The Infinite Air (25 page)

OFTEN JEAN WALKED ALONE THROUGH TRASTEVERE
or to the markets at Campo de’ Fiori, inhaling thyme, and rosemary, the bundled masses of sweet basil, or climbed the Spanish Steps, banked with massed azaleas. The mist from a hundred fountains brushed her face, reminding her of the lakes of her childhood, their surfaces ruffled by breezes at evening, or of sunny days swimming with her brothers. With her father, too, supine on a rock, droplets of water still clinging to the hairy pelt of his chest as he dried off in the sun. One evening she came at dusk upon the statue of Marcus Aurelius, the bronze horseman looming against the background of the Palazzo del Senatore, and was moved to sudden tears by its detail, its poised splendour, the way the light played on its surface, the green stipple that spoke of great age.

As she walked, she wondered if she might find Francesco Savelli out strolling, but she didn’t see him again, and nor was he at the hangar when she went on her daily excursions to inspect the progress of the repairs to the Moth. All the same, she understood that the Roman education he had begun the night they dined together was unfolding before her day by day, and she believed that if he could see her he would approve. Had she met Savelli, she knew she would have been drawn to him again.

At the same time, she seethed at his dismissal of women aviators, and the hard bargain he had struck, believing that he was ending her ambition to fly across the world. He had succeeded in raising doubts in her own mind about whether she could carry on, and she didn’t thank him for that. Or did she? It was possible that, here in Rome, he
knew she must face this crisis, the challenge thrown before her.

Most evenings, she returned to the apartment in time to stand at the window, and look across the rooftops as she had on the first night. Each evening, the woman she had seen at the window still sat reading or, once, sewing perhaps, for the movements of her hands were different. She did not raise her head, or acknowledge Jean, but each time her presence reminded Jean afresh of her mother.

Edward had cabled that there were no wings available in England either, as her model of the Gipsy Moth was obsolete. As it was, here in Rome, it would take weeks to build new ones.

One evening, towards the end of the week, the sky had a dark indigo quality, then paler bands of blue, colours such as she had seen in the Mediterranean — a paler scarf of light, like white surf, and beneath, at the edge of the earth’s curve, the glow of the setting sun. Against this rose a huge cloud of birds, a murmuration of starlings, thousands, perhaps millions of them, flying in perfect harmony with each other, expanding and contracting into different formations, becoming so dense that they blotted out the last of the dusk light. Jean had heard of these birds, but this was the first time they had performed their aerial display for her. She felt her spirits lift, as if something had been released in her, watching their matchless flight, the birds wheeling through the infinite air. For an instant she saw herself again in the sky.

As she watched, she saw a movement in the far window. The woman had been watching the birds, too. She turned towards Jean, raised her hand in greeting.

The salutation was brief, so that for a moment Jean wondered if she had imagined it. Before she had time to respond, the woman had resumed her position, as if nothing had taken place between them.

ON THE MORNING OF 6 MAY,
Jean sent a cable to Edward.
Returning today. Must borrow lower wings from your plane.

CHAPTER 23

8 MAY 1934. TUESDAY MORNING. SEVEN A.M.

Jean flew to Lympne for clearance once again to fly to Australia. At Brooklands she had collected the wings from Edward Walter’s Gipsy Moth, and had them attached to her plane. She arranged for the return of those belonging to Francesco Savelli.

Edward had argued with her. ‘I beg you,’ he said, ‘please don’t do this crazy thing. Look at you, you’ve barely recovered from your accident. You’ve been here less than forty-eight hours. Stay here. Marry me. We can have a happy life together.’

Jean had turned to her mother. ‘Do you think Ted’s right?’

Nellie had taken a deep breath. ‘I think it’s for you to decide.’

‘Are you sure, Mother? You’re the only person in the world who could stop me from going.’

Edward had barely been able to disguise his anger.

‘I’ve told you, you must decide whether you’ve got the strength for it.’

‘That’s it then. I’m leaving for Australia.’ She had known that if she faltered for another moment, she was lost.

Again she kissed her mother, and climbed into the cockpit. Overnight, Edward’s anger had abated. He borrowed a plane from a friend at Brooklands, his own now out of service, with the wings firmly attached to Jean’s plane, and flew to Lympne with her. When the Customs formalities were cleared, he took off again, and flew for part of the way across the English Channel with Jean. She knew how much he disliked flying over water, and sent him a blessing of thanks. He signalled farewell, and she was on her own again.

