Flightsend (6 page)

Her feet took the way to the airfield again. There
wasn't time for the complete circuit today, but she felt
drawn to the place, in spite of the fear that had tugged
at her yesterday. She passed the grazing cattle, the
entrance to Lordships Farm; a man in overalls waved
at her from the yard. On the airfield, she let Caspar off
his lead and watched him leap away in great joyful
bounds. Like a clumsy gazelle, she thought. From time
to time he turned to wait for her, forelegs splayed,
grinning. She could feel the corrugations of the
runway through the soles of her shoes. It was a still,
calm day with hardly a breath of wind. Already, the sun
was hot on her neck and arms; she should have put on
sunscreen, or worn a long-sleeved shirt. The buildings
at the end of the runway shimmered in a blur of heat-haze.
She turned and gazed into the sky. No light
aircraft to disturb the silence today.

She felt almost disappointed by her mother's statement
that no Battle of Britain fighters had flown from
here. Just a training airfield. Still, in wartime it must
have been a busy place, fenced with high wire, full of
daily activity. Leading off the perimeter track were big
cul-de-sacs of concrete, much overgrown with nettles
and willowherb. Charlie presumed they were parking
bays for aircraft. Bombers, her mother had said, not
fighters; these concrete aprons were certainly large
enough for big, heavy war-planes. How different
Lower Radbourne must have been then, Charlie
thought, with RAF people going into the pub for
off-duty drinking, maybe billeted in some of the
houses. The village had probably never seen such
activity since.

'Caspar! Caspar!'

He'd found something. Nose down, tail up, he was
snuffling excitedly at the ground, by the base of an ash
tree at the perimeter fence. A rabbit hole, probably.
She went over to look. She could see only one large
entrance, not the network of holes and tunnels that
rabbits made. She crouched to look. The soil in the
mouth of the hole was well-trodden and there were
dried tufts of grass and bracken that she thought had
been thrown out from inside. Caspar was making
small wuffing noises, pawing the ground. She held his
collar to restrain him.

'Not rabbits,' she told him. 'Badgers? Let's not
disturb them.'

If she came here at dusk, she might see one. She'd
tell Mum, and perhaps they could come together, with
Caspar if he could behave properly . . .

Then, gently pulling at Caspar's collar, she noticed
something by the bole of the tree. A cross. A heavy
cross, planted in the ground. It was made of iron, with
flaking rust in the join of the crosspiece.

She reached out a hand. Solid, heavy iron, cool to
the touch. There was no inscription, no clue to its
purpose. It reminded her of the crosses people sometimes
left by the roadside at the scene of a fatal
accident, with flowers left to wither and decay. No
flowers had been left here; there were only the wild
campions and cranesbills as a tribute to whoever had
died here, or was buried here.

An odd place to die, she thought. Then she
remembered that she had to get back promptly for
her mother.

'Come on, Caspar. We can't be late.'

Glancing at her watch, she took the shorter way
back past Hog Pond, crossing a stile from the
perimeter track and through the thistly field that lay
behind the Post Office and shop. The pond was near
the airfield fence, rather dank and smelly, fringed with
willows. Charlie, who knew the name from the map,
liked to imagine a medieval pig farm just here, with
bristly brown pigs, rather than modern pink ones,
snorting and rooting, and wallowing in the mud of the
pond. Caspar snuffled along the hedgerow, smelling
rabbits, his back end wriggling comically. There was a
big sign-board just inside the gate, blank on the side
nearest Charlie, facing the narrow lane that led down
beside the Post Office. She hadn't seen it before, and
the clayey soil around its posts looked newly disturbed.

'Caspar! Here!
Good
boy.'

She clipped his lead on, then turned to see what the
board was for.

Honeysuckle Coppice
, it said.
A development of 12
superior detached country homes
.

'This is our last Sunday lunch together, do you
realize?' Charlie said. 'From now on I'll be up at
Nightingales. So it went well, then, your meeting?'

'Oh yes! Pass the rice salad, I'm starving.'

Charlie watched with approval as her mother took a
quite reasonable-sized helping.

'We had a chat,' Kathy went on, 'and we had coffee,
and I sketched out a few rough ideas. I'm going to
draw up more detailed plans and then go back to show
them. They're nice, aren't they, Fay and Dan?'

She didn't mention Rosie.

'And did you see Oliver Heart-throb Locke while
you were there?' Charlie asked innocently.

