by Nesta Tuomey
Nearby the hostesses milled eagerly about, having gained new energy on the long ride in from the airport. Now some were anxious for a night on the town, while others were willing to settle for a snack across the street at Ruddley’s coffee shop. What Graham most wanted was a shower and a good long sleep.
Later, stretched on the bed, a drink in hand, he drowsily watched the tail-end of a film on television, while far below on the street the muted cacophony of horns mingled with the waning scream of police sirens. Gradually he began to unwind.
The film was an old one with Jennifer Jones and Laurence Olivier. The story was melodramatic but there was something about the glowing young actress that reminded him of Kitty Martin. Irresistibly, his thoughts returned to her and the meal they shared in London. She was so young and naive, he thought. No, not naive exactly. Innocent! He smiled a little at the old-fashioned word. He couldn’t deny he had found her shy, starry-eyed glances very touching that night but really, she had taken his flirtation far, far too seriously.
Graham Pender was not an overly vain man but he had good reason to know how attractive he was to women. Even so, the signs of Kay’s evident attraction had slightly bowled him over. Well, maybe he shouldn’t take all the credit for it, he told himself wryly. More than likely, she was just infatuated with the glamour of flying and pilots in general. Still, it was heady stuff and he wouldn’t mind at all taking her out again.
He was not a philanderer but in the past Graham had engaged in one or two affairs with hostesses, strong enough relationships in their own way but conducted with self-preserving restraint on either side, each of them aware how far it mustn’t go. Somehow he didn’t think Kitty Martin would be aware of the rules of such games.
His expression softened. She was just a child, a lovely child, he told himself indulgently. Of course it was all very flattering. Three years off forty, he reminded himself, and still able to attract a twenty-two year old!
Funny to think that Sile had once been like that, he mused. Young, gorgeous and enamoured of pilots. How all that had changed! He sighed and took another sip of Rye. If only his relationship with his wife had been even half-way satisfying, Graham often thought, he would never have strayed an inch from the marital couch.
Next day, he slept late and after breakfasting in the hotel snackery on orange juice, bacon and two eggs sunny side up, he strolled about the streets, enjoying the hustle and bustle of New York city. This stopover was much like his previous ones, only this time Graham took a trip on the Staten Island Ferry. He leaned on the side of the boat to gaze up at the Statue of Liberty as they chugged past, his dark hair whipping back from his forehead, enjoying the tangy sea breeze and thinking how much Jeremy and Nicky would have revelled in the boat trip. After the summer maybe he’d bring them over for a long weekend.
On disembarking, Graham took a cab to 34th Street and went into Macy’s where he bought football sweaters for the boys and a teak-coloured ceramic pineapple for Sile. It was peppered all over with tiny holes to hold cocktail sticks and he knew it would appeal to her. For lunch he had a large tuna fish sandwich and a milkshake in the store’s basement cafeteria and then, feeling pleasantly tired, returned to the Sheraton Atlantic Hotel to take a nap before crew pick-up.
Twelve hours later, Captain Pender touched down again at Dublin Airport. Arriving into the pilot’s lounge he found a note from the medical centre asking him to contact them about his summer medical. The number was engaged when he rang and he was forced to hang about till the line became clear. When he finally got through, the receptionist took his name and promised to ring him back as soon as she had contacted St. Bricin’s.
Twenty minutes later, his temper rapidly rising, Graham was still waiting to hear from her. Surely to God, he thought, it couldn’t take so long to make one lousy appointment. He felt tired and cranky. They had been delayed leaving Kennedy the previous night due to a catering discrepancy and had had to wait their turn in a queue of about twenty jets before being cleared for take-off. Delays going out and coming back! Graham sighed. Now this further hold-up was hard to take.
He frowned, weary of hearing Christy Kane griping on about his failed Boeing test and the grudge Paul Monahan bore him. Graham knew that the Training Captain while exacting was strictly fair and if he had failed Christy a second time, there must be good reason. Graham had already heard the rumours circulating the pilots’ quarters that Christy had misread the dials and put the jet into an almost terminal dive. Only Monahan’s quick action in opening the power levels to the stops had brought it under control and saved the machine. Now he tried to be tactful but he was tired and Kane, touchy at the best of times soon erupted.
