The Last Telegram

‘Rubbish,’ he said robustly. ‘I want to know everything, from start to finish. And you absolutely must call me Robbie.’

He clicked his fingers at a waiter and barked an order for wine, then listened with great attention as, between sips of nondescript soup, I told him about the mill, the silk, where it came from, how we wove it, the trade we supplied. Feeling bolder by the minute, I even admitted that I worked there, adding quickly, ‘Just as a stopgap of course.’

‘How charming,’ he said, his face close to mine as he poured me another glass of wine, ‘a beautiful girl like you, working in a silk mill. That’s a new one on me.’

‘But now you must tell me about you,’ I said, feeling uncomfortable, ‘and why you are so interested in silk.’

As we washed down the main course of rubbery grey meat with liberal quantities of red wine, he explained that he had been born in Scotland – hence his entitlement to wearing a kilt – but had lived in England most of his life, was a cousin of our host, Johnnie’s school friend Marcus, and had been a guards officer until quite recently. But now he was dedicating his life – and, I guessed, a private fortune – to his two great passions: flying, and parachute jumping. A glamorous girl I’d noticed earwigging from the other side of the table chimed in, ‘Parachute jumping? Isn’t that rather dangerous?’

‘Of course, it used to be,’ he said, becoming more expansive with the added attention. ‘Those Montgolfiers and their French buddies back in the last century did a lot of experimenting with dogs. They didn’t always survive.’

‘Ooh, poor little poochies,’ she simpered, ‘that’s awfully mean.’

Most of the guests at our end of the table were now listening to the conversation. ‘Isn’t a parachute dangerous if you jump out of a moving plane? Wouldn’t it get tangled in the wings or the prop?’ asked a military-looking chap opposite.

‘Total myth, old man,’ said Robbie, ‘invented by the Air Ministry. They were dead scared that fliers might jump and dump expensive chunks of ironware before it was absolutely necessary. But they’ve finally accepted that parachutes save lives, if they’re the right kind.’

‘Is there a wrong kind?’ I found myself genuinely curious.

‘Lord, yes. Parachutes that collapse in the middle, that get pushed in by wind, lines that tangle, packs that don’t unfurl quickly enough. The design is critical.’ He paused and took a long sip of wine, carefully wiping his lips with the napkin. His audience was waiting. ‘But the most important thing is the silk. It has to be just right. Not too thick, not too thin, not too porous, not too impervious.’ Then he turned to me and lowered his voice, ‘Which is why, Miss Verner, I would like to have a serious conversation about silk with your father and brother – and you too of course – at some point very soon.’

‘We’d be delighted,’ I said, glowing in his attentiveness and flattered to be included, ‘but if I am to call you Robbie, you must stop calling me Miss Verner. Call me Lily, please.’

‘So, lovely Lily,’ he said, refilling my glass, ‘have you ever flown in a plane?’

‘Er … no,’ I stuttered nervously, ‘I’m not sure it’s my sort of thing.’

‘Would you like to give it a try? We could go for a spin.’

‘Perhaps, but can I finish my dinner first?’

He laughed generously, and as dessert was served I became vaguely aware of music coming from a distant room. ‘Can you hear the band, Miss Lily Verner? I’ll wager you’re a good dancer. Hope you like Swing.’

I smiled and said nothing, to conceal my ignorance.

‘Watch out for that one, Sis. Looks like a bit of a rogue and too old for you, anyway,’ John whispered as we left the dining room. But I didn’t care. The wine made me daring and confident, and I was determined to enjoy myself.

After a couple of rather sedate waltzes, Robbie went over and spoke to the bandleader. With broad smiles on their faces, the musicians switched pace and started to play a very fast jazzy number. He pulled me out onto the floor and started to dance like a wild thing, kicking his legs so high I barely dared look in case the skirt flew up too. He gestured to me to do the same, swinging me from side to side and twirling me around. It was exhilarating, dancing so freely, to such irresistible rhythms.

‘It’s the Lindy Hop,’ he shouted over the music. ‘Just come over from America. Named after Charlie Lindbergh. Fun, eh?’

I’d never heard of the man but it certainly was fun, if rather absurd, dancing like this in our formal gowns and dinner jackets, in a country house ballroom with its bright merciless light glittering from chandeliers and mirrors. It was impossible to keep still, and we Lindy Hopped right through until midnight, when the band reverted to Scottish tradition and we welcomed in the New Year with ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

After champagne toasts to ‘a peaceful 1939’, Robbie proved equally accomplished at quicksteps and foxtrots, guiding me firmly across the floor and spinning me round at every opportunity. It felt so safe in his arms, and it was so easy to be graceful, that I was disappointed when the band stopped and the dancers started to drift away.

Robbie escorted me to the foot of the stairs with his arm fitted snugly around my waist.

‘Goodnight, Miss Lily Verner.’ He put a finger to my chin, tipped my face upwards and pinned his lips to mine. My first kiss. I’d expected it to be more exciting, but it just felt a bit awkward, and after a polite pause I pulled away.

‘I’ve had a lovely evening, but I must go to bed now,’ I gabbled.

