With a thrill of elation Kay read the letter of acceptance which arrived three days later from Celtic Airways. Excitedly, she glanced at the two pages of typescript attached, listing terms of employment but was too unsettled to take in more than a sentence here and there.
Celtic Airways. A dream come true!
She could hardly believe her luck. When she thought of all the interviews she had attended and the competition she had been up against, it seemed almost like a miracle. Her green eyes grew dreamy and she forgot that she was already late for work, as she imagined the exotic countries she would soon be flying to in the company of daring handsome pilots.
As she hurried jubilantly down the road, the precious acceptance letter from Celtic Airways safely in her bag she wondered whom to break the glorious news to first. With a guilty pang, she remembered that she had not so much as hinted a word of her plans to her aunt. Well, she would have told her, she excused herself, only up to this there had been really nothing to tell. Now that there was, she vowed contritely, she would repair the omission the very minute she got home from work.
Kay was aware of how good her aunt had been to her all these years, unselfishly caring for her and never once even mentioning the sacrifices she had made on her behalf. Molly was used to making light of it.
‘Sure who else but myself would have the rearing of my only sister’s child. Amn’t I only too proud and happy to do it.’
She always accompanied this declaration with a kiss and a fond hug.
Remembering, Kay smiled fondly herself. All the same, it couldn’t have been easy for Molly, she thought. At the time her aunt was only recently widowed and had a daughter of her own to look after. Yet - apart from Kay’s school fees which were provided by a trust fund set up on her parent’s death - Molly had cheerfully paid all other expenses out of her own pocket. She had dressed her, maybe not lavishly, but certainly no less fashionably than her school friends, and had even raised the necessary cash when Kay was in sixth year to send her on the school trip to Cherbourg.
Kay was aware that her aunt would not be too thrilled to learn she was throwing up her secure pensionable insurance job. But Molly was no kill-joy, she assured herself, she mightn’t approve but she would soon get used to the idea. And by the time she broke the news to her, she would have already given in her notice at work.
Kay’s face brightened at the prospect of telling the supervisor. Boy, oh boy, she sighed pleasurably. How she was looking forward to that!
Kay rode into town in solitary splendour, all the regulars having long since gone on an earlier bus. Sitting in the upper deck she mused on her great good fortune. By rights, for all his support, Dave Mason should be the first to be told but then in a way Dave already knew. What she wanted was fresh faces to impress, fresh reactions to gauge.
Dredging around in her mind for names, she came up with Breda Mason and frowned. Normally Dave’s sister could be relied upon to be a most satisfactory audience, but unfortunately since Kay had lost her silly hat they were no longer on speaking terms.
‘My best hat,’ Breda had moaned in disbelief when she told her she had lost it, although keeping to herself the manner in which it was lost.
Kay shuddered. There would be mayhem if she ever found out her black felt had been wantonly abandoned in a public washroom. Only Dave knew its true fate.
‘The proper place for it judging from what I saw,’ he opined, refusing to take sides.
‘Let you girls sort it out between yourselves,’ he added, staying maddeningly aloof while all the time his sister kept ringing Kay at work angling for a new hat. It was an added stress Kay could well have been spared with Noeleen Carmody already on the war-path.
‘Trinity College,’ the conductor’s shout broke through her thoughts.
Kay ran downstairs, ignoring his proffered arm as she leapt off the platform.
‘Carefully does it, sweetheart.’
What was she, an old lady? His eyes told her anything but! She forgot him as she started to run up the street. Since she was twelve years of age Kay was accustomed to men using any excuse to touch her.
The clock on Trinity College said nine-twenty. My God, she thought, Carmody would make mincemeat of her. She checked her stride. What was she killing herself for? She was giving in her notice today. But still she hurried, old habits dying hard.
As Kay reached the entrance to the Smithfield Insurance Corporations she found herself wondering if Sally had got into Celtic Airways too. And Florrie. Her eyes glowed. How great if the pair of them were with her in training.
She sped past the porter’s quirked eyebrows and rapidly mounted the stairs. Panting, she gained the second landing, and found her way blocked by a meaty hand.
