by Nesta Tuomey
In Orly airport where they put down en route, their flight was delayed a further ninety minutes and by the time they eventually landed in Lourdes, the crew were found to be out of hours, and by I.A.T.A regulations obliged to overnight.
Two days later they were still there.
Wandering the narrow streets in 80 degrees of heat, Kay wished she had been clairvoyant enough to have stocked her locker with some extra clothing and wasn’t now totally reliant on the same slightly damp bri-nylon dress (a quick dip in the hand basin at night and hung dripping on St. Bernadette’s picture to dry) which was all she had in her locker when stuck on reserve. Penny was in much the same predicament though she, at least, had a change of underwear.
Attractively gamine in appearance, with short razor cut hair and dark impudent eyes, Penny was constantly being ogled by swarthy French men (sex, not miracles, apparently holding sway even in this sanctified spot) who kept stepping in her path to beg for ‘deux minutes, mamselle.’ What they imagined they would accomplish in so short a time mystified the girls. Penny thought even for a ‘quickie’, it was a record.
‘Oh go say a rosary,’ she exploded, wrinkling her nose disgustedly at a pest who insisted on following them back past the loaded stalls, clicking his tongue suggestively against his teeth.
With a Gallic little shrug, he philosophically accepted defeat at the entrance to the hotel and regretfully departed murmuring, ‘Au revoir, mamselle. A bientot.’
‘Pray for a miracle,’ Penny retorted irreverently, and fanned her hot face.
The girls spent the next day in much the same way and that night met up again with their crew. John Brennan was their captain and Christy Kane, cousin to the Chief Hostess, his crotchety co-pilot. Penny revealed that she had had a brief fling with Christy at one time and from the pilot’s irritable manner it was evident he still lusted after her. It was also evident that he had a grievance, not only against Penny, but hostesses in general.
‘All you hostesses are just a lot of gold-diggers,’ he harangued them as they ate. ‘Get a man to spent his hard-earned cash on you and when it’s all gone, it’s ‘Goodbye jerk, it was nice knowing you.’
‘Oh get stuffed, Christy,’ Penny stuck her tongue out at him. ‘You’re just sore you can’t play round or Jeannette will get to know about it... Sour grapes!’
The pilot smiled unpleasantly. ‘Say what you like, acushla, but don’t forget that my wife was one of you girls once. She knows the score.’
‘Well, bully for her!’ Penny exclaimed. ‘So do lots of pilots’ wives... Graham’s for one and much good it does Sile.’
Kay was agog. Could they possibly be talking about Captain Pender? She ached to know.
‘Their case is quite different,’ Christy replied shortly.
Kay strained her ears wondering why, and was relieved when Penny asked the question for her.
Captain Kane laughed scornfully, ‘Oh come off it, Penny. Turn off the big beguiling headlamps. You’re not dealing with gorgeous Graham now. You know darn well why, you of all people.’
Penny frowned. ‘Really Christy, you’re quite poisonous you know.’ She tossed her head, ‘Don’t go blaming me if Graham’s ‘billysitch’’ of a wife went and forgot the cardinal rule... apart altogether from her other little problem...
‘Catty,’ intoned Captain Kane admiringly. ‘And what may I ask is the cardinal rule according to Air Hostess Norton?’
‘How to keep you man coming back for more,’ Penny answered smartly.
‘Ah now, that’s a subject you could give tutorials on.’ He scowled at her, irritation and regretful lechery imprinted on his coarse features. ‘I’ll vouch for that!’
‘Thank you, kind sir,’ Penny bowed her cropped head, obviously complimented. ‘But I’m afraid I’m otherwise engaged these days.’
‘I’ll bet! Draining that poor jerk with the Merc of all his dough.’
Christy was back again to being gratuitously offensive. It was as though he hated Penny, Kay thought.
‘Not that he can’t afford it, he’s loaded from what the papers say. Well, well, so you’re going for money instead of looks these days,’ he sneered. ‘Good for you.’
‘I don’t remember ever being that choosy about looks,’ Penny put him down.
