Till We Meet Again (89 page)

“I can hardly wait,” Freddy muttered to herself. Maybe, if Eve took the window seat, and they held hands a lot, it wouldn’t be too bad. But they couldn’t hold hands all the way to Los Angeles. She could put her head in her mother’s lap and lie there with her eyes closed. But not all the way to Los Angeles. She could say she was airsick, but not all the way to Los Angeles. She couldn’t drink herself into a stupor, with her mother sitting next to her. There was a new drug she’d heard about that was supposed to cure every kind of anxiety. What if … “Delphine, have you ever heard of something called Miltown?” Freddy asked.

“Miltown? No, never.”

“What is Miltown, Freddy?” Eve asked.

“Some American invention. Nothing … important.”

“I didn’t expect to see the two of you till later!” Helga exclaimed as Freddy and Eve emerged from the taxi they’d taken from the airport.

“We had tailwinds, Helga,” Freddy said. “The plane was early.”

“Here, Madame de Lancel, let me help you with the bags,” Helga said, bustling about in some confusion.

“It feels good to be back,” Eve said, “but I’m bone tired. Freddy, I’m going straight upstairs to lie down. I don’t even know what day it is, much less what time.”

“When you wake up, come and find me, Mother, whatever time it is. I’ll probably be awake anyway.”

“I should certainly hope so, after the way you had your head buried under a blanket all the way home. I’ve never seen anyone sleep as long as you did. See you later, darling.”

“Helga, where’s Annie?” Freddy demanded, as soon as Eve started up the stairs.

“You just missed her, Mrs. Longbridge. She went out for a while.”

“Out? Where did she go? When will she be back?” Freddy asked impatiently.

“I’m sure she’ll be back by dark. It won’t be more than a few hours,” Helga said, sidling in the direction of the kitchen.

“Helga! Is Annie out all by herself?” Freddy inquired sharply. “What do you mean, ‘back by dark,’ you know I don’t allow her to roam around unless we know who she’s with.”

“She’s not alone, Mrs. Longbridge,” Helga answered hastily. “She’s with Mr. Hampton.”

“Did he say where they were going?”

“Not exactly.”

“Helga!
Why are you looking so guilty? What the devil is going on?”

“Oh,” Helga wailed, “it’s supposed to be a surprise. They made me promise not to tell. Annie said you’d be so proud when you came home, she wanted to do it so badly, and Mr. Hampton told me that Annie was tall enough and smart enough, oh, Mrs. Longbridge, they talked me into it, the two of them, I just didn’t have the heart to say no, not when they both got after me. Mr. Hampton … he’s … giving her flying lessons … he’s been out with her almost every afternoon since you’ve been gone … I honestly thought you wouldn’t mind, I’ve heard all the stories you told Annie about how young you were when you had your first lesson … I should have stopped them, I suppose, but Mr. Hampton is such an experienced—after all, he’s her godfather—and Annie was upset being all alone with you gone and her poor grandfather dead so suddenly—oh, Mrs. Longbridge …”

“For heaven’s sake, all right, all right, Helga, stop explaining, I understand what happened … stop crying and try to think. Where did they go?”

“Someplace called Santa Paula. Mr. Hampton said it was a good place to learn, not busy, not too big.”

“Right.” Freddy dashed up to her room two steps at a time, and threw off her travel clothes. Within minutes, still damp from a hasty shower, her hair dripping but clean after the long trip in stale air, she jumped into jeans, an old, faded blue work shirt and sneakers. She raced her car through the flats of the San Fernando Valley toward Santa Paula. All she had to do was to turn her back, and that bastard was busy corrupting her child, Freddy told herself. She’d waited till she was fifteen, for Christ’s sake, to learn to fly, but Jock Hampton was
giving
lessons—Jock, who’d never flown a training plane in his life—to a child who wasn’t even ten! What kind of a madman would do a thing like that, no matter how hard Annie begged him to teach her?

At the small, familiar airport, she rushed into the manager’s shack outside of the main building.

“Have you seen a tall blond man with a dark-haired little girl?”

“Sure did. They just took off, in a Piper Cub. They landed for something to eat and went up again.”

“Did they say when they’d be back?”

“I didn’t talk to them. Try the girl at the lunch counter. Maybe she knows.” Freddy ran out of his office and into the larger wooden building.

