فصل 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A matter of practice

For the next four days, apart from taking the children to and from school, Francesca didn’t leave the house. She simply didn’t feel safe. Saying she had a bad headache, she even cancelled her next flying lesson on Thursday afternoon. At the weekend Tom invited her out twice, but she refused both times. She sat miserably in her room, unable to concentrate on anything and trying not to go to the window to look out.

By Monday morning she’d almost made a final decision to go back to Switzerland - one hundred percent definitely this time. How her relationship with Tom could survive after that she couldn’t imagine. Whatever the case, she decided to ring Flying Start that morning and cancel her lesson the next day.

Listening to the number ring, she half hoped somebody other than Tom would answer, but of course it was him.

‘Hello,’ he said brightly. ‘Flying Start.’

‘Tom,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s Francesca. Tom,’ she went on before he could say anything, ‘I’m just ringing to say I still don’t think I’m well enough for tomorrow’s lesson.’

Tom’s voice dropped immediately. ‘Oh no, poor you! Really? Is your headache still bad?’

Francesca felt like a complete fraud. She knew she had to talk to him. She was about to say something when Tom interrupted.

‘I was so much hoping you’d be OK - and I heard a bit of news this morning that I thought would interest you.’

‘What?’ Francesca asked.

‘Fastwings has gone out of business,’ Tom said.

Francesca wasn’t sure she understood. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I mean Doug’s finished, that’s what I mean,’ Tom replied. ‘Apparently there’s a notice on his office door this morning saying “Fastwings regrets to announce that, with immediate effect, it has stopped trading”. What’s more, I’ve heard his Cessna is up for sale on the Internet.’

Tom finally came to the end of his speech. All the while he’d been speaking Francesca had been trying to absorb the news and what it meant for her. Did it mean there was a chance she would be able to continue with her flying lessons? Did it mean she could stay in England after all?

‘Francesca? Are you still there?’ Tom asked.

‘Yes… yes, of course,’ Francesca answered. ‘But I was just thinking… I suppose that means Doug won’t be up at the airfield any more.’

‘I can’t see why he should be,’ Tom replied. Anyway, apparently he’s left Norwich and run off up north. But you won’t be sorry about that, will you?’

‘No, no I won’t,’ Francesca answered. It seemed to her as if ice was melting around her. For days her body had felt frozen. Now the sun had come out again; there was life!

‘Anyway,’ Tom went on, ‘Thank God you got out in time. I mean, if you were still having lessons with him, you might have lost all your money.’

‘Really?’ Francesca said.

‘Yes, sure. You could have lost the lot!’ Tom continued. ‘Come to think of it, I guess losing your business can’t have helped him much.’

‘Yes,’ Francesca answered. She’d been thinking the same herself; perhaps that was why he seemed to hate her so much.

‘Anyway,’ Tom said, breaking into her thoughts. Are you sure you won’t be well enough for the lesson tomorrow?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘Your headache,’ Tom said, sounding a little confused.

‘Oh, that,’ Francesca answered, even more ashamed now about her excuse. ‘On second thoughts, perhaps it would do it good if I got out for a while.’

‘Brilliant,’ Tom said. ‘In that case, is there any chance I could see you tonight?’

Francesca felt a smile breaking out on her face. ‘All right, I don’t see why not,’ she said happily. ‘That would be great.’

The next afternoon, Francesca was 3000 feet above the East Anglian fields, flying with George again. They’d been practising advanced turns, first putting the aircraft into a tight 43-degree turn, and then even tighter, so that the plane was over on its side at 60 degrees or more. Francesca’s head was spinning. Pulling back on the control column and holding the nose level on the horizon had made her feel quite dizzy.

Francesca was feeling a little dizzy too with everything that was happening in the rest of her life. Knowing that Doug wasn’t in Norwich any more, meant life could return to normal. She was still afraid though that it might all be a dream and she would turn a corner and find the grey Audi waiting there. But no one had seen any sign of Doug at the airfield and she began to believe it at last.

