Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  Once she got back to Dublin, Liz set to work on the mural with skill and infinite care, preparing the wall to receive it, enlarging the design she was going to use, chalking the image on, before finally beginning the painting process. The result was breathtaking. Colouring in the last swaying palm tree, Liz knew without conceit that she had done a superb job. Incarna was thrilled with the mural and immediately set about organizing a huge party to celebrate its completion.

  It was the start of a friendship and partnership that had a lasting influence on Liz’s career. True to her word, Incarna began to secure commissions for Liz. She dealt with the financial side, causing Liz slightly shocked dismay at the huge sums she demanded. But people were more than willing to pay and Liz began to get a name for herself as the up-and-coming talent in the Irish art world.

  Marcus Kennedy, the restaurateur, contacted her again and she agreed to do a mural for him in his most prized restaurant, The Plaza, jewel of the jet-set and ladies who lunch. The Plaza was way beyond Liz’s price-range and all she knew of it was what she read in the gossip columns. Incarna told her of an unfortunate who, in an effort to impress his girlfriend, took her for a meal and told her to order what she wished. The menu was varied and exotic and of course there was no mention of price. The delighted girlfriend ordered with gay abandon, the waiters danced attendance, the chef came from the kitchen to see that all was well and the couple thoroughly enjoyed their meal. Upon being discreetly presented with the bill, the young man blanched and fainted clean away. ‘So be careful,’ grinned Incarna. Her voice took on a more serious tone. ‘And be careful of that Marcus. He’s not a nice man,’ she added darkly.

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Liz asked, a little puzzled.

  ‘I can’t stand him, my dear,’ Incarna replied, her usually pleasant features stern.

  ‘Why not?’ queried Liz, agog.

  ‘If I tell you, it ees to go no further, Liz. I have never told anyone else.’

  ‘Oh if you’d prefer not to, Incarna . . . I didn’t mean to be nosy,’ apologized Liz hastily.

  ‘No, no, Liz, it ees quite all right. I know you will be discreet and perhaps it will be of some help to you when he turns on the charm – for he can charm the birds off the trees, as they say. That man,’ her eyes darkened with anger, ‘that man used to be a guest in my house at many soirées and parties. I introduced him to many valuable contacts and do you know how he repaid me?’

  Liz shook her head, mystified.

  ‘Maria’s daughter was working here as my maid and he got her pregnant. And then he arranged for her to go and have an abortion and I never knew anything about it until it was all over. I only discovered it when I found the child half-dead from sleeping tablets one night. She had tried to commit suicide because of the guilt. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands. Naturally I confronted him and do you know what that bastard said?’ Incarna’s black eyes flashed with fury. ‘He told me that I could prove nothing and if I was not careful he would sue me for slander.’ She sighed. ‘And do you know something? He would. I tell you all thees so you will know what he ees like.’

  ‘I don’t think he is the kind of person I want to work for,’ Liz murmured doubtfully.

  ‘It ees too late, you are committed and, besides, it ees very good business for you. We will charge him an arm and a leg and hope he chokes on it,’ her mentor said with grim determination.

  And so, Liz found herself having lunch in The Plaza with its owner in order to discuss his idea for his mural. ‘This is a place for lovers,’ Marcus said smoothly, motioning to the waiter to pour the Dom Perignon. ‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed,’ he smiled conspiratorially, his eyes coming to rest on a well-known politician who was gazing adoringly into the eyes of a young blonde half his age who most definitely wasn’t his wife. Marcus returned his grey-eyed appraising gaze to her. ‘What I was thinking of was a mural showing some famous lovers in history, dining together almost as though they were in the restaurant itself? What would you think?’ From anyone else Liz would have thought it was a fantastically original idea but from him somehow it seemed tacky. Perhaps because his smile was a shade too warm, his eyes lingering on her mouth, and because of what she knew about him. It was a pity she didn’t like him because the idea itself was a real challenge.

  ‘Who do you see as the lovers?’ Liz said evenly before biting into a delicious mouthful of crab in filo pastry. Whatever about Marcus, she couldn’t fault the food served in his restaurant; it was mouthwateringly superb. She felt slightly guilty for enjoying it so much. Incarna would be disgusted if she knew.

