Up Up and Away

by Nesta Tuomey

  ‘Peg is in need of help.’ he opined, more than ever convinced that the situation was not a healthy one. ‘The sooner she gets it the better.’

  He went away resolving to call round again next day and make sure Kay had followed his advice. At the same time, he planned to discuss his departure to Germany. But as usual, work intervened. An unexpected summons to the Cork office put paid to his plans and by the time he drove back to the city the following night, it was after midnight and too late to call.

  Kay was disappointed but not surprised. It was as she had all along suspected. Since Florrie had left, Dave had no reason to call to the house anymore. In her loneliness she realised just how much she had come to depend on his supportive presence over the weeks and felt lonelier still.

  When the new roster came out she saw from it that her last flight before going on leave was Chicago. She was just as glad to be away all week on the long stopover, except that it resurrected nightmarish memories of what awaited her that last time on her return. She shuddered and banished it firmly from her mind, knowing nothing so bad could ever happen to her again.

  On Monday morning while waiting for the crew car, Kay rang Winifred to tell her that Peg was still missing and that she would be away all week in America. In Kilshaughlin, Winifred replaced the receiver with a frown. What was Kay babbling about, she wondered irritably. As if Peg Kinnane wandering off like that was of any importance.

  Winifred had real problems. Just before the phone rang, her mother had confessed to having no money.

  ‘Not a penny,’ Molly had cried. ‘Don’t you know I’d give it to you if I had it.’

  No money! Winifred felt sick. And the extension still not paid for. When he found out, Cahal would kill her. There was only one thing for it, Winifred decided in despair. She would have to put her mother’s house up for sale. It was the only way out of the problem.

  At the airport Judy Mathews had problems too. An hour earlier she had gone into the Hostess Superintendent’s office to give her the details of the new Atlantic summer uniform only to find that Amy had suffered a heart attack. She was taken off shortly afterwards by ambulance.

  Judy had been aware for some time that the Superintendent was overworking. Now this heart attack explained a lot of things. Amy’s bizarre suggestion that the new hostess uniform be green with matching green tights - Yuck! Judy shuddered, like a lot of leprechauns - and, even worse, that her niece Eva should succeed Maura Kane as Chief Hostess.

  Judy did two things.

  She made a note on her memo pad to retire Miss Patterson and engage a new secretary, then telephoned Oliver McGrattan’s office to say she was coming right over.

  Her main object in seeing the Chief Executive was to get him to call a board meeting for next day. Judy was confident when Oliver learned that he would be without a Hostess Superintendent almost on the eve of the busy season, he would be only too anxious to listen to her proposals. As usual, Judy was right and by the time she returned to her office, a lot of issues were well on the way to being sorted out.

  Next day Oliver called on Judy in person. It was an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the hostess section and Bernie, under the impression that he was one of the maintenance engineers, left him to shiver in the draughty corridor while she finished her coffee break. It brought home to Oliver just how Spartan conditions really were in the prefabs and by the time he was finally shown into Judy’s box of an office, he knew with certainty he was in for a heavy head cold.

  The purpose of his visit was to inform Judy of the Board’s unanimous acceptance of her proposal that she not only take over the position of Hostess Superintendent but continue on with what she liked doing best - training her Atlantic girls. Officially as of this minute Judy Mathews was head of the whole section.

  ‘We believe you can do it.’ Oliver grudgingly admitted, more shocked than he would admit by all the disturbing changes taking place about him. He was still reeling from the set- down the Board had given him over letting Maura be inveigled away by a rival airline, as well as some of their top pilots. ‘Don’t make the same mistake with Judy Mathews,’ they had warned, ‘Give her every cooperation and leeway.’

  It was why Oliver decided to come in person and not risk further angering the directors.

  Judy regarded her impeccable nails with a modest smile and privately considered she could run the whole shoot single-handed, McGrattan’s job as well as her own.

  ‘Thank you, Oliver,’ she said graciously. ‘May I offer you coffee. Not percolated I’m afraid. Of course when we move into our new quarters...’

  Another point taken.

