by Nesta Tuomey
‘We’re scheduled to make a trip somewhere after Christmas,’ she murmured vaguely, hoping to convey the impression it was somewhere exotic.
‘Been to Hon-lew-lew or Tatty yet?’ Mrs. Halpin had screeched, catching her on the way in.
Dave grinned, ‘You’ll enjoy that.’
Kay nodded and gazed into the flames. When Sadie told them they would be taking a fifty minute trip around the south-east coast, Cecily had inquired pleasurably, ‘France?’
Everyone had grinned at the training officer’s crisp reply. ‘Certainly not, Miss Lewis. Wexford, of course.’
There was something off-putting about Sadie’s humour, Kay often thought. Impossible to know when she was making a joke, or being deadly serious. ‘If you spill a drink on a man’s lap, for goodness sake, don’t try and mop it up,’ she warned them, ‘Or you’ll have a hard job on your hands.’
Kay blushed for Sadie but the training officer hadn’t acted as though she had said anything questionable, just waited with raised brows until the delighted roars died down. Orla and her cronies the loudest, of course.
‘What a giddy mood you’re all in today,’ was her only comment.
‘Hasn’t she the great life?’ Molly asked. She and Dave exchanged conspiratorial looks as though they were somehow on the same wavelength, despite the great disparity in their ages.
‘Aren’t you afraid of letting her off with those airline pilots?’ Molly questioned again and mouthed, ‘No morals at all.’
Dave grunted non-committally and glanced at Kay but she seemed not to be listening, staring into the fire with a dreamy expression.
‘You’ll have to put your foot down. Let her see who’s boss,’ chuckled Molly, loving the role of masterful man.
‘Is that what you’d advise?’ Dave drawled, refusing to let her see she had touched on a sore spot. His earlier rapport with Molly vanished and he felt only irritation with her now for voicing his own unease.
Kay took up the teapot and went down to the kitchen. She leaned out the backdoor to empty the mess of leaves in the bin and with her toe dislodged Molly’s cat as Buz foraged for scraps. With a baleful glare, he dropped heavily to the ground.
He was a sinister-looking animal and Kay was convinced he had been a Chinese war- lord in another life. Of abnormally large size with black markings about the eyes, even his hunting tactics differed to any cat she had ever known, lacking the grace one usually associates with a cat stalking its prey. His was a lumbering approach more canine than feline, but with deadly dispatch, as more than one poor sparrow had discovered too late. Definitely not pleasant to watch, she thought as she returned to the sitting-room.
Dave was on his feet, about to leave. Kay poured tea for her aunt to keep her seated and went with him to the hall.
‘Want to come out Christmas Eve?’
‘I really hadn’t thought that far ahead.’
With an effort Dave kept a rein on his temper. He wondered if she had made a date with some pilot. So it had started already. Then in keeping with some policy, not clearly defined but which had something to do with letting her have her head and work the airline silliness out of her system, he shrugged and said, ‘See you around.’
Kay closed the door and leant against the wall. Why had she refused him? She had nothing planned for Christmas Eve. Now she would just be hanging about the house and it would all be quite boring. Yet somehow she didn’t care. She felt a tingling in her veins as though something wonderful was awaiting her around some corner, and it was all to do with dark insolent glances and an exciting white Alfa Romeo.
ELEVEN
A week after Christmas, Kay flew down Carrick Road, kitbag swinging, high heels spiking the ground, the exercise bringing a flush to her cheeks, a sparkle to her eyes. Today was the day of their demonstration lunch and no way must she be late. Hurrying along, she rejoiced that the festive season was over for another year.
Normally Kay liked Christmas but not Winifred’s family visit. For Molly’s sake she tried to get on with her but it wasn’t easy. The early years, patronised and criticised by her, and constantly reminded of her dependency, had left their mark on Kay, making it impossible for them ever to be on anything but the coolest terms.
On Christmas day Winifred had arrived with Cahal and the children and swanned around distributing presents like they were relief parcels. Molly had undercooked the goose and they had had to wait while she returned it to the oven. When finally served, lunch was a gloomy affair with the children squabbling and the eldest refusing to eat anything but potatoes and sprouts. A vegetarian since the age of two when she declared vehemently that she wouldn’t ‘eat her friends’ the child had made no concession to Christmas or her grandmother’s feelings.
