The Atlantic Sky (11 page)

‘You know,’ Bill Maynard said, ‘I don’t usually listen to girlish gossip. But I do hear that big brown eyes and jet black hair
can
help a lot.’

Patsy laughed with conscientious gaiety. ‘Yes, I’ve heard that too.’

‘And now,’ the pilot said firmly, ‘drink up your coffee, and then be a good girl and go and get some sleep.
My
orders this time. And if I’m still here tomorrow, shall we do a film together in the evening?’

Patsy smiled and said that would be nice. But now the very mention of the word sleep was weighting down her eyelids. She seemed to be only half awake by the time she opened her room door and she could only vaguely remember having a shower and turning down the central heating a little and then climbing into bed.

And then, Captain Maynard wasn’t in Montreal next day. He took an aircraft down to New York, and Patsy spent the three-day stop-over looking round the shops and taking pictures of the wonderful marble stations with the doors that opened by a radar beam, and the new university buildings and the view from the top of Mount Royal towards the Adirondacks, to send home to her mother. She saw nothing of Captain Prentice, and only occasionally did she see one or other of the crew, either in the hotel coffee bar or looking around the stores like herself for the largest, cheapest present that their dollars could buy.

Sometimes she did feel a little lonely in this big city, and wished that she were the sort of stewardess that the crews were always falling over themselves to take out. But she wasn’t, she thought, skipping across the fearsomely fast traffic, again by herself. She was the sort of stewardess that they were nice enough to, and rather elder-brotherly, and at the same time didn’t mind asking for the extra cup of tea while she was in the midst of serving passenger lunches. At least, she thought, peering longingly at a wonderful electric mixer that she knew her mother was simply aching for, they were nearly all nice to her. With one, large exception, that was.

But before she had time to look more than half a dozen more times at that selfsame mixer, and after she’d practically decided that three stand-offs without breakfast in Montreal would just about be able to buy it, there was Thursday again, and 23.00 hours and the time for Astroliner Able Peter to take service 484-71 back to London.

It was as quiet a trip as she could have wished for. Captain Prentice remained on the flight deck, except for his brief majestic rounds of the passengers, which (if their faces were anything to go by) rather terrified them. He was, she thought, peeping momentarily around the galley stanchion, an impressive sight. Six feet two, had Joanna said, or was it three? And as Joanna had so aptly added, built to go with it. Then the three heavy gold bars of a senior captain, the row of medal ribbons under the slim gold wings, and the immaculate fit of the dark blue uniform. Then, too, where was the jauntily-angled hat, which so many of the pilots affected? No, Captain Prentice’s sat straight and plumb as an artificial horizon, while his brown leather gloves were carried (in place, she was sure, of the Field-Marshal’s baton) correctly in his left hand.

Of course, passengers always asked her about the Captain, after he had returned off-stage, and back (as it were) to the wings. Their little entertainment over, they would like to have a short discussion because smooth flying was boring, and over the Atlantic it was pitch black and there was nothing to see out of the portholes.

Usually they said, ‘He looks rather young, doesn’t he?’ or maternally, ‘So nice, and just a bit shy,’ or curiously, ‘Is he married?’ and then, if she shook her head—meaningfully, ‘And do you fly with him every trip?’

But this time, they had little to ask. They accepted Captain Prentice as exactly their idea of an airline commander. He was altogether big enough, broad enough and stern enough to give them all that added feeling of security that they might get from an extra engine. Certainly he was brief and detached and coolly polite, but that was fine. Over-chatty captains simply terrified them. Shouldn’t you be up at the front doing your job, you could almost hear them thinking aloud, itching to move him on and back to attend to the vital business of their own safety.

And the Captain’s round took in no more of the galley than a brief glance from the doorway, and a nod to acknowledge (but by no means soothe) her look of wary apprehension.

And then, as the four jets ground their way over two thousand miles of thin cold ocean air, Patsy’s thoughts fastened themselves inevitably, now that the passengers had slept and were fed and warm and content, and the crew were fed and warm and content, and happily getting on with their job, on her own pressing problem.

