Next day their Wings ceremony took place. As she stood beside Sally with her gleaming gold wing clutched hotly in the palm of her hand, Kay felt pleased and excited. She watched the other members of the group being awarded theirs and thought how glamorous they all looked togged out in the gorgeous turquoise tweed uniform. After spending eight weeks with them in the classroom, Kay felt as though she knew them all intimately. Now the training was over. Her green eyes sparkled. Tonight was their Wings party and tomorrow their first flights.
‘Is that it?’ Sally enquired with an amused quirk of her eyebrow as they congregated by the drinks table to sip sherry and murmur self-consciously to each other. ‘Short and sweet,’ she chuckled. ‘I suppose now we’re officially out.’
Kay nodded, unable to help feeling just a little bit let down. Somehow pinning a wing on yourself was a bit like being dubbed Sir Knight and having to tap your own shoulder. Still, despite the absence of pageantry, it was all very exciting and she couldn’t wait to examine her wing more closely. She followed her friend to where the others were lining up for a group photo.
‘Say cheese,’ the press photographer grinned. Light bulbs flashed. He angled his lens. ‘And again!’ capturing their smiles for posterity and the Evening Press.
‘I don’t expect it will ever make the papers, do you?’ Sally said, as though it didn’t much matter either way.
‘I’d be as glad if it didn’t,’ Kay lied. ‘I’m sure to come out looking awful.’
Secretly, she was counting on Noeleen Carmody seeing it and going green with envy. Only a week earlier she had bumped into Liz Foley in town and learned from her that the supervisor had told everyone that if Kay hadn’t left of her own accord she would have got the sack.
‘Jealous cat! She was wild you left to become an air hostess,’ Liz laughed, winding her ponytail tightly about her fingers, a schoolgirl habit she had not lost. ‘I can’t wait to get out of Smithfield myself. Come next June, I’m off to America.’
It pleased Kay to think of the Smithfield Insurance Corporation with one less piece of youthful fodder for Noeleen Carmody to blight. Maybe in time the only staff around her would be soured begrudgers like herself.
Recalled to the present, she could hear Sally saying,
‘Couldn’t be as bad as me. I blinked just as the flash went off. I’m sure to come out looking positively dopey. ‘Well anyway, newspaper photos are always ghastly. No one ever looks like themselves.’
Kay said nothing. As long as their photo was in the paper she didn’t care.
The Wings party was held in The Hollow, a big, barnlike pub a few miles from the airport. Everywhere else had been too expensive, or already booked. No one quite knew what to expect of the evening but the Pens, who had been to quite a few, said they could be good fun and the junior pilots sometimes looked in on them. Anyhow, Orla seemed to know a vast amount of them and was sure to bring some with her, so they had booked the venue for the night and designated Betty’s garda boyfriend to get them a bar extension..
Kay and Sally came in the main door and looked critically about them, deciding that The Hollow was the perfect place for assignations of the extra marital kind. In wooden cubicles, partially screened-off from view by looped-back dusty red velvet curtains, dubious couples sat regarding each other lustily.
‘It really should be called Sleazy Hollow,’ Sally said with a grin.
The girls came out again and wandered through the pub in search of the Beer Cellar. They had already stumbled by mistake into a big old-fashioned kitchen hung with copper pots and skillets and had shot out again at the sight of a villainous-looking bearded man occupied in the grisly task of dismembering a carcass.
‘Bluebeard!’ gasped Sally, always strong on imagination.
As they arrived at the Beer Cellar, they bumped into Cecily. She was with a tall gangling fellow in a spotted bow tie, whom she introduced as Malcolm. Noticing the absence of presentable-looking men, Kay was beginning to regret she had not asked Dave.
‘It would be absolutely frightful if none of the gang turned up till midnight,’ Cecily fretted, peering worriedly from under her fringe. ‘Malcolm was just asking where everyone was, weren’t you, Malcolm?’
‘Yes rather,’ Malcolm replied, making calf-eyes at Sally. He bought the girls drinks and they stood sipping them while Sally swung her shining bell of hair distractingly, sending the poor fellow up the walls.
Did she know the effect she was having on him, Kay wondered, uneasily suspecting that she did. It seemed a poor return for all Cecily’s friendliness. Fond and all as she was of Sally, Kay decided that she wouldn’t let her within a hundred miles of Malcolm if he had been hers.
Before long the disc jockey arrived and began hurling music at them. By eleven o’clock most of the group had turned up and with the influx of more men, the outlook began to look better.
Kay cradled her glass and swayed to the music of the Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’. Earlier when she had dashed home to change and have a bite to eat, she had been delighted to find the photograph of the uniformed group in the late edition of the Evening Press. With a mixture of surprise and pleasure she had read the caption, ‘Twenty Celtic Airways Hostesses Get Their Wings.’ She had been relieved to see how well she looked - a bit serious maybe but not squinting or grimacing. Sally too needn’t have worried. Blinking had merely conferred on her downcast lids a somewhat saintly look which in no way detracted from her charm. None of them had been mentioned by name, still it was enough. Eat your heart out, Noeleen Carmody!
