by Nesta Tuomey
Right now, he told himself firmly, you should go out and get some tea. Thinking about Christmas had made him devilishly hungry. He decided to treat himself to steak and onions in the Palace Steakhouse.
As he shrugged on his coat, the whole question of Germany was still very much on his mind. Only today Tony had dropped heavy hints as to the kind of promotion he might expect on his return. Dave’s eyes glowed at the prospect. It was very tempting, he couldn’t deny. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were only six months, he brooded. But two years! It was a hell of a long time.
FORTY SEVEN
Two days later Kay got her first glimpse of New York. As the crew taxi swept down into Manhattan she stared entranced at the skyscrapers appearing suddenly on her right, all lit up and stacked unevenly against the darkened sky like the opening scenario to a Disney film. Magical, she thought.
Beside her Captain Kenny murmured understandingly. ‘Nothing quite like it, is there - that first glimpse? I had mine in daytime but I think the night view is the best.’
Kay nodded shyly and went back to looking out the window again, excited by everything she saw. America was like nothing she had ever imagined.
There was a festive air hanging over New York city. The Christmas decorations were still up and the elegantly dressed shop windows were full of Santas and snowmen. Nice, Kay thought, particularly since her own Christmas had been so sadly lacking in this respect. Only for Dave’s invitation to share Christmas dinner the whole thing would have passed her unnoticed.
In the hotel lobby, she signed the crew register while all about them the bellboys surged like miniature jockeys in their blue jodhpurs and chin-strapped hats. Mindful of Judy Mathews’ advice, Kay held her quarter tip clutched hotly in the palm of her hand and when a wrinkled, wizened member of the tribe seized her case and made off with it to the elevator, she rushed after him, terrified of letting him out of her sight.
Her room was on the fifteenth floor. The bellboy quickly checked out the bathroom to see that ‘no unauthorised body’ was lurking there, then demonstrated how to wind the safety chain round itself to keep out intruders. Kay would not have been a bit surprised to hear him say, like in films, ‘There’s a lot of bad folk in this here town,’ but with a final admonition to operate her safety chain, he left pocketing his well-earned tip.
It was six thirty New York time and everywhere the evening was just beginning. Kay unpacked her things and returned to the lobby where she had arranged to meet some of the hostesses. They were going across the street to Ruddleys cafe, a favourite late-nite spot with the crews.
She shared the elevator down with a couple who were talking of grabbing a bite to eat before going on to some place called Radio City and when they stopped at the tenth floor, a couple in evening clothes got in, clearly on their way to some elegant function. Kay admired the woman’s pale fur and her partner’s smart white tuxedo. It was like a fairy tale gaining an extra five hours, she mused, and for the first time understood why aircrews gave in to the temptation to go out on the town even when they were dropping on their feet. Somehow it seemed such a waste not to.
‘Now that, she took herself up short, is the kind of thinking that makes Atlantic hostesses old and haggard before their time. She grinned ruefully. What would be truly magical would be somehow gaining enough energy to make proper use of the gift.
The next day after a good lie-in, Kay set out to visit the shops. Becoming confused by the crowds milling about her, she plunged too soon off the sidewalk and found herself out in the middle of 34th Street, cars and lorries bearing terrifyingly down on her. Suddenly, from out of nowhere it seemed, rode a huge cop on horseback, only shortening rein when he was almost on top of her.
‘Get back, let you,’ he yelled, the horse rearing and plunging under him. ‘Haven’t you more sense than to be jay-walking like that.’
Kay stared amazed at the strong Kerry accent coming out of the brick-red face and shyly admitted it was her first time to New York. At once he relaxed his stern attitude and his face was no longer glaring but softly nostalgic.
‘Ah you’re over from Ireland, I can tell,’ he said more gently. ‘Go on now like a good girl. Only take more care next time. Jay walking is an offence in this country, don’t yeh know, with a heavy fine and all.’
