Spitfire Girls (15 page)

Now Stella had been relegated to movie-house sideshows, because the cancellation of her suspect master's tour had been compounded by her preoccupation with flying. Dance could no longer be her life. To pass her A and B licences, she had had to sit still and study, and to be a Rambert she must keep moving. Her libido had been sequestered, much to the concern of her parents, especially when tutu money had gone into a bomber jacket. Valerie Cobb had visited her flying club and when she had accompanied the MP's daughter to a pilots' gathering in Austria Valerie had warned her that this would be the last of these friendly events.

Upon Stella's return, the senior Teagues expressed their concern that she had no man in her life, but like most girls who had encountered Valerie Cobb her mind had become preoccupied with bettering her flying skills. She would set her sights on C and D licences. Grunberg fretted daily, and Stella got impatient with the ballet master. Why didn't
he
try flying?

‘Men aren't allowed in here! Get out!' shrieked an outraged ballerina.

Alec Harborne had marched into the girls' changing room in the cold, damp snake-pit that passed as a theatre.

Transformed into a pilot with the donning of her bomber
jacket and trousers, Stella laughed as Alec taunted the other dancing girls, his Scottish accent remarkably out of place amongst the well-spoken females. That they had found themselves in Aldgate East was as incongruous as Stella's tiny figure in flier's garb.

Marion Wickham faced a similar future and was still fighting daily with her parents about her expensive hobby. Flying had been an obsession ever since she had watched her uncle, a World War I ace, putting together a homemade biplane in their meagre back acre. It was not until she met Hana Bukova, the brilliant multilingual Polish pilot, on her trip to Austria, that she realized she was not the only girl to have been inspired by a mad relative. In Hana's case, it had been her own mother and when Marion had related this later to her parents Mr Wickham had taken to his bed and Mrs Wickham had taken to her garden.

All the women who had met at the last friendly fly-in on the Austro-German border were living out a dream beyond the highest hopes of their mundane contemporaries, whose ambitions were to work in a library, or an MP's office, and to marry an affluent barrister. Meeting Alec Harborne, a passionate character never destined to be called to the Bar, had given Marion a semblance of normality in the eyes of her family. Her eagerness to fly still caused arguments, but stocky, red-haired Alec would intervene and shock everyone by declaiming accurate quotations from epic poems.

‘Yesterday I took a woman to Elstree and she nearly died when I lit up after take-off,' Alec related chattily, the girl pilots in tow. ‘She spent the journey in a state of shock,
and when she asked me how long it would take to reach our destination, I shouted, “Four cigarettes.” She nearly fainted.'

Now they were on an omnibus and hatted lady shoppers were glaring.

‘I'd like to see a few of these dancing girls in the air – out of their tutus and into heavy gear.' Alec was getting louder. ‘My dream is to die with them flying right under me.'

‘Let's go find Angelique,' Marion said, as more eyes turned. ‘She's Romeo when the year ends!'

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts had been attractive to young women for many years, and this afternoon the three fliers were eager to collect from its noisy innards the fourth amongst their ranks. Angelique Florian had become the star of her RADA year, but, like Stella, had allowed her concentration to drift to aircraft. Young men had already begun to drift away inside those aircraft, leaving the great roles to be tackled by the girl players. Angelique wanted the roles,
and
the flying machines, and for the time being she was enjoying both rare commodities in a suddenly unusual world.

When the omnibus stopped alongside RADA the conductor gestured as if with contempt and the trio swept on to the pavement. Energy seemed to blast from the open door of the drama school and Angelique emerged, her dark hair framing a face best suited to a Cleopatra she would never portray.

‘Next year I'm down for Richard III,' she exulted, slapping Alec on his shoulder. Her height put him at the same level, and momentarily he lost his balance. ‘Those boys
wanted so to do it – one of them brought his parachute to use for the great toad's hump.'

‘They're better off in barracks,' sniffed Alec. ‘Now you can make theatrical history.'

‘I'm more worried about Zack and Paul,' murmured Angelique, subdued.

