For Dave Mason Christmas had come and gone, causing hardly a ripple on the surface of his busy working existence. Two days later he was back at the office preparing his company’s audit. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and got up stiffly from his desk. It was after seven o’clock and he still had a pile of work to get through.
Since Dave had taken over as Financial Controller there had been no let up at work. He crossed to the window and stood looking over the roof-tops. To think that this morning he had half-planned a game of squash after work. He gave a hollow laugh. He was too damned busy, that was the trouble.
Now he had an opportunity to go abroad for two years to work in a German subsidiary firm. He hadn’t quite reconciled himself with the thought of going away but by March he was going to have to give his boss an answer.
‘Don’t pass up this chance, Dave,’ Tony kept urging him, ‘Now when you’re young and single is the time to widen your experience. In another few years you mightn’t find it so easy to get away.’
Dave was familiar with his boss’s views on talented young executives who blighted their careers by marrying too early and saddling themselves with mortgages and growing families. He grinned ruefully. Not much chance of that where he was concerned. His social life was nil and had been for quite some time. He didn’t even get time to go to the pictures, or to a dance where he might meet the future Mrs. Mason. Perhaps in Frankfurt he would have a better chance.
His expression sobered. There were some days when he felt the lure of Germany and could even work up a bit of excitement at the prospect, but on the whole, he was reluctant to uproot himself. He didn’t think he would like living abroad that much and besides, the Germans themselves daunted him. All that clipped speech and driving ambition seemed soulless somehow. Dave was not unadventurous but he liked the more relaxed Dublin way of life. It might lack the cut and thrust of finance in Britain or Germany but he liked the way they did business here.
His thoughts turned to Kay. As usual, his mother kept him in touch with the local gossip and in December, she had lost no time informing him about Kay’s latest boyfriend. ‘Drives a fancy car and is old enough to be her father.’ She threw up her eyes piously. ‘Another married man by the look of it. Imagine! After all her convent training.’
In spite of himself, Dave had had to grin. Rather than casting him own, the latest information filled him with fresh hope. He reasoned that if Kay were going out with a different man, then the first romance, which had continued long enough to constitute a real threat was hopefully dead.
He had been delighted when Kay accepted his invitation to join them for Christmas dinner. He had hated to think of her on her own in the big old house or, like she suggested, travelling to Kilshaughlin with Peg. It had been a splendid meal, he thought, remembering all the trouble his mother had gone to and how cordial she had been to Kay. No one would ever have imagined that the women were anything but the best of friends. Reggie too. had been on his best behaviour, enjoying the novelty of having such a pretty girl at his table.. Even Breda had chatted away, asking Kay for details about the airline and laughing at the antics of some of the pilots.
Afterwards when the others had withdrawn to sit beside the fire, Dave had filled Kay’s wine glass and hinted he might be going abroad soon himself.
‘Oh really?’ She smiled back at him. ‘Where to?’ ‘Germany,’ Dave told her.
‘Oh that’s nice,’ she had said, in the slightly patronising accent of one who regards all travel as her prerogative. ‘Skiing?’ she hazarded.
Dave had had a cynical twinkle in his grey eyes as he asked, ‘Tell me, Kay, do you ever think of anything other than holidays? We’re not all privileged to fly for Celtic Airways, you know. Some of us do have to work for a living.’
. Dave was aware that he would soon have to make a decision about Germany. Undoubtedly to go was the best thing for his career, he thought, but what about his life, his happiness? What about Kay? That the two were inextricably linked, Dave had come to realise. True, in the beginning he had believed that his greatest rival was her infatuation with the airline. He had regarded it like some kind of bug in the blood which only needed time to work itself out and, having set himself to play a waiting game, been confident that he would be there to claim her when the time came. Now he realised there were other rivals, not least his own ambition.
Dave sighed. At the other end of the scale, there was his mother strangely conspiring to keep him at home. Only the other day she had surprised him by suggesting he ask Kay to Sunday lunch. Dave was under no illusion that his parent had suddenly become besotted with Kay but it was only when she added, ‘The German women are very cold, I believe. Nothing like as friendly as our own lovely girls,’ that he shrewdly recognised the reason behind the olive branch. He was cynically amused at his parent’s capitulation in Kay’s favour when faced with the option of German womanhood, then his grin faded and a perplexed look came into his grey eyes. He wished he knew what he should do.
Right now, he told himself firmly, you should go out and get some tea. Thinking about Christmas had made him devilishly hungry. He decided to treat himself to steak and onions in the Palace Steakhouse.
As he shrugged on his coat, the whole question of Germany was still very much on his mind. Only today Tony had dropped heavy hints as to the kind of promotion he might expect on his return. Dave’s eyes glowed at the prospect. It was very tempting, he couldn’t deny. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were only six months, he brooded. But two years! It was a hell of a long time.