Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  The bitch! Wearing white on Cecily’s wedding day. Everybody knows you never wear white at a wedding to outshine the bride. And where did she get that tan? Cecily replaced her smile, remembering the video camera that was recording her progress down the aisle. There was always one fly in the ointment and La Lainey was hers. But not for long. Cecily intended taking Moncas Bay by storm when she went to live there and Lainey would only be trotting after her! Cecily smiled at the photographer who was waiting in the church porch.

  *

  Simon’s shoes were absolutely killing him and the collar of his shirt was too tight as he sat beside his new bride and listened to the priest telling them to be kind and loving towards each other for all of their married life. He was wondering should he tell the band at the reception not to play any Elvis songs, seeing as the great singer had died just a week previously. Simon wondered if it would be in bad taste to play his songs. He’d ask Cecily her opinion after the mass. He thought she looked stunning in her white wedding dress. Although she had taken out a credit union loan to pay for it, and ultimately it was he who would be paying the bills now that Cecily was no longer working, he didn’t mind. He was glad Cecily was not going to work after their marriage. He liked the idea of being the breadwinner, the protector. It made him feel good about himself. Cecily could just go and take life easy. After all she was a bit delicate healthwise, with that troublesome chest of hers, and the sea air of Moncas Bay would be just the thing for her. He squeezed his new wife’s hand and she squeezed his back, smiling radiantly at him.

  Simon was so glad that Cecily was looking forward to living in Moncas Bay. Not many women would be happy to give up the cosmopolitan delights of Dublin to settle in a backwater like Moncas Bay. But Cecily had assured him that she would make the sacrifice for him, and anyway wouldn’t they occasionally be able to go shopping and nightclubbing in Dublin for a treat? Mind they’d have to go easy for a while. Getting married and building a bungalow was an expensive old business and he’d had to get a locum in to replace him while he was away on his honeymoon. But business was good and with a new housing estate going up about two miles from the village, it was bound to get better.

  That Steve McGrath was really starting to do well and was getting things moving in the village! It was he and Surgeon Casey who had put up the money for the housing estate, and if what Simon had heard was true, all the houses were sold from the plans only. Moncas Bay was certainly changing, and for the better, although the village was divided on the issue, with one side giving out saying there were too many cars driving through to get to Fourwinds, McGrath’s hotel, and that the new caravan and camping site would bring in undesirables. But the shop-owners were all for it and were rubbing their hands with delight. Only the other day, Lorna O’Shea had opened a souvenir shop for the tourists and she was almost cleaned out after the first week with the hordes that descended. Josie Molloy had opened a burger and chip take-away and was making a mint.

  Mind, Josie was a patient of his and her personal hygiene wasn’t the best. He wouldn’t buy food from Josie’s café if he was to starve to death. Still, the doctor might get a few extra patients! There was a lot of arguing going on about it all but Simon didn’t really mind. His surgery was away from the main street, and he was all for progress, if it brought him business. It was a pity Lainey had stopped dating Steve McGrath all the same. It made things just a little awkward when Simon took Cecily up to Fourwinds for a drink, but that would ease. Simon intended staying friendly with Steve. He was a force to be reckoned with in Moncas Bay. He was the man to get the money rolling into the place and Simon Conroy intended being part and parcel of it all with his new bride Cecily at his side. His wedding ceremony complete, Simon placed his top hat on his head, took his wife’s arm and smiled a white-toothed smile for the video operator. Things were going great, and they were going to get better – he just knew it.

  Monday 6 February 1978

  ‘I’ll kill you if I’m pregnant, Simon Conroy!’ Cecily Clarke-Conroy glared at her husband as he entered their bedroom, bearing his wife’s breakfast tray.

  ‘Maybe you have your dates wrong,’ he said helpfully, depositing the tray carefully on his wife’s lap.

  ‘I’m never late, you know that as well as I do, and now I’m five days over!’ Cecily snapped as she examined the tray in front of her. ‘Simon, you know I don’t like the chunky bits of the marmalade!’ Her husband, raising his eyes to heaven, took the offending plate of toast downstairs, scraped off the chunky bits and marched upstairs again. He hoped to heaven that his wife was not pregnant. His life would be hell for the next nine months if she were. He banished this disloyal thought and smiled at his beloved.