He held up the traffic with a majestic wave of his hand and good naturedly motioned her across. An embarrassed Kay quickly lost herself in Corvettes, a biggish store on the opposite side. She stayed out for another hour, then feeling happily exhausted went into Ruddley’s to have a BLT sandwich before returning to the hotel to rest before pick-up.
While Kay was enjoying the sights of New York city, Captain Pender was already half way across the Atlantic. It was his last trip with Celtic Airways for four months. In another fortnight he was going out on loan to Karachi to fly eastern routes until the summer.
He had been contemplating the change for some time. Since his wife’s attempted suicide, life had become intolerable at home. He and Sile were like to stiffly polite strangers inhabiting the same house, and only coming together at meal times. As soon as he made the decision to go away he had felt a vast sense of relief.
Graham shuddered as he relived that dreadful day when he had arrived home to find the ambulance in his driveway. He had followed it with his sons to the hospital and waited there while they pumped the tranquillisers out of Sile’s stomach. It had been a terrible time; he would never forget it.
The only thing that saved her was the fact that she had underdosed herself. That she had done so deliberately, Sile confessed to him as he sat wretchedly at her bedside. She had only wanted to scare him, she wept, to punish him for being so cruel to her. She had been drinking on her own into the small hours and in a low moment, swallowed a handful of valium, not realising how lethal a combination they were taken on top of whisky.
The fact that she had done it at all was horrifying. Even during the worst months of her nervous breakdown some years before, she had never attempted suicide. What made it so traumatic was the fact that the boys were home from school on holidays. He had wondered how she could possibly put them through such an ordeal until she tearfully admitted that she had wanted to be found before it was too late.
Only for the fact that Jeremy had glanced in on her early that morning on his way to the bathroom, she would not have been. Seeing his comatosed mother sprawled on her bed with the whisky bottle and tablets beside her, he had rung at once for an ambulance. Undoubtedly the boy was greatly shocked by the incident but beyond a slight tendency to insomnia since then, he seemed fully recovered.
Not so Nicky. His youngest son had taken to wetting his bed and was plainly disturbed by the tension existing between the two people closest in the world to him.
‘Why don’t you make it up with Mummy,’ he begged. ‘You’re always telling me and Jeremy not to let the sun go down on our anger.’
‘We have made it up, Nicky.’
‘Doesn’t seem like you have. You never talk to each other except when you have to.’
It was true It had been a relief when the boys went back to school and he could move back to Jeremy’s room. What a mess! Maybe he shouldn’t be going to Karachi but he felt a desperate need to get away. Now that he and Sile were on their own again the atmosphere in the house was claustrophobic. He would stifle to death if he had to endure it any longer.
When he told her of his decision, he had encountered less resistance than he expected. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said resignedly. ‘You always do anyway.’
In a strange way she seemed almost relieved that he was going. Not very flattering, Graham thought but he understood. Her self-image had taken a bad battering and as long as he was around he was a constant reminder of what she had been through. Well, she would have four months to regain her confidence, he told himself grimly.
‘We’re almost over Greenland, skipper,’ his co-pilot told him. ‘Will you make the announcement or shall I?’
Graham sat forwar
d. ‘I will,’ he said. Might as well, he thought. It would be ages before he’d be called upon do to it again. He depressed the switch on the intercom. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said smoothly. ‘This is your captain speaking. Any moment now on your left we will be sighting the coast of Greenland.’
As he talked chattily on giving their exact position, altitude and rate of speed, the feelings of relief he had been experiencing earlier at the prospect of going away, were all at once tinged by melancholy.
In the Sheraton Atlantic Hotel Kay sat awaiting crew pick-up.
‘So how did New York live up to your expectations?’ Captain Kenny inquired, as he joined her on the circular seat in the lobby. ‘Enjoyed yourself, have you?’
‘Oh yes,’ she agreed enthusiastically. ‘It’s all so different, so... so vast compared to home.’ ‘Been up the Empire State yet?’
‘No, where’s that?’ she asked innocently.