  ‘Oh I don’t know.’ He smiled. ‘Napoleon and Josephine. Abelard and Héloise. Romeo and Juliet. Edward and Mrs Simpson. Burton and Taylor. Himself and yer one.’ He grinned, nodding in the direction of the enamoured politician. Liz could quite understand how Marcus could charm a woman. As a host he was faultless. He was intelligent, well-read, extremely cosmopolitan and witty. It was quite a shock to discover that their lunch had lasted almost two hours.

  ‘You’ll take the commission, then?’ he enquired as he politely held her coat for her.

  ‘I’ll send you a quotation. You might prefer to engage someone else when you see the price,’ Liz responded firmly.

  ‘I think not.’ His eyes met hers squarely in challenge. That he found her attractive was more than obvious. You haven’t a hope, buster, she thought to herself as she walked down the marble steps of the poshest restaurant in Dublin.

  ‘Charge him a million, the smug geek,’ Christine urged when she heard the latest.

  Liz laughed. ‘I’ll see what Incarna says. She knows all about these things.’

  ‘You’re not serious!’ Liz exclaimed, when Incarna told her the amount she should charge.

  ‘I am – very serious. Don’t worry, he will write that off to tax and boast about it to his friends. My dear, that amount will cost him little sleep. He is a wealthy man and he is getting something unique. A

  Liz Lacey original. He would be disappointed if you were to charge less. Believe me, I know.’ She sniffed. ‘The lovers’ mural will be a most talked-about thing. It will draw the diners to his restaurant. He will have one up on all his competitors and that is what he wants. So charge away and don’t feel one bit bad. That’s the way it’s done with these people. Outdoing each other ees the name of the game. I have seen so much of it.’ She chuckled. ‘Some of them take it so seriously it ees so entertaining.’

  Liz enjoyed painting the mural and in spite of her antipathy towards her employer, she found the work utterly rewarding. In the end, she used all the couples he had suggested, seating them in various poses at tables that matched exactly the ones in the restaurant. She worked behind a specially rigged-up screen and she knew from the staff and Marcus himself that the anticipation was rife among the clientele. It became a talking-point in the gossip columns, with people trying to identify the subject of the mural. Someone even attempted to bribe the staff to get them to reveal what exactly was behind the screen, but to no avail. The literati and glitterati, the politicians and poseurs, the ladies who lunch and the men who punch all had to wait for the great unveiling. Marcus was rubbing his hands at the furore. Business was booming. He couldn’t put a price on the advertising he was getting free. Incarna was torn between her delight for Liz and her dislike of Marcus.

  Once, he asked her out. ‘I don’t go out with married men,’ she said, unable to hide the contempt in her voice.

  ‘You don’t quite understand,’ he said, hurt. ‘Ours is now only a marriage of convenience. My wife leads her life and I lead mine. You’ve been here long enough, you’ve seen how many broken marriages there are in this city. Look at the number of couples you’ve seen in here who aren’t married. It’s a fact of life now, Liz. You shouldn’t be insulted because I asked you out. I meant it as a compliment.’

  Of course you did! she thought wryly. ‘The answer is no, nevertheless,’ she responded coolly.

  ‘I see,’ was his only c
omment and he did not press the issue further.

  The first anniversary of Matt’s death passed and she told Marcus she wouldn’t be working for a week. She got into the Mini she had bought with the money from Incarna’s mural and drove to the West to see Mrs Lacey. It was so hard to believe a year had passed since she had been widowed. ‘I survived it,’ she murmured as she drove along, the characteristic low stone walls of the West beginning to appear once she crossed the Shannon. ‘But at what cost?’ The sight of Mrs Lacey waiting for her brought back all the old heartache and visiting Matt’s grave she broke down and cried her eyes out. Had she made a mistake in coming? She didn’t know. Did the grief ever go away? Would she ever be able to think of her husband and not feel pain?

  ‘Yes, believe me, yes. One day only the happy thoughts will be with you,’ Incarna comforted her on her return, recognizing what the young woman was suffering.

