The Infinite Air (16 page)

SOME WOULD SAY, LATER, THAT JEAN BATTEN APPEARED
irrational during her four months in New Zealand, her belief in herself so monumental. She had got the idea, it was said, that the government would step in and fund her proposed flight from England to Australia.
Did she really think her flying feats were so impressive that people would fall over themselves to finance her ambitions? She must surely have seen the state the country was in.

For she had hardly stepped off the ship when the Hawke’s Bay earthquake struck and more than two hundred and fifty people died and Napier and Hastings were largely destroyed. The government, already stretched to breaking point by the desperate unemployed, was hardly in the mood to be impressed.

Others said that, being poor, Jean could only be expected to help herself. At the navigation school where her father had enrolled her, she was learning how to calculate position and distances, how to use dead reckoning, the art of combining visual reference points with maps, advancing a position based on the elapse of time travelled at certain speeds. She had enrolled, too, at the Auckland Aero Club and acquired an endorsement to her licence that allowed her to carry passengers. Her first passenger was her mother. They flew over the mangrove swamps along the edge of the sea, Nellie’s eyes fixed on the white lines of surf, her breath held, in a rapture of delight. ‘My first flight, darling. With you.’

Jean learned, too, the variety of aerial tricks and manoeuvres the Gipsy Moth was capable of — flying inverted, circling and looping, slow rolling. Free of Travers’ watchful eye, she began to experiment, tossing the plane, twisting and weaving, flinging it against radiant autumn skies. On days when the weather changed she flew until curtains of rain all but obliterated her visibility, landing only at the last moment before her landmarks disappeared. When she performed, people on the ground gathered to watch and applaud. Frank Norton was always on hand when she landed, ecstatic with admiration. The crowd would disperse, leaving a path for them to walk between, as Frank escorted Jean to another restaurant, or a dinner or the cinema. He and her father had met, and it seemed that having a boyfriend, as Frank Norton was now perceived, and a pilot at that, had eased his anxiety. But the prospect of raising money to fly was as elusive as ever. Jean had been to see Madame Valeska. Freda Stark hadn’t come
back from Australia and Madame was concerned about her. She’d heard, she said, that Freda was doing well enough in Sydney, but she wasn’t dancing at present. Valeska didn’t mention the cause of her absence, but at least Jean knew that Freda was alive.

Frank’s leave was nearly over. Soon he would return to Quetta. He suggested, one evening, that he and Jean marry before he left. She could join him as an air force wife on the base when he had settled back in and arranged married quarters. They had had dinner at a small hotel where, at Frank’s request, candles had been lit at their table in an alcove off the dining room, overlooking the harbour. Very cosmopolitan, the manager said. It was hard to tell whether he was approving or derisive. As they entered the hotel a woman with three children holding the hem of her skirt stood at the side entrance, begging for leftover food. They stopped at the bar on the way into the dining room. Frank drank two whiskies in quick succession.

‘You can’t stay in New Zealand,’ Frank said.

‘I’m learning a lot. You’ve seen me. And I’ve stacked up the hours.’

‘But it won’t last forever. You don’t have the money.’

She didn’t answer for a while. Her father’s largesse had extended only to the navigation school, and she could see that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t afford more. Nellie was back at the racetrack, wearing ever more flamboyant hats, a sparkle in her eyes when things went well. As before, there were Saturdays when she returned looking despondent, but it never lasted for long. ‘Madame Valeska’s offered me a partnership in the business,’ Jean said at last.

‘Is that what you want?’

When she said no, of course it wasn’t, he pressed his offer of marriage.

‘But we hardly know each other,’ Jean said.

‘I’d be gentle with you,’ he said.

‘Don’t.’ Jean wiped her mouth, leaving a trail of lipstick on the white napkin. Frank sometimes got away with a kiss on her cheek, but that was as far as it went. His lips held all the appeal and suction of a plunger. When he tried to kiss her mouth, her insides went rigid with distaste.

‘I know you’re young. And, you know, I like that, well, that you haven’t been with other men.’

‘You don’t know that,’ she said, tilting her chin.

‘Yes, I do. I’d stake my life on it.’

She felt resentment flooding through her. The sex and turmoil of married women’s lives was not what she wanted either. Frank had once described how he saved money to fly when he worked on a haberdashery counter, and the way people he served put their change in a jar on the counter, marked ‘Frank’s Flying Fund’. He’d escaped. His customers wanted him to fly. People wanted her to get married and be safe.

‘I don’t want to talk about any of this,’ she said.

Frank had borrowed a family car for the evening. When the dinner was over and she was seated beside him he began to drive away from the city. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To look at the sea. Just the two of us, and some moonlight. I thought it would be nice.’ They had driven for some miles in silence when he pulled up near an estuary. There was only a crescent moon, and away from the town, it had grown very dark. Close by, Jean could hear the lapping of waves. Frank placed a hand on her arm. ‘It’s time for me to teach you some things.’

‘Things? What things?’ Only she knew what he meant.

‘I’ll be careful. I won’t let you get pregnant.’

After scrabbling frantically at the door handle, Jean threw open the door before jumping from the car. The sea was very close and she ran screaming towards it. Frank was a step behind her. When he caught her, he seized her wrists. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Stop it, Jean. I’m not going to try anything. I promise.’

She stood there in the shelter of his arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Frank, I can’t.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, too. I wouldn’t force you. I’ve never done that to a woman.’ He edged her back to the car.

