Free My Heart Has Wings by Elizabeth Hoy

suppose it would work out in the least like that,” Jan defended her father. “He has a light and subtle touch in his writing, Mike; at least that is what the drama critics have said to him. And he’s no senti m entalist. Journalists seldom are. They learn their craft in too hard a school. If he wrote this play there would be depth in it, and dignity, it wouldn’t be ... shaming the way you imagine.”
    “I don’t imagine anything really. I don’t know the first thing about plays. Do you think this is a good idea for a play?”
    “It could be,” Jan said. “It could be wonderful.” Mike looked at her keenly. “And you feel your father ought to go ahead with it?”
    “I think he ought to go ahead with something!” Jan said, unaware of the sudden urgency in her voice. “He hasn’t had a success since Hungry Harvest .”
    “That must make things ... a little difficult for him,” Mike offered diffidently.
    “Well, naturally,” Jan began, and broke off abruptly. The conversation, she felt, was getting dangerously out of hand. Mike Carliss was the last person to whom she wanted to moan about the Ferrabys’ financial plight! With an air of dismissal she began to type. Maybe it wasn ’ t exactly polite, but she did have to get these letters done for the early collection, and Mike knew the office routine well enough not to expect her to stand on ceremony with him.
    For a while he watched her flying fingers in silence. Then abandoning his perch on Helen’s desk, he said, “Look, Jan, if there’s any way I can help with that play of your father’s I’ll be only too pleased. Tell him I’ll come along any evening he likes and talk it over with him.”
    Jan’s fingers went slack on the keys and she looked up sharply. “You’re just saying that because you’re sorry for him! You loathe the idea of the play really. You don’t have to help us.” It was out before she could stop it; a raw ungracious protest, born of her wounded pride.
    Mike, turning an inscrutable back on this outburst, strolled over to the window. Jan saw Erica appear on the steps of the main executive building, glancing up and down the perimeter road, as if searching for somebody. Mike o pe ned the window and called to her, “Hi, Erica! I’ll be right over.”
    Slamming, the window, he came back to Jan’s desk. “I’m not sorry for your father,” he said. “I’m just interested, that’s all. I’ve never before had the chance to see a writer of plays at work, and I’m curious to see how it’s done. Besides ...” he was making for the door now, and on the threshold turned back to her with a grin, “I’ve got a duty to the fraternity. As long as your father is set on a test pilot hero someone has got to keep him on the straight and narrow path. Facts and figures, rather than starry-eyed flim-flam. I don’t see how anyone can make poetry out of a hero who spends most of his time worrying over things like Mach numbers and drag factors ... but if your father thinks it can be done ...”
    “Shakespeare made poetry out of greasy Joan keeling the pot, and a man called Bottom,” Jan said.
    Mike roared with laughter, and went out. Watching through the window, she saw him cross the perimeter road to Erica. He took her arm and falling into step companionably they made for the canteen.
    Jan returned to her letters, pounding them out at a furious rate. It was marvellous that Mike was going to help her father with the new play; later she would be able to be glad about it, but now her heart was full of bitterness at her own idiocy. How could she have been silly enough to imagine, even for a moment, that Mike had come into the office with the purpose of inviting her to lunch ?

 
    CHAPTER F I VE
    The next f ew days were uneventfully bus y. The E.106a was almost ready for taxiing tr ac k and initial flights, and Mike and Daker spent most of their time in the great hangar where the prototype was having its , last vital check-ups before being