by Nesta Tuomey
‘But that’s terrible,’ she whispered, feeling guilty and slightly sick.
The poor woman! To be so unhappy that she wanted to die. For the first time Kay was faced with the tragic consequences of her love affair with a married man. Supposing it had been the other way round, she was forced to ask herself. Supposing it was she who was married to Graham and some hostess put her eye on him, how would she have felt?
She would have been devastated.
As he sat beside her, holding her hand imprisoned in the familiar intimate gesture against his thigh, Kay’s heart turned over with love for him, and despite the terrible thing he had told her, knew she could never regret her association with him, not then, or ever.
‘If you only knew how the thought of you and Tully tormented me,’ he admitted softly, ‘I wanted to kill him for being anywhere near you. And when I heard that rumour...’
She knew he was referring to the London overnight and was glad of the covering darkness to hide her blushes. So he did care. It made her happy but sad too in a way, because from the first moment of getting into the taxi with her, Graham had made it clear that although he would always retain the most tender regard for her, he was going out east very soon and wouldn’t be seeing her again.
‘Nothing happened that night,’ she assured him, ‘I threw his clothes out of the window,’ she added proudly. She had never thought she would get a chance to tell him this and she gained a fierce satisfaction now in letting him know.
His low chuckle rewarded her. ‘Now that I didn’t hear,’ he admitted, drawing her close. ‘If you only knew how often I went to the telephone and rang your number only to hang up before you answered,’ he confessed, and she realised that he was making reparation now in the only way he could.
In his arms where she had thought never again to be, his cheek resting against hers, Kay found courage to speak of something which at the time had puzzled and hurt so much.
‘I thought maybe you were disappointed in me that night... our last night together,’ she softly confided. ‘I was afraid you didn’t find me...’ She hesitated, too shy to put into words the fear she hadn’t pleased him, aware too of the cab driver who was not made of wood even if they were treating him like he was.
Graham was genuinely appalled at the anguish he had caused her. Not utterly delight him, she whose beautiful body had always been such an overwhelming lure to him! Quickly he put her right, confessing that the memory of their union, so painful for her and so highly pleasurable for him, had often come back in his unhappy moments to torment him by its very sensuousness.
He tightened his arms round her, buried his face in her neck and sighed remorsefully, ‘Oh darling. You were too lovely. Too hard to resist.’ The warm, scented feel of her beneath his lips, made him recall his slipping senses on that night.
‘My only regret,’ Kay wistfully confessed, ‘is that it didn’t happen some night on the beach where we had so many happy times together.’
He was struck afresh by how callously he had behaved towards her. How brutal and unromantic it must have seemed, the act which most young girls have a right to expect will be conducted, if not with all the honeymoon trappings, with the maximum of tenderness at least. In her case, it had practically amounted to a rape on the floor of his car.
It was a wonder she didn’t hate him for it, he thought in an excess of sensitivity so markedly absent on the night in question. Savagely he cursed his blindness, his egotism. Even Dan Tully for all his brashness, he acknowledged in bitter self-disgust, would have gone about it with more delicacy.
‘I can only say how sorry I am,’ he whispered abjectly.
She put out a hand and he caught it at once and carried it penitently to his lips. As she stroked his thick hair he said on a long regretful sigh, ‘My dear, what a tragedy it is we didn’t meet at a more opportune time.’
He genuinely meant it.
But although he was saying at last what Kay had always longed to hear, it failed to gladden her. Opportune. What was wrong with right now? Clearly the Penders’ marriage couldn’t be in worse repair and their children were the only thing keeping them together. But in another few years they would have grown up and left home. Couldn’t he see that? In the meantime surely he and she deserved some happiness. She was willing to take any risk, so why not he? After all, she had made it clear she loved him. Stricken, she turned away. Obviously, he didn’t care enough about her to take the chance.
The taxi slowed.
She moved out of his embrace and with averted face, fixed her airline cap on her head with shaking fingers. Her throat tightened with the effort of keeping back a sob, as he turned her towards him and with a gentle finger brushed away a shimmering drop.
