by Nesta Tuomey
Since coming out to Karachi, Graham’s most faithful correspondent was his youngest son, but apart from Nicky’s letters, the only other contact from home in that time was a six-line letter from Sile asking him to increase her overdraft facility so that she could set up a fashion boutique with her sister. While Graham had done as she asked, he set the limit a good deal lower than stipulated. Sometimes he thought his wife had exaggerated ideas of how much pilots earned. But he was relieved to see that she was taking a positive interest in life again. She had always possessed a good dress sense and should make a go of it.
Graham’s life was in a mess - his love affair ended; his marriage a failure. The one thing keeping him from drinking too much, or going with women was the expectation of Kay’s letter. Although he had not originally written to her with the intention of starting things up between them again, somehow, in spite of himself, he could not help anticipating her reply. As he piloted flights to Bombay and Singapore, and even as far away as Tokyo, his thoughts were never free of her, she was always on his mind. He was convinced that her letter would arrive very soon and was puzzled when the weeks passed without hearing from her.
It never crossed his mind that she might not have got his letter. Steve had always been a reliable messenger. It was unthinkable that he wouldn’t have delivered it.
Then one morning he was having coffee in the mess when a letter was brought to him. Graham’s spirits lifted, then abruptly sank again when he saw it was just another letter from Nicky. He was so acutely disappointed that for once, he was unable to feel any of his usual pleasure at hearing from his youngest son.
As always Nicky’s letter was full of affectionate enquiries. One line caught his eye. ‘Mummy came to see us on Sunday with a fat man called Tom and we all went for a drive.’
Who was the fat man, Graham wondered uneasily. Surely not that moneyed windbag Tom Conway! Although he hadn’t let on at the time Graham had been aware of Sile’s infatuation with the racehorse owner. For this information he was indebted to Christy Kane. He was disturbed to think it might be starting up again. He frowned in disgust, knowing Conway’s reputation as an inveterate womaniser. Surely to God Sile had better taste.
Well at least she was visiting the boys, he conceded grudgingly, and for that he was glad. He still felt a bit guilty at going off and leaving them for so long and Nicky’s disappointed cry continued to haunt him. Jeremy had taken it hard too, he remembered but from the frequency of Nicky’s letters, his youngest son was clearly the most affected by his absence.
As he replaced the letter in the envelope, Graham acknowledged how much he missed them both. The last few weeks had been the loneliest of his life and there were times when only by deliberately blanking out his mind (though unfortunately never for long enough) was he able to endure his self-inflicted exile.
Increasingly, Graham was becoming aware that he should have stayed put and attempted to work things out, instead of rushing off the minute things became too unpleasant. With so much time to think, he ruthlessly analysed his feelings and was forced to admit that he could no longer honestly lay all the blame on his wife for the unhappy state of their marriage, or fool himself that his feelings for Kay were of a weak, passing nature.
Anything but! He was shocked at how much she occupied his thoughts these days, how very much he wanted her. She was a breath of youth, vibrant and desirable, and without her he felt only half-alive. The pain was becoming almost physical, he was obsessed by her. Ah Kitty! There was a sweet relief in thinking her name.
‘Letter from the loved ones?’ a voice broke into his reverie.
Graham looked up to find John and Ralph sitting into the seats beside him, ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Nicky... my youngest.’
‘You’re honoured,’ Ralph drawled, holding his unlit pipe between clenched teeth while he searched his pockets for matches. John laughingly agreed. He looked tiny beside his huge colleague. In the mess they were affectionately known as Mutt and Jeff.
‘Did I tell you my lot are coming out at Easter.’ he winked at Graham. ‘Nice to get a bit of connubial bliss for a change.’
‘Oh so that’s what they’re calling it these days,’ Ralph chuckled slyly.
‘Whatever you call it, it’s in short supply out here,’ said John ruefully, ‘unless you have a taste for burnt toffee.’
