Up Up and Away

by Nesta Tuomey

  She struggled fiercely to control herself but her sobs threatened to turn into howls. I seem to do nothing but cry these days, was her mortified thought as Graham wordlessly took her in his arms and rocked her soothingly against his shoulder.

  ‘You’re the only one,’ she said jerkily and was swamped afresh with despair at the truth of this avowal.

  ‘Sweetheart, forgive me... I never meant to suggest such thing. What a brute I am. Say you forgive me.’

  Gradually his protestations of remorse calmed her and Kay was able to blow her nose on the edge of the towel and meet his eyes again. As Graham stroked and petted her, appalled at her distress, his passion flared up again.

  ‘Darling,’ he groaned, sliding back down with her on the rug. ‘What are we to do? I want you so badly.’

  In the days that followed Kay had given the whole matter of her relationship with Captain Pender a lot of thought and decided it was high time she talked to someone qualified to advise her. She bought her ticket for London and made her plans. She told Molly she was going over to do some shopping but was hardly heeded. Since Mr. Cleary had deserted her after fifteen years to go and live with his sister, Molly was taken up with her new lodger, a night club artiste by the name of Mandy Fuller.

  Now as she sat in the clinic, Kay was convinced that there had to be others like herself having affairs. Pauline was going out for months with a bearded sculptor and from his description, he was mature enough to be married twice over. Sally, before her romance with Maurice ended, had flown back and forth to Amsterdam and stayed in his flat. She had told Kay how he had lent her the top half of his pyjamas when she forgot her own, which must surely have made for an inflammable situation. Florrie too, was succumbing to the advances of her musician, and wore a dreamy look when she came in from dates. And even Bunny made no secret of entertaining Lieutenant Teddy in her flat at all hours of the night. Bunny might have a low sex-drive but Teddy Canavan most certainly had not!

  Apart from Kay’s friends, there were at least another dozen hostesses she regularly flew with who were in various stages of courtship and from all they let drop, shared sexually titillating experiences. Yet apparently they emerged unscathed. She was reminded of a recent Rome overnight when her co-hostess had retired to her bedroom with the First Officer leaving her to wonder if they were merely sharing a nightcap? And there had been Emer on her first

  London overnight remaining on in her wet swimsuit with Captain Cooney. Had that situation been as provocative as it seemed and how far had the pair of them gone? In fact, how far did any of them go?

  She sighed. It was a subject no one ever talked openly about but it would seem as though they were all playing with fire. Not for the first time Kay wished she had someone she could confide in. Once she would have sworn that that person would be Sally but since training they seemed to have drifted apart. Anyway, censorious in their discussions about men and sex, Sally often exhibited scorn at the foolishness of hostesses who gave all for love. What she would think of Kay, about to do the same, wasn’t difficult to imagine.

  The two women opposite were called and went off together making Kay wonder if they shared a similar problem, or if one was there to give the other moral support. She smiled wryly. She could have done with a bit of moral support herself.

  Did a person have to be actually married, she wondered, to get more than just advice? If so, she decided to say she was heavily engaged to a very demanding man. She moved her mother’s gold and ruby ring to her engagement finger, and felt a sudden guilty twinge. Somehow up to this it hadn’t seemed wrong to love Graham despite the fact he belonged to another, but now to be deliberately planning to make herself sexually available to him struck her as not sensible and modern after all but the kind of behaviour she had always scorned in the past as cheap and scheming.

  To give all for love at the moment of ecstasy was romantic, even noble, so Kay had always believed, but now this calculated plotting became suddenly repellent to her. She blushed at the thought of what Molly would say if she could see her. Or Dave! Somehow unbidden, he came into her mind, causing her an even deeper blush of agitation. She half rose in her seat with some notion of escaping while she could, only to find her way barred by the white-coated receptionist.

  ‘Doctor will see you now, Miss Fagan.’

  Kay had forgotten she had used Bunny’s name to cover her traces. She got slowly to her feet and followed the woman into a little room off the hall where she answered the questions put to her by the nurse in halting, embarrassed gulps. Supposing any of this ever got out, she thought, breaking out in a sweat as the fleshy hand jotted down all the clinical details of her life. Measles, whooping cough - then advancing to the more intimate - when was your last period and the last time you made love?

