Wild Lily (16 page)

In the middle of winter, when Antony was close to despair, Clarence Frobisher flew into Brooklands – very badly, his landing causing considerable excitement and laughter, and much curiosity as to the character who professed to be an aviator. Fortunately Clarence was not a sensitive soul and took the derision with charm and good humour, and asked only, ‘Is there anywhere I can get a drink round here? I need one after that.’

‘Come with me. I’ll stand you one,’ Antony said quickly.

Clarence was a rich young American whose father had indulged him, as had Antony’s, in his fleeting ambition to be a pilot. In the bar, especially after discovering that Antony was the son of the famous crook Sylvester, Clarence warmed to the socially adept young man who was so welcoming. Like everyone else he wanted a blow-by-blow account of the murder and Antony’s flight at gunpoint, and after that he asked what Antony was doing at Brooklands now; did he fly?

‘Because I’ve got the plane,’ he added. ‘But I don’t seem to
have much talent when it comes to flying the damned thing. I was hoping to find a pilot here, so I can do my travelling and sightseeing and partying in Paris and suchlike without the worry of being my own pilot.’

‘I’m looking for a job as a pilot,’ Antony said, trying to sound casual. ‘I’ve got my certificate, and plane of my own, and I need a job.’

‘Yeah, it seems there’s no shortage of out-of-work pilots. I’ve already discovered that. Why is it so easy for all you young kids, but I can’t seem to get the hang of it at all? Good enough to amuse myself, but I haven’t the confidence to take my friends up. We none of us want to die, after all. If I stay here a bit perhaps I’ll find the right man. Maybe you, who knows? I’m not going to jump into it. But you can show me the ropes around here, eh? Who runs the joint, where I can stay? We can be friends, eh?’

You bet, thought Antony, his heart leaping at the possibilities. It was the first time anything like this had come his way, just when he had been thinking of giving up on the whole thing. Day after day, mooching about, sweeping up, handing spanners to mechanics, valeting machines, kicking his heels, forever with an eye out for an opportunity … it had been getting hard to bear and more dispiriting by the hour. But Clarence, literally descending from the blue, was opportunity writ large.

He was about twenty-one, Antony supposed, a large, well-nourished young man with blond hair and fat laughing cheeks, extremely affable but with, one suspected, a sharp
intelligence. He was pleased to find Antony, a youth on his same educated wavelength, and invited him straightaway to join him in finding a decent hotel to stay in, hire a car, have lunch and generally be a friend. He was lavish with his money, which seemed to come from a hugely generous allowance.

‘My pa said to find myself a pilot – he wants me to stay alive. But there’s no hurry – I don’t want to fly much until the summer. It’s damned cold up there at this time of year.’

And down here, Antony thought, nearly always frozen and too mean to spend money feeding the gas meter in his dank abode. He did not dare reveal to Clarence his lowly residence and did not point it out when they passed it in the hired car that Clarence drove with the same bravado and lack of skill with which he had landed his plane. They found a very elegant hotel set in its own parkland and woods, and Clarence arranged for his luggage to be delivered there and treated Antony to a sumptuous lunch. Later he delivered Antony back to Brooklands and promised to see him again in the morning.

Antony could not believe in his luck. Word had got around, of course, that this maniac of a Yank was looking for a pilot, and out-of-work pilots were already dropping in looking for him. They were mostly older, adrift from the war, mostly disillusioned and hardened by their experiences, and Antony could only hope that his already established friendship would put him ahead of these men who undoubtedly had more ability than he had.

But Clarence was friendly to all and he was no fool; Antony
could only wait on tenterhooks, doing his best to foster the friendship without seeming sycophantic. He started to fly again, to retain his skill, and took Clarence up once or twice to impress him, and Clarence was encouraged enough to start taking flying lessons in his own plane. This machine was a converted de Havilland bomber, a DH 9C, which carried three passengers. If Antony wanted the pilot’s job, this was presumably the plane that he would have to fly and, taking his life in his hands, he persuaded Clarence to take him up with him and let him try it.

Amazingly, he did not find it at all difficult. He even landed it smoothly, without the alert emergency fire engines and ambulances having to start their engines. It occurred to him while he was flying that this was an ideal machine to use for his parachute-jumping ambition, should he ever get that far.

