Louis Shalako: Heaven Is Too Far Away, Chapter Eighteen. Louis Shalako.

Chapter Eighteen

A Social Program

When I caught up with Betty I was in a very odd mood. I can’t place it exactly, but for some reason I squeezed her bum through the silk of her dress.

“Oh.” She said brightly.

We rubbed up close as the din from inside the next room overwhelmed any and all conversation. I had to ram my mouth up to her ear to tell her anything, and to listen carefully when she did the same. The hubbub died down to a dull roar, as most of us were seated. Servants scuttled to and fro, laden with shiny-domed plates, full of this, that and the other.

“You look lovely, Elizabeth.” I was toying with my grub, because the nearby guests were making forays as a good guest should, attempting to engage in conversation with their neighbors.

I hate trying to answer a question with my mouth full, and I suppose an exaggerated fear of social gaffes affected my behavior.

“Thank you, Will.”

But she really did look lovely.

“I got the job.” I told my love, the lady of the lake.

I don’t know if I have really described her carefully before. I’ll give it the old college try, even though I dropped out of school in grade nine.

“Where are you going to be stationed?” She asked in some concern, and that made me both happy and a little worried.

She really was sincere. I knew that. And I was happy too, so what the hell?

I had been hoisted with my own petard. I got transferred just when life was taking on new meaning. Our neighbors were busy eating their meals and minding their own business, and there was some noise in the room. There was a certain shyness about discussing our plans in front of an audience.

“We can talk about it later.”

I ate slowly, suspicious that I couldn’t just eat and bolt. I watched her movements, filled with a kind of feminine grace that I wasn’t used to being around.

Let’s see here. She stood about five-foot eleven, with a kind of honey-colored, golden brown hair. She has brown eyes, and her hair was puffed up, and combed out, not overly formal, or tied up in knots or a bun or anything like that.

She looked good in her form-fitting, navy-blue silk kimono-type thing with a plunging back line but a more normal, V-type neck line in front. Her shoulders were bare. The cleavage, or, ‘décolletage,’ as my fag French buddy would say, was very nice in the candlelight. She wore rings in her ears, which supported long sapphire-colored pendants glistening and sparkling against the dark background of the oak-paneled walls. Her necklace of blue stones set off her alabaster skin. Her foot touched mine under the table. I was tempted to drop my napkin or something and just go for it.

As if sensing my thoughts, her eyes gleamed impishly over the table.

The relationship was easy from my perspective because she had a great sense of fun. I could joke and kid around with her, and never felt like I had to treat her like she was made of crystal. She wasn’t up on some pedestal, like a statue of the Nike Aphrodisiac. Ultimately I came to worship the ground she walked on, and never regretted it for a moment. That was later, it grew over time.

A beautiful woman with a good mind can be very flattering to the ego. By that I mean…well, I mean…let’s face it: she’s going out with me. And it is not like she’s really stupid, or blind.

She’s obviously not desperate. She’s a smart and beautiful woman, and what a boost to a man’s perception of himself. Sounds selfish? Self-centred? But use your little grey cells. She was the stuff that dreams are made of.

So the old morale has been boosted, that’s fine, and I seemed to have fallen in love with the woman who sat across the fresh, crisp, linen tablecloth. And that’s fine too, I realized.

I was about ready to love somebody besides myself.

Have I explained it clearly enough? When a gorgeous, beautiful girl, with a strong mind, and a good heart, with her faculties intact, and her wits about her, and her own free will, chooses, in the clear light of day, without being drunk, and with no expectation of reward, chooses to kindly fuck the hell out of me, then that is the greatest feeling in the world.

Because I’m worth it.

I don’t wish the reader to think it was just the sex, which opened up whole new untold vistas, or the fact that she caught me at exactly the right moment. She was a very nice person, and not all beautiful people are. As I would shortly discover.

My medals adorned my chest as we sat and enjoyed the dinner, each other’s company, and chit-chat. Those around us were a veritable fund of gossip and tidbits of information.

It pays to keep one’s ears open. The fact that I was a good listener could be attributed to the fact that I really didn’t have much to say.

Betty had sewed on my captain’s badge, and dusted off the medals, of which I had two or three, and put them on my tunic. She brushed it and took a stain out of it. Years later, that thought would sometimes bring a tear to my eye.

Big deal, right? Women do that for their men all the time, right? Wrong. She was a rich girl. She had servants to help her on with her stockings when she was a child. She didn’t even know how to sew. Who helped her? The maid? Mrs. Worthington, who came and went sometimes? She loves me. That’s fine. It’s also a heck of a responsibility.

