Where Earth Meets Sky (7 page)

Opening the door, he jumped, startled by a small figure peering up at him outside. The corridor was rather dark and Sam was unnerved for a moment. It must be a girl, since she had long, dark hair and was wearing a white frock. And she had some sort of doll tucked under one arm. But she stood in a strange pose, knees and feet turned out and her face was . . . well, not
normal
: it was partly the way she stared at him, not smiling or speaking, that was disturbing.

‘Izzy? Isadora!’ It was a native voice calling along the passage, high pitched and exasperated. ‘Naughty girl, where are you? Come here, now!’

At that moment a mellow-sounding gong ran through the house and the male servant appeared to take Sam to dinner, shooing the child away.

‘Who was that?’ Sam asked, carefully.

‘Mr and Mrs Fairford’s daughter,’ the man said. ‘Her name is Isadora.’

‘Is she . . . well, all right?’

‘She is a mongol, sir.’ He spoke with a slight inclination of his head, as if to acknowledge this as a personal sorrow.

‘I saw another child? How many are there?’

‘Only Miss Isadora and Master Cosmo, Sahib. Miss Isadora stays with her
ayah
– Master Cosmo is undertaking his education with Miss Waters.’

Sam immediately thought of the dark-haired woman carrying the child. ‘I see. And the boy, Cosmo. Is he . . . ?’

The servant’s face broke into a broad smile.

‘Master Cosmo is perfectly all right. Oh yes, very much so, thanking God.’

The Fairfords were already in the dining room, standing each side of a long, shining table laid with silver and glass. A heavy chandelier cast a gentle pool of light on to the table, leaving the edges of the room in shadow. Sam knew he had not imagined that as he came in the two of them stopped talking abruptly. There’d been some disagreement, it was obvious. Sam was a married man, after all: he knew the sort of thing.

After a second’s silence, they summoned smiles to their faces, but the atmosphere was strained. Captain Fairford seemed pleased to break away.

‘Ironside! Found your way all right? Fancy a Scotch?’

‘
Darling
,’ Mrs Fairford reproached him. ‘We haven’t been introduced.’ She had one of those pure, cut-glass voices which set Sam on edge to start with. And after all, wasn’t it pretty obvious who he was?

‘Sorry – remiss of me. Darling – this is Mr Ironside, the mechanic from Daimler. Ironside, this is my wife, Susan.’

She glided closer to shake his hand, and said, ‘Yes – Mrs Fairford.’ This sounded like a put-down to Sam, after her husband had used her Christian name. ‘How d’you do?’

She was wearing a sapphire-blue dress which swept the floor, a long string of pearls swinging sinuously as she moved. In the dim light, Sam saw her as very pretty. Of course, she was a beautiful woman, with that slender, curving figure and the pale hair, swept up and decorated with tiny jewels which caught the light as she moved. Her face had all the requirements of prettiness: wide blue eyes, even features, with a distinctive sharpness about them and a definite, smiling mouth. Her neck was long and slim, and the overall impression she made was striking. And yet, when she came up close, somehow the prettiness turned to something else, as if there was a wall around her built of defensive snobbery which drew the life from her features and, to his eyes, made her look pinched and calculating.

‘So pleasant to meet you,’ she purred, without it sounding so at all.

Her smile communicated no warmth and her eyes contained a subtle contempt which did not allow her gaze to meet Sam’s for more than a second, in case, it seemed, she might be soiled by even fleeting contact with someone of inferior standing. Trade, of course, was all he was to her. She allowed her hand to touch just the tips of his fingers, then withdrew.

‘How d’you do, Mrs Fairford?’ Sam said, already knowing that he loathed the stuck-up bitch for looking at him like that. Or, more precisely, for refusing to see him at all.

‘I hope you had a safe journey?’ she asked, though her attention was turned to the table, which was laid for three. She straightened one of the place settings.

‘On the whole,’ Sam said, though he directed the answer at the captain, who was handing him a glass of Scotch. ‘Though I must say, sea travel doesn’t suit me completely.’

