Up Up and Away

by Nesta Tuomey

  In the end, deciding honesty was the best policy, Kay admitted frankly, ‘Yes, I’m afraid my aunt would worry,’ adding with an appealing smile, ‘but then she worries if I so much as take a bus trip.’

  This raised an answering smile on all their faces. When she hastened to say she didn’t think, however, that her aunt would worry unduly - it was just that she was deeply concerned, having been like a mother to her all these years - the lady in grey leaned over and murmured something to the others. Next thing they had come up with the unexpected proposal.

  A few minutes later, Kay received her introductory letter and set off with it towards the low lying buildings which housed the medical centre. As she went she realized with sudden insight that it was her honest answer which had tipped the scales in her favour.

  The Chief Medical Office stood at his surgery window, watching a group of shapely trainee hostesses boisterously high-stepping it past on their way to the bus stop. All these glamorous young things were giving him a permanent erection these days, he reflected. Everywhere they were to be seen, kitbags swinging, eyeing anything in gold braid within a ten yard radius.

  This time each year found Dr. Price regretting the fact that his appointment with Celtic Airways did not carry with it the bonus of a uniform. More than ever he mourned his two years at sea with Irish Shipping, when he had worn a natty naval uniform with enough gold braid to rival any Celtic Airways pilot.

  The door opened and the nurse put her head into the room.

  ‘Another applicant for examination, Doctor,’ she told him in a bored voice, as she handled over the girl’s introductory letter.

  Pricey gets all the fun, she thought resentfully. All she got were the sinus and bilious attacks. And not so much as a glimpse of a pilot! Too late she learned that their medicals took place at St. Bricin’s military hospital.

  ‘Well, let’s be having her,’ Dr. Price checked the name in the letter before advancing to meet the green-eyed beauty being ushered in. ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Martin,’ he murmured, enfolding her hand in his plump white ones.

  ‘That will be all, nurse,’ he enunciated crisply over his shoulder, and waited until the door shut behind her.

  The girl had a rose complexion and was big on top. That much was evident when she removed her jacket to show a sweetly jutting outline through the filmy white blouse she had on. She stood gazing at him out of big doe-like eyes.

  What a looker, thought Price. But then you could safely say that about most lassies who got as far as the medical. Without more ado he got down to business.

  ‘Periods regular?’ he shot, noting with satisfaction Kay’s startled blush. No matter how beautiful or self-possessed they were, once they put foot in his territory, he was the master.

  ‘Y-yes,’ she stammered.

  ‘Flying,’ Dr Price remarked to the ceiling, ‘plays havoc with the menstrual system. Some girls lose them altogether.’

  Kay blinked wondering what was coming next. He could at least invite her to sit down, she thought. To her surprise he swooped suddenly downwards and encircled her ankle within his fingertips. She gazed down in embarrassment at the dusky spot on his bald head.

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Warily, Kay let her lids drop. There was the faintly antiseptic smell of his hands passing before her face. She opened one eye.

  ‘No peeking.’

  Uneasily, she closed it again.

  ‘Stand on one leg and raise your arms.’

  What! Her mind repeated the childhood chant: ‘Stand on one leg, O’Grady says.’ With difficulty she kept her eyes closed and struggled to obey.

  ‘Good. Good,’ came the reassuring breathy whisper.

  Where was he now? Seconds passed. Oh for eyes in the back of her head.

  Kay wavered and almost toppled. How much longer must she hold this crazy pose? There was a high-pitched giggling laugh and hands playfully feathered her armpits and breasts.

  Well, really! Kay staggered off balance, her eyes wide with disbelief.

  Dr. Price was standing by his desk, chin thoughtfully in hand, studying her letter. With a hot face she crawled about the floor searching for her shoes. She found them under the table and holding on to it for support, pulled them on.

  Chest and heart soundings took place without incident. Dr. Price strapped on a rubber tourniquet high on Kay’s arm and took her blood pressure without once letting his fingers stray. Had she imagined what had happened? Was the world round?

  She got off the couch rebuttoning the top two buttons of her blouse.

