Rat Race

Chapter Five

The next day I took five jockeys and trainers from Newmarket to Newcastle races and back in the Aztec and listened to them grousing over the extra expense, and in the evening I tried out the replacement Cherokee, which flew permanently left wing down on the auto pilot, had an unserviceable fuel flow meter, and an overload somewhere on the electrical circuit.

‘It isn’t very good,’ I told Harley. ‘It’s old and noisy and it probably drinks fuel and I shouldn’t think the battery’s charging properly.’

He interrupted me. ‘It flies. And it’s cheap. And Joe will fix it. I’m taking it.’

‘Also it’s orange and white, just like the Polyplanes.’

He gave me an irritable glare. ‘I’m not blind. I know it is. And it’s not surprising, considering it used to belong to them.’

He waited for me to protest so that he could slap me down, so I didn’t. I shrugged instead. If he wanted to admit to his bitterest rivals that his standards were down to one of their third hand clapped out old buggies, that was his business.

He signed the lease on the spot and gave it to the pilot who had brought the aeroplane to take back with him on the train, and the pilot smiled a pitying smile and went off shaking his head.

The orange and white Cherokee went down to the hangar for Joe to wave his wand over, and I walked round the perimeter track to home sweet home.

One caravan, pilots’ for the use of. Larry had lived in it before me, and others before him: Harley’s taxi pilots stayed, on average, eight months, and most of them settled for the caravan because it was easiest. It stood on a dusty square of concrete which had once been the floor of a R.A.F. hut, and it was connected to the mains electricity, water and drainage which had served the long departed airmen.

As caravans go it must once have held up its head, but generations of beer drinking bachelors had left tiny teeth marks of bottle-caps along the edges of all the fitments, and circular greasy head marks on the wall above every seat. Airport dirt had clogged the brown haircord into a greyish cake, relieved here and there by darker irregular stains. Shabby pin-ups of superhuman mammalian development were stuck to the walls with sellotape, and a scatter of tern-off patches of paint showed where dozens of others had been stuck before. Tired green curtains had opened and shut on a thousand hangovers. The fly-blown mirror had stared back at a lot of disillusion, and the bed springs sagged from the weight of a bored succession of pilots with nothing to do except Honey.

I had forgotten to get anything to eat. There was half a packet of cornflakes in the kitchen and a jar of instant coffee. Neither was much use, as yesterday’s half pint of milk had gone sour in the heat. I damned it all and slouched on the two seat approximation to a sofa, and resignedly dragged out of my pocket the two letters which had lain unopened there since this morning.

One was from a television rental firm who said they confirmed that they were transferring the rental from Larry’s name to mine, as requested, and could I now be so good as to pay immediately the six weeks for which he was in arrears. The other, from Susan, said briefly that I was late with the alimony yet again.

I put down both the letters and stared unseeingly through the opposite window towards the darkening summer sky. All the empty airfield stretched away into the dusk, calm, quiet, undemanding and shadowy, everything I needed for a few repairs to the spirit. The only trouble was, the process was taking longer than I’d expected. I wondered sometimes whether I’d ever get back to where I’d once been. Maybe if you’d hashed up your life as thoroughly as I had, there was never any going back. Maybe one day soon I’d stop wanting to. Maybe one day I would accept the unsatisfactory present not as a healing period but as all there ever was going to be. That would be a pity, I thought. A pity to let the void take over for always.

I had three pounds in my pocket and sixteen in the bank, but I had finally paid all my debts. The crippling fine, the divorce, and the mountainous bills Susan had run up everywhere in a cold orgy of hatred towards me in the last weeks we were together: everything had been settled. The house had always been in her name because of the nature of my job, and she had clung on to that like a leech. She was still living in it, triumphant, collecting a quarter of everything I earned and writing sharp little letters if I didn’t pay on the nail.

