The Mask and Other Stories

by Nesta Tuomey

  How Sally had managed her device preyed upon my mind as I took up the approved hunkered position. I could just picture her cowering behind a locked door while on the other side like a pack of hungry hyenas her sons demanded their supper. ‘I’m having a bath. Go away,’ I can hear her wail as she suspends efforts and flings a towel upwards over the unprotected keyhole. At lease that was not my problem. With admirable restraint my children watched their mother’s efforts to keep them unborn.

  Only once did I reach target. Arriving victorious into the darkened bedroom I found my recumbent spouse unconscious in his cocoon of blankets. Could you not even watch one hour, I asked – I can be quite biblical on occasion – but snores were my only answer.

  His defection angered me. In all our marriage my husband has never deigned to wait for me. A mere five minutes late at a rendez-vous and off he goes, leaving me helplessly pacing. In supermarkets I despairingly push loaded trolleys after his disappearing back. Once when visiting a couple for supper he left me searching the street full of closed doors. In bed he has likewise gone ahead of me.

  Needless to say when I returned to my nurse and mentor I did not mention any of this. She shook her head and gave me a larger cap, so that for a time all was well. I became proficient in the art of insertion. I clocked my speed with increasing pride and longed to boast of it to Jack. Naturally I could not.

  In bed, as promised, he felt nothing. Neither did I but then when have I ever? As always it was over quickly. After all my efforts I received nothing back, not even a mumbled grunt of gratitude, just the expected heaving backside as he turned over, dragging the bed-clothes from my tenuous grasp. But I am not complaining. It has ever been my nature to give.

  And so this became the pattern of our nights until with the waning of the moon, apropos of shedding blood, my newfound cap was shed. What went wrong? Had I shrunk or had my new Dutch friend grown bigger? Neither it seemed.

  ‘You should have persevered with the other one,’ my nurse reproved in pleased triumph. Forgivingly she restored it to me. Now I had two to choose from.

  ‘You could try wearing them at different times of the month,’ she said in answer to my stumbling query. ‘I really can’t advise you, my dear. I use a diaphragm myself.’

  Enough is enough. I gave her my deceitful glazed smile as I stowed it in my handbag along with its larger sister.

  Overlooking Killiney Bay, the sun glinting on the water, I freed my nut-brown bowls from their white prisons, dropping first one, and then the other into the slaty waves where they bobbed about, two little brown currachs astray on the briny ocean. Then the smaller took the initiative and led the way like a tiny tug-boat bravely out to sea.

  The decision to take Sally’s suggestion seriously came later. Many a true word is often spoken in jest, so I have found. A few phone calls, a trip to the bank and here I am waiting for the deed to be done.

  Having followed the nurse’s tracing finger along a gory chart of tubes to the exact spot where gold clips will prevent the release of future generations, I can honestly say that I am au fait with all that is supposed to happen me when asleep in the stirrups.

  ‘Could you tie a bit of string on them,’ the woman on my left suggests with tremulous sincerity. I smile as the others do but understand her scepticism. I know how she feels.

  I climb on to the operating table and chat with cheerful optimism, gaze about me at the glittering array of instruments with the ghoulish wonder of a child on a school project. At the same time I am thinking it somewhat ironic that my squinting Jack will never know all I have suffered on his account. But there! It is more blessed to give than receive.

  ‘Count up to seven,’ the anaesthetist suggests with poised syringe. Ever obedient I begin...one...two... As I told you before, I’ll try anything once.

  Poodles & Diamonds

  Ten minutes before landing the drinks trolley was still not put away. It stood abandoned at the back of the cabin while around it squeezed the dwindling line of passengers intent on making one last visit to the toilet before the Boeing 720 landed in New York. None of the six hostesses – four in tourist and two in the forward section – were anywhere to be seen, except for a thin dark-haired girl perched on an armrest at the rear of the cabin, chatting animatedly to a woman feeding a very young baby. Married, and back working the North Atlantic route for the summer, Mary absently turned her wedding ring over and over on her finger.