‘Oh!’ To his surprise, Mrs Fairford agreed fervently. ‘Isn’t it simply awful! I remember feeling so desperately ill on the journey out here! It almost puts one off the idea of going home to dear old England again, if that were not such a terrible thought!’

The two of them gestured towards the table, and as if some signal had been given, though if there was Sam never saw it, a cohort of servants, each dressed in a similar maroon and white livery, began to bring in the food: a tureen of soup, some wide, white dishes and a tray of bread.

Captain Fairford sat at the head of the table and Mrs Fairford and Sam were opposite each other. Mrs Fair-ford fretted at the servants about details of the meal – could they not have cut the bread more elegantly, and had they remembered to strain the soup properly? Two of them stood silently in the shadows by the wall as they ate. Sam wondered what on earth they should talk about. Had it been just himself and the captain, they could have talked all evening about the car. There was no stopping him on that subject! And it was clearly what the captain would have liked to discuss as well. But of course, that wasn’t women’s talk. So Sam kept the conversation light, not technical, talking about things which he thought would amuse.

‘Tell me, Ironside,’ the captain said, as they began on the soup. ‘Surely there isn’t still the same fierce opposition to the motor car in England now? While I was at Eton I seem to remember there were all sorts of protests going on – outrage about freedom of the roads, terrorizing of neighbourhoods and so on.’

‘Well, yes – we haven’t lost that yet,’ Sam said, trying to get used to the strange, spicy flavour of the soup. ‘There’s the Highway Protection League, who’d like to ban the motor car altogether. With attitudes like that, no wonder the French and Germans have been quicker off the mark than us! They’re always complaining about the dust and noise – and of course there are always those that will complain because they can’t afford a motor, so it’s sour grapes against anyone who can.’

‘And all those with investments in the railway, of course,’ Susan Fairford added. ‘Like my dear father, who could never say a single good word about the motor car!’

She gave a genuine smile, seeming to relax for a moment, and Sam thawed towards her fractionally.

‘I seem to remember they were hardly allowed to get up any speed at all,’ Charles Fairford said.

‘We’ve come on a bit since the early days of steam engines. Remember the early vehicles – only go at two miles an hour in town, and don’t go out without a stoker and the fellow walking ahead with a red flag to warn everyone! At least we’re allowed to get up to twenty miles an hour now . . .’

‘Ah yes, thanks to Lord Montagu’s bill.’

‘A good Daimler customer,’ Sam said. The conservative MP Lord Montagu had brought the Motor Car Act onto the statute book in 1903. Montagu was a Daimler driver and motor enthusiast. ‘He’s brought it home that we’re here to stay,’ Sam said. ‘Even if there are still people jumping into ditches when they hear a motor coming round the bend!’

Charles Fairford laughed and his wife gave a faint smile.

‘It’s no easier here,’ the captain said, chuckling. ‘A fellow I know goes up to Mahabaleshwar in the hot season – that’s a hill station down near Poona. The whole town is utterly hostile to the motor car and there are signs everywhere. He said his favourite is one that says, “Any motor car found in motion while travelling to its destination will be vigorously dealt with”! I mean, I ask you!’

As they were laughing, the servants came to remove the soup bowls and bring in the next course, which proved to be beef olives.

After this hiatus, Susan Fairford began on Sam, with a battery of questions between mouthfuls of beef and potatoes. She had evidently had enough of talking about motor cars.

‘So where is it you come from exactly, Mr Ironside?’

‘From Coventry.’ He was about to add ‘ma’am’ but decided against it. He sipped his drink. The meat had a rather more fiery filling than he was used to.

‘Ah, the industrial Midlands! Rather like Charles!’ She gave a little laugh, as if the idea of Fairford and himself coming from anywhere remotely similar was too ridiculous for words. ‘Charles’s family have an estate in Warwickshire – Cranbourne – some miles from Rugby.’

