He calls me Oldboy.
He comes when I am busy, his hands black with engine oil.
I say Oldboy, might I borrow your shifting spanner?
I know he does not need a spanner. He has tools of his own. But he must see how I progress with my chicken coop with wheels. His eyes move like flies over the struts and wires and cloth of the Voisin. I tell him nothing.
Any day now I will be up, Oldboy.
Ralfbanks says this and waves his black hand to his part of the paddock, where he has his own machine.
A Wright machine. American.
The Brothers Wright do not deserve to be called the first. The first what? First to fly for twelve seconds. That is all.
M. Bleriot was first to fly over the Channel. The younger Wright flew over sand for just a little time and his name is better known because to be first is all that matters to some.
Mr H. is in a hurry to be first here. But he must wait for me to say all is ready, just as Kukol prepares for him on stage. Kukol and I spoke on the Malwa. Mr H. has the fame and the money and his name outside theatres and on all the crates and the sides of the Voisin. But he must wait for us to give him the signal.
Ralfbanks will not wait. He is young and pushed from behind. I know this. The Wright machine belongs to a schoolmaster. Another Englishman. He does not want the flying record to be won by an American.
Is funny, I think, that they will use an American machine.
This schoolmaster has been here. Adamson. He has moustache like mine and wears his jacket even in this paddock. He talks to Ralfbanks as if he is a pupil. Tells him to move along.
He is his employer. As the Magic Man is mine.
I have some respect for Ralfbanks. He understands I like to be solitary. And he knows his Wright machine. When he starts its engine I cannot hear coughing like I hear from the Voisin. I must clean its valves and hoses.
I am doing this today when Mr H. comes for the first time.
I hear before I see them.
A clattering and thumping. I think first something bad has happened to the Wright engine, so I go to look. There is an automobile close to the paddock with smoke at the back though this could be dust. I can tell it is the Magic Man when he jumps out of the automobile before it has stopped and then shakes my hand with both of his.
The driver, very tall, is angry when he gets out. Angry at Mr H. and a damaged wheel.
Bloodyhell, he says.
Mr H. must see everything. His Voisin. The tent I have rigged for it and myself. Then he must meet Ralfbanks.
The shirt of the driver is wet as he works on his automobile. When I ask if he would like tea he replies with one word.
Bloodyoath.
He tells me his name. Jordan. We find shade and sit with tea, watching Ralfbanks walk Mr H. around and over his machine. He spends more time with the Wright than the Voisin or its mechanic.
Before he goes he tells me to make haste.
We have a serious rival, Brassac!
He leaves before evening. Saying he will come again soon. The automobile, now fixed, leaves smoke on the paddock.
Jordan the driver has left me a box.
Here, he says, after his tea. Try it. If you like, we can do a deal.
So now in this place I have heat and flies and too much wind.
Also an Englishman. And a phonograph.
A Champion.
With music a man is never alone.
17
HARRY stands at the end of the pool, hoping he has been recognised. Using both hands he straightens the shoulder straps of his black bathing-costume. As he does so he flexes and relaxes the muscles of his arms and upper back. Anyone watching is sure to be impressed by his fine physique. But nobody seems to have spotted him. Standing near the blocks at the deep end of the City Baths pool, Harry feels alone and unnoticed.
He frowns, looks down, steps up on to the ledge between the blocks and immediately steps back once more. He repeats the movement again and again, quicker every time. His bare feet slap the tiled floor. This is wonderful exercise for his calf muscles: they will resemble oranges under his skin. But still no-one is looking.
Harry stops after the second hand of the wall-clock at the far end of the pool has completed its circuit. He is breathing heavily and can feel trickles of sweat on his forehead: the air in the red brick building with its high windows and skylights is warm and moist. Harry looks around again. Nobody is watching him apart from the reliable Franz Kukol, waiting near the benches in the spectators’ gallery that runs around the perimeter of the room, twelve feet up from the bathing area. The Austrian has Harry’s towel and white robe, the one with his initials woven into the collar. Kukol acknowledges his glance but even as he does so, he looks past Harry to something happening on the far side of the pool.
A male swimmer is completing laps in a lane cordoned off by a rope supported by cork spheres. Every time his hands and arms break the water there is a splash, and the beating of his feet reminds Harry of someone trying to kick off his shoes. His pace is constant. The swimmer appears free from fatigue. Another man, in shirtsleeves and a flat cap, is standing at the end of the lane holding a stopwatch in one hand. He is studying the watch and making jottings in a notebook with a pencil every time the swimmer touches the end and turns around. Everybody else – a dozen spectators up in the gallery and four or five other bathers, standing in the shallow end or resting on the lane rope – is watching this metronomic swimmer, chatting with each another or replicating his strokes in the air. Nobody takes any notice of the visitor.
Harry steps up on to a block. He coughs, both to clear his throat and attract some attention, straightens his shoulder straps once again, and dives into the water, which has a light green tinge. His outstretched fingers crunch into the tiles on the bottom. He must jerk his head back to avoid scraping his chin. After this inauspicious start he takes several strokes underwater, to return to the surface, and then starts swimming. Slowly, at first, then steadily increasing his pace. The pool is one hundred feet long. Whenever he reaches an end he flips himself around rapidly so he doesn’t appear to be pausing to catch his breath. Yet every time he turns he also tries to look over to gauge his progress against the other swimmer and see if anyone has spotted what he is doing. Because of splashing, however, it is hard to tell. So he tries to focus on his thoughts while pulling skeins of water behind him, like a climber scaling a rope.
