The Flyer (11 page)

‘It looks grand,’ Arthur said, though William could see that he still had his doubts.

Arthur was only two years older than William, but in some ways the difference in their ages seemed greater than that. Arthur was a down-to-earth, practical man who had been involved with the fringes of the trade unions and the Labour party. To Arthur, business and the means to finance it belonged to a world that was not only foreign to him, but was populated with the kind of people he regarded as the enemy of the ordinary man.

‘You don’t like it, do you?’ William said.

‘It’s not that. It just seems funny that’s all.’ Arthur compared the drawing to the reality before him, trying to imagine the transformation. ‘I s’pose I always thought you’d build up the place you’ve got now,’ he said.

It was a question of vision, William thought. Arthur couldn’t imagine using the bank’s money to create something like this. But William wanted to change Arthur’s attitude. He recognised that Arthur could do more with his life than work as a mechanic if he wanted to. He was the kind of solid and capable person William needed.

‘I’ll keep the other place too,’ he said. ‘I’ve spoken to the landlord about buying the building already, and there’s land next door that I can get cheaply if I buy it now. It’ll be a good investment. In the future, once the town grows a bit more, the Kettering Road garage can look like this too.’ He gestured to the drawing. ‘One day I’ll have a whole chain of them.’

Arthur looked at the drawing again, trying to make William’s ideas seem real.

‘The thing is, Arthur, I need you to help me. If I go ahead with this it’s going to take up all my time. I’ll need you to run the other place. You’ll have to hire somebody to help you of course, and I’d pay you a manager’s salary. You could take shares in the business if you like and pay for them out of what you earn.’

‘A manager?’ Arthur said in astonishment. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, why not?’ William laughed. ‘Come on, we’ll talk about it again later when you’ve had time to think.’

On Saturday morning they had to return a Clement-Talbot to a customer in the town. William followed Arthur in the Wolseley to bring him back to the garage, but when they turned onto Gold Street they were confronted with a group of people carrying banners and placards marching along the middle of the road. William pulled over and they climbed out to watch. The crowd were mostly women. There were about a hundred of them, flanked by twenty policemen on either side to keep an eye on them, though the march seemed peaceful enough. Their placards demanded votes for women, and a banner carried in front bore the legend; Northampton Women’s Society for Political Union. They were chanting slogans, and some of them were calling out to spectators who either supported or denounced them.

‘Emily’s girls,’ Arthur commented, referring to Emily Pankhurst, the suffragette.

A pair of well-dressed women nearby looked on disapprovingly. ‘Don’t these women realise they are doing more harm to our cause than they are good?’ one of them questioned loudly in a haughty tone.

A group of men on a corner called out insults, which some of the suffragettes responded to in kind. One man wearing a top-hat came out of a shop, and seeing the women became outraged.

‘Go home!’ he shouted angrily. ‘Go and learn how to be decent mothers to your children and wives to your husbands! Women have no business in politics!’

One of the leaders, an intense looking woman, met his eye and held it. ‘You are living in the past, sir,’ she said loudly. ‘You and your kind have had your day, and it is time you realised it. Women will have the vote whether you like it or not.’

Her words had the ring of prophetic certainty, which only enraged the man further.

‘No woman will ever vote in this country while I draw breath, Madam,’ he said, to which she only offered a grim smile.

‘Then I look forward to that day coming.’

Then she was past him and he was left spluttering impotently in her wake.

‘What do you think, Arthur?’ William said. ‘Is she right?’

‘He’ll have more to worry about than just women gettin’ the vote when there’s a Labour government,’ Arthur replied. ‘People are fed up bein’ treated no better’n animals. They want decent wages, a decent bloody place to live. Things are changin’ everywhere so he might as well get used to it.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ William agreed, though he felt guilty that he couldn’t muster Arthur’s righteous anger. He wondered why that was. Whereas Arthur saw himself as being on one side of a struggle between the rich and the poor, William wanted to make his own way in the world.