Luckily the flying lessons did not discourage Clarence from his intention to employ a pilot. ‘I don’t want to bother parking the plane and refuelling it and all that rot when I’m out with my mates,’ he said simply.

‘Thank God for that,’ Antony breathed.

But he could not disregard the men that came to Clarence with far better credentials than he had himself. Hours of flying experience and seasoned mechanics as well – Clarence was kind to all and encouraged a few of them, Antony could not help noticing, by writing down their names and addresses in his little notebook. He said he had friends coming over in June, and by then wanted to have a pilot employed, but until then he was not in a hurry.

‘My good friend Mart is arriving next week, and I’m arranging to have him put up at Birch Hall with me.’ Birch Hall was the plush hotel that he had made his home, a far cry from number six Victory Place where Antony had a fine view of a gasometer and a railway shunting yard.

Mart wanted to buy a plane and was another rich young American, full of enthusiasm. To Antony’s astonishment it transpired that he was crazy about parachute jumping, now apparently all the rage in America, coupled with wing-walking (which Antony had no wish at all to experience).

‘You heard of Slim Lindbergh over here? Charles Lindbergh? He did pitches all over, wing-walking and parachute jumping – couldn’t actually fly. Couldn’t afford to learn. He just hung out being dogsbody for a rich owner and getting a pittance for the circus act – until his father got a bank loan to buy an old army plane. That gave him the idea of enrolling in the army as a flying cadet, so he got to be a pilot, and then he was in a collision with another plane and he had to jump for real …’

Antony lapped up this thrilling conversation, hanging on Mart’s every word. Mart was older than Clarence, but every bit as friendly. He had been happy to include Antony for a drink in the bar, but now Antony had to bite back his enthusiasm when the talk came to parachuting, not to butt in, for it was not his place. Clarence was obviously not very interested in Slim Lindbergh’s exploits and the conversation veered elsewhere, but all Antony’s old enthusiasms surfaced again, and he wondered if here was his chance to experience it for himself, if Mart was going to buy a plane and learn to fly …

Fortunately Mart was in no hurry to leave Brooklands and as the winter turned into spring and summer beckoned, Antony got the opportunity to discuss parachuting with him.

‘You’ve actually jumped?’ he finally asked the American one evening.

‘No, I haven’t, only watched. It takes more guts than I think I’ve got.’

‘I took a girl up, and she jumped. But I haven’t.’

‘
What?
’ Mart was obviously stupefied.

Antony was surprised at his reaction. It had only been a bit of fun, after all. Had Lily been terrified? He had not got that impression; she did it because he asked her to. She always did what he wanted.

‘What girl was this? Is she famous – does she do it for exhibitions?’

‘No. She’s just a maid-of-all-work at home. I wanted to try it but there was no one to fly the plane if I did it, so I asked her, and she did it.’

‘What, just like that?’

‘Well, we went off very early so that no one would see. We didn’t want to get into trouble. I asked my friends but none of them would, but Lily – she said yes.’

‘Some gal!’

‘She said it was lovely and she’d like to do it again. It didn’t bother her.’

‘Gee, I’d like to meet this gal! Where does she hang out?’

Antony found the conversation now getting out of his control. He could not conceive of Lily coming here and meeting
Mart. He had not really given Lily a thought since he had left Lockwood on Tom’s bicycle.

‘Not far away, near my old home. But she’s only a maid. Very young, just a kid really.’

‘Well, I could buy her a teacake surely? You don’t get many maids with those sort of guts.’

Antony tried to envisage Mart driving to Lily’s old cottage and inviting her out for a teacake, and failed. ‘I could bring her over some time, perhaps.’

‘Yeah, kiddo, you do that! If she wants another go, I bet we could go up in Clarence’s crate. I might even get up the courage to try it myself.’

‘I want to do it!’ Antony couldn’t help himself. ‘I’ve always wanted to do it, but there was no one to take me. I only took Lily because I wanted to try it out myself, a sort of practice. I bought myself a parachute and obviously it worked a treat. It’s still at home, doing nothing. It could do with an airing!’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes, very. I want to do it so badly.’ Antony couldn’t hide his enthusiasm.

But he had found a fellow enthusiast in Mart.