  Oliver sneezed and declined, anxious to get back to his own inner sanctum and enjoy Miss Pratt’s blend of Java roasted coffee which she kept especially for him.

  When he had gone, Judy relaxed back in her own chair, her lovely violet eyes dreamy as she mapped out future strategies. No doubt about it but Celtic Airways was entering on an exciting new phase, she told herself. In time she would start lobbying for a swimming pool and leisure centre at the airport but first there were more important issues to tackle like work contracts for married hostesses and better conditions all round.

  With a satisfied smile, she pulled a sheet of paper towards her and began a letter to Maura Kane, knowing how interested her former colleague would be to hear of this latest development.

  SIXTY ONE

  Kay returned from Chicago to find the For Sale sign in the front garden. At first she was convinced there had to be a mistake and even when she was accosted by a group of people claiming to have been sent by some estate agent, she still thought so.

  ‘Surely you must mean next door,’ she told them with a puzzled frown. ‘That’s empty as far as I know.’

  To her relief they thanked her and obediently trooped up Mrs. Halpin’s overgrown path. Sleepily, Kay trod a similar vegetation belt to her own front door, too tired to question the significance of so many people with the same wrong address. Falling into bed, she slept straight away.

  It was only when the doorbell had woken her twice in the next hour that Kay was forced to take the house hunters seriously. The third time she stumbled down to the door she was amazed to find Miss Curran on the step. Her aunt’s old lodger had called to say that she had found Peg Kinnane wandering the city streets in a neglected state and taken her to the nuns in Portland Row who were now looking after her. It was a relief to know that Peg was safe. Kay had been very concerned about her while she was away. She thanked Miss Curran and promised to pass on the information to Molly.

  As she bid her goodbye, another line of house hunters was advancing up the path. There was no doubt now in Kay’s mind that the house was for sale. She turned them away as politely as she could and went to ring her cousin. When she continually got the engaged signal, she gave up in disgust. One of the children had probably left the phone off the hook.

  Despite her tiredness, Kay decided to get on a bus and go up to Kilshaughlin. It was the only way of finding out what was going on. She made herself a cup of strong coffee, took a tepid shower and felt sufficiently awake to dress and leave the house.

  Ninety minutes later, she was walking up Winifred’s broad driveway. From around the side of the house came the sound of high-pitched strident voices and a strange rhythmical thumping noise as though a soft-booted giant was playing hop-scotch on the flowerbeds. Kay peered curiously through a gap in the hedge and saw a gang of teenage girls jumping all over a huge inflated rubber castle. Of course, she thought, it’s Mary’s birthday.

  ‘Auntie Kay! Sam shouted delightedly at the sight of her. ‘We weren’t expecting you. Mummy, Mummy, look who’s here,’ he called back to his mother who appeared frowning behind him.

  ‘Oh it’s you, Kay,’ Winifred said grumpily. ‘You might have rung.’ ‘I did but I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Hello, dear,’ Molly inclined her cheek for a kiss. ‘Did you say you were coming?’

  ‘No, I just decided on the spur
of the moment.’ As Kay bent to kiss her, she was shocked at her aunt’s appearance. Since she had last seen her, Molly had let her hair go white. Strangely, the snowy locks invested her with a classical simplicity that was in some ways more youthful than the corrugated lavender waves. But all the same she looked very old and frail. Trying not to show her dismay, Kay turned to Sam and gave him the parcel she carried.

  ‘For me, Auntie Kay,’ he cried excitedly. ‘But it’s not my birthday.’ Eagerly, he ripped off the covering.

  To Winifred’s annoyance it was the bear that had caused all the upset the previous summer.

  ‘Thanks... Oh thanks.’ Sam hugged Pendy close.

  ‘I thought you might like to have him for keeps,’ Kay told him. A sudden impulse yielded to on leaving home, she only hoped she would not live to regret her generosity. She sat beside her aunt and held her hand in a comforting clasp. From certain remarks Molly let fall she was clearly unaware that her house was for sale. As soon as she could, Kay got her cousin on her own.

