Flightsend (12 page)

Charlie said nothing. She rearranged some of the
plant pots and straightened a label.

'He'll get over it, in time,' Anne said. 'He'll have to.
And – you're a terrific help, Charlie. I'm so glad she's
got you. It's tough for you, too, but you're mature and
sensible and you're giving her a lot of support. She
appreciates it.'

'Oh, yeah,' Charlie grumped. 'I've noticed.'

'Well, she's always telling
me
how good you are. How
she'd fall apart without you. Here comes Angus, so I'm
going to stop talking like an agony aunt,' Anne said.
'Well done, Angus! Have you finished Morrissing for
the day?'

Angus trudged over heavily, feigning exhaustion.
'Yeah, we're off in a minute. Coming to the barn
dance tonight, Charlie?'

'Can't, I'm working,' Charlie said, 'but if it's still
going on when I've finished, I'll come on my way
back.'

'OK, see you later, then.'

'I didn't know you were a Morris-man. Or a barn
dancer. Any other surprises?' Anne said, and then,
when he'd performed a few steps and twirls and gone
back to the other dancers, 'He's great, isn't he?'

'He's an idiot – a nice one,' Charlie said. 'He
doesn't care what anyone thinks – he just does what he
wants. Oh, here's Mum. They've been ages.'

Kathy, still with Dietmar in tow, came across the
trodden grass. 'Sorry! I hope you didn't mind being
left for so long,' she said. 'We keep meeting people
Dietmar knew when he lived here. And we've been
over to Henrietta's stall and she said I had to buy you
this.' She handed Charlie a soft, floppy bag. Charlie
shook out what was inside: a long batik top, light and
floaty, in a greeny-gold colour. She held it up.

'Thanks, Mum! It's lovely. Henrietta's been going
on at me to get this. But you're the one with the birthday
– you should have bought something for yourself.'

'No, I wanted to buy you a present,' Kathy said
seriously. 'For helping. Thank you.'

Charlie noticed Anne's face registering
I told you so
smugness because of the present, and Mum looking
animated, even excited.

'Oh, sorry,' Kathy said. 'You two don't know each
other, do you? Anne, Dietmar, who used to live in our
house – Dietmar, my friend Anne. Dietmar's just
offered to give me the most fantastic birthday
present—'

'You could at least have
phoned
.' Rowan's disgruntlement
came through the receiver loud and clear. 'To
say you were
sorry
.'

'Yes, I know. I was going to and then I forgot,'
Charlie said.

'Forgot to phone? As well as forgetting to come
back for me?'

'Sorry, but I did. I've been busy.'

'Oh,
that's
all right then,' Rowan huffed. 'Too busy
to pick up a phone? Anyway, it didn't matter about
Friday. Russell came and found me at
Shapers
.'

'Good. I'm really glad you didn't have to walk home
all by yourself.'

'
Charlie
,' Rowan said, on a warning upward note.
'Anyway, Russell thinks my new hair's great. You
should have come to Jason's party last night. I did ask.
Too many early nights are bad for you, you
know.'

'I didn't go to bed early. I went to the village barn
dance. For the last hour, anyway, after work.'

'Village
barn
dance,' Rowan said scathingly. 'Well, I
bet that was a rave. What was it, cowboy boots and
yee-hahs?'

'Actually, it was fun. Much better than some tedious
party where everyone thinks they're cool.'

'So who did you dance with? Some local
pig-farmer?'

'I danced with Angus,' Charlie said. 'And with Dan
from Nightingales, and Oliver Locke, and two other
people I don't know.'

'Angus, King of the Fairies? Careful, you'll start
rumours. You're not going
out
with him, are you?'

'Course not,' Charlie said loftily. 'Can't I have two
dances with someone in the village hall without
people thinking we're an item?'

'
Two dances
. Well, there you are. In
Pride and Prejudice
,
when Mr Bingley danced twice with Jane, it was
practically a way of announcing their engagement. Wait,
Mr Locke, did you say? I might have thought it was
worth coming, for that. How many times?'

'Just once.'

'Hey, that's not why you're switching to Art, is it? So
you can hang around with Mr Oliver Lush?'

'No, it's
not
,' Charlie said. 'I'm not basing my career
options on whether or not I fancy the teacher. That
wouldn't give much choice.'

Rowan giggled. 'So when am I going to see you,
then?'

'School on Thursday, this sixth-form thing. I'll wait
for you by the buses.'

'Right. And don't
forget
, this time.'