  Christine and Eve, always supportive, hatched a plan to take her away for a few days. This was how she found herself one sunny Friday evening, her Mini packed to the gills, driving down to Roscarberry in Cork. ‘We hired a cottage. All you have to do is drive us there,’ her smirking companions informed her.

  ‘I don’t think Buttercup will make it!’ Liz protested that afternoon as they packed the little yellow car for the journey.

  ‘More like an epic voyage,’ muttered Christine, grinning as she placed three tennis racquets and three sun mats along a back seat that was already crowded with a box of groceries and goodies bought because the shops would be shut when they arrived. Eve arrived out with a ghetto-blaster. ‘In case we have a hooley!’ she informed her sister-in-law innocently.

  Christine emerged from the boot she had been packing. ‘I hope to God we don’t get a puncture because I’m not unpacking that lot on the side of the road.’ Liz raised her eyes to heaven and gave up.

  It was a hilarious journey. Liz could barely see out the back window because of the stuff piled on the seat. She really thought they weren’t going to make it at one stage as the poor little car struggled manfully up a steep hill.

  ‘There’s a huge traffic jam behind us,’ Christine informed her helpfully.

  ‘I can’t go any faster! My foot’s on the ground,’ wailed Liz, beginning to panic. They were coming near the crest of the hill and she had an awful feeling they weren’t going to make it to the top. She broke out in a cold sweat. What would she do if they started rolling backwards. ‘Come on, Buttercup, you can do it. Come on!’ she urged. Christine started to giggle in spite of herself and the drama of their predicament as the little car chugged up the hill.

  ‘Maybe if Chris and I got out and walked up the hill, the car would be lighter and she’d go faster,’ suggested Eve.

  ‘I’m not stopping as long as we’re moving forwards!’ Liz exclaimed. ‘Imagine trying to do a hill-start here!’ They inched forward and Liz, glancing in her rear-view mirror at the train of cars behind them, felt quite under pressure.

  ‘Your man at the back isn’t as close as he was. I think he realizes your predicament.’ Eve cheerfully continued her running commentary from the back seat. Buttercup gave a little wheeze of protest, chugged dramatically and then they were gloriously on the flat and power returned to their little chariot.

  ‘Good girl, Butsie!’ Christine patted Buttercup’s gleaming dashboard. ‘By God, that’s some car you’ve got!’ she remarked admiringly as they were overtaken by every car behind them, getting some irate glares in the process.

  ‘Up yours, too!’ Eve snorted as a Mercedes sped past with a derisory beep.

  They journeyed onward, stopping to have a picnic near the Rock of Cashel. Liz took a big bite out of her tuna and salad roll. She was starving. Driving always made her hungry and after the trauma of the hill she was a little drained, to say the least. It was a beautiful summer’s evening and the sun was sinking slowly in the west, behind the outline of the Rock, tinting the sky with pale pink and purple hues. She would have loved to have done a quick watercolour but had to be content with a charcoal sketch. They ate their picnic with pleasure. There was something about flasks of tea and eating in the open that really whetted the appetite. Munching on a Crunchie, Christine stretched long limbs, much to the appreciation of a passing motorist, and sighed. ‘Girls, this is the life!’

  They made good time to Cork with nothing untoward happening but had just left the outskirts of the city and were heading towards the airport when a malevolent fog descended from out of nowhere. To her right Liz could make out the runway and control-tower lights in the distance. She vaguely remembered passing a signpost, but before long they were well and truly lost.

  ‘For crying out loud!’ she swore about twenty miles later as they hit upon a signpost.

  ‘Crikey!’ exclaimed Christine. ‘We’re in Ballinspittle! For God’s sake, what are we doing in Ballinspittle?’ Surrounded by swirling fog they booted out of Ballinspittle in search of their holiday cottage in Roscarberry. By the time they got there and unpacked the Mini, the sisters’ tempers were slightly frayed.

  ‘Never mind,’ comforted the ever-placid Eve, producing a bottle from her overnight case. ‘A few vodkas will put us all to rights. Don brought home this bottle the other night. Someone gave it to him as a present, so I thought I’d appropriate it.’

  Liz and Christine grinned. Things could only get better.