  ‘Why wasn’t I told about the house?’ she tackled her at the earliest opportunity. ‘Whatever do you mean?’ Winifred busied herself making tea.

  ‘You’re surely not going to deny it’s for sale,’ Kay said indignantly. ‘Not when there’s a sign in the garden and I was woken up I don’t know how many times this morning with people wanting to see over it.’

  ‘It was all decided very recently.’ ‘And whose decision was it?’

  ‘There’s no conspiracy if that’s what you’re implying.’ Winifred’s thin features flushed angrily as she plonked a mug before Kay. ‘Surely it must be clear even to you, Kay, that Mother isn’t able to look after herself anymore. She needs care and special nursing. Cahal and I have decided it’s best she come and live with us.’

  ‘But she’s talking about going home next month.’

  ‘Naturally she wants to go back,’ Winifred snapped. ‘Don’t be so dense, Kay. Mother has no idea how sick she is. If we sell the house, she’ll have to stay. We’re only doing it for her own good.’

  ‘But surely there are other alternatives?’

  Kay sipped the hot strong liquid feeling dehydrated as she always did after Atlantic flights. Tiredness was beginning to catch up with her too and she had an unreal floating feeling as if her top half was separating from the rest of her body. More than ever she was glad to be sitting down.

  ‘I mean Molly loves her independence. It doesn’t seem right not to give her any option.’

  Winifred’s lips tightened. ‘I’ll thank you not to interfere, Kay. Everything is settled. The house is being sold and that’s that!’

  Kay returned the glare. ‘I suppose if I hadn’t bumped into those people today,’ she said bitterly, ‘I would have known nothing about any of this until the new owners moved in.’ For the first time she felt like the interloper Winifred had always striven to make of her.

  ‘Why should you have been told?’ Winifred asked coldly. ‘It’s really none of your business. It’s a family matter between Mother and myself.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Just because she took you in and gave you a home years ago, when no one else wanted you, doesn’t give you any rights, you know.’

  Kay’s green eyes blazed. Typical of Winifred to rub in her orphaned state. ‘You’ve always resented me,’ she exploded. ‘From the first moment Molly ‘took me in’ as you so charmingly put it, you’ve never lost a chance of reminding me. Never!’

  ‘Really, Kay, how you exaggerate,’ Winifred gave a tolerant laugh. ‘I suppose it never occurs to you what an awful prickly little brat you were in those days.’

  Kay flushed hotly. She had been only ten, for God’s sake. A desperately muddled, frightened ten year old, who had just lost the two people closest to her in the world. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had already met her aunt but Kay had never set eyes on Molly before and believed she was only coming to stay for a few days. But whether Molly had intended all along keeping her and for the sake of the bereft miserable child that she had been, compassionately kept her own counsel, Kay never knew. The days had stretched to weeks and they in turn, became years. It was only when she grew up that Kay realised there had been no place else for her to go.

  Winifred began pointedly clearing the table. ‘Anyway, Kay,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me you’ll be all that sorry when the house is sold. You’re never there as it is. Now you can go into a flat with your friend Fidelma... or whatever and you’ll be better off than you ever were in Carrick Road.

  Kay was stunned. Even while dispossessing her of a home it was amazing how Winifred could make it appear as if she was doing her a favour.

  ‘After all, it can’t mean all that much to you,’ Winifred was unable to restrain her spite. ‘It’s not as if it were ever really your home like it was mine.’

  The colour ebbed from Kay’s face leaving it pale and pinched. She stared at her cousin with eyes gone suddenly huge, then jumped to her feet and ran from the room. She stopped only to hug her aunt goodbye before setting off down the driveway at a run, her eyes blinded by tears.

  It was all over, that part of her life, over and done with! An agonizing sob tore her throat. Molly wasn’t coming back and the only home she ever remembered was being sold. As Winifred pointed out she was a charity case and had no rights in the matter. It seemed to her that everyone she had ever loved, she had lost. Once again she was without a family, without anyone to care what happened her.

