Come the Hour (9 page)

On Saturday afternoon Sara arrived at Kathy’s house. The street was very different from what she was used to. The houses looked big and had big pillars at the doorways and steps that went down into a sort of basement. They were all nicely painted and there were one or two cars parked in the road. No one had had a car in Trafford Park except the doctor and his looked a bit old and shabby. Her dad went to work on his bike – when he had a job. There had been a few big houses at the top of their street, but they didn’t look like this. The doctor lived in one, and the headmistress of her school in another, and someone her father called ‘that useless councillor’. They might have been big but they looked all gloomy and neglected. She had never been inside a house that looked like this.

She rang the doorbell. After a few moments the door was opened by a maid in a white apron. ‘I’ve come to see Kathy,’ Sara said. The maid opened the door and gestured for her to come in.

She stepped into a long, wide hall paved in black and white tiles, with a long, silky-looking rug down the middle, deep red and blue. Somewhere in the house music was playing. It wasn’t the kind of music her mother listened to on the wireless, or sang about the house, or her dad sometimes strummed on the piano: ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’, or something like that.

The maid disappeared and then Kathy came running into the hall. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘My mum’s in here.’

Sara looked about her. The sitting-room was big enough to have two sofas and there was a marble fireplace with a log fire burning brightly. She could see the laid wooden floor round the edge of the carpet. Parquet, her Dad had told her once. He put it down sometimes for someone as an extra job. They had lino at home.

‘This is my mum,’ Kathy said. Her mother was small and round and her hair was going a bit grey. She held out her hand. ‘How do you do, Sara.’ Sara shook her hand and just smiled. She was a bit overcome by
the poshness of it all: the marble fireplace and the big windows with big curtains and the cabinet with little figurines in it. She tried to tuck it all into her memory. She knew that her mother would want to know all about it when she got home.

‘Come up to my room,’ Kathy said. They climbed the staircase, with its polished rails and banisters and brown carpet held down by gleaming brass rods.

Kathy’s room was bigger than hers at home, but not different, really. It had a bed and a desk and a table and there was a teddy bear on the bed. That rather surprised her. She had given up teddy bears long ago. As her eyes took it all in she realized that there were a few differences. Kathy had her own wireless, and, wonder of wonders, there was a radiator giving out heat, just like they had at school.

Kathy shut the door with a little bang. ‘Beethoven,’ she said. ‘Lily’s always playing Beethoven on her gramophone, but I’d rather have dance bands. My mum say I’m a philistine.’ Sara wasn’t really sure what that meant, but she didn’t like to ask. Kathy did a few dancing steps. ‘Can you do the quickstep?’

‘No,’ Sara said. ‘I don’t know how to dance.’

‘I’ve got a book,’ Kathy said, ‘that tells you how to do it.’ She turned on the wireless. ‘Sometimes there’s Victor Sylvester’s band on in the afternoons.’

There was no music, only some man talking about Italy and Mussolini. ‘I do wish they’d stop going on about it,’ Kathy said. ‘They never seem to talk about anything else. It’s so boring.’

She showed Sara her clothes. Sara had never seen her in anything but her school uniform. They’re not much different from mine, Sara thought. Her mother always made sure that she was nicely dressed – neat and tidy. ‘What does your dad do for his living?’ she asked.

‘He works in a bank,’ Kathy said. ‘I don’t know what he does there. Counts the money, I expect.’ Sara could see and feel the money all around her. She didn’t suppose that Kathy’s father had ever been out of work.

A bell tinkled down below. ‘That’s tea,’ Kathy said. ‘We’d better go down.’

Tea was bread and butter and cake and a cup of tea in a flowery
china cup. There wasn’t anything like real food, Sara thought, and anyway, it was too early. She’d have to have her proper tea when she got home.

She left at half past five and took the bus home. Her mother was getting tea ready – no, not tea, she’d have to learn to call it dinner – sausage and mash today. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. ‘Have a good time?’ her mother asked.

Sara nodded. She had a strange reluctance to go into it all, all the descriptions of the house that her mother would want, but she knew she’d have to do it after tea – dinner.

‘We had tea,’ she said, ‘but it was only bread and butter and cake.’

Her mother nodded. ‘Afternoon tea,’ she said. ‘That’s different.’ She turned back to her potatoes, her back to Sara.

‘They had a maid,’ Sara said. ‘She brought in the tea.’

