Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  She sighed. How could she still be so foolish, at her age? What difference did it make if Helena was consumed with envy or not? Why did she spend half her life hoping to make Steve regret that he hadn’t married her? Even if he were free, she’d never marry him now. Not after loving Dominic. Dominic had cherished her, Steve had used her. Was it a waste of a life? Should she have married and had children of her own? She was now thirty-five so her biological clock was slowly but surely ticking away. If she were honest, having children didn’t appeal to her. She had grown too selfish now, too used to her independence. Lainey didn’t feel in the slightest bit upset at the thought of not having any. She wasn’t at all maternal and she made no apologies to anyone about it. She was what she was and people could like it or lump it. She would never be happy married now. If Steve had asked her to marry him way back, deep down she knew she would have agreed, but he had married someone else. At least she knew that she would never marry for the sake of getting married as some of her friends had done, terrified when they reached thirty without having a ring on the finger. Better to end up on her luxury shelf than to live with someone who was a last resort.

  This was probably the reason her affair with Dominic was so successful. He was married and could never marry her. No doubt that was one of the first subconscious reasons she had been so attracted to him, that and the fact that he had helped her regain her self-esteem, which had been so deeply bruised and battered when Steve ditched her. What a nightmare that period of her life had been. Still she had overcome it. She had prospered and made a good life for herself.

  But at what cost? The thought came unbidden to her mind. Lainey picked up the inflight magazine and tried to concentrate on an article about the Seychelles. She did not want to think these thoughts. Facing the truth about her inadequacies was never pleasant and lately she seemed to be doing a lot of it. This restlessness, was it caused by getting older? Was she having a mid-life crisis? Surely thirty-five was too young to start the menopause. God Almighty! what was she thinking? The menopause happened to middle-aged women. Thirty-five was young. She’d better get out of this ridiculous humour before she landed in London.

  A smile lifted the corners of her firm lip-glossed mouth. Maybe she would treat herself to some La Perla lingerie, or maybe a little Janet Reger black number from the duty-free before she caught her connecting flight to Dublin. Dominic would love it, and the luxurious feel of satin and silk against her skin always made her feel a million dollars. It almost costs a million dollars, she reflected, smiling, but to hell with it, she deserved a treat. Steve would have loved it too. Oh for heaven’s sake! she grimaced in exasperation.

  Of course it was always the same when she was going home to visit Moncas Bay. It had been a few months since her last visit. She hadn’t even made it down for Christmas, she was so busy in her new job as Sales and Marketing Manager of Eagle Publishing. It had been one of the longest periods she had ever spent without returning to the place of her birth. No doubt she would meet Steve and see the desire that was always there when he looked at her. It was there in his eyes. The time he had seen her in that nothing of an emerald bikini, her skin tanned and glowing after a stopover in Santorini, her body far more curvy and sensual than Helena’s could ever be, he had wanted her. She saw the hunger of remembrance in his eyes, and was so proud of the way she had walked past him with a casual ‘Hi Steve’ to where Tony Mangan was waiting with a drink for her. Damn him, if she wasn’t good enough to marry, that was his loss. He had dropped her for Helena and her money and if he was regretting it, it was too late now. Not that he hadn’t done well for himself with the monied Helena.

  Steve McGrath had taken over his father’s ramshackle hotel, rebuilt it, and by dint of very hard work turned it into a grade-A hotel with one of the poshest eateries on the east coast. Only people with money could afford to stay and eat in Fourwinds. He also owned a large caravan and camping park about a mile away from the hotel and this investment was making him a fortune. Steve McGrath was, by all accounts, a paper millionaire, and she would have been his wife had she had money and come from a family which had so-called ‘class’. Helena was a consultant’s daughter while Lainey’s father had been a postmaster.