He was unabashed. ‘You’ve already made it very special, you sweet thing. Sleep tight. See you in the morning.’ He kissed my nose this time, and patted my backside as I turned to run up the stairs. As I climbed into my chilly bed, churning with champagne and confusion, I wondered if I might be falling in love.

Next day we were eating breakfast in proper country-house style – bacon, eggs, kedgeree and kippers served on ornate silver hotplates casually arrayed on the antique sideboard – when we heard the sound of an aircraft flying low over the house.

A small bi-plane came into view, circling twice, each time lower than before, and John said, ‘Crikey. Look Lily, he’s coming in.’

Sure enough, to our astonishment the plane flew even lower and then landed bumpily on the parkland between the trees, scattering the peacefully grazing flocks of deer.

‘It’s just Robbie showing off again,’ said Miranda, our host’s sister, to whom we’d been introduced the night before. Sure enough, as the plane drew to a halt, we saw his leather-clad figure emerging from the cockpit, jumping down and starting to lope towards the house. Before long he was helping himself to a hearty plateful of kedgeree and joining us at the table.

‘Flying make you hungry?’ John said casually, as if this kind of arrival at breakfast happened every day in our family.

‘Ravenous.’ Robbie shook clouds of pepper over his plate. ‘I’ve been up since six.’ We chatted for a while about last night, what fun it had been, and then he turned to John and said, almost offhand, ‘Lovely day for a spin, old man. Care to join me? She can take a co-pilot and a passenger. Perhaps Lily would like to come too?’

‘That’d be cracking,’ John said, his face lighting up.

I panicked. ‘Not for me, thank you. I haven’t got anything warm to wear. Anyway, don’t you think we should be getting home, John?’

‘I’d really like to go,’ he said. ‘Come on, sis. You’re always moaning about life being boring. Have a bit of fun. When are you going to get a chance like this again?’

‘I’ll lend you my jacket, and a headscarf and gloves,’ Miranda chipped in.

‘See?’ said Robbie triumphantly. ‘No excuses now, Missy Lily.’ It was pointless resisting. I swallowed my nerves, finished my coffee and went with Miranda to get togged up.

My terror as we took off was soon replaced with the enchantment of seeing a familiar landscape from an entirely new perspective. We flew southwards along the coast and then turned inland, following the river towards Westbury. From the air the town looked so small and insignificant, like a toy village. We buzzed low over the mill and The Chestnuts, but there was no sign of life. I imagined Father reading his newspaper by the drawing room fire, grumbling about irresponsible pilots interrupting the peace on his holiday.

Just a few days later John got a telephone call from Robbie, inviting himself to a meeting.

‘He insists Lily must be there too,’ he said, with a big wink in Father’s direction. ‘I couldn’t possibly imagine why.’

‘It’s because he knows I understand about silk,’ I snapped, but a bit of me hoped he was right. Since New Year’s Eve I’d thought about nothing but Robbie Cameron, his confidence and perfect manners, the casual skill with which he manoeuvred that little plane, the strong arms lifting me down from its wing after we had landed, and how my legs had turned to jelly afterwards. In my head, I’d run through the events of that evening a hundred times, hoping it really was the start of something new, so the prospect of seeing him again was exciting and a little nerve-racking. Would he still like me, or was that just a one-night thing, I wondered?

Robbie arrived looking formal and business-like, in an expensive-looking pinstriped suit and public school tie. He shook hands with John and me and then, as we waited for Father in the visitor’s room at the mill, examined the framed certificates and photographs hanging on the walls. I saw his gaze linger on one of Father at Buckingham Palace proudly showing the King a piece of Verners silk woven for the coronation, and he made appreciative remarks as I showed him the leather-bound sample books containing every design Verners had woven in the past one hundred and fifty years.

When Father came in I watched him sizing up Robbie as they shook hands. ‘Welcome to Verners, Mr Cameron,’ he said, ‘I’ve ordered coffee. Let’s sit down and you can tell us why you are here.’

‘Well, sir,’ Robbie started, ‘in a nutshell, I need a supplier of reliable quality parachute silk. I’m a parachute designer and manufacturer and I want to expand my company.’

‘We don’t weave parachute silk, as you probably know,’ Father said cautiously, reminding me of the way he played whist and bridge. Even with us children, he would keep his cards close to his chest, his face giving nothing away.

‘But we could do, Father,’ John said. ‘Let’s not count anything out. But I want to know more. Why parachuting? I can see why flying is fun, but why would anyone want to jump out of a plane?’

‘It’s the thrill of it,’ Robbie said. ‘Nothing like it. I trained as a pilot, as you know, so I had to learn how to use a parachute. But when I took up parachute jumping as a hobby it soon became obvious that the ’chutes needed to be redesigned to make them safer. Last year I met an American who had created some new designs along exactly the same lines as I’d envisaged, and he was already testing them. So we set up a company together to manufacture them. So far we haven’t had any major orders, but we’re working on it.’

‘If it’s just a hobby activity what makes you think there’s going to be much call for them?’ John asked.

‘It won’t just be a hobby, if we go to war,’ Robbie said, suddenly serious. ‘At the moment there’s one major competitor producing parachutes for the Air Ministry, and though they say that’s enough for their current requirements, they seem to be blind to what the Russians and Germans are up to.’