Rowan rang off, and Charlie sat on the stairs thinking
of yesterday and its various surprises: Angus, the
conversation with Anne, the barn dance. Most of all,
Dietmar. He was going to take Kathy for a flight in the
Cessna, from the flying club in Leicester.

'How
fantastic
,' Anne had said when Kathy told
them, providing a cover for Charlie's reaction, an
open-mouthed, silent
But
. . .

She thought now of the reasons for that
But
.

But I want to go. I was the one who brought him home
.
Self-centred, grudging. OK, she could make an effort
to eliminate that one.

But it might be dangerous
. No. Illogical. Dietmar was a
qualified pilot; it was probably safer than driving into
town, or crossing the street.

But it's practically going
out
with him
. . . Hmm. Was it?
What if it was?

But he's so much older than you. You can't go out with a
man who's nearly old enough to be my grandfather
. . . She
wasn't sure about that one. Dietmar was kind,
intelligent, interesting; even quite attractive if you
didn't mind a certain weathering. It would depend on
what happened next, really.

But what about Sean? How can you throw his
message in the bin, then the
same day
get all girly
and excited when another man asks you to do
something?

Yes. That was the real
But
. The others could be got
over; that last one couldn't. Charlie kept all her
doubts to herself, and even managed to take a polite
interest in the plan for the flight. But she was sure by
now that Kathy had noticed her pointed silence on the
subject of Dietmar.

For the last few days, Charlie had been thinking of
drawing a portrait of Rosie.

When Fay next asked her to child-mind, on Monday
afternoon, Charlie collected a bagful of toys and
objects likely to interest a two-year-old and took her
out on the grass, under the mulberry tree. Rosie, in a
white sun-hat and a smocked dress, examined the
items one by one, discarding some, keeping others
close by her.

'Tonker.'

'Conker, Rosie.'

'Tonker.
Two
tonkers.' Rosie reached into the bag.
'Trayon.'

'Crayon.'

'Crayon. Duck. Cortoise.'

'
Tortoise
. Say
tortoise
.'

'Torkoise.'

Sketching the first tentative lines, Charlie saw that
Rosie would be a more difficult subject than the
models in class. And not only because Rosie wasn't
sitting still. Soft, childish flesh and small features were
harder to capture than wrinkles and blemishes;
Rosie's open-mouthed, absorbed expression was
harder to convey than the firmer lines suggestive of
character in a mature face. After a while Rosie tired
of the animals and toys and cuddled up to Charlie. It
was like trying to take a photograph of Caspar,
when he kept wanting to lick her face and sniff the
camera.

'Tarlie! Tory!'

'All right. I'll tell you a story, if you play with the
tortoise and duck while you listen. What story would
you like?' Last week, they'd had
Goldilocks and the Three
Bears
and
The Three Little Ducks
.

'
Tarlie
tory.'

'All right.' Charlie drew in a tumbling curl of hair
while she thought. 'OK. Are you ready? Once upon a
time, there was a little girl called – oh, what was her
name now? Yes. Rosie. Rosie lived in a big house with
her mummy and daddy and two cats called – Sooty
and Sweep. Usually Rosie was very good and did as she
was told, but one day she was naughty.
Always stay by the
house
, her mummy had told her.
Never go down to the big
pond on your own
. But Rosie wanted to feed the ducks,
so she went to the kitchen and found a big loaf of
stale bread. When her mummy wasn't looking, she
crept off down the garden and went down to the big
pond.'

Rosie was looking at her, round-eyed, with a finger
in her mouth.

'Yes, it was naughty, wasn't it? You see, Rosie, it was
a
very
big pond, much bigger and much further away
than yours is here. Much too far for a little girl to go
on her own. The water was very black and deep and
there were big fish in the depths. When Rosie
got there, she broke up the bread into little pieces and
threw it to the ducks, but no ducks came. Rosie began
to feel frightened. She looked into the water and
thought . . .' Charlie paused, drawing Rosie's small
rounded nose.

'Fall in,' Rosie contributed.

'Yes, that's right. She might fall in, and there was no
one to jump in and save her. She tried to remember
what her mummy had told her. What did her mummy
say?'

'
Don't go to the tond. Stay by house
.'

'Very good. You see, you're much better at remembering
than the Rosie in the story. By now she really
did
want to go back home, but she'd walked round the
pond and there were lots of different paths leading
off, and she wasn't sure which way was home.'

Rosie shook her head knowingly. 'Lost.'