‘Mummy says you wear too much make-up,’ she told Kay cheekily, refusing to give her the honorary title of aunt like the other children did, averring with undeniable logic that Kay wasn’t her aunt so why should she. At opposite ends of the table, outsiders at the feast, sat Bill and Peg imperviously munching.
Dave had called round late afternoon and chatted for a while with Molly and Bill. When almost on the point of departure, he had off-handedly presented Kay with a tiny gold airplane charm for her bracelet. Concealing her surprise, she had produced the present she had got for him. Under some compulsion she didn’t quite understand, she had bought a bottle of Paco Rabanne in a chemist’s shop the night before.
‘Put some on,’ she urged as they stood in the hall.
He looked surprised but obligingly slapped the aftershave against his neck, ‘Next thing you’ll be asking me to dab it behind my ears,’ he joked.
Kay laughed but, at the same time, was struck by how much less potent it seemed when compared to what she had so recently been exposed to in the pilot’s car. She tossed her head and blushed. What had she expected?
Now as she headed for the bus Kay thought again what a relief it was to be finished with all the fuss and bother of Christmas. A relief too being back at the airport for their last week of training and having their first flight behind them, if only that it was easier meeting Ginny Halpin now that she had actually been up in the air. That morning the old woman had hailed Kay on her way out and she had acknowledged Ginny’s frenzied shriek with an assured wave, though what she was saying was anyone’s guess. Something about ‘dem pilots are young divils’ and what sounded like an admonition to ‘hang on to yer knickers.’ Kay grinned, not imagining for one moment that Ginny Halpin was speaking from personal experience.
She climbed into the airport bus and resolutely sat downstairs, afraid she might relent if she went to the upper deck. She was smoking far too much lately and guiltily swore to cut down. It was a filthy habit and couldn’t possibly be good for you but, stuck in class all day, it was hard to resist. She and Sally kept offering them, one as bad as the other.
The bus sped past the Santry Stadium and on either side of the road the industrial estates gave way to ragged hedges, gaped here and there to allow a glimpse of the stubbly fields beyond.
‘Airport,’ the conductor yelled unnecessarily.
Kay arrived into the classroom to find it in total confusion. Lots were being drawn to see who would serve lunch and to her dismay she found herself partnering Sandy Hayes.
‘I’ll probably drop a tray or something,’ the red-head groaned, and Kay tried hard not to look as if she agreed.
‘Don’t forget mine’s a gin and tonic,’ Sally joked. To everyone’s delight Miss McIntyre had said drinks would be served in tourist as well as first class.
‘Doubles,’ Kay promised with a grin.
In one corner of the room men in airport overalls were busily assembling a galley and every minute the loaders kept coming in and plonking down bar containers and food trays only to be redirected elsewhere by Miss McIntyre. It looked as if they would never be ready in time but in an amazingly short while, the room was cleared and the gentle strains of O’Carolan’s harp music softly issuing from the tape-recorder
. Moments later the Chief Hostess arrived in with the Hostess Superintendent and the Personnel Manager and the trio sat into what constituted the first-class section, padded armchairs from the hostess office.
For Kay the memory of that first service would always be a blur of dismayed chaos. Were all demonstration lunches like this, or were she and her group more than usually incompetent? She stared as Sandy began upending miniature bottles of gin and vodka into glasses, having already poured a confusing amount of brandies and whiskies. For the life of her Kay couldn’t distinguish which was which.
‘Don’t you think it might be better to get rid of this lot first,’ she suggested desperately, striving to keep calm.
She seized a tray and loaded up, conscious of not having served even one drink so far. She searched for mixers but Sandy’s zeal had not extended that far. When she turned to her for help, she saw that the other girl had gone down the classroom taking drink orders herself. Didn’t she know she was meant to be working the galley? Exasperated, Kay rummaged in the mineral bar for an opener just as Orla raced in and removed two of her ginger ales.
‘Miss Kane and Miss Curtis are screaming for them,’ she excused herself, and was gone before Kay could protest.
