William Boyd - The Blue Afternoon

'Beautiful scar,' he said automatically, without thinking.

'Not the word I would choose,' she said.

'It'll fade with time. In a year or two you'll hardly notice it.'

Nurse Aslinger replaced the dressing while he routinely prohibited over-exertion, sudden movements, horseback riding.

'Oh, I have something for you,' she said and reached into the drawer of the bedside table and held out a book for him. He took it: East Angels by Constance Fenimore Woolson. He opened the cover and saw her name written boldly in violet ink on the flyleaf: 'For Delphine Blythe with affection, Fenimore'. Another hand had added 'Sieverance' after 'Blythe'.

'Delphine Blythe Sieverance,' he said. 'That has a fine ring to it. Thank you.'

'You must tell me what you think.'

There was a knock on the door and Sieverance re-entered, his face alight, unusually full of invigoration.

'Mrs Sieverance is making excellent progress,' Carriscant said, with jovial formality like a doctor in a bad play, slipping the book into his coat pocket. 'We are very pleased with her.'

'Then this is the perfect occasion to express our gratitude.'

'Really, there's no further need – ' Carriscant began but then stopped when he saw that Sieverance had closed his eyes and had raised his beaming face heavenwards. He took his wife's hand and then, to Carriscant's profound alarm, his.

'Please join hands before the Lord,' he said to Carriscant and Nurse Aslinger, who promptly slipped her hand into Carriscant's. 'And please kneel with me.'

Carriscant found himself being drawn down into a kneeling position at the foot of Delphine's bed. Sieverance's face was frowningly beatific, at once stern and devout, while Nurse Aslinger's head was piously bowed, revealing a nasty heat rash on her nape.

'O Lord above,' Sieverance intoned in a low, intense voice, 'grant us this day thy blessing and receive our thanks for thy blessed powers of healing visited upon our beloved Delphine.'

'Amen,' said Nurse Aslinger.

'And we thank thee, O Lord of hosts most high, for the dedication and skill thou hast bestowed on thy servant Salvador Carriscant. We thank thee, O Lord our God, for leading us into this man's care-'

Carriscant's ears closed as more gratitude was delivered up to the Almighty. He felt his cheeks and ears glow with a form of pure embarrassment he had not endured since he was a child. Nurse Aslinger's hand was hot and moist, Sieverance's was bony, its grip unnecessarily firm. He gazed at the needlepoint rug (puce roses on an oatmeal background) on which he knelt and concentrated on the dull ache that was beginning to spread through his left knee joint. But something made him slowly raise his eyes: Delphine was looking directly at him and her lips moved as she mouthed one word at him – 'Sorry.' They were conspirators again, anew, and he felt himself begin the sudden headlong slide once more.

The prayer of thanks lasted almost five minutes and after it was over Sieverance's exhilaration was almost insupportable. Carriscant made a brief farewell to Delphine and went through with Sieverance to the sitting room where his host insisted he stay and have a glass of lemonade.

Carriscant took small rapid sips, keeping the glass to his mouth.

'As a military man, you know,' Sieverance said, dabbing at his poor fair moustache with a knuckle, 'we don't often give much thought to divine providence.'

'I suppose not,' Carriscant said, aimlessly, not understanding where the conversation was headed. Not caring. This lemonade is really not too bad.

'It takes an occasion like this to make one realise just how fortunate one has been.'

'I suppose so.'

'I mean what if, what if Delphine had fallen ill next week instead of before Christmas? Lord knows what would have happened.' He shuddered, upset by this vision of a hypothetical future. 'It doesn't bear thinking about.'

'I'm afraid I don't follow.'

'Didn't I tell you?'

'Ah, no.'

'My regiment is being posted to Mindanao. Off to fight the wretched Moros. We leave next week.'

Pantaleon Quiroga cranked the handle on the front of the Flanquin and the engine fired into life. The Aero-mobile shuddered and quivered, as if suddenly animate. The chain drives to the propeller mountings hummed and clattered on their sprocketed wheels. Carriscant and Pantaleon stepped back and looked on in a moment of amazement before Pantaleon beckoned Carriscant round the thrumming machine to where the spinning bosses of the pushing propellers (yet to be mounted) were fixed. Carriscant rested his hand gently on a panel of stretched and doped silk and felt the powerful vibrations travel up his arm. For the first time he sensed that Pantaleon's dream was not a deluded fantasy after all, the fellow might actually be on to something.

'Two propellers pushing,' Pantaleon shouted, twirling his fingers in illustration. 'But I'm a little concerned about the allowances I made for the fuel tank and the radiator. They were heavier than I thought.'

'Is that bad?'

'We're getting close to the maximum weight if my calculations are right. Very close.'

Pantaleon walked forward and slung a long leg over the forward of the two bicycle saddles mounted above the four-wheeled carriage the machine rested on. He reached over and adjusted the throttle control on the engine and the noise slackened as the motor idled. He listened to it for a moment, his head cocked, and then switched it off.

Carriscant peered over his shoulder at the two wooden levers that were mounted in front of him and the pedal controls that were operated by his feet. Above his shoulders were two other levers sticking forward, like handles on a wheelbarrow, from the leading edge of the upper wing.

Pantaleon saw him looking and explained. 'The whole front edge is hinged,' he said, gripping the handles and demonstrating. True enough, he could move a front flap of wing up and down through an angle of forty-five degrees. 'On leaving the ground it is pushed up to the full extent to provide maximum lift. Once we are in the air I can pull it down to reduce resistance, or up if we need to be more… ' he searched for a word, '… buoyant.' Carriscant had a sudden perception of a vocabulary adapting itself, creating itself. Like medicine and surgery, new discoveries enriched the language-germ, appendix, bacillus, phagocyte, micro-organism…

'I call it the "air-catcher",' he said. 'I've applied for a patent. If it works, who knows? I might-'

'If it works? My dear Panta, you can't possibly take such a risk.'

'On the gliding models it seems fine. But once we're up with a machine of this weight… ' He turned and pointed to the second bicycle saddle behind him, with its own set of levers. 'That's why I've reproduced the tail-warping mechanism here.'

'You don't mean to tell me you're going to move seats in mid – ' he was about to say 'journey' but it seemed wrong, ' – while the machine is in the air? In its aerial trip?'

'No, no. My fellow-flyer – my co-flyer, indeed – will be controlling the warping while I deal with the elevators,' he pointed to his foot controls, 'and the air-catcher.'

'I see. I suppose it makes sense.' Carriscant frowned: he had grown used to the Aero-mobile by now, with its fragile, translucent ugliness, but these controls seemed unnecessarily complex. Surely there must be a simpler way? All these moving surfaces – warping, elevating, catching -all these levers, struts and wires. When you saw a bird fly it seemed… He stopped. Pantaleon was looking fixedly at him, his eyes wide, strange.

'What is it?' Carriscant said.

'I was wondering, Salvador, if you'd do me the honour.'

'Of what?'

'Of joining me on this historic flight.'