My Heart Has Wings (4 page)

Daker muttered a mild frustrated oath. “Nuisance
!
I wanted to see him, but it will have to wait until tomorrow, I’ve got to rush off to that Air Council meeting.”

He went out, mumbling to himself.

It was soon after five when Jan finished the wind tunnel notes, and as there was nothing else to do she told Helen they might call it a day. She was glad to be getting away on time this evening because it was Peter’s birthday and she’d planned
a mildly festive meal for him—within the limits of the stringent economy that had to be practised at No. 4 Regency Terrace these difficult days. She tried not to think about the difficulties as she came out into the sweet summer evening air, but they were waiting for her, crowding in upon her consciousness as they always did when the preoccupations of work were left behind. The unpaid bills and rejected manuscripts that filled the letterbox every morning, her father’s growing bitterness as failure followed failure, her own increasing fears. In the precarious years since
Hungry Har
v
est
—surely a prophetic title!—there had never been so sustained a run of ill luck. At the moment they were existing solely
o
n her own modest salary, and it wasn’t nearly enough to keep four hungry people and a sizable establishment going. If something pretty extraordinary didn’t happen soon; if her father’s luck didn’t turn, the house would have to be sold. A grim possibility that had lurked, in the backs of all their minds for some months—too terrible to be seriously discussed. But last week, confronted by a
stern
ultimatum from the bank concerning his overdraft, Hart Ferraby had declared himself beaten. Unless he sold a play, or managed to find regular newspaper work before the autumn, No. 4 Regency Terrace must be put into the hands of an estate agent for immediate disposal. Jan had long passed the stage where the sale of a play seemed remotely possible, and a newspaper job was, she knew from sad experience, even less likely. Once you lost your foothold in the desperately competitive Fleet Street scramble, it was almost impossible to fight your way back again.

As she hurried along the main road that intersected the airfield her thoughts revolved despairingly. Cars and bicycles whizzed past her in a constant stream as the great airworks emptied for the night. She was only vaguely aware of them, but above the clamour of the traffic she could hear the singing of the larks that rose from the rough grassland on either side. Higher and higher they went, pouring out their wild sweet music. At this evening hour they sounded half mad with joy. Did, human flyers, she wondered know that
ecstasy
? She thought of Mike’s plane this morning, soaring up and up until it seemed to reach the very heart of the sun, losing itself
in glory
.

A long low red sports car, with a supercharged look about it, slowed as it drew abreast of her—stood still. Mike’s car. “Want a lift?” he called out. She stared at him an instant—blankly; bringing her thoughts abruptly back to earth. But the moment still held a quality of fantasy. Lark-song and sunlight trembled all about her. “I was just making for my bus,” she said.

Mike opened the car door. “I can run you home quicker than a bus,” he urged.

She got in beside him with an incredulous feeling. First, tea in the canteen, and now a lift. Small courtesies that meant little, but they could shake her heart. And he had spoken of running her home. “But I live in Chiswick,” she reminded him. “Shan’t I be taking you out of your way?”

He gave a quizzical sideways grin. “Not exactly. As a matter of fact I was wondering if you’d consider having a spot of food with me somewhere, and then, maybe, take in a flick?”

The blue sky wheeled about her. For a moment she wondered if she had heard aright. “But I
...
I thought you told Erica you had an engagement this evening,” she blurted.

Mike answered quietly. “I have. This is it. Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping. How about
it?”

CHAPTER THREE

Jan stared, bemused,
at the ribbon of road that slid towards them. They were travelling so fast that everything was a little blurred
...
adding to the unreality of the moment. Mike drove a car the way you would expect him to; with a smooth superlative skill. He had asked her to have supper with him, and go to a cinema, and was waiting now for an answer. She tried to find her voice, but her breath caught in her throat. Silly to get in such a flap over it
...
but it was so unexpected. And it wasn’t just an unthinking impulse He’d planned it beforehand, telling Erica he had an engagement for the evening. What on earth possessed him? It was all most puzzling.

Breaking into her hesitant silence, Mike said, as if sensing her bewilderment, “It was quite a trip in the Arrow today. I didn’t feel much like facing Sheldrake, and an atmosphere of family problems.” His tone as he offered this explanation was faintly apologetic. Sheldrake Manor, with Erica entertaining her friend Paleski, introducing him to disapproving parents, was a place he wanted to avoid. So that was it. And he’d seized on her humble self as the nearest available distraction. It was all perfectly clear, Jan told herself. The tumult in her heart subsided, and she said quietly, a little flatly: “It’s awfully sweet of you to ask me out, Mike. I’d love to have supper with you, but I can’t very well be away from home this evening. It’s my young brother’s birthday and we’re having a mild celebration.”

“A birthday party,” Mike said eagerly. “That sounds
fun!”