A deep blush mounted to the pilot’s forehead. ‘Bitch!’ he said morosely. His wine glass rocked as he set it back on the table.
‘What, still belabouring poor Miss Norton,’ Captain Brennan rejoined them, cigar in hand. ‘If I were you, my dear, I’d salt his coffee on the return journey.’
‘I might just do that,’ Penny said grimly, ‘If we ever leave this hallowed spot.’
She met Kay’s sympathetic glance and they shared a look of commiseration at the thought of another sticky day wandering the pavements.
Captain Brennan’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘Well now, that’s where I’ve good news for you, my dear. We’re off first thing in the morning. There! I knew you’d be glad to hear it.’ He winked at the girls and turned to a sullen Christy. ‘Now Christopher, my boy, what would you say to a game of bridge before we go to our bunks. And just so there’ll be no further friction I’ll partner Miss Norton and perhaps Miss Martin would be good enough to put up with you.’
Christy grumpily agreed and for the next hour conversation was restricted to the cared game. Kay’s mind was still dwelling on what had gone before but she was forced to wait until they were on their way to bed before she could finally put the question to Penny that had been bothering her all evening.
‘Was that Sile Pender you were talking about earlier?’ she enquired cautiously on their way upstairs.
‘Yes...do you know her?’ Penny glanced her surprise.
‘Not really... I just wondered,’ Kay said lamely, and reddened under the other’s scrutiny. ‘Oh, I get the picture,’ Penny’s brow cleared. ‘You know Graham.’
Kay nodded miserably.
‘He’s a real sweetie, isn’t he. I used to have a thing going with him at one time,’ Penny cheerfully confessed. ‘I’m still awfully fond of him.’
When they reached their landing she gave Kay a penetrating glance. ‘Keen on him?’ Kay was about to deny it, then decided against.
‘You poor baby,’ Penny said with relish. ‘It’s written all over you.’ She grinned. ‘A word of advice - look out for Madame Pender. She puts the Snow Queen in the shade. Believe me, Sile will have your heart and liver too if she ever finds out.’
Penny’s chuckle floated back along the corridor, ‘Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’
Kay’s own heart felt like it contained an ice ship as she lay on her bed listening to the night sounds filtering through the open window. Ave! Ave! The plaintive repetitious petitioning of the pilgrims carrying faintly on the night air added poignancy to the moment. The revelation that Captain Pender was habitually unfaithful was sickening to her soul.
Miserably, she turned her face to the wall and let the tears trickle warmly down her face.
TWENTY NINE
Graham was disappointed when Kay was delayed in Lourdes and he had to go out again to America without seeing her. He sat in the crew taxi on his way into New York absently listening to the conversations going on about him. On his right the First Officer was making bets with the Navigator as to the exact position of the nose wheel when they landed back in Shannon, and behind them the hostesses were laughing over some passenger who had almost ruptured herself carrying on board three tiers of a wedding cake.
‘She thought they would be safer in the cabin with her and then some man went and sat on them!’
There was another burst of laughter.
Graham smiled in sympathy. Poor misguided woman, he thought. All that icing. Two stone at least. He arranged his long legs more comfortably in the cramped space and leaned his head back. Traffic raced all about them, horns blaring, as they swept down into Manhattan. Another nine minutes, he calculated, and they would be parking on thirty-third street alongside the
Sheraton Atlantic Hotel. Not a minute too soon.
Since the onset of June, he was continually flying to New York, with a trip every now and then to Boston or Chicago. Soon, he knew, it would be as routine as his flights to London, or Rome had been in the past but, in the meantime, it took a bit of getting used to
What he liked, however, was the predictability of his new roster. It was all fairly straight forward stuff. If he flew out to New York on Monday he returned home on Wednesday, unless it was a two-day stopover. Each duty was followed by at least two days on stand-off with the third day regarded as a reserve day.
Three days, Graham mused, was just long enough to get over jet-lag before heading out again. And it gave him more time at home with his sons. This he really looked forward to, especially when his free days coincided with a weekend and the three of them went sailing together. Not that it had happened too often up to this, he conceded, aware that soon there would be no further such opportunities. As soon as he got back from this trip, his family were heading off to their Spanish apartment for the summer.
