Flightsend (9 page)

'Sure, there's a map in the entrance hall.' Charlie
got quickly to her feet. 'I'll show you.'

Rowan phoned that evening. 'I'm sorry about last
night. I've tried to phone you three times already. It
wasn't a very good party, was it?'

'I'm surprised you noticed,' Charlie said.

Rowan ignored this. 'And I'm sorry about Fraser. I
mean, he
told
Russell he liked you, he really did.
I know you must think I was making it up, but I wasn't,
honestly.'

'You think I'm
disappointed
? I couldn't care less
about Fraser. He's a total nerd who killed a fox and
was more bothered about his stupid car.'

'It was awful about the fox. Dawn cried nearly all the
way home.'

'
Dawn!
' Charlie said scornfully. 'Fraser's welcome to
her.'

'I hope you don't think it was my fault,' Rowan said.
'Because I really did want you to have a good time.
There's this other party next Saturday—'

'No thanks. I'll be working.'

'Well, when will I see you? We're going to Tenerife
for a fortnight, the Monday after the sixth form days.
D'you want to come over before we go?'

She could offer to come here, Charlie thought. She
said, 'I'm a bit busy at the moment.'

'What with?' Rowan sounded curious. 'Have you
met someone, out there in the sticks?'

To Rowan,
meeting someone
meant meeting a boy.

'Of course I haven't,' Charlie said. 'Who is there to
meet? I'll see you at the leavers' do on Friday. Are you
going to the play?
A Midsummer Night's Dream?
I am, if I can get time off.'

Rowan giggled. 'Aberdeen Angus in his fairy
costume? Oh yes, I'm not missing that.'

Charlie rang off, thinking without real envy of
Rowan's Tenerife trip. Rowan's family always had a
beach holiday, never venturing far from their chosen
resort, bringing back photos of themselves by the
poolside which might as well have been taken in their
back garden. Russell was going with them this time;
otherwise Rowan would probably have refused to go.

Charlie and her mother didn't have money to spare
for going away, and anyway Kathy couldn't leave her
nursery plants at this time of year. Charlie's last
holiday had been five days with her mother and grandmother
in Scarborough last summer. Before that,
there had been trips to the Lake District with Sean
and Mum, staying in a cottage. Charlie thought of
boat trips on Coniston Water, walks on the fells, huge
meals afterwards in Ambleside or Keswick: the only
kind of holiday she knew. She thought of the names of
the fells – wonderful, evocative names. Helvellyn and
Haystacks. Cat Bells, Red Screes and Blencathra.

Moving into her bedroom at Flightsend, sorting
through her stuff, Charlie had found an old photograph
of herself and Sean on the summit of Great
Gable, taken by Mum. They were both smiling and
windblown, Sean in a green fleece, Charlie twelve and
unselfconscious, with her hair in plaits. She
remembered that day: the long, hot ascent, the worn
scree paths near the summit, herself and Mum tiring,
Sean encouraging, then the triumph of reaching the
top, and not wanting to go down. Charlie liked that
photo, and the memories that went with it, and had
pinned it to her cork board. Her mother, in and out of
the bedroom, must have noticed it there but had
never once referred to it. It might have been three
strangers who climbed Great Gable.

Charlie laid out the portraits on the kitchen table to
show Kathy, who was impressed.

'They're
very
good. Especially that one.' She
pointed to the portrait of the old man. 'I mean, I've
never seen that man but I feel as if I have. He looks as
if he's about to open his mouth and speak to me.'

'Yes, I like that one best. Mr Locke – Oliver – is a
brilliant teacher. He can always tell you just the right
thing when you're stuck.'

'I think the whole Art department is very strong,
judging by the results,' her mother said. 'What's the
name of that young woman, the head of department?
Oh – Lizzie something – Lizzie Pearson. She's
supposed to be outstandingly good. And there's that
older man, Nigel something, who's had screen-prints
exhibited at the Arts Centre.'

Charlie felt unreasonably annoyed by the implication
that anyone could be as good as Oliver Locke.
Anyway, she hadn't been talking about school. There
would be a two-week gap before Oliver next came
to Nightingales – next weekend's courses were
Butterflies and Moths of Northamptonshire, and Map-Reading
for Beginners. She was determined to have
something good to show him in a fortnight's
time, something she would do on her own. She
thought she might do some drawing on the airfield,
try to capture its atmosphere of isolation.

Kathy had completed her garden plans for
Nightingales and was due to show them to Dan and
Fay that afternoon, while Charlie looked after the
plant shop. The plans, drawn to scale on squared
paper, with a separate plant-list, looked very
professional to Charlie, but her mother was anxious.
'I've never done this before – worked properly to
scale, or planned in such detail. With my own garden,
it's all instinct and guesswork.'

'You should think about it,' Charlie told her.
'Offering a garden design service. You could put an ad
in the paper. It's the trendy thing nowadays, isn't it –
having someone design your garden?'

'Who'd take me on? I haven't got any
qualifications.'

'You could
get
some.' Charlie, who occasionally
browsed through her mother's gardening magazines,
had seen short design courses on offer, with
diplomas awarded at the end. 'It doesn't really matter
what. Just as long as you get letters after your
name.'