‘Oh now, Johnny boy, I wouldn’t go as far as that,’ Ralph grinned. ‘I prefer coffee slice myself. How about you, Graham? You’re keeping very quiet in all this.’ He glanced across to where the other pilot sat thoughtfully fingering his letter, a faraway expression in his dark eyes. ‘How do you like your pastries?’
Good-looking chap like that, Ralph thought enviously, must have women offering it to him constantly. Though if rumours were to be believed, he hadn’t so much as taken one of the hostesses for a drink since he came. And they weren’t all burnt toffee either. Far from it!
With an effort Graham brought his mind back to the present. ‘I’m like yourselves.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘Just a simple pilot away from home.’
‘Oh come now,’ Ralph laughed. ‘Don’t play innocent. You Celtic chaps are murder with the girls.’
‘Too right,’ agreed John. ‘We can’t get a ruddy look-in though we do our best.’
Graham returned their grins and made appropriate noises but it was all just talk with them he knew. Neither pilot had looked at a woman since taking up duty in Karachi. They were both family men, forever happily quoting their absent spouse’s every thought and deed.
He signalled the waiter to bring them coffee and with a pang remembered what Nicky had said to his letter. ‘Don’t worry about the cycling trip, Dad. I don’t mind anymore. Honest. We’re going to Auntie May’s for Easter, me and Jeremy.’
Graham stared in front of him with a brooding expression. What was he doing here? What had it all been for? Christ! He swore silently. He was losing his sons anyway. They were learning to accept the substitute he had forced on them and going further and further away from him. And what about Kay? Had she found someone else? All this time and not a word. Not even a line. Why the hell hadn’t she written?
FIFTY THREE
Back home, Kay was lonely too but she hadn’t Graham’s expectations of a letter to buoy her spirits. In the weeks following his departure to the east, she had determinedly put the past behind her and wholeheartedly embraced the new life, flying the Atlantic route. She seldom missed a night out with the crew and even went so far as to date one or two of the First Officers. Well, she had gone for a drink a few times and gone to a few films and though she hadn’t developed the relationships as such, she was making an effort to get back in the social stream.
If at times she was apt to make unfavourable comparisons between the Atlantic pilots and Graham, she banished him firmly from her mind and tried her hardest to forget him. It was true that the will and the want were still somewhat at war with one another but in time she fervently hoped the first would master the second. Nevertheless, forgetfulness was slow in coming. Kay would think she was managing well and then suddenly something would bring it all rushing painfully back, reminding her agonizingly of Graham and what he had meant to her.
Yet in other ways Kay realised she was fortunate. She really loved flying to New York and everything about the exciting city. Undoubtedly the highlight of her trips was the shopping. Clothes in America were half the price of at home and copies of designer models could be purchased for a fraction of the original cost. Her heart might be broken but she had not lost her love of fashion.
In February she returned from a trip to find that Bill Norton had moved out in her absence. She had no inkling that Molly’s old lodger was contemplating such a step and was really upset that he was gone. In the note he left her he wrote: ‘I’m sorry to leave when your aunt is away but I’ve got the chance of a small room in the neighbourhood. Take care of yourself, Kay, and say a prayer sometime for your Uncle Bill.’
Kay was filled with pity and indignat
ion. Although no actual relation, Bill had been like a father to her. In the long summer holidays when Molly was busy with her lodgers, he had often taken her out for a day to the sea or the Zoo. It was all Winifred’s fault, Kay suspected, and resolved to go to Kilshaughlin and see her aunt.
When she did, Kay found Molly greatly aged. It was difficult to reconcile the frail, absentminded old lady her aunt had become, with the forceful personality she had known and loved in the years since her adoption.
In turn, Molly cried anxiously, ‘You’ve got very thin, Kay. Are you minding yourself at all?’
‘Of course I am,’ Kay told her. ‘I could do with losing a bit. I was getting too fat altogether.’
‘Sure you’re hardly there at all. Don’t get too thin now. You need all your strength looking after those Yanks.’
‘I eat plenty, honestly. We get our lunch in the canteen before we go and when I’m in America I eat really well.’