What, she thought, was written (or just about to be written) on that flimsy white piece of paper headed Captain’s Confidential Report, which was the bottom one of the pile of five, and which had on the left-hand corner in black typescript ‘Aylmer, Patricia, Number 1753, stewardess’ and which invited the captain to give an uninhibited description of her looks, her bearing and her character, with a freedom that anywhere else would surely have resulted in the invocation of the libel laws.

As she took up the last cup of tea (surely he would see it was scalding hot and made to perfection and without a drop in any saucer) he was sitting alone at the front with his brief-case open on his lap. The First Officer had gone to the back for a shave, and the automatic pilot was engaged. Captain Prentice had pushed back the metal pilot’s seat to allow him more leg room.

It was a quiet time now. The ocean crossing was behind them, and there was a sense of relaxation on the flight deck. Under the Astroliner’s wings were the green hills of Wales, intersected by the thin grey mining valleys.

But Captain Prentice, just as she had known in her bones he would be doing, was poring, pen in hand, over his sheaf of Confidential Reports, every now and then adjusting the controls of the automatic pilot. He looked up at her with a look of bemused concentration, and then frowned slightly, as one often does when the object of one’s thoughts suddenly materializes.

If she peeped sideways (which she only did once or twice) she could see the hateful form, and if she twisted her head right round (which she did of course) there was the name Aylmer. And even now, the vicious point of the pen was poised over the first little block of words which said ‘Loyalty’ ... and then, to assist the captains to be brief, ‘Exceptional, Above Average, Average, Below Average ... strike out the words inapplicable’ urged the little form. And magnetically and destructively, she
knew
his pen was going to make a jab at the first three.

‘Ah, Miss Aylmer, the tea,’ he said, almost as though to draw her eyes away from the form. ‘Thank you.’ Then, with great deliberation, he screwed up his fountain-pen, and put his brief-case on the throttle pedestal. ‘How many trips have you done now?’ His eyes were slightly narrowed, as though if he concentrated hard enough he would be able to see the relevant and just assessment pinned somewhere near her barely earned half-wing.

‘This is my third, sir. Not counting the supervision, that is.’

‘I see.’ The slightly raised eyebrows added, ‘More than enough time to learn, too.’ He took an absent-minded draught of tea—now no longer piping hot—and put it down again as though he hadn’t noticed what tie was drinking. ‘Now I remember,’ he said. ‘You did your supervision with Captain Maynard and myself.’

Patsy nodded. Then, with a frightened, get-it-over-and-done-with rushing into the quiet privacy of the two of them up in the nose of the aircraft together, she asked, ‘Are you going to give me a bad report, sir?’

A sudden shaft of sunlight, streaming out from behind a great white clump of cumulus, seemed to cast a curious light and shadow on his face, so that for a moment it appeared to have softened into a near-smile. But when he looked up at her, there was not a trace of it left around the firm set of his mouth.

‘A
bad
report, Miss Aylmer?’ he said, with what appeared to be marked distaste. ‘What precisely d’you mean by that? Not,’ he said, raising his dark eyebrows mockingly, ‘an
inaccurate
one?’

‘Oh, no, sir. That is, I don’t know, sir...’

Captain Prentice’s eyebrows raised themselves a further fraction.

‘You mean by that, I presume,’ he said pleasantly, ‘that you hope it’s not too accurate?’

‘Yes,’ Patsy said flatly. That was more or less what she meant. And there really appeared to be no point in arguing with this man, who could twist your words and make you always in the wrong.

‘A point I always pride myself on,’ he said musingly, and then more mockingly, in words that were half familiar, ‘You will get what you deserve. No less, and certainly no more.’

The words had a terrifying ring, and yet when he glanced at her, most certainly a smile was crinkling his eyes that now looked really quite humorous. Then, seeing she didn’t understand, he said briskly, ‘A quotation, Miss Aylmer ... but in my own words, if I were giving you an adverse report, I should show it to you. All right?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Or almost all right, she thought, making her way down the aisle and stopping to pass the Captain’s Progress Report past two empty seats and on to the people behind. ‘Yes, nearly there,’ she smiled down at an old lady who was beginning to look tired with her long journey. ‘We’ll soon be crossing the Bristol Channel.’