‘Don’t be too unhappy, my Aphrodite,’ he said unsteadily, resorting unconsciously to his old name for her. ‘I’m sad enough for both of us.’ And lowering his head, he placed his mouth on hers.
His kiss was a reminder of all Kay had missed these past weeks, stirring her blood like wine, then leaving her cold and trembling.
‘Goodbye, Graham,’ she said with quiet finality.
She collected her luggage from the cab driver and walked away, leaving him staring after her, a slightly perplexed expression in his dark eyes. He was aware that in some way he had disappointed her but he didn’t know how. He had been at such pains to explain how young his sons were and how their need of him at this important stage of their adolescence, made it impossible for him to leave them. She knew how it was. Why then had she withdrawn into herself and looked at him in that reproachful way when she said goodbye?
He waited hoping she would turn around.
It hurt when she didn’t look back. It hurt damnably.
FORTY EIGHT
For the next few days, Kay suffered the agonizing keenness of a knife wound which has been re-entered at the same spot. Oh what ill-luck to have bumped into Graham just when she was beginning to get over the awfulness of the past weeks. Better if they had never met and she had gone on believing he had merely tired of her, thrown her over without a qualm. But to know that he still retained some vestiges of that ‘loving passion’ as he had so aptly described it at the start of their affair, and yet still continued to deny her, made it all harder to bear.
Grimly, she kept going thinking that each day the awful nagging pain in her heart must lessen. But there seemed no end to it. It accompanied her everywhere like a dully aching tooth that is only awaiting night-time to spring into violent throbbing action. Which it did whenever she was on her own, for being alone was the night-time of her heart’s tooth.
‘Kay, are you sick?’ Florrie enquired anxiously, finding her weeping in her room.
Earlier, Sally had telephoned bubbling over with the news that she had got a Malaga overnight and giving extracts from Eulogio’s last letter, complete with passionate quotes. Unable to bear any more raptures, Kay had cut her short with a promise to ring her next day and gone upstairs to throw herself sobbing on the bed where Florrie now found her.
‘He’s going away,’ Kay moaned, unable to keep it to herself any longer.
‘Who is?’ Florrie asked bewildered. Surely Kay couldn’t mean Dan Tully. She couldn’t imagine him occasioning such grief.
‘Graham!’ Kay turned her face into the pillow and wept. ‘Captain Pender!’
Florrie was amazed, having really believed that Kay was getting over him at last. Who else but the love of her life, she thought, putting a gentle hand on her friend’s shoulder, her blue eyes concerned. She hadn’t forgotten how supportive Kay had been when her father was dying and she ached now for her unhappiness.
At her touch, Kay sat up. ‘Oh Florrie,’ she cried, ‘I met him in New York a few days ago. I’m sure he still cares for me but I know now he’ll never leave his wife. He’s too afraid of losing his precious sons if he does. Oh it’s all so hopeless. I wish I could die.’
‘Kay, don’t talk like that.’ Florrie begged, disturbed by the frantic look on her friend
’s face. ‘In time you’ll forget him. You will, I know you will.’ But she sounded surer than she felt. There was a desperate, self-annihilating quality about Kay’s love for Captain Pender and always had been. ‘You must forget him. It’s the only way.’
‘I can’t. I’ll never forget him,’ Kay said brokenly.
She knew she never would. Not till the day she died. Oh if only that could be right this minute.
‘But you could begin to try,’ Florrie pleaded with her. ‘Like you did after Spain, remember,’ She tried to joke, ‘You were making a good job of it too, with Desperate Dan’s help.’
‘I can’t... not yet.’ Kay said defeatedly, her tears beginning to flow again. ‘Not till I know he’s definitely gone away.’
The trouble was she didn’t know exactly what day it would be, only that it would be sometime in the next fortnight.
