Up Up and Away

by Nesta Tuomey

  She had found it difficult speaking about Graham and even harder stopping, yet strangely she had found it easier confessing to Dave than to another woman. Never even to

  Florrie had she admitted so much. He hadn’t been a bit shocked or disapproving, she decided. In fact, he had been rather sweet and protective and she hadn’t at all minded being treated like some unfortunate silly who warranted especially kind treatment. Not unlike being ill and having a lovely fuss made over you, she thought wistfully.

  She turned her head and stared curiously at his absorbed profile. What made Dave tick, she wondered, as she had so often before. He could be quite aloof and censorious and then go and say something lovely, making nonsense of all the rest.

  Sensing her scrutiny, Dave turned and gave her a pensive glance, ‘All right, Katie?’ he enquired mildly.

  ‘Just wondering what a trip to America would do for your mind,’ she replied sweetly, and was rewarded by his sudden shout of laughter.

  ‘Don’t know about America,’ he grinned, ‘All I can suggest is a few laps on the sand. Care to join me?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Kay returned his smile impishly and ran ahead of him down the steps to the stony beach.

  Dave followed more slowly. Thinking how nice it was to hear her laugh again. But that he was no nearer to making up his mind about Germany, he was ruefully aware.

  FIFTY FOUR

  Kay half-regretted telling Dave so much the night they drove to the sea. In cooler moments she was appalled at herself for spilling her heart out to him like she had. What must he have thought of her! She blushed in embarrassment. Still, it had been a great relief to unburden herself and she had felt heartened by his kindliness and complete lack of censure.

  Kay was slowly coming to a realisation of Dave’s worth. His was a very strong disciplined character and she was beginning to recognise that the slight tension existing always between them was the result of a frequent clash of wills. She was strong-willed herself and from early on, had confused his strong-minded reticence with selfish disinterest. When he didn’t immediately conform to her way of thinking, she had proudly retaliated by subjecting him to a spell of the cool treatment.

  Now permitted this gentler glimpse of him, she was reminded of all his earlier acts of kindness to her aunt and his quickness to oblige whenever called upon. She couldn’t but compare him to the shallow company she mixed in these days, and was forced to acknowledge that aircrews, in the main, were a lot of pleasure-seeking young men and women only out for a good time on overnights.

  But who was she to talk? Hadn’t she thrown herself as energetically as any of them into the life? It was only to help her get over Graham, she excused herself. Nevertheless, Kay was aware of a vague dissatisfaction with her life and was struck by what an empty meaningless kind of existence it was turning out to be.

  Sally was planning to return to Spain in March and wanted her to go with her, but Kay couldn’t make up her mind. Then Florrie told her she was thinking of going to New Zealand with some of her group.

  ‘Oh Florrie,’ was all Kay could say. ‘When?’

  ‘Not till April,’ Florrie gave her a guilty look knowing how low she was these days over Captain Pender.

  ‘What does Jimmy say?’

  Florrie shrugged. ‘I’m not seeing much of him these days.’

  In a way Jimmy was the reason that Florrie was going away. Since her father’s death, she had conceived an irrational dislike for her boyfriend, blaming him for so entrancing her as to make her miss her last chance of seeing her father alive.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Kay said hopelessly.

  ‘You could come too,’ Florrie suggested.

  Kay shook her head. New Zealand didn’t appeal to her. Nowhere did. She felt as if she could never again work up enthusiasm for anything so long as she lived.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Florrie looked conscience-stricken. ‘They want me to move into the flat with them. I haven’t said I’ll go,’ she added hastily. ‘Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’

  Kay was only surprised that Florrie had stuck it so long in Carrick Road. Not that the standard had even been great, she honestly admitted, but in her aunt’s absence it had gone steadily downhill.

  ‘Look I don’t have to share with them,’ Florrie protested when Kay said some of this. ‘Why don’t you and I go into a flat,’ she suggested eagerly, ‘We could always take in some else later on to help with the rent.’

