The Man Who Didn't Fly

by Margot Bennett

  He picked Maurice up, pushed him over to the car, and seated him on the running-board. The other car coughed towards them and stopped. The fat woman who drove it looked angrily at the obstructing car, then curiously at the two men. Maurice was still white and trembling and his clothes were powdered with dust. The man who stood over him turned round to glare at her, then vaulted the fence and walked quickly across the field through the scattering sheep.

  The fat woman opened her handbag, took out a compact, and began to powder her hot, heavy face with ill-tempered jabs of the powder-puff.

  “Could you please move your car?” she shouted to Maurice. “Or can’t you move it? Have you had an accident?”

  Maurice stood up wearily. “Oh, go to Hell, will you?” he said to her.

  She began to tremble, like a dislodged rock on the edge of a precipice. She dragged her handbag for a weapon, found a pencil, and scored the number XAW5116 on paper.

  Maurice’s wavering hand at last succeeded in opening the door of his car. He toppled into the seat like a wounded man levering himself into a moving ambulance, then began to make futile gestures of apology to the fat woman. He started the engine: when he had moved the car to the side of the road he was able to give her his charming, deprecatory smile.

  “I apologise,” he called to her, “I wasn’t feeling well.”

  She snapped her bag shut. “I know your kind,” she shouted as she drove away.

  Maurice arrived at the Tower House twenty minutes later. There was no dust on his clothes. His hair was brushed, and he looked once again clean, shrewd, quizzical; like a sober ship’s doctor.

  Wade went down the steps from the door to meet him.

  “Maurice,” he said in relief. “I was beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming.”

  Thursday (8)

  Prudence was in the kitchen, staring grimly at a cookery book. She looked up without interest when Jackie came in.

  “We have the fillets of cod. Now all we need is the white wine to poach them in. Then there’s the sauce. Butter melted very slowly over warm water, yolks of four eggs beaten in, continue beating over warm water until mixture thickens. This may take half-an-hour, but with perseverance… That’s a nice job for a hot night. You can do that, Jackie. A few drops of Armagnac—that’s another thing we don’t have in the larder.”

  “What’s Armagnac?” Jackie asked suspiciously.

  “It’s a drink,” Prudence said uncertainly.

  “Then put in some beer.”

  “We couldn’t do that,” she said in a shocked voice. “You’d better go to the pub and get some Armagnac. That means I’ll have to start on October’s housekeeping money.”

  “I found this on the floor, Miss,” Jackie said virtuously. He groped in his pocket and produced sixpence. “Where shall I put it?”

  “Up on that shelf. We’d better get a move on. Dinner’s going to be terribly complicated tonight, and I’m going out afterwards.”

  “Aw, give them baked beans on toast. What’s wrong with that? And stewed apples if you want to follow with something fancy. Then we can sit down and put our feet up.”

  “Baked beans?”

  “Yes. Open a tin. Two tins if you like. I’ll make some toast.”

  “It wouldn’t do,” Prudence said. She looked with distaste at the oil stove. “Or perhaps it would. No, it wouldn’t be right.”

  “Then I’ll fry the cod nice and brown and make some chips. That’s right. I said chips. You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Do you mean I could leave you to do that while I go and change for the tennis club dance? Jackie, what a good idea!” Prudence said, abandoning all her ideas about cookery as a fine art. “Do the baked beans, if it’s easier.”

  “Here, wait a minute, Miss. I got something for you,” Jackie said. He plunged in his pocket again, and brought out a silver-coloured brooch with some shining stones in the middle. “Here, have this,” he said casually.

  Prudence stopped and took it from his hand.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I bought it at Woolworth’s. Do you think it’s pretty? Anyway, you have it. I don’t want it.” He turned his back on her and began to whistle.

  “It looks quite decent,” Prudence said. “Jackie, how much did it cost?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you bought it at Woolworth’s it wouldn’t be more than half-a-crown, would it? Will it be O.K. if I give you half-a-crown?”

  “I don’t want any money for it,” Jackie said, his face glowing with the sweet radiance of generosity.

  “Then I can’t have it,” Prudence said regretfully. “There’s a thing in our school about not accepting presents until you’ve passed the Advanced Level Certificate.”

  “The what? It makes no odds. If you won’t have it, you won’t,” Jackie said. He looked abject and bewildered, like a waif who had been thrown out of a churchyard where he had come to lay flowers on a grave.

  “I’ve hurt your feelings, Jackie,” Prudence said.

  “You haven’t hurt m’feelings. I’ve no feelings. I had them kicked out of me before I was twelve.”

  “The same thing happens at our school,” Prudence said. She walked about the kitchen, picking up saucepans and putting them down again, looking occasionally at Jackie, who was stabbing with a tin-opener at the baked beans in a kind of frenzy, as though he was having his revenge on an enemy.

  “Jackie, I’m going to a party tonight. Could I borrow that brooch? I’d be terribly grateful, and I promise to give it back in the morning.”

  “In the morning?” Jackie said. He laughed satirically. “You borrow it, Miss. It makes no odds to me.”

  Prudence took the brooch and went upstairs to get ready for the party.