The Beetles came to an end and Brendan Bowyer began roaring out ‘The Hucklebuck’. Kay craned her neck looking for Sally but there were too many bodies on the floor to be able to see properly.
‘Are you one of the lovelies that took wing today?’ a male voice spoke suddenly in her ear. She turned to find a stout, affluent-looking man eyeing her interestedly.
‘Can’t you tell?’ Kay laughed back at him.
‘Oh like that, is it?’ He advanced good-humouredly and firmly traced her shoulder-blade with stubby fingers. ‘Definitely the beginnings of a wing on that one,’ he drawled comically, ‘Now let’s try the other.’
He repeated the procedure with such a deadpan expression that Kay laughed again. ‘Ah yes, several hours old I would say.’
He could have been anything between thirty and forty, with thinning sandy hair and a humorous face.
‘I suppose you’ll tell me what colour they are next,’ she said intrigued.
He stood back to take her in more completely, ‘Undoubtedly a very virginal white with a faint blush of pink.’
He inclined his head towards the floor where ‘The Hucklebuck’ was coming to a frenzied climax. ‘Care to chance such precious commodities out there?’
‘No,’ Kay admitted honestly.
‘Very wise,’ he approved. ‘Come and have a drink instead and we can talk some more about those angelic wings of yours.’
She followed him to the bar.
‘One nectar for m’lady and one jungle juice as ordered,’ he said, putting a gin and tonic before her as Sally came up with her partner in tow.
‘Kay, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ she exclaimed, pulling him forward. ‘This is Gerry. He absolutely hates air hostesses!’
With flushed face Gerry protested vehemently. ‘I never said that! All I said was...’
But Sally wouldn’t let him finish. ‘Isn’t he terrible?’ she appealed laughingly to Kay’s partner.
‘A philistine,’ he agreed, smiling back.
‘Imagine saying that all air hostesses were spoilt bitches,’ she continued indignantly. Gerry tore his hair. ‘I didn’t. I said all the air hostesses I’ve ever met acted like they were
God’s gift to man.’
‘Same thing,’ Sally said with a toss of her head. ‘Don’t think you’re going to slip out of it that easily, hostess-hater!’
‘Now you are wilfully misunderstanding me,’ Gerry groaned in a goaded voice.
He was very young, tall and thin with leather insets to the elbows of his tweed jacket. Late teens, Kay guessed. Probably a student.
He raised his arms imploringly. ‘Look ... I love air hostesses. I’m mad about them - at least since meeting you.’ He stared defencelessly at Sally, ‘Come and dance with me, you tantalizing, gorgeous woman, you.’
‘In a minute,’ Sally said carelessly. ‘First I must have a drink,’ wincing when Gerry stated baldly, ‘Okay, so long as it’s not brandy.’
‘Allow me.’ Kay’s partner signalled to the barman.
I don’t even know his name, Kay thought, embarrassed about making the introductions as Sally got her gin and a beer was placed before the scowling Gerry. Taking the plunge, she waved a hand towards her friend.
‘Meet Sally Carey, another lovely that took wing today.’
‘Honourable Harry at your service,’ the sandy-haired man responded gallantly, raising his glass to them both. ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance’.
The night flew by. Dancing cheek to cheek with Harry, Kay was amazed to see that it was almost two o’clock. In another few hours she would be checking in for her flight to London. She felt a faint anticipatory thrill and heard Harry say, ‘Am I going to get to leave you home?’
‘Maybe.’ Suddenly tired, Kay stifled a yawn. It had been a long exciting day. Over his shoulder she glimpsed Cecily, rigidly erect in Malcolm’s arms. Nearby, Orla clung on to one of the Second Officers. She winked at Kay mouthing something like, ‘I’m floating.’
Kay was floating too. After all the gin it wasn’t surprising. When Harry put his lips to her ear again and murmured, ‘What do you say we slip away before the last dance?’ she nodded tiredly. Together they pushed their way free of the crowd.
In the cloakroom she met up with Sally and learned that she most decidedly wanted a lift home, Gerry’s only mode of transport being a bike and a punctured one at that.
‘What cheek!’ Sally cried, smoothing her hair with a comb, her cheeks flushed from all the dancing, her blue eyes bright.
‘You can bet I kindly but firmly declined.’
Kay grinned in sympathy. Quickly they renewed their lipstick and went to join Harry. Poor Gerry, Kay thought as they swept past the young man dejectedly pushing his bike. Sally snuggled deeper into the padded comfort of Harry’s jaguar.
‘Another night to be chalked down to experience, methinks,’ she said airily.
Neither she nor Kay looked back. The sophisticated life was not to be found via the crossbar of a bike. Of that, they were quite certain.