you just got to remember which bloody buttons to press.’ He added, ‘I only fly as co-pilot anyway.’
‘To save a pilot’s salary. Away half the time. What kind of life is that for a woman?’
‘But most pilots’ wives survive. Look, I’m not flying for fun. They’re bloody dangerous machines. And boring.’
‘Why haven’t you sat any of the law exams yet? Shelagh says they’re easy.’
‘Shelagh’s not a lawyer, to my knowledge.’ He shifted. ‘No, they’re not hard, and I’m exempted a lot of the exams. But it’s still a pain and I’m tired out when I get home. Listen, I’ll re-qualify. But I’m not a steam-driven genius.’
‘How much did you earn in Rhodesia?’
Mahoney sighed. ‘Sixty thousand dollars a year. A hundred thousand, if I worked my ass off.’
‘And it’s all sitting in the bank back home?’
‘I spent most of it.’
‘What on?’
He shrugged. ‘The farm. A boat. I don’t know. Booze. Women. I was a bachelor.’
‘And now you only earn housekeeping money. Is that fair? Why don’t you at least take your family home to Rhodesia where you can earn a decent living?’
Mahoney sat forward. ‘Rhodesia is finished. The whites have lost their chance to make it a multi-racial society, there’s no point defending a doomed situation just to earn money which you can’t take out when the blacks turn the country into an intolerable mess.’
‘And you’re not a racist?’
Mahoney shook his head. ‘No, I am a realist. Is there one African country which isn’t misgoverned? That’s not prejudice, it’s fact. Look, Shelagh taught in the Department of African Education, so all she met were nice black children eager to learn. And she’s British, brought up here; she doesn’t know about the vast mass of primitive ignorance out in the bush. She thinks they’re noble savages who just need a bit of education and one-man-one-vote to turn them into western democrats. She thinks the Russians are sincere people, that we’re all the victims of American propaganda.’
‘You haven’t a high regard for her opinion. Do you think you qualify as her soulmate?’
Mahoney sighed.
‘I like to read, but I haven’t much time. But Shelagh? – she writes poetry. She’s into long walks in the woods when it’s pissing with rain. Women’s Lib. Now she’s into meditation. I simply haven’t got the time.’
‘No, you’re the breadwinner, the Victorian husband who says: “This is what we’re doing, here is where we’ll live, I’m the man in this house” …’
Mahoney stared at him. ‘You think I’m like that?’
‘I’m suggesting Shelagh sees you like that … So, you don’t like Australia, and Shelagh must accept your life here.’
Mahoney took a breath. ‘You may not appreciate this, but being a Rhodesian makes me British to the goddamn core. Rhodesians may be a bit slow off the mark making the reforms people like me wanted, but the Rhodesians – even including Ian Smith and most of his cowboys – the Rhodesians are the last of the British! The last custodians of the good old British values in Africa. Like hard work. Incorruptible public service. Good judges. Good police. Good health and education services. And’ – he held up a finger – ‘a Victorian civilizing mission.’
‘Victorian …’ the psychiatrist murmured.
Mahoney held up a hand. ‘Ah yes, those good old values are old-fashioned in today’s milk-and-water egalitarianism and the world-owes-us-a-living ethic. But I was brought up to think and feel British – I feel like an Englishman. I don’t want to be Australian or American – so if Rhodesia is finished, I’ll come back to the land of my forebears.’ He added, with a bleak smile: ‘In fact, God is an Englishman.’
‘And you want to run an airline instead of being a lawyer.’
Mahoney sighed. ‘In Rhodesia I was a big fish in a small pond. But here there’d be many lean years before I built up a reputation. And I don’t know much Law, never did. A seat-of-the-pants barrister, that’s me. And now I have to make that airline work because all our capital’s in it. And it is working. All around airlines go bankrupt, but we’re making it! Because we’re lean and work hard. O.K., we only get housekeeping money, because we’ve got to pay off mortgages on our aircraft, and homes. Do you know what our aviation fuel-bill is? One and half million pounds a year! Cash on fill-up. No credit. Our pilots carry five thousand pounds with them on each trip, to fill up. And the banks that lend us that kind of money want it back at the end of each week. How do we do it? By working hard … Once our mortgages are paid we’re going to be well off. But right now we’re two weeks away from bankruptcy at any given moment. It only needs those OPEC bastards to hike the price of oil unexpectedly, or we lose two engines, or we’ve got an empty plane, and we’re broke. So we have to work …’
He massaged his brow. ‘And’, he said ‘it’s worthwhile work! Britain has to export. We’re helping British goods go worldwide, at cheaper rates. And we specialize in out-of-the-way places the big airlines refuse to serve, and we bring back products that otherwise wouldn’t be sold! Shelagh sees us as a trucking company, but aren’t we helping the economy? And isn’t economics the key to Africa’s backwardness – a man will never grow more than he needs to eat unless he can sell his surplus and buy something else with his money.’ He sat back. ‘Isn’t that better than arguing Carlyle versus The Carbolic Smokeball Company, which any fool lawyer can do?’
‘So you haven’t washed your hands of Africa – but Shelagh must! And now, far from going back to Law, you’re talking about airships.’
Mahoney slumped back.
‘Airships … ,’ he sighed. ‘Airships don’t even exist, except these mickey-mouse Goodyear blimps.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m very interested in the principle of airships, because they would revolutionize the Third World economies. But’, he smiled wearily, ‘all I’ve done is lent a tumble-down cottage to a guy called Malcolm Todd. That’s a far cry from spending Shelagh’s housekeeping money on an airship.’
The psychiatrist put his hands together. ‘So what are you going to do to get her back? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, at forty quid an hour, which you can ill afford?’
Get her back? Oh God! And Cathy …
‘Well,’ the psychiatrist demanded, ‘do you love her?’ He answered himself. ‘Of course, you adore her, don’t you?’
Mahoney breathed deep. ‘Yes.’
‘And does Shelagh love you?’ He answered again: ‘Yes, when you were the young big-wheel lawyer around town? Then she realized you were also a dictatorial Victorian bastard who didn’t go too much for transcendental meditation, so she began to cool off you? Tell me, what did you love about her? Her mind? Didn’t you find her a little way-out for you, a bit too arty, undergraduate? She didn’t even like to get drunk with you.’ He leant forward. ‘It’s her body, isn’t it?’
Mahoney shifted.
The psychiatrist said, ‘You’re hooked on her body. Her loins … And Joe Mahoney had never been rejected before, he’d always been the one to love ’em and leave ’em. And you couldn’t bear the thought of her screwing somebody else, could you?’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘So when she comes back to you the last time, you marry her. Why? Because she’s pregnant? Did you think that marriage would change your relationship? Is that the advice you would have given a client?’
‘Probably