The Infinite Air (13 page)

‘By the way, are you seeing anyone?’ Nellie asked. In the silence that followed, she said, a trifle too sharply, ‘A woman. Some actress or another?’

‘No, Mother, I’m not seeing a woman.’

As if to hasten their departure, he insisted on walking them to the train station. Outside, a fog had settled over the houses, clinging to their hair, seeping under their collars. There was a flower seller’s kiosk on the way to the platform. By way of a peace offering, he stopped and bought Nellie a bunch of freesias, lemony and delicate.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Nellie said, her face flushed, but pleased all the same.

John kissed Jean on the cheek. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he said. ‘Do you know what a stunning girl you really are? I bet you don’t, but you’ll find out soon.’

On the Saturday morning, Nellie had sent a note to say that she was indisposed and was truly sorry that they wouldn’t be able to
come for dinner. Perhaps they could meet for a cup of tea some time. ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she said to Jean. ‘I know how much you want to see him, but he needs to get used to the idea of you flying when the time is right.’ Her voice was tinged with regret. ‘We can’t really fib away to him all the time. Besides, you can see how busy he is.’

THE MORNING FOLLOWING HER ENROLMENT AT STAG LANE,
Jean made her way back to the aerodrome. Nellie wanted to come, but this time Jean said that she could do this on her own. Besides, she reminded her, only one of them had membership of the club. There were all those shops for Nellie to look at in Oxford Street, and she would need weeks to see everything in the British Museum.

Herbert Travers was waiting for her, a tall man, dressed in tweeds and plus-fours, his collar and tie immaculate. She wasn’t sure how old he was, perhaps in his late thirties, going by his war record, although he looked older, fair and already going bald. She would begin her lessons in a Cirrus Moth, which was much the same as a Gipsy Moth.

‘The first lesson,’ he said, after they had shaken hands, ‘is to discover what the inside of the cockpit of a Moth looks like. I’ll see you in the morning.’ With that she was dismissed.

CHAPTER 13

THE FEAR THAT HAD BEEN SITTING AT THE BOTTOM
of Jean’s stomach since she woke up threatened to overwhelm her as she climbed into the cockpit of a fuselage at the technical school. This was the moment she had been waiting for all her life, but now it had arrived she felt small and afraid. Worse than that, she felt as if she might throw up and disgrace herself.

‘You’re a dainty little girl,’ Travers said, looking her over more closely than he had the day before. ‘Do you think you’re tough enough to be a flier?’

‘Very tough,’ Jean said, lifting her chin. ‘How many pirouettes can you do in a row without falling over?’

He scratched his head and thought about this. ‘You’re a dancer?’

‘I was. I sold my piano in order to come here.’

‘From where?’

‘New Zealand.’

‘My word. A little ballet dancer all the way from New Zealand who has sold her piano in order to become an aviator.’ She wondered if he were making fun of her. She had heard him addressed as ‘Major’ that morning by fliers on the field. His size and crisp manner were intimidating.

‘Well, yes and no. I’m supposed to be in London to become a concert pianist.’ It sounded silly, a little vain. She looked at her hands and wished that she was in Alice Law’s studio practising scales, or along the road at Madame Valeska’s pulling a tutu over her head in preparation for a recital. ‘I’ve flown with Charles Kingsford Smith,’ she said.

‘Smithy, eh. Well, well. You’ll know what all these controls are then?’

She shook her head. ‘It was just the once, to get the feel of flying.’

‘So did you learn
any
thing from him?’

‘Not to fly at night.’

‘Good advice.’

‘He suggested I didn’t try to beat men. But I’ll make up my own mind about that.’

Travers looked impressed, and gave her a sudden grin. ‘Well then, we should begin. Think of this as the barre. Isn’t that where ballerinas go each day to warm up before they practise their routines? Yes?’

And she thought yes, indeed, this was the right place after all, and that he wasn’t taking her down a peg, the way she’d imagined a moment before. This was where she would go day after day, to learn and remember, this tiny cocoon of the cockpit, greenish-grey inside, the control column between her knees, a polished wooden panel with four instruments in front of her, on which were arranged a quartet of instruments: the engine revolution counter, the airspeed indicator, the altimeter and oil pressure gauges, and in the centre, above them, a small halfmoon-shaped glass tube of liquid with a bubble in it to indicate lateral stability during the flight.

