‘Ah,’ Brassac sighs. A fond parent watching an infant tumble.
Now the machine’s tail is up, all its mass momentarily balanced on the front wheel; the one that resembles a dinosaur’s tiny, useless arms. It rolls along like this for twenty yards before Harry throws himself back in his seat, the change of weight just enough to right the balance. The tail subsides and Harry clambers out, vaulting to the ground with a flourish like a gymnast trying to recover his poise after a poor landing on the mat.
‘There!’ he says, rather too quickly. ‘I was wondering whether to jump or not, but decided I could fix it. No harm done!’
But Bess can tell by the colour in his cheeks that he’s had a scare. So he does what he’s always inclined to do when a routine goes awry: he repeats it, proving to himself it was only a glitch. Pausing only to gulp some water from a flask and allow Banks to top up the fuel, waving away Brassac when the mechanic’s expression makes clear his ambivalence about another attempt, Harry takes the Voisin up again. This time he brings the machine around after rising even further than before, the wings shivering with the strain, because he can make out more people below – two figures on horseback and another couple on bicycles wobbling from the direction of the Diggers Rest township.
He’s been noticed! His machine has been seen and heard rising up above ordinary lives. This is the greatest possible tribute: people flocking in during a performance, wanting to see something remarkable. A young fellow, riding bareback on a spirited roan stallion, tries to keep pace with him when he brings the Voisin down, careful not to let the nose dip this time. He kills the engine and lets an electrical current of pride and joy throb through him before he gets out. He strips off his goggles and cap, raises his arms, bows.
Houdini the Magnificent.
‘I can fly now!’ he calls out. ‘I can fly!’
He lets them come to him. Banks first, eager to shake his hand. Then Kukol and Vickery, offering facts and figures to the man from The Argus.
‘Duration of flights between one and three and a half minutes,’ Kukol is saying as McCracken scratches with his pencil. ‘Altitude achieved of, say, one hundred feet. Distance traversed, more than two miles.’
‘At least two miles!’ Harry adds. ‘We must prepare something in writing so that everyone here can attest to it,’ Harry instructs Vickery. ‘You could sign it yourself, Mr Corcoran!’
‘McCracken,’ the reporter corrects him, finding a new page in his notebook. ‘So … did you fear you’d tip over when you came down badly?’
Harry is annoyed that the first question concerns his only mishap, but nevertheless responds with an indulgent smile.
‘Not at all. It’s so quick you hardly know what’s happening. You act unconsciously, just as you might ride a horse without thinking what you are doing. When the plane dipped on her nose I straightened her by instinct.’
The reporter has his head down. Harry can see his wife approaching with his son in her arms, having asked Jordan – to his bemusement – to fetch him.
‘I am completely satisfied,’ Harry says. ‘This is a perfect piece of mechanism. I have never enjoyed any experience so much. With just a little more practice I will be able to fly over Melbourne, and I expect to astonish the people by doing so one day.’
McCracken grunts. Brassac is checking struts on the Voisin’s wings.
‘This morning I have fulfilled all my expectations,’ Harry continues. ‘To set the aviation record, by making the first controlled flight in Australia, is the absolute pinnacle of my career.’
Vickery nods. But the reporter looks up, a sceptical smile hovering around the corners of his mouth.
‘First flight here perhaps,’ McCracken says. ‘Dunno about Australia.’
‘But it’s true,’ Harry responds. ‘I am clearly the first to fly in this country.’
Bess arrives just in time to hear the end of this conversation. The words that seem to drain all the energy and excitement and life from her husband.
‘No, mate,’ the reporter says. ‘It’ll be in this morning’s papers. A bloke got a flying machine up outside Adelaide yesterday. You’re a day late.’
Harry’s goggles dangle limply from his fingers.
45
CUSTANCE,’ says Rickards. ‘The fellow’s name is Custance.’
Harry doesn’t respond. He is slumped in an armchair opposite Rickards, who has newspapers strewn over his office desk. Harry is still wearing the cream-coloured suit. He has managed not to spoil it with grease, but it is badly crushed, and he has loosened his tie and collar. In the morning his outfit gave him a debonair appearance; now he looks like a groom jilted on the church steps. Seated next to him, Bess struggles to recall another time when her husband has appeared so despondent. He barely spoke during the journey back from Diggers Rest, his exultation after his flights replaced by a mute, frustrated despair. She wonders if he will even be able to stage his farewell show in the evening.
Rickards shares her concerns. Already the adding-machine in his head is reckoning the ghastly cost of refunds if the ‘Master Monarch of Modern Mysteries’ cancels his final performance. So he is trying to prise him out of his torpor, revealing what is known about Harry’s rival while belittling the other man’s claims to the aviation record. He feels like one of his former attractions, the Extraordinary Eduardo: alone on a high-wire, unable to lean too far one way or another.
‘Not even his first name is mentioned,’ Rickards continues. Harry still hasn’t looked up. ‘Just his initials: F.C Custance. Nothing more.’
‘This has been reported today?’ Bess asks.
‘It has. In The Australasian and – where’s it got to? – also The Argus.’
‘Of course,’ Harry murmurs. ‘McKenzie must have got wind of it at his office before he came up.’
‘McKenzie?’ Rickards considers him over his reading spectacles. ‘You mean McCracken. The Argus chap. Yes, I reckon he might have done.’
‘This Custance made a successful flight yesterday?’ Bess asks.
‘That’s what’s been printed,’ Rickards replies. ‘But this is where things get interesting. The reports – and they’re similar, which suggests they had the same source – are ambiguous.’ He reads aloud from the newspaper:
‘“The first serious attempt at flight in a monoplane in South Australia was made this morning, and resulted in the attainment of a flight and height record for Australasia and a damaged machine …”’
‘A record,’ Harry groans. ‘Nothing ambiguous there. I’d thought Banks could be the one to beat me. But it’s this … Custance.’
Rickards shakes his head.
‘Didn’t you hear me, Double? A damaged machine. The fellow crashed. Listen: “At about five o’clock Custance took his place in the pilot seat. After a few preliminary twists of the propeller the machine was underway at high speed. It rose quickly and, using the fences of the paddock as a guide, the area was covered thrice in rapid succession – a total distance of about three miles. The height attained was between twelve feet and fifteen feet, and the machine was in the air for five minutes, twenty-five seconds, which constitutes a duration record for Australasia.”’ Rickards pauses.
‘Twelve feet? You could almost jump that high. Now, the crucial bit:
