Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

SO IT WAS that Daniel, through the good offices of his father-in-law, found himself on a train to Birmingham, to visit the Henley premises in Doe Street. Birmingham was a city more filthy than most, on account of its many coal-fired heavy industries that added immeasurably to the smoke of domestic fires. There were days when the yellow smog was so bad that the vulnerable might drop dead in the streets, but on days when the wind blew it was a city as pleasant as any other.

Daniel liked the people at Henley, even though he found that the local accent took a great many months of getting used to, and it was utterly impossible that anyone might ever think it lovely. Henley was an up-and-coming company that produced beautiful machines and was keen on constant innovation. They had been looking for a man who could contribute on a number of fronts. In the first place they needed a safe driver who could deliver machines in pristine condition to the various dealerships around the country. In the second place they needed a man who was both bright and honest, to act as a salesman, and in the third place they needed a man who was an excellent engineer. Having spent so much time with the fitters during the Great War, when the other pilots were in the mess, there was not much that Daniel did not know about machinery. Perhaps what most persuaded Henley to employ him was his deeply respectable middle-class military accent and his astonishing war record. Fluke’s enthusiastic letter of recommendation, on the other hand, carried no weight with them at all, since it was so plainly exaggerated.

Daniel’s plan was to find a house for his family to live in, but in the meantime to go home at weekends, either by train or on the magnificent 1921 677cc motorcycle that the company had given him on permanent loan. It had a troublesome belt drive that had been superseded by chains in their other models, but Daniel loved it for its weight and the wondrous power of the JAP V-twin engine. Having dropped it once, and thinking that Rosie and Esther might like to travel with him too, he soon attached a wickerwork Swallow sidecar. He discovered that you could lean in such a way that the combination could be driven with the wheel of the sidecar off the ground, which gave him almost the same sense of reckless satisfaction he had enjoyed when split-arsing about in the air or going on a sausage strafe.

The trouble was that going home was not always a pleasure. Apart from being reunited with Esther, by far the most pleasing aspect of it was seeing Mary FitzGerald St George again. Rosie’s behaviour puzzled and exasperated him. Sometimes she treated him as a pal, though sometimes she was genuinely affectionate, and even playful. Her mother continued to provoke him.

He found himself humble lodgings in the home of an elderly Irish woman. There was one cold tap in the kitchen, and the thunderbox was out in the yard, next to the coal-hole, so he very soon acquired a chamber pot and emptied it out when his landlady was not at home. In his room he had a tiny coal fire, and everything in the house was clean but worn to rags and tatters. He took adequate lunches at a cheap local hotel, and ate nothing in the evenings, until Mrs Burke noticed, and made him eat with her. She subsisted on braised ox liver, colcannon and potatoes cooked in three different ways, all on the same plate.

Daniel’s reasoning was that the money he saved could be used to support Rosie, and to save for a house locally. They were cheap, and many of the surrounding villages were sweet and picturesque.

1

The Grampians

Gaskell Old Thing, Beloved Green-Eyed Monster, etc. etc.,

I have foolishly gone and bought three machines for next to nothing from the Aircraft Disposal Board, which I have to collect eftsoons from Farnborough. They are an Avro 504 trainer, with dual controls, a Snipe and a Pup. I couldn’t bear to be without a bus or two.

The trouble is, I have nowhere to put them. Do you have any empty barns on your family estate that are visibly yearning to house some heavier-than-air machines? I would be most rippingly pleased if you did. I could collect them when I have a more certain notion of what the future holds. I trust you have decent fields to land in.

Yours fondly and irresponsibly, and love to the ever-radiant Christabel,

Daniel P.

PS Can I come shooting again one day? Not that I want to pot any poor feathered friends myself, because I am a far better shot with an aeroplane than I will ever be with a gun, but because I want to witness once again your extraordinary ruthlessness and proficiency in batting them out of the sky.

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Our Lamentable and Disgusting Hovel in Chelsea

Dear Daniel, Irresponsible and Feckless,

All is arranged. A barn is cleared out, and the adjacent field will be mown and rolled, given due notice. But when will you ever be able to get up there to look after them and fly them? Don’t you have any landed and moneyed friends nearer by? I mean, apart from me? Won’t they fall into decay? What about fitters and riggers?

And the condition is that you teach me to fly. I am certain there are many aviation records for women that have not yet been attained. First to fly upside down to Austria? First to loop the loop twelve times with both legs down the same trouser?

No deal otherwise.

Affectionately,

Gaskell the GEM (Green-Eyed Monster)

PS Have just done my enormous painting of a decomposing horse. I am sure you’ll adore it. You can positively smell the rot.

PPS Christabel’s photographic The War at Home exhibition has gone frightfully well, and she has made pots of money. Well, one pot.

PPPS Does Rosie know about your latest folly? What is it worth not to tell her?

ROSIE RECEIVED A telegram which said simply ‘MR PITT VERY ILL STOP COME QUICK STOP MARY BURKE STOP’.

During her frequent fits of doubt and guilt, it had occurred to Rosie many times that life would be easier if Daniel were to disappear or die. Whenever these thoughts occurred to her, she was revolted by them and shut them off, knowing that they were unchristian, horrible and wrong, and during the times when she felt that she genuinely loved him, she had thoughts that were quite the opposite. It was then difficult to conceive how she might live without him. She havered between the extremes offered to her by the ambiguity of her feelings. Half of the time she looked forward to moving up to Warwickshire, but the thought of it also induced a kind of panic, because she loved to be in Eltham in the house where she had grown up, and most of all, she loved being with her father, about whom she worried constantly.

Now that Daniel was very ill she felt the same horror as she had experienced when she realised that Ash had been wounded the day after she had failed to pray for him. She flew into a frenzy of activity. She asked her mother to look after Esther until she returned, and told Mr Wragge to prepare the AC so that he could take her directly to Euston Station.

Hamilton McCosh had recently found Mr Wragge with the engine of the motor mower in pieces, decoking it, and had discovered that he was a formidable mechanic, as a result of which he had been bought a smart grey uniform and cap, and, along with a rise in wages, been appointed the family chauffeur. Mr Wragge had erected a wooden garage in the place at the side of the house where people used to tether their horses, and still did if the AC happened to be out. From the iron hooks set into the walls to hold cages of hay, there was now suspended a collection of inner tubes. Mr Wragge was delighted with his extra job, and almost entirely gave up sleeping with the cat on his chest in the wheelbarrow under the conservatory when there was little to do in the garden. Instead, he went and polished the AC.