It was a few days before Graham heard the rumours about Kay and Dan Tully. He was on his way to America, taking out the second last service to New York before Christmas, when he overheard two Second Officers chortling in the pilots’ lounge over Desperate Dan’s latest escapade. Listening to them, Graham had conceived an uneasy suspicion as to who the startled hostess had been.
For some time he had been aware of the stories linking Dan Tully’s name with Kay’s and this latest piece of gossip sickened and disgusted him. How could she allow that lecherous fool near her, he wondered in anguish. As he went out to join his flight, he told himself that it was just one more blow coming after a very tough few weeks.
Following Sile’s visit to the airport the atmosphere between husband and wife had become positively glacial. Graham found it impossible to forgive her for his loss of face. He continued to sleep in Jeremy’s room until his sons came home on their school holidays and only then for the sake of appearances, reluctantly returned to his own bedroom. He spent as little time at home as possible and hardly noticed, or cared, that Sile was neglecting her appearance and looked red-eyed and subdued most of the time. If she was depressed and unhappy, it was good enough for her. She deserved it all. He should have left her years ago.
Graham spent the next few hours at the controls in the darkened cockpit in agonised reflection. One minute he took all the blame for throwing Kay into the other pilot’s arms, the next he tormented himself with the suspicion that it had needed no prompting to send her running there. He worked himself into a quiet rage and swore that as soon as he got back, he choke the life out of Dan Tully.
Gradually calming, Graham realised the futility of such an attitude. After all, what did he expect from Kay? Never to go out with another man, or only with those he approved of? He had made it damn clear to her that he was no longer interested, so did he have to act like a dog in the manger? Bloody hell! He had been so sure that day at ditching drill that he was over her. Now just look at him!
It was true that Graham had not found it too difficult to keep away from Kay in the baths that day. Her letter had landed him into a right mess at home and set into action a chain of events that could possibly affect his career. He had spoken coolly to her, forcing himself to ignore the appeal in her tear-bright eyes. It was the only sensible thing to do, he thought, unless they both wanted to end up being the talk of the airport like Joe Bradshaw and the Atlantic hostess.
Captain Bradshaw had had a long-standing affair with one of the senior hostesses and, in an attempt to force him to leave his wife, she had allowed herself become pregnant. What a rumpus it had caused. The pair of them were suspended from duty and eventually sacked from the airline. Nowhere near forgotten, it was a frightful warning to them all.
Nor was it the only affair of its kind. Many of the married crew engaged in illicit relationships with hostesses. The only difference between them and Kitty Martin, Graham told himself grimly, was that they knew how to take care of themselves and she most definitely did not! Of course, he wouldn’t have wanted her any other way but the bungled affair of the Pill had brought this home to him with shocking clarity. He still shuddered when he thought how easily he might have become another Joe Bradshaw in the eyes of the airport.
By the time he landed in Kennedy Airport, Graham felt emotionally drained. When he went out later with the crew to Greenwich Village, it was inevitable that he would drink too much and end up in someone’s room. Too bad it had to be Elaine Rooney’s.
‘Gramey baby,’ she kept calling him, making his heart contract in pain and bitter revulsion as he recalled another voice once saying ‘Grame’ in a shy, uncertain way.
Newly come on the TransAtlantic route, Elaine had let the whole thing go to her head, adopting an irritating American twang that was further accentuated by all she had had to drink. Four Tom Collins in an hour, for God’s sake, Graham thought irritably.
Afterwards, bored and hating himself, he wanted only to get back to his own room but was forced to remain and listen to her brash chatter.
‘Cigarette me, baby,’ she crooned, lying back naked and satisfied. ‘Say, whatever happened to your great romance?’
‘I don’t care to discuss it,’ Graham replied shortly.
She refused to take the hint. ‘From rumours I’ve heard,’ she began - she knew something about his recent affair and saw herself Kay’s successor – ‘she wasn’t half good enough for you, Gramey. Only a few months flying, so I’ve heard and out to make it big with the pilots. Get my drift?’