‘Why are you so scared of men?’ he asked.

‘Why do you drink all the time?’

He sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I’ll stop. It’s just that I’m on holiday, you know?’

She sat in the car and sobbed then. ‘It’s useless here in New Zealand,’ she said. ‘I need to get back England, to Stag Lane. Everyone here thinks I’m silly.’ He was silent then. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Because I’m young and poor they think I’m arrogant to want so much. When everyone’s so desperate, they want me to be the same. I have to find a way of doing it myself. Back there in London, people know what’s possible.’

Only days before, she had fallen foul of one of her instructors. A storm was coming up and he had advised her not to fly. I can make my own decisions, she had retorted. She didn’t know herself why she had spoken like that. It was just that she was certain that it was all right to fly. Then she had taken off and a squall had hit her side on, causing the plane to slip and slide through the cloudbank in driving rain. The instructor spoke to her about it the next day, citing the poor example she was setting for less experienced fliers. She had, after all, only thirty hours in her logbook and really, who did she think she was? Just because she had trained at Stag Lane didn’t make her an expert. That had been the finish really.

‘It’s your lookout, girlie,’ he’d said.

She had embroidered her earlier response — ‘It’s my business what I do’ — and walked away. She wished, later, she could take it back but it had been said, and there was no going back on it. The Auckland Aero Club suddenly seemed seedy and lacking, the instructor an amateur. Word had come that Amy Johnson and a copilot had set new records, flying from London to Moscow, and from there across Siberia to Japan, in the fastest time ever.

Jean sat there in the car, with the sea beating beside them, wondering how on earth she could get back to London, but knowing that she must.

‘If you go back, I’ll join you in London when I’m finished this tour of duty next year,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll be out of the air force then. You’ll be older.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not holding my breath.’

JOHN WAS BETWEEN MOVIES IN 1931.
This was a chance for him to come home and see the family. He had work lined up, he assured them, but the slump had hit the industry. He and Jean and Frank Norton and their father shared a Sunday lunch at the Courtville flat. Jean had invited Frank before the disastrous night out. She thought he wouldn’t show up, but he did, as bold as if nothing had happened. John told them he would go straight into rehearsals for
The Wonderful Story
when he got back to England. Reggie Fogwood had it all lined up. It was a pretty grim story, about a paralysed farmer whose girlfriend goes off with his brother. Moore Marriott, the comedian, would be in it, but John had a miserable role. He told them a funny story about Marriott, for his father’s benefit, about how the actor carried four sets of false teeth to alter his appearance. He imitated him, pulling his lips down to make himself look toothless. ‘You’re obsessed with teeth, you lot,’ Frank said, out of thin air.

‘What do you expect?’ John said lazily. ‘This family’s made its money out of teeth.’

‘Plenty of teeth, not much money,’ his father said, laughing at his antics. They seemed on friendlier terms, as though the ten years that had passed had softened their differences. As if to catch up on that lost time, John had seen more of his father while he was in New Zealand than he had of Nellie. Besides, he noted, it wasn’t exactly as if his mother had gone out of her way to see him in London. And as for Jean, she was a brat, he told her. It never occurred to him that she wasn’t following her music career over there. After his first surprise at learning the truth, he spoke to her rather as an indulgent older uncle might have done. They exchanged notes on Harold. John said his time in New Zealand was too short for him to get up north.

‘The kids’ll be growing up. Perhaps I’ll go,’ Jean murmured, not really meaning it.

Fred wasn’t sure, but he thought there might be another baby on the way.

‘Poor Alma,’ Jean said. Fred and John looked away. She sensed they were in agreement.

‘It’s really time I was off,’ Frank said. His ship was leaving the next day. He caught Jean’s eye, signalling for her to follow him.

In the passageway he stood close, breathing heavily. If he just could stop breathing, she thought, perhaps she could get to like him better. The idea, unbidden, made her smile.

‘Will you come to the ship to say goodbye?’ he said. ‘That, at least.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you for everything. I’ve had a very nice time.’

‘So that’s it?’

‘I’ll wave to you in the morning.’

‘Get in touch if there’s anything I can do to help. Will you promise me that?’

She allowed him to kiss her cheek, and listened to the thud of his shoes on the stairs. When she couldn’t hear him any longer, she returned to John and her father.

‘He likes you,’ Fred said, teasing her. ‘I was waiting for him to ask for your hand.’

‘I’m not going to marry him,’ Jean said. ‘Not for anything.’

‘You could do worse,’ her father said.

‘I want best,’ she answered. She pulled her lip down over her front teeth, the same gumless look John had imitated.

John said, when the laughter had died down, ‘If you want to come back to London, I’ll pay your fare. You can stay with me for a bit until you get yourself sorted out.’

Frank had already said he would pay for her fare. Although she now wanted desperately to return to London, she had refused, believing that if she accepted she would be beholden to him. She hoped that in the morning she would be waving farewell to Frank Norton for good.

‘The offer’s there, Jean,’ John said. ‘I wouldn’t want to stay here either. No offence meant, Dad, but I couldn’t live in Auckland now.’
He ran his hand through his beautiful tousled hair. ‘It would squeeze the oxygen out of me.’

‘What about Mother?’ Jean said.

‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ John said. His flat was definitely not big enough to accommodate more than one extra person. Really, it was over to her.