  It was a strong-tasting vodka, Liz thought as she accepted another one a little later, watching Christine lowering hers with gusto. By heavens it was strong! she realized woozily after her third. She giggled as Eve said, slurring her words slightly, ‘God lads, I feel a bit fluthered!’

  Christine snorted as she poured herself another measure. ‘Sure the smell of it makes you fluthered. Look at the pair of you, tiddly already.’ She sipped away confidently, feeling immensely superior because she could at least hold her drink. That last glass was the rock she perished on for when she went to stand up she began to weave and, with a look of comical dismay, she sat down heavily. ‘I . . . I . . . I feel a bit peculiar,’ she confessed and the other pair began to giggle again. Unsteadily they helped each other up and giggling and laughing and as drunk as skunks they managed to make their way to bed.

  A sorry-looking trio emerged to meet around the breakfast-table the following morning. Pale and red-eyed and suffering monumental hangovers they sat with their heads in their hands, feeling very very sorry for themselves. Fortunately it was lashing rain outside so they crawled back to bed and slept it off to emerge again at noon feeling more human. ‘What in the name of God was that you gave us to drink last night?’ Christine grimaced at Eve as she drank a glass of cold water to try to allay her dehydration.

  ‘I’ve never felt like that after a few vodkas before,’ Liz said, slightly mystified. ‘It must be old age or something.’

  ‘That’s what I get for stealing my husband’s vodka,’ Eve muttered, holding her head. ‘I’d better give him a ring to tell him we got here. Come on with me. Why don’t we all go? The fresh air will do us good.’ The rain had stopped and it was wild and blustery as they walked along the road to the phone in the village. As Eve dialled, the girls looked around with interest. Roscarberry was a quaint little village, immaculately kept, and the tangy sea-breeze was a bracing tonic. A shriek from the phone box caused them to look in at their sister-in-law with dismay.

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with her?’ Christine wondered aloud to Liz.

  A minute later Eve stood looking at them, her face a study. ‘You’ll never guess what we were drinking last night!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘What?’ the others demanded.

  ‘It wasn’t vodka that was in that bottle; it was poitín!’ she informed them, half-amused, half-horrified.

  ‘We drank a bottle of poitín between us?’ Liz exclaimed, shocked. ‘No wonder we were fluthered.’

  ‘Pity it’s all gone,’ grinned the incorrigible Christine. ‘We could have put some in Buttercup’s petrol tank, and she’d scorch home to Dublin,
no trouble.’ They burst out laughing and headed down the village, chuckling at the idea of their innocently lowering the poitín in the belief that it was vodka. They had a lovely long walk and, feeling famished and much refreshed, went back to the cottage, cooked a slap-up feed, got out their books and lounged contentedly for the rest of the afternoon.

  It was such a pleasure to come away with the girls, Liz thought to herself as she watched Eve nodding off over her Jackie Collins blockbuster and Christine deeply engrossed in an Inspector Morse mystery. It was great to be with people you felt utterly comfortable and relaxed with and the three of them got on so well it was a joy. They were really lucky with their sister-in-law. Eve was one in a million and their brother was a lucky man. He was great too, Liz mused. He was all for Eve getting away for a weekend with the girls. Matt would have been the same. He realized how important friendship was and had never felt threatened by the relationships she had with her friends. Liz had seen so many of her friends become utterly consumed by their boyfriends and husbands, letting their girlhood friends fall by the wayside. It was something that appalled her. Matt had never smothered her like that. She would have gone crazy if he had. Just as she had never smothered him.

  Matt had loved fishing and had occasionally gone away for a weekend with his fishing buddies. They had feared that once he got married he would no longer be able to spend time with them as before. Liz was horrified when Matt had mentioned this notion to her. ‘You go whenever you want to go,’ she insisted, and smiled like a Cheshire cat when he nuzzled her earlobe and murmured, ‘I’d much rather stay with you.’ But both of them had kept their friends and their interests after marriage; it was no threat to their relationship ever, and now that he was gone Liz at least had the comfort and companionship of the girls. Matt would have roared laughing at the tale of the poitín, she thought with a pang, and gave a little sigh.