Up Up and Away

by Nesta Tuomey

  Tears smarted her eyes. Even after three weeks the hurt was unbearable. She shuddered remembering the terrible day at the swimming baths when she realised things were over between them.

  Kay had arrived to find half the group already present, busily exchanging gossip and cramming their sun-kissed flesh into an assortment of brief, exotically coloured swimwear. Sally and Bunny were there too, having come back at the weekend from Spain.

  ‘Carlos sends his love,’ Sally told her. ‘He was heartbroken when he heard you’d gone.’

  Gratifying, but in view of the worrying silence from Graham, Kay was unable to raise more than a bleak smile.

  ‘And there’s someone here you’ll be happy to see,’ Sally went on, as if reading her mind, ‘Captain What’s His Name, absolutely black with sun.’

  Graham! In her confusion Kay let go her bikini ends and with flushed face, groped helplessly behind her.

  ‘Here, let me.,’ Sally chuckled, and fastened the offending garment in a thrice. ‘He was just ahead of us and looked round twice. Dan Tully’s here too,’ she added, pushing her feet into flip-flops. ‘So now you’ll have two captains in hot pursuit.’ With Eulogio’s marriage proposal in the bag, Sally could afford to be generous.

  As they emerged from the dressing-room, Kay caught sight of Graham executing a smooth dive into the pool and saw with a pang, how extremely tanned he was. Evidently he had stayed away even longer than originally planned. And to think she had pictured him on his sick bed, too ill even to send a message!

  Captain Tully came up looking bronzed and fit. ‘More sun worshippers,’ he drawled, ‘Honestly, you girls are looking terrific.’

  ‘Look who’s talking,’ laughed Sally huskily.

  As Kay climbed into the pool the pilot stayed close behind her. ‘Don’t worry little girl,’ he murmured. ‘I’m here to save you.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Graham watching and gained a sad, savage satisfaction. Monopolized by Desperate Dan, she was not at liberty to gauge what Graham’s reaction might be but once she turned her head and was unnerved to find him close behind her in the water. For a moment their eyes locked and then she was bossily dragged on by the other pilot.

  When she looked again, she found to her consternation that Captain Pender had left the pool. As soon as she could, she climbed out herself and headed for the changing rooms where she came face to face with him hurrying fully dressed out of the men’s section. At the sight of her he stopped dead.

  ‘Kay,’ he greeted her soberly. ‘Did you have a good holiday?’

  ‘Marvellous... and you?’ She was thrown into confusion at his nearness and had to force herself not to stammer.

  ‘It was a good break. You’re looking very well.’ Was that all he could say? After all these weeks!

  She stood there looking like some tragic sea nymph, with her tanned, rosy cheeks and drenched black hair, her green eyes pained as she remembered their last meeting and all she had gone through since. He was leaving, she thought, hurrying away so as to avoid meeting her. She felt her heart would burst.

  ‘How have you been?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. I’m going supernumerary to America after Christmas.’ ‘Good. You’ll like it there.’

  How casually he spoke. As though he had never promised to show her all the places of interest in New York and keep her so busy with his lovemaking that she wouldn’t get to close an eye all night.

  ‘Didn’t you get my letter?’ she faltered, hoping even at this late hour it would all turn out to be some frightful misunderstanding, quickly cleared. But even that saving deceit was not to be allowed her.

  ‘I got it all right,’ he nodded grimly. ‘It was sent on to my house.’

  From behind came Dan Tully’s voice, waggishly insistent.’ Ha! Ha! Naughty girl running off like that. Not allowed to leave the pool without the captain’s permission.’

  He came up looking muscular and fit in his brief swimming trunks and laid a familiar arm on Kay’s damp shoulders. Graham’s lips twisted scornfully as he regarded the other pilot and for an instant, a look of anger flared in his dark eyes. Then it was quickly repressed.

  ‘Ciao!’ he said, striding away.

  Pain knifed Kay’s heart as she watched his tall figure disappear along the corridor. Oh God! How could he go from her like this! So cold! So uncaring! She felt as though her heart were disintegrating into tiny, bleeding particles. And what could he have meant about her letter? Surely he didn’t think she had deliberately engineered the whole thing in order to cause trouble?.

