The African soil is far below me.   You are above and beyond the clouds.   With Ubangi-Chari to the west, we are finishing our penultimate hop east across the plains of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.   My face is cold and dry.   We left the White Nile and its animals more than an hour ago and it's almost too late to turn back for Bor.   At this rate we'll have to choose between the mountains ahead or the swamp to the east.   Winston splutters; I nudge the throttle to pacify the old boy.  

I spend my time counting trees and deciphering their constellations from the air.   We followed the Nile's Milky Way through Egypt until it grew confused and then split at Khartoum, and after that we continued south above its lesser brother for as long as the water held out.

Before we met I was told that your name was George.   Or, to be more precise, I was told that you were one of those women who called themselves George.   You see, before you even spoke, I knew you would break my heart.   I think back to your husband's farmhouse, negotiate my way past remembered guests and memories.   I try and glimpse the moment you stole my heart.   Perhaps this is it:   you placed a finger on my wrist; you turned away from him and your eyes almost met mine.  

African air is sweet: morning smells of wet grass.   Late afternoons are fresher - a dangerous fruity smell if there are thunderclouds about.   Up here I can only pick out the strongest scents.   Earlier it was rotting flesh, but now it's the earthy sweat of big, unseen animals on the move.

And just as I'm acclimatising myself this loneliness you appear alongside me.   We're wing to wing.   You raise your hand over Matilda's red side pointing.   I balance the plane and peer into the wind and darkening landscape.   Sure enough, there is a flash of reflected sunset in the distance and I spot the wall of Shell Golden tins beside the outline of an airfield.   Matilda banks starboard, exposing her shaded fuselage and sturdy gear.   I give a shout and pull right, following you in a sudden rush of offset earth and lopsided sky.  

I bump and dip all the way down as I pursue your little red biplane.   Matilda sweeps in low, leaving behind a wake of disturbed grass.   With a sudden bounce she's on the ground, her comic movements as you decide where to park.   I level out and stumble across the runway, my wheels lift and drop and refuse to grip the earth, until a final tussle brings the plane down in the sudden heat and smell of sulphur.   I cut the engine.  

'We cross Lake Turkana tomorrow morning,' you say after eating the supplies left by the Shell rep, and then you wipe dust from my face.   'That's better.'

Your thoughts are with your husband.

'We need to stack these before it gets dark,' I say and begin building a curved wall from the empty two-gallon tins.   Once finished I sweep the ground while African night falls, and soon our fire is surrounded by nothing at all.  

We sit with our backs against the tin wall and face Matilda and Winston.

'He's all around me,' you say.   'His bloody samples weighing Matilda down.   We've found enough plants to keep him busy all winter. '   I unfold a blanket and cover the fine hair on the back of your neck.   'You've no idea what it feels like to be owned by someone.   You'll return to your studies.   I'll be back in that house waiting on him.'

I'd offer to give up my studies but neither of us would believe me, and instead I wait for your words to pass into the African night.  

'My entire life . . . this chance to run away has been planned by him.   I mean--' here you hold up the folded receipt '--this rep, this Leopold McKay, paid for with his money.   My whole life is paid for. '  

I head over to the planes and swing open Winston's luggage locker and reach past the bundles of tightly bound flora.   'Brought for emergencies,' I say holding up three bottles of wine.   'I'm going to prescribe at least two, perhaps all three.'

'Depending upon how the patient responds to treatment?'

'Exactly.'

We finish the second bottle and I lie beside you, watching you reach up with both hands trying to grasp the stars.  

'I love you.   More?'   I refill our glasses.  

'My funny little professor.   Oh, I love him really.   I don't even know if he expects me to be faithful to him.   I don't suppose he cares.'

'He's at the top of his field,' I say.  

'I keep him there.   Or rather the twigs in Matilda and Winston keep him there.   I need to sleep.'  

'Please don't.'   It's what I've been waiting for: my chance to fall in love with you again.  

'A week at the farm will be long enough, and then I'll head off somewhere else.   With a beach.   Zanzibar.'  

'You want to go to Zanzibar?'   After my week at the farm I would return to England.  