I didn’t understand how love could curdle so abysmally: looking back, I still couldn’t understand. We had screamed at each other: hit each other, intending to hurt. Yet when we married at nineteen we’d been entwined in tenderness, inseparable and sunny. When it started to go wrong she said it was because I was away so much, long ten day tours to the West Indies all the time, and all she had was her job as a doctor’s secretary and the dull endless housework. In an uprush of affection and concern for her I resigned from B.O.A.C. and joined Interport instead, where I flew short-haul trips, and spent most of my nights at home. The pay was a shade less good, the prospects a lot less good, but for three months we were happier. After that there was a long period in which we both tried to make the best of it, and a last six months in which we had torn each other’s nerves and emotions to shreds.

Since then I had tried more or less deliberately not to feel anything for anybody. Not to get involved. To be private, and apart, and cold. An ice-pack after the tempest.

I hadn’t done anything to improve the caravan, to stamp anything of myself upon it. I didn’t suppose I would, because I didn’t feel the need. I didn’t want to get involved, not even with a caravan.

And certainly not with Tyderman, Goldenberg, Annie Villars and Colin Ross.

All of them except Goldenberg were on my next racing trip.

I had spent two more days in the Aztec, chauffeuring some business executives on their regular monthly visit to subsidiary factories in Germany and Luxembourg, but by Saturday Joe had tarted up the replacement Cherokee so I set off in that. The fuel meter still resolutely pointed to nought, which was slightly optimistic, but the electrical fault had been cured: no overload now on the generator. And if it still flew one wing low, at least the wing in question sparkled with a new shine. The cabin smelt of soap and air freshener, and all the ash trays were empty.

The passengers were to be collected that day at Cambridge, and although I flew into the aerodrome half an hour early, the Major was already there, waiting on a seat in a corner of the entrance hall.

I saw him before he saw me, and as I walked towards him he took the binoculars out of their case and put them on the low table beside him. The binoculars were smaller than the case suggested. In went his hand again and out came a silver and pigskin flask. The Major took a six second swig and with a visible sigh screwed the cap back into place.

I slowed down and let him get the binoculars back on top of his courage before I came to a halt beside him and said good morning.

‘Oh... Good morning,’ he said stiffly. He stood up, fastening the buckle of the case and giving it a pat as it swung into its usual facing forwards positions on his stomach. ‘All set?’

‘The others are not here yet. It’s still early.’

‘Ah. No. Of course.’ He wiped his moustache carefully with his hand and tucked his chin back into his neck. ‘No bombs today, I hope?’

He wasn’t altogether meaning to joke.

‘No bombs,’ I assured him.

He nodded, not meeting my eyes. ‘Very upsetting, last Friday. Very upsetting, you know.’ He paused. ‘Nearly didn’t come, today, when I heard that Colin... er...’ He stopped.

‘I’ll stay in the aeroplane all afternoon,’ I promised him.

The Major nodded again, sharply. ‘Had a Board of Trade fellow come to see me. Did you know that?’

‘They told me so.’

‘Been to see you too, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘They get about a bit.’

‘They’re very thorough. They’ll go a hundred miles to get a single answer to a simple question.’

He looked at me sharply. ‘Speaking from bitter experience?’

I hadn’t known there was any feeling in my voice. I said. ‘I’ve been told they do.’

He grunted. ‘Can’t think why they don’t leave it to the police.’

No such luck, I thought. There was no police force in the world as tenacious as the British Board of Trade.

Annie Villars and Colin Ross arrived together, deep in a persuasive argument that was getting nowhere.

‘Just say you’ll ride my horses whenever you can.’

‘... too many commitments.’

‘I’m not asking a great deal.’

‘There are reasons, Annie. Sorry, but no.’ He said it with an air of finality, and she looked startled and upset.

‘Good morning,’ she said to me abstractedly. ‘Morning, Rupert.’

‘Morning, Annie,’ said the Major.

Colin Ross had achieved narrow pale grey trousers and a blue open necked shirt.