‘Not that it’s anything much to do with me,’ Captain Fairford added. He refilled Sam’s glass with Scotch. He’d have to watch it and not get tight, Sam realized. He was pretty tired and he wasn’t used to much in the way of spirits. A couple of pints of ale was more his style. These colonials all drank a great deal, he had heard, what with the heat and nothing much else doing.

‘I spent school holidays up there,’ the captain was saying, ‘but apart from that, it’s a foreign land to me – as I was telling you earlier.’

‘And are you married?’ Mrs Fairford continued. She was very direct in her questioning, as if she had some right to know everything.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Children?’

‘Our first child is expected in June.’

He thought he saw a flicker of some emotion cross her face, but all she said was, ‘How nice. I wonder whether it will be a girl or a boy.’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘No, of course not. How silly of me. And how old are you, Mr Ironside, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Darling!’ Her husband reproached her.

‘No, it’s all right.’ He already thought her rude and condescending and this made no difference. ‘I’m just twenty-one.’

‘And your wife . . . ?’

‘Helen? She’s twenty.’

She paused, finishing a mouthful.

‘And have you always been a mechanic?’

‘I’ve recently completed my apprenticeship with Daimler.’ For a moment he was homesick for something familiar: the great machine shops at the works, the lathes turning. It was all part of him. ‘I joined the firm at fourteen. So, yes, I suppose I have.’

‘And your wife? Presumably she’s not a mechanic?’ She gave a silly little laugh. Sam just looked back at her. He wasn’t going to let her get under his skin.

‘Helen was a photographer – before we married, that is.’

That took her aback. ‘How extraordinarily exciting! A photographer! However did that come about?’

Sam laid his soup spoon down for a moment. ‘Well, she was taken on and trained. A local photographer – portraits and so on. Helen can develop the pictures, tint them and all the tricks. She knows her trade.’ He felt proud of her then, his little woman, whom he had left behind in their modest house, beginning to show that she was carrying his child. He hadn’t thought about her enough, he realized. Not for a newly married man.

Before Mrs Fairford could ask any more questions, he said, ‘I believe you have two children? Your daughter tried to pay me a visit earlier on.’

‘Izzy?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, she only peeped in, when the servant was by the door. Someone was calling her . . .’

‘
Ayah
,’ she sighed, pettishly. ‘She just can’t seem to keep control of the girl.’

Captain Fairford laid a hand gently on hers for a second. ‘But where would we be without her, darling?’

‘I know.’ She looked up at Sam with a kind of defiance. ‘You see, Isadora is a problem of a child.
Ayah
is the only one she really cares for . . .’

‘Oh, nonsense,’ the captain interrupted. ‘Srimala, our
ayah
, is a jewel though, we have to admit. Had Isadora been like other children we would have brought out an English nanny for her, of course, before she went to school. Our son Cosmo has a nanny, a Miss Waters . . .’ His brow creased. ‘You know, darling, since Mr Ironside is here, we could have invited Miss Waters to dine with us as well. She might have been glad to meet a visitor from England.’

Susan Fairford’s face tightened again suddenly and with a languid little laugh she said, ‘Oh no – I really think her place is with the children, darling. After all, we don’t want to be
outnumbered
by the lower orders, do we?’

Coventry, 1906

Helen’s hair was the first thing Sam noticed about her. He saw her coming out of Timmins, the photographer’s, which he passed on his way home from the Daimler works every day. Once he had plucked up the courage to speak to her, he sometimes walked her home.

The first time he touched her hair properly was last winter when they managed to find half an hour to themselves away from Mrs Gregory, Helen’s mother. They were in the Gregorys’ house, it was sleeting outside and they were in the back room by the fire. There was a knock on the door and Mrs Gregory was called out to a neighbour who was in some strife or other. Sam gave a great inner cheer at the thought of being able to be alone with Helen. There always seemed to be some obstacle to his being with her! There was that Laurie fellow from the Armstrong works who was forever hanging around her with his daft grin. Helen always laughed off the idea that she had any interest in Laurie.