'Yes, I did actually.' Kathy gave Charlie a searching
look. 'He said how pleased he was you're doing Art
next year, and that he's sure you'll do well. I didn't
realize you'd been discussing it with him.'

'Well, not really. He just sort of
assumes
. But I've
been thinking about it, Mum, and I really do want to
do it.
Not
because of him. Because I want to.'

Her mother nodded. 'Make sure you tell Ms
Winterbourne in time for the induction course, then.'
Ms Winterbourne was the Head of Sixth Form.
'Anyway, it's not written in stone, even then. People
keep changing their minds right up till September.
Even
after
September, sometimes.'

'OK.' Surprised that it had been so easy, Charlie
went on, 'I sold some plants! Two Jacob's Ladder, one
French lavender, one penstemon. Wasn't that good?
To the people from Radbourne House. And they
took one of your plant lists and said they'd come
back. Oh, but Mum, I found out something awful –
there are going to be new houses built in the field
behind the Post Office!
Honeysuckle Coppice
, of all
names.'

Kathy was less perturbed than she expected. 'Well, it
happens. You've only got to look at the other villages
round here. People need to live somewhere.'

'Yes, I know, but – so close to the airfield – I suppose
that
'll be built on next, and the bluebell wood! Oh,
Mum, it'll be awful!'

'Have some salad.' Kathy passed the bowl.

'I can hardly look a lettuce leaf in the face,' Charlie
said, but took some anyway. 'There are badgers on the
airfield! I think so, anyway. I saw a sett.'

Coming across the builders' board had pushed the
discovery of the cross out of her head. Remembering
now, she told her mother about it.

'Odd, don't you think? I mean, who could have died
there? Or been buried there? Do you think it might go
back to wartime, to when the airfield was used? But it's
not like a proper war memorial. There's no name on
it, nothing.'

'Mmm.' Her mother passed a bowl of cherry
tomatoes. 'Have some of these.'

'And you said it was a training airfield. So people
wouldn't have been likely to kill themselves flying,
would they? It's not like one of those Battle of Britain
places you were talking about, with dog-fights going
on every day.'

'It's
highly
likely that people killed themselves flying,'
Kathy said. 'In fact I should think it's the most
likely explanation. There was a high casualty rate,
especially in the early years of the war. Training
accidents happened all the time. The aircraft
didn't have sophisticated navigation devices, at first.
There were all sorts of fatal accidents with pilots
trying to land in fog, or just getting lost.
Terrible
losses,
the aircrew had. More than fifty thousand, in all.'

'I don't suppose we'll ever know,' Charlie said.
'Especially if the whole airfield gets ripped up to make
room for a new housing estate.'

Her mother looked amused. 'It's not a question of
the whole airfield, yet! Aren't you being a bit NIMBY
about this – you know,
not in my back yard
?'

'No! Oh, I don't know. Yes!'

'Twelve new houses won't ruin the village,' Kathy
said. 'And you can't blame farmers for selling off land.
Just think of the time they've had, with foot-and-mouth,
and drought, and floods, and cheaper food
coming in from Europe. Wouldn't
you
take the chance
of making a few hundred thousand pounds, and retiring
on the proceeds?'

'But it's just the start! Those houses will back right
on to the airfield, and then what's going to stop someone
putting up another twenty, or forty, or a
hundred?'

Kathy looked at her. 'Why are you so attached to
that airfield? There are other places you can walk
Caspar.'

'Yes, I know, but – well, it's history! Part of the
village's past. You're a historian, you must feel
the same.' Charlie looked at the last piece of baguette,
thought of her weight, and took it anyway.

'But almost everything else in the village is older
than the airfield,' Kathy pointed out. 'It was built to
fulfil a temporary need, more than fifty years ago. If
it's no longer needed, and obviously it isn't, then
surely it makes sense to build there rather than on
greenfield sites?'

'What about Hog Pond? I suppose they'll fill that in,
and there's another piece of history gone. But
Honeysuckle Coppice!' Charlie moaned. 'Where did
they get
that
from? Why don't they call it Hog Pond
Close?'

Kathy giggled. 'Oh sure. Hog Pond. A superior
development of houses with unique bathing facilities.'

After lunch, Charlie settled under the shade of the
apple tree with her revision. Her mother, having run
out of grit for the alpine plants she was potting up,
had gone to buy some from the garden centre, so
when the phone rang – jangling noisily on the yard
extension – Charlie answered.

'Hello, Charlie?'

It was Sean.

His familiar voice, with a trace of a Staffordshire
accent, brought her first a rush of affection and
then a sense of loss that was like a punch in the
stomach.

'Hi, Sean! Mum's gone out. She'll only be twenty
minutes.'

'No, wait.' He sounded relieved that it was Charlie
who'd picked up the phone. 'I was thinking of coming
over this afternoon. Just dropping in. Do you think
that would be OK?'

Charlie thought of her mother's optimistic mood
today, of the success of the Nightingales visit.

'Yes, do come! She'll like that.'

'Do you think so?' Sean sounded wistful.

'Yes, I'm sure!' Charlie crossed her fingers. 'Things
are going better for her lately – she's a bit more
normal
. I bet she'd like to see you.'

There was a pause, and then Sean said, 'All right, I'll
come. About three-thirty?'

'Great! See you later, then.'

When Kathy arrived back, and came into the garden
to ask, 'Any callers?' Charlie said, 'No,' without looking
up from her Geography folder.

Charlie intended to stay out of the way, under the
apple tree with her nose firmly in her revision notes,
when Sean came. But it didn't work as she planned.
Her mother didn't go as far as refusing to speak to
Sean; it was worse than that. She treated him with
distant politeness, as if he were a passing caller who
might buy some of her hardy perennials. She showed
him the polytunnel, the array of plants for sale, the
spare stock; she showed him around the downstairs
rooms of Flightsend. And then she withdrew into the
old stable that she called her office, to work on her
accounts. She might as well have hung a 'Do Not
Disturb' notice on the door. Sean's time was up.

Charlie was the one who talked to him, who showed
him the back garden and the Frühlingsmorgen rose,
and who demonstrated Caspar's endearing habit of
chasing after an imaginary ball and searching
diligently when she pretended to throw one. It was
Charlie who made Sean a cup of tea and offered to
show him round the village. It was only because of
Mum that he hadn't been here before; he'd offered
help with the moving in, the decorating, the setting-up
of the plant nursery, but Mum had always refused.

They took Caspar. The village front gardens were
drowsing in the sunshine, and collared doves cooed in
the churchyard trees. A cyclist passed through with a
quick burr of wheels but there was no one else in
sight. Charlie thought: it could always be like this if
Mum wasn't so obstinate. Sean would love living here.
There was room for him at Flightsend. Theoretically.

The big ginger cat from Radbourne House was
sitting on the gate-post, looking at them with calm
amber eyes. Charlie said, 'I always think that cat's
going to say something. It looks so intelligent. There's
something about cats' eyes – well,
some
cats' eyes – that
makes you think they're incredibly old and wise. Like
they've been around for hundreds and hundreds of
years, and seen it all.'

Rowan, if Charlie had said such a thing to her,
would have stared and giggled and said, 'Charlie,
you're out of your tree!' Sean laughed too, but he
said, 'I know what you mean. Like Conker. He'd have
talked if he could, daft old Conker.
This
cat would say
something amazingly clever. He's got that sort of
inscrutable look.'

Charlie thought of their old cat Conker, and the way
he used to sleep on his side with his legs straight and
all his paws together.

'What are you doing in the summer holidays?' she
asked. 'It's only about four weeks till term ends, isn't
it?' Since study leave began, she'd lost track of the
dates.

'I'm going to Snowdonia for a week's mountain
leadership course. Then I might go to Turkey.'

'Sounds great,' Charlie said.

'Well, I've got to do something.'

Charlie saw bleakness flicker across his face. This
isn't right, she thought. Mum's done this to him. Sean
had always seemed cheerful, rarely moody or
depressed or even just dull; when he lived with Charlie
and her mother he was always singing or whistling
around the house. He'd made everything fun, even
going to Tesco's – queuing at the checkout, he would
organize his purchases on the cashier's belt according
to some rule: by colour, or alphabetically, or in order
of size. Once, recently, shopping with Mum, Charlie
had found herself colour-coding the contents of their
trolley as she set them out.

Sean wasn't smiling now. He'd changed in the last
year; there was sadness underlying his natural vigour.
'What about you, Charlie?' he asked. 'How do you
like living here? I bet you're feeling a bit cut off from
Rowan and your other friends.'

'It's all right. More than all right. I like it here.'

'You're not going out with Stephen Gee any more?
I don't see you around school with him, these days.'

Charlie shook her head. 'That was ages ago.'

'No one else?'

'Haven't got time,' she said lightly.