Graham listened outraged. How dare she! It was all so ridiculous and untrue. His shy, innocent Kitty. He seethed with anger and disgust as Elaine babbled on.
‘What a silly, spiteful little bitch you are,’ he finally shut her up, maddened by her smug air of knowing something when she knew damn all.
Elaine pouted. ‘You don’t have to be like that, Gramey baby,’ she whined, fluttering her long lashes at him. ‘I was just telling you what I heard’
As he stumbled back to his room, Graham felt a rush of self-loathing, ‘Ah Kitty,’ he groaned. ‘What have I done to us?’
That she was wrapped all about his heart like a silken mesh, he painfully acknowledged, her loveliness ever in his thoughts, her shy sensuality a standard by which he compared all other women. He was shaken by how bereft he felt. And it had taken the encounter with a bitch like Elaine Rooney to bring it all home to him!
Two days later they landed back in Shannon. Having landed twenty minutes ahead of schedule, Graham had decided it was as well to breakfast here and save time later on in Dublin. With Christmas Eve next day, there would be plenty to do when he got home.
When his breakfast was put before him, he gave into temptation and added cream to his porridge. After seven long hours in the cockpit it was a great treat to come in and enjoy a real Irish breakfast, bacon, sausage, eggs and slices of tasty black and white pudding. He tucked in hungrily.
Sitting on the stool beside him, Elaine Rooney did her best to keep up the intimate sort of conversation she obviously felt was her due.
‘Honestly honey, it was the best overnight in ages,’ she kept insisting, as though he were disputing it, her loud voice drawing amused glances from the navigator who had roomed on the same floor and seen the couple emerging from the elevator.
Graham shuddered and asked himself if he had really slept with her. He must have been out of his mind! He rapidly drained his coffee and headed for the washroom.
There were no delays in Dublin. Everyone was anxious to get off the aircraft and be on their way. It was the same going through customs. With Christmas so near, even the grimmest officials were in relaxed seasonal mood and cheerily waved them on.
Graham wished his crew a happy Christmas and checked in his flight report and log book, before heading to his car. He stowed his parcels in the boot and slipped behind the wheel. The previous day in Macy’s he had bought his youngest son a remote controlled car. They were all the rage with the and half the price compared to at home. For Jeremy he had got a radio/cassette player. Both items had been expensive and not the only presents he had bought his sons, but Graham did not believe in stinting at this special time of year.
Before flying to America, he had collected the boys from school. How excited they had been at the prospect of coming home, especially Nicholas. ‘In term time I die but in the holidays I come to life again,’ he had confessed happily, as they left Mellwood behind.
Poor old Nicky, Graham thought. Lately, he was having a bad time of it with asthma attacks. When Graham discussed the matter with the school matron, she had suggested that the boy might be finding his first term away from home traumatic. At least Jeremy seemed well and happy, he thought. Being older than his brother he was having an easier time of it and was allowed privileges denied the younger boy. Graham still regretted having to send the boys away to boarding-school. If he and Sile had had a better relationship it wouldn’t have been necessary, he thought. Or if he were a better parent, he was forced to admit.
Only another few minutes and he would be home. He began to feel more cheerful at the thought of his sons’ faces when he hinted at the presents he had bought them. He knew he was in for twenty questions with Nicky. The boy would do everything in his power to try and get him to spill the beans. He hadn’t a hope. Graham grinned. Nicky would just have to wait until Christmas morning.
He turned in the gates of his house and was brought up short by the sight of an ambulance blocking the driveway. He stared in shock, his heart thumping painfully in his chest.
Nicky! Jeremy! Were they ill?
He got out of the car and ran towards the house. As he arrived panting on the step, two white-coated orderlies hurried through the doorway, carrying a stretcher. Graham stared in horrified disbelief as the pale, motionless body of his wife was hurried past and placed in the ambulance. The back doors were slammed shut and siren screaming, the ambulance tore out the gates and headed for the city.