Taking a deep controlling breath, Kay took out more ginger ales. Her foot slipped on a clump of sodden drink mats and she only just managed to save herself from falling by clinging on to the bar edge. My God! What would it be like in the air, she thought, appalled.
‘Heat the pots,’ Miss McIntyre instructed as she swept back in to collect the last of the Charles Heidsieck.
Kay rushed to obey. The galley floor was littered with corks, the wire mesh an added danger. Nobody ever cleared up after themselves except herself, she thought in a glow of martyrdom. To hell with them! Let them clear their own mess. Relenting, she swept the lot into the refuse sack.
It was a long lunch and when it was over Kay was glad. Not much fun in watching everyone else eating and drinking. She sat down thankfully at the back of the classroom to enjoy a selection of cream cheeses and biscuits. Sipping a gin and tonic, she gradually relaxed.
‘You were great,’ Sally slipped into the seat beside her. Kay grinned tiredly back. At least she hadn’t dropped anything or made a show of herself. It was hardest for Orla and Bunny doing first class, she thought. Across the way they sat drinking with Lucy and Gretta, busily making up for lost time. Already Orla was on liqueurs and she and Lucy were taking it in turns to sip Benedictine from her glass.
‘This is the life, Orly,’ Lucy kept saying like a stuck record. ‘Loosey, stop calling me Orly,’ Orla giggled.
They were not the only tipsy ones by the time Miss Curtis got to her feet and with an ironic twinkle in her eye declared lunch well and truly over.
Two days later their Wings dress rehearsal was held. Miraculously, everyone had a full uniform though up to the previous week Kay possessed a skirt but no jacket and had come to dread her visit to Duke and Mason when the small window shot back to reveal Shadow’s accusing face.
‘Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t ready when you came this morning,’ she would shriek, confusing Kay with someone else.
Useless for Kay to protest that she hadn’t been there all week. All hostesses were the same to Shadow; importuning young women caring only for their own selfish pleasure and nothing at all for a poor, overworked seamstress. If it hadn’t been in the interests of uniformed decency, Kay would happily have settled for the skirt and never darkened her door again.
‘Just fancy what the Press would make of it,’ she muttered darkly, picturing herself like some air Bunny in high heels and fishnet stockings. She could just see the headlines. Celtic Go Topless or Air Girls Bare All. Tickets sales would rocket. There wouldn’t be enough seats to meet demand.
Kay wasn’t the only one minus parts of her uniform and when the others expressed their fears to Sadie she soothed them like a stage manager with a temperamental cast, ‘Don’t worry, ladies. You’ll be all right on the day.’ No hostess in her experience had ever yet received her wings in mufti, she assured them, reminding Kay of her aunt when Winifred’s youngest was proving difficult to toilet train.
‘No one ever made his Communion in nappies,’ she had told a distraught Winifred. ‘You can take my word for it!’
Sadie had been right, of course. And here they all were putting the finishing touches to their appearances before assembling in the classroom.
‘Miss McIntyre says ...’ Betty shot past, her message lost to all but those nearest her. Funny how the way a person wore a hat gave a clue to their character, Kay mused, watching the three nurses in the group positioning theirs clinically dead-straight, not a hair out of place. Beside them, Orla, the group madcap, tilted hers predictably at an angle. The trouble with the beret, Kay had found, it didn’t allow for vagaries of hair fashion, and it practically crushed to death any kind of bouffant hair-do. She carefully stuck the point of her tail comb into the collapsing cottage loaf, easing out greater fullness here and there, and glanced across at Sally, envying the graceful way her hat sat on her smooth fair head. Really only the Pens looked truly at home in their berets, Kay considered. But then as former ground hostesses they had several years experience behind them.
‘Are my seams straight?’ Bunny asked anxiously, craning awkwardly behind to see. For such a slim girl her legs were oddly at variance with the rest of her. Like the legacy of someone who has once been stout all over, Kay thought. Or whose crash diet was successful in every other area. Her skirt was a shade long but she hadn’t resorted to Kay’s remedy of turning over the waistband.
‘Don’t you feel awfully thilly dressed up like this?’ she giggled. ‘Yeth, I do,’ Kay felt like saying but repressed the urge.