  In the galley, with the tweed curtain drawn against the public, two hostesses sat taking a last puff at their cigarettes, their backs bulking out the hand-woven material like a large humped monster. On the stainless steel counter, below the ovens, their engagement rings gained lustre in a measure of gin, the solitaire touching bands with a two-stone twist.

  Another hostess, also engaged to be married, was in the toilet where she had been for the past twenty minutes renewing her make-up. Elbows braced against the bulkhead, the hand with the sparkler spread like a starfish, she steadied herself against the pull of the descending aircraft and drew eyeliner across the top lid, close to the lashes, without smudging. In the forward galley the senior completed her flight report with the assistance of the fifth hostess. The rear door had been difficult to close on take-off. She noted it and hoped it would not give trouble on the return flight. Not really her responsibility, she reminded herself, but that of the outgoing crew. Once she had put it in her flight report it was up to the engineers to check it out. The hands of her watch crept imperceptibly forward. Goodness! They were almost down. It was ten to eleven Irish time, or ten to six American time, whichever way you read it. She signed her name and, leaving the junior hostess to lock the containers, went down to the rear of the cabin.

  Walking slightly uphill against the incline, she tried to keep a smile on her face while inwardly raging at the signs of disorder around her. Where was everyone? She rushed to dismantle the trolley, at the same time barring two more passengers attempting to get to the toilets. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pointing to the seat-belt sign. ‘We’re landing in five minutes.’ Then she relented and let the child through.

  ‘Be quick,’ she urged, with her free hand pushing him towards the unoccupied toilet. As she tugged frantically at the levers on the trolley, Mary came forward. With her help, the senior managed to collapse it, breaking a nail in the process. She frowned and shoved the trolley behind the last row of seats, strapping it quickly into place. Just her luck, she thought, saddled with three engaged girls, and one married hostess back for the summer. She pulled the galley curtain along its track just as Jill and Margo emerged laughing and pushing on their rings, before going unhurriedly down the cabin checking seat-belts.

  Irene came out of the toilet, her cosmetic bag tucked under her arm. She positioned her flat airline cap on her fair head, driving the pin firmly through the linen cloth. Beside her, Mary removed the gilt wing from her blouse and re-pinned it on her jacket. The jet thundered towards the runway. The senior, unable to keep her feet any longer, sank down on the crew seat beside Mary and fastened her seat-belt. They were almost on the ground when Jill, smiling helplessly, gave up the struggle mid-cabin and sank down beside a passenger. Captain Devlin set the aircraft down with only the slightest of jolts and the Boeing raced over the tarmac. The senior looked at her watch. It was exactly eleven o’clock. She immediately turned the hands back to six.

  The last of the passengers had departed down the steps and the hostesses drooped tiredly inside the aircraft door, the cheery farewells fading on their lips. Mary, still brightly chatting, accompanied the woman with the baby off the aircraft, supporting the carrycot to the foot of the steps where she handed it over to a smiling ground hostess. Turning, she climbed back up to join the others.

  ‘Where does she get her energy?’ Margo asked, batting a yawn before inspecting her ring. The gin soak had really added an extra sparkle, she thought.

  ‘Must be marriage,’ Jill hinted slyly, as she pulled cotton gloves on over her own sparkler.


  ‘Trying to show us up,’ Pam grumped, her eyes shadowed with fatigue.

  Jill addressed herself exclusively to her engaged colleagues. ‘Oh now, girls, it’s all before us. This time next year we’ll be just the same.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. This time next year I’ll be lying in the sun every minute I get,’ Margo retorted. ‘Not slogging back and forth across the Atlantic.’

  ‘I hope it keeps fine for her,’ Jill included Pam in the wink but the other hostess turned away and slumped into a seat, kicking off her shoes.

  It was six-twenty by the time the hostesses passed through Immigration where they were greeted by a wise-cracking immigration officer, who kept up a running commentary with each of them, before stamping their passports and waving them on.

  ‘Miss Dell-Annie, how’s trick’s? Miss Cork-R-Ann, what’s new? Well, nice to see you back, Miss- Oho! My apologies, Missus Cog-Lan! How could I forget you’re a married lady now. Well and how’s he treating you? Good, I hope.’