  Questions over, the nurse picked up the pink and grey plastic model and casually snapped it in two revealing that it represented the female reproductive organ and vaginal entrance. A few jerky movements had it back together again and next it was the turn of the rubbery thing in bright, chewing gum pink to be forced up the grey tunnel.

  Kay stared in fascinated horror as the nurse squeezed the rubber efficiently up and down the vaginal entrance, capping the cone at the top every time, while keeping up a running commentary - Kay had difficulty taking this in - about some kind of gel which effectively killed off sperm.

  ‘Here you are. Try it yourself. But you’ll find it easier if you try it on the model first,’ the nurse advised.

  Mother of God! She surely wasn’t expecting her to poke that thing into herself! Unconsciously Kay tightened her legs feeling a little faint. She had never even used tampons and wouldn’t have known what to do with one if it was the only thing between herself and the great flood. She shuddered. If anything was ever calculated to put her off sex for life, it was this clinical monkeying about with what her cousin Sam would call her precious parts.

  ‘Isn’t there some kind of tablet you can give me?’ she asked desperately.

  Apart from anything else she would have to be no longer a virgin to use what the nurse was advocating. In her eagerness to be thought a sophisticate, Kay had omitted to state that in her busy sex life with her demanding lover he had not as yet deflowered her. What too about the flipping first time, she couldn’t help wondering as she remembered the posters outside.

  ‘Yes... there is the Pill,’ the nurse answered. ‘We’ll see what the doctor has to say about that.’

  The doctor, another woman, agreed to give Kay six months supply of the magic pill with instructions to come back if she had any problems. Beyond asking a few questions about whether or not there was any family history of cardiovascular disease, she had probed no further. ‘Be sure to use an alternative reliable method for the first month,’ was her last somewhat bewildering remark.

  Clutching her loot Kay escaped and headed for the tube station, convinced that everyone must know that a time bomb she carried. She took her seat in the train feeling mentally exhausted. So far so good, she thought. But she realised the hardest part was yet to come. It was one thing to flout convention, another to put the whole thing to use.

  When she returned home Kay looked in her bedroom for a safe place to hide the contraceptive. Six months supply was bulky enough and she soon rejected the dressing-table and the other obvious places as too dangerous. There was no knowing when her aunt might come rummaging for face cream, or when Peg would take it into her head to embark on one of her erratic clean ups.

  Suddenly she hit upon the brilliant idea of hiding them in Graham’s furry white bear. Pendy doubled as a nightdress case and it seemed fitting that he should be guardian of his master’s pleasure. It was a task not unworthy of Cerberus, Kay decided with a delighted grin, and lest a rustling Pendy might attract attention, she took the precaution of wrapping the packet in a shortie nightie. Then, satisfied that the very slight swelling of the waistless body was the only indication of the hidden treasure, she gently laid him back on her pillow, and went cheer
fully along to Florrie’s room to give her an edited version of her trip to London.

  THIRTY TWO

  On the same day Kay returned from London, Graham flew out to Spain to see his wife and family. Other years he had flown down to see them every chance he got, but this summer he had been reluctant to miss his meetings with Kay and so had used the exceptionally fine weather at home as an excuse to keep putting off the trip.

  He was sometimes amazed that he still found Kay so desirable and was even more astonished that he had not yet made love to her. It was a new experience for him. Never before had he practised such restraint. Nor had he needed to, he wryly admitted. In the past there had always been hostesses only too ready and willing to go to bed with him. Even since going on the Transatlantic route, he had received indications that he need never go short. But somehow none of them interested him. They were all so brazen compared to his lovely Kitty.

  As the jet roared down the runway, Graham wished it were possible to get a magical second chance and begin life all over again. One thing for sure, he would think twice about rushing into marriage so young. Of course he could never regret having Jeremy and Nicholas, they were what made it all bearable.