“You mean Jock and Annie? They had their usual, chocolate cake and milk, and took the plane up again,” the counter waitress told Freddy. “She’s a cute kid, Annie. Young for lessons, I thought, when they first showed up, but the kids around here … heck, they start younger every year, it seems to me. What’ll you have?”

“Nothing! I’ll just wait for them.”

Freddy walked outside the building and impatiently scanned the empty sky. Across the single runway there was a deep, almost dry riverbed, and on the other side of the river stood a grove of well-remembered, gray-green trees—eucalyptus, pine, oak, all California natives—singing in the wind, the trees that had stood sentinel on the day she’d made her first cross-country flight with Mac and seen the Pacific from the air for the first time. The day she’d soloed. She threw herself down on the dry grass on the edge of the runway, in the gasoline-perfumed breeze, and prepared to wait.

For half an hour she sat cross-legged in the sun of early November. It was getting dark sooner now, Freddy noticed in spite of her fuming impatience. In less than two months it
would be the shortest day of the year. On the other hand, after the depth of the winter solstice, the days would start growing longer, minute by minute, toward the summer solstice, if you wanted to look on the bright side. Considering that she’d spent the best part of the last two days in a plane cowering under a blanket, with only the fact that her mother was close at hand to keep her from falling apart with fear, Freddy saw no reason to look on the bright side. Not with her child up in a Piper Cub with a maniac.

She heard the faint drone of a small plane, and looking up with sky-wise eyes, Freddy spotted a small yellow Piper Cub, far, far away in the distance, flying steadily straight and level. Was it going on or was it going to land? She fixed it in her gaze and saw that it was getting set to enter the landing pattern, and none too snappily at that. She shook her head in disapproval. The angle of the plane was just off, nothing you didn’t see every day, at any flying field, if you looked for it, but not up to Jock’s standards. There was a slight wavering, a correction that was an overcorrection, followed by a new correction that took the angle a bit too far in the opposite direction. Jock was getting sloppy. And he’d never been sloppy. Other things, many other things, but not a sloppy pilot. Ever.

Annie was flying the plane! Freddy jumped to her feet and stood helplessly, riveted to the spot in the sudden terrified realization that her daughter was at the controls of the plane. She had nothing to wave, nothing with which to signal, no way to make Jock stop this insane experiment. Suddenly the uncertain wobbling of the plane was replaced by the smooth, gliding path of a perfect precision landing, and within a minute the Cub bled out its speed and touched down, like a large yellow butterfly lighting on a flower.

Freddy watched, motionless, as the plane taxied to a stop and the engine was shut off. The door opened and Annie climbed out carefully, Jock’s hand firmly grasping her arm until she had one foot on the ground.

“Over here, Annie!” Freddy yelled, and the tall little girl turned and flew across the grass into her arms.

“Did you see me, Mom? Did you? Did you?” she shrieked, wild with excitement, kissing Freddy’s face in twenty places.

“I saw you, all right. You—did fine, Annie.”

“Oh, Mom! I did not! I was all over the place. That’s what
Jock said. But each time I get a little better. He still won’t let me even try to land.”

“That’s … understandable.”

“He says I have a lot to learn,” Annie reported gravely. “Are you very surprised, Mommie? I wanted to do something wonderful for you because I knew how sad you were about Grandpa. It was all my idea, Mommie.” Annie turned to the plane that was parked just off the edge of the runway. “I guess Jock thinks you’re going to get mad because I made him give me lessons. It looks like he’s not coming out of the plane.”

“Why don’t you go and wait for me at the lunch counter, Annie? I’ll go say hello to Jock. We may be a while. Here’s some money. Order anything you want.”

Freddy stalked over to the Piper Cub, stepped up and thrust her head inside. Jock sat behind the right-hand wheel of the dual controls, his arms folded, staring fixedly into the distance. His stubborn jaw was set with the unmistakably defiant look of a man who knows he’s in the wrong, but is trying not to admit it.

“Get out of there!” she ordered.

“Why should I?”

“So I can tell you what I think of you!”

“That’s tempting, but no, thanks.”

Goaded beyond fear, Freddy stepped up and perched gingerly on the edge of the seat inside the sturdy little Piper.

“How could you do it, Jock, how could you be so reckless with Annie? I’d like to tear you apart with my bare hands.”

“I wasn’t reckless. I was supremely careful, believe me. Listen, Freddy, I know perfectly well that I should have phoned you in France for permission. I came over to the house to keep Annie company while you were gone, and all of a sudden I heard myself agreeing to take her up just once, and then one thing led to another … she’s such a natural, Freddy, I got drawn in against my better judgment.”