FORTY NINE
The day before he was due to leave for Karachi, Graham went down to Mellwood College to say goodbye to his sons. It was a cold dull day. Pewter-coloured clouds banked low in the sky, the kind of sky that often precedes a fall of snow.
On the way he stopped for a lunch of sandwiches and beer. There was a fire burning in the grate and he relaxed beside it, enjoying the cosy intimacy of the country pub and the leisurely conversation between the barman and the locals. It was an aspect of Irish life he would miss when he was away in Pakistan.
It was mid-afternoon when he turned in the gates of Mellwood and drove up the long drive to park before the ivy-clad walls of the school. When he enquired after his sons he was directed on to the football pitch by one of the masters. Being the rugby season the boys had practice four days a week with a match every Saturday.
It was the second half of the game. Graham stood on the side-lines watching the small darting figures in the striped jerseys and wondered which one was his son. He was reminded of how many times his own father had stood in a similar spot cheering him on when he was Nicky’s age.
Graham had not thought of his father in months and at the memory of his old man who had ruled his small family strictly but fairly and always in their best interests, a lump came suddenly to his throat. It was not difficult to imagine what Douglas Pender would have thought of his only son’s sorry marriage. Graham doubted if his father had ever looked with lust at another woman in the years of his marriage and knew for a fact his mother had doted upon him until the day he died. She had never really recovered from her loss and though not much over fifty, had followed him within the year.
Graham sighed. Why was he thinking such morbid thoughts? He supposed it was because he was going away. He was glad when the game ended and Nicholas came racing up.
‘Dad! Did you see me pass that ball?’ In the crisp air, his face glowed with exercise and pride of achievement.
‘Yeah. Great. Well done, Nicky,’ Graham put aside his gloomy thoughts and thumped his son’s back enthusiastically.
‘I’m on the team for Saturday’s match with the Crescent,’ Nicholas told him eagerly as they walked back to the school.
‘What’s your position?’
‘Winger!’ He couldn’t hide his elation. ‘Well, well, you’re coming on.’
Good choice, Graham thought having witnessed that powerful burst of speed down the field. He looked with pride at the boy’s broadening chest, his well-developed calves. He was going to be a big man, he thought in satisfaction, well over six foot.
They went back and sat into the car for warmth. The only other place was the library and this was more private.
‘Oh no, you’re not going away,’ Nicholas burst out passionately when Graham told him, ‘Oh Dad!’
‘I’ll be back in June,’ Graham put an arm about his shoulders but his son shook it off, refusing to be comforted.
‘That’s not for ages and then we’ll be going to Spain and we’ll never see you. And what about the cycling trip you promised us at Easter?’ he said reproachfully. ‘What about that?’
The disappointed sadness in his son’s eyes reminded Graham uncomfortably of a similar expression in Kay’s, in New York that last time. He swallowed painfully. It seemed as if he had failed here too.
‘I’m sorry, Nicky,’ he tried to win him round. ‘It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. The time will pass quickly enough and I promise we’ll do things together in June when you get your holidays.’
‘No, we won’t,’ the boy contradicted him sullenly. ‘You’ll be flying to America all the time, like last year.’
‘Perhaps you can go and stay with Benny,’ Graham said, wondering if he had the name right. During Christmas Nicky had been full of talk about this boy.
‘Him! He’s a creep,’ Nicholas said witheringly.
Graham sighed and slammed the car door. The speed with which school friendships dissolved at that age bewildered him. ‘Let’s go find Jeremy,’ he said.
There was definitely going to be snow, he thought, glancing at the sky. He hoped it wouldn’t mess up his flights.
He caught up with his son, trying to pick up the conversation again. But Nicholas mooched ahead, moodily kicking stones in his path and pretended not to hear.
Further north in Kilshaughlin the sky overhead was the same pewter sky as in the midlands. Winifred sighed at the thought of snow with all the resultant mess and the children off school. Well thank heavens, she had had the sense to go ahead and build on the new extension. Since moving her mother into the new bedroom with en suite bathroom, the congestion in the house had greatly eased.