  ‘I’d like nothing better, Florrie, but it’s out of the question,’ Kay said regretfully. There was no way she could leave her aunt, especially now that she was in such poor health.

  ‘Pity... it would have been nice.’ Florrie squeezed Kay’s hand, ‘I feel awful going,’ she admitted unhappily, ‘I can’t forget how you took me in when that scourge Millicent was plaguing me. It’s downright ungrateful now to be deserting you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Kay tried to smile and make the best of it. But when Florrie moved out a few days later she missed her friend even more than she had expected. The house seemed bleaker than ever and she had to steel herself to enter it.

  Passing through the restroom shortly afterwards she heard the latest news. Maura Kane had upped and left Celtic Airways for a marvellous job with a new British airline. In her place, Eva Hendricks had been permanently appointed Chief Hostess over the European hostess section. And most interesting of all, work was to begin at last on their long-awaited hostess quarters. According to the grapevine, it promised to be the last word in luxurious elegance with washroom facilities for six showers (if Ma Curtis did not veto them) as well as an abundance of hair dryers, towels, soaps and perfumes. Although now that she was on the Atlantic Kay spent the minimal time at the airport, she rejoiced with the rest of them.

  When her new roster came out, she found that she was down for the long stopover in Chicago, flying out on Monday and returning Friday. It would be a relief, she thought, to be away a whole week from the gloom of Carrick Road.

  The evening before she left Dave called round. It was her first time meeting him since the night they drove to the sea and, conscious of all she had confided in him on that occasion, colour tinged her cheeks as she invited him in.

  ‘I’m just ironing my blouses,’ she told him, leading the way to the kitchen. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea in a moment.

  ‘No rush.’ Dave tossed his jacket on a chair and relaxed back to lazily watch her as she lifted the iron and brought it skimming lightly over the pearly silk.

  Kay was conscious of his grey eyes calmly regarding her and felt strangely shy. She was relieved when he kept to general topics - evidently he did not intend referring to her private concerns - and she gradually relaxed. Over tea, she told him that Florrie had gone into a flat.

  ‘Oh that was rather sudden, wasn’t it?’ ‘Yes, it was a bit.’

  She waited for him to ask where Florrie had gone but he just went on stirring his tea with a rather pre-occupied expression.

  It was true that Dave was distracted. Earlier in the day he had told his boss that he would be taking up the Frankfurt option. Having made the decision he had supposed he would feel calm and resigned to going away. But it had not been like that. He was unable to rid himself of the conviction that he had somehow taken a wrong step. Now he was surprised to find himself still so unsettled. Becoming aware of Kay’s puzzled glance he bestirred himself to ask after Molly.

  ‘She’s not too well,’ Kay told him. She had intended visiting Kilshaughlin before going to Chicago but Molly was in bed with a chill and in no form to see anyone. Changing the subject, she told Dave about the strange way Peg was behaving. The previous night she had knocked on the old woman’s door with tea and sandwiches only to be turned away.

  ‘It’s none of it safe, Kay,’ Peg had cried. ‘I’m not to be touching any of it St. Jude says.’ ‘It’s probably just hunger,’ Kay concluded. ‘but she’s acting most peculiarly.’ ‘Definitely not the healthiest,’ Dave agre
ed. ‘Waiting for the all clear from St. Jude.’

  Kay laughed. Somehow with Dave dispelling the gloom it had begun to seem rather funny. He left soon afterwards. As she saw him out, Kay told herself a little sadly, now that Florrie was gone she would see less and less of him.

  The next day she flew out to Chicago. She knew none of the hostesses on her flight and sitting with them in the crew car on the way to the airport, her natural excitement at going to a new part of America was tempered by doubts as to how she would fill her time there. Beside her a blonde hostess with an incredible sun-tan, was chattering away to the others about her holiday in the Bahamas, not ignoring Kay but not including her in the conversation either. It made Kay feel even lonelier.

  She sighed and looked out the window. Four days in the Windy City, she mused wistfully. An age to be away, but how blissful in the right company. She couldn’t help thinking how marvellous it would be if only Graham were with her, and sighed for the tragic waste of love, the terrible sorrowing emotion she still felt.