‘You bloody Boeing fellahs think you know it all,’ he snarled, before belligerently moving off to buttonhole some other pilot.
Graham sighed. Across the room Dan Tully was talking smut as usual. ‘Her boobs were gi-normous,’ he was telling two grinning Second Officers, ‘Absolutely gi-normous, I kid you not.’
It was a relief when his medical appointment was finally confirmed and Graham was able to quit the airport. He drove across the city in record time, buoyed up by the thought of a hot shower, followed by a few hours in bed. Indicating left, he prepared to turn into his driveway. Damn! the gates were shut. As he got out to open them, Graham felt a cold slide in his stomach, reminded of his homecoming from Karachi. Surely to God she hadn’t gone off and left them again.
Frowning, he humped his cases before him into the house and leaving them down in the hall, hurried into the kitchen. There he found a note propped on the sink. ‘Mother had another asthmatic attack. I’ve taken the boys and gone to Enniskerry to look after her,’ Sile wrote. ‘Hope you’ll be able to manage while I’m gone.
Good of her to be concerned, Graham thought sarcastically. He tossed the note on the kitchen table and stamped angrily upstairs. He supposed he shouldn’t object to her going off to mind her sick mother but it was too damned far to take the boys, and the chilly little house in the mountains was the last place for Nicky only getting over his ‘flu. It was all too bloody much.
Sickened at the thought of the empty house and of maybe not having his sons back home before he flew away again, Graham stripped and showered and got wearily into bed. When he awoke three hours later his mood was no better. He reached for his pen and taking paper from his brief case scribbled a note to Kay. As he stuck it in an envelope and addressed it to her, he was aware that he was taking a step he might later regret. But just then he didn’t care.
TWENTY ONE
Kay was filled with elation when she found Captain Pender’s note on the hostess notice-board. She took it down and opened it with shaking fingers.
‘Sweet I’m back,’ he wrote. ‘Seems like aeons since we met. The Hollow tonight? Ninish. Hope you can make it.’
It wasn’t signed somewhat to her disappointment, but of course there was no doubt as to its author. Just imagining his strong fingers pressed against the paper sent Kay’s heart racing even faster. Soon she would be in his arms, she promised herself happily, soon his lips would be on hers.
To be honest, Kay had despaired of ever hearing from Graham again. Since her night with him in London she had examined the noticeboards for weeks in vain, unable to understand how after all his promises and sensational kisses, he wouldn’t even drop her a line. She had come to the sad conclusion that he hadn’t meant a word of what he’d said, and felt the only sensible thing to do was mark it down to experience and put him out of her mind! Easier said than done. Without Florrie it would have been harder still but the other girl’s presence in the house greatly helped Kay get over her disappointment and prevented her brooding.
She happily clutched Graham’s note and hurried down to her locker to change out of uniform. In the washroom, she carefully renewed her make-up, too excited to feel her usual distaste at the grotty state of the place. Rumours of a grand new hostess block, shortly to be built, circulated in moments of extreme dissatisfaction, only t
o be immediately quashed by Beattie Burgenhoffer who swore she was hearing ‘that lit-tel fairy tale’ as long as she could remember.
Going back through the restroom Kay bumped into Sally and gladly agreed to have tea with her in the canteen. She hadn’t seen her friend in ages and was dying for a chat. There wasn’t any need to go home and change before her date, she decided, having luckily worn her Blackwatch tartan kilt and new silk blouse to the airport that morning.
‘Have you heard the latest?’ Sally asked. ‘What, for goodness sake?’
Before them like a huge greenhouse the canteen poured forth its welcoming light, revealing Sally’s expression of smiling dismay.
‘But surely you’ve heard... one of the pilots has got a hostess preggers!’ ‘Oh, no!’ Kay exclaimed.