Now would be a good time to grow up. No one was going to tell me what to do, or how to handle myself. It was all up to me now.

And time was not on our side.

***

After the meal, there was to be dancing, but we all withdrew to various rooms.

A sitting room for the women, smoking and billiards room for the men. When I was growing up, my pop had warned me about playing pool, and snooker and gambling, so I just naturally gravitated down to the place in the village. I got pretty good at it, too. But not needing to make money, I really had no wish to play. All I wanted to do was make an early night of it. But I had to hang around in case Smith-Barry popped his head out from wherever he got off to.

And that fucking Winnie’s coming around…damn.

“We were very impressed with your proposal, young man.” He grunted. “You know, after the war, the world is going to need bright young men like you. Have you ever thought about going to a good university?”

He wants me. The incongruous thought went through my head.

“I’ll be going back to Canada.”

Demagogues piss me off. They always have, even if, later on, they turn out to be great men. But I knew him when he was just a squid, and that helps. Later of course, he was Britain.

“Canada, eh? Pity.” Mercifully he moved off to seek a more receptive audience.

But not before adding, “I hope your intentions are honorable towards young Miss Fontainebleu-Higgins, because her father was a very good friend of mine.”

Nice.

Old Winston was lucky he didn’t get a punch in the head for that one. But I do have some sense. For example, I didn’t drink as much, or as fast as some of the other people, who seemed to lap up champagne like it was going out of style. Maybe they needed to get fueled up for dancing all night. A bit of a chore, in my present mood.

She changed all that, as she peeked in the door and then waved me out.

I gave her a quick hug. We stood close.

“The orchestra is setting up, honey.” She reported. “How are you doing?”

“Oh gosh, what a bore.” I replied, not too loud, but there was old Bernie again.

Just how good is his hearing? Is he really involved with Belgian Intelligence?

Why not? Somebody has to work there.

We danced quite a bit, though, and for once I wasn’t out of my element. Dancing is easy, once you get the hang of it, and then of course I’d had a chance to observe it first.

Back home we danced. In the tightly-knit, but sparsely populated farming community where everyone is all spread out, any excuse for a dance, a social, a picnic will do.

Anyhow, I was quick on my feet, didn’t come from around here, no one knew me and Betty seemed like a quick study. It didn’t much matter what little jig or ditty the orchestra got up to. I could adapt, improvise and overcome. I never saw the likes of that crowd, but what the heck. People are people, right?

Have you ever roller-skated? In time to the organ music, colored lanterns and ribbons festooning the blackened beams overhead? Anyone can dance, you just have to have the physical courage to get up there. It’s easy, once you accept the fact that no one else knows how to dance either. Maybe they took lessons, or learned from their French nanny up in the nursery.

Me, I’m a natural-born dancer. That ain’t bragging, it’s just a fact.

***

Betty was pretty pleased with my progress, and of course the slow, close dancing was our favorite, romantic as women think a quadrangle or menstruet might be. No, that’s just fancy square-dancing. I prefer waltzes, where you get to hold on tight and sort of communicate non-verbally. You get the hang of it after a while, as a one-eyed paper-hangar once told my dad.

We cut out of there Sunday morning, after a weekend of hunting, shooting, riding, dancing, feasting, billiards, and romantic walks in the hallways, where I received a few lessons in art history. My keen eye for observation was to stand me in good stead when dealing with the intelligentsia. We got to meet a few people.

We had a few interesting conversations, sitting around in the salon with Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, Mr. and Mrs. Ebbw Vale, who I think normally didn’t socialize to any great extent with the Churchills, and others, including a Russian, some distant cousin of the Czar. There were a couple of British Secret Service guys, easily identified by the bulge of the weapons in their pants, a Polish count, two French hens, Bernie, Smith-Barry, and about thirty-five other folks who came and went at various times. Oh, yeah, a junior deputy assistant under-minister in the Italian Foreign Office. He was the only guy that could dance anywhere near as well as me.

That John Maynard Keynes guy was there. He kept asking me not to mention it to his wife.

‘Okay, no problem.’ I told the man.

"Don't tell the wife..."

Why was this idiot talking to me? I amused myself by making a few observations on economics. It looked like he had about three girlfriends. Holy. No wonder you’re always short of money. Print some more, why don’t you? Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Eden, they were there, a couple of other famous ones.

As Betty watched, I carefully stowed stuff in the plane. I wished she hadn’t brought the little trunk. The butler must have heard us up and about. We were his responsibility.

“Perhaps we could send it on, sir.” He suggested.

