resistance of complex curves. I’m not a bloody motor mechanic!”
“Then maybe we should fetch a motor mechanic.”
“You won’t find one in bloody Ireland. This country is still in the stone age.”
“Only because the people have been trodden down by the brutal British for so many centuries!”
He withdrew his head from the engine and stood upright. “How the hell did we get onto politics?”
“You haven’t even asked me if I’m all right.”
“I can see you’re all right.”
“You nearly killed me!”
“I saved your life.”
The man was impossible.
She looked around the horizon. About a quarter of a mile away was a line of hedge or wall that might border a road, and a little farther she could see several low thatched roofs in a cluster. Maybe she could get a car and drive to Foynes. “Where are we?” she said. “And don’t tell me you don’t know!”
He grinned. It was the second or third time he had surprised her by not being as bad-tempered as he seemed. “I think we’re a few miles outside Dublin.”
She decided she was not going to stand here and watch him fiddle with the engine. “I’m going to get help.”
He looked at her feet. “You won’t get far in those shoes.”
I’ll show him something, she thought angrily. She lifted her skirt and quickly unfastened her stockings. He stared at her, shocked, and blushed crimson. She rolled her stockings down and took them off along with her shoes. She enjoyed discomposing him. Tucking her shoes into the pockets of her coat, she said: “I shan’t be long,” and walked off in her bare feet.
When her back was turned and she was a few yards away, she permitted herself a broad grin. He had been completely nonplussed. It served him right for being so goddamn condescending.
The pleasure of having bested him soon wore off. Her feet rapidly became wet, cold and filthy dirty. The cottages were farther away than she had thought. She did not even know what she was going to do when she got there. She guessed she would try to get a ride into Dublin. Lovesey was probably right about the scarcity of motor mechanics in Ireland.
It took her twenty minutes to reach the cottages.
Behind the first house she found a small woman in clogs digging in a vegetable garden. Nancy called out: “Hello.”
The woman looked up and gave a cry of fright.
Nancy said: “There’s something wrong with my airplane.”
The woman stared at her as if she had come from outer space.
Nancy realized that she must be a somewhat unusual sight, in a cashmere coat and bare feet. Indeed, a creature from outer space would be hardly less surprising, to a peasant woman digging her garden, than a woman in an airplane. The woman reached out a tentative hand and touched Nancy’s coat. Nancy was embarrassed: the woman was treating her like a goddess.
“I’m Irish,” Nancy said, in an effort to make herself seem more human.
The woman smiled and shook her head, as if to say: You can’t fool me.
“I need a ride to Dublin,” Nancy said.
That made sense to the woman, and she spoke at last. “Oh, yes, you do!” she said. Clearly she felt that apparitions such as Nancy belonged in the big city.
Nancy was relieved to hear her use English: she had been afraid the woman might speak only Gaelic. “How far is it?”
“You could get there in an hour and a half, if you had a decent pony,” the woman said in a musical lilt.
That was no good. In two hours the Clipper was due to take off from Foynes, on the other side of the country. “Does anyone around here have an automobile?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“But the smith has a motorcycle.” She pronounced it “motorsickle.”
“That’ll do!” In Dublin she might get a car to take her to Foynes. She was not sure how far Foynes was, or how long it would take to get there, but she felt she had to try. “Where’s the smith?”
“I’ll take you.” The woman stuck her spade in the ground.
Nancy followed her around the house. The road was just a mud track, Nancy saw with a sinking heart: a motorcycle could not go much faster than a pony on such a surface.
Another snag occurred to her as they walked through the hamlet. A motorcycle would take only one passenger. She had been planning to go back to the downed plane and pick Lovesey up, if she could get a car. But only one of them could be taken on a bike—unless the owner would sell it, in which case Lovesey could drive and Nancy could ride. Then, she thought excitedly, they could drive all the way to Foynes.
They walked to the last house and approached a lean-to workshop at the side—and Nancy’s high hopes were dashed instantly; for the motorcycle was in pieces all over the earth floor, and the blacksmith was working on it. “Oh, hell,” Nancy said.
The woman spoke to the smith in Gaelic. He looked at Nancy with a trace of amusement. He was very young, with the Irish black hair and blue eyes, and he had a bushy mustache. He nodded understanding, then said to Nancy: “Where’s your airplane?”
“About half a mile away.”
“Maybe I should take a look.”
“Do you know anything about planes?” she asked skeptically.
He shrugged. “Engines are engines.”
She realized that if he could take a motorcycle to pieces he might be able to fix an airplane engine.
The smith went on: “However, it sounds to me as if I might be too late.”
Nancy frowned. Then she heard what he had noticed: the sound of an airplane. Could it be the Tiger Moth? She ran outside and looked up into the sky. Sure enough, the little yellow plane was flying low over the hamlet.
Lovesey had fixed it—and he had taken off without waiting for her!
She gazed up unbelievingly. How could he do this to her? He even had her overnight case!
The plane swooped low over the hamlet, as if to mock her. She shook her fist at it. Lovesey waved to her and then climbed away.
She watched the plane recede. The smith and the peasant woman were standing beside her. “He’s leaving without you,” the smith said.
“He’s a heartless fiend.”
“Is it your husband?”
“Certainly not!”
“Just as well, I suppose.”
Nancy felt sick. Two men had betrayed her today. Was there something wrong with her? she wondered.
She thought she might as well give up. She could not catch the Clipper now. Peter would sell the company to Nat Ridgeway, and that would the end of it.
The plane banked and turned. Lovesey was setting course for Foynes, she presumed. He would catch up with his runaway wife. Nancy hoped she would refuse to go back to him.
Unexpectedly, the plane kept on turning. When it was pointing toward the hamlet it straightened up. What was he doing now?
It came in along the line of the mud road, losing height. Why was he coming back? As the plane approached, Nancy began to wonder whether he was going to land. Was the engine faltering again?
The little plane touched down on the mud road and bounced along toward the three people outside the blacksmith’s house.
Nancy almost fainted with relief. He had come back for her!
The plane shuddered to a halt in front of her. Mervyn shouted something she could not make out.
“What?” she yelled.
