What a Carve Up! (66 page)

‘I wonder if things will ever get back to normal,’ said Michael. He turned urgently to Phoebe. ‘You will come and see me in London soon, won’t you?’

‘Of course: as soon as I can. Tomorrow, or the day after.’

‘I don’t know what I’d have done, if you hadn’t been here.’ He smiled. ‘Every Kenneth needs his Sid, after all.’

‘What about “Every Orpheus needs his Eurydice”? Just to clear up any gender confusion.’

But Michael seemed dejected by this analogy. ‘I’ll never forgive myself, you know, for what happened about that painting.’

‘Look, Michael, let me just say something. We’re never going to get anywhere, you and me, by harping on about the past. The past is a mess, in both our cases. We’ve got to put it behind us. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘All right, so repeat after me: Don’t – look – back.’

‘Don’t look back.’

‘Good.’

She was about to reward him with a kiss when they were joined on the terrace by Hilary’s pilot, Tadeusz, who had also arrived that morning. He was, it had to be said, a far cry from Conrad, the previous holder of this desirable position: for he was barely five feet tall, well over sixty years old, and, having only recently settled in this country from his native Poland, could not speak a word of English. He nodded brusquely to Michael and Phoebe and then stood at some distance from them, leaning against the balustrade.

‘I think Hilary’s husband must have put his foot down,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘Her last pilot was this godlike specimen. They came up here once and romped naked on the croquet lawn for most of a weekend. Somehow I can’t see this one entering into quite the same spirit.’

‘Oh well, as long as he knows how to fly a plane,’ said Michael. ‘He’s supposed to be taking me home this afternoon.’

∗

Little more than an hour later, Michael was packed and ready to leave. Phoebe, who was planning to take an afternoon train to Leeds in the company of Mr Sloane, walked with him down to the edge of the tarn. They had been unable to find Tadeusz anywhere in the house, but the agreed take-off time was one o’clock, and Michael was relieved to see the pilot’s diminutive figure already squeezed into the cabin. He was fully dressed for the part, in what seemed to be an authentic World War I flying ace costume, complete with goggles and leather helmet.

‘My God, it’s the Red Baron,’ said Phoebe.

‘I hope this guy knows what he’s doing.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

He put his case down and hugged her.

‘See you soon, then.’

Phoebe nodded, stretched up on her toes, and kissed him on the mouth. He clung on to her tightly. It was a long kiss, which after a fierce start became more leisurely and tender. Michael enjoyed the feel of her hair blowing in his face, the coldness of her cheek.

Reluctantly, he climbed into the cabin.

‘So, this is it, I suppose. I’ll phone you tonight. We’ll make plans.’ He was about to close the door, but hesitated. There seemed to be something on his mind. He looked at her for a moment, and then said, ‘You know, I had an idea about that painting. I can remember it quite clearly: so I was thinking that if we sat down and I described it to you, and you found your old sketches, you could maybe – Well, at least do something similar …’

‘What did I say to you up on the terrace?’ said Phoebe sternly.

Michael nodded. ‘You’re right. Don’t look back.’

Phoebe waved as the plane taxied round into the take-off position, and blew a kiss after it as it gathered speed and cleared the surface of the water, rising smoothly into the air. She watched until it was nothing more than a black speck against the blueness of the sky. Then she turned and walked back up to the house.

Her heart was heavy with foreboding. She was worried about Michael: worried that he already expected too much of her, worried that his preoccupation with the past was somehow obsessive; or adolescent, even. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that he was seven or eight years her senior. She was worried that the relationship might proceed too quickly, taking directions over which she had no control. She was worried that she could actually think of no good reason – if she was honest with herself – for having started it in the first place. It had all happened too quickly, and she had been acting out of the wrong motives: because she had felt sorry for him, and because she too had been scared and in need of comfort. Besides, how could they ever hope to forget the horrific circumstances which had brought them together? How could anything good come from such a beginning?

She went up to her bedroom, packed her suitcase, and then looked around to see if she had forgotten anything. Yes – there were some first-aid things, she now remembered, which would still be in the room where Henry’s body had been found. It would only take a minute to retrieve them, and yet for some reason the prospect filled her with disquiet. She found that she was shivering as she walked along the corridors, and climbing up to the second floor of the house, she had the sudden, ominous sense that she had begun to relive the events of the night before: an impression reinforced as she turned the last corner and heard the sound of the television set, tuned to the one o’clock news.

She opened the door. President Bush was addressing an empty room. It was a re-run of his broadcast to the American people, made shortly after the first bombers had been sent in to Baghdad.

Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak.

Phoebe noticed something: a stream of blood was running down the side of the sofa and dripping on to the floor.

The twenty-eight countries with forces in the Gulf area have exhausted all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution, and have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail.

She peered gingerly over the back and saw that a man was lying face down on the sofa, a carving knife sticking out from between his shoulder blades.

Some may ask: Why act now? Why not wait? The answer is clear: the world could wait no longer.

She turned the man over and gasped. It was Tadeusz.

This is an historic moment.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the police officers on duty popped his head round.

‘Has anyone seen Miss Tabitha?’ he said. ‘We can’t seem to find her anywhere.’

Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam’s vast military arsenal. We have no argument with the people of Iraq. Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

Would the madness never come to an end?