As the last of the marchers passed them by there was a commotion among the suffragettes. At a prearranged signal they reached into their coat pockets and bags, and before the police realised what was happening they broke ranks and ran towards the shops on either side of the road. A hail of missiles filled the air and as they struck the plate glass windows the sound of smashing glass mingled with the shouts of women and the piercing blast of police whistles.

Bystanders looked on in shock and some of them ran away, fearing a riot, but in fact once the women had achieved their objective they were content to allow themselves to be arrested.

‘More publicity for the cause,’ Arthur commented wryly. ‘The papers’ll report their speeches from the dock.’

Change was everywhere, William thought. Every day the papers carried stories of strikes by miners and rail-workers and acts of vandalism and civil disobedience from suffragettes. People were prepared to go to prison for their beliefs.

In the melee of the disturbance William and Arthur were separated, but when it had petered out and many of the women had been taken away by the police, William saw him talking to a young woman. She was perhaps nineteen or twenty, with striking looks. Her slightly olive complexion and large dark eyes gave her an almost exotic look.

‘Will, this is Sophie Yates,’ said Arthur when William joined them. ‘Me and her used to live in the same street when she were little, didn’t we Sophie? I just turned ‘round and there she was. We ‘aven’t seen each other for years.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Yates,’ William said.

‘Arthur has been telling me that he works for you, Mister Reynolds.’

He was surprised by the way she spoke. There were none of the rough edges that gave away Arthur’s background, and by her manner and the way she was dressed he never would have thought they’d grown up in the same area.

‘I was lucky to find him,’ he said. ‘I doubt there’s a better mechanic in Northampton.’

She smiled in a polite, but faintly disinterested way.

‘Were you watching the marchers?’ he asked.

‘I just came out for a minute to see what all the fuss was about.’ She gestured to a door behind her that opened to a flight of stairs. A brass plate revealed that it was a firm of solicitors. ‘That’s where I work.’

‘They ‘ave their meetings at the Union Hall,’ Arthur said to her, referring to the suffragettes. ‘You should come and see if you’re interested.’

‘I haven’t really got the time for that sort of thing, with my position,’ Sophie said. ‘In fact I ought to get back to work now. Goodbye Mister Reynolds, it was nice to meet you. And it was nice to see you again too, Arthur.’

‘Goodbye Miss Yates.’

Arthur said goodbye to her, and as she left he shook his head in wonder. ‘You wouldn’t ‘ave looked at her twice when she were a girl, honest, Will. Her arms and legs was like sticks. Now look at ‘er, and working in a solicitor’s office.’

‘It just shows you then, Arthur. You can do anything if you want to badly enough.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Arthur agreed thoughtfully.

As they drove off, Arthur looked back at the office where Sophie worked, and William guessed it wouldn’t be the last time Arthur saw Sophie, though privately he had the feeling that she was less interested in Arthur than he appeared to be in her.

CHAPTER 10

When William arrived at Sywell on Sunday, Christopher and another man were looking over the plane that was standing on the field. Christopher waved and came over.

‘Hello. I’m glad you came,’ he said as they shook hands. ‘It’s a perfect day for flying. Do you still want to go up?’

‘Yes, I’d like to,’ William said.

‘Good man. Come and meet Wentworth. He’s already said I can borrow his machine. Nigel, I’d like you to meet William Reynolds. He’s the chap I was telling you about.’

As they shook hands, William was aware of Wentworth’s subtle appraisal. It was done in the blink of an eye, registering the cut of William’s clothes and the slightly battered Wolseley. Wentworth wore a striped blazer and baggy white trousers, and he drove a large, expensive Napier that was parked next to Christopher’s Fiat. For a moment William wondered why he’d come. These were the sort of people who had always provoked antipathy in him; the privileged elite with their cars and country homes, and now their aeroplanes, and yet he admitted there was a part of him that was attracted to it all.

‘I must say, I admire you for going up with a fellow after he almost crashed into your garage the other day,’ Wentworth commented jokingly.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Christopher said. ‘Come and meet Liz before we go. She’s in the clubhouse making drinks I think.’

