Atdtda36: That's sort of the problem, 1029-1032

[Paul Nightingale]

In the opening paragraph the 'invisible repetition' is set against the
closing reference to Randolph's final speech ('Remember when ...' etc) above
the section break. Agency continues to be highlighted, as with: 'It proved a
struggle after that, for the wind desired them to go south ...' etc. At the
top of 1030 they are drifting, waiting to be 'rescued, with no advance
annunciation': this, then, is the context for the appearance of the 'flying
formation of girls', subsequently 'serious' and then 'somber young women'.
If the Inconvenience has been drifting ('Randolph ... gave up the ship's
immediate future to the wind'), further down the page the narrative speaks
of fate: 'the Chums were destined after all to seek wives ...' etc. If,
indeed, this is serendipity, consider the backstory then offered to the
girls: '... each had found her way to this aetherist sorority through the
mysteries of inconvenience ...' etc. And then, by the end of the section on
1032, 'with all the girls aboard, the wind had shifted' and 'would now take
them within a few minutes of arc to their California destination'.

By then the narrative has established relationships that, projected, will be
played out within the family. We are told the Chums will 'become
grandparents' (1030) and will, then, grow old. These relationships give them
access to age, or ageing.

The male gaze is fixed on (sexual) difference, but the individual female
pilot is here inseparable from her surroundings, or occupation as pilot:
'... some passing close enough for the boys to count the bolts on
gear-housings, hear the rotary whining of nitronaphthol auxiliary
power-units, grow rigidly attentive to glimpses of bared athletic
girl-flesh'. Down the page: their 'immediate point of fascination was with
the girls' mode of flight'. On 1031, there is Lindsay's 'sidelong smudge of
Primula's appearance'.

When the girls are named, they are introduced in relation to the Chum with
whom they have already been paired (even if the section will end with
Heartsease paired, so to speak, in conversation, with Chick, 1032).
Moreover, if the girls are there to be looked at, the narrative prioritises
their speech Viridiana 'immediately [begins] to instruct' Chick (1031), and
their relationship is given most space, prioritised, not least by
positioning Darby (and one imagines others) as an audience. Implicitly,
Viridian's opening speech, starting at the bottom of 1030, is addressed to
an audience rather than to Chick alone. Other relationships are also seen as
being observed: Lindsay is 'soon discovered whispering over and over', Glee
is 'playfully admonished'. However, Randolph, previously the one to voice
concerns regarding agency, the extent to which one might exercise control,
is given a relationship that, in the writing, emphasises serendipity:
Heartsease's 'genius for cookery and herbal knowledge ... would eventually
cure his dyspepsia' (1032) - an ailment we have not, heretofore, been made
aware of; and one, therefore, brought into being by the relationship.
Finally, Darby, seen in transition ('the former mascotte'), is granted some
privacy; he is the only one whose relationship will be described outside the
confines of the airship, on Blaze's turf: '... framed by the roof-tiles of
her night's lodging ...' etc. This description ('As stoves were lit
invisibly beneath their feet ...' etc) marks the only attempt here to
position characters in relation to whatever might be found below, and the
section ends, therefore, on a note of stability, not to mention routine: the
'cries of newsboys' and '[a]rpeggios of bells. Cf the section's opening, and
another kind of routine/repetition, 'repeating great vertical circles'
(bottom of 1029).