  Lainey had been so sure that Steve loved her as she had loved him. She had given him everything . . . everything. And he had taken it. No girl had ever loved a man as she had loved Steve, but love wasn’t enough. Was it ever? Look at Dominic. His wife was a fool. She had driven him into the arms of another woman through sheer neglect. Dominic would never have had an affair with her if his wife had treated him as a husband and not as a meal-ticket. Some women could be so foolish it was no wonder that men looked elsewhere for love and affection. It took so little to make Dominic happy. It hadn’t been the sex that kept Lainey and Dominic together although the sex was good. It was the sharing, the need for mutual affection after each of them had suffered rejection by the person they had loved. In each other they had found a measure of contentment that had deepened into a love that had lasted for nine years.

  Dominic wanted to pay half the cost of the apartment but Lainey was adamant. She wanted to buy the place herself, finally to have somewhere that she could call home after years of moving from one place to another.

  She had always planned to come back to Ireland. The years spent travelling had cured her of the desire to settle on foreign soil. She had met so many people on her travels who had emigrated, only to find they hated being away from home and longed to return. Many of them had given up good jobs too; it wasn’t unemployment that had driven them away. She had met one couple in the States of whom both had given up permanent well-paid jobs to live in New York. The wife was working as a waitress, making good money, but up at five-thirty each morning to do so. The husband was an elevator attendant. At home he had been an electrician. It was something Lainey came across again and again and it amused her. Neither one of this pair would ever have taken jobs such as these in Dublin.

  Well, she had taken the job with Eastern Gulf Airlines to make money, at least she was honest about it, and she had made money, good money, and seen the world too, but her aim had always been to come home and try and get back into publishing despite her dramatic resignation from Verdon Books.

  That had been one of the most impulsive decisions of her life, but she couldn’t take the bad management and sexism that had ruined all the good work and effort she had put into making that company the success it was when she had been Sales and Marketing Manager. Being unemployed had been a most unsettling experience and she had vowed to make enough money to buy a place of her own and have money at her back. Well she had more than succeeded and today she was going to view Apartment 3B with the intention of buying as soon as possible.

  Lainey smiled to herself as the jet flew across France. Liz’s apartment would be perfect. She would be in the same complex as Dominic, yet she’d have her own place where she could close the door and do as she wished. It was a good address, a mile and a half away from the city, and she liked it. It would impress the Moncas Bay set no end and that was always a little added bonus. The postmaster’s daughter had done well for herself and Lainey was just the girl to let them know it, to rub their noses in it. God knows they had rubbed her nose in it for long enough, the parochial little snobs. She sighed ruefully. Honestly, at this stage of her life she should no longer feel the need to impress them at home. Being honest with herself she knew it had taken a long time before she got over the sense of inferiority she had grown up with. Now to the outside world she gave the impression of being sophisticated, a glitzy career woman who had it made. A totally together woman, as the Yanks would say. And most of the time she was. Only when she knew she was going to visit Moncas Bay did the old emotions surface.

  No doubt she’d bump into her brother Simon, who was being extremely cool to her since the row at her other brother’s wedding. What a poor joyless man he had turned into since he had married that bloody snob, Cecily Clarke. If there was one person La
iney really detested it was her sister-in-law Cecily. Coming down from Dublin with her airs and graces, acting as though she was Lady Muck and she only a jackeen from somewhere off the North Circular Road. Oh, she hadn’t flown from a very high roost no matter what she let on. An excuse for a lady. Tall, dyed blonde, cold, selfish and affected, Cecily had come to live in Moncas Bay as Simon’s wife, revelling in the keep-up-with-the-Joneses lifestyle that was enjoyed by the small social elite set that lorded it over the rest of the Bay’s inhabitants. Simon, an utter slave to his wife’s whims, had little time now for his family, preferring to forget what he considered his not very well-off past, as he swanned around Fourwinds, smoking cigars and dressing for dinner with his wife, having G&Ts with Steve and Helena and the rest of the ‘in’ set.

  Simon and Cecily were so impressed by the pretentious crap that went on with the ‘in crowd’ in Moncas Bay that it was laughable.