  ‘There you are, pet, not a chunk in sight.’ His wife ignored him and began to eat her toast. Simon’s heart sank. If Cecily got into one of her moods she wouldn’t speak to him for a week. The best thing he could do was to go to work and let her get out of it. ‘I’m off,’ he said as cheerfully as he could manage.

  ‘That’s right! Off you go. You don’t have to worry about getting fat and losing your figure and having morning sickness,’ Cecily sniffed, feeling extremely sorry for herself. This had not been the plan at all. Getting pregnant! She was a bride of only six months. Life was just so unbelievably pleasant now that she didn’t have to work for a living, now that she had someone to take care of her and worry about her and give her everything her little heart desired. It was blissful. Simon treated her like a queen. He brought her breakfast in bed every morning before he went to work. After that she would snuggle back down under the bedclothes and snooze until about eleven. Then she would have a leisurely bath, reading a couple of magazines and eating chocolates as she lay in the warm water. Simon would have the fire set, so all she would have to do was to put a match to it. Cecily loved lying on the sofa in front of the fire, reading Mills & Boons. Poor Simon, he wasn’t exactly a Mills & Boon hero, but he was an excellent husband. If it wasn’t for Simon, she’d still be slaving for that lazy old sod of a tyrant, Muir.

  Simon spent two days a week doing operations and the other three at his practice. The days he was at his practice he came home for lunch so she would have to prepare something, but the other two days he ate at the hospital. If it was absolutely awful weather, she might stay in bed reading until four in the afternoon. Cecily adored the bed. Now if she was going to have a baby, she’d have to look after it and her blissful lazy days would be over. Babies were such messy, demanding little creatures. Mummy would just have to come down to Moncas Bay if she was going to have one.

  Cecily raised her grey-blue eyes to her husband’s and said in a tone that brooked no argument: ‘Simon, I want you to take my car and give me the Audi. I want to buy a few things in Dublin.’

  *

  Of course he should have known that it was coming. Ever since she heard that Lainey was coming home on a visit, Cecily had been edgy. Only a trip to Grafton Street would assuage the edginess. Blast Lainey anyway! What the hell did she want to be coming home for, upsetting everyone? Why couldn’t she stay in Dublin and parade her fashions up there? It was really awkward now that things were over between her and Steve McGrath. Why couldn’t she just marry Tony Mangan and settle down and not be swanning around the place doing the career girl.

  ‘All right!’ he growled as he left the bedroom, knowing that his wallet would be a couple of hundred pounds lighter by evening time. Just as well his dentist’s practice was doing extremely well. Otherwise his wife would have him bankrupt.

  *

  Cecily finished her breakfast, had a leisurely shower, then strolled into the village to have her hair done. One couldn’t go shopping in Grafton Street uncoiffed after all, nor could one drive to Dublin in a ten-year-old Ford Escort. Her husband’s Audi was much more her style. What would she buy today? If only she could get something that would really show that Lainey one that she wasn’t the only woman who could show off in designer labels.

  It would have to be Brown Thomas t
oday, she decided. Helena McGrath had gone on a spree in French Connection last week. Yes, decided Cecily, it was definitely time for a little serious buying. She wondered who did designer maternity dresses. If she was pregnant, that was it, there wasn’t much she could do about it now. If she wasn’t, Simon would just have to abstain until after the mid-summer ball. She wanted to create a sensation at that. Last year Madam Lainey had stolen her thunder but this year, with any luck, she wouldn’t be at it. She wasn’t coming home half as much these days, claiming that it was because of her new high-powered career. Cecily didn’t believe a word of it. It was because of the break-up with Steve. She was sure of it. There was much more to that than met the eye, despite Lainey’s claims that the decision to part was mutual. It had taken her sister-in-law down a peg or two. Good enough for her, the superior know-all. It would be just like her to marry that Tony Mangan and come back to Moncas Bay to lord it over all of them with his masses of money. It was such a pity having her for a sister-in-law, it ruined everything.