Pete Kenny hooted with laughter. ‘The Empire State Building!’ he exclaimed, amused. ‘You’ve only got to go out on the street, my dear... any street... and look up. It’s the proverbial stone’s throw away. Couldn’t be nearer. Now there’s a building that will give you some idea of the immensity of New York.’
As Kay blushed for her ignorance, he nudged her and nodded meaningfully across the lobby to where the two bellboys were hefting a laundry basket out of the elevator. ‘They’ve started early this evening,’ he remarked thoughtfully. ‘As a rule they hold off till after tea.’
Remembering all he had told her in the crew taxi the previous evening about suicides abounding in American hotels, Kay watched dubiously as the basket was placed at reception.
‘You surely don’t mean...’ she was beginning when he nudged her again.
‘My, my,’ he sighed, as another was carried out. ‘Business is booming tonight. And from what I hear there’s two more on the way down. Sad state of affairs,’ Captain Kenny shook his head ruefully, ‘American stress with a capital S, I’m afraid.’
‘Don’t believe a word of it,’ a voice strongly interposed and First Officer Ned Grehan sat down at the other side of Kay, ‘I suppose he’s trying to convince you the baskets are full of bodies,’ he grinned.
‘Aren’t they?’ Kay glanced in bewilderment from one pilot to the other. Then she blushed and laughed reluctantly along with them, looking the very picture of pretty confusion as Captain Pender came through the revolving door and stood quietly observing them.
When Kay saw Graham her heart did a double take. It seemed incredible that he was here, only a few feet away. It was like some kind of miracle she had so often longed for but never, until then, been granted.
‘Pete, Ned,’ Captain greeted his fellow pilots pleasantly, and she saw the way his gaze lingered on her.
‘You’re early, Graham,’ Captain Kenny said in surprise. ‘Did you come in by the clipper?’
He was referring to the helicopter service from JFK to the top of the Pan-Am building. Crews sometimes used it to save time. It was expensive but speedy.
‘No, we had tail winds coming over,’ Graham explained. ‘Did it in a little over six hours.’ He glanced at Kay again and said rather stiffly. ‘Kay, how nice to see you. This must be your first... second time in America?’
‘My first,’ was all she could say in reply as she took in every detail of the well-loved figure, the curve of his cheek, the thick fringe of lashes over dark eyes that were regarding her gravely, as if what she had to say merited the most serious consideration.
‘Miss Martin has fallen in love,’ Captain Kenny stated blandly.
At the ambiguous words, Kay’s colour deepened. Observing the tell-tale blush, Captain Pender raised a sardonic eyebrow.
‘Ah but only to the city,’ Captain Kenny assured him. ‘I’ve been hearing all her adventures and she tells me she saw quite a bit of New York... even if she didn’t get to the top of the Empire State.’ Hhe chuckled, referring obliquely but not unkindly, to her early gaffe. ‘Isn’t that so, Miss Martin?’
‘It was exciting,’ Kay agreed quietly, while inwardly trembling with a fierce nervous frustration at being so near Graham yet forced to dully sit and make vapid replies. What she most longed for was a chance to attract and enslave him afresh. She made herself smile and chat lightheartedly about what she had seen that day but she was all too aware that time was running out and soon the crew taxis would be arriving.
Then she stiffened in shock as she heard Captain Kenny say, ‘Hear you’re going out Karachi way soon, Graham.’
‘Yes, this is my last flight.’
Kay’s heart sank. So there would be no chance of bumping into him again like this. Oh God! she thought forlornly. She wasn’t over him yet nor ever would be. She was aware that even though she had sworn never again to betray herself to him, he had only to stretch out his hand now this minute and she would go with him. To have imagined anything else, she painfully realised, had been wishful thinking of the most self-deceiving kind.
‘Well, we must be off.’ Pete, seeing the driver at the door, got to his feet.
Ned rose also. ‘Cheerio, Graham, don’t blaze too wide a trail through the Village,’ he chuckled.