Charlie thought about asking if he'd like to go and
see the airfield, and the cross and the badger sett, but
Sean said, 'I'd better go. You've got an exam
tomorrow, haven't you? I don't want to stop you
revising.'

'It's all right,' Charlie said, although she really
did
need to do more revision, and events seemed to be
conspiring to stop her; but it was clear that Sean was
really thinking about Kathy, and her offhand
dismissal.

They started to walk slowly back. The Post Office-cum-shop
was closed, but the front door of the cottage
beside it opened as they passed, and Henrietta the
shopkeeper came out holding a small watering can.
She was fortyish and – Charlie thought – slightly dotty,
dressing like a middle-aged hippy with strings of
beads, dozens of thin bracelets that tinkled as she
moved her arms, and long droopy clothes with fringes
and tassels. Charlie liked her.

'Hello!' She beamed at Charlie, then at Sean; then
asked Charlie, 'Is this your . . .'

There was an awkward second while Charlie
imagined the words
brother
?
boyfriend
? hovering on
Henrietta's lips. It had occurred to her before that
people might think Sean was her boyfriend. She could
easily pass for eighteen or nineteen if she wanted to,
and Sean was still in his twenties.

'This is Sean,' Charlie said quickly. And while he
smiled and said Hello back, she wondered what she
could
call him. Ex-colleague of my mother's? Mum's
ex-lover? Ex-father of my mother's ex-baby?

She wished she could call him something that didn't
start with
ex.

'You won't forget about the village fête in two weeks,
will you?' Henrietta said. 'I'm organizing it this year, so
it's going to be fabulous.'

'No, we won't forget. Mum's having a plant stall.'

'Brilliant!' Henrietta looked Sean up and down. 'If
you're around, perhaps you'd like to be in one of
the tug-of-war teams? We're short of strong young men.'

'I don't think so, thanks,' Sean said.

'Oh well, never mind.' Henrietta edged past them
to water the petunias in her window-boxes. Charlie
knew that you shouldn't water flowers in strong
sunshine, it made them wilt, but she didn't want to
sound like a horticultural know-all, so said nothing.
'You ought to wear green, you know,' Henrietta told
her sternly. 'It's your colour. That red T-shirt doesn't
suit you at all. Far too harsh. I've got some gorgeous
batik things in the shop, just arrived. Come in on
Monday and have a look. Isn't green her colour?' she
appealed to Sean. 'Wouldn't it look wonderful, with
her hair? A sort of deep mossy green.'

'Fantastic,' Sean said.

'Bye then, Henrietta,' Charlie said firmly. When
they were out of earshot – and in any case Henrietta
was now singing loudly to herself as she tended her
window-boxes – she said, 'Sorry about that. She's a
one-off, Henrietta. You ought to see the inside of her
shop. It's great – newspapers and tins of baked beans
one side, joss-sticks and wind-chimes the other. I can't
think who she sells her New Age stuff to. It's all green
wellies and Barbour coats round here.'

'There's nothing wrong with a bit of eccentricity,'
Sean said. 'And by the way, she's right about the green.
You ought to get in there on Monday.'

'It's the Geography exam.'

'Give yourself a reward, then, afterwards.'

They reached the entrance to Flightsend. Sean's car
was parked outside. He took his keys out of his jeans
pocket and fiddled with them.

'I'm sorry if I did the wrong thing, coming,' he said.
'I just thought – oh, I don't know what.'

'I'm sorry, too,' Charlie said. 'I hoped she wouldn't
be like this, not now. But well . . .'

They both looked towards the door of Kathy's
office. Sean made the smallest of moves in that
direction, then thought better of it. 'I won't disturb
her again. Say goodbye for me.' He gave Charlie a
hug, got into his car and wound down the window. He
sat there for a moment, not turning the key in the
ignition. Charlie thought he was about to say more.

As always, she longed to tell him: 'Come and live
with us! She'll be all right. She'll come round.' But she
could no longer pretend her mother was going to
change her mind. Kathy was building a new life for
herself, without Sean.

'I'm glad she's got you, Charleston,' Sean said. It
was his nickname for her.

'I wish she had you, as well. I think she's stupid.'
Charlie couldn't help saying it.

He looked down at the dashboard, not answering.
Then he turned on the ignition, managed a smile, and
said, 'Good luck with the exam tomorrow! I'm down
to invigilate, for the first bit. I'll try not to catch your
eye and put you off.'

