Kay was filled with elation when she found Captain Pender’s note on the hostess notice-board. She took it down and opened it with shaking fingers.
‘Sweet I’m back,’ he wrote. ‘Seems like aeons since we met. The Hollow tonight? Ninish. Hope you can make it.’
It wasn’t signed somewhat to her disappointment, but of course there was no doubt as to its author. Just imagining his strong fingers pressed against the paper sent Kay’s heart racing even faster. Soon she would be in his arms, she promised herself happily, soon his lips would be on hers.
To be honest, Kay had despaired of ever hearing from Graham again. Since her night with him in London she had examined the noticeboards for weeks in vain, unable to understand how after all his promises and sensational kisses, he wouldn’t even drop her a line. She had come to the sad conclusion that he hadn’t meant a word of what he’d said, and felt the only sensible thing to do was mark it down to experience and put him out of her mind! Easier said than done. Without Florrie it would have been harder still but the other girl’s presence in the house greatly helped Kay get over her disappointment and prevented her brooding.
She happily clutched Graham’s note and hurried down to her locker to change out of uniform. In the washroom, she carefully renewed her make-up, too excited to feel her usual distaste at the grotty state of the place. Rumours of a grand new hostess block, shortly to be built, circulated in moments of extreme dissatisfaction, only to be immediately quashed by Beattie Burgenhoffer who swore she was hearing ‘that lit-tel fairy tale’ as long as she could remember.
Going back through the restroom Kay bumped into Sally and gladly agreed to have tea with her in the canteen. She hadn’t seen her friend in ages and was dying for a chat. There wasn’t any need to go home and change before her date, she decided, having luckily worn her Blackwatch tartan kilt and new silk blouse to the airport that morning.
‘Have you heard the latest?’ Sally asked. ‘What, for goodness sake?’
Before them like a huge greenhouse the canteen poured forth its welcoming light, revealing Sally’s expression of smiling dismay.
‘But surely you’ve heard... one of the pilots has got a hostess preggers!’ ‘Oh, no!’ Kay exclaimed.
‘Isn’t it awful?’ There was no mistaking the suppressed excitement in Sally’s voice. ‘Ma Curtis got to hear of it and she’s being turfed out. That’s why Beattie has called a union meeting for tonight, to show solidarity.’
‘But surely they can’t sack her?’ Kay protested. ‘I mean, she didn’t do it on her own. What about the pilot? Shouldn’t he get the boot too?’
‘He’s married,’ Sally said flatly, as though that exempted him from blame.
Following her friend into the canteen, Kay’s mind was in turmoil. With absolutely no evidence to support it, she was suddenly convinced that the erring pilot was none other than Captain Pender. She had always suspected he might be married (no one that gorgeous could have escaped so long) but never until that moment had she been prepared, even in her thoughts, to acknowledge the existence of another woman.
‘And the guilty pair?’ she enquired in weak imitation of Sally’s amused manner, terrified of the answer. ‘Anyone we know?’
Sally shook her head regretfully. ‘Afraid not. She’s on the Atlantic, so the grapevine has it. And he’s only just been transferred.’
Kay’s heart dipped.
Sally gave a husky laugh, ‘Didn’t lose much time, did he? Of course, they say they’re all as randy as hell on the Boeings.’
Jet-lag presumably accounted for it, Kay thought glumly. A bit like tubercular patients who were reputed to be afflicted by a similar itch.
‘Seems his wife was a former hostess,’ Sally volunteered through a mouthful of steak. ‘BEA or Caledonia, I think.’
Kay was not impressed. BEA stewardesses wore aprons and Caledonia was tiny, nothing like so big as Celtic. At least this time Captain Pender had aimed higher in making a Celtic Airways hostess his mistress, she thought coldly. That she might be next in line for this dubious honour did not occur to her. Her appetite quite gone she toyed with a chip. Sally tucked into a delicious-looking pavlova with gusto
‘She’s probably in her forties,’ she reckoned with authority. ‘Probably let herself go. Slouching about in laddered nylons, not painting her nails, or worse,’ she paused dramatically, ‘wearing chipped varnish.’
Hard hitting but just, Kay conceded, who like her friend believed in the all importance of glamour. If you dropped your standards in small things, how could you possibly hope not to drop them altogether.