'That's right, she was lost. So she walked all the way
round the pond trying to see if she could find the path
home. There were thick, dark trees and bushes growing
close to the edge, and as Rosie passed them she
heard a voice calling to her—'

'Mummy!'

'No, it wasn't her mummy. Nor her daddy. It was a
voice she hadn't heard before. It said, ''Come with me,
Rosie. Come home with me. Come and live with me
and my – my husband.'' This poor lady had always
wanted a little girl like Rosie, a little girl of her own to
love, but she didn't have one. ''Come with me, Rosie,''
she called again. ''Come home to my cottage. There's
a lovely bedroom all ready for you with a soft, warm
bed, and there's plenty of food, there's – oh – lots of
chocolate and ice-cream and maple syrup pancakes
and bananas, and there's a big teddy bear with a red
spotted bow-tie who's just waiting to be cuddled.
All this is waiting for you, Rosie, if you come with
me.'''

Rosie's eyes were fixed on Charlie's face, her mouth
slightly open.

'No, Rosie shouldn't go with her, should she? I
think Rosie knew that. But you see, this lady was sad,
not bad, because she really, really wanted Rosie to go
and live with her. More than anything in the world,
she wanted a little girl of her own—'

What am I
doing
? Charlie thought. She stopped
drawing to sharpen her pencil. The strange freedom
of story-telling was making her speak faster than she
was thinking. Where was this taking her?

Rosie was waiting, rapt and attentive.

'So what did Rosie do?' Charlie asked. 'Well, she was
a good little girl really, and she remembered that her
mummy had told her never, ever to go off with someone
she didn't know, so she ran very fast all the way
home. Oh, no, she couldn't have! She didn't know
which way to go, did she? But just as she was wondering,
she heard Sooty and Sweep miaowing in the
bushes. She called them, and they trotted out to meet
her and showed her the way home. And Rosie's
mummy made her scrambled egg on toast for tea, and
afterwards they had jam doughnuts and raspberry
milkshake. And that's the end of the story. What shall
we call it?'

'Don't know.'

'I know.
Rosie's Walk
,' Charlie said, because Rosie
had the picture book
Rosie's Walk
. 'This is
Rosie's Other
Walk
.'

'Lady?' Rosie said, in the very serious, deliberate
way she had.

'What about her? Did she ever get a little girl of her
own?' Charlie thought for a moment. 'No. No, she
didn't.'

Rosie looked so disappointed that Charlie added,
'But soon she met a very nice hamster. In fact,
two
hamsters, called Herbert and Hilary. They were looking
for a home, and the lady had plenty of room. So
Herbert and Hilary moved in, and the lady and her
husband were very happy. And now, shall we go and
feed the ducks? We'll go and see Jon and get some
bread. Because you're allowed to go down to the pond
when you're with me, and I won't forget the way
home.'

She would finish the drawing later. It wasn't really
working; too much had gone into the story. She
collected her things together and piled the toys back
into the bag.

Later that evening, after Kathy had gone to bed,
Charlie sat at the kitchen table and took out the
sketch. She looked at it for some while before picking
up her pencil, loath to spoil it. Then, as soon as she
began, she worked intently. She never knew how it
would be: sometimes she just fiddled, really starting.
At other times – now – energy flowed down her arm
and into the tip of the pencil.

There was no Charlie in the story, she thought. I left
out Charlie.

She began to think of a new version.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Rose.

Rose had a mother and a father and a sister, and
they all wanted her more than anything in the world.
Rose was the precious gift they hoped for and waited
for. They made plans for her, they bought her
presents, they prepared a room.

They waited and waited, they wanted and wanted,
but Rose didn't come. They hoped so much that they
frightened her away. She wouldn't be trapped in the
warm, comfortable cage they'd built for her. Just as the
cage door opened to entice her inside, she skittered
away and flew free. She went where they could never
find her, no matter how hard they searched. She left
no trail for them to follow. When she heard them
weeping, she felt sorry, so she took with her a little
piece cut out from her mother's heart, and a
little piece of her father's, and a little piece of her
sister's. She carried those pieces of heart as far as she
could, but when they became too heavy she flung
them away and they floated out into the sky, beyond
the stars, where they froze into solid ice . . .

The child's face in the drawing was rapt, intent on
the model tortoise she was gripping in both hands. A
hat shaded her face, with stray curls escaping. Her eyelids
were lowered, her mouth slightly open.

It wasn't Rosie's face. It was someone else's.