Going Solo

by Catherine Jones

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Kate has almost resigned herself to remaining single for ever. After all, any man willing to take her on, also has to take on an instant family in the form of her adorable baby son. So this dedicated working mother is surprised to find not one but two men vying for her attention. First there's her boss, Greek hotel tycoon Andreas. Powerful, enigmatic and rich, he makes it clear he'd like to take their relationship beyond office hours. And then there's Martin. Kate feels the first stirrings of attraction for her sexy colleague. Maybe she won't have to go through life solo after all . . .

Release date: July 4, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 448

Sample

It came as no surprise to any of the other potential helicopter pilots that Kate Hayleigh was the first person on her course at the School of Army Aviation to be sent solo – after all, she had been flying aircraft of one sort or another since the age of eight. As she watched her instructor walk away from the aircraft, she felt faintly smug about her achievement but had none of the elation she had experienced on her very first solo when the Chief Flying Instructor at her gliding club had told her to push off in the K21 glider and bring it back when she’d had enough. That day – her sixteenth birthday, which meant she had achieved the legal minimum age to fly a plane – she was on her own in the air for the first time in her life, although never in the past four years had the instructor in the rear seat needed to touch the controls. She remembered how she had found thermal after thermal, how she had climbed to four thousand feet, and how, to celebrate her freedom, she had looped the loop, not once but twice. She also remembered the CFI’s reaction when she landed: he’d been livid that she had indulged in the unauthorised aerobatics and had grounded her for a fortnight after publicly bawling her out.

She brought herself back to the present and reminded herself that today she was being trusted with an elderly but nonetheless expensive piece of military hardware and not a wood and canvas glider, and that this was not a moment to show off but to restrict herself to a textbook take-off, circuit and landing. She waited for her instructor to walk clear of the prop before she wound up the power, checked the instrument panel and then commenced her circuit. As always, she got a rush of pleasure at the suddenly expanding horizon as the little Chipmunk soared into the air, revealing acres upon acres of Hampshire and Wiltshire countryside. There’s simply nothing, she thought happily, nothing to beat flying. Her control of the plane, as she flew her circuit, was instinctive, leaving her free to concentrate on her radio procedure as she informed the tower of her position, kept a sharp lookout for other aircraft in the area and went through the pre-landing checks. She brought the machine smoothly round from the cross wind leg, brought her speed down to around seventy knots and then aimed at one of the fluorescent spots on the grass airfield that denoted the runway and brought her plane down on a perfectly judged and even glide path. At the critical moment she pulled fractionally back on the stick, holding the plane off the ground until it sank, feather light, on to the grass. She looked across at her instructor, standing at the edge of the big airfield, who gestured for her to go round again. Kate grinned and thought, brilliant – more time in the air. Given the chance, she would fly all day and not tire of it. She repeated all her previous actions and flew a second flawless solo circuit of the airfield, but this time, when she landed, her instructor indicated that she should taxi back to the hangar. A minute or so later, she reached her objective, where she shut down the plane’s engine. She flicked the switches and listened as the engine sputtered and fell silent, then undid the buckles of her harness and climbed carefully out of the aircraft. She removed her helmet and ran her fingers through the short blond curls that bubbled round her face, and stretched like a cat. A fellow student, walking out towards her for his own flight, waved at her as he neared her.

‘Hi, Matthew,’ Kate said.

Matthew stopped beside her. ‘Congratulations.’

‘What for?’

‘Going solo, stupid.’

‘Oh, that.’

Matthew gave her a wry smile. ‘One small achievement for Kate Hayleigh, one giant step for Matthew Grant.’ It was said without malice.

‘You’ll crack it.’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged disconsolately. ‘Still, can’t gossip all day. See you later.’ As Matt resumed his walk towards his plane to continue his flying instruction, Kate watched him go, acutely aware that he was on the brink of being chopped. The instructors gave the students ratings for each phase of the course: blue, green, brown or red. One red or too many browns meant going on review and then almost certain curtains. So far Kate had been sailing along on a series of greens and a couple of blues – the latter only given for excellence – but Matt had already got several browns on his record, and unless his performance improved considerably they all knew he was the most likely candidate to be put on review. Kate felt sorry for him, but they’d all known that, given the high failure rate for the course, some of them wouldn’t make it. She was fairly confident that she’d pass, partly because of her previous flying experience and partly because she’d never failed in anything she’d attempted.