All four had stopped walking. Everyone knew that yet another anniversary had passed, marking the absence of Angelique's brothers. Zack and Paul had paid their uninvited visit to Spain but had not yet returned from an anti-Franco colony in France. When she had joined Valerie Cobb's group on the fly-in, Angelique had received echoes of misery from those who had fled Spain, and now she was desperately worried about her brothers. Coming back to the challenge of Perdita and Hermione had seemed a crazy exercise despite its crucial effect on her RADA results. She could see flying, and not
A Winter's Tale
, as her only way to keep sane through a war.

‘Do you remember that camerawoman we met at the fly-in?' asked Marion.

Angelique was still thinking about Spain.

‘Do you remember, Ange? She filmed the pictures we just saw at Pollock's – the newsreel that goes with Stella's dancing show.'

‘Yes, I remember her very well,' said Angelique. ‘How do you know it is her footage?'

‘Because it ain't her leg-age,' quipped Alec.

‘Haven't you heard?' asked Marion. ‘She's here, and her film's been smuggled into one of the cinema chains. Apparently she can fly, though it was a big secret.'

‘Why have I missed this?' Angelique asked irritably.

‘Marion has a private line to Beaverbrook, via my competition,' joked Alec.

‘Your competition?' Sheila and Angelique shouted in unison.

‘Valerie Cobb,' he replied.

‘What a disgusting thought.' Marion grimaced. ‘Indeed, I'm told Raine Fischtal may be staying in the country because she knows about some secret German suicide weapon they're developing over there. Anke Reitsch is to be a test pilot – she and Raine are best chums.'

All had gone quiet, and as the four aeroplane pilots reached the corner and turned off Gower Street Marion was determined to press on, having been more captivated by Raine on celluloid than in the flesh. Content was immaterial.

‘What did the newsreel show?' asked Angelique.

‘They showed old Jews being beaten to death, good books being burned, and educated men delirious because Wagner would not be interrupted at the opera house by the events outside,' Alec related.

A taxi rattled by, and as they walked along the pavement of Goodge Street the girls linked arms. His words had made them want warmth.

‘That woman gets around – what was her name? Fish Stall?' Angelique recalled the odd encounter when Raine had extolled the glories of Francisco Franco. ‘Do you think she ever took any footage of the Civil War?'

‘She might have,' Alec said, as he ushered them into his jeep. Looking at Angelique, he smiled. ‘You'll never be able to get to her now – I hear she's getting a top position with the Reich when she gets back.'

Conversation ceased, and as the unsteady vehicle passed buildings that were soon to die, the oddly dressed foursome thought about Spain and the newsreel and Valerie Cobb, wanting more than ever to take on the sky.

At Maylands Airfield and Flying Club in Essex, a dark mood had enveloped Alec Harborne. He had begun to dwell on Raine's footage and on the dawn bulletins from the wireless indicating more troubles in Austria. A Jewish youth had been blamed for the murder of a Nazi Party official and had been made a scapegoat. Now there was news of book-burnings and riots.

Alec's group had always come here for fun but now the young flying pupils were disappearing and their female instructors looking envious. Word had got around that Valerie Cobb was searching the country for ten top women pilots. Scores of RAF boys marched away from their final lessons with sparkling qualifications while their instructors – some still in their twenties, some tall, some tiny – stood in their skirts and saw the lads drift down the course runway and achieve what their sex had ordained.

In the common room Alec and his group had assembled for his usual joke prior to flying sessions. His mood had spread a cloud over them today and even the second great passion of his life, Marion Wickham, was causing him irritation.

‘Everyone knows when I'm taxiing because of my hair – orange curls keep blowing and I can't control them,' she complained.

‘Oh, for God's sake, Wick, the same thing happens to me, and I've got black hair,' snapped Angelique. ‘One of
these days I'll have to start dyeing it – my nerves are turning it grey.'

‘Shut up, shut up,' growled Alec. ‘Soon there won't be any hair dye, or any meat, or any celluloid to make films.'

A strangely grim atmosphere descended as Alec continued – it was not the subject-matter so much as the incongruity of this exuberant Glaswegian transmitting gloom that rocked the others.

