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'Beautiful, isn't she?'
Faintly amused by Jason's proud parental air, Francesca ran her hand along the stiffened fabric of the lower wing of the biplane and was dutifully admiring. 'Lovely. What is it?'
'Tiger Moth—it was Dad's first plane. These things used to be the backbone of the aerial top-dressing industry in this country, before they started building planes specifically for the job, like the Fletcher there.' He jerked his head towards the corrugated iron hangar across the grassy strip of runway and the small, rather ugly plane they had inspected first residing therein. 'Of course, we don't use Gertie here on the job any more, so Dave took the hopper off. Except for the paint job this is exactly how it looked when it was built in '45.'
Like the rest of the Tarrants, David was a multi-talent—musician, aircraft mechanic, mountain-climber. Naturally he was a flyer, too; even Beth could claim that distinction. Only Florence Tarrant preferred to keep her feet on solid ground, because, she confided to Fran with a twinkle, she suffered badly from motion sickness. She seemed to understand, though, what drove the rest of the family to seek adventure wherever they could find it. 'As long as they're happy' was her serene philosophy. Without it Fran didn't think she could have survived marriage to a man who, having retired early to let his sons run his business, had taken up stunt flying and helicopter search-and-rescue work to 'keep him on his toes'.
Fran couldn't help but wonder if there was a price for that outer serenity. How did she endure the waiting?
As Jason guided Fran on a complete circuit of the little yellow and black striped biplane on the pocket-airfield, she couldn't help thinking that she was rather involved in a waiting game herself... thanks to the man sauntering along behind them, hands thrust into the pockets of his faded jeans, wire-rimmed aviator sunglasses masking his expression. Why hadn't he followed through on that promise, that threat, to become her lover? Since Sunday lunch he had surrounded them with his family, and on the rare occasions that he and Fran were alone all he seemed to want to do was talk... long, lazy, rambling conversations that were fascinating, but pointless.
They began with Ross doing most of the talking, obligingly filling in the blank years, the years of study and striving, of hardship and success, of the crises, big and small, that marked out the progression of his maturity. He even spoke, lightly and whimsically, of his search for love: 'the one area where I have a very consistent failure rate, perhaps because I was looking in all the wrong places', although, he admitted with a crocodile grin, that failure had its compensations.
'I'll bet it has,' Fran had said darkly.
'Now, Fran, you've looked, too, and you should be grateful that I'm not a virgin, after your last experience with one...'
She had blushed at his teasing. His disarming, sometimes embarrassing, but always fascinating frankness had seduced Fran into a similar honesty. She had told him about her abortive affair with the medical student, but not that it had been her first and last experience. However, the wryness with which she had described her disillusionment told him far more than she knew. It had made him certain that, however many—or few—men she had been to bed with, none of them had been lovers in the true sense of the word. She had been no closer to love than he, and the passion in her nature was still largely untapped. Fran would need her emotions engaged, as well as her senses, before she gave herself fully to any man.
Fran quite enjoyed the mutual exploration of character, except when Ross spoke with chilling passion of his exploits in competition sky-diving and his growing interest in hang-gliding and micro-lite planes. But each night she went to bed restless and unsatisfied, and amused by her own perversity. Here was a man showing an interest in her mind and all she wanted him to do was hustle her into bed!
'Ready to go up?'
'What? Oh, sure,' Francesca shook free of her indecisive thoughts. 'Which one are we going up in?' She looked back at the Fletcher and the small Cessna beside it.
'Why, this one, of course!' Jason chuckled as he patted the wooden propellor of the biplane.
Francesca blanched. 'You mean, it still flies?' Tessa and David, who had been standing to one side discussin
g invoices—Tessa did the books for this, and other small companies—grinned. Were they all in on the joke?
'Of course it does!' Jason looked mildly offended. 'This is a classic, you know. Dave will keep her flying as long as he can find parts to fit...or can jury-rig them. The RAF used to use these little babies as trainers, you know, because they're so sensitive. Put your hand out into the slipstream and you can make the thing yaw...'
'Really?' Fran didn't know what a yaw was, but it sounded dangerous.
'Waggle to you, darling,' Ross said with an aggravat-ingly kind smile of condescension. Fran glared at him. She could hardly back down now, with the other three watching expectantly. Turning coward now could cost her a tiny measure of their respect and, she realised, that mattered...
Reluctantly she allowed the two men to help her into the front cockpit.
Immediately she panicked. 'What are all these controls for? I don't have to do anything, do I?'
'Not if you don't want to, Fran,' said Jason with a straight face that didn't hide his amusement. 'I don't think you're ready to go solo yet. Ross will do the flying from behind you.'
'Ross will?' She squirmed round in the cramped seat to look at the rear cockpit. Sure enough, there was Ross, wearing an old-fashioned leather flying helmet and looking for all the world like a vintage fighter ace. Her stomach plunged. 'I thought you were taking me up!' she wailed to Jason.
'Here, put these on. It can get cold up there, even on a nice day like this.' Jason thrust a warm hand-knitted hat and scarf into her shaky fingers. 'Now sit straight and I'll do your harness up for you. Don't fuss, Fran. Truth to tell, Ross is a better flyer than Dave or I put together, it just wasn't what he wanted to do for a living...'
Francesca closed her eyes for the take-off. The plane was made of wood and wire and what felt like paper...it couldn't possibly fly! When she dared open her eyes her stomach rolled furiously at the angle of their ascent. Remembering Jason's comment about the plane's sensitivity, she sat rigidly still, white-knuckled hands clenched around the safety harness, trying to regulate the great gulps of cold air which kept slipstreaming into her mouth. Gradually, as the engine continued to drone reassuringly, and the wings stayed on, and her stomach adjusted to the sudden jolts of up and down draughts, she began to relax and look about her. After ten minutes she stopped thinking about how far down the ground was and started thinking about how artificial it looked, toy farms and clockwork animals on green-quilted squares. After another ten minutes she was actually enjoying herself and ready to admit that Ross might have done the right thing in tricking her into going up in this jaunty little plane.
She was quite sorry when she saw the corrugated arch of the hangar with 'Tarrant' painted on it in large red letters appear below them. She turned gingerly in her seat and looked back. The ace in the pilot's seat gave her a cocky thumbs-up signal which she returned with a laugh that was snatched away by the wind. Ross made some more gestures with his hand, and thinking that he meant to tell her they were going to land she smiled and nodded and turned to brace herself, excitement and fear gripping her with equal strength.
But instead of tilting down, the nose of the plane tilted up so that Francesca found herself staring straight into the muzzle of a blue sky. There was only one reason she could think of as to why they were going up rather than down, but Fran didn't believe that even Ross would do that to her.
She was wrong.
She screamed for the entire duration of the stunt. When they were upside down she closed her eyes and screamed. She screamed when the loop passed into a series of barrel rolls and the horizon spun dizzily on its axis. She screamed in fear and outrage and sheer, helpless fury. If she hadn't been too utterly terrified to move anything but her vocal chords, she would have climbed over into the rear cockpit and strangled the reckless idiot there before he could deny her the pleasure by killing them both.
The landing was an anticlimax. Francesca climbed out of the tiny torture chamber and stood still for a moment until she was sure that all her parts were in working order. Then she turned to confront the brazen, laughing confidence of the man who had almost caused her heart failure.
