The next day was Thursday. In Chicago Kay sat in the crew taxi on her way to O’Hare airport. She hadn’t really enjoyed her few days in the Windy City and was relieved to be going home. Long stopovers, she had discovered the hard way, were only fun if you were meeting friends, or shared the trip with someone you liked.
As Kay had feared, knowing none of the crew meant she had spent her time in front of the television, or wandering the shops. Palmer House where they stayed had been very luxurious though, the best she had stayed in yet. It was on the corner of Wabash Avenue and with its deeply carpeted malls and expensive boutiques, decidedly more plush than the New York Sheraton Atlantic. It even had a swimming pool. Still, it was that bit too solitary for Kay and the only people she spoke to in the few days were shop assistants and the hotel doorman.
Now she looked out the window and told herself she should have been more adventurous, gone about sightseeing more. She had not felt up to it. The weather was too cold and blustery. Chicago had not earned its nickname for nothing. Next time she came, she consoled herself, she would have a friendlier crew, or at least know some of the hostesses on her flight.
Beside her, Captain Kenny chatted to First Officer Grehan. It was a coincidence that Ned and Pete had both been crew members on Kay’s supernumerary flight to New York in January. Now listening to their lighthearted banter she was reminded of all their jokes about laundry baskets full of suicides, and felt a pang at how long ago the trip now seemed.
The cars slid through the evening traffic. On a billboard high above the highway, the time and temperature repeated on a never ending conveyor belt of golden lights. There was a six hours time difference between here and home. Gazing upwards, Kay saw that Chicago time on this March day was six o’clock and the temperature 42 degrees.
In Karachi, eleven hours ahead of Chicago, it was in the early hours of Friday morning and Graham was asleep. He stirred ad rolled on to his back. Then in the uneasy, half waking state induced by fear of over-sleeping, he flung up his hand close to his eyes and peered at his watch. Due out to Bombay/Colombo at nine o’clock the luminous dials reassured him that he had some hours to go before pick-up. He relaxed back into an easier sleep.
Two hours later, Graham was showered and shaved, sitting at his bureau, glancing back over the letter he had written two days previously to Kay. He had held on to it, uncertain how he should finish it. Aware that time was passing, he picked up his pen and quickly added another couple of lines, before signing his name and slipping the sheets into an envelope. He addressed it to her, care of the Hostess Section and rejoiced that soon the misunderstandings and loneliness would be at an end. When they met, he told himself, they wouldn’t be long about sorting it all out between them.
A knock came at the door.
‘Pick-up taxi waiting, Captain Sahib,’ the mess-boy called.
Graham got to his feet and searched the table for a stamp, but to his annoyance he found he had used the last one. He was forced to leave the letter down again. Then he smiled at his impatience. There was no immediate rush. He would stamp and post it when he returned.
It was baking in the mini-bus taking them to the airport. Graham sat beside John and wiped sweat from his neck with a hanky. He thought of the forthcoming flight and mentally check listed the route. The first leg was straightforward enough, ninety minutes to Bombay, then a little over two hours to Colombo where they would overnight, becoming the slip crew that would next day take the incoming London service on to Singapore. Nothing too taxing if the weather held good. Freak storms were the greatest hazard in the Monsoon season but after two months in the east, Graham was becoming more accustomed to them.
They careered along the busy street, the driver taking terrible risks, recklessly overtaking and changing lanes. Surprisingly there were very few accidents. Graham reminded himself of this as they narrowly escaped collision for the second time and firmly turned his attention to the camels and rickshaws jostling each other on the city street. Although it was his second time in Pakistan he was still intrigued by the lack of order, the total chaos of city traffic. There were no designated bus stops and crowded buses moved steadily along with people climbing on and off all the time.
Ahead of them, another mini-bus cut in without warning and a heavily loaded horse-cart toppled backwards, causing even greater confusion. The drivers of both vehicles climbed rapidly down and there was a passionate interchange of opinion, accompanied by much gesticulating and verbal rhetoric.
Graham exchanged rueful glances with John and hoped the delay would not be too prolonged. On almost every trip to the airport something similar occurred. Thankfully so far, he had never been more than a few minutes late on taking-off. He glanced at his watch and hoped his record was not about to be broken.
It grew steadily hotter in the bus. Over eighty degrees, Graham reckoned, regretting the lack of air-conditioning. Even a fan would have been welcome. He envied Ralph in London, and pictured a nice spring day there, strolling about Piccadilly. By now his letters might even be delivered, he thought.