‘That place,’ said Molly dubiously. ‘Nothing but crime and divorce. I hope you bring the hat pin I gave you.’
Kay did not disillusion her. No doubt in Molly’s day it was a great deterrent, but nowadays a stiletto heel was just as effective.
Winifred proudly showed Kay the bedroom with en suite bathroom. Kay wondered how they were paying for it. She was used to her cousin poor-mouthing their circumstances and decided that Cahal must be doing a whole lot better insurance-broking than anyone suspected.
Later, she felt very lonely as she hugged her aunt goodbye. With Molly gone from Carrick Road, it was like the heart of the house was missing. It was cold and dank besides, for without her mistress’s presence to goad her, Peg neglected to light fires or keep the place clean. Or herself either, Kay was uneasily aware of a rank, disturbing odour of unwashed body whenever she stood near the old woman
Buz too, was feeling the pinch. These days he was a far cry from the fantasies Kay had once harboured of him as a Chinese warlord. He was reduced to a Belsen-like thinness and a strange pearly horn was growing behind his ear. He was waiting for her when she got back and lapped gratefully at the saucer of milk she put down for him.
The evening before she flew out to America again the doorbell rang and when Kay opened the door she found Dave on the front step. She hadn’t seen him since Christmas.
‘It’s such a fine evening I thought you might like to come for a drive,’ he suggested. ‘You mean me and Florrie?’ she asked doubtfully.
He looked surprised. ‘No, just you.’
‘She’s not here anyway. She’s based in Cork this week, operating out to London each day.’
Dave did not strike Kay as being very disappointed. He lounged there wearing a new sports jacket in fine textured brown tweed and an elegant silk tie. His pants were freshly creased. He was looking very smart.
On the way to the gate she ran a finger over the smooth tweed. ‘I like your jacket,’ she told him. One of Maxwell’s more exclusive lines, she supposed. Dave was always so elegantly dressed these days.
‘My dear, this old rag.’ He threw up an affected hand, making her giggle.
There was no doubt but Dave looked every inch the successful businessman. There was a new confidence in his bearing, a more thrusting angle to his firm jaw. Over the months he had filled out and like and athlete who had rested up for the winter months, the lean, almost emaciated look had been replaced by a softer covering of flash, a greater preponderance to the well-set shoulders.
By a strange coincidence he took the road to the sea which all the previous summer Kay had travelled with Graham. It was unusually mild for February and in the gardens along the way previews of spring could be glimpsed in budding daffodils, and clumps of grape hyacinths showing a hint of blue. The familiar road combined with the almost summery weather, gave Kay a sense of deja-vu and she was unbearably reminded of those enchanted summer meetings and her own vain hopes at the time that Graham loved her too much ever to give her up. She couldn’t repress a deep sigh.
‘Why so weary, Kay?’ Dave enquired lightly, but with a quick concerned glance at her averted profile. ‘Surely life is not all that bad?’ He was suddenly consumed by a desire to know if it was the end of her affair with the married pilot that was causing the sad expression on her lovely face these days. Like a salvationist, he joked, ‘Hey, sister, can’t you share the load?’
Kay only wished she could. But of course it was out of the question. Dave would only despise her if he knew the true facts of the affair and she couldn’t bear that. But as he continued gently prompting her, she began to think there couldn’t be any great harm in hinting just a little of the tragedy of their unhappy love affair and the forces arraigned against them from the start.
After weeks of maintaining her own counsel, once started, it was alike a dam bursting, there seemed no way to stem the flow of words. In the end, she shrugged and attempted to make light of it all.
‘It didn’t work out,’ she confessed, her unhappy laugh giving the lie to her assertion that it had all been a bit of a lark. ‘He was married, you see. Of course I didn’t know this when I met him... only when it was too late.’
Apart from a quick thoughtful glance at her every so often, Dave passed no comment. Kay’s admission that she would have gone away with her pilot if he had asked, effectively silenced him, leaving him to grapple with his own painful emotions.