  He slept until his meal tray was put before him. The hostess who served him, a sweet- faced girl with dark hair drawn back in a chignon, had flown with him on Europe. Not unlike Kay, he found himself making the comparison. He vaguely remembered taking her out on a Paris overnight and, not so vaguely, kissing her too. He smiled at her warmly but for the life of him couldn’t remember her name.

  She returned his smile with interest.

  ‘How do you like being on the Atlantic,’ she asked as she poured his coffee, Paris obviously on her mind too.

  ‘It’s great!’ he enthused. ‘Takes a bit of getting used to at first but it has a lot going for it.’

  ‘Our loss.’

  She gave him a melting glance before passing on.

  Graham was amused and touched. Nora? Meg? He wished he could remember. He was given royal treatment all through the flight, complimentary drinks and a message from Jim Shannon, the captain, to come up to the cockpit. Soon they were touching down in Malaga.

  Nice landing, Graham thought with professional interest as they raced smoothly forward. Then came the deafening roar as the engines went into reverse thrust. He blinked, waiting for the noise to subside. It was a dinky little plane compared to the Boeing, he thought.

  At the door, Graham nodded his thanks to the hostesses, bestowing a special smile on the dark-haired one whose name still eluded him.

  ‘Nice flight. Thanks, sweetie,’ he said, annoyed with himself for forgetting. She gave him a lingering look. ‘Cheerio Graham, have a nice weekend.’

  He thought of asking her to have a drink with him in the Hotel Delphin where the crew overnighted, and then was appalled at himself. Christ! His life was complicated enough as it was. He went down the back steps, ducking his head to avoid bumping it on the bulkhead, and got the familiar whiff of kerosene. The night air felt hot on his face. Not as stifling as New York, he decided, as he followed the straggling line of passengers across the tarmac.

  ‘Graham!’ Sile tucked the magazine she had been reading under her arm and proffered her cheek for his kiss.

  His duty done, Graham reached for Nicholas and hugged him hard. ‘Heavens, Nicky, you’re as brown as a native.’

  He turned with a laugh to Jeremy and ruffled his hair with a fond hand. ‘What a size you’ve grown,’ he exclaimed in genuine pleasure and amazement. The lad had shot up three inches since he saw him.

  Sile, well-groomed and discreetly tanned, smiled up at her handsome husband, while their leggy young sons jumped excitedly about them. A strikingly good-looking family, they drew glances from people standing nearby.

  Nuala, the hostess on Graham’s flight, saw them as she emerged from customs. ‘Lucky her,’ she sighed, her glance moving on past Captain Pender to take in every detail of his wife’s appearance. What gorgeous hair, she thought admiringly, like some film star. Nuala had always wondered what the pilot’s wife looked like. Now she decided that Mrs. Pender was everything she had ever imagined, and more.

  A few hours later, Graham stood on the patio of the Marbella Melia Hotel, cigar in hand, enjoying the sight of the lavishly splashing fountains and the vast swimming-pool, a master of engineering, designed on two levels. For a treat, they had chosen to celebrate Graham’s first night on Iberian soil by dining in the exclusive hotel. Christy Kane was also down for a few days visiting his family and he and Jeannette had willingly agreed to join them.

  After the meal the two men had lit cigars and when, in retaliation, their wives donned tinted glasses and retired in a protesting huddle, Graham had slipped out to the patio to enjoy his smoke in peace. Glancing skywards, he wondered if the weather was still fine at home and let his mind wander pleasurably over those enchanted meetings he had shared with Kay on the beach.

  Graham frowned suddenly as he remembered an earlier faux pas during dinner when he had mentioned having dined in Il Bellamino’s, a new Italian night-spot in town. He and Kay had gone there one evening and had a most enjoyable time. As soon as the words were out, he had realised his mistake and tried to cover up by saying he had been there with Ben Higgins and John Brennan, both Spanish widowers for the summer like himself.

  ‘Would have thought old John was a bit past that kind of thing,’ sniggered Christy immediately.

  ‘We left as soon as we had dined,’ Graham replied shortly.