‘Films will always get made,' muttered Stella. ‘What about that one by Fischtal?'

‘It was only confiscated this week – along with Fish Stall herself,' Alec replied.

‘The last time I went to Austria I was stopped from landing and I nearly crashed into a village,' Marion continued. ‘All my friends over there wanted to leave the ground and do nothing else, and now they're Nazis and they want to do everything else but leave the ground.'

Angelique smiled. ‘Those friendships are over for good. Maybe we'll get lucky and meet some of them across a gunner's target.'

‘What a frightful thing to say, you old witch!' exclaimed Stella.

A commotion stopped their chatter and the group moved en masse to the entrance of the common room. Sunlight blinded them for a moment but they could perceive a crowd of reporters and photographers gathering around what looked like a Fokker.

Alec walked on ahead of the others and plunged into the excitement.

Marion stayed behind and talked to herself:

‘It's that bloody Edith Allam again,' she murmured.

Aircraft flying in and out of the field had to take avoiding action to circumvent the huge crowd that had gathered to see the remarkable American girl who had been touted in the news stories as having flown the Atlantic and nearly crashed into the Irish Sea at gunpoint with her priceless cargo of the classified Nazi footage.

Reporters shouted and Edith fizzed with nervous energy.

‘What has happened to Miss Fischtal?' demanded a male voice.

‘Is it true the American government is after you?'

‘Have you decided to remain in England because of a love affair?'

‘Yes, she's decided to remain in England because of me!' Alec Harborne asserted.

‘I've never seen this man before in my life.' Edith had spoken for the very first time, her blue eyes boring into Alec.

‘Miss Allam, have you a husband at home?'

Edith stared at the woman reporter, and Alec walked alongside.

‘You must want to get out of here,' he said gently.

‘I can't,' she whispered. ‘The
Daily Record
is paying for my trip back, in exchange for a good story.'

‘This woman used to be a man, but he ate too much raw coconut,' Alec shouted. He turned to the American. ‘Is that a good enough story?' The raincoated, felt-hatted assembly fell silent and Alec, perspiring, took Edith's arm, forcing her to run with him to a Spartan at the far end of the field. The reporters ran after them, and the woman slipped and fell. There was a commotion, and Edith looked back anxiously.

‘I can't get into this one,' she protested. ‘They have a designated aircraft, just for me,' she pointed to a large Oxford. ‘My mission is to cross the world twice and bring my plane back filled with American and Australian pilots ready to fly in the ferry pools if war breaks out.'

‘Male or female?'

‘Female – it's a publicity stunt of some kind. From icecream sodas on a Saturday night to the prospect of talcum-powder eggs over here – those girls won't last a day.' Edith paused and poked Alec with her gloved hand. ‘What do you do on a Saturday night?'

‘He pours talcum-powder eggs all over me.' Marion was next to the Spartan, humming to herself. Angelique and Stella had left the common room with the others but were observing the proceedings from a distance.

‘This is my future in-house paramour,' growled Alec.

Marion's rage made her flush, and as the two women looked at each other Alec became lost in a sea of reporters shouting once more at the little American who had been bred on ice-cream sodas and real eggs.

‘Write to me if you don't come back, angel,' Alec urged Edith, meanwhile holding Marion's wrist tightly.

‘I have to come back. My own world won't want me any more.'

‘What do you mean by that, Miss Allam?' Reporters did sometimes listen, and on this occasion it was the muddied woman.

‘Take me to the Oxford,' Edith said, her eyes hollowing like those of Joan of Arc after the rape and before the burning.

They walked, and Alec stopped, looking back at his
fiancée. He reached for Marion. His grip was painful and she pulled away.

‘I'm not your bloody joystick,' she snapped.

They had reached the gleaming Oxford.

‘When will you be back, Miss Allam?' asked a voice.

‘You should know – you're from the
Daily Record
,' Edith replied, and with that she lifted herself into the aeroplane, Alec hoisting her bag into the empty seat. Behind her tiny figure were the two extra fuel tanks. Cameras snapped and flashes popped.