Humbrol no.23 Duck Egg Blue

A Spitfire. Possibly a Mk. V heading back to Coningsby after a display.

It throbbed down the coast, low enough to be seen through the front window of the café. A brown-green dream machine. He’d slept under one for years. It dangled on fishing line, high above his bed. They'd built it together on the kitchen table. Just the two of them, when that was a good thing, before the illness killed his patience and then finished off the rest of him. They’d used pungent glue from a metal tube. It had a marker pen tang and comprehensive warning symbols; this was not the immature gloop of primary school craft. The camouflage was daubed from tiny metal pots that needed to be levered open with a screwdriver. He had earned his wings and flown solo with a knife sharper than anything in the kitchen drawer.

I’m going to need a new display cabinet soon. One hundred and ninety-six at the last count.

He scraped his Mercedes key on the Formica table. He had made the cut.

I'm more of a Messerschmitt man these days.

Crockery clinked and chapped on an approaching tray.

Order incoming.

“One tea and a sausage sandwich?” said the waitress, appearing beside him.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, shuffling keys and cruet to make unneeded space.  

A quarter of the price of the hotel breakfast. Result.

He had planned the detour to the café so he could enjoy a break between the competitive monotonies of the meeting and the motorway.  

Beautiful smile.

The waitress was young enough to be proud of her job, or happy enough to have no need for pride.

Blue sky eyes.

She placed the saucer and plate in front of him and rebounded, smiling from the table.

Like a gymnast finishing a routine.

He allowed himself to assemble a memory of being the one who’d driven her to her gymnastics classes. He knew he could have been the one who watched her competitions, perched on those hard wooden benches, guarding the sports bags and water bottles. He could have been happy there in those cold echoing halls.

Deep Heat and dirty feet.

He would have hammered the nails to hang the medals and certificates. Eventually he would have had a paternal chat about gymnastics needing to come second to school work. All that support, the motorway hours and the gear and fees shelled out for, would have bought him a say in the matter, but it would be a negotiation, not an order. The negotiation would have gone well, so the exams would have gone well too, and then he’d have been the one moving her in to her overpriced uni. halls. He would have carried all the stuff that would always be too heavy for her, but could never be too heavy for him. He’d have spent a bit of cash settling her in.

A supporter, not a spoiler.

He’d have loved the opportunity to expand in front of jobless youths who might look her way. Suit and car keys, policing their dirty minds.

His confident, strong girl. She’d already have been barefoot by the time her hug sent him packing, alone to the car. He would also have proudly approved of her working in the small seafront café during the holidays.

What would she have been studying?

“Can I get you anything else?” 

“No, that’s lovely, thank you,” he said to another bright smile before she bounced off.

History.

He’d have raised her with enough common sense to avoid the fads. He’d have talked her down from media studies, although it's possible his efforts to sell her on business or law could have fallen short.

Nobody’s perfect.

They’d have shaken hands on history. She was clever enough to do whatever she liked, but she was always going to do something in humanities.

She took after her mother.  

The sandwich steamed into focus and hunger interrupted the temptation to wander off and Frankenstein an imaginary mother for his imaginary daughter to take after.

Anyway, have this, slow walk back to the car, Hunky Dory and Ziggy on the Burmester, office, Let’s Dance, done. In the house by seven at the latest. Ring Sanj for the usual from The Raj Fort, go and collect it so I can have a bit of a chat with Sanj, then back to the flat, get to work on the next kit.  

He loosened his tie and felt air refresh his neck, inside and out. He contorted out of his jacket without standing up and slipped it over the back of his seat. Cufflinks and tie were slipped into the silky inside pocket in exchange for his phone.

Thirteen messages.

He clapped the phone face down on the table. Half the sandwich went in two bites. He used the tea to pace himself.

Try and eat it like you’re actually enjoying it.

He’d made himself a cup of brown with UHT in his room before the meeting. A few hundred, possibly a thousand, admin. booked single-nighters had taught him nothing. He’d still insisted on using the limescale model of a kettle to make a single serving of disappointment. He was still capable of being seduced by the miniature tray of little things. They were still a treat. Their smallness told him it was fine to be on his own. Maybe when he could finally forgo the dusty shortbread and single cup sachets, it would be time.

Time to hang it up?      

In a few years he would retire from ties and cufflinks. From hospitality trays, one-night stays and play-list motorways.

I've got five years, my brain hurts a lot

Five years, that's all I've got

He could serve people good cups of tea and friendly smiles.

Bowie didn’t like tea.

He could afford to buy a place like this. He could employ young people, happy enough to smile and bounce around without a customer service cover story. He’d just drop in and generously dispense cash and worldly advice. He could devote the rest of his time to building his models.

A serious boy of about ten pushed the door open. A surge of saline air rushed in with him.

“Hiya, buddy!” said the waitress.

“Hi,” said the boy, smiling at the floor and putting his small back to the heavy door. He glimpsed around the room and then flattened to attention while his shopping-laden mother came into the café.

The woman exchanged familiar greetings with the waitress and took a table by the big front window with her helpful boy.

The wide-screen window had edited the passing Spitfire into a one second war film. The letterbox strip of eye-blue sky was now a soundstage for the small family. The Spitfire could have been a bluescreen apparition. The lithe shape had scudded out of the frame and corkscrewed up to become his duck egg blue bellied model, hanging dusty winged under clouds of swirling Artex. He’d lain on his bed looking up at it.