She watched him begin his pre-flight checks and then turned and made her way to the crew room.

‘Congratulations,’ applauded the other members of her course when she entered. There were half a dozen of them there, lounging comfortably on the armchairs round the walls, some studying charts, some reading manuals and some just drinking tea and discussing aspects of flying.

‘Thanks,’ she acknowledged. She added jokingly, ‘Of course, they only allowed me to go solo because I’m a woman. Otherwise, what explanation could there possibly be for me to have been sent off on my own when the rest of you losers are still having to prove yourselves to the instructors?’

A ribald selection of mostly good-natured remarks filled the air as Kate left to put her flying helmet in her locker. As the senior officer, albeit only a lieutenant, and the only woman on the course, she was aware that she had a very high profile – a fact that was resented by one or two of the other trainee pilots, but which she rather enjoyed. In some respects it was cheering to know that pretty well everyone on the base, from the Commandant downwards, knew who she was. But then it also meant that she could afford to make fewer mistakes because every single one was noticed and commented on. Not that she did make many mistakes, she thought. And being the first on the course to go solo had precious little to do with being a woman and everything to do with being the most competent pilot. She slammed her locker shut and went off to find a telephone and share her happiness with her best friend, also an army officer.

‘Hi, Maria. Is this a convenient moment?’

Maria recognised her voice instantly. ‘Kate! Good to hear from you. I can chat if it’s quick. We’ve got a VIP arriving in half an hour and I’ve got to meet him at the helipad.’

‘Well, I’m just ringing to say that in a few months it may be me ferrying in your visitors. They’ve just sent me solo. I’ve a bit to do before they let me loose on helicopters, but I’m on my way.’

‘That’s terrific. I am so pleased for you. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Have you phoned your mother to tell her you’re following in Daddy’s footsteps?’ A silence ensued. ‘I’ll take that as a no.’ Maria sighed sadly. Kate knew that Maria disapproved of her ongoing row, but today wasn’t going to change anything. As Kate obviously wasn’t going to comment on the subject of her relationship with her mother, Maria went on, ‘Look, I’ve got to dash shortly but I’ll come over this evening.’ Maria was based at the headquarters at Wilton, only a few miles away from Kate, who was at the School of Army Aviation at Middle Wallop, in the heart of Salisbury Plain. ‘Will you be in the mess or are you planning to go out celebrating?’

‘No celebrating proper till I’ve passed completely. I still need my wits about me all the time. There’s plenty of time to get chopped.’

‘But you won’t,’ said Maria confidently. ‘If there was ever anyone born to be a pilot it’s you.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘No more than you deserve. And Kate …’

‘Yes?’

‘Think about telling your mother. I know you have your reasons for feeling bitter, but isn’t it time to put it all behind you? It’s been a long time, and she is your mother, despite what you feel. Doesn’t she deserve better than this?’

Kate remained silent.

‘All right,’ said Maria. ‘But please think about it.’

As Kate rang off she knew that she ought to do as Maria had asked – to think about getting in touch with her mother – but could she really consider forgiving the woman who had been so selfish as to almost succeed in wrecking her daughter’s life?

At lunchtime Kate returned to the mess, grabbed a bag of crisps and a pint of orange juice from the bar and went to the peace and quiet of her room. She propped her pillows against the headboard and settled comfortably on her bed with her feet up to mull things over. As she dipped into her crisps and sipped her juice, Maria’s comments echoed and re-echoed in her head. Was her friend right? Maria knew her as well as anyone: they had been through army training together; they had shared secrets, experiences and even boyfriends. It had been a long time since Kate had joined the army and effectively cut herself adrift from her family. Perhaps it had been long enough.

