Till We Meet Again (72 page)

Did Jane, she wondered, have that problem of adjustment when she married her marquess, the adorable Humphrey,
and moved to that venerable Tudor pile in Norfolk, that exalted feudal sprawl? Never fear, not her Jane. She’d probably turned half the rooms of the castle into closets, and now that she had produced an heir to the dukedom, to the admiration of all England, and was regally pregnant again, she’d undoubtedly requisitioned a wing of her own for nurseries, nannies and worshipful attendants of all sorts. Jane had always been to the castle born. The Grange had only been her launching pad.

“Mrs. Longbridge, may I call your attention to this powder room? Exquisite fixtures, aren’t they? As I’m sure you’re aware, a hostess is judged by her powder room as well as by her guest list.”

“Why don’t we take a look at the basement?” Freddy suggested. Reluctantly he led her down a flight of tricky stairs and watched her carefully circle the furnace, giving it a number of well-placed kicks before she unbuttoned her jacket and gingerly investigated the pipes that led upstairs. “Heating system’s shot,” Freddy said. “I’m not interested, I’m afraid. Sorry about that, Mr. Lane. What’s next on your list?”

“I have a trend-setting contemporary classic. Something tells me that you’re going to love it.”

The modern house was cold and institutional, in spite of the sunlight that came in from the skylights, Freddy decided, staring pensively into the only comfy room in the house, a walk-in, cedar-lined closet. But it had acres of space. Perhaps that was what was wrong with Tony … not enough living space? Could that be even part of the reason that he’d become so … remote? When had she first noticed his growing distance, she asked herself. Had it started, without her paying much attention, during the two-year trauma of the merciless rate war with American Airlines? They’d all been so preoccupied, trying to keep aloft as they lost money month after month, to worry about nuances in personal relationships, Freddy reflected ruefully. There had been so little time to be a family, with a monster payroll to meet each Friday.

Swede had poured all his personal resources into Eagles, but the major reason they had been able to survive the first two years had been a providential contract with the Air Transport Command to fly military personnel from California to Hawaii, Guam and Honolulu. When the Civil Aeronautics Board, moving with its infernal, heart-murdering slowness, finally ended the rate war in April of 1948, Eagles was one of
the few independents still in business, out of more than two thousand such ventures that had been started by veterans after the war.

Freddy blinked, walked out of the cedar closet and toward the front door. “Onward, Mr. Lane, onward,” she said with a patient look, rustling down the long, stark corridor in her panoply of skirt and crinolines. The next house was pleasantly Colonial and unthreatening, and she walked through it paying as much attention as she could, while she sought the exact moment when it had come to her that Tony didn’t only tend bar when they got together with their pilots, but propped it up every night, even without guests, and often slid under it.

The years between 1946 and 1949 had included a struggle known as the Air-Freight Case, during which Eagles had attempted to win a CAB-certified route of its own. That last and most important battle the company faced had not been won until three months ago, in August of 1949, and of the thirteen companies that had applied for certification in 1946, only four companies besides Eagles were not bankrupt by the day of victory.

When
, Freddy wondered, just when during those long, tense years, without a penny of profits to show for all their hard work, without a dime to spend freely in spite of millions in contracts, at what precise point in those years during which they had all continued to operate by every means possible, often hiring themselves out for charter work to other established lines, had Tony’s drinking become serious? Desperate and serious beyond her understanding?

Until three months ago they had all been hanging on by their fingernails, fingertips long since gone. She couldn’t remember the first time she had been forced to realize that the only way Tony could calm down and stop raging at the CAB was by having far too many drinks. When was the first time he had stayed home, too hung over to fly or even go to the office? A year ago? Two years ago?

Nothing could change his intrinsic decency, but there was a weary accusation in his eyes now, day as well as night, that glazed over and hid his good nature and gentleman’s gallantry and sense of humor. The worst of it was that now that the fruits of their struggle had been harvested, now that a public underwriting had made all of them instant millionaires, Tony was still drinking as heavily as ever—or was he drinking more heavily now? “Drop it, Freddy, just drop it,” he’d say whenever
she tried to open the subject with him and there was something in his opaque eyes, into which memory seemed to have eaten too deeply, that silenced her.

