‘We were standing on the wing, and the student had three good jumps behind him, so I wasn’t concerned. No problem with the exit, we jumped with arms and legs splayed and he was floating fine, quite stable, as we raced through the first cloud cover. I had a shock when I saw the second layer beneath us, but I thought we would just perform the activities we had and see how high we were as we approached. The student did some regulation ninety-degree turns and horizontal moves before returning to the standard X-shape. My altimeter was showing six thousand feet when the student went to pull his ripcord, so I signalled he should wait. He looked at me, but it isn’t so easy to read the facial expressions of a bloke with his cheeks and lips flapping round his ears like wet linen on a clothes line in a gale.’
Joseph paused and nodded contentedly.
‘Wet linen on a clothes line in a gale,’ he repeated. ‘Not bad at all. Cheers.’
The bottle was tilted up.
‘I read five thousand feet on my altimeter as we hit the second layer,’ he continued, after regaining his breath. ‘A thousand to go before we pulled. I grabbed hold of the student and kept an eye on the altimeter in case the cloud was thick and we had to pull the chutes in the cloud, but we were out again in a flash. My heart stopped when I saw the ground racing towards us; trees, grass, tarmac, it was like zooming in with a camera. I pulled for both of us at once. Had either of the main chutes failed there wouldn’t have been time to activate the reserve chute. Turned out the low cloud was at something closer to two thousand feet. People below went pretty pale when they saw us emerging from the cloud without chutes. On top of that, the idiot of a student panicked after his chute opened and managed to steer himself into a tree. That didn’t matter in itself, but he was left hanging four metres above the ground, and instead of waiting for help to arrive, he unhooked himself, fell and broke his leg. He made an official complaint saying I’d smelt of alcohol, and the club committee took a decision. I was given a lifetime suspension.’
Joseph finished off bottle number two.
‘What happened then?’
‘This.’ He tossed the bottle away. ‘Social security, bad colleagues and bad wine.’ He had begun to slur. ‘They broke my wings, Harry. I’m from the Crow tribe; I’m not made to live like an emu.’
The shadows in the park had huddled together; now they were beginning to lengthen. Harry woke up with Joseph standing over him.
‘I’m off home now, Harry. You might want a couple of things from the pavilion before I hop it.’
‘Oh shit, yes. My gun. And my jacket.’
Harry got up. It was time for a drink. After Joseph had locked up they stood shuffling their feet and sucking their teeth.
‘So you reckon you’ll be heading back to Norway soon, do you?’ Joseph said.
‘Any day now, yes.’
‘Hope you catch the plane this time.’
‘Thought I’d ring the airline this afternoon. And my workplace. They’re probably wondering what’s happened to me.’
‘Oh shit,’ Joseph said, smacking his forehead. He took out his keys again. ‘I reckon there’s too much tannin in the red wine I drink. It corrodes the brain cells. I can never remember whether I’ve switched off the light or not, and the parkie gets pretty angry if he comes and finds the light’s been left on.’
He unlocked the door. The light was off.
‘Ha ha. You know how it is when you know a place inside out, you switch off the light automatically, you don’t even think about it. And then you can’t bloody remember whether you’ve done it or not . . . isn’t that crazy, Harry?’
Harry’s back had stiffened and he stared at Joseph.
41
A Baroque Sofa
THE CARETAKER AT St George’s theatre shook his head with incredulity and poured more coffee for Harry.
‘I’ve never seen the l-like. It’s full here every single night. When they do the guillotine number people go berserk, scream and carry on. Now it’s even on the poster: “Deadly guillotine – as seen on TV and in the press. It’s killed before . . .” Christ, it’s become the star of the show. Strange business.’
‘Strange business indeed. So they’ve found a replacement for Otto Rechtnagel and perform the same show?’
‘More or less, yes. They’ve never had anywhere near as much s-success before.’
‘What about the number with the cat that gets shot?’
‘They dropped that one. Didn’t seem to appeal.’
Harry squirmed. The sweat was pouring down the inside of his shirt. ‘Mm, never quite understood why they had that number . . .’