Every time she saw Captain Prentice, and she seemed to see him much more frequently in those last twenty minutes, she was sure that he was going to stop her and say, ‘One minute, Miss Aylmer ... I think you’d better take a look at
this,’
thrusting the fateful form right under her nose.

But he didn’t. The only words he spoke to her were the ones as she followed the last passenger down on to the tarmac at London Airport, and they were harmless and non-committal enough. ‘Thank you, Miss Aylmer,’ he said, as he stood for a moment under the port wing. But most of the captains thanked their crew after a long trip, so it didn’t mean anything extraordinary, and then just before he turned away Geoff Pollard walked slowly across the apron, gave Captain Prentice a salute and grinned at Patsy and said, ‘Bang on schedule, eh?’ including both Captain Prentice and Patsy in a congratulatory smile.

‘Hello, Geoff,’ Patsy said shyly. Captain Prentice half walked away, but he was still within earshot. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘That’s a fine welcome, I must say!’ Geoff pushed back his uniform cap a little further on his head. ‘I came to meet you, that’s what I’m doing. Shall we walk up to Customs together? The crew car will take your bags.’

Patsy fell into step beside him, as they both started across the tarmac. ‘It’s the first time you’ve met me off a trip,’ she pointed out logically. ‘That’s why I wondered.’

‘Is it now? Well, remind me to do it again ... no,’ he put his hand to his head. ‘That reminds me. I can’t. Fact is, Patsy, I’d got something to tell you.’

‘Something bad?’ Patsy asked, falling into the usual assumption of people in her job that any news was bad news.

‘So-so. Some might say bad, some might say good. Or, to be more accurate, good riddance.’

‘Come on, Geoff!’ Patsy begged. ‘Tell me.’

‘Well—’ A curious forlorn look suddenly stole over Geoff’s usually cheerful face—‘the fact of the matter is ... I’ve been posted.’

‘Posted?’ Patsy echoed in surprise. ‘Wherever to?’

‘Take out your file marked Sympathetic Expressions,’ Geoff said, turning up his eyes to the clear morning sky. ‘Iceland.
Iceland.
’ He hunched his broad shoulders together and shivered. ‘Keflavik.’

‘Oh, Geoff, I
am
sorry! And I
will
miss you. We’ll all miss you.’ She put her small hand on his arm, and squeezed it hard.

‘Come, come!’ Geoff grinned at her. ‘In uniform, too. And before Captain Prentice’s very eyes.’

‘But Iceland is a bit dreary, Geoff,’ said Patsy, dropping her hand.

‘I'll tell you one little bit of consolation ... it’s promotion.’

‘It is!’ Patsy’s blue eyes flew wide open and she smiled. ‘Oh, good! So you don’t mind all that much?’

‘Only for one reason,’ he said, looking down at her, and his eyes were very solemn.

Patsy waited for him to go on, but he said nothing until they reached the main Customs entrance. There he stopped, and began diffidently, ‘It’s rather difficult to explain The crew car suddenly came to a noisy halt beside them, and the crew started to disembark from it and unload their baggage.

Geoff looked at the bustle round him, and apparently decided that if it was difficult before, now it was impossible. He looked at his watch and mumbled something about being on duty in a couple of minutes’ time.

‘Of course, Geoff,’ Patsy said quickly. ‘And I’ll spread the news at Mrs. Waterhouse’s.’

‘There’s to be a party,’ Geoff called over his shoulder on his way to Operations. ‘The boys I work with are going to speed me on my way. I’ll tell you when I see you.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

An hour later, Patsy pushed open Mrs. Waterhouse’s front door, and dumped her bag for a moment on the hall tiles. She saluted the glassy-eyed fish in its case on the wall, and slipping a large box of maple sugar fondants (much beloved by Mrs. Waterhouse) on to the table in the deserted kitchen, she walked slowly up the stairs to her bed-sitting room.