‘Morning, Matt,’ he said.

The Major took a step forward, bristling like a terrier. ‘Did I hear you turning down Annie’s proposition?’

‘Yes, Major.’

‘Why?’ he asked in an aggrieved tone. ‘Our money is as good as anyone else’s, and her horses are always fit.’

‘I’m sorry, Major, but no. Just let’s leave it at that.’

The Major looked affronted and took Annie Villars off to see if the bar was open. Colin sighed and sprawled in a wooden armchair.

‘God save me,’ he said, ‘From crooks.’

I sat down too. ‘She doesn’t seem crooked to me.’

‘Who, Annie? She isn’t really. Just not one hundred per cent permanently scrupulous. No, it’s that crummy slob Goldenberg that I don’t like. She does what he says, a lot too much. I’m not taking indirect riding orders from him.’

‘Like Kenny Bayst?’ I suggested.

He looked at me sideways. ‘The word gets around, I see. Kenny reckons he’s well out of it. Well I’m not stepping in.’ He paused reflectively. ‘The Board of Trade investigator who came to see me asked if I thought there was any significance in Bayst having cried off the return trip the other day.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I didn’t. Did you?’

‘I confess I wondered, because he did go across to the aeroplane after the races, and he certainly felt murderous, but...’

‘But,’ he agreed, ‘Would Kenny Bayst be cold blooded enough to kill you and me as well?’ He shook his head. ‘Not Kenny, I wouldn’t have thought.’

‘And besides that,’ I nodded, ‘He only came to the steaming boil after he lost the three thirty, and just how would he rustle up a bomb at Haydock in a little over one hour?’

‘He would have to have arranged it in advance.’

‘That would mean that he knew he would lose the race...’

‘It’s been done,’ said Colin dryly.

There was a pause. Then I said, ‘Anyway, I think we had it with us all the time. Right from before I left base.’

He swivelled his head and considered it. ‘In that case... Larry?’

‘Would he?’

‘God knows. Sneaky fellow. Pinched Nancy’s hundred quid. But a bomb... and what was the point?’

I shook my head.

Colin said, ‘Bombs are usually either political or someone’s next of kin wanting to collect the insurance.’

‘Fanatics or family...’ I stifled the beginnings of a yawn.

‘You don’t really care, do you?’ he said.

‘Not that much.’

‘It doesn’t disturb you enough to wonder whether the bomb merchant will try again?’

‘About as much as it’s disturbing you.’

He grinned. ‘Yes... well. It would be handy to know for sure whose name was on that one. One would look so damn silly taking fiddly precautions if it was the Major who finally got clobbered. Or you.’

‘Me?’ I said in astonishment.

‘Why not?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t stand in anyone’s way to anything.’

‘Someone may think you do.’

‘Then they’re nuts.’

‘It takes a nut... a regular psycho... to put a bomb in an aeroplane...’

Tyderman and Annie Villars came back from the direction of the bar with two more people, a man and a woman.

‘Oh Christ,’ Colin said under his breath. ‘Here comes my own personal Chanter.’ He looked at me accusingly. ‘You didn’t tell me who the other passengers were.’

‘I don’t know them. Who are they? I don’t do the bookings.’

We stood up. The woman, who was in her thirties but dressed like a teenager, made a straight line for Colin and kissed him exuberantly on the cheek.

‘Colin, darling, there was a spare seat and Annie said I could come. Wasn’t that absolutely super of her?’

Colin glared at Annie who pretended not to notice.

The girl-woman had a strong upper class accent, white knee socks, a camel coloured high waisted dress, several jingling gold bracelets, streaky fair brawn long hair, a knock-you-down exotic scent and an air of expecting everyone to curl up and die for her.

She latched her arm through Colin’s so that he couldn’t disentangle without giving offence, and said with a somehow unattractive gaiety, ‘Come along everyone, let’s take the plunge. Isn’t it all just too unnerving, flying around with Colin these days.’