‘Isn’t it awful?’ There was no mistaking the suppressed excitement in Sally’s voice. ‘Ma Curtis got to hear of it and she’s being turfed out. That’s why Beattie has called a union meeting for tonight, to show solidarity.’
‘But surely they can’t sack her?’ Kay protested. ‘I mean, she didn’t do it on her own. What about the pilot? Shouldn’t he get the boot too?’
‘He’s married,’ Sally said flatly, as though that exempted him from blame.
Following her friend into the canteen, Kay’s mind was in turmoil. With absolutely no evidence to support it, she was suddenly convinced that the erring pilot was none other than Captain Pender. She had always suspected he might be married (no one that gorgeous could have escaped so long) but never until that moment had she been prepared, even in her thoughts, to acknowledge the existence of another woman.
‘And the guilty pair?’ she enquired in weak imitation of Sally’s amused manner, terrified of the answer. ‘Anyone we know?’
Sally shook her head regretfully. ‘Afraid not. She’s on the Atlantic, so the grapevine has it. And he’s only just been transferred.’
Kay’s heart dipped.
Sally gave a husky laugh, ‘Didn’t lose much time, did he? Of course, they say they’re all as randy as hell on the Boeings.’
Jet-lag presumably accounted for it, Kay thought glumly. A bit like tubercular patients who were reputed to be afflicted by a similar itch.
‘Seems his wife was a former hostess,’ Sally volunteered through a mouthful of steak. ‘BEA or Caledonia, I think.’
Kay was not impressed. BEA stewardesses wore aprons and Caledonia was tiny, nothing like so big as Celtic. At least this time Captain Pender had aimed higher in making a Celtic Airways hostess his mistress, she thought coldly. That she might be next in line for this dubious honour did not occur to her. Her appetite quite gone she toyed with a chip. Sally tucked into a delicious-looking pavlova with gusto
‘She’s probably in her forties,’ she reckoned with authority. ‘Probably let herself go. Slouching about in laddered nylons, not painting her nails, or worse,’ she paused dramatically, ‘wearing chipped varnish.’
Hard hitting but just, Kay conceded, who like her friend believed in the all importance of glamour. If you dropped your standards in small things, how could you possibly hope not to drop them altogether.
The canteen doors swung open and Bunny Fagan joined them. She had heard the news too and by the time they had further mulled over the scandal, it was decided that no matter how foolishly their fellow hostess might have behaved, it was their duty to support her that night at the meeting. Kay listened in dread, mindful of her date with Captain Pender, but consoled herself with the thought that with any luck it would not be a long one and she could still make The Hollow on time.
They arrived at the prefabs to find the hut packed to the doors. Beattie, wearing slacks and a mannish black leather jacket, was in the middle of an impassioned speech loudly condemning management’s high-handed action in suspending the Atlantic hostess in a situation involving not ‘ein aber zwei peuplen.’
Why not make it drei and be done with it, Kay thought irritably, as Beattie thundered on, her black-browed glance scornfully raking the rows of standing men (none of whom were foolish enough to be pilots). There were cries of ‘Hear! hear!’ from her supporters in the front of two rows and Kay recognised Betty and Celine as well as a few others from the group. Clearly the Atlantic hostess wasn’t there. Over tea they had speculated whether or not she would have the nerve to show up.
‘No,’ Bunny firmly opined. ‘She’s probably gone to London already.’ She had heard a version of the story from Orla O’Neill who through her various pilot connections was as usual in the know. ‘You can’t blame her really. It’s what I’d do in her shoes. She shuddered at this highly improbable event.
Sally strong-mindedly felt it would be in her best interests to be there.
‘You wouldn’t catch me,’ Bunny squealed, shoe-hopping again. ‘Not in a million years. I’d just die.’
Privately Kay felt the same.
‘Well he won’t be there, you may be sure,’ Sally grinned scornfully. Sally was right on both counts.
Now Beattie was noisily accusing the pilots’ association of acting ‘with typical age- old cowardice of man caught in a predicament as ancient as the Kalahari desert. I propose that this gross inhuman act of a despotic government be righted at once,’ she continued trenchantly, ‘and a hostess’s life once and for all be acknowledged as her own.’