Was he hoping to be invited, Jan wondered, hardly
d
aring
to believe it was possible. And if she did pluck up courage and ask him, how would she find things at home? Her father’s moods were uncertain these days—understandably; he was worried to death. If he happened to have struck a patch of inspiration and was writing hard, he’d hate the disturbance of a visitor, the effort of being polite. Her mind darted to the evening’s menu; not a very glamorous one, but the best she could manage in the present financial crisis. Cold boiled chicken ... an ancient hen if the truth must be told, from Mrs. Costello’s back yard. And would Mrs
.
Costello have had time to prepare the salad; remembered to order the ice-cream? Would there, Jan asked herself in silent ultimate panic, be enough of everything to go round?

And she thought, too, Mike after all is almost completely a stranger to me ... and our home is a very ordinary place, how do I know he will fit in? I might be that her family would bore him to tears.

In the late level sunlight her hazel eyes were all gold, and a little wild, regarding him. He turned to meet her glance, one eyebrow whimsically askew, his hard mouth oddly diffident. He looked ... a gentler Mike than usual, younger and, of all things, wistful. That lonely childhood Helen had spoken of; with no one probably to bother about birthdays, his own would have passed unnoticed, unmarked, in the cold impersonal world of school.

He said, “Ah, well, if you’ve got a party on at home I suppose I can’t possibly expect you to come out with me. I’m sorry. It’s bad luck. Another time, perhaps
...”

“I’d love to, another time. But I was wondering if this evening
...
hesitating about asking you , in case you’d find it a bind. I mean, if you’d care
to come along and have supper with us at Regency Terrace you’re very welcome,” Jan said all in a rush. It wasn’t perhaps, a too graciously worded invitation, but Mike’s lean brown face lit up.

He said simply, “I’d like very much to come.” Jan drew in a great gulp of reviving air. She felt she needed it! The reckless invitation had been given—and accepted, and now she must brace herself for the domestic problems it might involve. But aloud, tranquilly, she said, “That’s fine then, I’m so glad. Though it isn’t,” she warned him, “a very exciting birthday party. Just ourselves
...
”

He nodded. ‘That’s the way I like it. How old is your brother today?”

“Fourteen,” she told him.

“Oughtn’t we to stop somewhere and buy him a birthday present?” Mike suggested. And Jan answered firmly, “No.” They argued about it a little, lightly, companionably. The river to the left of them was a silver-blue loop, encircling wide water-meadows where cows grazed and skinny small boys ran naked and whooping to swim.

“It will be a birthday present enough just for Peter to meet you,” Jan said. “He’s crazy about jets and supersonic bangs and all the rest of it, like most kids of his age. To have a test pilot in the flesh in the house will thrill him to bits.”

“Good heavens!” Mike murmured, alarmed, dropping the subject of Peter and his birthday present with an almost audible crash. But presently he was humming a tuneless air to himself, guiding the powerful car through the maze of evening traffic. He sounded happy, Jan thought, with a glance at his strong, clear profile. She had never, it occurred to her, seen him away from the atmosphere of strain and concentration which was an inevitable part of his job at the works; had never before shared with him an off-duty mood. She knew so little about him! The realization, striking her afresh, kept her tongue-tied, and as they drew
near Chiswick her formless apprehensions increased. Had she been quite mad to invite him home
?

But the house by the waterside, when they reached it, was looking its best in the late afternoon sunshine, its shabby facade washed with golden light. Mike stood by the gate to glance up at the small pillared portico and the delicate wrought-iron balcony above it that ran the whole width of the narrow, elegant frontage.

“It’s charming,” he exclaimed spontaneously as he followed Jan up a short paved path.

On the small neat lawn a silver-grey striped cat sunned itself, indolently stretched out, its slit green eyes idly watching a blackbird that fluttered in the shallow basin of pedestalled bird-bath.

“An astonishingly tolerant cat,” Mike remarked, “or is it just overfed?”

Jan laughed. “Maybe a bit of both. But Tiger-Boy is middle-aged now, and probably more lazy than merciful. He was my mother’s cat. She trained him, even when he was wild and a kitten, not to chase her beloved birds. He has never forgotten,” she ended, with an unconscious sigh. How much easier it would have been to bring Mike Carliss home if her mother had been there to receive him, she couldn’t help thinking, as she pushed open the unlocked hall door. The house seemed quiet and deserted. Carole was probably up in the attic painting, and Hart in his study.

