Wild Lily (24 page)

‘You can’t be too old, not for that sort of magic.’

Lily warmed to this new friend. His name was Robert Arnold: he had a very calm demeanour, and eyes that took her in with both amusement and respect.

‘Well, I don’t make rules, and if you’ve done it before you know what to expect. When did you jump before?’

‘Oh, I was just a kid. Ages ago. Once just with my friend, who was trying it out on me – he wanted to do it himself but had no one else to fly the plane. The next time from here …’

She did not want to relive that day.

Robert said, ‘My dad worked over here for an American called Clarence something. He told me something about Clarence piloting a plane for some parachute jumpers and it scared him so much that he said he’d rather die than jump himself. Clarence was a lousy pilot himself but mad on flying. He employed my father to fly his plane and thought he might learn from him, but my dad said he never did. Nice chap though, he said, and it was a super job for my dad. He went back to America with him, best of everything, he said. So I grew up with flying in my blood, you could say.’

Lily was shocked to silence by mention of the name Clarence. Of all the people she might have contacted she had come up with a man whose father was an employee of the American whom Lily remembered so well. The parachute jumpers he mentioned were herself and Antony, yet it was clear that Robert did not suspect this. After all, his father had not been on the flight and perhaps had never known what had happened. It was certainly something Clarence would not have wanted anyone to know about if he could help it.

Lily did not want to follow this turn the conversation had taken. It was bad enough this man raking up Clarence – of all the coincidences that his father had worked for him! Lily sat recalling Clarence, and his thousand pounds which had saved her life, and the Van Gogh he had taken, and the other lovely
pictures, which they had reluctantly turned over to the powers-that-be to be rehomed in public galleries. All so long ago. She missed the pictures. They had been so lovely. Squashy had cried when they went.

Robert was talking about choosing the right weather, a windless day, and about his aeroplane, which he clearly regarded as most men regarded their girlfriends, and Lily brought herself back from the shock of finding out how his past coincided so eerily with hers and paid attention to what he was saying. The logistics. A parachute … transport …

She told Robert that the jump was a secret and none of her family must know. It made it very difficult to make arrangements for him to let her know when the moment was ripe. The farm was not on the telephone, although Antonia’s residence was and sometimes, on rare occasions – usually to call the vet – she had used it. Lily decided to risk giving Robert Antonia’s number.

‘Just ask for me to ring you back. You must give me your number. She will come and fetch me if you ask her to. She’s only five minutes away. But don’t tell her what it’s for!’

It was the best she could manage. Robert did not seem to think it was a problem. ‘Sure. That should work OK.’

She gave Robert Antonia’s telephone number and made to depart.

‘Can I give you a lift home?’ Robert asked. ‘I’ve got my car right here.’

‘I came on a bike. I can’t leave it here.’

‘We can sling it in the back, not a problem.’

As she might have guessed, the car was an open two-seater sports car and the bike was easily laid behind the two seats. What bliss! Lily did not think she would have made it back to the farm, pedalling all that way again. Luxury was not something she was accustomed to and the ride back with such a personable young man and with the blazing excitement in her brain of a mission accomplished was glorious. But it was over in ten minutes.

‘It won’t be long to wait?’

‘No. The weather is set fair, I think, perhaps in just a day or two if we are lucky.’

It was hard for Lily to maintain her usual composure with the prospect of the jump on her mind. She kept out of Cedric’s way, guilty that she was deceiving him. For all she knew he could well have been quite happy about her plan: he had been happy enough flying with Antony when Simon and John were forbidden. But she could not risk it.

The phone call to Antonia came through exactly when Lily was expecting it, seeing the weather so perfect for herself. Robert said he would come and pick her up, and they arranged to meet on the edge of the village, by the cemetery. Lily slipped away in good time to sit by Antony’s grave for a few minutes, trying to calm the excitement that was bubbling in her guts: he would be laughing at her, she thought. How he would have enjoyed Robert’s company! They were alike in their passions, if not in temperament.

At last the little sports car drew up beside the church. Lily ran to it, gasping.

