying: “Did you have a Nannie, Maurice?”

  “A Nannie?” He looked at her with his brows lifting, and his face shadowed by his solid, comfortable smile. “Of course I did, but why?”

  “No reason at all. I just wondered if you ever saw her now?”

  “She’s very old. She lives in Wales. I can’t tell you much about her, except that she’s passionately fond of Edinburgh Rock. So I send her some at Christmas, as a weak apology for not going to Wales.”

  Hester made some trivial remark, and then smiled and smiled and wondered why the room was so hot. She listened in an accumulation of fear to her father’s efforts to squeeze financial information from Maurice. It appeared that Maurice was determined not to discuss his business affairs, but Wade coiled his conversation around him, darting up with sudden questions, until it was revealed that Maurice was deeply interested in the financing of oil wells.

  “Where did you say this oil was?” Wade asked.

  “I didn’t say it was anywhere,” Maurice protested.

  “I’d like to discuss it with you, if it’s not too late,” Wade said greedily.

  Morgan, who had been listening quietly, gave an abrupt, barking laugh, and Hester turned on him quickly, half hoping that he was daring to criticise her father, so that she could direct all her uneasy energy against him, but his face was already cold and empty.

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” Maurice was saying. “There’s an element of risk… I’m willing to take the risk myself, because it’s a moral certainty, but I’m aware of the gulf that lies between a moral and a real certainty. My own money is one thing, yours is another,” he said in a voice that indicated his rectitude.

  “What profit are you likely to make?” Wade asked, his face yearning towards Maurice. “Did you say twenty per cent?”

  “I’m just as likely to lose,” Maurice said. “By the way, did I tell you I’d brought over some Bizet records you might be interested in? Hester must have told you about our jaunt together.”

  Wade couldn’t endure the digression. “I’ve always admired Bizet. Did you say twenty per cent?”

  “Who’s Bizet?” Morgan asked.

  “He’s a composer,” Hester said. “The one that makes people think of Carmen.”

  “Carmen?” Morgan repeated, looking bewildered.

  “An opera.”

  “Opera? Yes. I see. I’ve never been attracted to opera. I’ve never been to an opera in my life, unless you’d call American musicals opera?”

  “No,” Maurice said judicially. “It’s not to say one is better.” He was always gentle with other people’s views.

  “I can see you’re avoiding my question about twenty per cent,” Wade said in a good-humoured voice. “I suspect you hope to get more.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Much more?”

  Maurice suddenly looked deeply serious. “I wouldn’t like to tell you how much I hope to get. You might think I was having dreams of grandeur. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do if it comes off. I’m going to leave the City, abandon the whole thing—now, don’t laugh—I’m going into the furniture business. I’m tired of the shoddy stuff that’s produced. I know a little about furniture, I’ve ideas of my own about design. I know a cabinet-maker, an old-fashioned craftsman, who’s willing to join me. He has a son who’s learnt to be a wood-carver. We’re going to produce handmade furniture, hand-carved. This clean, empty modern line is a bit boring. We think we can produce something beautiful—and expensive.” He looked round the table, smiling. “So I’ll probably lose all the money I make on Australian oil.”

  “Ah, yes, furniture. Furniture is a big subject,” Wade said, sighing. “It’s Australian oil, is it?”

  Morgan roused himself. “How did you find out about this oil, living so far from Australia?” he asked.

  “I was taking a little trip for my health. I’d just made rather a lot of money on a take-over bid. I feel ashamed of it now. It’s only a kind of piracy. But money is money. It’s exciting, in a way. I went to a little place in Western Australia where they were drilling for oil. One way and another, I made contact with some of the men on the job. You know they did in fact strike oil in Western Australia a year or two ago? That was a different company, nothing to do with me, but it made what had been just a dream a little closer to reality. So now…” He broke off with a laugh, not looking at Wade, who was leaning forward with his eyes shining.

  Hester looked at her father. She wanted to get up and shake him. Instead she spoke politely to Morgan.

  “Have you ever been in Australia, Morgan?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been in South Africa,” he offered.

  “Now?” Wade asked Maurice eagerly. “Go on.”

  “I didn’t like South Africa,” Morgan said, and returned to his own thoughts.

  “Do you know, I did rather like South Africa,” Maurice said easily. “I haven’t been there for years—I know they have their racial troubles, very regrettable, I couldn’t approve less, but perhaps it was the tension that made it seem so exciting. It’s like a game of chess, you know—White to pl
ay and mate in three moves—but Black has most of the pieces.”

  “South Africa is a problem,” Wade said, sighing. “What were you saying about a contact in Western Australia?”

  “A man called Garvin. By an extraordinary coincidence, he went to my prep school. What he said was that someone was going to get rich if he struck oil, and he didn’t mind if it was me. He sent me a cable today.” Maurice felt in his pocket and produced a form. He tossed it to Wade. It was on Cable and Wireless paper, and said, “Happy Birthday, Sam.”

  “What does it mean?” Wade asked.

  “Code,” Maurice said succinctly, and took it back. “It means they’ve struck, and the news will be out on Friday.”

  “Isn’t it a bit dishonest of your friend Sam?” Prudence asked sternly. She had been very quiet all through dinner, listening and learning.

  “Yes, it is, Prudence,” Maurice said. “The whole arrangement is open to criticism. I’d like to pose as an ethical man, but money isn’t entirely an ethical object. That’s why I want to get out of the City for good, and into furniture.”

  “Furniture!” Wade said impatiently, remembering perhaps the money he had lost on antiques. He moved the food around his plate, then put down his knife and fork. When the meal was over he could go into another room and talk to Maurice alone.

  “No one seems hungry tonight,” he said. “Would it be too much trouble for my daughters to bring coffee to Maurice and me in the little room? While we discuss the mystery of money.”

  “There’s a soufflé,” Prudence said in a threatening voice.

  “Oh, no, not a soufflé. Not a soufflé tonight,” Wade said. “We’ll have the coffee now. The soufflé will do another time. There will be all the less to cook tomorrow. I have to consider the cook, now that she’s my daughter,” he added, smiling to Maurice.

  Prudence looked stricken. “The soufflé will do tomorrow!” she repeated. “Father, you’re—I mean you don’t know what you’re saying.”