As soon as Dave Mason heard that Kay Martin was going to become an air hostess, he decided to buy a car. Later in the day, he jerk-hopped his shiny green Volkswagen out of Downey’s Garage and undaunted by the fact that he had never taken a driving lesson in his life, pointed the bonnet in the direction of home. Hunched tensely over the wheel, a wary eye on his rear view mirror, Dave joined the heavy flow of evening traffic heading to the northside and imagined Kay’s admiring comments when she saw his new Volks.
How thrilled she had been when she rang him to tell him her news, bubbling over with excitement. He grinned ruefully. Ah, he was glad for her of course, but to be honest, he realised part of him had hoped she would be turned down. For purely selfish reasons, he was forced to admit.
Although he had helped her with her application photographs and pretended to be pleased when she got the second interview, in his heart he had never really gone along with this air hostess business. It was bound to change her, make her dissatisfied with home and simple pleasures and maybe with him too!
Dave frowned, his grey eyes suddenly serious. It was something he had already faced and was part of the reason he had bought a car, although previously he had been content to walk or bus it everywhere. Girls liked cars and definitely in the kind of company with whom Kay would soon be mixing, he would be at a grave disadvantage in her eyes without one.
Stiffly, he changed into lower gear and put on his indicator prior to changing lanes. Well, maybe it was just a passing thing, this fascination with flying. Certainly he would like to think so. In his thoughts, Dave likened this new fad of Kay’s to a kind of bug in the blood, a malaria of mind and will which only time could heal. He hoped it would. In the meantime, there was nothing to be done but sit it out and pray the novelty would soon wear off.
Kay hadn’t seemed too happy about her exit from the Smithfield Insurance Corporation, he thought, remembering all she had said on the phone. They did seem to have given her a rather poor send-off. Begrudging lot!
A horn beeped impatiently. Too quickly, he released the clutch and the engine stalled. ‘Damn!’ Hot under the collar, conscious of the mounting tension behind him, Dave grabbed at the ignition and turned it a few times before getting it to fire. Stamping on the accelerator, he leaped forward just as the car behind lost patience and shot round him.
Wow! that was close. Dave caught his breath. Better keep his mind on the road.
He supposed he should have left it till Saturday to pick up the car but he had wanted to show it off to Kay that night. Straight after tea, he intended calling round and taking her for a spin. He had debated whether or not to ring her from the office but in the end decided against it, wanting to surprise her, to turn up at the door in his smart new little bus and witness her delighted reaction.
Not that at any time he had gone in for phoning Kay, Dave honestly acknowledged. What was the point? They lived only a few doors from each other. Crazy to announce himself first. But just try convincing Kay of that. His reluctance to ring for a date had already been the cause of quite a few quarrels between them.
It was all just a ploy, he suspected, to make him conform. He often thought that some of their most enjoyable evenings were impromptu ones in her aunt’s kitchen, toasting bread at the fire or just chatting as Kay ironed her blouses.
Dave liked Molly. She was a character. It might be hard being married to her though, he suspected, the way she filled the house with all those lodgers. According to Kay, she didn’t really need the money, just liked lots of company around her.
As he changed gear, Dave’s thoughts returned to Kay’s idiotic stance over phoning and a muscle tightened stubbornly in his jaw. He could never understand this insistence on formal dates. Not when they knew each other so long. Twelve years, he mused. It was a heck of a long time.
His expression softened when he remembered his first encounter with Kay when they were both still children. Ten year old Kay had been balancing on top of the Corporation sewage pipes (as yet unsunk) in Carrick Road, defending herself with a bunch of lethal-looking thorn branches against a crown of gurriers from a nearby housing estate. She had kept them at bay too, Dave recalled admiringly. And they all big lads his own age, thirteen and older. What a tomboy! He grinned at the memory.
When he had gone to her defence she had told him off haughtily in no uncertain terms. ‘I have no time for boys!’ Well, that’s another thing that had changed over the year. Dave’s glance grew thoughtful. He was going to have his work cut out beating the wolves from her door now that she was going into Celtic Airways.
He pulled his ear thoughtfully as he waited for the car in front to move. The trouble was he and Kay were such opposites. She loved dancing and having a good time while he was happiest in casual clothes, going for long hikes or just lounging at home reading or watching television.
When he had the time that was. Lately, he had precious little of it, spending every spare second studying when not working overtime. By the time, In another few months, all going well, Dave hoped to have passed the first of his three-part final accountancy exams. How long it would take him to achieve his second goal and become financial controller at the clothing manufacturing company where he worked depended on circumstances but hopefully it wouldn’t be more than two years at the outset. By the time he was thirty, Dave aimed to have ascended one more rung on the corporate ladder. That is if he didn’t decide to leave his present job and branch out on his own. Anyhow, it was all before him.
And Kay? How did she figure in his plans? Oh, she was in there too, his gaze softened... but first he had a lot of ambitions to realise.
With a sigh of relief, he turned into Carrick Road and parked in front of his house. His muscles ached as though he had been carrying a heavy weight for hours. Thank God to be home! And in one piece. Whistling cheerily, he got out of the car.
‘Nice job!’ his sister cried mannishly, running from the house and sliding into the passenger seat.
‘Does Kay know you have it?’ She pulled down the flap to grimace at herself in the mirror. ‘I suppose you only got it to impress her.’
‘Of course not,’ Dave snapped, annoyed with her for correctly divining his motives.
‘I suppose now she’s becoming an air hostess she’ll be too full of herself to notice any of us,’ Breda sniffed.
Dave waited pointedly for her to remove herself, irritated at hearing his mother’s already expressed opinion on his sister’s lips. Mrs. Mason had never liked Kay and made no secret of the fact that she would have preferred her only son to court a girl with money and, preferably, both parents living.
He slammed and locked the door. Breda was just riled over losing her hat, he decided, tired of hearing what a favour she had done Kay by lending it to her.
Dave sighed, his earlier good humour clouded by his homecoming. It would have been nice to have had one member of his family pleased about Kay’s success. He didn’t count his father who was in an alcoholic haze most of the time. Sometimes he actively disliked his family.
Sulkily, Breda ran up the path hallooing, ‘Dave’s got a new car.’
Now the whole road knew. A frown in his grey eyes, Dave followed her into the house. ‘How nice,’ Mrs. Mason came to peer out the door. Of course, he only got it to dazzle that Begley woman’s niece.
‘I’ll be looking forward to a ride in it,’ she told her son. Before that girl parks herself in it.
‘Sure.’ Dave could see by his mother’s expression that this was something she envisaged very soon, perhaps that very evening.
‘Sorry, Ma,’ he firmly wrote her off. ‘Another time.’ This evening he was calling on Kay.