  She crossed the square and headed for the bus terminus. Thank God she was going back to Spain next week, she thought. She couldn’t wait to be with Sally in that friendly sunny land again. Once there, she told herself bitterly, she would be in no hurry to return. And if she never again in life set eyes on Winifred Hynes it would be all she would ever ask for.

  SIXTY TWO

  Thirty miles away in Carrick Road, Dave was staring in dismay at the For Sale sign in Kay’s front garden. All week he had been calling to the house and getting no answer, unaware that she was on the long stopover in Chicago. Now on this Friday night he thought the place looked more deserted than ever. There wasn’t even a sign of the gaunt brown cat on the step to keep him company and with the newly erected sign in the garden, it was beginning to look as if Kay had actually moved away.

  As he stared up at the unlit windows he supposed it was inevitable that Molly Begley would get around to selling her house. Her fall before Christmas had greatly aged her and at seventy-plus, she was no chicken. But why hadn’t Kay said anything about it? Why all the secrecy? He felt sick at heart to think she would neglect to tell him something so important. Didn’t he count for anything, he wondered rawly. Hadn’t he always tried to be a friend to her as well as her aunt?

  Dispiritedly, he turned towards the gate, more than ever regretting that he hadn’t called back to see Kay the previous weekend. There was no doubt, he thought bitterly, but his all- demanding work schedule was death to romance. Now his only way of finding her was through the airline on Monday morning. But that would be too late! He had to know now, tonight. For God’s sake, where was she?

  The only possible place he could think of was Florrie’s new flat but he hadn’t bothered to take note of the address. There was so little time left, he thought in despair. Early next week he was off to Germany and he hadn’t even told her yet he was going. Where? Where?

  Winifred! He remembered in relief. Of course! He was a fool not to have thought of it before. Kay’s cousin would know where she was. Then he realised he didn’t have the woman’s telephone number, or even her address. The day of Sam’s Confirmation was the only time he had been to the house. No matter, he was sure he could find it again.

  He got in his car and drove rapidly to join the northern road, stopping only once at the outskirts of the city to fill up with petrol. After days of inaction it was a tremendous relief to have something positive to do at last. Following the narrow winding road, Dave’s eyes gradually adjusted to the glare of headlamps coming against him. The undipped lights of
a single decker bus travelling fast round a corner on the far side of Balbriggan blinded him momentarily and all unknowingly he drew level with the bus carrying Kay aboard it. Then he was past it and speeding on through pitch dark country roads towards Kilshaughlin.

  Within minutes of arriving at the Hynes’ house, Dave was seated once more in his car rapidly driving back to town. Well, that was short and sweet, he thought. A thirty mile drive for nothing. Kay had gone back on the bus an hour earlier. He must have passed her on the road.

  Funny crowd, Winifred and her husband. He knew that Molly was in the other room but no one had invited him to go and say hello to her. Nor had a cup of tea been forthcoming. He smiled wryly. Two minutes questions and answers and he was being shown the door. Still, he had found out what he wanted to know. It was just a pity he had wasted so much of the night going in the wrong direction.

  This time when Dave pulled up before the house it was ablaze with light. It looked like every bulb in the place was burning. A grim set to his jaw, he strode up the path and pressed the doorbell.

  Upstairs, Kay stood in Molly’s room, her face pressed against her aunt’s silk dresses, taking comfort from the touch of the familiar loved garments. She had returned from Kilshaughlin her mind a teeming mass of impressions, her nerves unbearably stretched. Finding a letter from Carlos on the mat, she had taken it with her and gone quickly about, turning on lights, dispelling the gloom. In the kitchen, she had stuck it behind the tea caddy, meaning to read it later, and poured herself a drink from the bottle of duty-free whisky she had bought at Shannon. Then in a mood both nostalgic and defiant, which quickly became depressed, she had gone on a tour of the house which had been her home all these years.

  As the doorbell’s persistent pealing penetrated her distress she hurried downstairs, dashing tears from her eyes. Dave was on the step. Her heart lifted at the sight of him and she tried to smile so that he wouldn’t notice she had been crying.