Stepping down to tumultuous applause, she was thumped enthusiastically on her leather-coated back. Further proposals were then put into motion that a fund be set up to finance the pregnant one so that she might have a choice when deciding whether or not she wanted to have her baby.
This was shot down at once by a group of cabin cleaners.
‘I’ve nuttin’ against yer wan for getting herself up the spout,’ proclaimed a florid- faced matron, sporting a Medusa-like head of plastic rollers which she disdained to hide beneath the customary scarf. ‘But I don’t see why meself and udders like me should have to shell out our few hard-earned shillins. Not from the measly wages we get paid. It’s dem pilots should be made pay with all the money dey get. Amn’t I right?’
With an approving roar the packed room greeted the justice of this remark. Pilots should be made pay for their fun, was the consensus of opinion.
With horror, Kay realised it was getting on for nine o’clock. She gazed helplessly behind her and saw that the way to the door was solidly blocked. Even if she could manage to get a bus straight away, she thought despairingly, she would never reach The Hollow in time. As she was debating what to do next, Beattie shouted ‘Any other business?’ and more precious minutes were lost while she and the catering manager duelled over relevant dates and flight numbers of a Paris flight, delayed thirty minutes due to the shortage of three chicken dinners which Beattie claimed (and proved with Teutonic efficiency), Catering had neglected to put on board in time.
In the end it was Bunny who came to Kay’s rescue. She revealed she was being picked up any minute by her boyfriend, and offered Sally and Kay a lift to town. Ignoring the glares directed at them by some of the more fanatical of Beattie’s followers, the girls made good their escape. If only Lieutenant Canavan had come in time all might have been well but it was another twenty minutes before he showed up. Then he failed to heed Kay’s request to be let down at the turn-off for The Hollow but roared past instead, hell-bent for town.
‘Speed maniac,’ Sally mouthed while Bunny turned to laugh back at them, showing her high teeth prettily like jolly Mrs. Bunny Rabbit in Kay’s childish picture books. ‘Isn’t he tewibble?’
In despair, Kay pressed her face to the window, anguish sweeping her heart like waves over the Baltic. Oh well, she told herself forlornly, he wouldn’t have been there anyway.
TWENTY TWO
In another part of the prefabs, Maura Kane sat at her desk going over the hostess files. Every so often she glanced out her window distracted by the groups of airport staff hurrying into the adjoining hut. She knew all about the union meeting called by Beattie and for once, was fully in sympathy with
the German girl.
Like her colleague, Maura was incensed by the airline’s handling of the situation. It was high time, she considered, that a system of maternity leave was put into operation in Celtic Airways. The fact that in this holy country of theirs unmarried mothers were still considered beyond the pale sickened Maura. Although there was not an inordinate amount of pregnancies amongst airport staff, there were undoubtedly a few every year. It was only hypocrisy to deny it. They just didn’t get the same publicity as aircrews. But then pilots and hostesses were always hotter news. Maura shrugged. In truth pilots were not the worst offenders.
With difficulty she turned her mind back to the work before her. Earlier, she had instructed her secretary to get her a pot of coffee and some sandwiches from the canteen and kept on working. Without telephone interruptions or taps on the door, it was the best time of day to get any work done.
Maura could have got Eva or one of the other Checks to help her sift through the hostess files, or even asked someone really efficient like Elinor Page in administration to spare an hour or two but she wanted to examine each one herself, then present her findings to the Hostess Superintendent. It was her job and she intended proving she could do it.
For Maura the last eight months had been a testing time, more demanding than anything she had encompassed before. She hadn’t minded all the extra work and responsibility it entailed, though it meant for a time a drastic cutting down on her social life. There was a challenge to it that she enjoyed, a feeling as if her capabilities were being stretched and she was more than able for it.
The only fly in the ointment was Oliver McGrattan. Whenever she found he was getting her down she went along the corridor to Elinor for a smoke and a chat. ‘Send him a memo about the sanitary dispensing unit,’ Elinor advised with a chuckle. ‘That’ll quieten him.’