“Well, Mrs. Longbridge, what do you think?” Hal Lane said. Freddy took off her jacket and folded it over his arm, eased her blouse up at the waist, opened a window of the Colonial house, hitched her skirts up to her knees, climbed up on top of a radiator, leaned forward and reached far outside. A few seconds later she dropped back into the room, waving a long chunk of metal gutter that had broken off into her hand.

“The whole roof’s gone,” she said. “And who knows about dry rot I can’t see? Let’s get on with it, Mr. Lane.” She took her jacket back and headed out of the house and back to the car, tucking her blouse down into her waistband as best she could.

After a short ride the Buick drew to a stop. “A gated estate, Mrs. Longbridge, recently redecorated from top to bottom. A dream property.”

“I hope so,” Freddy breathed, moving impatiently forward. It wasn’t English, that much could be said for it, but it was altogether too French. To be fair, she hadn’t told the salesman not to show her anything French, she reminded herself as she entered the house. She didn’t object to fake French with the same intensity as Tony loathed fake English.

“Regardez
that jewel of a staircase,” Lane said. “You have a daughter, don’t you, Mrs. Longbridge? Just imagine her descending that staircase as a bride. This exceptional residential property was meant for weddings.”

“Annie’s only seven,” Freddy said.

“Ah. Well, in that case, shall we proceed to the family room and wet bar?”

“A wet bar in the Petit Trianon? What next, Mr. Lane?”

“After all, this is California, Mrs. Longbridge—wet bars, family rooms, powder rooms, master suites with walk-in closets and his-and-her baths—that’s what we’re all about, aren’t we?”

“If you say so, Mr. Lane. Where’s the kitchen?” Freddy stuck her head in the ovens, inspected the refrigerator, and watched the flow of water from the sink. “Hmm. I’ll go flush a few toilets. Don’t bother to come.” She returned in three minutes. “The plumbing needs a total overhaul, Mr. Lane. I
wish they’d done that before they painted those murals in the guest john. I’m afraid we don’t have much time left.”

“Shall we just look at newly built abodes, Mrs. Longbridge?” he sniffed. “At least that would eliminate any minor construction imperfections.”

“I doubt that. Postwar building isn’t as good as prewar. They cut every corner they can.”

Freddy walked through a replica of a Bavarian hunting lodge, a Palladian villa and a Moorish fantasy, methodically checking out their vital systems, while Hal Lane silently clutched her abandoned jacket. As she climbed down and up into places he’d never seen a woman investigate, bundling the froufrou of her skirts unceremoniously under one arm, as she kicked and peered and lifted and knocked and poked and turned things on and off, she found herself strangely unable to imagine herself living with Tony and Annie and Helga, and their yet-unknown servants, in any one of these places.

Yet she had to decide on a house today, Freddy reminded herself. The rest of the week would be devoted to the interviewer and photographer from
Life
who had come out from the New York headquarters to do a major story on Eagles. They’d had a lot of publicity during their years of struggle, and they’d always welcomed it because it meant more business.

Reporters tended to concentrate on Freddy, because she was a woman in a man’s world, because of her racing trophies, her Hollywood stunt-flying background, and her Lancel birth. Could Tony be upset because she got so much publicity, Freddy asked herself, and turned the thought over in her mind only once before she dismissed it. Such pettiness wouldn’t be like him. Could he possibly be disturbed that he was now worth millions in his own right, yet he had not been able to invest any actual cash of his own? Could that technicality be bothering him? His pride had never allowed him to make total peace with the situation, but she didn’t believe that, in itself, could be responsible for his drinking.

When they’d learned of their victory, Jock had gone out and blown ten thousand bucks at poker in one game—he must have been
trying
to lose—Swede had flown to Tijuana and disappeared for a week; she had wandered into Bullock’s custom department and ordered a dozen new dresses and twenty pairs of shoes … but Tony hadn’t done anything special to celebrate except to go into the backyard and empty most of a bottle of whiskey, so preoccupied as he sat there,
sipping steadily from his glass, that even Annie hadn’t been able to get his attention.