Her mother said nothing for a moment, but Sara could see the sudden tenseness in her shoulders and the momentary halt in her peeling of the potatoes. ‘Oh, did they?’ she said.

When Sara went up to her room Jim put his paper down. ‘Now look what’s happened,’ he said. ‘What’s she going to think when she goes into these houses with these people? We’re not going to look very good, are we? She’s going to be ashamed of us, isn’t she?’

‘No she isn’t,’ Nora said. ‘She’s not like that.’

‘You’re going to lose her, that’s what,’ he said. ‘If she ever gets what you want you’ll probably never see her again.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Nora said. ‘She wouldn’t do that. She’d never be that sort of snob.’ But she felt a little chill. I don’t care, she thought. Just as long as she gets it.

‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘That’s if we’re not taken over by the Germans.’

‘Just let them try,’ she said.

At eight o’clock on Saturday Charlie met Arthur in his room. ‘The airfield’s at Duxford,’ Arthur said, ‘but I believe there are plans to move to Marshall’s.’

They took the bus to Duxford and walked into the airfield, towards the hangars. Arthur took a deep breath. ‘Smell it,’ he said. ‘It’s the best smell in the world, oil and aircraft dope and all the rest. You can keep
your posh perfumes.’ Charlie glanced at him and smiled. He hadn’t suspected Arthur of having a poetic soul. Flying seemed to bring it out.

There were three aircraft parked on the grass. ‘That one’s an Avro, and those two are Tiger Moths,’ Arthur said. His voice held a tone of pride and satisfaction. ‘One of the best aircraft ever made.’

He took Charlie into the office. ‘Another recruit, Bill,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go. I’ve got a flight booked this morning.’

Bill was tall and thin, wearing a flying suit. ‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘So you want to fly. Have you any experience?’

‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve never been up before.’

‘I see.’ Bill looked at him for a moment. ‘What are you reading?’

‘History.’

‘Any hobbies or sports?’

‘I play cricket, and club tennis,’ Charlie said. He hesitated. ‘And I play the piano.’

To his surprise Bill’s face brightened. ‘Play the piano? Good. You might have a light touch on the controls.’ He looked at Charlie: a speculative look, Charlie thought, weighing him up. ‘Why do you want to fly?’

‘If there’s a war,’ Charlie said, ‘I’d like to join the Air Force.’

‘Do you think there’s going to be a war?’ Bill said.

Charlie shrugged. ‘Who knows? But it sounds as if it’s getting more likely.’

‘Our wing commander would agree with you,’ Bill said. ‘He’s pretty convinced. Very keen on training more pilots. You’d have to have an interview with him, but I can take you up this morning if you like – see how you get on. No point in being interviewed if you’re sick as a dog or terrified.’

‘I’d like that very much,’ Charlie said. ‘Thanks.’

Bill got up and took two flying helmets from hooks on the wall. ‘Come on, then.’ They walked out to one of the Tiger Moths. ‘You sit in the back,’ Bill said, ‘and be careful where you put your feet.’ He hung over the cockpit and showed Charlie how to strap himself in. He grinned. ‘Don’t want you falling out, do we? And don’t undo it till we’re back on the ground and stopped. And if by any unlikely chance we turn over on the ground don’t undo them at all, or you’ll fall
straight on your head and break your neck. Wait for help.’ He pointed around the cockpit. ‘Control column or stick, rudders, speaking tube. And don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Charlie said.

They taxied into the wind and Bill took off.

Charlie watched the ground fall away beneath him. For a few moments he felt a kind of stillness, as if he were waiting to find out how he felt. He watched the stick move and felt the pressure on his straps as Bill put the plane into a gentle turn. He looked down over the airfield, the roofs of the hangars, the woods and fields beyond. Slowly, stealing over him in the clear air, he felt a kind of exultation, a sense of extraordinary freedom. They flew through a patch of cloud and came out above it, the sun gleaming and casting rainbows on the white billows below. I’m so lucky, he thought. Fifty years ago no man had ever seen such beauty; this unknown world.

They came out again into clear air. ‘All right?’ Bill said, through the tube.

‘Yes.’ Charlie found himself nodding vigorously.

‘Fancy doing a loop?’

‘Yes,’ Charlie said again. He felt himself pushed back in his seat as the aircraft climbed. The earth disappeared, and then slowly revolved in front of him until they were straight and level again. It was extraordinary. He didn’t feel that he had moved at all. It was as if the world had moved around him.

