The Atlantic Sky (19 page)

‘May I,’ he said with a curious dignity that made the quiet request authoritative, ‘come in a moment?’

Bewildered, Patsy nodded. She fumbled in her bag, because the catch was difficult and not because her hand was trembling, and managed at last to find her key, and then to find the lock, although that, too (because she was tired), proved elusive.

She hoped that the hall would be empty and that Mrs. Waterhouse would be at her sister’s. She couldn’t be teased or asked about Captain Prentice’s presence. She didn’t even find it amusing when he looked half smilingly at the same handsome antlers and the same stuffed trout as Geoff Pollard had done all those aeons ago, and she didn’t even find it irritating when he read the notices on their scribbling board, and the one addressed to her and signed
Janet,
which he read over at least twice,
Good news! You’re out with Bill Maynard on Friday.

What she did find disturbing and then irritating and then maddening was the way his eyes slowly travelled from the board to her face, as he said slowly,
‘Is
it good news?’

Patsy took off her cap and hung it beside his on the antlered stand. They looked oddly right and proper together. ‘Of course,’ she said, flinging open the sitting-room door, and then added, ‘Do sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea. Or would you prefer coffee?’

‘Neither.’ The word was like the crack of a gun. ‘And please stop fussing around. I didn’t come in for tea or coffee.’ And then, grudgingly polite, ‘Thank you.’

Patsy stood in front of him on Mrs. Waterhouse’s newly-washed sheepskin rug and let her blue eyes say for her, ‘What, then?’

But all he said, rubbing his forehead rather wearily, was ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why is it such good news that you’re out on Friday with Captain Maynard?’

Patsy drew in her breath and let it out in a sibilant sigh of pure exasperation at the crass stupidity of man.

‘Why?’ she breathed furiously, feeling her cheeks colour with anger.
‘You
should ask why! After two weeks in Traffic ...
your
doing ... just like everything else miserable that’s happened since I came here.’

Just for a moment, Mrs. Waterhouse’s economical lighting arrangements cast a shadow that was like one of pain across his face. Just for a moment, it looked as though he would step forward and put his
arm around her shoulders.

But she was too busy controlling the betraying tremble in her voice, the nerve that beat like a pulse near her eyes the terribly unmanageable wobbling that was affecting her mouth.

‘After all,’ she said, and her voice was very loud because it seemed to be steadier that way, ‘I’m not a Traffic girl ... why should I work in Traffic?’ And as she saw the look of pure undisguised impatience cross his face, she went on unforgivably, ‘Maybe it would be a help if I were. Then you might not be so ... so
...’
she gave up looking for a word, ‘... if I were like ... like...’

‘Like who?’

‘Monica Fairways.’

And when it was said, she watched his face with a kind of painful triumph. But all he did was to make a gesture of dismissal. As though the subject was so ridiculous as not to merit a reply. No, on second thoughts, not that. As though it was irrelevant? No, as though it was just none of her business.

‘And what,’ he went on stonily, as though the subject of Monica Fairways had not been mentioned, ‘what else have I been responsible for?’

But she wasn’t thinking about it at all now. All she was wondering, in a great wave of misery, was how on earth could he have fallen for Monica. Didn’t he know that she didn’t really care for him, that she wouldn’t look after him, be gentle and loving with him? How could he be so blind? Now all her grievances were crystallized into that one feeling of desolation.

And yet, as though she had no control over her tongue, she began a long string of her meaningless grievances that now she didn’t care anything about at all: the course, the training lectures, the spill on the training flight, the party in New York, the skiing accident.

She hardly allowed herself to think about the expression on his face. Dimly, she realized that its sternness was softened by a look that was as strange to it as such a hot and flaming anger was to hers. But it was a look she didn’t stop to identify.

‘So,’ he said, when she half paused for breath, ‘you think I’ve been especially hard on you. Does it ever occur to you why?’