For weeks Sam had been sleeping in the girls’ room and Winifred had been appalled at the chaos she saw there. Not really their fault but irritating all the same. There were just too many beds crammed into the tiny space to be able to maintain any kind of order. One more aggravation amongst the many of having her mother to stay.
‘Winnie!’ As if on cue, Molly croaked from behind.
‘Is it time for my pills?’ Winifred mouthed silently. ‘No, mother,’ she answered firmly. Really, she would go mad if she didn’t get a break from the woman soon.
If only the extension had been paid for Winifred would have been happy. But there was still that hurdle to get over. Another cause for concern. Cahal was under the impression that his mother-in-law was going to foot the bill, otherwise he would never have agreed to the extension in the first place.
Winifred frowned. Not that she envisaged any real trouble in that quarter. After all her mother was a well-off woman. Over the years she had often heard her boasting about all the money she had invested in government stock. The cost of the extension was admittedly high to them but surely not a huge sum to Molly. Anyway it was for her they had built it. She glanced away as her mother slopped tea in her saucer and supped it eagerly. In some ways, she thought grimly, the extension to their home would be dearly paid for!
Winifred had found the past few weeks particularly trying. Not only was there all the extra washing necessitated by Molly’s spells of incontinence but Cahal and the children constantly complaining.
‘For Christ sake! She’s taken my chair again!’
‘Mummy, we want to watch Wagon Train and Gran keeps switching stations.’
Now Molly was worrying about how Kay and Bill were managing without her. ‘I’ll have to go back, Winnie. I’ve stayed away too long as it is.’
‘No, no,’ Winifred said anxiously. ‘We’ve gone into all that before, Mother. Cahal and I want you to regard our house as your home.’
Later she said worriedly to her husband, ‘You know, she’s quite capable of going back.’ ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ Cahal would have given three cheers to see the back of his mother-in-law and have his house to himself again.
‘Everything,’ Winifred said agitatedly. She was convinced that Molly’s improvement since going on the tablets prescribed by her doctor was merely a flash in the pan, a last dying kick of the little white cells before the cessation of all cerebral activity. ‘If she goes back she’ll only have another accident or fall
into the clutches of that adventurer Norton.’ she insisted. ‘You know he’s only waiting to get his hands on her money.’ Winifred nearly had a seizure at the thought.
And the extension still not paid for, she almost told her husband, but restrained herself in time.
In New York that same night, Kay sat in the hotel lobby. It was five to six and the drivers due any minute. If they were on time. She was becoming aware that delays on the Atlantic were not uncommon. A lot depended on the punctuality of the incoming crew. If they were late landing everything else got thrown out of line.
Beside her, Captain Brennan began cheerily describing all the bargains he had picked up in the city that day. ‘It’s when we’re going through customs the collywobbles begin,’ he admitted cheerfully.
Kay nodded. Everything over here was such marvellous value, the temptation was hard to resist.
‘Any reason for heart failure yourself?’ he enquired, familiar with hostesses toting huge empty cases over and returning with them full.
‘I bought a sweater in Macy’s,’ Kay admitted with a smile. ‘Hardly enough to cause a quiver in customs’.
‘Now their bargain basement is well worth a visit,’ Captain Brennan advised.
He was nice, Kay thought, remembering him from her Lourdes stopover. She eyed the hotel entrance as another lot of people were disgorged into the lobby, never tiring of the American scene. It was all so completely different to anything she had ever imagined. Not just the twang, she decided after her first trip to New York but the whole personality of the people, their positive (if slightly abrasive) go-getting attitude had at first intimidated her then, as she gained confidence, exhilarated her.
She stole another glance at the entrance and sighed. No matter how much she willed the miracle, it wasn’t going to happen. Graham was thousands of miles away, probably already in
Karachi and no way would he come striding through those revolving doors, like he had a fortnight ago. She might as well face it.
The Navigator joined them. ‘Pick-up’s late tonight.’