Freddy had gone outside, poured herself a drink and dropped into a deck chair near him, stealing a glance at Tony from time to time, unnoticed by the man who was sunk in a profound sadness while he watched the long sunset of the hot August evening. The fine, long structure of his head was as noble as ever, his Britishness had not been tempered by any Californian ease, but something more basic had changed. When Freddy had first met Tony, he was the undisputed master of that crucial moment in the world’s very existence. Had it not been for the RAF and fighter pilots like Tony, there could be no question now that Hitler would have won the war. None of them had been thinking historically during that time, for they were all too caught up in surviving each day, yet Tony had been certainty itself; his was the essence of pure courage, his the joy of a warrior’s skill and dauntless domination of the skies, his the dedication to a great and dangerous duty, gladly undertaken.

But now? Something vital had gone slack, the sense of purposefulness had all but vanished, yet nothing had replaced it. He was a fighter bred who saw no adversary, a gladiator without arms, a commander with no troops. Was she just being romantic, Freddy wondered, or could he be still remembering the glory of leading his wing in combat? Had anything in his life ever lived up to the magnificent narcotic of those heroic years? He never talked about them, not even with Jock, unlike most of the dozens of wartime pilots she knew who loved nothing more than a detailed reliving of those air battles with other men who had shared their experiences.

Was he feeling nostalgic about the family he’d left behind in Kent? Even in 1949, England hadn’t recovered enough to allow its subjects to travel abroad except on business, and Tony hadn’t seen his parents or his brothers or sisters in more than three years. Or was it possible that he was brooding over his fantasy of the children they didn’t have? Freddy squirmed uneasily as she watched his expressionless face, his dulled eyes, his sunken regard, the lethargic set of his fine mouth. She had no idea what he was thinking about, and he’d had so much to drink that it was not possible to try to find out.

She wasn’t thirty yet, Freddy reminded herself, and now,
at last, with the future of Eagles secure, they could try to have that family she’d always known he wanted. Finally she could allow herself the time to have another child—even several children. For the first time since the day she had determined to preserve Mac’s flying school until his return, she wasn’t
needed
at one job or another. She could become that creature so foreign to her, a lady of leisure.

Delphine and Armand had twin boys and a third son, yet Delphine was now the leading movie star in France. Children didn’t have to mean the end of a career.

But to get pregnant you had to make love. And she and Tony had not made love in months. Many months. So many months that she didn’t dare count them. Would moving to a new house change that? Could it be the sheer overfamiliarity of their tiny, crowded bedroom that made him fall asleep so quickly every night that there wasn’t even time for a goodnight kiss that might have led to something more? Or was it just the booze? Had he met another woman during one of the many cargo flights, while one or the other of them had been away?

Somehow that just didn’t feel like the answer. Tony was
absent
, but not in a way that could make her believe that he was concentrating on someone else. Was she just being naïve? Or had she, all unknowingly, become unappealing to him in some way she couldn’t remedy? Tony had not failed to notice each of her new dresses, so feminine and romantic in their complicated, elaborate allure, and he had commented on each one of them with mild, faraway, gentle admiration that made her want to weep or hit him, for in it there was all the slow, nonviolent disintegration of their life together. She couldn’t blame his lack of interest in making love on the bell-like skirts that covered her legs down to the ankle. The problem predated the day when she could afford to buy the New Look.

If there was the smallest chance that a new house would help them grow close again, she had to grab it.

“Stop here!” Freddy said to the real-estate salesman excitedly. “At that ‘For Sale’ sign.”

He pulled to the curb. “I don’t have the listing on that house,” he protested. “We can’t go in, I’m afraid. It’s just a … house, Mrs. Longbridge, not an estate or a residence or an important property, just an ordinary … well, house … big, I grant you, but not exceptional. It does have a nice
garden, but you can see that it’s been neglected. I don’t particularly recommend this neighborhood for investment purposes. It’s still good, but not far enough west. I’m sure I can show you something far more suitable, a dwelling that’s more representative of your position in the community. This—this
house
—was built so long ago that it probably doesn’t even have a wet bar.”