A Rather English Marriage by Angela Lambert

boy.’
    *
    Reggie leaned on the bar, a large double whisky tucked cosily inside the curve of his sleeve, a cigarette smouldering in the glass ashtray on the other side. He was rehearsing an old and much-loved controversy.
    â€˜Say what you like, and I’ve heard all the arguments, I still think stunting’s essential. You’ve got to know everything your kite can do, and how else are you going to find out? Risky, I grant you. Put myself in hospital during OT, messing about in a Spit, but it teaches you what you’re both capable of.’
    â€˜Couldn’t agree more, squire,’ said the barman absent-mindedly. He was in his thirties, a weary figure revolving the puddles of beer on the bar with a sodden rag, and he had no idea what Reggie was talking about, but he knew better than to disagree with a drunk.
    â€˜Then, when it comes to a scrap, when it counts, you’ve got the experience,’ Reggie went on happily. He was back in the Nissen-hut crew room, sitting round a coke stove waiting for the weather to clear up so that they could fly, going over the old arguments. Long Gone Manners would disagree with him on principle, and the two of them would bicker knowledgeably, without the least hope of either being converted. After a while the others would say, ‘Knock it off you two, for Pete’s sake!’ and Reggie would appeal for somebody to back his point of view … The barman would have to do for now.
    â€˜Let’s face it,’ he went on, ‘the tighter your turn the better your chance of escape in a dog fight. Round you go, couple of boxers in the ring, you’re feinting’ - his head ducked from side to side, his jowls wobbling - ‘you’re on guard. Suddenly you put the Spit into a stall-turn. Bingo! You’re ready to attack! Difference between life and death, that sort of practice. Take my instructor: now
he
was a pretty handy stunter. Get him on your tail and you’d never shake him off. Practice - all good practice. Never enough time, of course. We’re talking about the days of Dunkirk, now: not your University Air Squadron messing about.’
    â€˜It’s all in the lap of the gods, I say. Taking your life in your hands, aren’t you, every time you fly?’ said the bored barman.
    â€˜Trouble was,’ Reggie continued, his mind perfectly sharp as long as he stabilized it around the age of twenty-one, ‘trouble was, their tactics changed all the time. Fight from height - that’s one thing that never changed; come at them straight out of the sun: that’s another. Get your Messerschmitt from behind - that’s where he’s vulnerable. All very well with the 109s, but when the 262s came along, rules changed again.
If you
could catch them.’
    â€˜That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’ said the barman.
    Reginald looked up as he moved to serve a strikingly dressed woman who had come in by herself. She wore a lime-green car coat and a narrow skirt slit some way up the side to show off good legs. She placed her handbag on the bar and levered herself on to a stool with a flash of thigh. The barman winked at Reggie.
    â€˜Spot of sympathy required, Jim,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a hell of a day! I could really do with a Scotch.’
    â€˜Glenmorangie for the lady,’ said Reginald. ‘Make it a double?’
    She looked across. ‘I don’t know who you are, but the way I’m feeling at this moment, all I can say is that sounds like a lifesaver! Yes, a double would be lovely.’
    â€˜Two double Glenmorangies, Jim,’ said Reginald. ‘Mind if I join you?’ She swept the edge of her coat aside to show that he was welcome.
    â€˜Smoke?’ said Reggie.
    â€˜Oh dear, I know I shouldn’t. Yes, all right, go on, lead me astray.’ As he snapped open his silver lighter, she said, ‘I’m Elizabeth Franks but everyone calls me