The Infinite Air (24 page)

IN THE AFTERNOON, AFTER CONSULTING WITH THE ENGINEERS
who would work on her machine, Jean found herself alone in the large
hangar where the repairs were taking place. Because it was a Sunday, there was just a skeleton staff on hand. Nobody seemed to mind as she picked her way around piles of machinery parts. The miracle of her landing had been repeated over and again, of how her plane had landed fifteen feet in front of the trees and fifteen feet behind the high embankment of the Tiber. The close proximity of the Church of St Paul had not gone unnoticed. The men who found her had crossed themselves and said that it was certainly St Paul who had protected her and guided her to safety.

She shivered then, and said to Jack Reason, ‘But they beheaded St Paul, didn’t they?’

When Molly Reason told her, the day following the crash, she had already heard the bad news: there were no spare wings for her Moth anywhere in the country. A propeller and other fittings had been located in Berlin, and two compression legs for the undercarriage in Turin, all of which could be delivered by airmail and train within a day or so, but it would take three weeks to build new wings. Her journey would be impossible before the monsoon rains set in. And that would be that, 1934 come and gone, another year without an attempt on the record.

Jean leaned against a strut in the hangar. The hours since she had last slept were turning into days. Not wishing anyone to see her giving in to this despair, she straightened up and walked further on into the recesses of the hangar, where cobwebs abounded. She almost fell over as she bumped into an aeroplane, so covered with dust, and strewn with dangling wires, that at first she did not recognise it for what it was. But then her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom. ‘A Gipsy Moth! It’s a Moth, don’t you see,’ she shouted out to the men further down the hangar.

Someone came running. The men clustered around the crumbling machine, minus an engine. ‘The wings,’ she said. ‘I want the wings.’

Jack Reason had followed the men, hearing the excitement.

‘Yes, it’s a Moth all right,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that belong to Signor Savelli? He flies on the Berlin-to-Rome service. But look at the terrible state it’s in.’

‘But it has
wings
,’ Jean said. She felt excitement bubbling up inside, like a crescendo.

On closer inspection, the wings could be seen for the sorry objects they were, the fabric covering rotten and broken away, while various ribs were broken.

‘They could be reconditioned, couldn’t they? That shouldn’t take too long.’

‘But signorina, they belong to Signor Savelli,’ said Signor Chiesi, a Castrol agent who had been detailed to help her.

‘Well, find Signor Savelli and tell him I want them.’

Signor Chiesi opened his hands in a wide gesture. ‘He should be in on the six o’clock run from Berlin. We can ask him.’

This was how Jack Reason and Jean came to dine that evening with Francesco Savelli. Molly had been invited, but declined at the last minute, citing a headache. Savelli was in his fifties, with a wiry body and direct, clever eyes. His grey hair, cut shorter than the fashion, grew in a peak. At once she was drawn to the Italian; there was something magnetic and charged about him. He held her hand as if it were a porcelain object that might fall and break if he let it go. His touch caused a tremble to run through her fingers.

‘So, signorina,’ he said when they were seated, ‘you are already well known for your skills as pilot.’

‘I seem to have left them behind me when I set out for Rome.’

‘Ah, that was last night. But correct me if I’m wrong, you have flown the fastest time of any woman from London to Rome?’ Again he touched her, this time her cheek, just below her still swollen eye. Although she knew how awful she looked, she felt he was seeing beneath her bruises, to how she might appear on a better day.

‘That was a year ago. But it doesn’t seem very important, after what happened last night,’ she replied, Jack Reason translating rapidly between them. ‘Signor, you know what it is that I’m asking for, don’t you? Your wings?’

‘Ah yes, my wings, little bird. Let’s eat first and then we’ll talk.’ By then, they were seated in the restaurant. He took her left hand in his
again, holding it for some moments before turning it palm down on the table. He fingered the diamond circlet of her engagement ring. ‘Some fortunate man must think a great deal of you. You’re planning to marry?’

‘I’m engaged.’

‘But the plan is not yet complete?’

If she had not been so drawn towards Savelli, Jean might have laughed, observing the embarrassment this translation was causing Jack. He looked as if he wished himself anywhere else.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. It was as if she were having the conversation with Wakefield again. What was it that was so obvious when her engagement to Edward was mentioned? But she understood that her head might easily be turned by this stranger, full of assurance and a powerful energy, unlike the men who had courted her in the past. She guessed that he was used to seducing women, but that didn’t seem to matter. She had experienced sex, but not desire. This was new and disconcerting.

‘Perhaps, it’s as well,’ Savelli said. ‘Flying is men’s work.’

‘Not at all. I don’t know how you can say that, signor. Many women fly aeroplanes. Look at Amy Johnson. And Amelia Earhart. What do you make of them?’

He shook his head, amused. ‘They all settle down, sooner or later. I expect they’ll make babies and old bones.’

‘Surely it’s possible to do both?’

Savelli shrugged, his hands flung wide in a gesture suggesting a certain regret. ‘No, no, Signorina Batten. That’s impossible. Now I’m ordering,’ he said, as if to distract her from an uncomfortable topic. ‘This dinner is a special occasion to celebrate my meeting with you. We’re going to have zucchini flowers. You eat zucchini flowers in your country? No. Tonight you will. She needs an education, don’t you think, Signor Reason? Artichokes? Yes, we’ll have artichokes. These you will enjoy. They are stripped of their leaves and beaten, dipped in boiling oil. Like the early martyrs.’

‘I’ve already heard a bit about martyrs today. Believe me,
signor, I’m not one of them.’

‘Perhaps not, but you must learn to eat with style if you’re to spend time in Rome.’