Betty was back. ‘Come along ... come along,’ she called in imitation of Miss McIntyre’s brisk manner.
In the classroom the training officer was waiting.
‘Like so,’ she murmured as she reset Orla’s beret at a more reliable angle, and moved on to Lucy, her thin, fastidious fingers darting rapidly, like a many-tongued snake, to make lightning adjustments as she went.
‘Plain gold studs,’ she reminded Sandy from whose ear lobes swung gigantic dangling hoops, like you would see on a fairground fortune teller. Sandy blushed and tossed her head, setting the hoops in violent motion. It was like her to wear something so flamboyantly eye- catching.
Kay twisted the gold and ruby ring that had been her mother’s and wondered if Sadie would object to it. It was discreet enough but strictly speaking she could be made to take it off. She kept her hand down when the training officer drew near but she needn’t have worried. By the time it was her turn to be inspected, it was shirt collars McIntyre was fussing over.
‘Top button-like so, Miss Martin,’ she said firmly.
Mindful of her ring, Kay kept her hands at her sides, and suffered having the silk cravat fashioned into a perfectly symmetrical bow.
‘Like so,’ her mind echoed in unison as Sadie jerked it taut.
TWELVE
That same evening Dave put down the book he was studying and decided he would go for a walk. Might even call on Kay, he thought, allowing himself a half hour break from his books. The air would do him good. His brain was getting stale. He shrugged on a jacket and flicking a hand through his tousled hair, stuck his head into the TV room to tell his mother he was going out.
Mrs. Mason was reading the newspaper and at the sound of the door opening, she quickly pulled off her glasses. Vain about her looks, she never liked to be caught wearing them, and especially by her son. Since she had reached the age of fifty, she was constantly trying to see herself through his eyes and dreaded the thought of growing old.
‘Back in a half-hour,’ Dave told her, amused at her little deception. His mother was always the same to him, seeming no older than when he was at school. But then he never looked closely at her anymore nor had he for years.
He came out of the house to find his father standing
by the Volkswagen.
‘Going into town?’ Reggie Mason asked, tucking his muffler into his jacket and pulling on sheepskin gloves.
‘No, just taking a walk,’ Dave replied, trying not to speak curtly. He was ashamed to own it but his mother’s poor regard for his father had begun to influence him. Why doesn’t he smarten himself up a bit, he wondered, as his father stood there with his eager to please, Old Reggie’s a decent sort of fellow smile on his ruined face, pouchy eyes fixed hopefully on him.
‘Not to worry, my boy,’ Reggie absolved him with a wave of one sheep skinned glove, ‘Walk will do me good.’ He moved off, knees slightly bent, swinging his arms energetically as advised in his airforce exercise manual.
Poor old bugger, Dave thought conscience-stricken. He waited until his father’s jaunty figure rounded the corner, then strolled along Carrick Road. The air was chilly on his skin but he liked the fresh feel of it. No matter how cold the weather Dave never wore a topcoat, his only concession to the winter being the addition of a woollen pullover to his wardrobe. As he swung along his mind was filled with the doings at work that day.
Maxwell Tailoring, where Dave worked, was one of the biggest handcraft wholesale tailoring businesses in the country, specialising in high quality mens suiting with a wide range in ready-to-wear clothing, co-ordinating trousers, jackets and casuals. It was the ambition of the managing director to put them at the top of the market. Lately Tony Wall was working on a plan to expand their lines to manufacture an exclusive brand of ski-pants and leisure wear. He was a real dynamo, Dave reflected, familiar with his boss’s view that if you enjoyed what you were doing, it wasn’t work! His own sentiments exactly!
Dave had come into the accounting side of the firm straight from school and spent the last seven years moving steadily up. Just as well he liked studying and thrived on hard, challenging work. Certainly he had had plenty of all three in the past few years.
As he turned in Molly Begley’s gate he came upon Bill in the front garden vigorously cutting back the hedge. The old seaman was beginning to look his years. Bill’s habit in the cold weather of allowing his hair grow long for the sake of warmth did not, in Dave’s opinion, make for a youthful appearance.