She feels as she did when the duet was playing: as if something is happening outside herself. But this time she is watching rather than listening. Watching as he leans down to kiss her, and she sees that she is allowing this, although it might be someone else tasting the tobacco and stale wine and longing. Someone else savouring the contrasts, the edges of his teeth and the warm wetness of his tongue, the roughness of his stubble and the softness of the skin under his eyes. Someone else moving with him to the unmade bed on which she was sitting only minutes earlier.
If it is someone else, it cannot be wrong.
It is like the duet on the phonograph: two people coming together.
Then silence and deep stillness.
34
Jeudi 10 Mars 1910
Mr H. is not happy. He comes this morning for first time after the rain. From the start he makes complaints. He says Jordan would drive too slow, because roads are still like mud and with holes.
He arrives planning to take control of the Voisin, open the throttle and feel the power of his machine to reassure himself the record he seeks is close. But when he comes the engine is not attached. I have taken it out to stop the coughing. Instead of piloting, he must watch me work with the spanners. This cannot be rushed.
Ralfbanks talks with Mr H., but does not help his mood. Mr H. feels like Ralfbanks, whose eye is less swollen. An airman who cannot fly.
I hear Ralfbanks tell him his work is complete. He has gathered the parts of the Wright machine that were not broken. But he is not hurrying to return to his job at the Melbourne Motor Garage. And nothing has been heard from Monsieur Schoolmaster. So Ralfbanks waits. Letting the sunshine heal his wounds. Watching me prepare the Voisin for the record he chased himself.
When he returns to his tent, Mr H. tells me something I do not understand until I think on it.
He says Ralfbanks reminds him of Oleg, a performing bear in a travelling circus he worked with fifteen years before. One morning, Oleg’s handler left its cage unlocked by mistake. But Oleg the bear did not escape. It sat on the other side of the cage. Unsure where it would go.
Ralfbanks has told Mr H. he will help him fly. But there is nothing they can do until the Voisin engine is fixed proper.
Mr H. is not happy. But I am content.
Jordan the driver brings me new recordings for the Champion. I have now the Stern Dance Orchestra playing ‘All the Girls on Earth’.
Also ‘The Jewel Song’ from the opera Faust. By Gounod, which M. Bleriot would like.
After Mr H. has departed, I visit Ralfbanks. I show him the new recordings and ask to have my Champion again.
He sees the name on the Gounod recording. Melba.
Fat cow, he says.
I wind the Champion and we listen to this ‘Jewel Song’.
Then we listen again.
The voice is like water bubbling for tea.
Ralfbanks is silent. Then he speaks.
Forgive me, Oldboy. I was wrong. She’s magnificent.
35
THWARTED and impatient, Harry insists on returning to the city several hours earlier than Jordan had anticipated. This pleases the driver, who is even more delighted when Harry sinks into one of his sullen moods. His usual chatter has been replaced by a brooding silence. Jordan is also confident now that Brassac will buy the Champion. When he factors in the American’s wife, it feels like two sales in one day.
Brassac’s indifference to deadlines and the continuing problems with his flying machine are not the only reasons for Harry’s discontent. He is still puzzled by the scene outside the hotel early in the morning. He feels certain he hadn’t imagined seeing somebody. But where had this person gone? And might it have been a woman?
Another disturbed night and its aftermath have left him battling a deep fatigue close to nausea. Watching the passing bushes and dead trees as the Darracq heads back to the Melbourne road, his only consolation is that he thinks he knows now what is causing his malaise. And there is something he must do to resolve it.
So Harry requests a detour as the motor car approaches the city.
‘Queen’s Wharf?’ Jordan replies. ‘Why do you want to be let off there?’
‘Something to attend to, that’s all.’
‘You want me to wait?’
‘No. I’ll find a cab later. Or walk if I must. It’s not far, is it?’
‘Bit of a hike. Nothing you couldn’t manage.’
His curiosity is outweighed by relief at the prospect of an early finish. The American can do what he likes if it means he can shoot through himself. Harry stays silent as Jordan guides his car through town, travelling alongside the sluggish brown river instead of turning off for the hotel.
‘Here we are,’ Jordan says at last. ‘Though there’s not much to it.’
Harry scans his surrounds. A low parapet overlooking the water; a group of youths in caps and grubby shirts who pause their conversation to gawp at the clattering Darracq; a woman with a tatty bonnet who steps forward when the car stops; a building of dark red bricks, squat and uninviting.
‘Okay then,’ Harry says, easing himself out. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
