Читать книгу Girl with Wings - Jennifer Bradley - Страница 13

Chapter Seven

Narromine, September 1929

For those first few weeks, Jessica seemed to spend a lot of time cleaning pieces of engines. The garage was a drafty tin shed, icy in winter. Mr McCutcheon was a man of few words, most of which explained how the various bits worked. Jessica stared at the strange pieces of metal, held together by cogs and oil. It was hard to imagine them combining to take a pair of wings into the sky. Jessica puzzled over the shapes, feeling them, getting used to the smell, putting them together with other pieces and seeing what happened.

She wasn’t sure that she yet understood anything about them. But she did understand that flyers needed to know how engines worked, especially if they landed in the outback of Australia (or elsewhere) and had to fix an engine to fly out. There were many stories about pioneer aviators who had died where they landed and Jessica had no intention of being one of them.

The easiest part was the cleaning, even if it was messy, because it allowed Jessica to think about other things while she worked. This afternoon she was imagining herself as Bert Hinkler, the young Australian aviator whose talents were recognised in his teens. Jessica had become interested in him when he flew a little Avro Avian solo from England to Australia the previous year. When he arrived at Mascot airport in Sydney a huge crowd greeted him, singing:

“Hinkler, Hinkler, little star,

Sixteen days and here you are!”

Hinkler’s fame had begun early, when he built a glider at 14, but there was another story that interested Jessica even more. In 1912, a man called Wizard Stone was showing off a fragile flying machine called a Bleriot in towns in Queensland, where people paid money to admire its exploits.

In Bundaberg, the plane refused to start. When the disappointed watchers left, one skinny nineteen-year-old boy remained.

“I know why the plane won’t go,” he told Mr Stone, “I can fix it.” Bert had worked in a foundry and studied aviation by correspondence, but he had a practical flair that made sense of the theory.

Jessica saw herself explaining the problem to the Wizard. “It’s the carburettor,” she mouthed. “It needs cleaning, see?” She picked up a rag and demonstrated what she meant. Just as Mr Stone was praising her and saying that she was a miracle, she was interrupted.

“Jess,” Mr McCutcheon was beginning to clean his hands with a rag, “I want to leave early tonight. There’s a meeting to set up an aero club and I don’t want to miss it.”

Jessica pulled her head out of the engine, wiping a streak of oil across her cheek. “Tonight?”

“Yes, so you might as well clean up too and get an early mark.”

“Right.” Jessica grabbed a rag and began the laborious task of cleaning off all the oil and grease. The overalls kept her body clean but some always got on her face, and her hands were the worst; grimed, right into the nails. She winced as she scrubbed the first layer off, then began on the next using the special cleaning stuff Mr McCutcheon kept for engines. It dried the skin, but it was efficient. Then she used a bar of Sunlight soap and a nailbrush. It always took ages. By this time her hands were red and dry but even the nails were clean, so she lathered on a good layer of the lanolin Mr McCutcheon kept on the shelf.

While she rubbed she thought about his news. An aero club in Narromine! She wondered if she could join and hurried changing so she could get home and ask her father. “Dad, Dad,” she yelled, skidding along the hall.

Her mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “For goodness sake, am I ever going to make a lady of you?”

Jessica ignored the silly statement. “Where’s Dad?”

“Still out somewhere, I think the fourth paddock, but he’ll be in soon so you can wait. In the meantime, how about getting ready for tea, so we can start as soon as he arrives.”

“Oh, Mum.”

“Come on Jess, get a wriggle on.” On the afternoons she was at the garage, Jessica had no other chores until after dinner, when she helped with the washing up. On other days, she had to help with the gardens, weeding, watering, cutting vegetables for dinner, feeding the chooks, collecting eggs or feeding animals. Whatever she did, she had to wash and change before dinner. (Cleanliness, said her grandmother, is next to godliness. Her mother agreed and made sure Jessica and her brother and sister were scrubbed before they sat down to eat.)

Tonight she rushed, ripping off her tunic and putting on a dress, then running down the stairs, trying to button up the back as she went. She ran her fingers through her hair and went out to meet her father. He came in slowly, his limp obvious after a long day delivering bore water to the newly sprouted wheat. His eyes were tired and his face covered in dust, but Jessica saw none of that. “Dad, there’s going to be an aero club. Can I go to the meeting? Please?” Jumping up and down, she twitched with excitement.

“Oh Jess, there’s a love, just let me clean up for dinner and then we’ll talk.”

Jessica could hardly wait, even though her mother kept her occupied with bringing the dishes to the table. “Well, can I?” she repeated as soon as they sat down.

Her father ran a hand across his face and grabbed his knife. “Jess, I think it’s too late for you to be out on a school night,” he began.

“Oh Dad, it’s not, really it’s not. And I want to go. I want to join the aero club. Please? Dad, please?” She sensed her father wavering, but her mother picked up the conversation.

“Jessica, no. Not tonight. You know the rules. You don’t go out on a school night.”

“But Mum it’s really, really important.”

“Yes, I know, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t go tonight. Now eat your dinner.”

“But Mum ...”

“No Jess. Not another word until you’ve finished your plate.” Jessica could hardly concentrate. She twitched in her chair, wriggled, picked at her food until her mother became exasperated. “Jessica, enough of this please. It’s final. You are not going anywhere tonight.”

“In any case,” added Dad, “I’m going and I can tell you all about it. Your mother’s right. You shouldn’t go out on a school night and the meeting’s really far too late for you.”

“But what if I can’t join if I don’t go tonight?”

“I doubt that would happen,” Dad said considering. “I bet they’ll keep trying to get as many people as they can. There’ll be others interested who can’t go tonight. You’ll see.”

“But I really want to go.”

“No, and that’s the last word on the subject.”