Looping and barreling in his hands, his Spitfire had triumphed in the dogfight against his Transformers. It had strafed the blue-grey plastic men invading his bedroom floor; then his dad had hung it in a fishing line noose and drawing pinned it to the ceiling.

In case I broke it.  

After that he had watched it hover, high above the house, guarding against the E.T. terrors of bumbling craneflies and pattering moths as illness moved in. He didn’t build his second spitfire until his dad was gone and he had to build it on his own.

The waitress approached her regulars as the boy’s mother flopped into a seat with an amdram slouch.

“Where have you been this morning?” she asked.

“The shops,” said the boy.

“He’s getting so strong. He can push the trolley now,” smiled his mother. “I think he needs a sausage sandwich to get his strength back.” Her boy smiled in the silence of maturing embarrassment.  

Good lad.

“Oh, definitely, and some juice?” asked the waitress.

“Oh, no. It’s a cup of tea now, isn’t it?” she said, looking at the tightening smile of her quiet son as he allowed himself a glance at the waitress. “And the usual please.”  

“Excellent, one sausage sandwich and a cup of tea, and a cappuccino without chocolate.”

“I saw a plane from the Second World War flying over the beach. It was a Spitfire,” blurted the boy.  

“Oh wow, I saw an old plane but I didn’t know what type it was,” said the waitress.

Surely she did? All that money on History at uni. What are they teaching them?

He’d left his imaginary student daughter at uni. and now he was back at home, building a Spitfire kit with his boy. He’d let him do it himself, as much as he could manage. He would even let him use the pungent glue and the dangerous knife; he’s got to learn. He’d have to do it by himself one day. He’d only help with the hard bits. He would patiently answer all the questions that he had asked his own dad. Why was the bottom half blue?

I’d answer them better than he did. Be more interested, just, be … more. Less bothered about getting the bloody transfers straight.

He’d let the boy paint the whole thing in green and brown camouflage if he wanted to.

The underside didn’t have to be Humbrol no.23 duck egg blue. It wasn't something to get angry about. I was just asking.  

This would be his boy’s model. It would be better than anything he had done at that age. Better than the wonky, paint clogged, Spitfire number two. The first solo Spitfire. They had got better over the years. Immaculate. Professional. Every one the same. Meditation in kit form. He dipped his eyes to the dregs of his tea, then the screen of his phone.

← spitfire m|

spitfire model kit

spitfire museum Spitfire & Hurricane memorial museum, Ramsgate.

How far away is Ramsgate?

Airfix A55100 1:72 Supermarine Spitfire Mkia Military Aircraft Gift Set: Amazon.co.uk: Toys & Games

He added three to his basket.

Those three and this one will take me to the two hundred mark.

He looked at the plastic wrapped model kit on the table next to his car keys. A service station purchase he couldn’t walk past.

His phone hummed. It was another message from the office WhatsApp. The usual Friday offer of drinks in town. It was nice to still be asked, even though he never went.

Nah, Raj Fort for the ususal; Sanj's lamb dansak, two bhajis with yellow sauce and a peshwari naan.

He scrolled back through the conversation he’d been ignoring. The haircuts and too-big watches boasted through a haze of aftershave. He imagined himself in a room, a shirt and a mood, all of which he was too old for.

The bloody awful music.       

He’d gone once, but that was years ago now, when he was still under a hundred models. He’d been making an effort to do different things, not just the kits. Those lads had all left the company and there was already a new batch. Young dudes, who carried the news, in their pockets and constantly checked it when he was trying to talk to them. If he went out with them tonight, he'd be buying most of the rounds. If he was spending then at least there would be a point to him being there. 

The prices are ridiculous. A pint is nearly the same cost a Spit kit in some of the bars. Two pints equals one hotel breakfast.  

No, Bowie on the stereo, his curry and his models was all he needed.

“Do you need anything else?” asked the smiling young waitress, suddenly by his elbow.

“Oh, no thanks. I have to go. Just the bill please,” he said, picking up the weightless cellophane wrapped kit and his car keys.  

He allowed himself a smile in the direction of the other table on his way out of the door. Nobody saw him. They were too busy laughing out of the window. The waitress was sitting with them now.

Time to get back to the car.

The wind's hard edge chiselled his age into him.  He sucked in some blue sky and looked out over the sand-blown concrete promenade. The plane ripped across the sky above him. The beautiful buzz-cluttered drone dopplered over him and away up the coast. He glanced behind him hoping the boy had heard it, caught another glimpse of the thing they shared.

The boy was twisting in his seat behind the window, ducking to keep the plane in view for as long as possible. They shared a second of grinning recognition.

“Excuse me,” he said, walking back in to the café, pulled in by the grin.

He blushed slightly as the boy, his mother and the waitress all looked at him.

“You looked quite excited to see the Spitfire.”

“He’s really into them, aren’t you?” said the boy’s mother.

“They’re the best. I love the Battle of Britain,” said the boy.

“Would you like this?” he said, holding out the model. “I just thought, you obviously like them and I just had it here…”

“That’s very kind of you, but we couldn’t. Isn’t it a present for someone?” said the boy’s mother.

“Well, yes, but it’s fine, really. I did buy it for another little boy, but I think he’s already got this one.”  

“I’m not very good at models,” said the boy.

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about getting it perfect, just enjoy it. If it doesn’t come out quite right you can always make another one.”