“A mere child talked you into doing something you didn’t want to do? Am I supposed to swallow that!”

“Annie can be even more persuasive than you ever were, but deep down, I guess—I really must have wanted to teach her.” Jock turned. “I’m sorry, Freddy. I’m truly sorry you’re upset, but you do know I wouldn’t let her do anything dangerous, or even risky, don’t you? Will you forgive me?”

Freddy looked him over, considering. She hadn’t laid
eyes on Jock in a year and she’d forgotten how big he was. He dwarfed the cockpit of the Piper Cub, leaning forward in his earnestness, as close to pitiful as she’d ever seen him. How could she stay angry, when he’d been so good to her mother and Annie in the last year?

“All right, Jock. I’ll forgive you. But no more lessons until she’s older. I’ll explain that to her.”

“Whatever you say.” Jock drew a deep, relieved breath. “Say, why don’t we take this little kite up, Freddy? I’ve always wanted to fly with you—you’re such a beautiful pilot.” How could he tell her that being close to her again made him feel as tentative as if he had captured a firefly, the one firefly in the world, and that if he released her now, he would never get her back?

“No.” Freddy recoiled at his words, but tried to sound normal.

“Just for a few minutes? Look, it’s the best time of the day. Come on, let’s join the sunset.” He reached over, slamming the door of the plane that she’d left open when she sat down.

“No! Jock, stop it!”

“Why not? Annie will understand when she sees us take off.”

“I can’t,” she said numbly.

“I don’t get it,” he said, seeing her turn pale, her expression desolate, pain and fear carved clearly on her face.

“I’ve … oh, damn it, Jock, I’ve lost my nerve,” Freddy blurted. “Since the accident I’ve avoided getting into a plane—I kidded myself that I just didn’t feel like it, that I wasn’t ready. Then, when I had to fly to France, I found out. It was a nightmare. I was in total panic, practically crazy with terror, and it didn’t stop, not the whole time. The sweats, claustrophobia, expecting to crash every second—I’ll never fly again, not ever. Nobody knows but you. I couldn’t tell anyone—they wouldn’t have understood. Please don’t say anything … I don’t want people to know.”

“You’re not
allowed
to lose your nerve, Freddy. Flying means too much to you. You’ve got to go up again—like a rider who’s been thrown always gets back on the horse.” He moved his hands deftly, turning the key in the ignition.

“Jock! Stop! Turn off the engine. Oh Christ, don’t take off, you bastard!” Freddy screamed at him as he quickly swung
the little plane around and headed toward the end of the empty runway.

“Just sit there and shut up! I’ve got the controls, you don’t have to do anything!” he yelled at her over the sound of the motor. “Buckle your seat belt!”

Freddy obeyed. She couldn’t jump out of a taxiing plane, and if she tried to wrestle his hands away from the controls she would surely kill them both. As the Piper sped down the runway, she squeezed her eyelids together tightly, balled up her fists, clamped her crossed arms over her breasts, jammed her chin down into her neck, shoulders raised to her ears, a frozen, contorted, blind figure with every muscle tensed for impact. When she felt the plane lift off the earth she screwed herself up even smaller, her heart about to explode in her chest.

“Breathe! You’re turning blue,” Jock shouted as the Piper gained altitude steadily. Freddy expelled the breath she’d been holding and gulped a mouthful of the fresh air that rushed into the cockpit.

“Better?” he asked.

“Take this thing down!”

“Not till you open your eyes.”

“Jock, I beg you, don’t do this to me!”

“I can’t let you do it to yourself. Open your silly eyes and stop being such a dope.”

Freddy lifted her lids a fraction. If he wouldn’t land until she opened her eyes, she had to do what he said. She peeked through her lashes at her knees, and beyond her knees at the wheel, and behind the wheel the instrument panel, and a glimpse of Jock’s hands on the other wheel.

“They’re open. Now, God damn you, land!”

“They’re open? I don’t call that open. Your eyes will be open when you can see outside. When you look around you, when you look down at the earth and see that you’re flying as high as a bird in the sky, and the world hasn’t come to an end. When First Officer Marie-Frédérique de Lancel realizes that the laws of aerodynamics haven’t been suspended on her account, then I shall consider that, to my satisfaction, her eyes are officially declared open.”