Girl with Wings. Jennifer Bradley

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СКАЧАТЬ it again. A few throbs, then a constant hum as the little plane began to circle and then to lift.

      Jessica swallowed and began to breathe properly, heart slowing and hands relaxing. She sighed loudly, watching the machine climb higher and higher, the engine sounding exactly as a healthy one should. But she could not leave yet. She had to know that it would continue to fly, that the engine would not again cough and splutter or stop dead. After circling for a few minutes, the plane flew lower and Jessica saw that it was going to land. She waited until it was taxiing down the airstrip, then got on her bike and peddled off to school. She was only fifteen minutes late, but that was as bad as an hour. Or wagging school altogether. She had no excuse — or not one the school would understand — and no note from home.

      Jessica stood outside the head’s office for the rest of the morning. Everyone who walked past looked at her and she could see them wondering what she had done. She was very tempted to poke her tongue out, but that would only make matters worse. She knew she would not get the cane — only boys were hit with that. After a while she decided she did not really care what they did to her. Her mother might care, she supposed, and the rest of her family, but she had something far more important to think about.

      The headmaster called her in to stand in front of his desk. Jessica kept her eye on the painting on the wall behind his head as he lectured her and she kept her face as straight as she could manage. She really wanted to laugh. Fancy! She had only just realised that she wanted to be a pilot. How daft! Her Dad had taken her to watch the planes since she was a babe in arms. She had a photo of herself in her pram, with Dad beside her and behind them a Vickers Vimy, piloted by Sir Ross Smith that had landed at Narromine in 1920 soon after she was born.

      She had no memory of this, but her father talked about it often. He had known Ross Smith in the desert during the war and had followed his career ever since. He had cheered him and his brother on to win the 1919 England to Australia air race. A few months later, she was there in her pram, when Charles Kingsford Smith landed as part of a barnstorming tour.

      She did remember later visits to the airstrip, meeting airplanes of various kinds, piloted by men whose names had become household words in Australia. She had yet to see any of the women pilots who were becoming famous in England and America, but she knew that about 15 Australian women now had their pilot’s licence. She even knew the name of the first Australian woman to get her licence, Millicent Bryant.

      So, there was no reason why Jessica Mackay, of Argyle Station, Narromine, should not also become a pilot. She kept her delight inside as the headmaster lectured her and then she accepted a detention stoically. She did not care if she had to write lines, 500 of them: “I must not be late for school.” While she wrote, her mind would soar up into the clouds.

      Chapter Three

       Narromine 1929

      Jessica decided that Sunday lunch would be the right time to tell the family of her decision. That way, she would only have to tell them once. Every Sunday, her mother cooked a family dinner. They arrived after church, her grandparents, Auntie Velia and cousin Charles, all hungry. Jessica always set the table before church, making sure that the knives faced the right way, the serviettes were folded properly, and placed on the side plates. She set crystal water glasses on the right and ensured that matching salt and peppershakers were at both ends.

      She quite liked this task, enjoying the crisp linen and shining crystal. In any case, it was a lot better than most of the other household chores girls were supposed to learn. Other days they didn’t go to all this trouble, but Sunday lunch was the day Grandfather tested how well her mother was looking after the homestead, the day everyone always felt as though they were “on approval”. (That phrase was a deliberate usage, pinched from my own family and in common usage in the first half of the 20th C in both Sydney and country towns, where things were ordered from big shops and sent back if wrong. My own ­grandfather never quite accepted any of his sons or daughters in law, who always felt they were, as the local saying went “on appro”.) At least, that was how her father described it. Jessica had lived in the homestead since she was a baby, when her grandparents moved to the smaller house they called The Lodge. Although it felt like home, on Sundays she was aware that it was not as simple as that. Her mother had been heard to mutter that it was like having the landlord come to inspect. While her grandfather lived, he was the owner of the whole property, including their house.

      Jessica’s father was placed at one end of the table and her grandfather at the other. As her mother said, that way, he could appear to be head of the household. Her grandmother sat at her father’s right hand, her mother at Grandfather’s and she placed the others in between. Mum would arrange some flowers and by the time everyone sat down, the table would be a picture, with its cream damask cloth and matching serviettes, the Royal Doulton floral plates, polished silver and crystal glasses.

      This Sunday, Jessica waited impatiently through the sliced lamb and mint sauce, baked vegetables and fresh peas, and the usual compliments. It was only when everyone was served apple pie and cream that at last she could break her news.

      “I have decided,” she said in her clearest voice, “I will be a pilot when I grow up.”

      There was a sudden silence with only the clatter of a fork dropping onto a plate. She could see her parents glance at her grandfather who was glowering. Nobody would speak until he did. That was his rule and woe betide anyone who disobeyed. As he had a mouthful of pie and disapproved of people speaking until they had swallowed, they all waited. Jessica was not worried. It was not a request, but a statement. She was not asking for permission, she was just telling them what she planned.

      Or so she thought.

      Grandfather finished his mouthful and opened his lips. “Stuff and nonsense,” he almost exploded. “I forbid it. You will not do any such thing. No granddaughter of mine will fly in one of those newfangled machines. And that is an end to it.”

      When Grandfather laid down the law, he always did it loudly. The only thing missing was that he did not thump the table.

      Nobody else said anything, they just ate. Jessica’s younger brother Billy almost stopped chewing as he watched. A small grin lifted the corners of his mouth as he kept his eye on Jessica. The only one not watching was young Elspeth, locked into her high chair and mixing pie crumbs into melted ice cream (most of the larger properties has these wonderful ice room thingies underground and made ice cream with evaporated milk — not the heavy cream of dairy country!) with her spoon. As Jessica opened her mouth to reply, her mother kicked her gently on the ankle and shook her head very slightly. So did her father. She wanted to yell at Grandfather, to tell him that she was going to do it anyway and he couldn’t stop her, but she drew breath as she caught her dad’s eye.

      She knew what he was thinking. “Don’t argue with Grandfather at the dinner table.” It was a family rule, one Jessica originally thought was laid down by Grandfather himself. “Yes,” her dad had said. “That’s what he thinks. The rest of us comply so we can eat our meals in peace.”

      “And then what?” Jessica had asked.

      “Just let him tell you what to do?” Dad just smiled.

      Grandfather harrumphed a bit more, telling the whole table what he thought about this modern idea of women working. No wife of his had ever had to work. (Jessica always thought that was a silly statement. He had only ever had one wife and she worked hard on the property. And Grandfather didn’t pay her for it.) And no woman in his family ever would. And so on.

      Jessica remembered how her grandfather disapproved of women voting СКАЧАТЬ