Kate and Maria had met as officer cadets at Sandhurst, where they had quickly discovered that they each had qualities and strengths that the other lacked. Kate, the product of an élite girls’ boarding school and the only daughter of a high-ranking officer, was at ease with the discipline and much of the jargon, while Maria, who came from a large and boisterous family with a preponderance of brothers, settled quickly into the male-dominated environment and was able to act as protector to Kate while she taught her about holding her own in a macho world. Kate had been quick to learn about handling men, just as Maria had watched Kate at a number of social functions and had gleaned a multitude of social skills in return.

‘So how come you are so good at all this small talk and social claptrap?’ asked Maria after a drinks party at which Kate had once again proved her prowess at being able to talk to anyone and everyone and to appear interested in even the most boring of conversations.

‘Oh, my parents were heavily into that sort of thing. As a kid I often had to hand round the nibbles at their interminable parties, and I suppose I picked up the knack of surviving the endless chit-chat by osmosis.’

‘Any reason for all the entertaining?’

‘My father was in the forces and was hell-bent on getting promoted – as was my mother.’

‘What? In the forces?’

‘No, silly. Promotion for my father. She was a professional wife.’

‘Ah,’ said Maria. It seemed to make sense.

Their days at Sandhurst continued and their friendship deepened as the challenges became harder, the workload heavier and the demands on their time near impossible. They cracked drill and running several miles without stopping; they passed kit inspections and room inspections; they began to understand army ranks and jargon; and they learned how to minimise their sleep requirements and to maximise their efficiency.

Then came the night of their first formal dinner, held by one of the male training companies and to which both girls had been invited. The dress for the female cadets was what they referred to as their ‘penguin kit’ – a long plain black skirt with a white blouse – and they both assumed that most of the others attending would be dressed in the male equivalent: dinner jacket. However, the peacock array of uniforms sported by the male officers who taught the cadets took their breath away. Maria was surprised at Kate’s reaction, as she assumed that Kate was au fait with almost all aspects of the armed forces, their traditions and uniforms.

‘But your dad is in the army,’ she said, still bemused.

‘No he isn’t,’ said Kate.

‘But you said …’

‘I don’t think I was specific. I said he was in the forces.’

Maria’s brow creased. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s not difficult. My dad is in the air force.’ Kate explained that although she had seen her father’s mess kit, it was the same as all the other RAF officers’: smart enough air-force-blue bum-freezer jacket and trousers, waistcoat, bow tie and gold trim. She had thought that the army would have its own version. But nothing had prepared her for the multiplicity of different outfits that adorned the commissioned officers, for each regiment and corps had developed its own variation on a theme. There were red jackets with high collars, green jackets with frogging, and black jackets with red facings, while the female officers wore elegant gold gowns with green sashes over one shoulder. Kate thought that it was quite the most wonderfully romantic and glamorous backdrop for a dinner she had ever seen.

Maria was too busy ogling the fit young officers to give much thought as to why Kate should have joined the army when her father was in a rival service. ‘Don’t they all look sexy, or what?’ she whispered with a lascivious leer, gazing at the neat rear-view of a man wearing the tightest pair of trousers either had seen in a long time.

‘Don’t stare,’ said Kate demurely, almost unable to take her eyes off the delicious bottom herself.

What with the wonderful uniforms, the candles and the regimental silver, Kate felt as though she had been whisked back to an era of long ago; a scene that might have been described by Thackeray or Austen or Tolstoy. Later, as she sat at the wide dining table, polite conversation taking place around her, a military band playing selections from a popular musical, she decided contentedly that despite her motivation for joining the army being more than a little bit suspect she had undoubtedly made the right decision. And anyway, it had scored a point against her parents and had allowed her to leave home and get away from them as soon as she had become eighteen.

Although Kate was happy with her choice of service in the armed forces, both she and Maria knew that they had to decide on the corps or regiment they were going to join when they got their commissions and left Sandhurst. Until a few years previously the decision had been easy – then the options had been the WRAC, the Education Corps if you had been trained as a teacher, or the QAs if you wanted to nurse. The lot of most female officers was to provide nothing more than admin fodder. But now there was a myriad of opportunities: they could join the Royal Signals or the Ordnance Corps, the Catering Corps or the Pay Corps – to name but a few. Had either of the girls had a degree, she would have had an even bigger choice, but as Maria and Kate considered their possible options they were glad that the decision was only as hard as it was. In the end the pair of them decided that they would be hard pressed to find a niche that seemed to offer as much, in both career prospects and travel, as the Royal Signals. For both of them, travel had been part of the incentive to join up, and the one thing the army needed, wherever it was based around the world, was communications.