  Lainey wasn’t. She just played them at their own game. She almost laughed as she imagined the expression on Cecily’s painted little rabbit face when she heard about the penthouse in Dublin. That would kill her altogether. What she lived in, though you would think it was the Taj Mahal from the way she went on about it, was a Bungalow Bliss style bungalow on the wrong side of the railway line. They didn’t even have a sea view.

  God knows, Lainey had tried at the beginning to be friendly to Cecily for Simon’s sake. And Cecily had certainly used her to worm her way into Fourwinds, but the other girl’s immense snobbery and her moody rudeness had been too much to handle. Cecily was wildly jealous of Lainey and every time she heard that she was jetting in from wherever, she would nag Simon into giving her the car to go to Dublin to buy clothes in Brown Thomas. Arklow and Wexford, the nearest towns to Moncas Bay, were far too downmarket for Cecily Clarke-Conroy to shop in. Lainey had been amused at her sister-in-law’s immature behaviour at first, but as time went on it got a bit wearing. The thing had come to a head at the wedding of Lainey’s brother, Martin. There had been what Saddam Hussein would call the mother of all rows.

  Still, seeing Maura and Martin and Joan her sister and her parents would be nice, seeing Steve would be bittersweet as always, but for Cecily, she would wear the cerise and black Yves St Laurent suit that she had treated herself to. What Maura knew but Cecily didn’t, was that it and many of her other designer label clothes had been bought secondhand in a classy swap shop in London.

  As the BAC 1–11 began its descent into Heathrow, Lainey took out her make-up bag and retouched her lipstick. She studied herself in the mirror. Naturally blonde hair drawn back in a chic chignon, highlighted green eyes ringed by thick black lashes that stared uncompromisingly back at her. Her lovely pout of a mouth curved in a grin. You’re a bitch, you know, she told herself, imagining the desire in Steve’s eyes and the envy in Cecily’s and Helena’s as she strolled into Four-winds, tanned, slim and exceedingly glam in her Yves St Laurent cerise and black two-piece, the owner of a new apartment if she was lucky. The world was her oyster. She had a challenging job that entailed plenty of travel. Right now she was returning from a trade conference in Rome. She was financially secure, an independent woman. And Dominic would be waiting. Maybe going home wasn’t so bad after all!

  DOMINIC

  Dominic Kent sped past the Rock of Cashel at seventy miles an hour, eager to get to Dublin. Lainey was flying in to Dublin later in the morning and he wanted to surprise her at the airport. Usually she left her car in the long-term car-park but she was having it serviced and he had told her he would be there despite the fact that she assured him she’d get a taxi. Today, for some reason, he wanted to be there when she walked through Arrivals. Besides she wouldn’t have much time to waste. Today was the date of her appointment to view Liz Lacey’s apartment.

  He’d been so surprised to hear that Liz was selling up. It was a pity he hadn’t known beforehand and he and Lainey could have done a private deal with her. It would be perfect if Lainey bought Apartment 3B. If only she would let him buy it with her! But she was determined to buy it herself. Typical of his independent partner. Trust him to pick a woman who was totally self-sufficient. The most unmistressy mistress, to use that old-fashioned sexist word! Other women would be thrilled to have their lovers offer to buy them an apartment. Lainey would have none of it. She would buy her own, thank you very much. Well, independent or not, he was crazy about her and he was dying to see her. Even after all these years of being together it was always special when she returned from abroad or when he came back up to Dublin not having seen her for a few days. He might be fifty-two but Lainey made him feel like twenty-two. Tonight was something he was looking forward to!