‘Not for long, I hope.’ But as she spoke the food was being delivered, the zucchini flowers first, their trumpets crisp and hot, full of the delicate collapsed flavour of mint and ricotta, then later the artichokes, spread on her plate like the petals of a darkening sunflower. He picked up a morsel on his fork and placed it delicately in her mouth. And she said ‘Ah’, and ‘I can’t believe this’, and when they had drunk some wine it was hard to remember why she was there, or what it was that she wanted from him. Jack Reason and Savelli talked, the former pausing only now and then to explain their conversation. He asked Savelli how he had found Berlin that day, and what he thought about Hitler’s latest plans, and whether Mussolini would go along with them. Savelli brushed the questions off. He did not think Il Duce admired Hitler as much as he appeared to on the surface. Besides, Il Duce was concerned with the Ethiopian question.

‘You think he’ll strike there?’

‘You ask many questions, Mr Reason. How should I know what Il Duce is thinking? He and his Black Shirts are in charge. The Ethiopians are savages, there’s no doubt about that. Sooner or later he will want to tame the African continent. And your country, signorina, are there black people there?’

‘We have a Maori race. They are brown-skinned. I was born among them.’

‘You were? Well, that’s interesting. I’m not familiar with the British colonies. The Antipodes.’

His eyes rested intently on her, as if he could see right through her. Surely, she would think later, he could not have known the deep ache of longing that had possessed her, a sensation that was entirely new. She felt as if she might yield, although to what force she was not exactly sure. But it was something unfulfilled, a sense of submission and desire. The evening had become like flying, wild and exhilarating. Somewhere out in the night, a gramophone was playing Ethel Waters
singing ‘Stormy Weather’. Savelli said, ‘Some wild strawberries, perhaps. Picked in the woods this morning. With a small jug of freshly squeezed lemon and a dash of sugar.’

‘I love strawberries,’ she said dreamily.

‘Miss Batten,’ said Jack Reason, ‘I think you’re very tired.’

‘The wings,’ she said. ‘What about the wings, signor?’

He touched her hand again, and when she raised her eyes, she observed the regret in his, as if he had come to a decision and was sorry. For himself? For her? She couldn’t tell. Perhaps it was the presence of Jack Reason that restrained him. Or he saw how injured she was, and more than a little strange. ‘Oh yes, the wings. Well by all means, you may have them reconditioned.’

‘Really, that’s wonderful. Thank you.’ She knew how girlish and breathless she must sound, even as she sensed a certain withdrawal in his manner, a coolness that had descended.

‘They’re not a gift, signorina. I expect you to pay two-thirds of the cost of repairing them, and return them to me immediately when you get back to England. Within a month.’

‘But I plan to fly to Australia. You know that.’

‘And I am offering you the opportunity to take your aeroplane back to London. That is all. It is over to you to decide.’

‘Mr Reason?’ she said, turning to him for advice.

‘I think Signor Savelli has made up his mind. A final offer?’

When Savelli nodded, Jean said, ‘Very well, signor. I will return your wings when I get to England next week.’ She tasted sour anger at the back of her throat, the taste of disappointment.

AFTER THAT EVENING, MOLLY WAS KINDER,
as if she had accepted the presence of her house guest. Jean guessed that Jack had told her what had happened. Back at the apartment, Jean had gone straight to bed and slept for twelve hours. When she woke up she couldn’t remember a single dream. Molly brought the English newspapers for
her to read, her manner gentle. ‘You’ll see these soon enough,’ she said, ‘you might as well now.’ The headlines shouted Jean’s disgrace:
BATTEN GIRL DIVE BOMBS ROME, WHY DOES SHE KEEP DOING IT? BATTEN CRASHES AGAIN.
The articles all had a similar tone, implying that she was too inexperienced to attempt the long flight to Australia, and why bother when Amy Johnson had already done it in such style? Although it was not spelled out in so many words, there was another question: Who does she think she is?

There were telegrams, too. One, from Edward, said:
Come home at once. Leave plane behind.
In another, Nellie wrote that there would be another time, and they must think of a new plan. Yet another was from Frank:
See you are in Rome. Must be in the money. Send what you owe, or else.
She felt a shudder of revulsion and tore the cable into little pieces, as if the yellow paper would contaminate her.

Molly looked at her curiously. ‘Not bad news, I hope.’

When Jean didn’t reply, Molly said, ‘Why don’t we go and look at some of the sights? There must be places you’d like to see.’

‘The place I’d most like to see,’ Jean replied, ‘is the field where I was forced to land.’

Molly shook her head in disapproval at first, but then she said, ‘Well, why not? I expect if it were me I’d want to see what happened, too.’

They set out for the St Palo wireless station, the grassy field surrounded by six masts, each one a hundred and fifty feet tall. There were also numerous high-tension wires overhead that the Moth had glided above, unseen by Jean. She stood and looked at them for a long while, and at the mosquito-ridden marshes through which she had staggered to safety. The area had been drained to make poor farming land, now inhabited by poverty-stricken labourers living in shacks.

‘Enough?’ Molly asked. ‘I think you need to see the rest of Rome.’

She drove them at erratic speeds in her battered Vauxhall. It wasn’t so much that it was old, but that ‘things kept bumping into it’, as Molly put it and they both found themselves laughing. They began to eat at restaurants together. Jean bought bunches of lavender to fill
the vases in the apartment, and an air of festivity began to overtake them. Molly, Jean realised, was one of those service wives who went where their husbands were told, with no option but to follow them and make the best of things. The Reasons had two children in English boarding schools. Molly spoke of them with quiet longing.