‘Although it’s a shame I can’t join the Air Corps,’ Kate said to Maria one day with undisguised envy, having heard a male cadet boasting about passing the selection process for flying helicopters.

‘No chance,’ said Maria, looking up from the pair of shoes she was bulling: an evening ritual, and one that was easier carried out in the company of a friend and over a cup of coffee. ‘I don’t seem to remember the army saying it was an equal opportunities employer when we signed on the dotted line.’

‘But flying is only like driving a car. It’s not something that requires particular strength or large amounts of testosterone.’

‘Ah, but it’s a boys’-toys thing, isn’t it? Let a woman fly a helicopter and the world as men know it will cease to exist. This may be the twentieth century, but you’ve got to remember some of the army still lives in the nineteenth.’

Kate laughed, in spite of her frustration at being denied the one career move she really wanted.

‘One day women will be allowed to fly for the armed forces. They are going to have to give way eventually.’

‘So if you believe that, why on earth did you join the army? Surely with your background you’d have been better off with the air force.’

Kate shrugged. ‘You don’t really want to know.’

‘Yes I do. I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Am I in a hurry to go anywhere?’ Maria indicated the rest of her kit waiting to be cleaned ready for inspection the next day.

‘I had a row with my parents.’

‘I gathered that.’

Kate looked up sharply from making meticulous circles with polish on an already gleaming toecap. ‘Do you want to hear this story or don’t you?’

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Maria. ‘I won’t interrupt again.’

‘When I was about eight my dad took me gliding for the first time and I got a crush on the Chief Flying Instructor. He was a man called Mike, and I don’t suppose anyone noticed when I was that age. I don’t suppose even he noticed. He used to pull my pigtails and give me piggybacks and I thought he was the most wonderful person in the world. Then, when I was about fifteen my folks got posted out to Germany. By this time Daddy was an air vice marshal, and Mummy was far too busy entertaining to try and get him even further up the ladder to notice anything that I got up to. I went out to Germany for the main holidays but made my own arrangements for halfterms and exeats. They knew I was crazy about flying and that I spent most of my time at the gliding club, and beyond the occasional letter or phone call to check I was still alive, they pretty much ignored me. I had a friend at the club called Martha – I suppose she’s about thirty, and she has a caravan parked on the airfield and does all the catering there for the hungry pilots. She promised to look after me, so as far as my parents were concerned, if I wanted to stay with her rather than fly out to Germany it was fine by them.’

Maria looked horrified. ‘But you’re their only daughter. Didn’t they want to see you?’

‘Daddy was working every hour in the day, and it has always been obvious to me that my mother had more important things to do at weekends; like endless entertaining of the right people to try and achieve her ambitions, ambitions that have nothing to do with anything I could offer.’ Maria looked bewildered, so Kate explained. ‘If Daddy gets high enough he’ll get a knighthood, and Mummy just longs to be Lady Hayleigh-Ffoulkes more than anything in the world.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Sadly, I’m not.’

‘So this is why you hate your parents? Because your mother uses all her energies to get your dad promoted?’

‘Good heavens, no. The reason we had the final bust-up was over Mike, the CFI. Because I was spending so much time at the airfield, because I was there in the evenings too, I saw increasing amounts of Mike and we began to have a relationship. Over the next couple of years it got quite serious, and then my mother and father found out. Mike was a flight sergeant in the RAF and I suppose Mummy was terrified of what people would think if word got out that an AVM’s daughter was seeing an other rank. She made sure that it all came to an abrupt halt by giving my school strict instructions that I wasn’t to be allowed out at all and I never saw him again. I couldn’t forgive my parents for that; they took away Mike and my gliding – the only things that made life worth living as far as I was concerned. They were no better than bullies.’