Robert was laughing, leaning over to open the door. ‘Steady on, dear girl! Don’t have a heart attack before we’ve started!’

‘Oh, I can’t believe it’s really happening! I’ve died of impatience, more like – every day – it’s crazy—’

He must think her demented, she thought. He told her he planned to use a small airfield he knew in Middlesex, with plenty of empty fields around it where landing would be safe in all circumstances and there would be complete privacy.

‘My mate Tom will come up with us, see you out. He might want to jump too, I don’t know. But it will be a fun outing. I’m really pleased to do this for you.’

What more could she ask?

It was the perfect day, cloudless and still. Robert said his plane was at Hendon, not Brooklands, so the drive was unfamiliar, but Lily was wrapped in a cocoon of gorgeous anticipation, no longer fearful, anxious and uncertain, but now perfectly sure that she had made the right decision. And had, amazingly, chosen the perfect partner. Robert wasn’t bossy or anxious or patronizing, just a good companion, quietly amused and supportive of her last throw for excitement in her life.

The aeroplane was a neat little monoplane tucked discreetly into a quiet corner of the busy commercial aerodrome. Robert parked his car nearby and his mate Tom was waiting there with the gear for Lily.

Tom was young, full of enthusiasm and admiration for
Lily. ‘I’ll tell my old gran tonight,’ he said. ‘She’ll throw a fit.’

‘Nobody knows,’ Lily said. ‘My family wouldn’t have it, I’m sure.’

Their confidence was balm. It hadn’t been at all like that before: fear had been the overriding emotion, fear and confusion. But so many years had passed since then. She was smiling now with happiness.

They fixed her parachute and she was bunked up through the plane’s door. Tom was fixed up with a parachute too, to follow her down and see her right.

‘In case you land in a cowpat.’

‘He’ll see you back to the plane,’ Robert said. ‘In case you don’t land near.’

The roar of the engine, the old familiar smell, brought the old days back to Lily with a jolt. The excitement boiled up inside her – at last, after all her weeks of shilly-shallying, doubting, longing, it was going to happen!

The little plane tore along the runway, so fast after Antony’s machine, that she was amazed, looking down to see the ground shrinking so rapidly below her, nothing like their old plane’s labouring ascent to clear the boundary trees. How Antony would have loved it! Heading south and already climbing steadily, it passed over the western edge of London; she could make out the Thames and Richmond Park and realized that they could well pass over their own farm but, so high now, it was impossible to see the detail. The earth was a green blur, the sky enlarging all around her, taking her up into its arms, it seemed, until the land seemed almost to have disappeared.

She had told Robert high, and they were already far, far higher than she had been before. There was only the sky, all around, above and below: they were an infinitesimal dot in the universe, completely detached from the earth. To jump from here was going to be like launching into pure space. Lily felt her breath quickening, beginning to feel frightened: what had she been thinking of, to do this again?

Then Tom was beside her, grinning, giving her a thumbs up. He was so near and real and laughing: ‘Bit of fun, eh? Ready to go? Just wait for Rob’s signal, any minute now. And I’ll be right behind you.’

She stood up frantically, and Tom slid the door open. The wind roared and the plane tilted, tipping Lily forward. She clung to the doorway and Tom roared, ‘Jump!’ in her ear and she let go and fell. A moment of panic, and then an amazing silence, only the wind whistling in her ears. She pulled the ripcord, and then came the stomach-turning lurch, bringing her up short, the first unnerving swings and then – oh bliss! – the pure beauty of the sky, silence, peace … hanging there so gently, not seeming to move at all, alone in the great blue world. She could scarcely see the ground yet, scarcely breathe, the air so thin, scarcely remember any of the stupid tangles her brain had got into planning this jump, but just gently swing with the beautiful silk canopy above holding her like some benign sky mother.

She wished Antony was with her. In a sense he was, because none of this would have happened without him. She would never have felt the joy that now flooded her, the indescribable
sense of the whole world slowly revolving below her, the promise of the kind land beneath her dangling feet that she belonged to and was returning to, to all its riches and loving beings and eternal pleasures: the sense of being alive more acute than ever she could remember.

Never to forget.

