Airship City

Chapter 18

Saturday dawned bright and calm, with little fluffy clouds in a light blue summer sky. Joseph spent the morning in anxious anticipation. At last it was time to make his way to Kensington by bus, and as he sat on the top deck, looking out at the beautiful day, his heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt slightly dizzy.

It wasn’t just because Ione’s face had been often in his thoughts since their meeting, he told himself. It wasn’t just the memory of her bright eyes and her smiling mouth. He was also nervous about his assignment. Monmouth was expecting him to wangle an invitation back to Aeropolis. What if things went wrong again? What if he completely messed it up, and Ione stormed off again, vowing never to have anything to do with him? The thought made his heart ache.

It won’t happen again. Just don’t mention her father, and everything will be all right.

The bus was coming up to the Marlborough Gate stop. He rang the bell in good time, but when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he found that the driver had missed the stop, and the bus was continuing along Bayswater Road. The conductor shrugged off his complaints, which made Joseph even angrier. As the bus slowed to take a corner, he decided to jump from the platform. He nearly fell as he landed, but caught himself just in time to raise his fist in triumph at the scowling face of the conductor, before the bus disappeared around the corner.

With adrenalin pumping his heart and a mad grin on his face, he jogged back along the road to the gate. There was a signpost just inside it. Following the sign to the Peter Pan statue, he set off down the path that led past the fountains of the Italian Gardens, with the sluggish expanse of the Long Water to his left. The statue appeared quite suddenly, set back off the path in a grassy glade, facing the water. It was still ten minutes before noon, and Ione was nowhere to be seen.

The boy who wouldn’t grow up stood on his bronze tree stump, pipes raised to his lips. Joseph paced around the base of the statue, wondering which direction Ione would be coming from, wanting to see her before she saw him. He checked his watch. Still five minutes to noon. He started to think about what he would do if she didn’t come. He dreaded the thought of making his way home in disappointment.

But it never came to that. A few minutes after noon he spied her walking down the path towards him, red hair shining in the sun. She was accompanied by a neat little man in a seersucker suit, who was carrying a large picnic basket.

The appearance of Blake Vanross was a surprise to Joseph. He simply hadn’t considered the possibility that Ione would be accompanied. He felt a pang of jealousy, which was absurd on the face of it, as Vanross was employed by Hughes, and therefore almost acting as a servant to Ione. But in his imagination he had pictured only Ione and himself, together in the park. That was obviously not going to happen.

He put aside his disappointment as the pair approached, and smiled. “Hello, Ione. Hello, Mr Vanross. How are you both?”

“Hello, Joseph. Please call me Blake,” replied Vanross, smiling in return. But Ione made no reply. She glanced sullenly at Vanross, then looked away, arms folded.

“You’ll have to excuse Miss Hughes.” Vanross had an amused look on his face. “She’s pretty unhappy that her father asked me to come along today. But don’t you worry, I won’t be in the way. You young folks will still be able to enjoy yourselves.”

Ione rounded on him. “But you are in the way, Blake! I don’t need you. I’m not a child anymore. Nobody follows me around on Aeropolis.”

“But this isn’t Aeropolis, Ione. This is a large and dangerous city, one that you don’t know. You can’t simply go wandering around on your own.”