The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,11

fly out of the dream and into oblivion. But again, you have to trust, to become a part of the motion, to know that he will never let you go, you’re safe.’ I glanced up at Father and smiled. ‘I suppose I just feel full of joy and completely free. That’s all, really.’

An hour after the interview, my Father and mother died. Father was flying and mother was his wing-walker, her long hair and scarf trailing behind her. She was waving at me just before she died. I was standing next to my Tiger Moth, my performance coming later. I waved back at her, proud and happy. But then Pa lost control somehow and didn’t pull up in time, and I was no longer waving but screaming and running, not believing such a thing could possibly be true, already aching for a feeling I would only ever know once again – that feeling of unquestioned security and unconditional love.

But back to Cornwall and Christmas 1938.

The little Tiger Moth, its Gypsy engine humming a familiar tune, clung to the Cornish coast as I peered over the side, my face tight against the freezing slap of the winter air. I was looking for my final navigational landmark – three small craggy mounts known locally as the Angels – that sat a few hundred yards out to sea next to a little fishing village called Angels Cove. All I had to do was to find the mounts, then a mile or so further along the coast I would find my destination, a rather grand-looking house called Lanyon and in turn, my landing strip.

I took a moment to glance down again and cross-reference the river arteries on a map before turning at Lizard Point to follow the coast northbound. If my calculations were correct, the mounts would be on the nose in two minutes exactly. They were, and looked exactly like stepping stones plopped into the sea for the convenience of a Cornish giant. After circling around the Angels a couple of times to take a closer look, I headed inland and descended, slowing to almost stalling speed looking for Lanyon – a large, red-brick manor house, with four gables and twelve chimneys. And suddenly it was there, sitting above a little patch of sea haze, in majestic reverence, on the cliffs above the cove.

The landing strip was nothing more than the lawned area in front of the house, but drat it all, a downdraft from the cliffs pulled at the aircraft’s little wooden frame as I approached, dragging me far too close to a line of very tall cedar trees as I turned finals. I powered on, overshot the approach and climbed away, waving cheerily at a couple of gardeners just a few feet below, who were leaning on rakes, open-mouthed, watching. The performer in me not dead but simply sleeping, couldn’t resist throwing the Moth into a tidy little barrel roll, before disappearing off over the horizon, to find pastures new and within these pastures, hopefully, a safe place to land. Within a minute I had found a stretch of level grass on the cliffs, directly above Angels Cove. There was a large barn in the corner of the field, too, which, if empty, could act very nicely as a store for the Moth. I turned into the wind, began my final decent and moments later, to my great relief, landed safely.

With the propeller slowed to a stop, I tore off my goggles and wool-lined leather helmet, unclipped the harness and jumped out to gather my bearings. A minute later found me jumping back into the wing’s stepping plate because a dozen or so cows approached at speed with a collective air of indignant and inquisitive over-confidence.

From my position of height, I attempted to shoo.

Shooing proved fruitless.

Help appeared almost immediately in the form of two men and a dog. They were walking towards me from the direction of the barn. The first man was wearing a long coat, his collar turned up against the wind. On closer inspection he was frowning. Definitely frowning. The second – the stockman by the looks of things – was shaking a stick in my direction. Even the dog seemed to walk with an air of peeved annoyance.

The men slapped fat sashaying backsides as they walked towards me, saying things like, ‘Get on with you,’ and ‘Away, away.’ On seeing the younger man’s face more clearly, and suffering from sudden and complete amnesia regarding the existence of