‘But you were just a teenager. They were only doing what they thought was in your best interests. And they could hardly let you keep on gliding if it meant you would still see Mike.’

Kate glowered at Maria. She didn’t want her friend to be on the side of her parents, however reasonable her viewpoint was.

‘It wasn’t only that.’ Kate put down her duster and the polish. ‘I realise now that it probably was just a schoolgirl crush and that nothing serious would have come of it. But it wasn’t what was done, it was the way in which it was done. I expect, under the same circumstances your mother would have take you to one side and explained things to you: about the unsuitability of falling for an older man: that the fact that I was the daughter of an air vice marshal and he was a flight sergeant made it even more unwise. But they didn’t even discuss it with me. It was just a series of orders and directives down a telephone line to other people. They never considered my feelings; my mother didn’t talk to me about it. It was as if they were conducting some sort of military operation.’

‘Oh, Kate.’ Maria could see now why Kate had been so devastated by the whole business. ‘You must have been so hurt.’

‘What made it worse was that when I finally rang my mother to have the whole business out with her, she told me that if that was my attitude she would rather I didn’t go out to visit them for the summer holidays, because having a sulky teenager slamming doors around the house would be inconvenient as they were hosting some very important VIP.’

‘You’re joking!’ Maria was aghast.

‘I wish I wasn’t.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Got a job for the summer at a hotel in Devon and set about planning how to be completely independent. I’d been supposed to be going to university but that would have kept me financially dependent on my parents and I wasn’t having that. Joining the forces seemed the obvious thing to do although wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me into the air force. There was no way I was going to go anywhere where I might run into them again.’

‘You poor kid,’ said Maria with feeling.

Kate shrugged. ‘Water under the bridge now,’ she said, trying to sound casual and pragmatic but not really succeeding. ‘But the whole episode is pretty sordid, so keep it to yourself. It’s not the sort of thing I want the world to know.’

Maria nodded. ‘Do you think you’ll ever make it up with your parents?’

‘Would you? Although it’s Mummy who I really blame. I’m certain she was the main mover behind all this, but I don’t think he’ll ever stand up to her so that’s that.’ Kate didn’t add that she had always felt that when they did spend time together, she had had a special relationship with her father, that he had been on her side, that they had sometimes giggled and exchanged winks over her mother’s snobbery and social aspirations. She had thought that at least her father might have tried to temper her mother’s actions over Mike and her flying, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t just hurt that she had felt, but betrayal too.

‘God, what a mess. I can’t imagine falling out with mine. How dreadful.’

‘Take my advice, don’t try it. It’s every bit as awful as you think it is.’

Despite assurances from commissioned officers and the senior NCOs at Sandhurst that the army had made giant strides in its attitude to sexual equality, Kate continued to mutter about the unfairness of not being considered for the Army Air Corps on grounds of her gender. The female cadets were told, on more than one occasion, that since the mid-seventies they had made huge strides forward in the way they were treated and employed by the army, but Kate still felt that there was a long way to go. One of the platoon commanders had even made them laugh by telling them that when she’d been a cadet – not at Sandhurst, but at a very separate establishment on the other side of Camberley – her course had even been taught to arrange flowers.

‘And what’s more,’ Captain Endicott had continued, ‘it wasn’t considered ladylike that we should march as a squad between lectures. We were told to walk with a purpose. We only wore flat shoes for drill; for everything else we were required to wear high heels.’

‘What, even on exercise, ma’am?’ one of the cadets had asked.

‘Exercise? We weren’t expected to go off on exercise. We were expected to be in charge of the rear party back in the barracks.’

The platoon had laughed, but it did emphasise that the role of women in the army had moved from the dark ages to the modern day in a remarkably short time. That they would progress further in the near future was not in doubt, but it was not considered politic for junior female officers to rock the boat by trying to move things too far and too fast. There were a good number of senior male officers who had very fixed views about women anywhere near the front line, or even in the army at all, and who would sooner contemplate the prospect of being on the receiving end of a direct hit by a nuclear missile than consider sharing a trench or an armoured personnel carrier with a girl. All Kate could hope for was that attitudes would change while she was still serving.