  ‘We’ll need a urine sample,’ he told her off-handedly and turned away. ‘Nurse will look after you.’

  Kay looked back as she went out the door and found his eyes watching her over the top of his paper.

  In the Ladies she took the specimen jar from the nurse and disappeared with it into a cubicle. At the same time, Nurse Cummins kindly turned the taps full on, just in case. It wouldn’t be the first time that Passionate Pricey had scared it all away.

  FIVE

  With a thrill of elation Kay read the letter of acceptance which arrived three days later from Celtic Airways. Excitedly, she glanced at the two pages of typescript attached, listing terms of employment but was too unsettled to take in more than a sentence here and there.

  Celtic Airways. A dream come true!

  She could hardly believe her luck. When she thought of all the interviews she had attended and the competition she had been up against, it seemed almost like a miracle. Her green eyes grew dreamy and she forgot that she was already late for work, as she imagined the exotic countries she would soon be flying to in the company of daring handsome pilots.

  As she hurried jubilantly down the road, the precious acceptance letter from Celtic Airways safely in her bag she wondered whom to break the glorious news to first. With a guilty pang, she remembered that she had not so much as hinted a word of her plans to her aunt. Well, she would have told her, she excused herself, only up to this there had been really nothing to tell. Now that there was, she vowed contritely, she would repair the omission the very minute she got home from work.

  Kay was aware of how good her aunt had been to her all these years, unselfishly caring for her and never once even mentioning the sacrifices she had made on her behalf. Molly was used to making light of it.

  ‘Sure who else but myself would have the rearing of my only sister’s child. Amn’t I only too proud and happy to do it.’

  She always accompanied this declaration with a kiss and a fond hug.

  Remembering, Kay smiled fondly herself. All the same, it couldn’t have been easy for Molly, she thought. At the time her aunt was only recently widowed and had a daughter of her own to look after. Yet - apart from Kay’s school fees which were provided by a trust fund set up on her parent’s death - Molly had cheerfully paid all other expenses out of her own pocket. She had dressed her, maybe not lavishly, but certainly no less fashionably than her school friends, and had even raised the necessary cash when Kay was in sixth year to send her on the school trip to Cherbourg.

  Kay was aware that her aunt would not be too thrilled to learn she was throwing up her secure pensionable insurance job. But Molly was no kill-joy, she assured herself, she mightn’t approve but she would soon get used to the idea. And by the time she broke the news to her, she would have already given in her notice at work.

  Kay’s face brightened at the prospect of telling the supervisor. Boy, oh boy, she sighed pleasurably. How she was looking forward to that!

  Kay rode into town in solitary splendour, all the regulars having long since gone on an earlier bus. Sitting in the upper deck she mused on her great good fortune. By rights, for all his support, Dave Mason should be the first to be told but then in a way Dave already knew. What she wanted was fresh faces to impress, fresh reactions to gauge.

  Dredging around in her mind for names, she came up with Breda Mason and frowned. Normally Dave’s sister could be relied upon to be a most satisfactory a
udience, but unfortunately since Kay had lost her silly hat they were no longer on speaking terms.

  ‘My best hat,’ Breda had moaned in disbelief when she told her she had lost it, although keeping to herself the manner in which it was lost.

  Kay shuddered. There would be mayhem if she ever found out her black felt had been wantonly abandoned in a public washroom. Only Dave knew its true fate.

  ‘The proper place for it judging from what I saw,’ he opined, refusing to take sides.

  ‘Let you girls sort it out between yourselves,’ he added, staying maddeningly aloof while all the time his sister kept ringing Kay at work angling for a new hat. It was an added stress Kay could well have been spared with Noeleen Carmody already on the war-path.

  ‘Trinity College,’ the conductor’s shout broke through her thoughts.

  Kay ran downstairs, ignoring his proffered arm as she leapt off the platform.

  ‘Carefully does it, sweetheart.’

  What was she, an old lady? His eyes told her anything but! She forgot him as she started to run up the street. Since she was twelve years of age Kay was accustomed to men using any excuse to touch her.