  ‘Get changed, poppet,’ Dan Tully patted the seat of her bikini. ‘If you’re a good girl, I’ll take you for a nice tasty brunch in the Intercontinental and you can tell me all about the hols. All the juicy bits, mind. From what I’ve been hearing, you knocked those Spaniards for six, lucky chaps.’

  That day marked the beginning of Kay’s brief fling with Captain Tully. While immune to his charm and not particularly liking him, she had to admit he could be an amiable and amusing companion and, besides, there was no denying she enjoyed riding about in his spectacular silver Porsche. After their first date, however, she never intended going out with him again and lost no time telling him so. But she might as well have saved her breath. At last in desperation, she fell back on the excuse that she wasn’t happy going out with a married man.

  ‘Ah now, that’s not what I’ve been hearing.’ Dan said slyly, throwing her into blushing confusion. ‘Now little girl, let your Uncle Dan decide what’s best for you. After all, if my wife doesn’t object, why should you? If there’s one thing Charlie is not, it’s a spoilsport.’

  ‘You surely don’t expect me to believe that!’ Kay gasped.

  ‘You gotta believe it, honey chile. Dat’s the God’s honest truth.’

  Staring doubtfully into his twinkling black eyes, she had allowed herself be persuaded. If nothing else, Dan was a distraction from sad memories and never in her life had Kay needed distracting more. What the hell, she thought bitterly. Let them all come. Dan Tully, Simon Cooney, Smuts Allen - what did she care? So she protested no more and accepted Dan’s invitations to dinner and the races and even went with him to a yachting dinner dance where he paraded her before his friends - admittedly none of them with their wives.

  Afterwards he presented her with an expensive piece of costume jewellery and tried to stick his tongue down her throat. Kay was having none of that and told him so roundly. Their relationship was to be strictly unphysical she insisted. Seeing she meant business, he restrained himself with difficulty but it was obvious he was only biding his time.

  Eventually Kay’s ‘don’t care’ attitude was succeeded by a desire to play one Captain off against the other. If only she could impress upon the world how little Captain Pender’s desertion mattered to her - and in the process on Captain Pender himself - she would be well satisfied. And if the stories filtering back to Graham caused him pain, so much the better. His rejection of her when she loved and wanted him so much had filled her with a sorrowing resentment.

  What Kay in her bruised, rejected state found hardest to understand was how Graham, having known her in a sexual way, didn’t come hurrying back for more. She had allowed him liberties she had never allowed any other man and even when he’d gone all the way and caused her such pain and worry she had never reproached him, not even in her thoughts. Now there was nothing to stop them having the sexual relationship they should have all along enjoyed if it hadn’t been for her prudish hang-ups over remaining a virgin. In wounded misery, she went over it again and again. It all seemed such a stupid waste.

  Entering the cockpit balancing two coffees on a snack tray, she waited resentfully behind the left hand seat for Captain Tully to look up from drooling over the centrefold page of Playboy. To Kay’s disgust, it showed a buxom blonde, with her legs parted in a relaxed manner which left nothing to the imagination.

  Dan cocked a lascivious eyebrow at her, ‘What do you think of that?’ he leered, while
beside him the First Officer snorted and choked sycophantically.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Kay retorted, hating them both. She thrust the cup of coffee down on top of the jutting breasts in the hopes of scalding right through to a certain overworked spot beneath.

  Captain Tully sniggered gently, used to similar reactions from other hostesses. Although originally rostered to overnight in Birmingham, he had swapped it for London when he saw that Kay was on the flight. With Christmas so near and plenty of mistletoe hanging about, Dan was counting on this overnight putting their relationship on a more physical plane. If his animal instincts were to be relied on (and they rarely let him down), for all her reticent ways, Miss Kay Martin was a very hot little number indeed.

  ‘Contrary to popular opinion,’ he was still instructing the First Officer as Kay banged out of the cockpit, ‘It’s the ones with the small titties that get the most pleasure. Nearer the nerve centre of something.’