And then there was Tom. In the few days since his phone call, things had become much more serious in their relationship. Perhaps the thought of returning to Switzerland and breaking up with him had concentrated her mind. Whatever it was, Francesca had come to see very clearly that she wasn’t just fond of Tom. She was most definitely in love.

‘I think it’s about time we did a PFL,’ George said, interrupting her thoughts.

‘What’s that?’ Francesca asked.

‘A PFL?’ George replied. ‘A PFL is a practice forced landing - a bit like we did last time - engine failure, but this time from higher up. I pull out the throttle, you choose a field in which to land, then we can glide down doing all the engine checks and emergency calls.’

‘And do we actually land?’ Francesca asked.

‘Not unless you want to pay the farmer for damage to his field,’ George said, smiling. ‘But we do go down to about 200 feet - low enough to see if we’d survive the landing.’

‘Sounds fun,’ Francesca answered, who was growing in confidence with each flying-hour that passed.

They flew on for a couple of minutes, then George reached forward slowly and pulled out the throttle. Instantly, the engine noise died and Francesca felt the plane slow.

‘You have engine failure, Ms Bartolli,’ George said quietly.

This time Francesca reacted quickly. Pushing the control column forward, she put the aircraft into a gentle glide and felt the speed pick up again.

‘Good,’ George said calmly. ‘Now, where are you going to land?’

Francesca looked down to the ground far below. There was a wood away to the left, then, nearer to the plane, a series of fields. The biggest was a large brown one, just below the nose.

‘That one,’ Francesca replied, pointing with her free hand.

‘Mmm, I find ploughed fields a bit bumpy to land on,’ George said quietly. ‘Don’t you think a grassy one would be better?’

Francesca immediately felt foolish. Brown meant ploughed; green meant grass. She couldn’t believe she had made such a basic mistake.

‘Come on, make a decision quickly,’ George said cheerfully. ‘You’ve already lost 300 feet in height.’

Francesca looked down in desperation. Almost directly below there was a long thin green field.

‘That one, then!’ she said, pointing again.

George glanced down. ‘Your decision,’ he said. ‘Now, you need to land into the wind. Which way is the wind blowing?’

Francesca panicked. ‘I can’t remember,’ she said.

‘Well, look for some smoke!’ George called.

Francesca searched the sky. Far away to the right she spotted the chimney of a factory. The smoke was blowing towards them. That meant, to land in the field below, Francesca had to fly round in a circle. Still disturbed by her mistake, she began to turn.

‘2300 feet,’ George said. ‘Right, don’t forget your emergency calls!’

Francesca’s mind went blank. She couldn’t remember a word of what she’d learnt. The panicky feeling in her chest got worse. The plane was sinking fast.

‘I can’t remember,’ she said.

George reminded her. ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday,’ he said. ‘And don’t forget this is only a practice, so don’t press the radio button!’

Francesca swallowed hard. ‘Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!’ she called, then came to a stop. What was she meant to say next? She remembered she had to say the details of the plane and half a dozen other things, but everything became confused in her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said, hopelessly.

‘All right, forget the calls,’ George said, trying to calm her. ‘It’s more important to land the plane safely. You’re down to 1500 feet. You’ll have to do a tight turn or you won’t make it to the field.’

Francesca tried to concentrate, but now everything seemed to be going wrong. Unconsciously, she’d been pulling back on the control column, so the plane was flying dangerously slowly.

All of a sudden the stall-warning alarm sounded. Francesca froze.

This time, George didn’t wait. ‘All right, I have control,’ he said. At once he reached for his control column and pushed it forward, at the same time increasing the power.

The plane picked up speed immediately and after a few moments George took it into a steady climb.

Francesca felt herself going red. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was terrible, wasn’t it?’

George gave a tiny nod of the head. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Everyone makes a mess of it the first time.’ Then he looked across and smiled. ‘Besides, in forty years of flying I haven’t had an engine failure once.’