  In Customs, Captain Devlin shot his cuff and looked pointedly at his gold Rolex. ‘What kept you girls?’ he queried irritably. ‘We were about to send out a search-party.’ He frowned ponderously around, inviting laughter.

  Captain Martelli, four gold bars minus the seniority ring, smiled obligingly.

  ‘Some of us,’ Devlin remarked sotto voce, ‘would like to get to Greenwich Village this side of Thanksgiving.’ He nudged the navigator, who was still rankling at being caught in excess of his spirits allowance. Rather than pay duty he had surrendered his extra bottle of Jack Daniels.

  ‘Cheer up!’ cried the First Officer, winking at the hostesses. ‘Think of the good home it’ll get.’

  ‘Like hell!’ muttered the navigator.

  ‘Let’s get away out of this,’ growled the captain. When the last case cover had been chalked he walked ahead with little strutting steps, his braided cap set uncompromisingly on his bullet head. Captain Martelli, tall and elegant, moved easily at his side, his head inclined courteously, his distinctive moustaches drooping in a lugubrious curl at either side of his full lips.

  Outside the crew relinquished their cases to the drivers and sat into the taxis waiting to take them into the city.

  ‘See you later,’ cried Ted. The First Officer had decided to avail of the helicopter service into New York, thereby saving himself fifty sweltering minutes in the evening traffic. He stuck his head in the window of the second car. ‘Sure none of you want to join me?’

  The hostesses shook their heads, unwilling to squander ten dollars of their precious travel allowance, not even for the thrill of landing on top of the Pan-Am building.

  As the taxi moved off Mary slipped her feet free of her shoes then remembering how they would swell, quickly eased back her toes. She felt the familiar bloated sensation in her stomach she always felt after flights and was relieved she did not have to begin thinking of the return journey for twenty-four hours. As they sped along she listened in an absent, divorced way to the conversations about her.

  ‘I always put my watch back,’ the senior was saying.

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Jill. ‘Otherwise I don’t feel I’m really in America.’

  Mary was flying the Atlantic route over two years and had never once altered her watch. She supposed it said something for their different outlooks. When away she thought in terms of home and the time kept there but Jill and Margo, despite their altered status, still gaily lived it up on every trip to New York. They had been everywhere, done everything; Coney Island, Radio City, the Staten Island Ferry. In season they never missed ice-skating in Central Park. Sometimes Mary wished she could be more like them but she was saving every penny. And now that she and Niall were buying a house rigid economy had become an obsessional necessity.

  ‘Let’s go out to Long Island first thing tomorrow,’ Margo was saying. Mary did not catch Jill’s reply. She leant her head against the window, shivering a little in the air-conditioned interior. She did not see herself doing anything so energetic or expensive. She was looking forward to a good lie-in, followed by a leisurely trip around the shops.

  Macy’s sale ran continuously all year and Mary had heard from the other hostesses that there were great bargains in polyester sheets and pillowcases. With slight imperfections they were selling at less than six dollars a pair. With a bit of luck, she thought, she might pick up a set of double sheets. Shopping was one of the things that Mary liked best about being back flying for the summer. You got things in New York you got nowhere else. But in other respects it was tough working the summer months, she reflected. She only hoped that the free trip at the end of it would make it all worthwhile.

  The towering uneven buildings of Manhattan appeared suddenly on her right. In summer they were not as impressive as when she had first glimpsed them on a black December night, with the windows ablaze with light. Nevertheless, she felt again some of their first magical impact.

  ‘Glad to be back?’ Captain Martelli softly enquired from the shadows. ‘Beats housework, I don’t doubt.’

  Overhearing Jill teased, ‘Oh, Mary’s an eager-beaver. She even ate her supper standing up tonight!’

  Mary burned. Anyone would think she was like Pam or the senior.

  ‘You girls could do with the skids under you,’ the navigator complained. ‘I had to ring three times for coffee and when it came it was stone cold.’