He explained to her then how the controls surrounding the cockpit operated. The pedals at her feet controlled the rudder at the back of the plane, changing its direction. Had she ever sailed a boat? And when she said that she had, he exhaled a small grunt, indicating that he was pleased. This was the control column, or the joystick if she liked. Don’t ask him why it was called that, he said, but it did two things. If she held it in the middle she would fly level. Push it forward and the plane descended. Pull it back and the plane climbed. That controlled the elevator on the back of the plane. Move it to the left and the plane rolled to the left. Move it to the right and the reverse.

Was she with him? Good, that was good.

On the back of the wings were the ailerons that controlled the rolling motion of the plane. The lever on the left was the throttle. ‘On your first flight,’ he told her, ‘you will find that you’re gently using all these controls together.’

‘Like playing the piano?’

‘Hmm, yes, perhaps, but you don’t have the luxury of making mistakes, not once you’re on your own. You’ve got me in the front to rescue you while I’m training you, but not when you go solo.’

He showed her the throttle on her left-hand side. She must always remember that the nut in the middle was finger tight. ‘Move the throttle forward to increase the engine speed. The plane might start to climb and you mightn’t want that, so you use the other wheel by the throttle to trim for level flight. If you want to climb or descend, gently use the throttle trim. Gently, always gently.’

That was the first lesson on the first day, taking her through the controls over and again until she could touch them with her eyes closed and tell him what they were. They still weren’t airborne.

The next day they were. The weather that had threatened to close in with misty rain first thing in the morning had lifted and the air was clear. Travers was not a man to take risks, he told her. There are bold pilots, and old pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. Favourite saying, she’d better get used to it.

She must also get used to going through a pre-flight check every time she left the ground.

‘How will I remember all the checks?’ Jean asked.

‘Very good question. Here’s a little phrase that might help you remember. “Too many flying instructors here.”’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Why on earth would I remember that? It sounds ridiculous.’

‘Take the first letter from every word. Start with the letter “t”. Throttle nut finger tight. Trim set for takeoff. Next, the letter “m”, mixture control wired back. “F” is fuel sufficient for flight. You see this gauge? You’ll learn over the next weeks to calculate how much fuel you need for a flight, and if you haven’t enough, you may land anywhere but the place you intended. Perhaps in the sea, perhaps in the middle of a forest, or on a busy road. There’s a strong chance you won’t come out of the plane alive. There are plenty of bold pilots who don’t. Do you still want to fly?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought you’d say that.’ He completed the rest of the checklist, and nodded towards the control panel. ‘We should begin our flight, Miss Batten.’

They took to the air and she shouted with delight, her fingers dancing on the controls. ‘Pay attention,’ shouted Travers through the speaking tube that connected them. ‘You’re not here to have fun.’ They were rising up in the sky, five hundred feet, a thousand, the world getting smaller beneath them, trees shrinking, houses tiny.

‘Good, you’re doing well. Now level her out, excellent.’

When they were back on the ground, he turned and nodded briefly. ‘That’s not bad for the first time up. I can make a flier out of you if you want it badly enough. It’s over to you.’

‘Of course I want it,’ Jean said. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m planning to fly from here to New Zealand.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He laughed. ‘You’re quite something, aren’t you?’

In the mornings, she would line up with other students outside his tiny office near the field, sitting on a wooden bench, waiting for her turn to fly with him. The rule was that they turned up rain or fine, because the weather could change. If there was no visibility, he cancelled their flights. In the evenings, she went to classes in the school to study aerodynamics, compass swinging, rigging … She enrolled for them all, essential or not.

Nellie shifted them out of the rooms in James Street to others near the aerodrome — cheaper, deal furniture, rough horsehair mattresses, discoloured lace antimacassars on the backs of stiff chairs. She began what had become a ritual each time they moved, scrubbing every inch of the rooms they were to inhabit. It was goodbye to Piccadilly Circus, the parks and museums, the glowing shop windows they had lingered in front of in the afternoons. But Jean could walk to and from her flying instruction and evening classes. By now both Jean and Nellie had realised that six or eight flying hours might be optimistic. The hours, at best, took a long time to accumulate, while Nellie’s funds slipped away. Sometimes Jean could fly for only an
hour or so a week. Nellie’s pencil and pad were busy all the time, saving a penny here, a shilling there.

Amy Johnson, true to her word, had flown to Australia. She had set off from Croydon airfield on the fifth of May and landed in Darwin on the twenty-fourth. Her intention had been to break Bert Hinkler’s record of sixteen days, but that hadn’t happened. All the same, she was the first woman to make this solo flight, and now she was an instant heroine, the toast of Britain.

‘So where did she get the money?’ Nellie fretted, as the tributes poured in. Jean said she had heard at the club that Amy’s father had raised the money to buy a plane with sponsorship from Viscount Wakefield, who headed Castrol Oil. Amy’s plane had cost her six hundred pounds.