‘You don’t actually have to come,’ Colin said without quite disguising his wishes.

She seemed oblivious. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Too riveting. Nothing would stop me.’

She moved off towards the door, followed by the Major and Annie and the new man together, and finally by me. The new man was large and had the same air as the woman of expecting people to jump to it and smooth his path. The Major and Annie Villars were busy smoothing it, their ears bent deferentially to catch any falling crumbs of wisdom, their heads nodding in agreement over every opinion.

The two just-teenage girls I had stationed beside the locked aircraft were still on duty, retained more by the promise of Colin’s autograph than by my money. They got both, and were delighted. No one, they anxiously insisted, had even come close enough to ask what they were doing. No one could possibly have put a piece of chewing gum on to the aeroplane, let alone a bomb.

Colin, signing away, gave me a sidelong look of amusement and appreciation and said safety came cheap at the price. He was less amused to find that the affectionate lady had stationed herself in one of the rear seats and was beckoning him to come and sit beside her.

‘Who is she?’ I asked.

‘Fenella Payne-Percival. Fenella pain in the neck.’

I laughed. ‘And the man?’

‘Duke of Wessex. Annie’s got a horse running for him today.’

‘Not Rudiments again?’

He looked up in surprise from the second autograph book.

‘Yes. That’s right. Bit soon, I would have thought.’ He finished the book and gave it back. ‘Kenny Bayst isn’t riding it.’ His voice was dry.

‘You don’t say.’

The passengers had sorted themselves out so that Annie and the Duke sat in the centre seats, with the Major waiting for me to get in before him into the first two. He nodded his stiff little nod as I stepped up on to the wing, and pushed at his moustache. Less tense, slightly less rigid, than last time. The owner was along instead of Goldenberg and Kenny wasn’t there to stir things up. No coup today, I thought. No coup to go wrong.

The flight up was easy and uneventful, homing to the radio beacon on the coast at Ottringham and tracking away from it on a radial to Redcar. We landed without fuss on the racecourse and the passengers yawned and unbuckled themselves.

‘I wish every racecourse had a landing strip,’ Colin sighed. ‘It makes the whole day so much easier. I hate all those dashes from airport to course by taxi.’

The racecourses which catered for aeroplanes were in a minority, which seemed a shame considering there was room enough on most, if anyone cared enough. Harley constantly raved in frustration at having to land ten or fifteen miles away and fix up transportation for the passengers. All the conveniently placed R.A.F. airfields with superb runways who either refused to let private aircraft land at all, or shut their doors firmly at 5 p.m. weekdays and all day on Saturdays had him on the verge of tears. As also did all the airfields whose owners said they wouldn’t take the responsibility of having an aircraft land there or take off if they didn’t have a fire engine standing by, even though Harley’s own insurance didn’t require it.

‘The English are as air-minded as earth worms,’ Harley said.

On the other hand Honey had tacked a list to the office wall which started in big red letters ‘God Bless...” and continued with all the friendly and accommodating places like Kempton Park, which let you land up the five furlong straight (except during five furlong races) and R.A.F. stations like Wroughton and Leeming and Old Sarum, who really tried for you, and the airfields who could let you land when they were officially shut, and all the privately owned strips whose owners generously agreed to you using them any time you liked.

Harley’s view of Heaven was an open public landing field outside every town and a windsock and a flat four furlongs on every racecourse. It wasn’t much to ask, he said plaintively. Not in view of the dozens of enormous airfields which had been built during world war two and were now disused and wasted.

He could dream, I thought. There was never any money for such schemes, except in wars.

The passengers stretched themselves on to the grass. Fenella Payne-Percival made little up and down jumps of excitement like a small girl, the Major patted his binocular case reassuringly, Annie Villars efficiently picked up her own belongings and directed a look of melting feminine helplessness towards the Duke, Colin looked at his watch and smiled, and the Duke himself glanced interestedly around and said, ‘Nice day, what?’