“I’ll just go and rustle up the family,” Jan said when she had shown Mike into the living room and found him a sherry. Left alone, he looked about him. Laden bookshelves, an outsize Victorian sideboard, a folded gate-legged dining-table and a rather ancient type of radio gramophone proclaimed the many purposes the room fulfilled. The lofty corniced ceiling and Flaxman fireplace were all that was left of Regency drawing-room elegance, but there was comfort in the deep shabby armchairs, and someone with an artistic
touch had draped the faded rose-striped curtains on the beautifully proportioned windows. Sipping indifferent sherry, Mike considered the odd turn of events which had brought him here. He hadn’t expected anything like this when he asked Jan to spend the evening with him. Just what he had expected he couldn’t have said, nor had he given the matter much thought. It was simply that the prospect of an hour or so in her company had seemed to him pleasant. She was, he thought with a contemplative smile, beginning to “grow” on him. That clear, bright glance which waited for him when he came into the office after a specially sticky test flight—gladness, and a hint of concealed relief. Knowing his hazards, but not fussing over him. She wou
l
d never fuss. There was an odd mature stillness about her. He had thought her older than her years, and that appealed to him. And she had, he felt, the sort of courage that only comes from deep and innate honesty. Her hazel eyes, meeting his, held a candour that was almost boyish, completely without self-consciousness. He found her refreshing, a little unusual, and above
all ...
restful; for the moment, that was enough.

His thoughts shifted. Today’s flight had posed an interesting batch of minor problems. Pondering them, he forgot his whereabouts
...
and Jan, who in the basement kitchen beneath him rallied her forces, hurrying from “fridge” to larder in a kind of orderly frenzy. The boiled chicken, glazed prettily on its blue dish, would never be enough for all of them. At the end of the scrubbed deal table, Peter, with his homework spread about
him,
watched in dazed, incredulous awe.

“Mike Carliss to dinner. Gosh!” he croaked in the cracked uncertain tones of his age. A light of pure wonder lit up his thin, freckled face.

“You’ll have to put your books away, Peter,” Jan begged, “and run down to the delicatessen shop in the arcade. I’ve got to have a pound of York ham to eke out this fowl. Sliced. But not too thinly.” She took a ten-shilling note from her shabby handbag, desperately trying not to be aware that it was the last note left.

Peter bundled his books together and stood up. “Do you know how many-times he’s crashed the sound barrier
...
how fast he’s flown in level flight in those new types
...
?”

“I haven’t an idea,” Jan answered absently, “and you mustn’t badger him with questions. He, hates talking about flying.”

“All the same
he ... he ...
just might,” Peter breathed dreamily, refusing to be discouraged. He took
t
he ten-shilling note in a limp hand and drifted out; returning a moment later to inquire what it was he was supposed to be going out to buy.

Jan put her hands to her head. “York ham. A pound. And please hurry!”

Peter made an obedient dive for the door and collided with Carole, a slim figure in a paint
-
stained shirt and tight black jeans, her thick chestnut hair drawn tightly away from her small pointed face in a pony-tail. “Is there any hot w
ate
r in the boiler?” She waved a sheaf of richly odorous paint brushes.

“
Mike Carliss the test pilot is upstairs,” Peter paused to announce. “Jan brought him home to supper.”

“Good heavens!” Carole murmured vaguely, not greatly impressed. “Does that mean I’ve got to change?”

“It certainly does,” Jan confirmed, “and as quickly as you can, darling
...
please! Can’t the brushes wait? Stick them in turps or something for the moment. Mike’s up there alone. Somebody ought to be talking to him, and I’ve supper to see to. Where’s Father?”

“In the depths
o
f despair, I imagine. He was having a bonfire of re
j
ection sl
ips
when
I
got in
from
school this afternoon. Petterton’s have finally sent back Trumpets for Electra. Having hawked it around the theatres for six months fruitlessly, they’ve decided there’s no future in it.”

“Oh, no!” Jan groaned. Trumpets for Electra was the last play her father had put his whole heart and soul into
...
believing it to be good. Refusing to be dismayed by the growing pile of rejection slips, he had gone on believing in it, urging his agent, Petterton, to keep on offering it to likely producers
.
But now all the likely producers, and Petterton, it seemed, were exhausted. Nobody wants verse plays—at least not from the pen of Hart Ferraby. When would he face that unpalatable fact?

“I’ll have to go to him,” Jan said. A fine moment, this, to have brought a stranger to the house! she t
h
ought wildly. Unscrewing the top from a jar of shrimps, she gazed at them mournfully. They could start with shrimp cocktails; it was too hot for soup
...

“I shouldn’t say anything to him about Trumpets tonight if I were you,” Carole advised. “He shut me up pretty sharply when I started sympathizing. He’s putting up a facade of ghastly cheerfulness, and wouldn’t even admit he was burning rejection letters; pretended he was simply having a spring-clean of his desk.”

“Do you think he could actually have been burning Electra?” Jan asked in a shocked whisper.

“Could be,” Carole shrugged sadly. “It was a pretty sizable fire!” She dropped her voice cautiously at the sound of approaching footsteps on the basement stairs, and a moment later their father came in, a tall, thin man with the stooped shoulders of a student, and a lined, clever face, lit by dark eyes that held humour as well as disillusion in their depths. At this moment they did their best to hide a glint of pure terror, and their desperate gaiety smote Jan’s heart.