But before he had time to pursue that line of argument along which he was obviously preparing to lead her to her own admitted guilt, she broke in, quickly and carelessly now, as though she hid acquired a terrible momentum of anger and simply could not give up, ‘I didn’t mean just me. You treat other people badly too. Bill Maynard, for one.’

There was a moment of salutary stillness. In it, Patsy could somehow feel the whole suppressed strength of the man, the iron control of a deep and surging anger. In that stillness, her own great rushing fury came to a miserable halt. All the froth and air bubble almost audibly drained away from her. And she was left with a cold and unhappy pool of misery. She wanted to cry, to go to bed, to sob in her pillow. Worst of all, she wanted to rush over and put her cheek against his jacket, and feel, just once, those hands on her head, those strong arms around her.

‘What,’ he said at last, ‘about Captain Maynard?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, and bit her lip. ‘At least...’ it all sounded so futile now. ‘But ... well...’ Her voice petered out.

‘Go on.’

‘You seemed ... at least, I
thought
you had a down on him.’

‘Did you now?’ He didn’t bother to contradict her. He didn’t need to. ‘You being an authority on flying?’

‘ You know I’m not.’

‘On training, then?’

She shook her head. Then she tilted up her chin. ‘Just on people I like, that’s all!’

‘Captain Maynard being one of them?’

‘Of course.’

‘I see.’

There was another long pause. With a kind of unhappy instinct, Patsy felt that he didn’t. Or whatever he was seeing wasn’t there at all. ‘I don’t think you do,’ she started to say, and then turned her head because her lips had started to tremble again.

Then she turned round. Captain Prentice was staring across at her. But this time, she saw and knew and welcomed the look on his strong and now gentle face. The look that sometimes she’d seen in her father’s eyes towards her mother. That blend of understanding and protectiveness and love that had made her tell herself years ago that she wouldn’t need a man to say I love you, she’d just look in his eyes, and if it was there, she’d be able to put her hand in his, and let it stay there. For her life and his.

But although only a few feet of Mrs. Waterhouse’s sheepskin rug separated them, there was a whole ocean of angry words.
Her
angry words. And so, with a little shrug of her shoulders, she looked across at him. And she opened her mouth to begin to say, ‘I’m sorry ... I’ve made an awful mess of this. But tell me what you wanted to say...’

When suddenly there was a little insistent rap outside, and the rattle of the brass handle. Mrs. Waterhouse put her grey head round the door, took in every detail of Captain Prentice from the three gold bars and the six foot two, to the firm jaws and the expression on his face, then she said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, I’d no idea you had a visitor.’ She beamed at them both. ‘But as you have ... and very nice for the girls to have a lot of company, too...’ she smiled at Captain Prentice. ‘I’ve just made a nice pot of tea in the snuggery.’

But neither of them wanted it. Captain Prentice was just going anyway, and Patsy had a letter she simply must write. And when she turned her eyes back on his face again, the look had quite gone.

And so completely that she knew it could never have been there. Except as a trick of the lights, a figment of her imagination, or worst of all, because that’s where she’d wanted it to be.

The next morning, when Patsy presented herself for what was to be her very last day in Traffic, Miss Fairways was already there, smiling happily and lovelier than ever. Patsy, conscious that the evening before had not gone to Miss Fairways’ liking (nor hers either, for that matter), eyed her rather guiltily. But Monica Fairways did not break what appeared to be her invariable rule of never enquiring into other people’s affairs.

She glanced through the morning’s departures, telephoned Operations, answered queries at the counter, and hummed happily to herself in between times. At length, after she’d shown Patsy a new necklace that her mother had sent for her party, and told her about the dress that was just about ready, and about how the hairdresser had simply
raved
about her beautiful hair, she examined her face in the mirror, and asked with disarming innocence, ‘Do you think that Robert Prentice is in love?’

It was exactly what Patsy had been asking herself for the last she-didn’t-know-how-many-hours.

Her cheeks flushed and then paled. ‘In love with you, Monica, d’you mean?’