Charlie stood outside for some minutes after the
sound of his car engine had died away. Her mother
didn't appear. For a moment Charlie thought of confronting
her in the office, demanding to know why
she'd been so rude. Then she thought of her exam,
and the pathetic amount of revision she'd done so far.
If she had a blazing row with Mum, she wouldn't be
able to concentrate at all.

Caspar was lying flat out in the road, exhausted by
his two walks and the heat. Charlie sat on the verge
and thought about Sean. Since Mum had cast him off,
where did that leave
her
? Sean wasn't her stepfather,
he hadn't been married to Mum, and there was no
name for the relationship Charlie now had with him.
But that didn't mean it wasn't important to her. He
was the nearest thing she had to a father; or, perhaps,
father combined with elder brother.

She had disliked Sean at first, when she was only
nine. She'd been suspicious of this energetic stranger
who kept appearing at home, getting in the way of her
and Mum. The first time Sean stayed the night,
Charlie had marched into the bedroom at dawn and
confronted her mother: 'Why's that man in your bed?'
She'd thought he must be ill. Soon afterwards her
mother had explained that Sean was coming to live
with them now. Charlie's resentment had gradually
faded. Sean was kind and funny, and liked inventing
complicated games for her which he'd play long after
Mum got tired, and by that time he was family.

I
love him, she thought now, even if Mum doesn't,
any more. And it was a bit difficult when someone you
thought of as family turned into someone you
bumped into occasionally at school.

What was wrong with Mum? Why couldn't she get
back with Sean? He'd proved enough times – proved
again
today
– that he still cared for her, in spite of her
curtness; she was quite wrong if she'd expected him to
rush off and find a younger substitute. How could she
so much as look at Oliver Locke, let alone go all coy
and girly about him, when there was Sean on her
doorstep? Even without taking his personality into
account, Charlie couldn't imagine a nicer-looking
man than Sean, who was fit and tanned and had eyes
of an unusual green-brown. Most women would think
themselves
lucky
.

Charlie remembered a recent English lesson when
Sean had been sent to cover for the absent teacher. He
and her mother had only recently split up and it
embarrassed her to meet him unexpectedly at school,
especially like this. Shorts, polo-shirt and trainers
would excite little interest on the sports field, but in
the English classroom Sean's clothing – or rather his
physique – drew female attention. Charlie became
aware of whisperings and nudgings as he turned to
write Ms Fletcher's instructions on the whiteboard. He
was more interesting to the girls in the class than the
relative merits of Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham in
Pride
and Prejudice
. Some of the most difficult, mouthy girls,
who normally sulked through lessons and spoke as
rudely as they dared, instantly became charming and
attentive, flicking their hair and smiling whenever
Sean glanced their way.

'That's your mum's toy boy, right, Charlie?' Lisa
Skillett whispered. '
Phwoarr!
Lucky her. Lucky
you
.
Does she let you share?'

Charlie didn't trust herself to answer, not wanting to
explain about the break-up. It wasn't the first time
she'd heard Sean referred to as her mother's
toy boy
.
She resented it. Just because he was younger than her
mother, people assumed he wasn't to be taken
seriously. And now Mum was just as bad, dumping him
because she didn't think he was grown-up enough.
Through some twisted logic, Mum's idea of saving
Sean from sadness and loss was to hurt him even
more.

Caspar, asleep, twitched his paws in the dust, probably
dreaming of rabbits. Charlie picked a stem of
grass and tickled his nose with it.

'Come on, Caspar. Wake up. We're going back
in.'

Geography, she told herself.
Concentrate
.

She didn't see her mother until evening. Kathy stayed
out in the yard and Charlie tried to revise. When she
went into the kitchen to get Caspar's dinner,
her mother came in. She glanced at Charlie, her
expression tight and unapproachable.

'It's all right. Sean's gone,' Charlie said. She heard
the hard edge to her voice.

'I didn't ask him to come.' Kathy filled the kettle
and plugged it in, then looked at Charlie more closely.
'Did
you
ask him?'

'No!' Charlie spooned out the strong-smelling meat
while Caspar gazed up at her. 'At least, I—'

'What?'

'He phoned while you were out,' Charlie confessed,
'and I said it would be all right to come round.'

'Really,' her mother said coldly. 'I do wish you
wouldn't interfere.'

'I only thought—'

'Well, don't think. Don't interfere.'

Charlie put the bowl down on Caspar's mat. He
bolted the food in great gulps, his tail waving.

'Well, what if
I
wanted to see Sean? I miss him,
Mum! And at least
I
was nice to him! You were so rude
– Sean was really upset, it was obvious—'