At Rome, the ground staff were astonished to see her back so soon. As she left the city at daybreak the following morning she passed near the St Palo wireless station where she had so nearly lost her life. Already that terrible night seemed like a dream.

So she flew on. From Naples and back to Athens in a gale. From Cyprus to Beirut, and over the Sea of Galilee, in terrible heat and a dust haze. She flew a shorter route this time, going by way of Damascus. She thought again of her brother Harold as she passed over Babylon and felt an ache of sorrow for him.

She landed at the Iraqi town of Fort Rutbah, after following tracks over the desert. On 16 May she flew from Karachi to the Indian city of Bamrauli, landing at Allahabad airport, a day’s run of 932 miles. She had now flown further than on any of her previous attempts. Even at 6.45 the following morning the heat was intense as she crossed the Ganges, pumping petrol with sweat pouring from her like water.
Wish I had automatic petrol pump
, she wrote in her logbook. Later that morning, the oil union worked loose and oil sprayed all over the side of the plane, forcing her to land at Calcutta, with only three quarts of oil left.

On 17 May, three air force planes escorted her for twenty minutes, as she rose to an early dawn start. When they left her, the loneliness she had experienced on earlier flights came flooding back.
Lonely now
, she jotted in the log, as if writing it and declaring it to herself would make it go away. Its darkness reminded her of the caves, and the time she had spent with her brother there, the black intensity of the underground space, prickled with the light of the glow worms. She thought then of Kitty, whom she had met on that trip to the north, passing her days alone. Was this what might lie ahead of her, somewhere beyond this empty sky, in this tiny fragile machine?

To distract herself, she ate her lunch, although it was still only breakfast time.

Malaya lay below, rubber plantations and dense green jungle stretching for many miles, before she put down at Singapore. At the Royal Air Force aerodrome, all the station’s officers were assembled
to meet her, dressed in spotless tropical kit. Her flying suit was stained with oil. ‘I’m a sorry sight,’ she said, as she climbed down from the cockpit. There were now several adjustments and repairs to be made to the plane. As if in anticipation of these needs, a team of mechanics appeared and the plane was wheeled away.

A group captain and his wife offered her a bed for the night. Within an hour she appeared in the officers’ mess, immaculate in her white silk dress, a glass of champagne in her hand. A maid had whisked her flying suit away to be washed ready for the morning.

When she got up, it was too damp for her to wear. ‘How about a pair of my husband’s white sports trousers?’ the group captain’s wife suggested. To this was added a white shirt. Jean wore this outfit on the next leg of her journey, as far as Batavia, the trousers held up with a big safety pin, covered by her raincoat. ‘Pretty dashing,’ she said, admiring herself in a mirror before setting off.

Flocks of parrots rose from the trees, like large red and green clouds, their plumage flashing in the sun, alligators and crocodiles basking on mudflats. At 8 a.m. on 20 May she crossed the equator. She was back in the Southern Hemisphere. The possibility of success began to seem within her grasp.

From Batavia to Rambang in a storm. From Rambang through hail, then sweltering heat, through a cloud of volcanic ash from the Ender volcano, towering red-hot and dangerous, causing her to veer off-course, until she righted her direction and came to the island of Timor.

She feared she would never see land as she feverishly wrote in her logbook on 23 May:

She trusted her navigation. As a gardener who knew how to prune roses, or a chef who could make a perfect soufflé, she knew how to find her way, whether in sight of land or not. Now was no time to doubt herself. Her fuel was running dangerously low. Even if she were flying in the right direction, would there be enough to get her to her destination? She remembered, with a start, that she hadn’t allowed for a deviation error in her compass, caused by the massed metal in her long-range tanks. She compensated by altering the compass seven degrees, even though she was out of sight of land. A rising panic threatened to overwhelm her.

She tried to steady her breath. It occurred to her that perhaps she had missed Australia altogether. There was no way back now. Besides, it seemed almost preferable to die than to fail a third time. Her lunch-box had been packed with roast chicken drumsticks and sliced mango. A Thermos of coffee had grown tepid. She jotted again in the logbook strapped to her knee:

The food helped to calm her but now she felt a terrible weariness seeping into her bones.