‘Well, you see,’ Monica drew her words out in a long puzzled sigh and adjusted a blue-black curl more becomingly on her forehead, ‘I don’t see anyone else it
could
be ... for him to be in love with, I mean.’ She turned around quickly with a slight smile carefully posed on her face, so that Patsy could see the exquisitely lovely picture that she was. ‘I mean, he
does
act sometimes as though he’s in love ... I know the signs. And as I told that big clumsy stewardess with brassy hair, it’s about time he was, and who else could it be?’

Put like that, it was perfectly logical. Patsy made a murmur that showed she was listening ... avidly.

‘Of course, it would be a
teeny
bit sad if he was...’
Monica said tantalizingly.

‘Because you’re not with him?’ Patsy prompted miserably, wishing that she didn’t have to join in the conversation and irrevocably fascinated by it.

‘We-ell, I wouldn’t
quite
say that. No, I suppose not ... not in the way
you’d
mean it, perhaps.’ She said the last words pityingly. ‘Not at all seriously ... but I do like men to be men, if you know what I mean...’

Patsy did, and Captai
n
Prentice certainly amply fulfilled that condition.

‘... and I like them to know their own minds...’

That too, Patsy thought.

‘And if they’re a
teeny
bit masterful ... well, it adds interest, as it were ... and if they pretend they don’t care for you ... and,’ she laughed with perky confidence, ‘... if you’ve to do a teeny bit of chasing for a change...
’

‘Then,’ Patsy said softly, ‘you
are
a bit in love with him?’

Monica Fairways opened her brown eyes wide. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I don’t
really
think so. I mean, not unless,’ and she savoured the idea sweetly, ‘you can be in love with two men at the same time. Can you?’

‘No,’ Patsy said emphatically.

‘I thought you were going to say that.’ She toyed with her pencil and scribbled on the message pad while she contemplated the delights of the eternal triangle. ‘I
suppose
you’re right,’ she said at last. ‘I
fear
you’re right.’ She smiled disarmingly, and added, ‘So of course, it’s Phil.’

‘Who’s Phil?’

‘My
fiancé
, of course. Now I’m sure I mentioned only the other day I had a letter from him.’

‘You did,’ Patsy said. ‘But I didn’t know who Phil was ... I didn’t even know that Phil was a he ... could have been a girl...’

Monica Fairways gave her a look of withering scorn.

‘Well, Phil’s on a business trip to Singapore ... and we’ve been engaged for a couple of months. Oh, I don’t wear a ring. Not when he’s away. I mean, it always seems so unsociable, I feel ... like a keep-off-the-grass sign. But I’ve got one ... a very large one...’ She undid the collar of her blouse and brought out a thin silver chain with a platinum and emerald ring looped on to it. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ She slipped it on to her finger. ‘Definitely my colour, don’t you think?’

She carefully took it off and stowed it away again, out of sight.

‘Are you,’ Patsy said in some bewilderment, ‘very much in love? Don’t you miss him? When’s he coming home?’

‘Well, of course I’m in love ... he’s rich and he’s handsome ... and he has a
simply wonderful
yacht. And
of course
I miss him,’ her brown eyes looked mournful. ‘But then I
do
have fun ... just to fill in the time ... and he’s coming home next month—’

‘And that’s what the party’s for.’ Patsy felt that at least she could understand that part of it. ‘A sort of welcome home.’

‘Yes and no,’ Monica Fairways said, looking at her with ill-disguised impatience. ‘Not so much a welcome home as—well, a sort of send-off...’ She smiled with pride. ‘A consolation prize, if you like, for all the boys who didn’t quite make the grade.’ She laughed with the sheer joy of being young and beautiful and very much desired. ‘We-ell,’ she added. ‘Perhaps not
exactly
that ... but a sort of Farewell to Fairways, the foot-loose and fancy-free...’ she broke off and laughed. Then she picked up the typed sheet in front of her. ‘Ah, well,’ she ran her eye nonchalantly over the list and then tossed it aside. ‘Captain Prentice again.’