  The crew made it out to Richmond just in time for dinner. In the hotel dining-room they shared a bottle of Beaujolais and some rather banal conversation.

  Florrie soon pleaded a headache and departed for bed. Since her father’s death she was quiet and withdrawn, lost in sad reflection most of the time.

  Kay stuck it out a little longer for Celine’s sake. Then, tiring of fending off Dan’s groping hand beneath the table, excused herself and went up to her room.

  Later, relaxing in a hot bath, she thought it was a pity things were as they were. In happier times she and Florrie would have shared a room and enjoyed the fun of being away together in a hotel. But poor Florrie was in deep mourning for her father and wanted only to be on her own. Her thought returned to Graham Pender and she was swamped with fresh misery at his sudden and bewildering rejection of her. Wallowing in suds and regrets, she thought she heard the outer door opening but decided it must have been the adjoining room. She lay there a while longer and then, pink and glowing, climbed out and wrapped herself in a fluffy pink towel.

  Funny! I don’t remember turning on the television, she mused, as she padded into the bedroom.

  A sound from behind made her swing round. She recoiled in horror at the sight of Captain Tully relaxing on her bed. He hadn’t a stitch on!

  ‘Had a nice bath?’ he enquired chattily, patting the pillow beside him and even moving over to make room.

  Striving to keep calm, Kay said icily, ‘Captain Tully kindly leave my room at once.’ Even to her own ears, she sounded all outraged Victorian modesty.

  Dan grinned. ‘Now, now, little girl. You don’t have to go to all that pretence with me.’

  He leaned back swinging one bare muscular leg over a rather knobbly knee and Kay couldn’t help noticing that the black thatch on his chest, extended all the way down to his pubic hair.

  Intercepting her glance, he gave a knowing leer. ‘Come and sit down, my dear. Don’t be shy,’ he invited. ‘You look pretty in that towel but I daresay you would look far more fetching without it.’

  To Kay’s alarm, he swung off the bed and came towards her. As he did, she saw his penis. He had a huge erection.

  She averted her eyes, and wondered what to do. There wasn’t time to phone for help and there didn’t seem any point in screaming as she doubted anyone would hear her. She glanced about in search of some weapon to defend herself but the only thing she could see was the lamp and that was at the far side of the bed. Oh God, she thought. What am I going to do?

  At the same moment that Dan’s fingers reached for her towel, Kay noticed his clothes neatly folded on a chair. Pushing him off, she gathered his uniform up in her arms and rushing to the open window, flung it wildly down to the courtyard below. She almost lost her towel in the process but she succeeded in her objective - to distract Desperate Dan.

  ‘What in tarnation did you do that for?’

  Aggrieved he ran to the window and peered anxiously out. Something white could dimly be seen festooning a potted palm outside the main entrance to the hotel and a startled guest was peering nervously upwards, having narrowly missed being clobbered by a falling shoe.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Dan exclaimed in frustration. ‘That was very unsporting of you, Kay, I must say.’

  He darted from the door before stopping to consider his nudity. His penis was quite flaccid now, Kay was pleased to note

  ‘Feel free to borrow a towel,’ she stated crisply.

  Her revenge was complete as he scurried away, one small hand towel inadequately draped before and aft. Hers, Kay noted in satisfaction, was the only decent sized one of the lot.

  Now that all danger was past, the funny side of the attempted seduction struck her and she sank down on the bed, laughing hysterically. Just wait till she told Graham! How he would laugh! Then she sobered, as she realised she would never get the chance to tell Captain Pender this or anything else again.

  With a dreadful sense of anti-climax, she climbed into bed and lay staring miserably at the wall. It was a long time before she slept.

  FORTY FOUR

  When she arrived home the next day, the first thing Kay did was to parcel up the piece of costume jewellery Dan had given her. Then she strolled up the road and dropped it in the post box. Let him pay the postage, she thought grimly. She couldn’t care less. And if it was sent to his house, well and good. Charlie might as well benefit from it. For all the poor woman had put up with from that monster over the years, she surely deserved some reward.