Kay stooped to pick up her case, feeling Graham’s eyes on her. He does still care, she thought wistfully. Oh he must, he must! Her heart thumped suddenly as he took a step towards her.
Graham paused until the other two men were out of earshot, then said hesitantly, ‘My dear, I don’t quite know how to put this. Perhaps I am being presumptuous but if at any time I caused you distress, I would like to say how sorry... how very deeply I regret it.’
Dumb, she stared back.
‘Believe me, I’m not trying to excuse my behaviour,’ he went on slowly. ‘I see now I acted badly, even callously.’
Still Kay could say nothing.
As if sensing something of the turmoil behind her bafflingly calm exterior, he said haltingly, ‘It could never have worked out, you know. .. You must see that... It’s really for the best.’
It was a strange conversation to be conducting in the lobby of an American hotel with all her fellow hostesses about to bear down en masse at any minute. Kay shivered, hearing their chattering laughing voices draw near.
‘Anyway, I’m much too much of an ancient for a lovely young thing like you,’ he told her frankly, ‘You deserve far better, my dear.’
At last Kay found her tongue. ‘I do think you might have given me that choice, Graham,’ she told him quietly, saying his name with such deliberate sweet emphasis that the rigid lines of his face softened and disappeared.
‘Ah,’ he sighed deeply. ‘That’s what I was afraid of, my dear,’
With a sudden constriction of her heart, Kay saw that he was looking at her in something of the old tender manner.
‘You’re going away,’ she said bleakly, abandoning any notion of trying to maintain an air of indifference before him.
Still gently regarding her, he nodded.
‘Oh if only,’ Kay blurted. If only there was some place they could go and talk. If only the taxis weren’t about to leave at any second. ‘If only there was more time,’ she said helplessly, a tear trembling on her lashes. Looking up, she caught the flicker of concern in his dark eyes.
Supposing he were to bring her by taxi to the airport, Graham thought. They would have fifty minutes in the dark interior to sort it out. But sort what out, he asked himself. Nothing had changed. All the same it was what he most profoundly wanted at that moment. Suddenly he couldn’t bear the thought of going away without expressing some of the regret he felt over the unfortunate ending to their affair. He might never get another chance.
‘Ah Kitty...’ he began.
The chattering group of hostesses drew near. ‘Kay, we rang your room.’
‘And kept ringing and ringing.’
Their strident voices shattered like delicate Dresden the fragile intimacy that was slowly building up between them.
‘You must have
gone down early,’ Olive, the senior said.
‘Yes, I did,’ Kay stammered, shocked by the suddenness of the intrusion, her mouth trembling with upset.
In that moment Graham made his decision. He laid a hand on her wrist and drew her firmly with him, ‘Miss Martin has a telephone call to make,’ he coolly informed their surprised faces. ‘Will you be so good as to tell Captain Kenny that I will personally see to it she makes her flight on time.’
‘Yes, of course, Captain Pender,’ Olive glanced sympathetically at Kay’s downcast face, ‘I hope it’s not bad news, Kay.’
The others murmuringly echoed her sentiment and then they were gone out to the waiting taxis, leaving Kay dazed and overjoyed, knowing only that Graham wasn’t going to let her go without a word after all.
Later, seated in the taxi’s dark interior on their way to the airport, he asked jealously, ‘Why did you go with Dan Tully?’
‘Because I didn’t care who I went with anymore,’ Kay admitted truthfully.
She had never been able to keep up a pretence with him and she wasn’t about to start now. No way could she out of wounded pride let him go on believing that the other pilot had so easily replaced him in her heart. She was his and he must know it.
In turn Graham held nothing back from her.
For the first time he told her about his deep love for his sons and his great fear of losing them should his marriage break up. By the time they were nearing Kennedy Airport, Kay knew some of the misery he had been through after his wife had read her note and taken it into her head to go to the airport to try and identify her. She also heard about Sile’s aborted attempt to take her own life before Christmas.