'I've already got letters,' her mother reminded her.
'BA. And PGCE. Post-Graduate Certificate in
Education,' she added in response to Charlie's
puzzled look.

'Well, you can use those. Pretend it stands for –
wait – Botanical Adviser. Professor of Garden
Creativity Extraordinaire.'

Kathy looked sceptical. 'Hmm. Are you taking
Caspar out?'

'Yes. Now.' Charlie cleared away her drawings.

She thought she might draw the rusted cross and
the long grasses at the foot of the tree, but although
she walked confidently to what she thought was the
place, she couldn't find it. She couldn't see the cross,
or the badger sett. Caspar was no help, more
interested in snapping at the brown butterflies that
fluttered among the grasses. It couldn't be
that
difficult; all she had to do was follow the perimeter
fence. The hot, dry weather had turned the colours all
tawny: bleached grasses, rust-coloured sorrel, yellow
hawkbit.

It was a hazy day, the air still and the sun muted
behind a thin cloud layer. Intent on pushing her way
through the brambles that clung to her jeans and
meshed her feet, she didn't notice the sound of the
aircraft until it had become a persistent drone. She
looked up, squinting into the brightness. Her heart
thumped. It was like the first time: the small aircraft
coming out of the haze, slowly but perceptibly
descending over the field. Charlie stood rooted to the
spot, staring. She wasn't exposed on the runway as
before; she felt no urge to dive for cover, more the
sense of being in a dream, of watching something that
had happened before, and seemed inevitable. The
engine noise, now a throaty roar, filled her senses.

'Caspar! Caspar!' She wanted him with her. He'd
heard the aircraft engine too, and was facing it like a
pointer, ears and tail alert. The little plane circled
overhead, and then the pilot aligned it with the main
runway. It was coming in to land.

It must be in trouble, surely! There was no control
tower here, no windsock, and the runway was hardly fit
to land on. Charlie's stomach lurched: what would she
do if it crashed in front of her? What if it burst into
flames? There was no one to help. The plane came
down slowly, looking as frail as a leaf riding the wind;
it wavered, levelled, touched down. She heard the
screech of wheels on uneven tarmac, and the aircraft
seemed to leap forward, racing along the runway. She
gripped Caspar's collar, expecting the plane to rush
on out of control, to crash in the thick hawthorn
hedge at the end.

The pilot brought it to a halt. She saw the blur of
propellers, and then the engine was turned off and
they whirred into stillness. She could read the plane's
registration letters, see that it was bigger and more
substantial than she'd imagined. With the drama over
– no crash, no spurt of flame, no horribly injured
victims requiring help – Charlie hesitated, still holding
Caspar. A door at the side of the cockpit slid open
and the pilot, a slim man, jumped down. Half expecting
a Biggles-like figure, Charlie was surprised to see
that he wasn't wearing flying overalls or goggles, just
ordinary black trousers and sweater. She had the odd
sense of switching from one kind of film – aircraft
disaster – to other scenarios all mixed together. Her
thoughts raced. Foiled terrorist? Transworld flier
makes landfall? Ghost plane returns from World War
Two mission? Or even – teenage girl abducted from
airfield?

She was near enough to the stile and the footpath
into Hog's Pond field to make a run for it if she
wanted, but curiosity made her stand and watch. The
pilot crouched, and touched the runway with both
hands – almost caressed it. Charlie had seen this done
by Popes, presidents and returning hostages – a
symbolic gesture, but here there were no journalists or
camera crews to record its significance. Just the pilot,
not knowing he was watched.

Then he stood up and walked straight towards her.

Caspar gave two sharp barks, and she heard the
growl in his throat. The man stopped, stared, as if
seeing Charlie and Caspar for the first time.
Then he raised a hand, signalling that he was
friendly.

'All right, Caspar,' Charlie said, putting her hand on
his head. He was still tensed, watching the man closely.
For the first time Charlie thought he might make a
good guard dog. No one would attack her while she
had Caspar. She hoped.

She could see now that the man was much older
than she'd thought at first – fiftyish, she thought. He
had the slim build of a younger man but his hair was
greying and his face lined.

'I'm very sorry if I startled you,' he said. He came
forward and stopped, not too close. 'I didn't expect
anyone to be here.' He spoke in an accent Charlie
couldn't instantly place.

Her nervousness released itself in a laugh that came
out too loudly. 'I didn't expect a plane to land here. I
didn't know the airfield was in use.'

The man gave a thin smile. 'Officially it is not. You
were here the other day, I think? With your dog?'

'I saw you flying over. Low over the runway. Then
you flew on. I thought you were lost.'

'No, I was not lost.'

She recognized his accent now. German. She
realized it with an illogical tingling of fear, thinking of
the place's wartime origins. She thought: I'm here,
alone, talking to a strange German pilot. On this airfield
where British pilots trained to bomb German
cities. Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden. Her mind flashed
up images of smoking rubble, of people throwing
themselves into the river Elbe to escape the flames.
She'd answered a question on Bomber Command
policy in her History exam last week. The crazy idea
came to her that this German pilot had come back for
revenge.