  Deep down, Cecily acknowledged that Lainey impressed the hell out of her with her looks, her style and her supreme self-confidence. Lainey was the kind of woman Cecily had always imagined herself to be. Being outshone was not easy to take, and Lainey outshone her every time. Well things were going to change. After all she was Mrs Cecily Clarke-Conroy; her husband was a highly respected dental surgeon who was looked up to in the village. It behoved her to be expensively dressed and if she was pregnant, by heavens she was going to buy only the best. She was certainly not going to look like a sack of potatoes. While she was treating herself to a few outfits today she’d cast an eye on the maternity wear on display. Her mind made up, Cecily settled into the Audi for the drive to the capital.

  THE EIGHTIES

  LIZ

  Saturday 22 May 1982

  It was the third anniversary of Matt’s death and as Liz stood on the balcony watching the dawn rise over the low hills that surrounded Santa Ponsa, she couldn’t believe that she had been widowed for three years. The terrible frantic numbing grief was gone but the sadness remained. Where was Matt now? Did anything of him still exist? Was his spirit serene and contented in another world? If only she knew. If only she could believe that there was an afterlife and that they would meet again, she would be comforted. Death was such a final thing. One minute her husband had been alive. Breathing, warm. And then he was gone and there was nothing. She had never felt so powerless as she had done at the moment of her husband’s death. Even the most powerful people in the world had no control over the moment of their death or of anyone else’s. Death was the great leveller of human arrogance.

  Sighing, she watched the fishing boats slipping in and out of an early-morning fog as they returned from a night’s fishing. She loved this hour of the morning, watching the sun’s rays dapple the sky with pale pinks and lilacs. The light was much softer than the harsh intensity of brightness that caused the eyes to squint later in the day. Still, she loved Majorca, loved the vivid blue of the Mediterranean sky and the whitewashed, orange-roofed villas surrounded by an abundance of bougainvillaea and jasmine and many other beautiful flowering shrubs she didn’t know the names of. It was an artist’s paradise and she had done so much work the last two weeks.

  How lucky she had been to meet Incarna Fitzgerald. Liz smiled as she slipped into a towelling robe and walked down the whitewashed steps that led from her balcony to a flower-filled courtyard. In the distance a dog barked, the only sound in the still morning. A jet flew overhead, making its descent towards Palma Airport. The tourist season was beginning to get into its swing, Liz thought regretfully. There was such a difference between the place in early spring and autumn and in the high season.

  ‘Go! Take the girls with you and have a rest for yourself,’ Incarna had insisted, generous to a fault. She was the most amazing woman really. Liz never knew what she would surprise her with next. From their first meeting, it was apparent that Incarna Fitzgerald was a woman who got things done.

  Liz had first encountered her at the official launch of her first mural, some months after Matt’s death. It had been a glamorous glitzy night. Liz had spoken to celebrities, politicians, the rich and famous whose names she had only ever seen in the society columns. As regards the launching of her career, she could not have been luckier than to have all these monied people ooohing and aaahing over her masterpiece. Much to Christine’s amusement. Christine was doing her best to keep her entertained with a string of dry witty asides and indeed Liz did try to enter into the spirit of the occasion but as the night wore on, in spite of her best efforts to make the most of it, it seemed to her that the evening had turned flat, like champagne without its bubbles. Liz knew exactly why. Matt wasn’t here to share it with her. He would have been so proud of her and her achievement. Liz knew so well how they would have celebrated her success. They would have left the party early and taken a bottle of champagne with them and they would have gone to Burdock’s for a fish-and-chips, as they did that first magical evening they had spent together. Then they would have gone home to their snug flat and made love until the early hours before falling asleep contentedly, curled up close together. Matt had been such a supportive husband, so loving and considerate. For all of their short married life, Liz had felt cherished and loved and exquisitely happy as never before. Marriage had given her such a sense of freedom because Matt had been there to share her joys and her troubles. Now, alone, she was trapped in the bondage of grief. She doubted that she would ever experience such happiness again.