The clubhouse consisted of two or three rooms used for storage, and a main area where there were some comfortable chairs and a rudimentary bar where a young woman was mixing drinks.

‘Better get another glass, Liz,’ Christopher called out. ‘By the way, I’d like you to meet William Reynolds. William… do you mind if I call you that?’

‘Not at all.’

‘And you must call me Christopher…. meet Elizabeth Gordon.’

‘How do you do Mister Reynolds?’

William shook her hand. She had long, fair hair and startlingly green eyes, the colour of which made him think of coloured glass shot through with sunlight. They were unusually vivid and at the same time almost transparent.

‘We’re all having whisky and soda, but I can find something else if you prefer.’ She peered into a box that hadn’t been unpacked yet. ‘Let’s see, there’s gin here, I think.’

‘Whisky is fine, thanks.’

‘I hear you’re going to go flying.’ She handed him a stiff drink. ‘This ought to steady your nerves.’

There was something about her that William felt was vaguely familiar, though he was certain they’d never met. He realised that she reminded him of Emmaline. Not so much because of her looks, but because of her poise and manner. Wentworth and Christopher had it too, he thought. People like them were brought up imprinted with an innate confidence that in some became arrogance, but in most it was simply a sort of careless expectation of life. Having always had money and material things, they didn’t think about them in the same way that ordinary people did.

When Elizabeth came out from behind the makeshift bar, her body flowed beneath the long dress she wore. Her figure was slender and long legged. The word coltish came to William’s mind. He supposed she was about twenty or so.

Wentworth took out his cigarettes and offered them around. ‘Christopher mentioned that you were at Oundle,’ he said casually to William. ‘Do you know a chap called Foulkes? J. R.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I haven’t seen him for a few years, actually. He was at Oxford I think. Although I remember somebody mentioning that he went to South Africa.’

There was a brief pause, an opportunity for William to say that he had been at Oxford himself, or else to say where he had been. But he left it unfilled.

‘Are you from Northampton, Mister Reynolds?’ Elizabeth asked. She was sitting on the arm of Christopher’s chair, a drink in one hand, the other holding a cigarette. William wondered what their relationship was.

‘No, I came here after my parents died,’ he said.

He didn’t really mind their questions. He supposed somebody who’d attended Oundle and now owned a small garage, where he lived like a gypsy, aroused their curiosity. He didn’t offer anything more about himself and politeness prevented them from asking. He caught Elizabeth looking at him, perhaps faintly intrigued by his reticence.

As they talked he discovered a little about her, none of which surprised him. She had brothers and sisters and lived nearby with her family. He gathered that her father owned land, though perhaps not as much as the Horsham’s, who owned half of the county. He understood that she and Christopher had known each other since they were quite young.

When they’d finished their drinks, Christopher announced that they ought to go while the weather held.

‘Good luck,’ Elizabeth said as they went outside. William smiled, not sure which of them she was talking to.

Christopher gave William a pair of goggles to wear and asked him to help turn the plane around. ‘Always point into the wind for take-off. You get more lift that way. Now, I’ll have to get you to help me get her started.’

He climbed up into the pilot’s seat and asked William to go behind and take hold of the propeller. The machine was a pusher type, as most were, with the engine and propeller mounted behind the pilot’s position. ‘Give it half a turn to prime the engine,’ Christopher instructed. ‘Then I’ll switch on and you give her another turn. She ought to start then.’

‘Right.’ William did as he was told, and though nothing happened on the first attempt, the second time they tried, the engine fired and caught and a cloud of smoke drifted across the grass.

Christopher gestured for William to climb up behind him. Since the engine was just behind William’s position and almost completely exposed, the noise was deafening. He glanced back at the propeller as it blurred to a shining disc, and then the machine began to move quickly forward across the field. For a few seconds it was bumpy and uncomfortable, and then as the hedgerow rushed towards them Christopher pulled back on the wheel to operate the elevators and suddenly, miraculously, the jarring ceased and they were airborne.

