Far away in Karachi, Graham was sitting in his room writing letters. The first was to be his wife and when he finished it and had scribbled a few lines to each of his sons, he intended writing to Kay.
After much thought Captain Pender had made up his mind to cut short his stint in Pakistan by two months. He was tired of this alien place far away from his family and friends, working routes he didn’t particularly like. It was time he went home. Luckily the pilot situation with the Pakistani airline had eased and there was no difficulty about terminating his agreement. Within a few days his winding-up operations were completed and he was planning to be back home in time for Easter.
He laid down his pen and stared thoughtfully through the slatted blinds on his bedroom window. He was getting out just in time, he told himself. Summer in Karachi began mid-April so he would be gone before the heat became oppressive, and before the end of Ramadan, the Muslim feast. They really took it seriously, Graham thought, a whole month of fasting from dawn to dusk. He would like to see them at home going for hours on an empty stomach, not even swallowing their own spit! He smiled grimly. And no booze ever, the unkindest cut of all.
Well, with any luck, he told himself, it would be a fine Easter. The holiday was falling late this year so there was a good chance of milder weather, and he might even take the boys on the cycling trip he had promised them.
And Kay?
Graham’s eyes clouded. To his utter mystification and chagrin, he still hadn’t heard from her. More and more he was coming to believe there had been some mix-up. Without being over conceited, he had always been aware how she felt about him and there wasn’t any way she could have resisted that first letter he had written her. It just wasn’t possible.
As he addressed envelopes to his family, he told himself that he must have been crazy to think he couldn’t work out something with her. It was not an either/or situation. It never had been. That was the mistake he had made from the beginning.
Looking back, Graham realised he had never expected the attraction between himself and Kay to last. While genuinely enraptured by her he had seen their relationship as a temporary thing, much like affairs he had casually embarked upon in the past as a little light relief from the boredom of his marriage. They had never at any time been in danger of developing into anything deeper - mainly because he had never felt more than a passing desire for any other woman, until he had met Kay Martin.
Now with the worsening relationship between Sile and himself, Graham was aware that it would be a miracle if they were still together in another year. Especially since Tom Conway had reappeared on the scene. In a recent letter from Christy Kane it had been clear that Sile was burning her boats in a big way with the racehorse owner. Trust Christy, Graham thought wryly when he read it. The other pilot had never been able to resist passing on the smut. He was disturbed but, forewarned by Nicky’s letter, not all that surprised. In a way it came almost as a relief and greatly eased his own conscience about resuming his affair with Kay. It was also the spur he needed.
Aware of time passing, Graham hurried down to Ralph’s room, intent on catching him before he left for the airport. Ralph was due out on the Beirut-London run and if he posted the letters for him in London, a lot of time would be saved.
‘Thanks, Ralph. Whenever you get a chance.’
‘Never fear, old chap. I’ll post them the minute we land.’
Graham wished him a good flight and went for a stroll about the concourse before returning to his room to begin his letter to Kay. First he needed time to think out what he was going to say. It wasn’t something he could rush. Well at least he had got the others off, he thought satisfied. With any luck Sile and the boys would have them in a day or two.
In fact, the letter to his wife arrived the next day.
Sile Pender was on her way out to the boutique when she picked it up. The English stamp puzzled her until she realised her husband must have got one of the pilots to post it for him in London. The news that he was coming home in time for Easter, she reviewed with misgivings. In the weeks since Graham had gone away, Sile had not only regained her self- respect but tasted a new kind of independence and she was loath to relinquish it.
She had made a pretty good recovery since the dark days of her suicide attempt and seldom dwelt on that bleak time anymore. It had been the worst period of her life and she hoped never to sink so low again. These days, she felt so good that it might have been someone else who had weakly succumbed to the feelings of inadequacy and shame brought about by her husband’s affair and the humiliating outcome of her visit to the airport.
The new boutique in which she shared joint management with her sister, satisfied Sile in a way her previous role of wife and mother never had. Soon they planned to open another shop. All they needed was the necessary capital to make a go of it. Since meeting Tom Conway again, Sile had found her backer.
She parked her car in front of the boutique and unlocked the shutters. This morning she was in sole charge, May having taken time off to keep a dental appointment. Business was fairly slack that morning and she was able to slip out at lunchtime to meet Jeanette Kane.
They shared a cup of coffee in Blackrock and over it, Sile heard that Christy was drinking too much and giving Jeannette a rough time.
‘Since he failed to transfer to the Boeings he’s very unsettled,’ Jeannette admitted with a worried sigh.
‘Poor Christy,’ Sile nodded sympathetically, glad that whatever about her own husband’s shortcomings he was an excellent pilot.
Over a second coffee she heard the latest doings in the airline. Captain Tully’s wife had left him to run off with her children’s school counsellor, Maura Kane had netted herself a marvellous new job with Virgo Airways and Simon Cooney had got himself engaged on the rebound to Orla O’Neill.
‘The Hostess Superintendent’s niece is the new Chief Hostess,’ Jeannette finished up. Sile passed no comment. Just so long as Judy Mathews did not succeed as
Superintendent, she thought, and told Jeannette about Tom Conway’s plans for them to fly over to the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
‘I’ll need a separate seat for my hat,’ she joked.
‘Lucky you! Make the most of it,’ Jeannette grimly advised.
Sile’s sentiments exactly. ‘Fly now and pay later,’ she grinned defiantly, and drove back to the boutique in better mood.
Later that afternoon, she amused herself by changing about the window display. It was great being her own mistress, she reflected, pitying Jeannette having to put up with Christy’s drunken bullying. She stripped the dummy and watched by two grinning schoolboys, their noses pressed to the glass, clothed it modestly in black taffeta.
In the same moment Sile decided that when Graham returned from Karachi she would leave him.