  The afternoon Winifred arrived to whisk Molly off to Kilshaughlin for Christmas. She and Kay were not on speaking terms since the Pill episode and in silence, they supported Molly out to the car. A hearse stood at the kerbside. Ginny Halpin had caught pneumonia when on look-out duty at the fence and, after a brief illness, had died the previous day.

  ‘Poor Mrs. Halpin, the Lord have mercy on her,’ Molly said surprisingly. Earlier, despite Bill repeatedly telling her that the old woman was being removed that evening, she had failed to take it in. ‘But do I know her?’ she kept asking as if that, and not her demise, was the relevant thing.

  Kay had noticed a disturbing change in Molly since she had returned from hospital. Her last fall had left her very frail and disorientated and everything had to be repeated to her twice, or three times before she understood. This made her sudden flashes of understanding even more disconcerting. The second time she had explained to her that her case was packed because she was going to Kilshaughlin to stay with Winifred, Molly had answered mildly, ‘Yes, dear, I do realise that. You really don’t have to keep telling me,’ making Kay feel the foolish one.

  Now she called sweetly through the window, ‘Bye, love. Happy Christmas.’

  Kay blew her a kiss and went back into the house, uncheered by her cousin’s lukewarm invitation for Peg and herself to join them on St. Stephen’s Day. In another week it would be Christmas and unless a miracle occurred, it promised to be the bleakest of her entire life.

  At that precise moment, Maura Kane and Oliver McGrattan stood eyeing each other across the Chief Executive’s huge desk, not a trace of the Yuletide spirit in either of their hearts.

  ‘I’m holding you personally responsible,’ Oliver said coldly. ‘You must have said or done something to give Mrs. Mueller an erroneous impression of Celtic Airways.’ He tapped the magazine article on his desk with a manicured hand. ‘What kind of headline is that?’ he demanded. ‘An Irish Airline Disdains To Move With The Times.’

  Maura stared back equally coldly. Her fault! How dare he! After all the meetings they had had during the year when he had refused point blank to give them their new hostess quarters. And he was the one who had forced the American woman on them. Let him suffer now. It was good enough for him!

  Maura had read Sheila Mueller’s hatchet job on Celtic Airways with a mixture of chagrin and resignation. It was scathing but true. No one could deny they were housed in a row of ‘primitive huts more suited to an African compound than the glamorous woman’s section of a thriving mid-sixties airline.’

 
She had been given the scurrilous article by Elinor Page who, in turn, had received it from the Hostess Superintendent with instructions to ensure that every member of the hostess team read it. Amy had been angry but philosophical. Clearly the American woman felt she owed them no allegiance and was out to make any profit she could. But the rest of them in the hostess office seethed as they read it. Conniving bitch! To think they had welcomed her amongst them and this was how she repaid them.

  ‘Look, there’s no use giving ourselves wrinkles over it,’ Judy pointed out pragmatically, ‘She’s only describing what she saw and don’t forget she was invited expressly to do an operations research survey which is her legitimate work. This journalistic little piece is obviously her dessert,’ she wrinkled her nose distastefully. ‘Of course, if we had had any sense we wouldn’t have let the woman put foot inside the door.’

  ‘‘Why not face it, Oliver,’ Maura said coolly, ‘you’ve only yourself to blame. The hostess section is as shabby and primitive as Mrs. Mueller claims. For the past year we’ve been asking you in vain for new quarters but you’ve been so obsessed with cost-cutting and keeping your image bright, that your judgement has gone to pot. Now the whole world knows it and it serves you right. I’m off to Australia on winter leave and Eva Hendricks will be taking over while I’m gone. Try bullying her for a change.’

  With that, Maura turned on her heel and left. She was fed up and never wanted to see his mean little face again. Let him do his worst, she thought.

  Back in her office, she busily tidied her desk before going away. Men! She was disillusioned with the lot of them. And Simon. What a disappointment he had turned out to be!

  In the three years since she had known Simon Cooney, there had been many happy moments and some doubtful ones. But not until Orla O’Neill had come into their lives had he ever strayed from her side for long. A desolate look came into her blue eyes as she thought how matters had recently come to a head at Ben Higgins’ party.