'Zanzibar can be done in two easy jumps,' you say, 'refuelling at Nairobi.   And of course there's Kilimanjaro, one couldn't very well fly all the way without seeing Kilimanjaro.'

When we land at the farm the next day your husband leads us to the farmhouse where he rings a bell and sends one servant to fetch the bags and another to begin the supper.   'This came for you,' he says, handing me a letter from my father. 'Postmarked Cookham.'

My father is well; my mother is worried.   He thanks me for my letter from Italy and had obtained the address of Marsabit farm ( Marshabit Farm ) from my professor ( an odd sort ).   The letter sermonised about having fun now with no regard for the future.   My mother urged me not to miss the start of the autumn term.   If I did not return my father was prepared to resign from his position in the bank and come looking for me.  

'Good news, I hope?'

'Oh yes, all fine.   Letter from home.'  

We sit opposite each other at dinner and I spend the meal watching him talk to you.   I see you raise a hand to your neck where your fingers brush against the delicate skin.  

Life at the farm is simple.   We breakfast when we rise, the baths are long and hot, you spend your days walking or reading.   I see you with a glass in your hand more often that I can ever remember.   Your wear makeup at odd times of the day.   We play three-handed bridge in the evening and listen to his voice.

This way five days pass with five late-afternoon thunderstorms, leaving me restless.  

When your husband is needed at the nearby town we are left alone on a cloudless, sixth afternoon, where we make ourselves comfortable in the shade of Matilda's wings.   Twice you call out to the servants for more refreshments.   Your hair settles on the fine, dry grass, and for the first time that week I reach out and touch you.  

I'm woken at first light.   When I open my eyes your husband is standing beside the bed watching me.   I know you have gone.   Without a word, he leads me past the table and its two packs of cards and three empty sherry glasses out into the garden.   Winston stands alone against the rising sun.  

I set the throttle, activate the ignition and step behind the propeller.   The blade whips around then stops.   I pull again and it spins aloud, blending into air.   The plane nuzzles forward.   I press my elbow against his wing, reach to grab the closest strut then climb up between the wing panels and jump into the cockpit.  

He watches me lift up into the early sun, my hastily written letter to my parents shielding his eyes.  

I reach Nairobi six hours later where I pay for fuel and oil and I'm airborne again before the engine has cooled.   My pursuit of you is business-like and efficient - I soar above a ragged layer of stratus and head southeast towards the spice islands.   Just before Kilimanjaro the sky begins to darken and I force Winston into a steep climb to escape the storm and the hidden mountain.  

Lightning slips between the peaks and valleys of the alpine clouds, and I fight against air that becomes strange and calm.   I can no longer hear the engine's nasal whine or my breathing but I continue southeast trying to ignore the turmoil down below.   The afternoon sun is not quite behind me.  

My hands soon freeze into position, my muscles jerk and pull but I keep the plane composed as I fly through the imperfect blue.   I glance down at the terror: sure that I must have passed Kilimanjaro by now.   The compass confirms my bearings while to the west the sun edges towards the tempestuous horizon.  

I press forward and Winston noses through the solid clouds.   Then I level out for a moment, studying the compass.   I check my watch.   Something's wrong.   The compass has frozen into a southeasterly position.   I tap the glass and the needle attempts to swing free.   The mountain should be long gone by now.

'Come on, old boy,' I say before I drop forever, the craft shuddering with a crack as the wings grope around hysterically for the wind.   I scream into hell.   The canvas rips and the frame tears as the storm takes control of the plane. 'We're almost there.'   And then I'm airborne for a moment until I dive again, hoping that the clouds will disperse.  

I fully expect to escape the clouds, find my bearings and then search the entire island.   There is no way you could land in this storm - I will circle the beaches looking for the red bruise of your scattered craft.  

By some miracle I make it through the clouds but find myself above dark blue nothing.  

I was right all along: Kilimanjaro is long gone and I have escaped its icy cliffs.   Far below me is an insubstantial blue ocean with no sign of Matilda or the beach.   I am alone again.   Lost.   Somewhere behind me is a rapidly setting sun.   And beyond all this, in a direction I must now choose, lies a large but fading continent.  

Basil Lawrence

1,750 words