  Had it ever been like that with Rita, his wife? He couldn’t really remember after all these years. It certainly wasn’t like it now. She had barely been awake when he slipped out of their bedroom at the crack of dawn that morning. There was a time, many years ago, when she would have made sure that he had a cup of tea at least. Now it wouldn’t even cross her mind. He sighed. What a killer apathy was in a marriage. Not that Rita would ever have thought that she was apathetic, or indeed that their marriage had a problem. She was so busy on her committees, so engrossed with her children and grandchildren, so consumed with everybody else that she hadn’t time to think about their relationship. It had never even crossed her mind that Dominic would be unfaithful, and if she had known that he’d been having an extra-marital relationship for the past nine years she would have asked in genuine wonder, ‘But why?’

  He frowned. It was not what he had ever thought he would end up doing. It had caused him many sleepless nights but when he met Lainey, somehow it just seemed as though they were fated to love each other and be together. And things had worked out so well for them. His customs and clearance agency demanded that he spend half of every week in Dublin, where he had one office, and the other half in his home city of Cork. When Lainey was home he always arranged to be in Dublin, and Rita had no reason to suspect it was anything other than business that drew him there. She had no idea that he owned an apartment in Glasnevin. She still thought he slept in the bedsit adjoining his office. That was where he slept when she made one of her rare visits to the capital or if any of the children were coming for a visit. But damn it, he was fifty-two years old, a successful hard-working businessman and the apartment was his only bit of luxury. Not that their home in Montenotte wasn’t luxurious, it was. But the apartment was his haven, his retreat from the world, a testament to his success. Not bad for a fella who had started out with nothing.

  He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. Damn, he’d meant to get the news at nine. He switched on the car radio. Gerry Ryan was talking about condoms. Typical! Still, it reminded him that he must stock up himself. No, he didn’t want to listen to Gerry Ryan. What was Gaybo on about? He was trying to talk to Joe Duffy, but the line kept breaking down. Dominic decided none of them could beat Joe O’Reilly on Radio South but he had passed its range so he inserted a cassette into the tape and relaxed to the soothing sounds of Madame Butterfly. Humming to the music he pressed his foot a little harder on the accelerator, his rugged face creasing into a smile as he thought of his reunion with Lainey.

  CECILY

  Cecily Clarke-Conroy smiled to herself as she slipped into her Georges Rech dusky-pink pleated culottes. Culottes were the ‘in’ wear in the Bay this year and she had got them on sale in Monica Johns for £100, reduced from £200. A Guy Laroche navy linen jacket, a pair of navy Bally shoes, her Italian leather bag and she was right. Today Miss Lainey was going to get a right smack in the gob and Cecily was going to enjoy every moment of it. And she was dressed to the nines to rub salt in the wound. Lainey wasn’t the only one who wore designer clothes!

  Cecily smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She’d had her dyed blonde hair cut in a bob. Bobs were the ‘in’ hairdo in the Bay this season. Helena McGrath had had hers done first and the rest of the set had followed suit. What one did, they all did, and Cecily was right there in the middle of
them.

  If only Simon had built a bigger house. When he became successful, she had pleaded with him to buy a house on the Bay Road, the Fifth Avenue of Moncas Bay, so to speak. But he had stubbornly resisted the suggestion, declaring that he didn’t want to over-extend. Of course they should have done it years ago, but her dental-surgeon husband was always a bit cautious with money. You’d think he was having a tooth extracted whenever she presented her cheque stubs to him after one of her little sprees. Cecily smiled at her little joke. Well if he wouldn’t buy a mansion on Bay Road, and wouldn’t build a bigger house, he was damn well going to buy that apartment in Dublin.

  Actually he had been quite amenable to the idea. It had been a brainwave on her part, really. She would never have thought of it were it not for Mrs Conroy, her mother-in-law. When they had bumped into each other in the supermarket Mrs Conroy mentioned casually to her that she’d had a letter from Lainey saying she was going to view an apartment in Dublin with the intention of buying. Cecily had felt a surge of jealousy. An apartment! Her sister-in-law would swan around more than ever, doing the career-girl stuff. It was sickening! Sickening! It was bad enough having to look at her in those fantastic clothes with her permanent tan every time she came home. But to have to listen to her going on about her apartment! Life wouldn’t be worth living.