  FIFTY FIVE

  Far away in Karachi, Graham was sitting in his room writing letters. The first was to be his wife and when he finished it and had scribbled a few lines to each of his sons, he intended writing to Kay.

  After much thought Captain Pender had made up his mind to cut short his stint in Pakistan by two months. He was tired of this alien place far away from his family and friends, working routes he didn’t particularly like. It was time he went home. Luckily the pilot situation with the Pakistani airline had eased and there was no difficulty about terminating his agreement. Within a few days his winding-up operations were completed and he was planning to be back home in time for Easter.

  He laid down his pen and stared thoughtfully through the slatted blinds on his bedroom window. He was getting out just in time, he told himself. Summer in Karachi began mid-April so he would be gone before the heat became oppressive, and before the end of Ramadan, the Muslim feast. They really took it seriously, Graham thought, a whole month of fasting from dawn to dusk. He would like to see them at home going for hours on an empty stomach, not even swallowing their own spit! He smiled grimly. And no booze ever, the unkindest cut of all.

  Well, with any luck, he told himself, it would be a fine Easter. The holiday was falling late this year so there was a good chance of milder weather, and he might even take the boys on the cycling trip he had promised them.

  And Kay?

  Graham’s eyes clouded. To his utter mystification and chagrin, he still hadn’t heard from her. More and more he was coming to believe there had been some mix-up. Without being over conceited, he had always been aware how she felt about him and there wasn’t any way she could have resisted that first letter he had written her. It just wasn’t possible.

  As he addressed envelopes to his family, he told himself that he must have been crazy to think he couldn’t work out something with her. It was not an either/or situation. It never had been. That was the mistake he had made from the beginning.

  Looking back, Graham realised he had never expected the attraction between himself and Kay to last. While genuinely enraptured by her he had seen their relationship as a temporary thing, much like affairs he had casually embarked upon in the past as a little light relief from the boredom of his marriage. They had never at any time been in danger of developing into anything deeper - mainly because he had never felt more than a passing desire for any other woman, until he had met Kay Martin.

  Now with the worsening relationship between Sile and himself, Graham was aware that it would be a miracle if they were still together in another year. Especially since Tom Conway had reappeared on the scene. In a recent letter from Christy Kane it had been clear that Sile was burning her boats in a big way with the racehorse owner. Trust Christy, Graham thought wryly when he read it. The other pilot had never been able to resist passing on the smut. He was disturbed but, forewarned by Nicky’s letter, not all that surprised. In a way it came almost as a relief and greatly eased his own conscience about resuming his affair with Kay. It was also the spur he needed.

  Aware of time passing, Graham hurried down to Ralph’s room, intent on catching him before he left for the airport. Ralph was due out on the Beirut-London run and if he posted the letters for him in London, a lot of time would be saved.

  ‘Thanks, Ralph. Whenever you get a chance.’

  ‘Never fear, old chap. I’ll post them the minute we land.’

  Graham wished him a good flight and went for a stroll about the concourse before returning to his room to begin his letter to Kay. First he needed time to think out what he was going to say. It wasn’t something he could rush. Well at least he had got the others off, he thought satisfied. With any luck Sile and the boys would have them in a day or two.

  In fact, the letter to his wife arrived the next day.

  Sile Pender was on her way out to the boutique when she picked it up. The English stamp puzzled her until she realised her husband must have got one of the pilots to post it for him in London. The news that he was coming home in time for Easter, she reviewed with misgivings. In the weeks since Graham had gone away, Sile had not only regained her self- respect but tasted a new kind of independence and she was loath to relinquish it.

  She had made a pretty good recovery since the dark days of her suicide attempt and seldom dwelt on that bleak time anymore. It had been the worst period of her life and she hoped never to sink so low again. These days, she felt so good that it might have been someone else who had weakly succumbed to the feelings of inadequacy and shame brought about by her husband’s affair and the humiliating outcome of her visit to the airport.

