The Little Shadows - By Marina Endicott Page 0,222

what they were doing behind the curtain as the music played and the audience visited. So many people! Mrs. Gower’s extra two rows had not been enough, and thirty or forty people were standing at the back. But Nell wriggled through as the music came twirling into a cyclone and the curtains were opening.

Clouds and blue sky were revealed, then trundling through the clouds, making a remarkable sewing-machine noise—there came the plane! Nando had told her (he was so kind!) that it was a Red Albatross, a biplane, single propeller. It only had two blades, really; they’d added more propeller blades just for the daisy joke.

It was a pleasure ride at first. Nando had brought along a picnic basket because he was going to propose. He handed things to Bella: a sunshade (inside-out, whoops! whipped backwards, and gone), a dozen boiled eggs, a waggling string of sausages, long sticks of French bread—they all went flying backwards and yipes off the end of the plane. Bella grabbed the tablecloth to wrap around her, since her hat had flown off long before. Nando would turn and steer a little in between each thing. Finally he brought out a large bottle of gold-foiled champagne. He shook it to boast a bit, took hold of the cork, and the bottle blew off and out onto the wing of the plane.

Sausages were one thing, but he couldn’t lose the champagne. He made Bella sit up front and fly, wearing the goggles he’d been using. They wrestled hilariously on the top of the plane to change seats, Bella nearly coming out of her dress, oh my goodness! Mrs. Gower wouldn’t like that, but Daddy was laughing so hard he’d choked. Bella got the goggles on every way but right; at one point she landed head-down in the cockpit, flying with her feet.

Nando, meanwhile, inched out onto the wing of the plane—all this time they’d been swaying and fidgeting their clothes as if they were in a high wind—forward, forward, and then the plane dipped, dipped, until he went slithering down to the end of the wing—and grabbed the bottle just as it rolled slowly off. He lay back on the wing and took a big glug from the bottle.

The hectic music and the way Nando and Bella played with each other made it all go by so fast—Nell wanted to see how they did the bit where they lassoed the tail with Bella’s sash to pull her backwards to get the blue velvet engagement-ring box. When they were chasing each other over and under the double wings because she was so mad at him for losing the ring and Nando lost sight of Bella—that was priceless—her feet dangling in air so you were really dizzy, but he saved her, and she kissed him and they were going to fall—oh, it was the best thing Nell had ever seen and it was—it was over.

The curtains swirled shut and in a minute Bella and Nando peeked out through the split, her head way on top of his, and out they came for a bow, another and another. Then the intermission music swelled and the lights came on … Oh, run—she was on to help with tea!

The noise and swelter and the startlingly good tea provided by Mrs. Gower’s army restored the fractured spirits of any who had been frightened by the aeroplane, and the audience sank back into their seats, ready for a little peace and quiet.

But the curtain opened only to an empty stage—perhaps too quiet. Offstage, a fiddle started playing Minstrel Boy, and Clover came on in a plain dark dress with a tartan scarf.

‘The Minstrel Boy to the war has gone,’ she sang in a gentle, thoughtful tone. ‘In the ranks of death ye’ll find him. His father’s sword he hath girded on, and his wild harp slung behind him.’

She paused, unwound her tartan scarf from her shoulder, and pulled it into a shawl around her neck, tucking it into her belt to become a suddenly belligerent fishwife.

‘My son has gone for a soldier,’ she called out, an ugly drunk. The horror of that sacred word soldier combined with drunkenness kept the hall entirely silent. She staggered, caught at the chair-back, and missed.

She grabbed it on the second try and hauled herself up again, joints creaking, dizzy.

In the audience, Victor made himself breathe out. He was afraid for her.

‘If I’ve took a drop too much that’s the cause of it. My own boy, gone to