William gripped the edge of his seat as the ground fell away underneath them. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry, but as the machine climbed inexorably into a sky of drifting stacks of cloud and vast oceans of blue, he gradually forgot his nerves. Beneath them the countryside unfolded to the far horizons. William was amazed at how far he could see, and he began to look for landmarks that he recognised to help him put it all into some sort of perspective. He looked back towards the aerodrome and the clubhouse, where two tiny figures stood watching, and then he found the lane that led to the village of Sywell; which was no more than an insignificant cluster of cottages and the church, like a handful of pebbles. Further afield, Northampton was reduced to a blur of brown rooftops. From there he found the garage by following the line of the Kettering Road, but there was nothing to see, and it struck him that so much of his life revolved around a place of such little consequence.

Soon, William’s attention was taken by the wider vista. Roads and lanes connected villages and towns across the county and beyond, traversing valleys and skirting woodlands. He followed the course of a river to Ravensthorpe Reservoir, which became a puddle of blue merging with a surrounding pattern of shades of green and brown as the land lost definition and perspective, and then it was no longer the earth that fascinated, but rather the sky. Clouds drifted at different heights, some towering tens of thousands of feet into the air, others a fraction of that. The sky became a realm of depth and substance, a vast three dimensional entity through which they sailed in a flimsy contraption made of canvas and thin pieces of wood, all held together with tensioned wire and powered by a noisy, rattling engine that it seemed at any moment would shake itself free and send them tumbling to the distant ground.

After forty five minutes in the air they returned to the aerodrome. The grass field rushed towards them and the wheels hit the ground with a jolt, then the roaring engine quietened as they slowed and finally came to a stop. When the engine was switched off the silence seemed strange.

‘What did you think?’ Christopher asked when they’d climbed down.

‘Wonderful. Like nothing I’ve experienced before.’

Christopher grinned. ‘I had a feeling you’d feel like that. I could teach you to fly yourself, if you like,’ he offered.

William regarded the plane, trying to imagine himself at the controls, but then he thought of the cost. ‘It must be expensive, isn’t it?’

‘I’ve thought of that. If you decided to help me fix up my plane, we could look on flying lessons as my end of the bargain.’

They started back to the clubhouse, where Wentworth and Elizabeth had come outside again to wait for them. William thought of his plans for the garage. He couldn’t afford the time to help Christopher. ‘The trouble is I’ve rather a lot on at the moment. Besides there must be plenty of people who could help you.’

‘I suppose I could find somebody or other if I have to, but there isn’t much time to be honest. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it since the other day and I think we’d get on well together. I’d pay you for your time of course, as well as the flying lessons. And I don’t think I mentioned it, but there’s a five hundred pound prize up for grabs. If you agree to help me, if I win, we’ll split it down the middle. What do you say?’

Christopher’s manner was both disarming and flattering, and William admitted to himself that he was tempted. He was excited by the idea of learning how to fly.

‘How was it?’ Elizabeth asked William as she joined them. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Yes. It was incredible.’

‘Perhaps you can persuade Liz to go up with you one day, William,’ Christopher said. ‘I’ve tried, but she always refuses, so I’ve given up. I’m going to teach William to fly,’ he added in explanation. ‘At least I hope I am.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Elizabeth said, smiling warmly at William. ‘That means we’ll see a lot more of you.’

All at once William knew he would accept. He was aware that he was being subtly manipulated, and that Elizabeth was part of the reason he would agree to help. Almost despite himself, he was attracted to the idea of entering their world, even though he felt a little like the moth that flies helplessly toward a flame, or perhaps like Icarus who had flown too close to the sun.

‘Alright,’ he agreed.

Christopher grinned and shook his hand. ‘Good show! I knew you would.’

‘But only on the condition that if we’re going to share the prize money I won’t accept any payment,’ William added.

‘Agreed.’

Elizabeth and Christopher exchanged a quick, complicit look, and then unexpectedly she positioned herself between them and took both of their arms. ‘We ought to have a drink to celebrate,’ she said. ‘I think there’s a bottle of champagne in the clubhouse.’