‘Well, Miss, youv’e surpassed yourself this time,’ the supervisor nodded significantly at the treacherously fast wall clock, its long hand already tipping the half-hour. As if on cue, the wretched thing began chiming.
Kay bit back an apology and coldly returned Miss Carmody’s vindictive stare. For a moment it was touch-and-go whether she would give in under provocation and let the old bitch have her resignation there and then. Then deciding there was greater satisfaction to be gained by announcing it in her own time, Kay restrained herself and went to take off her coat.
‘Just glorified waitresses, that’s all,’ Noeleen Carmody retorted with predictable nastiness when Kay went in to give her notice, her heavy jowled face flushing red as the youthful tinker scarf encircling her stout throat.
Contemptuously, Kay studied the wide gash of lipstick in the over-powdered face, the crimped orange hair. Nothing about being sorry to lose you or it was nice knowing you, she thought. Oh no, none of the social graces, Noeleen Carmody. Pig ignorant! Spiteful bitch! Man-hater!
The woman leaned her fat wrists on the desk and said unpleasantly, ‘Well, when do you want to go?’
Kay stared back, green eyes cold.
‘I don’t start training for two weeks. I can stay until then.’ Miss Carmody heaved her huge bulk on to her feet.
‘Oh no, you can go at once... the sooner the better for everyone.’
She might have had some socially infectious disease, Kay thought resentfully as the supervisor stomped to the filing cabinet in her tottering heels, a gold slave chain unsuitably looped over one bulging ankle. Noisily hurling the drawers in and out, she extracted Kay’s file and with a sour expression, leafed through it. With deductions for insurance, income tax and the various charities they were forced to subscribe to, Kay had twenty-two pounds, four shillings and twopence coming to her.
‘I’ll have the wages department make out a cheque for twenty-two pounds,’ Miss Carmody said, smartly deducting the balance towards the chief clerk’s retirement present.
Back in the typing pool the news had quickly spread. Mr. Crosbie from the claims department zoomed boyishly past, arms spreadeagled, a droning sound issuing from his mouth.
‘You’re a dark one, never letting on, Kay,’ Cathy Maguire said reproachfully.
Some ten years at Smithfield, she and Kay had gone to the pictures a few times together. Kay said nothing, refusing to feel guilty.
‘Anyone going into Celtic Airways only does it to get a man,’ sneered Maureen Duggan.
Swarthy and heavy-chested with a crop of black hair on her upper lip, she was even longer in insurance than Cathy.
‘Really?’ Kay said calmly, as if it were a valid piece of information and not, as she was well aware, uttered in spite.
Only Liz Foley, just two months in the Corporation, expressed any pleasure in her news.
‘Lucky you!’ she congratulated, twirling her ponytail fast round her fingers. ‘That’s where I’m headed just as soon as ever I can.’
Ten minutes later, an office boy delivered Kay’s wages. Muttering a brief goodbye to those nearest her, she went past the busily clacking machines. There was no talk of meeting later for a goodbye drink. She hadn’t expected it.
Mean cows! she thought, glancing at their averted begrudging faces. She knew it wasn’t her success they resented half as much as being robbed of the chance to gloat over her possible failure.
On the stairs she met the chief clerk, his greying head sunk between rounded shoulders. ‘Well done, my dear,’ he said to her surprise, putting out his hand to shake hers warmly. ‘Every happiness in your new life. I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’
Why? Because she had so clearly erred in joining the Smithfield Insurance Corporation? Kay didn’t know but she was struck by his kindly tone. The only one to say a nice word, she thought, blinking back sudden tears as she continued on down the stairs.
She remembered the day she had first entered Smithfield. She had had one or two poorly paid typing jobs before it and was really glad to have got into the Corporation. Two years of her life, she thought. And only one person bothered to say goodbye.
‘You’d think two years would count for something,’ she told the porter’s back as she passed out of the building for the last time.
Outside, she lingered on the street like a departing soul unwilling to leave the body it knows. Then she shrugged and tossed back her dark hair. No point hanging about. Coffee in Bewleys, followed by a leisurely browse through the shops, she planned, as she set off jauntily for Grafton Street.
Today she was footloose and fancy free with no work for the next two weeks. And then! She caught her breath in sudden excitement. Then she would be entering a new and most thrilling phase of her life.