  Trust Christy to try and wrong foot him, he thought, glancing uneasily at the women. In future he would have to keep a check on his tongue. Christy was becoming a right bore. He pitched his cigar-end in the flower beds and turned to go back inside. The pilot was drinking too much and watching him fumbling his glass and spilling wine during dinner, Graham had wished the meal was over. It was a pity that Christy hadn’t made it on to the Boeings but hitting the bottle wasn’t going to solve anything. And that recent stunt he had pulled at their medicals was hardly likely to endear him to his fellow pilots.

  Graham gave a rueful grin, remembering how Christy had allowed his dislike for Simon Cooney to get the better of him, and slyly dropped a sugar lump in his urine specimen. A few years back Dan Tully, a well-known practical joker, had played a similar trick on Ben Higgins, and obviously Christy had been inspired by his example. He might have got away with it, if he hadn’t gone around boasting what he had done. Naturally Cooney had found out and the two of them had come to blows in the pilots’ lounge.

  Graham shook his head. Christy was definitely bad news these days. Well, here’s hoping he wasn’t expecting them to come in for a drink when they got back to the apartment. Graham yawned, conscious that it had been over thirty hours since he had last seen bed. Wearily he rejoined the others, in time to hear Christy ordering another round of brandies. My God! he sighed, it would be all hours before they got back.

  Later as they stood outside the hotel waiting for a taxi, Christy said meaningfully, ‘You look a bit bushed, old man.’

  ‘Hardly surprising,’ Graham replied, irritated by the insinuation that his weariness was due to something other than long hours of flying. ‘I only returned from New York this morning, you know.’

  Christy scowled at the mention of America. ‘You Atlantic chaps give me the pip,’ he growled. ‘Always going on as if you were the only ones doing any work. Why don’t you admit how easy you have it, just pointing the bloody plane in one direction for hours? Short hops are the worst. All that taking off is a killer.’

  ‘We all did it,’ Graham reminded him shortly. Damn and blast! Was he trying to pick a quarrel? He walked away, searching the road for the taxi.

  Christy stumbled after him, ‘All you Boeing chaps think you’re great bloody fellahs with the girls,’ he sneered. ‘The pretty hostesses just lie down and part their legs for you.’

  Graham laughed uneasily, aware that Jeannette was listening. ’

  ‘N
ot so, I’m afraid.’

  He was only glad Sile was out of earshot.

  ‘My arse!’ Christy said unpleasantly. ‘That’s not what I’ve been hearing. According to the grapevine, a certain new hostess has a mighty big yen for a sexy dark-haired captain.’

  ‘Oh shut up, Christy,’ Jeannette snapped, taking pity on Graham.

  Really, when her husband had a few drinks he was poisonous, she thought. She yearned for the nice peaceful time she and Sile were having before he arrived, with no tension or bickering. What he was insinuating probably wasn’t true, but even if it was, it wasn’t surprising with the way Sile treated Graham. Jeannette was fond of her friend but she wasn’t blind to her faults. She sometimes thought she would cheer if Christy went and got himself a hostess. It might stop him from being so bloody-minded all the time. At least Graham was always perfectly charming, whatever he was up to.

  ‘The taxi is here,’ Sile announced, and stared at them curiously. ‘Whatever has you all so serious?’

  Christy grinned malevolently. ‘Rumour has it that old Graham here is sending quivers through a certain new hostess. I was just wondering if there was any truth in it.’

  ‘And is there, dear?’ Sile asked casually, as she climbed into the taxi. She was suddenly reminded of a sentence in her sister’s letter which had intrigued her at the time. Something about seeing Graham’s car a lot near the Sanditops Hotel and hoping he wasn’t missing her too much.

  Graham shrugged. ‘You know the pilots’ lounge,’ he said drily. ‘Intrigue at every glance. Comes of prolonged flying at low altitudes.’

  He only meant it as a joke but he couldn’t have said anything worse in Christy’s rejected state. With a glare, the other pilot subsided into the back seat and no more was said until they bid each other a stiff goodnight at the door of the Kane’s apartment.

  ‘God, what a drag Christy is,’ Sile complained as Graham followed her inside, carrying a sleepy Nicky.