  She was standing, lost for a moment in thoughts of Matt, a heartbreaking sadness in her eyes, unaware that a pair of vivacious black eyes were observing her with more than a little understanding. The next minute, the owner of the black eyes was sweeping across the room towards her and Liz came back to earth to find her hand being very enthusiastically pumped by a small raven-haired, foreign-looking woman who spoke with the most marvellously musical, accented English.

  ‘My dear, I have longed to meet wiz you. It ees such a pleasure to finally meet such a wonderfully artistic person as you are. I am Incarna Fitzgerald, a director of thees company, and, my dear, I wish to know if perhaps you are not too busy you might consider to do a mural for me?’ the woman exclaimed breathlessly.

  ‘Oh!’ Liz was taken aback by the impetuous stream of words.

  ‘I realize that you must be very booked-up but I have decided you and you alone can do what I wish to be done and I will wait until you are free!’ Incarna exclaimed dramatically.

  ‘What is it exactly that you want me to do?’ asked Liz, intrigued.

  Incarna smiled, showing pearly teeth. ‘I want you to paint me a mural. I want you to paint the Catedral de Palma de Mallorca on the wall that encloses my swimming pool! It would make me very happy and remind me of my home.’

  This was unusual, Liz decided, but there was something warm and friendly about Incarna that she liked. Some of the people she had met this evening had been rather superficial, to say the least, with their murmurs of ‘charming’ and ‘delightful’ as they surveyed her work and the limp handshakes as they were introduced, their eyes constantly surveying the room in search of photographers and journalists and other important personages as they spoke to her. Incarna’s interest was quite genuine – of that there was no doubt.

  ‘The Cathedral in Palma,’ she mused. ‘Have you any sketches or photographs that I could work from? I would need those if you have them – and I’m afraid it will be a few weeks before I could start on it as I have work in hand already.’

  ‘A few weeks!’ Incarna laughed, a low throaty chuckle that seemed to come from her toes. ‘My dear, I expected it to be months. This ees wonderful.’

  As they spoke, a tanned man in a business suit strode up to them. ‘Incarna, stop hogging the guest of honour.’ He turned and spoke to Liz, shaking her hand for rather longer than was necessary. ‘I really must congratulate you, Mrs Lacey.’ He was in his mid-forties and everything about him spoke of s
uccess and affluence: his tan, his gold Rolex, his made-to-measure suit. He was looking at Liz and his gaze was frankly admiring.

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself, seeing that Incarna won’t do the honours. Marcus Kennedy and I’m delighted to meet you.’ He smiled a charming smile. The name sounded vaguely familiar to Liz but she couldn’t remember where she had heard it.

  ‘How do you do, Mr Kennedy,’ she responded politely.

  ‘Oh Marcus, for heaven’s sake! Mister makes me sound so old.’ He smiled again.

  She thought she heard Incarna make a noise suspiciously like a snort. ‘Marcus,’ she amended politely.

  ‘Mrs Lacey and I were discussing business,’ Incarna said coolly and Liz felt from her tone that Mr Marcus Kennedy was not one of her favourite people. ‘Mrs Lacey is going to do a mural for me.’ The Spanish woman smiled sweetly.

  Marcus’s neatly-trimmed eyebrows rose a fraction. ‘You don’t waste much time, do you, Incarna?’ He turned again to Liz. ‘A mural. That’s very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I own a couple of restaurants,’ he said smoothly. ‘Perhaps you might consider doing some work for me – when you’re finished with Incarna, of course.’

  So that’s why his name was familiar. Marcus Kennedy owned some of the most exclusive restaurants in the city as well as several lucrative nightclubs. Really, this evening was doing wonders for her career. For that she had to be thankful.

  ‘Certainly,’ Liz smiled. ‘It may be some months, though. As I explained to Mrs Fitzgerald I already have work in hand and of course I’m not yet sure how long her mural will take to execute.’

  ‘I quite understand. I’ll give you my business card and you can phone me at your convenience.’ Marcus smiled, his grey-eyed appraisal making her feel a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure whether she liked him or not. He was a bit too arrogant and self-assured for her taste, despite his suave charm. Handing her an elegant pale blue business card with gold lettering, he said pleasantly, ‘I’ll look forward to your call.’ Then he turned and was lost in the crowds that eddied around.