'Is it your own plane, then?' she asked. 'You came
here on purpose? All the way from . . . from . . .'

'From Leicester. I have flown here from a flying club
in Leicester, where I live. Yes, it is my own aircraft, the
Cessna.' Then he smiled. 'Oh, I see. You think from
my accent that I have flown all the way from Germany,
yes?'

Charlie nodded.

'I have not lived in Germany for many years,' the
man told her. 'Since a student. For a while I live here
in this village.'

Charlie was confused by the tense.
Used
to live? Or
am
living?

'And you?' the man went on. 'You live nearby?'

'In the village.' Charlie pointed. 'Lower Radbourne.
I often walk here. Why have you—'

'Why have I landed here? I am searching for
something.'

He hesitated, looking at her. Then he bent down to
Caspar, holding out a hand to be sniffed. Caspar's
demeanour changed instantly from suspicion to
pleasure; he wriggled, licking the man's hand. For the
first time, Charlie thought: I needn't be afraid.
He's a man who likes dogs and knows how to treat
them.

'Looking for—?' she prompted.

'Yes.' The man straightened. 'Looking for a cross.
When I lived in the village I used to walk on the airfield
as you do. The cross was here then.'

'The cross! That's what
I
was looking for!'

He stared. 'You have seen it?'

'Yes, last week! It's—'

Charlie remembered that she'd been unable to find
it just now. She turned to point at the perimeter fence,
and found that she was looking straight at the ash tree
that had eluded her before. That, she realized, was
where he'd been aiming, before he saw her.

'It's here,' she said. 'I found it by accident. Well,
Caspar did, really.'

'Your dog?'

He was already walking towards the tree. He knelt
on the ground by the cross, and stretched out a hand.

'Still there. I am always afraid it will be taken.
Thrown away as rubbish.'

'What's it for?' Charlie asked. 'I wondered.'

'It's a memorial to my father,' he said, not looking
at her. 'He died here, in 1943.'

'In the war.' She was looking down at his neat
parting, his dark hair with silver in it. Surely he
couldn't be old enough to remember the war.

'Yes. My father was a Luftwaffe pilot. He flew a
Junkers 88. In March 1943 he crash-landed here and
was killed. The landing gear of the Junkers was
damaged – it was impossible to make a proper landing.
The two other members of his crew baled out, but
my father did not. The aircraft burst into flames.'

He stated all this matter-of-factly, kneeling with one
hand on the cross.

'How old were you?' Charlie asked.

'I was not yet born at that time. I was born two
months later, in Hamburg.'

Charlie imagined a woman, seven months pregnant,
opening her door to receive the telegram she
must have dreaded.

'So,' said the man, 'I know my father only by my
mother's memories, and his photographs.'

'That's like me,' Charlie told him. 'I never knew my
father, either.'

'Your father was killed?'

'No. He left. When I was two he left us and went
back to Canada. I can't remember him. I know what
he looked like, from his photo. That's all.'

'That is very sad,' the man said. He touched the
cross again, with both hands, then stood up and
brushed dried earth from the knees of his trousers.
Now that he'd seen the cross, Charlie wondered if
he'd climb into his plane and fly away. She'd listened
to his story with a sense of confirmation rather than
surprise: I knew, she thought, I
knew
something had
happened here. She had the odd notion that her
discovery of the cross, her wondering, had summoned
him out of the skies. When he took off again, he and
his plane would be as insubstantial as thistledown, as a
dream. Perhaps she
was
dreaming. But she looked at
the man and saw the stitching around the crew neck
of his sweater and the check fabric of a shirt underneath.
Un-dreamlike details. His appearance was very
neat: grey-streaked hair, well-ironed trousers, black
boots, tanned hands, clean fingernails.

'Who put the cross here?' she asked. 'Did you?'

'No, I believe the cross was given by the English airmen,
the RAF staff who were based here. A tribute to
an enemy pilot who faced the same dangers they did.'

'How do you know that?'

'From the survivors, the ones who baled out. They
were captured, held as prisoners-of-war. But afterwards,
when the war was over, they came here to make
their farewells to my father, and they found the cross.
They told this to my mother.'

'So you came to find it.'

'Yes. When I came to study in Cambridge I made my
way to your village, to this airfield. The place has
haunted me ever since.' He said it unselfconsciously,
as if stating a simple fact. 'After Cambridge I work for
many years in Nottingham, but I visited here many
times. By car, then,' he added, gesturing towards the
aircraft. 'It is only later that I learn to fly, and get my
pilot's licence. And gradually I fell in love with this
village. You live here, you say, in Lower Radbourne?
Do you live in one of the old village houses, or perhaps
a modern one?'

'Ours is an old house, a cottage,' Charlie told him.
'It's called Flightsend.'

'You live at Flightsend,' the pilot said slowly, gazing
at her. 'How very strange then that I should meet you
here.'

Charlie stared at him.

'Flightsend was my home,' he said. 'It is I who
named it Flightsend. Before, it was Glebe Cottage. I'm
glad it still has the name I gave it.'

'You lived in our house?'

'Yes, it was my home until six years ago. Is it much
changed?' the man asked wistfully.