  The clock on Trinity College said nine-twenty. My God, she thought, Carmody would make mincemeat of her. She checked her stride. What was she killing herself for? She was giving in her notice today. But still she hurried, old habits dying hard.

  As Kay reached the entrance to the Smithfield Insurance Corporations she found herself wondering if Sally had got into Celtic Airways too. And Florrie. Her eyes glowed. How great if the pair of them were with her in training.

  She sped past the porter’s quirked eyebrows and rapidly mounted the stairs. Panting, she gained the second landing, and found her way blocked by a meaty hand.

  ‘Well, Miss, youv’e surpassed yourself this time,’ the supervisor nodded significantly at the treacherously fast wall clock, its long hand already tipping the half-hour. As if on cue, the wretched thing began chiming.

  Kay bit back an apology and coldly returned Miss Carmody’s vindictive stare. For a moment it was touch-and-go whether she would give in under provocation and let the old bitch have her resignation there and then. Then deciding there was greater satisfaction to be gained by announcing it in her own time, Kay restrained herself and went to take off her coat.

  ‘Just glorified waitresses, that’s all,’ Noeleen Carmody retorted with predictable nastiness when Kay went in to give her notice, her heavy jowled face flushing red as the youthful tinker scarf encircling her stout throat.

  Contemptuously, Kay studied the wide gash of lipstick in the over-powdered face, the crimped orange hair. Nothing about being sorry to lose you or it was nice knowing you, she thought. Oh no, none of the social graces, Noeleen Carmody. Pig ignorant! Spiteful bitch! Man-hater!

  The woman leaned her fat wrists on the desk and said unpleasantly, ‘Well, when do you want to go?’

  Kay stared back, green eyes cold.

  ‘I don’t start training for two weeks. I can stay until then.’ Miss Carmody heaved her huge bulk on to her feet.

  ‘Oh no, you can go at once... the sooner the better for everyone.’

  She might have had some socially infectious disease, Kay thought resentfully as the supervisor stomped to the filing cabinet in her tottering heels, a gold slave chain unsuitably looped over one bulging ankle. Noisily hurling the drawers in and out, she extracted Kay’s file and with a sour expression, leafed through it. With deductions for insurance, income tax and the various charities they were forced to subscribe to, Kay had twenty-two pounds, four shillings and twopence coming to her.

  ‘I’ll have the wages department make out a cheque for twenty-two pounds,’ Miss Carmody said, smartly deducting the balance towards the chief clerk’s retirement present.

  Back in the typing pool the news had quickly spread. Mr. Crosbie from the claims department zoomed boyishly past, arms spreadeagled, a droning sound issuing from his mouth.

  ‘You’re a dark one, never letting on, Kay,’ Cathy Maguire said reproachfully.

  Some ten years at Smithfield, she and Kay had gone to the pictures a few times together. Kay said nothing, refusing to feel guilty.

  ‘Anyone going into Celtic Airways only does it to get a man,’ sneered Maureen Duggan.

  Swarthy and heavy-chested with a crop of black hair on her upper lip, she was even longer in insurance than Cathy.

  ‘Really?’ Kay said calmly, as if it were a valid piece of information and not, as she was well aware, uttered in spite.

  Only Liz Foley, just two months in the Corporation, expressed any pleasure in her news.

  ‘Lucky you!’ she congratulated, twirling her ponytail fast round her fingers. ‘That’s where I’m headed just as soon as ever I can.’

  Ten minutes later, an office boy delivered Kay’s wages. Muttering a brief goodbye to those nearest her, she went past the busily clacking machines. There was no talk of meeting later for a goodbye drink. She hadn’t expected it.

  Mean cows! she thought, glancing at their averted begrudging faces. She knew it wasn’t her success they resented half as much as being robbed of the chance to gloat over her possible failure.

  On the stairs she met the chief clerk, his greying head sunk between rounded shoulders. ‘Well done, my dear,’ he said to her surprise, putting out his hand to shake hers warmly. ‘Every happiness in your new life. I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’

  Why? Because she had so clearly erred in joining the Smithfield Insurance Corporation? Kay didn’t know but she was struck by his kindly tone. The only one to say a nice word, she thought, blinking back sudden tears as she continued on down the stairs.