‘All right?’ Bill asked again.

‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘Fantastic.’

‘Put your hand on the stick and your feet on the rudder bars,’ Bill said, ‘and don’t do anything. Just feel what I am doing.’

They did a gentle turn to the left and Charlie felt the movements of the controls. I can do this, he thought. I know I can. He wanted to do it more than anything he had ever wanted in his life.

‘I’m going to do a spin,’ Bill said. ‘That’s the one aerobatic manoeuvre you’d have to learn before you went solo. You can get into them by accident. You need to know how to get out.’ Charlie saw the stick move back and then they seemed to flip into a turn. The plane began to spin, round and round, and the ground came rushing up to
meet them. ‘Stick forward and full opposite rudder,’ Bill said in his ear. The plane came magically out of the spin, flying straight and level. ‘All OK?’

‘Brilliant,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s brilliant.’

Bill did a circuit of the airfield, landed and taxied back. They went back into the office. ‘What do you think?’ Bill said.

Charlie firmly suppressed his emotional reactions and tried to be practical. ‘I think it’s great,’ he said, ‘and I want to do it.’

Bill grinned. He knows, Charlie thought. He knows how desperate I am to get in.

‘We’ll make an appointment with the wing commander,’ Bill said. ‘You might do.’

Charlie stayed at the airfield for an hour or two, ostensibly waiting for Arthur, but in reality just watching, watching the aircraft come and go, doing take-offs and landings, circuits and bumps. He had a sense of extraordinary peace and contentment. He watched someone apparently doing a first solo, the instructor standing on the grass, his body tense, watching the aircraft circling the field, watching it land, bumping a little but landing safely. He watched him greeting the new pilot, shaking his hand. I can do this, he thought. I will do it. He felt as if he’s been handed a huge gift, a goal, a reason for being alive. He knew that he would be back.

‘It’s spring,’ Amy said, ‘March already.’ The garden was waking up again, snowdrops gleaming.

‘Look at this,’ Dan said. He held up a cartoon in
Punch
, showing John Bull, who seemed to be waking up from a nightmare – the nightmare of another war.

Amy didn’t smile. Dan put his arm around her and held her against him. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘It isn’t over. It’s like living on top of a time bomb.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘We’d get through it,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, we’d get through it, together.’

‘We shouldn’t have to,’ she said, agonized. ‘We shouldn’t have to go through that again. Twice in one lifetime. It isn’t fair.’ There was nothing he could say.

She did her normal clinics and surgeries, meeting every day other women with stricken faces and frightened eyes. ‘My son …’ they said, ‘my husband, my son, my children….’ She tried to be reassuring, but she knew that there was nothing that would really help. How could there be when she felt the same?

She opened the morning paper one March morning, and gasped. Hitler had invaded and taken the rest of Czechoslovakia. There was a picture of jeering, weeping crowds in Prague, of crowds of Jewish people storming the railway stations, trying to get away, knowing too well what the future held for them. Dan took her hand, not knowing how to comfort her, knowing, as she did, that the future was now decided, whatever the politicians might say. She telephoned her father. He sounded older, more tremulous. She thought, perhaps, that he had been crying.

The twins came home for the Easter vacation, Tessa worried and strained about the news from Europe, and Charlie strangely calm and cheerful.

Tessa sought him out in the garden. ‘You seem very calm about it all,’ she said. ‘You’re up to something, aren’t you? Have you joined up or something?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do that without telling the parents.’ He hadn’t told her, or his parents, that he was learning to fly. He didn’t want to tell them until he’d got his wings, and he didn’t want his mother worrying herself to death. He’d tell them when it happened. He had another reason. It was a new and private joy. He didn’t want to tell Tessa that flying had answered his prayers, had opened the door to his own new world, that he felt about it the way she seemed to feel about medicine. He had to prove himself first.

The twins went back to Cambridge. The year wore on. It seemed to Amy that the whole world was taking one irrevocable step after another, as if pacing steadily and meaningfully towards another war. A new aircraft carrier,
HMS
Illustrious
, was launched at Barrow-in-Furness, Italy invaded Albania, conscription of young men was begun, plans were made for the evacuation of children from the major cities. One step after another, relentless, destroying all hope. Germany and Italy formed the ‘Pact of Steel’. It was as if the monster, death, had been
resurrected and had planned it all – do this, do that, run about like chickens with their heads cut off, but you can’t escape me. Everything you do will bring the horror nearer.