A big man, he had a fine looking head with thick greying hair, eyebrows beginning to sprout, and a strong square jaw, but there wasn’t enough living stamped on his face for a man in his fifties, and I remembered what Nancy had said of him: sweet as they come, but nothing but cotton wool upstairs.

Colin said to me, ‘Are you coming into the paddock?’

I shook my head. ‘Better stay with the aeroplane, this time.’

The Duke said, ‘Won’t you need some lunch, my dear chap?’

‘It’s kind of you, sir. but I often don’t have any.’

‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘Must have my lunch.’

Annie Villars said, ‘We’ll leave soon after the last. About a quarter to five.’

‘Right,’ I agreed.

‘Doesn’t give us time for a drink, Annie,’ complained the Duke.

She swallowed her irritation. ‘Any time after that, then.’

‘I’ll be here,’ I said.

‘Oh do come on,’ said Fenella impatiently. ‘The pilot can look after himself, can’t he? Let’s get going, do. Come on, Colin darling.’ She twined her arm in his again and he all but squirmed. They moved away towards the paddock obediently, with only Colin looking back. I laughed at the desperation on his face and he stuck out his tongue.

There were three other aircraft parked in a row. One private, one from a Scottish taxi firm, and one Polyplane. All the pilots seemed to have gone in to the races, but when I climbed out half way through the afternoon to stretch my legs, I found the Polyplane pilot standing ten yards away, staring at the Cherokee with narrowed eyes and smoking a cigarette.

He was one of the two who had been at Haydock. He seemed surprised that I was there.

‘Hello,’ I said equably. Always a sucker.

He gave me the old hard stare. ‘Taking no chances today, I see.’

I ignored the sneer in his voice. ‘That’s right.’

‘We got rid of that aircraft,’ he said sarcastically nodding towards it, ‘Because we’d flown the guts out of it. It’s only suitable now for minor operators like you.’

‘It shows signs of the way you flew it,’ I agreed politely: and that deadly insult did nothing towards cooling the feud.

He compressed his lips and flicked the end of his cigarette away into the grass. A thin trickle of blue smoke arose from among the tangled green blades. I watched it without comment. He knew as well as I did that smoking near parked aircraft was incredibly foolish, and on all airfields, forbidden.

He said, ‘I’m surprised you take the risk of flying Colin Ross. If your firm are proved to be responsible for his death you’ll be out of business.’

‘He’s not dead yet.’

‘If I were him I wouldn’t risk flying any more with Derry-downs.’

‘Did he, by any chance,’ I asked, ‘Once fly with Polyplanes? Is all this sourness due to his having transferred to Derrydowns instead?’

He gave me a bitter stare. ‘No,’ he said.

I didn’t believe him. He saw that I didn’t. He turned on his heel and walked away.

Rudiments won the big race. The dim green colours streaked up the centre of the track at the last possible moment and pushed Colin on the favourite into second place. I could hear the boos all the way from the stands

An hour until the end of racing. I yawned, leaned back in my seat, and went to sleep.

A young voice saying ‘Excuse me,’ several times, woke me up. I opened my eyes. He was about ten, slightly shy, ultra well bred. Squatting down on the wing, he spoke through the open door.

‘I say, I’m sorry to wake you, but my uncle wanted me to come over and fetch you. He said you hadn’t had anything to eat all day. He thinks you ought to. And besides, he’s had a winner and he wants you to drink his health.’

‘Your uncle is remarkably kind,’ I said, ‘But I can’t leave the aeroplane.’

‘Well, actually, he thought of that. I’ve brought my father’s chauffeur over with me, and he is going to sit here for you until you come back.’ He smiled with genuine satisfaction at these arrangements.

I looked past him out of the door, and there, sure enough, was the chauffeur, all togged up in dark green with a shining peak to his cap.

‘O.K..’ I said. ‘I’ll get my jacket.’