∗

Michael sits in the cabin of the seaplane, craning forward and watching the South Yorkshire landscape unroll beneath him.

The pilot, sitting up ahead, starts humming a tune:
Row, row,
row the boat, gently down the stream.
The pilot’s voice seems unusually high and musical.

The world could wait no longer.

The plane starts to climb sharply. Michael cannot see the reason for this, and stiffens in his seat. He thinks it will surely level out, in a second or two. But the ascent becomes steeper and steeper, until suddenly they are vertical, and then they are upside down, and then before Michael has even had a chance to scream, they have looped a complete loop and regained their original position.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he shouts, grabbing the pilot by the shoulder. But the pilot is quivering with laughter – hysterical, unstoppable laughter – and crying out for joy.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

‘I said, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Michael repeats.

We have no argument with the people of Iraq.

‘Have you gone raving mad?’

The pilot’s laughter grows even more hysterical when Michael says this, and then the goggles and the leather helmet are torn off, and Tabitha Winshaw turns around to say: ‘You know, Michael, it’s just as I thought – these things are terribly easy, once you get the hang of them.’

Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream Merrily, merrily, merrily, menily

Life is but a dream.

‘Where’s Tadeusz, for God’s sake?’ shouts Michael.

Our goal is not the conquest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait.

‘Do you want me to show you how it’s done?’ says Tabitha.

Michael is shaking her roughly backwards and forwards.

‘Do you know how to land this thing? Just tell me that.’

‘This dial, you see,’ says Tabitha, pointing at one of the flight instruments, ‘is the Air Speed Indicator. Green for normal, yellow for caution. See here, where it says VNO? That means the normal operating limit speed.’

Indeed, for the innocents caught in this conflict, I pray for their safety.

Michael watches as the arrow on the dial starts pushing its way out of the green arc and into the yellow arc. The speed of the acceleration is making him feel sick. The arrow is now at the upper end of the yellow arc, at a point marked VNE.

‘What does that mean?’ he says.

‘Never exceed,’ cries Tabitha. She is almost jumping out of her seat with excitement.

‘For God’s sake, Tabitha, slow down. This is dangerous.’

She turns around again and says, reprovingly: ‘Flying, Michael, is
never
dangerous.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Not at all. It’s
crashing
that’s dangerous.’

And then, with a shrill, lunatic howl of laughter, she pushes the joystick forward to its fullest extent, the plane tips forward and now they plunge, hurtling downwards at unthinkable speed, and Michael is hollow, his body is an empty shell, his mouth is open and everything that was inside him has been left way behind, way up in the sky …

I’m going down, I’m going down, I’m going down.

Tonight, as our forces fight, they and their families are in our prayers. Row, row, row the boat, gently down the stream

The noise is deafening, the terrible whine of engine and air-stream, and yet above it all he can still hear Tabitha’s mad laughter: the endless, hideous laughter of the irredeemably insane …

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

No president can easily commit our sons and daughters to war.

I’m going down, I’m going down.

May God bless each and every one of them.

Going down …

This is an historic moment.

Until there comes a point …

Merrily, merrily

Comes a point where greed …

Merrily, merrily

A point where greed and madness …

And then there is the final scream of metal, the piercing laceration as sections of the fuselage start to tear themselves apart, until at once the whole plane breaks up and shoots off in a million different directions, and he is in freefall, diving, unshackled, nothing but blue sky between Michael and the earth which he can see clearly now, rising up to meet him, the coasts of continents, islands, big rivers, big surfaces of water …

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

I am no longer in pain …

Life is but a dream

I am no longer afraid …

Life is but a dream

… because there comes a point where greed and madness can no longer be told apart. This dividing line is very thin, just like a belt of film surrounding the earth’s sphere. It’s a delicate blue, and this transition from the blue to the black is very gradual and lovely.

The world could wait no longer.

THE WINSHAW LEGACY

∗

A Family Chronicle

MICHAEL OWEN

PEACOCK PRESS

Preface

by Hortensia Tonks, B.A., M.A.(Cantab.)

Signor Italo Calvino, an Italian writer held in some considerable esteem among the literary
cognoscenti,
once remarked – very beautifully, in my view – that there is nothing more poignant than a book which has been left unfinished by its author. Such fragmentary works, in the opinion of this distinguished gentleman, are like ‘the ruins of ambitious projects, that nevertheless retain traces of the splendour and meticulous care with which they were conceived’.

How appropriate, how sweetly ironic, that Sig. Calvino should have delivered himself of this lofty sentiment in the course of a series of essays which were themselves left incomplete at the time of his death! And how fitting the phrase now seems, when applied to the present volume, the truncated work of an author cut down, as it were, in his literary prime, which shows him writing at the height of his powers (and which in time, perhaps, will be recognized as his masterpiece)!

I knew Michael Owen well, and feel towards his book much as a doting parent must feel towards a favourite child, for it blossomed and took shape under my benign aegis. And so when we at the Peacock Press heard the bitter news of his death, our initial sense of shock and bereavement was succeeded by the knowledge that we could do no better justice to his memory than by sending his last work upon its way with all despatch. It is for this reason alone (despite the malicious hints which have been dropped in various quarters of the press) that we publish it so soon after the sensational events which have recently aroused keen public interest in the Winshaw family and all its doings.