“What’s all this about a famous test pilot coming to supper?” he demanded.
“
I met Peter on the stairs practically speechless with excitement.”

Jan spooned shrimps into a row of little glasses, “Mike Carliss from the works,” she said. “He gave me a lift this evening and
...
seemed at a loose end. So I brought him home with me. He’s upstairs in the living room. Alone. I wish someone would go and entertain him!” She dived into a nearby cupboard for Worcester sauce and tomato juice.

“I’ll go and offer him a drink,” Hart Ferraby volunteered, to Jan’s surprised relief. “That is, if there is anything to offer!”

“Only that awful cooking sherry,” Jan said. I’ve already given him some.”

Her father laughed. “Oh, well, we’ll make it up to him at dinner. There are still a couple of bottles of that vintage Burgundy in the cellar. I believe. Better get them up and warm them a little
...
meanwhile I’ll pop up and introduce myself
.
” He sounded quite zestful and eager.

Jan’s spirits rose. Vintage Burgundy
...
and her father in a mood of determined sociability ... in spite of the death of Electra, or perhaps because of it, seizing on the distraction of a visitor in this hour of fresh, if not altogether unexpected, misfortune. Indeed Mike’s presence on this birthday evening might after all prove heavensent, tiding them over what would have been a ghastly meal without him. She turned to see Tiger-Boy standing in his hind legs by the table, reaching for the chicken with one delicately braceleted paw. Absently, she smacked him, remembered he had most likely had nothing to eat since morning, and ran to the larder to find him a plate of scraps.

“I’ll lay the table when I’ve changed,” Carole offered, coming back from the scullery where she had deposited her malodorous brushes.

By the time Jan too had changed, into a full
-
skirted frock of maize coloured jersey silk, Mike and her father were chatting easily.

“I remember,” Hart was saying as she joined them in the living room, “Sir Mark in 1928, with no handle to his name in those days, setting up a record by taking a single-engined Moth across the Mediterranean to Algiers. I was a cub reporter then, one of a bunch of press-men sent to meet the great man at Croydon when he flew home covered in glory.”

Mike laughed, amused by a reminiscence that seemed to him as remote as some tale of a journey by stage coach.

Carole, her hair now piled on the top of her small shapely head in a Grecian knot, set silver and lacy mats and wine glasses on the table in the window. Beyond the rosy curtains the river was a gleam of evening gold.

It was all going well so far, Jan thought with relief as she carried in the shrimp cocktails, and the conversation seemed to have got itself nicely settled on flying topics. She hoped, for Peter’s sake, it would remain there. Silent with awe, he took his place at the table and absently ate, his whole being alert for every syllable uttered by their fabulous guest. It wasn’t that he was childish enough to imagine himself ever becoming a second Mike Carliss. He wanted to fly—who didn’t? But his ambitions in that direction were vague. It was simply that he felt that in the world which awaited him beyond the dull years of school, flying in some shape or form was his heritage. The New Age. and Mike Carliss and his kind we
r
e its heralds. Space travel, rocket ships
...
already these projects had been lifted, from the phantasy of picture strip cartoons to the sober reality of blueprints and design. And here was Carliss with the sound barrier behind him, Peter thought sweepingly, and the thermal barrier ahead. Questions seethed in his brain. Mach numbers whirled, but disappointingly the talk had turned to duller matters.

“I didn’t realize you were a newspaperman as well as a playwright,” Mike was saying to Hart Ferraby.

Jan saw her father's small grimace—of distaste for himself and his failure. “Oh, I’m hardly a newspaperman any more. An obscure free-lan
c
e, gathering unconsidered trifles
...”

“You find your plays more profitable,” Mike prompted.

“Profitable!” Hart’s smile was hollow.
“
My dear chap, when was poetry ever profitable? I write my plays in verse
...
and producers and backers are afraid of ’em. Personally I believe they are wrong. People are sick, or ought to be, of the everlasting drawing-room comedies, or dreary excursions into so-called realism that are dished out to them in the name of drama. Drama should be on the heroic scale. Shakespeare knew
that ...
so did the Greeks. Though heaven knows I’m not putting myself on a level with either!”

But he was off now on a loved topic, his voice gathering enthusiasm, losing its edge of bitterness
.
The trouble was that to write heroically you had to look for your subject in some by-gone age. There was no contemporary chivalry. Folk grubbed along in a mean age of machinery. Mechanical civilization was a prison in which the soul of man had lost its freedom. “Look at
modern
warfare,” Hart cried. “A robot push-button affair, conducted by remote control; if there was ever anything heroic in the business of fighting, it went out with hand-to-hand combat. Think of a knight in armour, riding out into the lists alone to face his opponent and take his solitary chance of life or death...”