The bright match flare of the flame, the quick tug of the basket, the weightlessness upon my feet. Around me there are gasps and cries, but I lean forward, gripping the side of the gondola as we are borne upwards into the air. The gardens diminish, their mysteries and labyrinths laid bare for all to see. For a moment, I see my cousin’s upturned face among the spectators. Then the world spins away and there are no cousins, no pleasure-seekers, no relatives. Just the uncertainty of shifting air, a bracing wind on a spring night, the meandering shape of the Thames coiling through an ancient city, and lights in the windows of St Paul’s Cathedral.
I’m flying.
The silk globe draws us skywards. A watch-light by the patriot’s lonely tomb; A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor. That is how Shelley describes it. Ballooning. And liberty.
The platform beneath me jolts and shudders, and a woman cries out. The gondola sways to the sound of staggering feet. I grip the basket, willing us higher.
‘Nothing to fear,’ the balloonist calls. ‘That’s just our anchor settling.’ He turns to the woman next to him. ‘We are tethered to the gardens, madam.’
Anchor. When was the last time I felt that pull? Docking in Portsmouth sixteen years ago. Reaching land. My brother crying out, determined to stay with the lascars on the ship. Four black horses and my grandfather’s coach.
Then the world spins away and there are no cousins, no pleasure-seekers, no relatives.
Beneath me, the Thames pushes through the detritus of London, greeting the estuary and snaking toward the Channel. I follow it into the cold and briny Atlantic, through to Holland and Calais, then further, to the Mediterranean.
Above, the first stars stare back at me. The evening wind plucks at my hair and drums against the gondola. The platform slides beneath us, dropping once, then rising, meeting our feet and leaving them in two quick percussions.
‘Some minor turbulence.’ The balloonist’s voice is weak in the wind. ‘Do not be concerned.’
My skirts pull at me, the world swaying closer before being torn away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, do prepare for our descent.’
Around me there are murmurs of relief. I reach out, as though I could grip the wind.
How is it that I can fly, that I can be here, among the clouds, and still not be free?
*
The basket thuds against the earth, bouncing once and dragging across the grass. Screams split the spectators as the crowd parts in front of the arriving balloon. Figures rush past. The balloon draws closer, looming over him, its bright sphere blocking out the gibbous moon and early stars. Light waits, watching the diminishing shape of the inflated globe, the juddering basket. Such modern wonder.
The balloon is almost upon him. He waits until the final moment. The balloonist waves his arms, shouting. A woman screams. As the basket bears down on him, he steps nimbly aside. It’s close. So close he can see the lined texture of the gondola’s weave, the threaded ropes, the stitches harnessing the scarlet-and-white silk. The passengers rock and cry out, gripping the sides of the gondola, white-faced. He sees again a flash of red, a dark-haired woman leaning forward, laughing, one arm out to catch the vanishing air.
As the gondola settles, the balloon deflating, passengers scramble from the basket. The spectators keep their distance. Light can see, tucked in their midst, the shapes of Walter Fraser and Mrs Harcourt. Alone, Light walks forward. He would touch the striped silk of the envelope and examine its rope and stitching. There are not so many mysteries to its construction. He could build one of these. And what then? He is at a loose end. How far could a balloon take him?
The iced peaks of the Swiss Alps, the canals of Venice. The Black Sea.
He reaches out, his fingers brushing the edges of the silk.
Weight thuds into his chest, small hands gripping his shoulder. He smells jasmine, magnolia, the keen, sharp scent of Vauxhall punch.
‘I’m so sorry.’ A voice drifts up to him from the region of his chest.
Without thinking he steadies the woman in front of him, his hand on the fabric around her waist. His fingers hesitate on the fineness of the silk, the texture of the crystals stitched into it. As she wobbles against him, he sees burnished brown hair, a red net dress. The woman from the balloon.
‘I did try to get your attention,’ the woman says. ‘It’s very difficult to climb out of a balloon dressed like this.’
He cannot get a clear sight of her face. He moves to step back, to maintain his distance. But she cries out in pain. Her hair is tangled in the buttons of his coat.
She works her fingers around the loop of her hair and the pale-blue ornament that has pinioned her to him. A Wedgewood brooch. The mascot of the female abolitionists. So. She affects to be political.
‘Could you not have left via the gate? Like the others?’
‘Not easily, no. Not without being seen.’
He watches the deft movement of her fingers, her hair coming apart across his chest. He has not yet, in all this time, caught a clear sight of her face, but he begins to suspect her identity. He looks around. She is entirely alone. He realises then who she must be. The only solitary woman to disembark from the balloon. Mrs Harcourt’s cousin. A lady. Not a person he would expect to be clambering around alone in the night at Vauxhall. He releases her waist.
Without thinking he steadies the woman in front of him, his hand on the fabric around her waist.
Flashes of light fall across the gardens, casting the trees in shades of red and pink and blue. Fireworks spin into the sky, cracking into glittering missiles. He thinks, as he always does, of cannon fire on the Peninsula, the red night and thunder of the guns. But he does not flinch like other men. All those years fighting Napoleon, and he was never wounded.
She frees her hair and steps away, turning from him. He feels the absence of her hands against his chest.
The fireworks flare again. Bright silver gold. She is lit up in flashes before him.
It is her skin that he notices. The texture, shade and sheen of it. He thinks, for one visionary moment, that if he were to reach out and touch her, and place his bare palm on her exposed shoulder, that their skins would cleave together, would dissolve into one another. Like water on water.
When she turns, he sees her face as in a mirror, his own features rearranged and given back to him. He understands now, all those Grecian legends. What it means to look upon a woman’s face and turn to stone.
He senses he shouldn’t be here. That he should walk on. But he could never resist it. Even as a child in the pepper gardens in Penang, leaning over the pond, reaching out with his palm. Touching the skin of the water.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ He hears his own voice as from a distance. Behind him, the sound of cheering layers over the fading fireworks.
She smiles. ‘I’m avoiding someone. Two people, more precisely.’
He feels his face tugging into its own curves. ‘Mrs Harcourt’s cousin, I presume.’
‘Yes. And you are?’
‘Major William Light. I met your cousin earlier, with Mr Fraser.’
‘So, you met my dull captors for the evening.’
‘I believe they are searching for you.’
‘I believe you are right. It’s why I’m here.’
Light looks back toward the crowd, where a tall silhouette and a glimpse of a woman in purple loom. ‘Madam,’ he tells the woman, ‘I don’t think you should wander off alone. Not in the dark at Vauxhall. Your cousin is just—’
She shakes her head. Something about her is familiar. He sees her wrists and thinks of a backstreet in Calcutta, sunlight peering in through latticed windows. The sound of ox carts and children playing. Scented writing paper. Her skin changes colour in the gloaming.
‘I saw you.’ Her voice cuts through his thoughts. ‘The man watching the balloon. I saw your face. You were the only one not to run. The only one who wanted to reach out and touch it.’ She steps back, further into the darkness. ‘You could have been crushed. Don’t lecture me on caution, when you need it as much as I do.’
‘Need what?’ Without realising, he has followed her, moving forward, away from the crowd and into the trees.
She raises a hand to the sky, then smooths her tangled hair. ‘Freedom. Risk.’
He laughs, seeing again the open vista, the gleaming horizon line, the skies crossing the Channel, flying to the Mediterranean, and further, the domes of Constantinople. To be in that basket, to be in the sky. To fly. With her.
She walks into the shadows, the hem of her dress rippling behind her. When he follows, she holds out her hand to the night. His palms long to meet her. To touch the skin of the water.
This is an extract from Salt Upon the Water (Wakefield Press), available now at your local independent bookseller.