  Morgan came out of his bedroom door as she walked across the landing.

  “Who’s that?” he called.

  “It’s me. Prudence.”

  “I thought it might be Harry,” he said, beginning to retreat into his bedroom again. “He’s always creeping around, spying on me. Is he in the house, Prudence? Is Harry in the house?”

  “I don’t know,” she said impatiently.

  “You don’t believe he’s spying on me, do you?”

  “Morgan, please, I have to get ready for a party. I’ll be late.”

  He came out of his room, advancing with small, shaking steps, like a patient who is trying to walk after an operation.

  “You know he’s spying on me, don’t you? Tell me something, Prudence. Has he been in my room?”

  “Let me pass,” Prudence said desperately. She rejected the idea that the time had come to tell a lie.

  “Has he been in my room?”

  “What if he has?” she asked brutally. “He was looking for death watch beetles anyway.”

  “Tell me what he did in my room?”

  “Morgan, I have to get ready for a party.” She ran past him and into Hester’s bedroom.

  Hester was sitting on the bed, doing nothing.

  “There’s something wrong with Morgan. Go and shut him up, Hester.”

  Hester went over to the dressing-table and began to brush her hair.

  “Please, Hester, don’t bother about your hair now. Please do something about Morgan. I want you to help me get ready and I think Morgan’s mad. I’m sure this doesn’t happen to other people getting ready for parties. I’ll bet Rosemary and Jane are just getting dressed quietly. They’d go mad themselves if they had something like Morgan in the house. I’d sooner keep a couple of werewolves and a poltergeist as paying guests than Morgan,” Prudence said, her face changing shape as she tried not to let the tears out.

  Hester put down the hairbrush and went to the door.

  “And Jackie’s making baked beans for dinner,” Prudence called after her.

&nbs
p; Hester tapped on Morgan’s door.

  “Are you coming down to dinner, Morgan?”

  “No.”

  “But you didn’t have any lunch, Morgan.”

  “Come in, Hester, if you’re alone.”

  Hester opened the door and looked in. Morgan was sitting in his outdoor coat, holding a briefcase on his knees. In the diminished daylight, he looked very pale.

  “I wondered if you were all right,” Hester said weakly.

  “Is Harry in the house?” he asked.

  “I’m not quite sure,” she said apologetically.

  “I’m not leaving my room while he is in the house.”

  “But Harry won’t do you any harm.”

  “Oh, won’t he?”

  “I’m sure he won’t,” Hester said with spirit.

  “You be a good girl and get him out of the house for me. And keep him out. He’s getting on my nerves. And I’ll tell you someone else who’s on my nerves,” he said, suddenly beginning to shout. “That little crook who came last night. Why didn’t you send for the police? Can you tell me that? Is your father in this too?”

  “Morgan!”

  “Oh, it’s terrible,” he said, putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it from the half-smoked one in his shaking hand. “I’m being spied on by everyone, Hester. You’re the only one I trust. You wouldn’t steal anything from me, would you, Hester? You wouldn’t steal anything from anyone, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t, Morgan,” she said in a soothing voice.

  “Do you know why that little crook came here? This isn’t the kind of house where he’d expect rocks and mink. He came for me. Now what am I to do? What would you advise me to do, Hester?”

  “Don’t you think you’d feel better if you went out more?” she suggested timidly. “It’s depressing to be in one room, always.”

  “I’m not depressed,” he said angrily. “Who said I was depressed? Harry? Was it Harry? Has he been talking about me?”

  She retreated towards the door. “Of course he hasn’t.”

  “Oh, Hester, don’t go,” he said, watching her in terror.

  She stopped, in compunction. “Morgan, you’re not well.”

  “I’m all right,” he muttered.

  “You’ll come down to dinner, won’t you? It isn’t good to be alone too much.”

  “Alone,” he said, and sighed in relief as the word escaped him, as though he had managed at last to make his confession. “I’ll tell you something, now. I’ve been alone for two years and two months. All that time I’ve been hiding from them. Now there’s Harry, and there’s this little crook, and tomorrow there will be more. Perhaps they’ll be here tonight. I’ve been frightened to leave the country, but I’m going to do it at last, Hester. Tomorrow I’ll be in Ireland, if I have the luck. But I don’t feel lucky, Hester. I’m telling you these things because I trust you, not because I’ve been drinking. I can drink twice as much as I’ve had tonight and still keep my mouth shut. Hester, if I gave you something, you’d look after it? Would you? You wouldn’t let anyone know about it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said reluctantly.

  “Just take it and hide it for me?”

  “It would depend what it was.”

  “I thought so. You’d try to find out what it was. There’s no one I can trust, you see.”

  “I think I hear Maurice’s car.”

  “It was bad enough before, but now they’ll all be after me. He’ll send for them all. If I try to go, they’ll stop me. If I stay here, they’ll come. Hester, you’ll do one thing for me?” He felt in his pockets and brought out a wallet. “Take this money and give it to Ferguson.” He offered her a bundle of notes.

  “To Uncle Joe?”

  “Yes, for my seat in that plane tomorrow. I don’t want there to be any doubt about that. You give him the money. Give it to him tonight. Do you promise?”