Although he would miss his sons deeply, Graham considered that in some ways it would be a relief when his family went away. For one thing it would be a lot easier meeting Kay. While he was aware that some pilots managed fairly satisfactory love affairs with hostesses, it was only if they shared the same roster and the Rostering office were on their side.
Where his private life was concerned Graham Pender had an almost paranoid determination to keep it inviolate from airport gossip. The thought of being made the butt of lewd jokes in the pilots’ lounge like Dan Tully or Simon Cooney induced in him a kind of helpless anger. That anyone should point the finger at him or snigger behind his back was abhorrent to his proud nature which refused to publicly acknowledge that his marriage was anything but sound. What they would make of his present illicit relationship, he could all too easily imagine.
That he had continued against his better judgement to pursue his dark-haired beauty, was still a matter of wonder to Graham. On reflection, he supposed that matters had really come to a head the day at ditching drill when Dan Tully had made a big thing of rescuing Kay from the water. Then, his jealousy already simmering since coming across her picture in the newspaper, had really boiled over.
What Graham had been unable to understand then, or since, was how Kay, after her acute distress that afternoon in The Hollow, could attend a dance so soon afterwards and, even more puzzling, be photographed looking so unconcerned, so ravishingly lovely. Perhaps he was being conceited but he had assumed by her earlier behaviour that she was very much in love with him.
The newspaper picture of her holding hands with the rather serious-looking young man had come as a shock and he had no longer known what to think except that he wanted her fiercely. At the first opportunity, he had waited for her outside her house and swept her off to the mountains, determined to have her to himself and wipe the eye of all other rivals.
The afternoon of the day he returned from America, Graham went back with his wife and sons to the airport to put them on the Malaga flight. His main feeling was one of relief as he kissed Sile goodbye. The previous weeks had not been easy with so much subterfuge needed to sustain his other life and he was looking forward to a breathing space.
‘Be good. Drop me a postcard.’ He clapped Jeremy about the shoulders, ruffled his auburn hair. Nicholas he hugged to him, eager for the child’s kiss, the stranglehold round his neck. The boy had not yet reached an age when he was shy of showing affection. ‘I’ll fly out soon for a few days,’ he told him. ‘We’ll go to Puerto Banus, do a bit of fishing, sail perhaps. You’d like that?
Nicholas nodded, looking a little subdued. He was excited at going abroad for the next couple of months but he wished his father was going with them. A few days wasn’t a lot to look forward to. Sometimes he was sorry he wasn’t the son of a banker or a salesman - anything but a pilot. But then as his father often said he wouldn’t be able to fly out so often to see them, so Nicholas smiled as cheerily as he could and tried to make the best of it.
‘Keep in touch by telephone,’ Graham told his wife. ‘I can fly out immediately if there’s any need. If anything happens to the boys, get a doctor at once. Don’t take any chances.’
Sile shifted impatiently. ‘Honestly, Graham, you’re a dreadful old worrier. What do you expect will happen? We’re going on holidays not behind the Iron Curtain.’
‘Okay, okay.’ He shrugged and smiled but was unable to rid himself of the disturbing image of Nicholas lying with a temperature of 103 and Sile off partying.
‘Bye dear, take care,’ Sile aimed a kiss at his cheek and hustled the boys before her into the boarding area.
Graham raised a hand in farewell and felt his heart squeeze with love as Nicholas turned round, his brown eyes anxious, to blow him a kiss. Then they were gone through the security check.
Graham left the Departure Building with a heavy step. As he had suspected a bout of migraine was coming on. When he glanced at his hand he couldn’t see the tops of his fingers. A sure sign it had begun. He slipped a tablet in his mouth and went over to the pilots’ lounge to wait till his vision cleared.
Sitting there the summer day stretched long and emptily ahead of him. Other years he had held off getting their air tickets until July. Now he couldn’t help regretting that he had allowed Sile railroad him into getting them so early.