AN INTERVIEW WITH
K. M. PEYTON

Not in the sense that I had a strong desire to put down the story in my head. I don’t write if I haven’t a good plot that is asking to be written. The first one was written out of frustration that I wasn’t able to have a pony of my own and I longed for one so badly, so it helped to write my dreams down. I met someone many years later who sat on her local beach waiting for a horse to walk up out of the sea (as happens in my first book) and of course it never happened and I felt very guilty about her disappointment. Writing
Wild Lily
was easier on a computer than my first book in pen and ink.

The era was dictated by the plot: the story couldn’t be set today, as no boy could just go and fly an aeroplane with so little paperwork – a little earlier you could just go and buy an aeroplane and fly it away without even proving you could fly. No wonder the death rate was so enormous! And the period I chose is just when parachuting was no longer just an escape apparatus, but something that could be fun.

My inspiration for
Wild Lily
I suppose came from Painshill Park in Cobham and its grotto in the lake, which I once explored many years ago. The house is purely imaginary and so are the surroundings. I also went to Brooklands recently and that set me off on the flying and parachuting angle. As a child my parents took me there when they went to watch the motor racing, but I hadn’t been back since. I have always loved aeroplanes (why? perhaps my passion for Biggles books as a child). My bedroom has very high windows and I lie in bed in the mornings and watch the aeroplanes coming over, very high, often with white streamers, and wonder where they have come from, who is up there and going where and why. It is the flight path to Heathrow from Germany, Hamburg
I think, or Amsterdam. I love seeing a summer sky streaked with the white paths of high aeroplanes, too high to hear; on the other hand I wouldn’t want to live close under the flight path near Heathrow, too much of a good thing.

I plan my books in quite a lot of detail a long time before I start writing. I know the beginning and the end and quite a lot of the middle, although that is the part that is most likely to change and hopefully develop as I go along. I don’t take notes, except names and dates, etc., and what the dog is called, that sort of thing, nothing else. It is all in my head. I only make one draft, unless I am forced by my editor, David Fickling, to write some more. I do trust David, but someone said the other day, “David isn’t always right.”. I rather think he is. I write on a computer mostly in the mornings for two or three hours, no longer. I am very slow. A thousand words is an excellent day. I work for longer if it is rushing along, an easy, active bit, not very often. My planning is done all the time, a lot of it when I am in bed and not sleeping or in the bath or on a train (not when driving the car – dangerous!). I drink coffee when I write. I don’t bother ordinarily.

I found Antony difficult. Some way through the book my critical daughter said Antony wasn’t much good as a character as you didn’t know where you were with him and Eureka! the penny dropped – that was his character. He was ineffectual, no hero, just useless. Everything he did proved wrong. Poor old Ant.

No. No desire to do it whatever. But if I did I know it would be mind-blowing.

As far as I know, no books have changed my life. I have been very moved by some. One that comes to mind is
Testament of Youth
by Vera Brittain, which I read when I was eighteen or so. I have a large library of climbing books. Also horse racing and thoroughbred breeding, masses of old pony books, music books, and books on my heroes: Chopin, Elvis Presley, Dougal Haston, Fred Archer, José Mourinho, Mummery, Dickie Lee DSO, DFC, etc..

There are lots! I think my proudest moment was when I went to court, and won, in order to get a disused railway line near where I live turned into a bridleway. Also we have planted a five-acre wood next to our house and it is so beautiful it makes me very proud when I walk through it.

Other proud moments include when our dear race horse came fourth in the four-mile chase at the Cheltenham Festival. Only once removed from the winners’ enclosure! Oh, the glory! Out of twenty-three runners, no less. No, he never won the Grand National, but it was as good as.

I was awarded an MBE in 2014. Surprise was more my reaction, but I suppose I have to admit that yes, it made me proud. I have completely forgotten it now and never add it to my name. It is such an unfair thing: wonderful people who deserve it never get near it. I have never found out who put my name forward, none of my publishers or literary friends. Who?

No I haven’t a motto, but if I had it would be ‘Persevere’. Don’t give up.

- A Swift Pure Cry for
YOUR
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