As the silence lengthened, Kay stared miserably out the window. She felt a belittling sense of loss as though she had surrendered some integral part of herself in the telling. She looked askance at Dave’s stern profile and told herself he would probably never look at her again if he knew just how far it had really gone.
‘I wonder you’re not afraid to be seen with such a scarlet woman,’ she jibed rawly. Dave caught the hint of tears as he turned to glance gravely at her. ‘Not at all,’ he said.
He searched the road ahead for the turn-off he knew must be somewhere thereabouts.
‘A husband stealer to boot,’ Kay jeered, some insatiable self-abasing demon prodding her on.
Dave swung the care neatly into the lay-by overlooking the bay and turned at once to take both her hands in his. ‘Dear girl,’ he said with such warmth that tears sprang in earnest to her eyes. ‘I wasn’t condemning you. I was just thinking what a rough time you’ve had. Poor old Katie!’ he said kindly. ‘The life of an air hostess hasn’t been all the fun you hoped, has it?’
There was no patronage in his tone, only sympathy, much as a fond brother might express for a loved, slightly unfortunate younger sister who has fallen on bad times.
Kay gulped and tried to smile. ‘It wasn’t all that bad,’ she rallied, quick to reject any slight on her beloved career. But she felt a slackening of tension all the same.
‘And this man,’ Dave asked delicately, hating to bring his name up again and see the flicker of despairing love the mere mention of him evoked, but he simply had to know. ‘Is it over between you?’
Kay nodded, a look of desolateness turning down the corners of her lips. ‘We met again in New York. Oh quite by accident,’ she hurried to add as if not wishing to give herself any credit on that score, ‘From what he said I think he still cares... a bit.’
She paused, gaining a bitter-sweet satisfaction in voicing this at last. But the next minute she resolutely discarded even this small conceit as though having made the argument many times before, she was not to be caught in this trap again. ‘No, not really. Oh a tiny bit perhaps... but not enough, of course. It goes without saying. Otherwise how could he ever have left me.’
There was a forlorn finality in the way she said it.
How indeed! Dave wondered, moved beyond measure by the look of puzzled grief in those lovely stricken eyes. He looked away disturbed by the tear he saw trembling on her lashes, not wanting to embarrass her further. Blasted pilots, he thought savagely. Can’t they keep their damned hands off anything? Or at least go for the type of girl to match them at their own game, not a sweet, gullible innocent like Kay who he
ld some ridiculous notion about honouring her commitment with the kind of chap who cheated on his wife and family.
He checked himself. From all Kay had just said this fellow probably wasn’t the worst of them. He did seem to have some kind of integrity and, from all accounts, had tried to keep away from her in the beginning. Nevertheless, as Dave struggled to be fair, he found himself beset by painful feelings of jealousy which he had imagined to be of a dormant nature but turned out to be of the simmering, volcanic kind. Rather than express himself too trenchantly on the subject, he deliberately introduced a new topic.
‘I may be getting my own share of foreign parts before long,’ he told her casually, suddenly deciding to try her out, see if she cared at all that he might be going away. ‘It’s just a question of whether I’ll go or not.’
Kay imagined he was referring to some business trip. ‘But of course you must go,’ she urged. ‘Travel really does broaden the mind, you know. Why even on a short trip to Liverpool it’s amazing how much you learn.’
‘Really, you don’t say,’ Dave countered drily. ‘Now I wonder how on earth you managed to arrive at that conclusion?’
‘Oh shut up.’ Kay tossed her head. This was more like the Dave she was used to. ‘All I meant...’
But he put a hand to her mouth silencing her. ‘Not another word. Come and look at the view.’ Quickly, he scrambled out his side of the Volkswagen and went to lean on the sea wall.
Shoulders together, they stood gazing down at the waves tumbling on the rocks below, the sea breeze whipping colour into their cheeks. Kay bit her knuckles in vexation and blushed again for the stupidity of her remark. No wonder Dave had reacted like he had. But he had been very nice about everything else, she consoled herself.