  The new boutique in which she shared joint management with her sister, satisfied Sile in a way her previous role of wife and mother never had. Soon they planned to open another shop. All they needed was the necessary capital to make a go of it. Since meeting Tom Conway again, Sile had found her backer.

  She parked her car in front of the boutique and unlocked the shutters. This morning she was in sole charge, May having taken time off to keep a dental appointment. Business was fairly slack that morning and she was able to slip out at lunchtime to meet Jeanette Kane.

  They shared a cup of coffee in Blackrock and over it, Sile heard that Christy was drinking too much and giving Jeannette a rough time.

  ‘Since he failed to transfer to the Boeings he’s very unsettled,’ Jeannette admitted with a worried sigh.

  ‘Poor Christy,’ Sile nodded sympathetically, glad that whatever about her own husband’s shortcomings he was an excellent pilot.

  Over a second coffee she heard the latest doings in the airline. Captain Tully’s wife had left him to run off with her children’s school counsellor, Maura Kane had netted herself a marvellous new job with Virgo Airways and Simon Cooney had got himself engaged on the rebound to Orla O’Neill.

  ‘The Hostess Superintendent’s niece is the new Chief Hostess,’ Jeannette finished up. Sile passed no comment. Just so long as Judy Mathews did not succeed as

  Superintendent, she thought, and told Jeannette about Tom Conway’s plans for them to fly over to the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

  ‘I’ll need a separate seat for my hat,’ she joked.

  ‘Lucky you! Make the most of it,’ Jeannette grimly advised.

  Sile’s sentiments exactly. ‘Fly now and pay later,’ she grinned defiantly, and drove back to the boutique in better mood.

  Later that afternoon, she amused herself by changing about the window display. It was great being her own mistress, she reflected, pitying Jeannette having to put up with Christy’s drunken bullying. She stripped the dummy and watched by two grinning schoolboys, their noses pressed to the glass, clothed it modestly in black taffeta.

  In the same moment Sile decided that when Graham returned from Karachi she would leave him.

  FIFTY SIX

  The next day was Thursday. In Chicago Kay sat in the crew taxi on her way to O’Hare airport. She hadn’t really enjoyed her few days
in the Windy City and was relieved to be going home. Long stopovers, she had discovered the hard way, were only fun if you were meeting friends, or shared the trip with someone you liked.

  As Kay had feared, knowing none of the crew meant she had spent her time in front of the television, or wandering the shops. Palmer House where they stayed had been very luxurious though, the best she had stayed in yet. It was on the corner of Wabash Avenue and with its deeply carpeted malls and expensive boutiques, decidedly more plush than the New York Sheraton Atlantic. It even had a swimming pool. Still, it was that bit too solitary for Kay and the only people she spoke to in the few days were shop assistants and the hotel doorman.

  Now she looked out the window and told herself she should have been more adventurous, gone about sightseeing more. She had not felt up to it. The weather was too cold and blustery. Chicago had not earned its nickname for nothing. Next time she came, she consoled herself, she would have a friendlier crew, or at least know some of the hostesses on her flight.

  Beside her, Captain Kenny chatted to First Officer Grehan. It was a coincidence that Ned and Pete had both been crew members on Kay’s supernumerary flight to New York in January. Now listening to their lighthearted banter she was reminded of all their jokes about laundry baskets full of suicides, and felt a pang at how long ago the trip now seemed.

  The cars slid through the evening traffic. On a billboard high above the highway, the time and temperature repeated on a never ending conveyor belt of golden lights. There was a six hours time difference between here and home. Gazing upwards, Kay saw that Chicago time on this March day was six o’clock and the temperature 42 degrees.

  In Karachi, eleven hours ahead of Chicago, it was in the early hours of Friday morning and Graham was asleep. He stirred ad rolled on to his back. Then in the uneasy, half waking state induced by fear of over-sleeping, he flung up his hand close to his eyes and peered at his watch. Due out to Bombay/Colombo at nine o’clock the luminous dials reassured him that he had some hours to go before pick-up. He relaxed back into an easier sleep.