The canteen doors swung open and Bunny Fagan joined them. She had heard the news too and by the time they had further mulled over the scandal, it was decided that no matter how foolishly their fellow hostess might have behaved, it was their duty to support her that night at the meeting. Kay listened in dread, mindful of her date with Captain Pender, but consoled herself with the thought that with any luck it would not be a long one and she could still make The Hollow on time.
They arrived at the prefabs to find the hut packed to the doors. Beattie, wearing slacks and a mannish black leather jacket, was in the middle of an impassioned speech loudly condemning management’s high-handed action in suspending the Atlantic hostess in a situation involving not ‘ein aber zwei peuplen.’
Why not make it drei and be done with it, Kay thought irritably, as Beattie thundered on, her black-browed glance scornfully raking the rows of standing men (none of whom were foolish enough to be pilots). There were cries of ‘Hear! hear!’ from her supporters in the front of two rows and Kay recognised Betty and Celine as well as a few others from the group. Clearly the Atlantic hostess wasn’t there. Over tea they had speculated whether or not she would have the nerve to show up.
‘No,’ Bunny firmly opined. ‘She’s probably gone to London already.’ She had heard a version of the story from Orla O’Neill who through her various pilot connections was as usual in the know. ‘You can’t blame her really. It’s what I’d do in her shoes. She shuddered at this highly improbable event.
Sally strong-mindedly felt it would be in her best interests to be there.
‘You wouldn’t catch me,’ Bunny squealed, shoe-hopping again. ‘Not in a million years. I’d just die.’
Privately Kay felt the same.
‘Well he won’t be there, you may be sure,’ Sally grinned scornfully. Sally was right on both counts.
Now Beattie was noisily accusing the pilots’ association of acting ‘with typical age- old cowardice of man caught in a predicament as ancient as the Kalahari desert. I propose that this gross inhuman act of a despotic government be righted at once,’ she continued trenchantly, ‘and a hostess’s life once and for all be acknowledged as her own.’
Stepping down to tumultuous applause, she was thumped enthusiastically on her leather-coated back. Further proposals were then put into motion that a fund be set up to finance the pregnant one so that she might have a choice when deciding whether or not she wanted to have her baby.
This was shot down at once by a group of cabin cleaners.
‘I’ve nuttin’ against yer wan for getting herself up the spout,’ proclaimed a florid- faced matron, sporting a Medusa-like head of plastic rollers which she disdained to hide beneath the customary scarf. ‘But I don’t see why meself and udders like me should have to shell out our few hard-earned shillins. Not from the measly wages we get paid. It’s dem pilots should be made pay with all the money dey get. Amn’t I right?’
With an approving roar the packed room greeted the justice of this remark. Pilots should be made pay for their fun, was the consensus of opinion.
With horror, Kay realised it was getting on for nine o’clock. She gazed helplessly behind her and saw that the way to the door was solidly blocked. Even if she could manage to get a bus straight away, she thought despairingly, she would never reach The Hollow in time. As she was debating what to do next, Beattie shouted ‘Any other business?’ and more precious minutes were lost while she and the catering manager duelled over relevant dates and flight numbers of a Paris flight, delayed thirty minutes due to the shortage of three chicken dinners which Beattie claimed (and proved with Teutonic efficiency), Catering had neglected to put on board in time.
In the end it was Bunny who came to Kay’s rescue. She revealed she was being picked up any minute by her boyfriend, and offered Sally and Kay a lift to town. Ignoring the glares directed at them by some of the more fanatical of Beattie’s followers, the girls made good their escape. If only Lieutenant Canavan had come in time all might have been well but it was another twenty minutes before he showed up. Then he failed to heed Kay’s request to be let down at the turn-off for The Hollow but roared past instead, hell-bent for town.
‘Speed maniac,’ Sally mouthed while Bunny turned to laugh back at them, showing her high teeth prettily like jolly Mrs. Bunny Rabbit in Kay’s childish picture books. ‘Isn’t he tewibble?’
In despair, Kay pressed her face to the window, anguish sweeping her heart like waves over the Baltic. Oh well, she told herself forlornly, he wouldn’t have been there anyway.