  She remembered the day she had first entered Smithfield. She had had one or two poorly paid typing jobs before it and was really glad to have got into the Corporation. Two years of her life, she thought. And only one person bothered to say goodbye.

  ‘You’d think two years would count for something,’ she told the porter’s back as she passed out of the building for the last time.

  Outside, she lingered on the street like a departing soul unwilling to leave the body it knows. Then she shrugged and tossed back her dark hair. No point hanging about. Coffee in Bewleys, followed by a leisurely browse through the shops, she planned, as she set off jauntily for Grafton Street.

  Today she was footloose and fancy free with no work for the next two weeks. And then! She caught her breath in sudden excitement. Then she would be entering a new and most thrilling phase of her life.

  SIX

  As soon as Dave Mason heard that Kay Martin was going to become an air hostess, he decided to buy a car. Later in the day, he jerk-hopped his shiny green Volkswagen out of Downey’s Garage and undaunted by the fact that he had never taken a driving lesson in his life, pointed the bonnet in the direction of home. Hunched tensely over the wheel, a wary eye on his rear view mirror, Dave joined the heavy flow of evening traffic heading to the northside and imagined Kay’s admiring comments when she saw his new Volks.

  How thrilled she had been when she rang him to tell him her news, bubbling over with excitement. He grinned ruefully. Ah, he was glad for her of course, but to be honest, he realised part of him had hoped she would be turned down. For purely selfish reasons, he was forced to admit.

  Although he had helped her with her application photographs and pretended to be pleased when she got the second interview, in his heart he had never really gone along with this air hostess business. It was bound to change her, make her dissatisfied with home and simple pleasures and maybe with him too!

  Dave frowned, his grey eyes suddenly serious. It was something he had already faced and was part of the reason he had bought a car, although previously he had been content to walk or bus it everywhere. Girls liked cars and definitely in the kind of company with whom Kay would soon be mixing, he would be at a grave disadvantage in her eyes without one.

  Stiffly, he changed into lower gear and put on his indicator prior t
o changing lanes. Well, maybe it was just a passing thing, this fascination with flying. Certainly he would like to think so. In his thoughts, Dave likened this new fad of Kay’s to a kind of bug in the blood, a malaria of mind and will which only time could heal. He hoped it would. In the meantime, there was nothing to be done but sit it out and pray the novelty would soon wear off.

  Kay hadn’t seemed too happy about her exit from the Smithfield Insurance Corporation, he thought, remembering all she had said on the phone. They did seem to have given her a rather poor send-off. Begrudging lot!

  A horn beeped impatiently. Too quickly, he released the clutch and the engine stalled. ‘Damn!’ Hot under the collar, conscious of the mounting tension behind him, Dave grabbed at the ignition and turned it a few times before getting it to fire. Stamping on the accelerator, he leaped forward just as the car behind lost patience and shot round him.

  Wow! that was close. Dave caught his breath. Better keep his mind on the road.

  He supposed he should have left it till Saturday to pick up the car but he had wanted to show it off to Kay that night. Straight after tea, he intended calling round and taking her for a spin. He had debated whether or not to ring her from the office but in the end decided against it, wanting to surprise her, to turn up at the door in his smart new little bus and witness her delighted reaction.

  Not that at any time he had gone in for phoning Kay, Dave honestly acknowledged. What was the point? They lived only a few doors from each other. Crazy to announce himself first. But just try convincing Kay of that. His reluctance to ring for a date had already been the cause of quite a few quarrels between them.

  It was all just a ploy, he suspected, to make him conform. He often thought that some of their most enjoyable evenings were impromptu ones in her aunt’s kitchen, toasting bread at the fire or just chatting as Kay ironed her blouses.

  Dave liked Molly. She was a character. It might be hard being married to her though, he suspected, the way she filled the house with all those lodgers. According to Kay, she didn’t really need the money, just liked lots of company around her.