Two hours later as Kay and her crew were being sped home in the crew car Graham was arriving at the airport. The day of departure had dawned at last and he was really on his way despite the many times he had been on the brink of calling it off. He entered the Departure Building and joined the queue to the ticket counter. No turning back now, he told himself firmly. In another hour he would be on his way to London, from there to board his flight for Karachi.
So far the snow had held off.
‘Not for too much longer, I imagine,’ he chatted to the pretty girl in the heather tweed uniform as she took his ticket.
She busied herself tearing out a section, stapling on his baggage stub. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, giving him a warm smile. ‘But you should get away all right, Captain Pender.’
‘Looks like it,’ he agreed, tucking his ticket into his wallet. He felt a reoccurrence of the loneliness hitting him all morning and experienced a desire, unusual for him, to make small talk. ‘Hope you won’t be too badly hit when it does decide to fall.’
‘Well it won’t be me,’ she laughed. ‘I’m off for the next two days. But thanks all the same.’
‘You’re okay then.’ He smiled and turned away, leaving her gazing admiringly after his tall figure.
Graham wandered in the direction of the bar. His flight was not due to take off till after eleven and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. He had deliberately left home well ahead of time knowing that Sile was only waiting for him to go before heading for the hairdressers. A decidedly more important engagement than seeing off a departing husband, he thought wryly.
‘Hope you don’t mind, darling,’ she had said. ‘But I made the appointment ages ago.’
Darling! What a travesty of the word, Graham thought. It never sounded so hollow in his ears as it did this morning when he was about to leave home for four months. Still he was glad she was taking an interest in her appearance again. This week Sile was almost back to her former glamorous self. Just as well, he acknowledged, or he could not in all conscience have left her.
The only person to know any of the details of Graham’s domestic upheaval was Ben Higgins and he was the soul of discretion. The other pilot had decently enough offered his support should Sile and the boys need it, while Graham was away in the east. His thoughtfulness had greatly helped ease the burden of guilt Graham felt at leaving his family.
He took a seat at the bar and ordered a whisky wondering if Kay were heading out today to America, or on her days off. Since he had stopped flying he was no longer aware of her movements. He had deliberately refrained from getting the new roster. What was the point? From now on, he told himself, she would be less and less in his thoughts. And at the prospect felt even lonelier, for thoughts were all he had.
Meeting her in New York had awakened feelings in him he would have preferred to forget and holding her in his arms and hearing her whisper of her unwavering belief that he would come to their meeting place, had moved him almost to the point of tears. What kind of man was he to have acted in such a heartless manner, he asked himself in despair. No wonder she had looked upon him with such disillusion at the last.
Kay’s air of finding him wanting that night in New York had hurt Graham the most. He had become so used to her unquestioning adoration that when she had turned away without a backward look, it had hurt like hell. He was painfully reminded of the suspicions he had entertained when her letter arrived to his house and how quickly, out of concern for his own hide, he had run out on her. Dropped her, he thought in shame, as if she were like the scheming hostess who had embroiled Joe Bradshaw or the avaricious bitch Elaine he had slept with before Christmas.
Graham had always known in his heart that Kay was not like any of the hostesses he had played round with in the past. For one thing she was a class above them. As well as being beautiful and sensuous she had integrity. It was what had intrigued him about her from the beginning and kept him coming back to her all these months. He shook his head regretfully. He had treated her shabbily. No doubt about that. Now he would give an awful lot to be able to ease his conscience. But maybe it wasn’t too late.
Quickly, he took a sheet of notepaper from his briefcase and began scribbling a letter to her. Somehow he couldn’t bear the thought of going away without contacting her just once more. Unconscious of the barman’s curious glance, he swiftly wrote, ‘Dear Kay,’ He paused, then taking another sheet, determinedly began again, thinking let there be no half-measures.
‘My dearest Kitty,’ he wrote instead. ‘My thoughts have been full of you since our meeting in New York and never more so than this morning as I leave for Karachi.’
His pen moved swiftly over the paper describing as eloquently as he knew how something of his appreciation of her which had come so late. That and a lot more he had not intended saying.
Damn it! He would let it stand. It was the very last time he would ever write such things to her and if they happened to meet in the future, it would be as strangers. Soberly, he signed his name and slipped the sheet into an envelope. Then with ten minutes to boarding time, he hurriedly left the Departure lounge and went in search of the one who had all along been the faithful conveyor of his messages to her.
He found him in the canteen with Joe, another of the crew drivers, enjoying his elevenses. Steve looked up as Captain Pender pushed through the swing doors. He hadn’t seen much of the pilot since his affair with Ava had ended. Steve grinned fondly. It’s what he always called the pretty dark-haired hostess. She was the spitting image of the filmstar, he thought.
The same shapely mouth and big sexy eyes. She had been his favourite pin-up ever since he was a kid.
They made a handsome couple, Captain Pender and herself, Steve considered. Both so dark and good-looking. He’d been really sorry when he realised they weren’t seeing each other anymore. Although happily married himself, Steve liked a bit of romance. Oho, maybe it’s on again, he thought, seeing the envelope in the pilot’s hand as he hurriedly approached.
‘Looking for me, Captain?’ Steve advanced to meet him.
‘Would you be good as to deliver this, Steve... the usual spot,’ Graham slipped a fiver across to him with the letter.
‘No need for that, Captain,’ Steve made to give it back but the pilot brushed it aside.
‘Take it. Get something for your little girl,’ he said brusquely. ‘Must dash or I’ll miss my flight.’
My, he was in a rush, Steve thought as the pilot almost ran from the building. He put the envelope in his pocket and returned to his table. Time enough to drop it over when his shift ended, he told himself. It was not as if Ava was likely to return to the airport today. If he hadn’t been in such a tearing hurry he could have told Captain Pender that he had just left her home with the rest of the Atlantic crew.
But heavy snow fell later that day almost paralysing the airport and as he battled back and forth in icy conditions, the letter completely slipped Steve’s mind. It wasn’t until Sunday morning as he sped back towards the airport with the Atlantic hostesses, that he remembered it again.
Parking the van, he searched his pockets but was unable to find it. Edel, he remembered in dismay. Oh God! the little terror. He had been playing with her the previous evening and, not too surprisingly, dozed off. Well, he had been on duty since he’d picked up the dawn London crew, Steve excused himself. When he jerked awake a few minutes later it was to find his wife beating down a flaring newssheet in the grate, and the contents of his pockets strewn about the floor.
Remembering, he bit his lip in dismay. Janey! It looked like the pilot’s letter had gone up in ruddy smoke. Well, here’s hoping it wasn’t anything important, he thought uneasily. He’d be in a right pickle if it was. Aw hell! Probably just a lot of sweet nothings, Steve consoled himself, and plenty more where they came from.