  Hester took the money. “I promise,” she said. She was glad to be able to do something for him.

  She went out of the room and stood quietly on the stairs. She wondered if it was too late to help Prudence dress for the party. She had decided to turn back to her own room when she heard Maurice’s voice, low and easy, speaking into the telephone in the hall below.

  “Joe? About this plane you’ve chartered for Ireland? What do you mean by a stiff price? Oh, I see. Is it too late to get a fourth passenger?… Someone interested in drinking and horses. Why not Harry? Oh, I didn’t know you felt like that. Where shall we meet? Oh, you’re coming over tonight. Here, to the Wades’? I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”

  Hester went downstairs slowly. It was her duty to be polite to Maurice over the baked beans.

  Thursday (9)

  “Baked beans!” Maurice said. “By Jove, that takes me back! When I was a boy being starved at school I used to nip into a little place in the town and fill up on baked beans. I’ve loved them ever since!” He caressed them with his fork, and then looked at Hester, his eyes begging her to admit that he was behaving very well.

  Hester smiled as though her face was being worked by electricity, while she wondered if real people ever said By Jove. The feeling that Maurice was not real, that he was only someone she had read about in a book, was increasing. She looked at her father, who was examining the baked beans with genuine distress. He pushed his plate away.

  “What comes next?” he asked in a voice that quivered with self-pity. “Something made with suet and jam, I suppose?”

  Hester murmured that Prudence had gone to a party, and then sat in an oppressed silence until the segments of apple, floating in an ocean of sweetened water, had been borne triumphantly to the table by Jackie. She was worn-out by the weight of too much emotion; she had no energy to examine Maurice’s socially admirable reactions, or to smile maliciously at her father, who was displaying astonishment at his daughters’ failure to support him with adequate food. She waited listlessly until they had finished, and then went quickly out of the room, out of the house, and into the garden.

  She sat down in the shadow of the trees, and remained there while the world turned her slowly under the dark sky, and she let all thoughts of people drift away behind her.

  A long time afterwards, she heard her father calling to her. She didn’t answer.

  He walked across the lawn towards the trees.

  “Hester!” he called again.

  “Yes, Father,” she said, and came slowly towards him, not seen at all except as a pale flicker of a summer dress moving through the black trees.

  “Hester, Uncle Joe is here. Will you come in?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Hester, I hope you don’t think I spoke too harshly to you this afternoon?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Don’t hold it against me if I was a little hasty,” he said, preparing to redefine his hastiness as logical and excusable conduct.

  “I said it doesn’t matter now. Does it?”

  “There are times when the older generation must think it’s wiser.”

  “Father, does it matter now?”

  He sighed, and admitted the question at last.

  “I’ve fixed things up with Maurice,” he said, his voice suddenly full of doubt.

  “You don’t sound elated,” she said coldly.

  “But I am, Hester. It’s a wonderful thing for me, Hester, to think that at last I’ll be able to do things for you and Prudence. It’s for the sake of you girls that I’ve taken the risk,” he said pathetically.

  “I thought there was no risk.” She began to move away, impatiently.

  “Hester, do you think I’ve done the right thing?”

  “I’ve told you what I think. Nothing’s happened to make me change my mind.”

  He looked at her unhappily. It was too dark for him to see the
expression on her face, and it is difficult for an indulged parent to realise when he has said something that his children will not forgive.

  “You sound so hard. Not like my little girl Hester.”

  “I’m twenty. I can’t go back to being a little girl.” They were moving out of the shadows into the lights from the house. For the first time she saw his face.

  “Don’t look so sad, Father,” she said impulsively, and his expression changed to gratitude. She caught his hand and squeezed it. He seemed overcome by an almost excessive emotion, but she suppressed the slightly irritable thought that older people yielded too readily to sentiment, and smiled at him affectionately, although she herself felt the hardness beneath her smile.

  They went in the house together. Wade was so relieved to have captured her again that it was impossible for him to show instantly what he felt when he found Harry in the sitting-room.

  “Harry! How nice!” Hester said ironically. “Good evening, Moira, Uncle Joe!”

  She sat down to listen.

  “What I don’t understand, Uncle Joe,” Harry was saying in the confident voice of easy friendship, “is exactly why you are going to Dublin in Horse Show week. If you mean to buy a horse I can put you in touch with a man. He’s a genius at the game. He’ll sell you a horse with an Irish brogue, if that’s what you want.”

  Joe looked at the carpet for strength.

  “No, Harry, I do not mean to buy a horse. It would interfere with business. It would run in races. My friends would telephone. We’ve backed your horse today, Joe, they would say. And I would know if it didn’t win they would be angry with me. Don’t, I would tell them. The horse is rheumatic. In its stables it groaned all last night. They take my advice. They leave it alone. The horse wins, and they are very cross.”

  Harry shook his head. “It’s a great step up in the world when a man owns a horse. There’s no better way of keeping up appearances than a horse. A tractor doesn’t serve the same ends at all. To make a good showing in the eyes of the world, you need something useless as well as expensive—and there’s nothing in England today that’s half as useless as a horse.”

  “That’s what?” Wade said in an outraged voice.