‘We’ll get Clarence to fly us in his crate then! We’ll all have a go – not all at once, of course. But you get your chute ready, and I really want to meet this girl – hey, it’ll be a real whizz!’

Antony saw enormous complications but Mart brushed them aside. Getting Mart to meet Lily without anyone in the village seeing him, avoiding Gabriel, Mrs Goldbeater …

‘We’ll motor over to your old home and collect your chute
and you can take me to meet this girl. I really want to know her. You say when—’

‘I could fly home and bring her back.’

‘No, we’ll drive over in Clarence’s motor! We’ve got nothing to do all day until I find myself a plane and sign on for a few lessons. I’m still waiting for the weather to warm up a bit, I’m not in a hurry.’

It was out of Antony’s control. Thrilled as he was to see his opportunity of doing a jump, the social difficulties of introducing Mart and Clarence to Lily and taking her for a teacake rather took precedence. For all he knew she might have left the cottage by now if the authorities had kicked them out … and what of his pictures?

She had no idea where he was now, he realized. He hadn’t ordered things very well, as usual. Events overcame him, it seemed, before he had thought out how to deal with them. But the chance of someone taking him up to do a jump … it was really unexpected and a chance that he couldn’t let slip through his fingers.

It was true that the weather was not yet warm enough to make flying a pleasure, but with the arrival of spring the trees around Brooklands had begun bursting with leaf and blossom, the cuckoo was calling and the first housemartins were building nests under the eaves of the work sheds. For once Antony felt a stir of optimism. Without the friendship of the two Americans he guessed he would have given up by now.

But where to go if he could not get a toehold in the flying industry? He was still loading all his hopes onto getting the
job with Clarence, which seemed very likely as the friendship developed. He knew he was counting on it now, in fact, and knew already that his flying expertise had impressed Clarence.

So going off on a glorious spring day with his two eccentric friends to seek out Lily was not altogether a looming disaster: it was up to them what they made of her. For himself, realizing how he had neglected her since their last meeting and how much she professed to love him, he began to feel slight qualms as they approached his home village. Sitting in the cramped dickie seat behind the two Americans, he bent down to retie his shoelaces as the car came to the village, not wanting anyone to see him.

‘Left here!’ he shouted, and Clarence turned onto the farm track that led down to the lake. Straightening up, Antony felt a most unexpected blast of homesickness overcome him as the old familiar scene met his eyes: he nearly cried out, and felt his eyes fill with tears. This is where he had been, if unloved, utterly carefree and content, larking with his friends, swimming in the lake, whizzing down the mowed grass in his little plane, wanting for nothing. ‘Dad, I want …’ And the money came, no questions asked. What a life!

Hurriedly he snuffled himself together, wiped his face with a grubby handkerchief, and said, ‘The last cottage, mind the dog—’

For Ludo lay outside, basking in the sun, and Squashy was plodging on the edge of the lake with the eternal fishing net. He came running up when he saw the car, and as Clarence braked to a standstill Squashy screamed, ‘Antony! Antony!’
and threw himself at the car, beating on the side with his fists.

‘Hey, pack it in!’ Clarence shouted, and caught him a cuff round the ear.

Squashy screamed blue murder and Lily came running out of the house. She saw Antony and screamed as loudly as Squashy, and Antony, climbing hurriedly out of the car, nearly fell over backwards as she flung herself at him.

‘Antony! Antony! Oh, at last! Where have you been? So long – where—?’ She was completely overcome by sobs, burying her face in Antony’s chest. From behind he could feel Squashy kicking him and shouting, ‘Pig! Pig! Pig!’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ He put his arms round Lily and hugged her and mumbled some sort of comfort, and then Ludo was jumping up and licking his face. He wanted to die.

Clarence and Mart stood watching with some embarrassment, and then amusement as the dog joined in.

‘You’re very popular round here, mate,’ Mart said.

‘It’s my home.’

He managed to disengage himself from Lily who, after her first shock, started to pull herself together. Through the tears her amazing blue eyes were still on fire with adoration, but she backed off, taking in his companions and the impressive car. Antony could not believe she had kept on loving him unseen for so long all through the winter months, when he himself had pretty much forgotten all about her. It threw him, and he found it difficult to make the required introductions.