  ‘Well, don’t blame that on us,’ Margo interjected indignantly. ‘We’re only the slaveys at the back. The flight deck is Pam and Elinor’s job’

  ‘And very well they looked after us too,’ Captain Martelli said peaceably. He stretched an arm along the seat behind Mary. ‘Coming out with us tonight?’ he asked her.

  His soft Mediterranean eyes watched her in the gloom as she sought an answer that would not seem gauche or discourteous. She rarely went out on stopovers. In the beginning it was because of Niall, later in order to save money. Now she was spared the necessity of a reply as their car slid to the kerb behind the first taxi.

  As the drivers hurried back to open the doors Mary pushed herself free of the springy upholstery and stood breathless in the stifling heat of 33rd street. At the crew check-in she got a thrill as she signed her married name in the registry for the first time and a few moments later she notched up another first when the bellboy called her ma’am. She rode with him to the tenth floor and tailed him breathlessly down a maze of corridors, rooting in her purse for the quarter tip as she went.

  Inside her room, she kicked off her shoes and padded about, turning on the television, checking the air-conditioning. A chill breeze fanned her midriff as she leaned on the radiator and peered through the dusty window. She was too high up to see anything but the familiar, dwindling blare of car horns and police sirens rising from the street below, reminded her she was really back in New York.

  Later, in Harry’s cafe where she went with some of the other hostesses, she eschewed her favourite snack and merely ordered coffee. Harry always made a big fuss of aircrew, especially hostesses, and regardless of what they ordered he never made out the check for more than a dollar. Even so, waffles and chocolate ice-cream was still an extravagance. These days Mary had more pressing demands on her money. Margo, unaffected by such considerations, opted for cherry pie and Jill, similarly unburdened, ordered two scoops of different flavoured ice-creams.

  While the girls waited to be served Ted and the navigator came over to sit at their table. Having arrived at the hotel a good forty minutes ahead of them, the First Officer had changed out of uniform and was looking enviably cool in chinos and an open-neck shirt. The navigator, like the hostesses, still wore uniform.

  ‘How about coming out with us tonight,’ he said now to Jill. He had been staring at her ever since the girls sat down.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Jill teased. Beside her, Margo plunged a spoon into a dish of cherry pie, cutting through an avalanche of pink snow. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘Scrumptious!’ From the jukebox Spanish Eyes softly strained.r />
  ‘How about it?’ the navigator pressed. ‘Are you coming out or not?’

  Jill opened her eyes very wide and laughed. ‘You don’t ever give up, do you?’ She made a slow pass through the air, motioning with her left hand significantly.

  ‘Okay, so you’re engaged,’ the navigator assumed a worldly air, along with a slight American twang. ‘I’m hitched myself but it don’t mean you gotta retire from living. Anyhow you’ll be married long enough,’ he added sourly. ‘I should know.’

  ‘Well, whatever you girls decide,’ interrupted Ted smoothly, ‘make it snappy, otherwise we’ll never get downtown this stopover.’

  The conversation drifted over Mary’s inattentive head. She yawned and sipped her coffee, anticipating the moment when she would run her bath and enjoy a long hot soak. She was looking forward to it intensely.

  As the telephone continued to peal long and insistently Mary came out of a doze. Raising herself up out of the bath, she grabbed for a towel and ran with it into the bedroom. She didn’t care who it was looking to share her room, she would say no, even if it was the Chief Hostess Atlantic herself returning from the Barbados without a cent to her name and no bed for the night. She grinned wryly and lifted the receiver.

  Jill’s breathless voice pleaded in her ear. ‘Mary, be an angel and come to my rescue. Margo’s got a headache and Irene’s gone off with friends and I’m stuck here with that dreadful bore of a navigator. I just can’t face him on my own.’

  Mary shifted damply on the carpet. Her skin dried and froze in the air-conditioned chill. She wished passionately that Jill would go away and take her problem with her. She wished she were in a room with no telephone and a barricaded door. She gave up wishing and cast a regretful glance at the bottle of Rye whisky and the half-glass already poured.