plenty of other flights.
It would just be a matter of tying up a few loose ends.' Waggs glanced at his watch and said, 'I make it you've got seven minutes to do the tying, Mr Sempernel.' ‘I could have you both taken off,' said Sempernel mildly. 'Well, you could, but I'd make a lot of noise, believe me. And our solicitor's back there in the terminal and he'd make a lot of noise too. And just imagine the noise the media would make if this little lady you've had illegally locked up for half her lifetime was dragged screaming from the plane that was taking her home. Papers are all in order too. Mr Jacklin saw to that.' 'A very thorough man, your Mr Jacklin,' said Sempernel. 'That's right, but he's not perfect,' said Jay Waggs. 'I reckon he forgot to mention that little gate in the wall and the key he had to the lock.' 'We had an agreement, Mr Waggs,' said Sempernel. 'Still have,' reassured the American. 'All that's changed is that Cissy here couldn't wait to get home.' Sempernel stood in silence for a moment. Then he said, in that case all that remains is to wish you bon voyage. ' 'And you too, Mr Sempernel, wherever you're going.' He straightened up and left. Cissy said, 'Is there a problem, Jay?' 'No problem, Ciss.' He smiled.
'Good.' She knew there was a problem, would be many more. But for the moment she wanted to surrender herself to her sense of wonder at being in the bowels of this huge machine. She felt an almost sexual shudder run through her body as the jets began to roar, and the climax came when the monster did the impossible and lifted itself clear of the speeding runway into the skies. She watched the ragged coastline fall away, then they were above the clouds, and all sense of movement faded, and with it her sense of wonder too. Now they were simply sealed tight in a narrow metal-lined room. This was familiar territory. Food was served. It was good. She refused wine. She'd had a glass of champagne her first night in the cottage. It made her head swim. There were plenty of sources of confusion in this brash new world without admitting more through her mouth. OK, Cissy?' 'Fine, Jay.' She gave him the half-smile which was still the best her face muscles could manage. Men were like alcohol, to be treated with caution till you were sure that you'd got their measure. You thought you could use people, then you found they were using you. Like Daphne Bush. She saw her stretched out on the cell floor, eyes wide, seeing nothing… or seeing everything… She forced her thoughts back to Jay. For twenty-seven years the men she saw had all been defined purely in terms of function… chaplain, doctor, solicitor…
Then came Jay. He said he was kin, but that wasn't a function. Finally she had got a label on his cell. He was some kind of crusader. She knew a bit about the crusades. Alfred Duggan's novels in the prison library had stimulated an interest, and in the time capsule, an interest was something you nursed tenderly. She knew that after the crusaders achieved their aim and liberated the Holy City, their minds switched from the sacred to the profane, from divine justice to plunder and fiefdoms. Time to take a little step back to the world she'd been out of. 'Jay, who's paying for this?' She wasn't really interested but the only other thing she wanted to talk about wasn't a subject to be aired in a crowded plane. 'No need to worry about that,' he said. 'What's mine is yours till we get the big pay-off you're due.' The crusader's personal pennant breaking out alongside the red cross banner over the liberated city. 'You think the Brits will still pay the compensation they promised now we've skipped?' 'Sure they will. What are they going to say? We did a deal to keep her quiet? OK, they might drag their feet a bit now we've jumped the gun. But they know what this is worth on the open market. This is Prisoner of Chillon stuff, the Count of Monte Cristo, Doctor Manette. Your memoirs …' 'I've told you, there are no memoirs, Jay.' 'So you write them.
Or get someone else to write them. One way or another you can be rich, Ciss.' She turned her wide unblinking gaze on him. Sometimes the impression it gave was of simple candour; other times it was as blank and unrevealing as a pair of sunglasses. ‘I don't want to be rich.
Jay, I've told you that all along. All I want from you is one thing.
After that I'll settle for peace and quiet and no one bothering me.'
