Melanie Hudson - The Last Letter from Juliet

With the propeller slowed to a stop, I tore off my goggles and wool-lined leather helmet, unclipped the harness and jumped out to gather my bearings. A minute later found me jumping back into the wing’s stepping plate because a dozen or so cows approached at speed with a collective air of indignant and inquisitive over-confidence.

From my position of height, I attempted to shoo.

Shooing proved fruitless.

Help appeared almost immediately in the form of two men and a dog. They were walking towards me from the direction of the barn. The first man was wearing a long coat, his collar turned up against the wind. On closer inspection he was frowning. Definitely frowning. The second – the stockman by the looks of things – was shaking a stick in my direction. Even the dog seemed to walk with an air of peeved annoyance.

The men slapped fat sashaying backsides as they walked towards me, saying things like, ‘Get on with you,’ and ‘Away, away.’ On seeing the younger man’s face more clearly, and suffering from sudden and complete amnesia regarding the existence of Charles, my fiancé, who was waiting for me at Lanyon, I attempted to tidy my hair, which was beyond redemption. I quickly glanced down at my clothes. I was wearing a flying jacket (my father’s, far too big for me and ripped on the right sleeve) and, over thermal long-johns, men’s overalls, covered in oil, rolled up at the ankle and pulled in at the waist with a wide belt. The icing on the cake was my footwear – muddy, fur-lined flying boots.

Taking a cloth from my pocket, I gave my face and hands a quick wipe. The two men were only a few steps away now. The younger one paused out of earshot to speak to the other man, who snorted in my direction before turning tail and heading towards the barn, using a long stick to usher the cows with him.

The man approached. His expression did not soften.

‘Well, hello, there,’ I said, cheerily.

He stood there for a moment, not speaking. A kind of apoplexy seemed to have set in (this often happened to a man who found himself unexpectedly face to face with a female pilot. It was the shock, you see). I decided to wade straight in with an apology. Farmers could be ever so touchy about aircraft landing in their fields without invitation. It was best to take the wind out of their sails with a smile.

‘I’m so sorry for the …’ I glanced towards the cows. Their backsides lumbered from side to side as they began to disperse. Tails flicked with annoyance ‘… disturbance. I meant to land in front of a large house, up the way there.’ I paused to look in the direction of the house. ‘It’s the one with the four gables and twelve chimneys … or is it four chimneys and twelve gables, I can never remember …? Do you know it?’

‘Lanyon?

‘Yes.’

‘Of course. But look here …’

My bright smile and humble apology fell on blind eyes and deaf ears. He began to chide – really chide – something about the utter irresponsibility of landing an aircraft in a field full of cattle … could have killed myself, etc. etc. He went on for quite some time about all kinds of things that might possibly have happened had luck not been on my side, but I really couldn’t concentrate because he was just so damn gorgeous and to top it had a slight American twang in his accent, too, and I had a very definite soft spot for a soft American accent on a man, probably because of all the movies we watched in those days.

I was just trying to work out what an American was doing working on a Cornish farm when he stopped preaching and returned to his preoccupation of staring at me. I realised he was waiting for me to respond to his disciplinary lecture, but not knowing quite how to respond, and rather than answer and annoy him further, I simply kept quiet and ran my fingers through my tangled mop of thick hair, just as the cold wind nipped at my face and turned my nose into a dripping tap. I wiped my nose with the cloth and we stood in a kind of ‘what now?’ silence while the Tiger Moth rocked on its wheels in the wind. He was obviously going to wait it out until I spoke. There was nothing left to do but to shrug and apologise again.

‘You’re absolutely right, of course,’ I said, adding a suitably big enough sigh. ‘Landing on a cliff in a field full of cows was not my finest spot of airwomanship, but to be fair, I didn’t see the cows and if you think about it, nothing bad actually did happen so I wonder, could we start again because, you know, ’tis done now, and what else can I do but say to that I’m so very – very – sorry.’

I tried my best to look remorseful.

He took a deep breath. His eyes were cold, steady.

‘I’d say that was a perfunctory apology.’

‘Perfunctory?’ I repeated.

‘Yes, perfunctory.’

He had more.

‘You think that because you’re a beautiful woman you can do whatever you want – gallivant around, hither and thither …’

Hither and thither? An American saying ‘hither and thither’?

I let him rant on again, completely unaware of what he was saying because frankly, he could say what the hell else he liked. No person on the planet (other than my parents) had called me beautiful before – even my fiancé had never called me beautiful.

‘Listen,’ I interrupted, eventually, ‘we seem to have got off on the wrong foot.’ I turned towards the cows again who were quite a way away now. ‘You’re absolutely right in everything you say. Perhaps we could shake hands on the matter and start again – shall we?’

I removed my right flying glove and held out my hand. He hesitated, as if some kind of trickery might be involved, but then my hand was in his, being held for what seemed to be a couple of seconds ever so slightly longer than necessary, despite the chiding.

He pulled away.

Silence again, except for the whistle of the wind across the cliff tops. The void needed to be filled.

‘And hey! As a thank you, how about I take you flying this week sometime?’

He tilted his head to one side. He was suppressing a smile, I was sure of it.

‘A thank you? A thank you for what?’

I glanced towards the barn.

‘Well – and I know it’s ever so cheeky – but for allowing me to store my aircraft in your barn for the week.’

He turned to look at the barn.

‘The thing is, I can’t leave the old girl out here all week. I’m a guest at Lanyon for Christmas, you see, and I’m sure they would vouch for my good character – although it seems you’ve made a decision about that already.’ I added, with a side-eye towards the dog, who looked unconvinced. ‘I’ll pay for the inconvenience, obviously, although you’ll probably simply accuse me of throwing money at the problem …’

He braced his back against the breeze. His expression was unreadable. Was that a smile, though?

‘Which one?’ he asked, finally.

‘Which one, what?’

‘Which Lanyon are you the guest of?’

‘Er …’

Now, I know I should have said, Charles, I’m his fiancée, but the angel sitting on my right shoulder went into all-out battle with the devil on my left and the devil won. I should also have added, ‘We’re getting married this week, on Christmas Eve in fact. Do you know him?’

But I didn’t. Instead I went with …

‘Oh, I went to school with the daughter of the house. Lottie Lanyon?’

He nodded a kind of understanding.

‘The cove was the most perfect navigational landmark, what with the mounts …’ I touched my hair far too often as I spoke. ‘But the lawn at Lanyon – where I was expecting to land – was not at all suitable – trees, you see – and then there was the most terrible downdraft from the cliffs. So, it was either put down in your field or bust the old girl up in a hedge. And as I said. I didn’t notice the cows. I’m so very sorry.’