In Montreal where Captain Kenny put down the Celtic Airways Boeing en route to pick up more passengers, the temperature was below 20 degrees and several inches of snow covered the airfield. Kay manned the back of the cabin and shivered under her silk lined cloak as the freezing night air gusted in the open door. She gazed out into the blackness and was relieved when she saw the Celtic rep hurriedly crossing the tarmac with the joining passengers. Heads down, they climbed the metal steps, eager to get in out of the cold.
‘What’s the weather like at home?’ they enquired good-humouredly as they came aboard, stamping snow from their shoes.
‘Bright and sunny,’ Kay told them, laughing when they accused her of pulling their legs.
It was true that when they left Dublin at the beginning of the week they had been enjoying an unusually mild, untypically Irish spell of dry weather.
There was a continual buzz of chatter as the jet took off into the darkness and steadily climbed up the airways. With Easter so near everyone was in good spirits.
Sitting on the tarmac in Karachi International Airport Graham finished his preliminary take-off checks and heard the air traffic controller give him permission to roll.
‘Victor Echo cleared to Runway Zero Two and hold.’
As one by one the engines burst into life, Graham began tapping confidently round the knobs on the control panel. He moved his right hand over the well-known contours, familiarising himself again with the smooth square feel of the throttle box and the rows of levers. Over his head he was conscious of the myriad of switches. The brakes came off with a tearing sound and they began to move steadily forward. As his co-pilot and the engineer got on with the Check Lists, he peered at the blue taxi lights.
‘Coming up to Zero Two now, sir!’
They came slowly around the corner and stopped. Within minutes the controller in the tower gave them clearance.
‘Victor - Echo - clear - take-off - cleared to Bombay.’
Graham pushed the throttles up to 10,000 rpm. The jet began to shudder. He released the brakes and with a powerful, sustained roaring, they pounded down the runway. One by one the runway lights came twinkling up at them, then were left behind as slowly and majestically they rose into the air. Graham allowed the Boeing ride along half-way between sky and ground for a couple of seconds, then he pulled back and up she went.
‘Gear up! After take-off check.’
At two thousand feet a minute they began to climb. The needle on the airspeed indicator read at 180 knots - the only indication they had they were moving. All vibration had stopped and everything was steady. Beside him John confirmed that they were levelling off at cruising altitude. It was an hour and a half from Karachi to Bombay and the flight plan called for a height of 35,000.
Keeping her dead on course, Graham relaxed and began to enjoy himself. He moved the control column to the left and the port wing gracefully dipped. He pressed the rudder bar gently with his foot and felt the responsive twitch of her huge tail. As always he felt exhilarated as the jet responded to his every touch.
As they flew on his thought kept returning to his marriage. The trouble was he had got hitched too young, Graham told himself. He had not really been ready for it. At twenty-six he had been a rather brash First Officer, still in the process of maturing. Five, or even three years, he mused, would have made all the difference.
Graham’s situation was not all that uncommon. Scores of similar marriages existed. Couples did not always grow together, then found after so many years that they were no longer compatible. Perhaps Sile and he never had been! Given a choice he would have wished it otherwise but there came a point when nothing more could be done. Things were as they were and surely to God he was entitled to some happiness before it was too late. That Kay was so much younger than him worried Graham slightly but he shrugged away the thought and brought his mind back to the gauges on the glowing panel in front of him. From now on, he decided, he was going to live his life fully, not keep putting it off a moment longer. They flew on through a calm sky.
Forty miles on they ran into turbulence. Graham switched on the seat belt sign and made an announcement to the passengers. As the heaving got worse they strapped on full harness. The third member of their crew adjusted the power and activated the engine igniters to guard against a possible flameout.
It was a very strong wind and it kept changing its flight pattern, tossing them up and down and from side to side. The wind speed was 180 knots.
Graham glanced out of the side window and saw the wing tip see-sawing up and down. For twenty minutes they felt the full force of its fury. Then it abated as suddenly as it had begun, and the wind speed dropped back to a gentle 60. They kept their harnesses strapped on.
One hundred and twenty miles from Bombay they closed the throttles and lowered the nose to keep a speed of 260 knots. As Graham ordered the descent approach check and his crew progressed through the listed items, he found himself wondering again if Nicky had got his letter. He only hoped Ralph had posted it immediately on landing as promised. A smile hovered on his lips as he began the descent, gear and half flap down, all checks completed, dead in line with the runway.
‘Very nice landing, sir,’ John complimented him.
Graham nodded acknowledgement. If Colombo was half as good, he thought, they would have nothing to complain about.