'Yeah? That's about the most expensive commodity on this planet.' 'You mean, I need to sell myself publicly to afford to live privately?' ‘Something like that. You can't turn back the clock, Ciss, but with the right money, you sure as hell can slow it down.' 'Who needs money?' she said. 'Prison does that for free.' She turned away from him and out of her capacious handbag she took the old Bible. For a while she sat with it open on her lap, her lips moving soundlessly as her eyes moved over the columns of words. Finally she closed the book and her eyes together and, settling back in her seat, slipped back into the time capsule with an expertise learned over long years, stepping out instantly into the memory stirred earlier as she looked out at the airport. She was coming down the steps from a BOAC Comet IV, a young woman in her early twenties, blooming with excitement as she set foot for the first time on European soil. In her arms was little Pip, still sobbing from the earpopping descent. In front of her were James Westropp and his wife, Pam, who was carrying Emily, Pip's twin, also crying lustily. There'd been some debate as to whether John, Pam's son by her first marriage, should accompany them, but it had been decided that, aged six and newly started at school, it would be unfair to uproot him till James got his next foreign posting. So he'd stayed in the care of his aunt, Pam's sister, much to Cissy's relief. She got on well with the boy, but his resentment of his step-father made him a real handful and she had problems of her own which made two bawling infants quite enough to cope with in this new land. 'This is no way for English children to greet their native land,' said Westropp as they walked across the tarmac. 'English? Come on! They're at least half American,' protested Pam. 'Of course. And that's the half that's wailing. I thought I recognized the accent.'
Often they wisecracked this way like they were in a movie comedy, but Cissy's sensitive ear detected something sharper than wit in their exchanges. In the terminal building she saw a sign dividing native sheep from alien goats and said to Pam, ‘I think I should join this line. I guess you'll be OK because you're married to an Englishman, so could you take Pip too?' 'What are you talking about, Cissy?' said her employer. You don't think James is going to hang about while some clerk decides whether you've come to steal the Crown Jewels, do you?'
Westropp was talking to a man wearing a peaked cap white enough to serve Pam's morning croissants off. He led them out of the main flow of arrivals into a palatial lounge where they were offered drinks while the brief formalities were gone through. As they prepared to move on, a voice cried, 'There you are! I wish they treated me like this. Pam, you look gorgeous. Jimmy, you look as if you've just been expelled for conduct unbecoming. Pip and Em, you are at last distinguishable one end from the other. And Cissy, the fairest nanny in the land!' And Ralph Mickledore, six foot tall, broad-shouldered, tow-headed, with an infectious laugh and more energy than any other man Cissy had met, was upon them. Each greeting was punctuated with a kiss, leaving Pam smiling, Westropp grimacing, the twins bawling, and Cissie blushing. 'What on earth are you doing here, Mick?' asked Westropp. Dark, slightly built, with a thin intelligent face and watchful eyes, he was as unlike his friend as possible. It must have been an attraction of opposites. And why not? Cissy knew all about such attractions. 'Welcoming my dearest friends home, of course, what else? I need to go back to Yorkshire tomorrow, so I thought this would be the best way to see you before you were hit by the dreaded jet-lag.' 'Now isn't that just too thoughtful of you,' said Pam.
'Here, you can carry your god-daughter for your pains.' 'No pain. Pure pleasure,' said Mickledore, taking the child. 'Welcome, young Em, to your true home. You too, Pip. And Cissy, this is your first time in God's Own Country, isn't it? That deserves another kiss. May your stay be long and happy.' Well, it had been long anyway. And at first marvellously happy, though not without its surprises. During the time she'd worked for the Westropps, she'd imagined she'd got to know them pretty well. She could have written a programme of their social life, a catalogue of their tastes in music, books and cuisine. But soon she came to realize that a true understanding of foreign fauna only comes with seeing them in their native habitat. She had assumed wealth, but it was soon clear that by the standards of many in their circle, James Westropp was rather poor. Mickledore, for instance, spent money at a rate which made her blink. But Westropp's relative poverty didn't seem to matter. His friendship was obviously a currency stronger than mere dollars. Nor was it a matter of simple English class snobbery. Among their close acquaintance were people whom even Cissy's limited knowledge of London society classified as odd. And once when she overheard James say, 'God, she's such a common little woman, isn't she?' Cissy was puzzled to discover it wasn't some nouvelle riche climber he was referring to, but one of his own relatives a couple of dozen places, not to mention a religion, nearer the throne. 'Mick'
Mickledore was proving an enigma too. After his first couple of visits to New York she had felt confident she knew him inside out. What you saw was what you got, always supposing your luck held. Now she began to realize there were depths to his character in every sense. The first time they went to stay at Mickledore Hall it was like meeting a new man. It was all a question of the way he focused his limitless energy, she decided. He wasted none of it on regrets or anticipations.
In town the pleasures and pursuits of urban life occupied him wholly so that you'd never have believed this man could be content spending long periods working his Yorkshire estate. And in the country he gave the impression of a man who would prefer walking a mile in a blizzard to strolling a few yards along Piccadilly. It wasn't