‘Well, at least her father helped,’ Nellie said, her voice sour. They had met up with Fred’s sister Ida, who was visiting London at the same time. Ida, who had means, took them out to dinner in a restaurant.

‘So why haven’t you seen more of John?’ Ida asked. She had Fred’s licorice eyes, without the warmth. ‘He seems quite put out that you’ve hardly seen him. It doesn’t seem natural.’

Nellie flushed and looked away.

‘Well, Ellen? Surely I have a right to know. He’s flesh and blood to both of us.’

‘Ida, can you keep a secret? Please. It’s very important.’

Ida glanced at Jean. ‘She’s not in some kind of trouble?’

‘No … well, she would be if Fred found out. You see, Jean’s not studying music.’

Ida put down a spoonful of blancmange in her plate with a clatter. ‘What on earth is she doing here, then?’

‘Learning to fly.’

‘Oh, my Lord. You don’t say so. Fred was always afraid she’d get up to something like that.’

‘Please,’ Jean exclaimed. ‘It’s not Mother’s fault. She knew I’d find a way, and she’s just helped me, that’s all.’

Ida was wiping her mouth with furious swipes of her linen napkin.

‘So you see,’ Nellie said, ‘it wouldn’t be fair to John if he had to keep a secret from his father. We just thought it better not to tell him. We’ve tried to keep everything to ourselves. We have all our mail addressed care of Thomas Cook in Berkeley Street, so nobody can track us down.’

‘It’s preposterous,’ Ida said.

‘You promised,’ Nellie said, her tone righteous.

‘I did not,’ Ida said.

‘But of course you did, or I wouldn’t have told you,’ Nellie said. ‘You know you did, Ida.’

Ida looked from one to the other, her lips pursed like a coin bag, as she waved for their bill.

‘It’s just not fair,’ she said, as they parted, ‘not to John or to Fred.’ She was pulling on her kid gloves. ‘I never have worked out why you and Fred don’t live together,’ she said. ‘You do know it’s caused unhappiness in our family, Ellen. A good husband like Fred.’

Afterwards, Nellie had lain awake and worried as to whether she could trust Ida or not.

‘I shouldn’t have told her about the flying lessons,’ Nellie said. ‘I’m a fool. Or perhaps I should have told her what antics her brother gets up to. That would have fixed her.’

‘It wouldn’t, Mother,’ Jean said. ‘She wouldn’t have believed you.’

This hadn’t contributed to Nellie’s peace of mind. ‘How come this Miss Johnson won favours from Lord Wakefield?’

Jean didn’t know. She never stayed long at the clubhouse. Sometimes she stood at the edge of the crowd and heard snippets of information. She was there the night everyone raised a toast to Johnnie, their very own girl. One thing she learned was that Amy Johnson had been a skilled engineer before setting off on her flight. It was when she became the first woman to qualify as an engineer that she had caught Wakefield’s eye.

Jean decided to take a leaf from Amy’s book, and enrolled in more classes at the technical school, taking a course in the general maintenance of aircraft and engines. Here she learned the importance of inspecting the aircraft and the engine before each and every flight,
and how to correct malfunctions. When the aeroplanes were wheeled out of the hangars and the propellers swung each morning, she felt alert to the throb of the engines, listening intently for the smallest miss or murmur. She surprised herself at the pleasure she took in getting her hands and overalls covered with engine grease. One morning, she was bent over a crankshaft, her hands thick with oil, when a tall,
loose-limbed
figure loomed above her, watching what she was doing. ‘Miss Batten? You’re doing well, young lady.’ Jean instinctively tried to wipe her palms on her overalls, in order to shake hands.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Just stick with what you’re doing. I’m de Havilland, by the way, I’ve heard good things about you.’ He had a slight hesitancy in his manner and a reputation for shyness in spite of his status. Jean thought his eyes generous in their expression. He bent down to run a finger along the crankshaft, nodding his head. ‘Yes, that’s all right.’ He squatted on his heels, looking like an oversized school boy. ‘You know, I used to make model aeroplanes when I was a youngster. I didn’t really believe people would fly in the planes I made. Not then. Keep up the good work, young lady.’ And then he sprang lightly to his feet and made his way to the next student.

‘Geoffrey Just-Call-Me-God de Havilland,’ her instructor said, when he’d gone, but there was admiration in his voice. Praise from the great man wasn’t offered lightly.

‘De Havilland’s all very well,’ Nellie said, when Jean recounted the meeting, ‘but you need to meet Viscount Wakefield.’