There’s a man with a brain. How hard was that?

“Anything in there you need, Betty?”

She was very meek and quiet this morning, but then we were up half the night with the other guests puttering about at various games, charades, billiards, you name it.

(Screwing like minks.)

It was awfully early in the morning.

“No.” She said.

The butler handed the case over to another servant. Apparently he was an enthusiast.

His assistant scurried for the door, being coatless.

“Are you comfortable in that suit?” I asked, helping her into the front seat.

“Yes.” She said.

“Just relax. Don’t put your feet here, and here. It’s going to be fine. Honey, I promise. Nothing bad is going to happen.” I tried to soothe her fears a little. “I fly better than I dance, really.”

It didn’t seem to help. Frightened people have no sense of humor.

I kissed her. She looked so cute and cuddly, all bundled up in the suit, fur boots, fur- lined hood, everything.

“I’m fine...” She said it cheerfully and brightly.

She lied, but I let it pass.

“If you have to pee or something, put your hand over and bang on the side. I’ll find us a nice, warm pub.”

“Yes, sir.” She said.

I carefully checked her straps, giving an extra good tug, hooking up the pipe for the Gosport tube to her headset. No intercom in those days. I climbed in and thoroughly checked things out, including my own straps. The butler, who seemed to know the procedure, swung the prop. He stepped smartly back and saluted. I waved, and Betty waved, so she couldn’t have been too sick.

The plane rumbled and lurched forward, and just for the sheer hell of it, I went around full-circle and taxied back. The butler stepped forward and came up to the cockpit. He seemed like a good sort.

“Which room is Winnie in?” I asked.

Butler and aviation enthusiast.

His face broke out into a sudden smile, and he pointed wordlessly. Far end, north side.

One floor up. I could see the exact window from here.

Blipping up the throttle, I did a crosswind takeoff, timing my pull-up to the exact moment, and the raspberry of the exhaust note must have given the Churchills something to talk about. We went past the window and up over the eaves about eleven feet away.

“Honorable intentions, Mr. Churchill,” I bellowed at the top of my lungs, but I doubt if the silly bugger heard it over the engine noise.

Then I plugged in my own voice tube. I’m a silly bugger too, sometimes.

We climbed out and headed east towards the city. As luck would have it, ‘twas one of those perfect winter mornings. The lightest dusting of snow stippled the hills and dales, and frosted the cakes that were people’s houses. Creeks and rivers showed up black against the snowy, bush-covered banks. Smoke curled from every chimney.

“It’s beautiful.” She called.

There was nothing to say. Was she warm enough? I loved flying, and could probably stand the cold to a certain extent.

“How are you doing, Honey?” I called through the tube.

“I’m flying above the clouds with the man I love.” She shouted. “Other than that, it’s scary, exhilarating, and I think I WILL have to pee soon.”

“What did you call me?” I yelled.

“What? Oh, drat this stinking tube. I called you the man I love.” She bellowed.

Just for that, I thought, and put the plane inverted real quick. She screamed, then it turned into a nervous, high-pitched giggle in my ear.

“You bastard.” She called. “I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes,” I yelled back, and then I flew normal for a while.

That’s what a man wants to hear. After years of combat, when no one even knew for sure what all the fighting was about, it was nice to know something. No one really knows if he will live, or die, and that is the moment.

A man with no reason to live, his life expectancy is worse.

She made me want to live.

The landing was good. My girl was not frozen up, and we stood in silence, as she looked at that plane like it was something new and important.

Patting the plane on the bonnet, which gobbed a lot of castor oil onto my glove, I told the Avro, “This is the new love interest you are going to have to contend with. Betty, meet Avro, Avro, meet Betty.”

And that was it. We went into a man-door on the front of a hangar and an airman pointed the way to the stores. We peeled off in a smelly old locker room and turned out all our stuff onto the bench so the man could check it off the list.

“Sign here, sir.” He said, noting my brand-new captain’s insignia.

I promptly ordered a convenient airman to cart all our luggage out for us. The man looked bored, what can I say?

“What did you think?” I asked as a taxi took us home.

“I can see the attraction.” She admitted. “But I think I’ll keep my job at the library, at least for a while.”

“What did you think about going upside down?” I asked her excitedly. “Was that scary? Or did you like it?”

“I meant what I said.” We rubbed noses.

“So did I,” I assured her.

So that’s what bonding was like, at least when I was younger. We made up our minds pretty quick. No messing around or beating about the bush. And the scariest thing you can do sometimes, is to tell somebody that you love them.

END