He walked with me along the paddock, through the gate, and across to the Members’ bar.

‘Awfully nice chap, my uncle,’ he said.

‘Unusually thoughtful,’ I agreed.

‘Soft, my mother says,’ he said dispassionately. ‘He’s her brother. They don’t get along very well.’

‘What a pity.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. If they were frightfully chummy she would always be wanting to come with me when I go to stay with him. As it is, I go on my own, and we have some fantastic times, him and me. That’s how I know how super he is.’ He paused. ‘Lots of people think he’s terribly thick, I don’t know why.’ There was a shade of anxiety in his young voice. ‘He’s really awfully kind.’

I reassured him. ‘I only met him this morning, but I think he’s very nice.’

His brow cleared. ‘You do? Oh, good.’

The Duke was knee deep in cronies all armed with glasses of champagne. His nephew disappeared from my side, dived through the throng, and reappeared tugging at his uncle’s arm.

‘What?’ The kind brown eyes looked round; saw me. ‘Oh yes.’ He bent down to talk, and presently the boy came back.

‘Champagne or coffee?’

‘Coffee, please.’

‘I’ll get it for you.’

‘I’ll get it,’ I suggested.

‘No. Let me. Do let me. Uncle gave me the money.’ He marched off to the far end of the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and two rounds of smoked salmon sandwiches, and paid for them with a well crushed pound note.

‘There,’ he said triumphantly. ‘How’s that?’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Terrific. Have a sandwich.’

‘All right.’

We munched companionably.

‘I say,’ he said, ‘Look at that man over there, he looks like a ghost.’

I turned my head. Big blond man with very pale skin. Pair of clumsy crutches. Large plaster cast. Acey Jones.

Not so noisy today. Drinking beer very quietly in a far corner with a nondescript friend.

‘He fell down some steps and broke his ankle and collected a thousand pounds from an insurance policy,’ I said.

‘Golly,’ said the boy. ‘Almost worth it.’

‘He thinks so, too.’

‘Uncle has something to do with insurance. Don’t know what, though.’

‘An underwriter?’ I suggested.

‘What’s that?’

‘Someone who invests money in insurance companies, in a special sort of way.’

‘He talks about Lloyds, sometimes. Is it something to do with Lloyds?’

‘That’s right.’

He nodded and looked wistfully at the sandwiches.

‘Have another,’ I suggested.

‘They’re yours, really.’

‘Go on. I’d like you to.’

He gave me a quick bright glance and bit into number two.

‘My name’s Matthew,’ he said.

I laughed. ‘So is mine.’

‘Is it really? Do you really mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wow.’

There was a step behind me and the deep Eton-sounding voice said, ‘Is Matthew looking after you all right?’

‘Great sir, thank you,’ I said.

‘His name is Matthew too,’ said the boy.

The Duke looked from one of us to the other. ‘A couple of Matts, eh? Don’t let too many people wipe their feet on you.’

Matthew thought it a great joke but the touch of sadness in the voice was revealing. He was dimly aware that despite his ancestry and position, one or two sharper minds had wiped their feet on him.

I began to like the Duke.

‘Well done with Rudiments, sir,’ I said.

His face lit up. ‘Splendid, wasn’t it? Absolutely splendid. Nothing on earth gives me more pleasure than seeing my horses win.’

I went back to the Cherokee just before the last race and found the chauffeur safe and sound and reading Doctor Zhivago. He stretched, reported nothing doing, and ambled off.

All the same I checked the aircraft inch by inch inside and even unscrewed the panel to the aft baggage compartment so that I could see into the rear part of the fuselage, right back to the tail. Nothing there that shouldn’t be. I screwed the panel on again.

Outside the aircraft, I started in the same way. Started only: because when I was examining every hinge in the tail plane I heard a shout from the next aircraft.

I looked round curiously but without much haste.

Against that side of the Polyplane which faced away from the stands, two large men were laying into Kenny Bayst.