THIRTY
Kay arrived back from Lourdes to find a note from Graham on the noticeboard but although it began with ‘dearest’ and went on to say how disappointed he had been the night she failed to turn up, she could feel none of her usual pleasure at hearing from him. As usual it was unsigned. And no wonder, she thought grimly as she climbed into the crew car. His very caginess about putting things in writing should have warned her from the beginning.
To have things out or not was the thought uppermost in her mind when next evening she slipped into the front seat of the Alfa Romeo. Graham sat at the wheel looking very relaxed and summery in a pale lemon shirt and stone-coloured slacks and his arms were more deeply tanned than Kay had seen them all summer.
‘How was Lourdes?’ he asked when they were speeding along the coast road, the tape- deck softly playing their favourite Country and Western.
Kay shrugged. ‘Very hot and sticky. I was glad to leave it.’ She couldn’t help feeling a twinge of resentment that he knew so much about her movements when she knew so little of his.
‘New York was a nightmare,’ he responded. ‘We went on the roof of the Sheraton Atlantic and almost fried.’
‘You’re very brown,’ she agreed, unable to resist running a finger lightly down his tanned arm. At once, he turned to give her a look of such complicity that a blush mounted to Kay’s cheeks and she took back her hand rather sharply.
‘You got the sun yourself,’ he remarked when later they crossed the railway tracks and strolled down to the water’s edge.
It was a warm bright evening, so mild that after a few moments she slipped off her linen blazer.
‘What a long week it was,’ he sighed, tucking her hand into his arm. ‘Two trips to New York without the pleasure of you in between. Did you miss me?’
‘Yes,’ Kay admitted in a low voice.
Graham touched a caressing finger to her averted cheek. ‘Only yes... in that quiet, unfeeling little voice,’ he teased.
‘It seemed dreadfully long,’ Kay reluctantly admitted. She had made up her mind never to reveal her true feelings to him again. ‘I kept hoping we’d get back in time but when we didn’t...’ She gave a small expressive shrug. ‘I just hoped there was some way you would know what happened.’
‘I waited an hour then I rang your house. Someone told me it would be Saturday before you returned.’
The strand was almost deserted at that hour except for a couple strolling by the water’s edge and a small child busily digging in the sand, her dark curls tied in a ponytail, her cotton dress shoved into matching knickers.
‘Enchanting,’ Graham murmured approvingly. ‘Just like you must have been at that age, my dear.’
His eyes, dark and warmly musing, met hers as Kay was thinking, we could have a child like that. Hastily, she lowered them for fear he would read her thoughts.
It seemed, however, as if his mind was running on similar lines for he said suddenly, ‘That’s the kind of lovely child you’ll have some day, my beautiful Kitty.’
She withdrew her arm feeling suddenly bereft at his choice of pronoun. You not we, she thought sadly. She would have walked a little way from him but he took her arm again and held it firmly against him.
‘You’re cross with me,’ he said, sensing her constraint. ‘Did I say something to offend you?’
‘Of course not,’ Kay’s tone was brusque while inwardly she kept telling herself she was being unreasonable to expect anything else from him. He never could say the words she so longed to hear. How could he? She asked herself forlornly. He wasn’t free.
‘Was it because of the child?’ he asked in gentler voice.
‘She was a pretty little thing but could never come near to you, believe me.’
Kay could almost have laughed at the rueful anxiety in his tone. It was so near and yet so far from the mark! As if she could be jealous of so little a girl. She shook her head, not wanting him to probe deeper and perhaps arrive at the true reason for her downcast spirits.
With a slightly perplexed frown he stared into her eyes and said softly, ‘Whatever it is, I hope I’m forgiven.’
Kay returned his glance shyly. ‘It was nothing,’ she said.
Suddenly it did seem nothing compared to the bliss of standing in the circle of his arm and seeing that divine look of concern in his eyes. What if he were married? It wasn’t his fault if his wife drove him to look elsewhere for love. Penny Norton had suggested as much and she seemed to have good reason to know the circumstances. Even in her thoughts, Kay couldn’t bring herself to name Captain Pender’s wife. It made her too real somehow, too much of the ice queen, Penny suggested.