Kate was still contemplating using some of her hard-earned savings to learn to fly powered aircraft when she was summoned to Captain Endicott’s office.

‘What have you done?’ asked Maria.

‘I can’t think of anything,’ said Kate with a worried frown. It was a little like being summoned to the headmistress’s office, when even those with a clear conscience would automatically assume they had committed some transgression or other. She sighed and squared her shoulders. ‘I won’t find out standing here discussing it with you.’ She marched off to her platoon commander’s office as quickly as she could and was relieved when, on entering, she was offered a seat. If it were going to be a ticking-off, she wouldn’t have been allowed to sit down.

‘I see from your records that you are a solo glider pilot,’ said Captain Endicott.

‘Yes, I’ve been flying gliders almost as long as I can remember, ma’am,’ replied Kate.

‘Would you like to graduate to something with a bit more power?’

‘Yes, ma’am. And I’ve been thinking of taking some lessons down at Blackbushe. I’m not sure how much they cost but I could probably afford half a dozen.’

‘Would that be enough to get you a licence?’

‘Good heavens, no. I think you need about forty-five hours for that and there’s no way I could run to that amount.’

‘Supposing there was some help available. Would that make it easier?’

‘Yes, but …’ Kate didn’t understand.

‘The RMA offers about ten flying scholarships each intake. They are only available to cadets who are not going to join the Army Air Corps. As we both know, this means that you are eligible – providing of course you can pass a fairly basic medical. I would just like to know if you would be interested. And are you?’

Kate barely had to reply; her face said it all.

‘I can’t promise that you will be successful. There are usually twice as many applicants as places available, but I will be happy to put your name forward.’

Kate was so keen to race back to tell Maria the good news that she almost forgot to salute as she left the platoon commander’s office.

‘Gosh, lucky you,’ said Maria.

‘Do you want to have a go? I’m sure you could apply too if you wanted.’

‘Me? Good Lord, no. I get airsick if I look at a plane ticket,’ said Maria. ‘No, I’m just really pleased for you. Let’s hope it pans out.’

A week later Captain Endicott was able to pass on the good news to Kate.

‘Well done,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to go for a briefing with the OiC Flying to get all the details.’ She handed Kate a memo with the details of when and where to attend.

‘There’s just one problem, ma’am,’ said Kate, a little hesitantly.

‘Yes?’

‘I haven’t got any transport.’ Blackbushe was a fair hike away.

‘Don’t worry. This is an official part of your army training now. We’ll get you there and back.’

Kate just couldn’t believe it. Lucky, lucky her.

The next evening she reported to the OiC Flying’s office in Old College. Waiting outside the door were a group of male cadets, obviously there for the same reason.

One of them looked at Kate and said, ‘You must have the wrong place. This is for the flying scholarship briefing.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve been awarded one too.’

Nine pairs of eyes swivelled in her direction. Most just out of curiosity, but in a couple Kate detected undisguised resentment. So much for women now being treated as equals in the army by its more junior members. Chauvinism obviously wasn’t just the prerogative of the old and bold officers, as she’d thought.

Major Reece opened the door of his office, did a quick head count to ascertain that all were present and ushered them into his spacious room.

‘Find a pew,’ he said. There were several wooden chairs, a leather armchair and a table. The cadets perched or sat on all of them. ‘Glad to see you here,’ he began. ‘And in particular you, Kate. Good to see a girl interested in aviation.’ Kate didn’t think that everyone present shared his sentiment but didn’t say so.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she mumbled.

‘Right, who has flown before? And I don’t mean on a charter to the Costa del Sol,’ added Major Reece. Three hands, including Kate’s, went up. ‘Who are you and what have you flown then?’ he said, pointing to the nearest cadet.

‘I’m Cadet Brigsby, sir, and I’ve flown a few hours in a Beagle Pup.’

‘Pl or P2?’ asked Major Reece. Brigsby looked blank. ‘Did you pilot it or were you under instruction?’ he explained.

‘Oh, I had a go with the controls, sir, but I wasn’t under instruction. It was more of a joyride really.’