And then, there on the far horizon, she saw a small dark cloud, and the weather was still perfect, so she knew that it must be Australia, and as she flew nearer, the country’s red dust and the smoke of fires rose before her.

She remembered later, thinking of the moment as she taxied across the airfield towards a waiting crowd, that despite having flown over some of the most ancient and beautiful cities of the world, none had been as magical as this little township, surrounded by angry bush fires. She had broken the existing solo record for women by four and a half days. Her legs trembled as she climbed out of the cockpit. In the distance she saw reporters running towards her. Hands reached out to grab her, hold onto her, touch the miracle of what she had done. The locals wore pith helmets and threw them in the air. A Fox Movietone camera was trained on her, watching her every move.

An official party now made its way across the runway. The first person to greet her was Captain Bird, the Castrol representative, who had arrived just a few minutes earlier in a plane that was to escort her across the Australian outback to Sydney.

In the morning, she received telegrams. As she opened each one, she understood more clearly what she had achieved. The first one was from Lord Wakefield:

And then the telegram deliveryman handed her one that made his hands shake.

There were more of the great sheaves of yellow cables with their
capital letters — from the Governor-General and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the Prime Minister of Australia.

And there was this, from Fernhurst in England:

A heart more generous than her own, Jean thought. All she had wanted was to beat Amy’s record, and now she felt almost a moment of guilt, her success so overwhelming that she guessed no woman would catch her now. As the newspapers arrived with their enormous headlines proclaiming her success, Jean prepared herself for the reception that awaited her on the other side of the continent.

As she came into Sydney a week later, sixteen planes flew out in formation to meet her. To the right of her Moth, she saw Smithy’s
Southern Cross
, filled with waving passengers. The roofs of buildings were crowded, the roads jammed with cars as people tried to reach Mascot aerodrome and join the tumultuous throngs waiting to see her arrive.

She stepped down from the plane, wearing her white helmet and white flying suit, and made her first public speech.

The Wakefield agent discreetly slipped her an envelope. It contained a cheque for one thousand pounds.

In the evening a huge reception had been arranged in the Sydney Town Hall. Jean knew that people liked her in white, the way she dazzled in a crowd. She chose a white lace gown, a short white fur coat and silver shoes, carefully inspecting herself in the mirror of the handsome hotel where she was staying. When she walked through the foyer, she reminded herself of the way Madame Valeska had taught her dancers to carry themselves, with a graceful flick of their hair, chins level, as if they might be going to rise on their toes at any moment, light on their feet. It made heads turn. At the town hall a red carpet had been rolled out for her to walk down, and all along it were women in beautiful dresses, their perfume heavy on the air, and stout men in their straining black evening jackets, like a herd of cattle
waiting to charge. Cameras flashed in her face. She kept on walking, smiling, touching a hand reached out to her here and there. It was only a matter of weeks since she had walked the streets of Rome, her face bruised and swollen, seeking parts for her plane, and now here she was, in the hot Sydney night, fêted by the rich and famous, and the Lord Mayor of the city.

Charlie Ulm was there, giving her a hard time for being more famous than him. ‘Who am I?’ he wailed. ‘Just some joker making way for
la belle dame
.’

‘Oh go and palely loiter,’ she said, laughing at him. ‘Do we need Keats tonight?’ The banquet laid out for the guests had been cleared away and they were dancing, his hand reassuringly firm and surprisingly cool, resting in the hollow of her back.

‘And you want to know something,’ he said, ‘I just love it that you’ve made it, kid. I’ll never forget the day you turned up demanding to hitch a ride with Smithy.’

Then they were hurried away to do a live broadcast together, to thirty Australian radio stations, plus all the English and New Zealand stations, in what someone said was the largest broadcast ever organised from Sydney. Later there was a shortwave broadcast to the United States.

She told herself, I’m living in a dream. But it’s a dream of my own making.

In London, Nellie had gone into hiding from the hordes of reporters pounding at her door. She kept a rolled wad of notes inside her brassiere, waiting for a moment when she could escape and book a passage home.

In New Zealand, Fred Batten was coming to terms with being the father of a star. With some hesitation, he was telling the newspapers how proud he was of his daughter.