Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  Her mother had come to her rescue. ‘Buy me the material and I’ll make her dress for her,’ Molly offered when Claire told her of the price of clothes. The price of material was almost as bad. Obviously, when the First Communion was coming up, the prices were increased. But she managed to buy a piece of white material that didn’t cost the earth, and by the time her mother had added a few lacy frills it looked as expensive as any model in the shops. Claire had knitted the cardigan herself. The shoes were the main difficulty.

  ‘Can’t you dye a pair white?’ Sean demanded when she asked him for the money for the shoes.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Sean, it’s the child’s Holy Communion!’ she snapped in exasperation and he stared at her in surprise. Claire rarely went against his wishes.

  ‘Oh all right!’ he said grudgingly, taking some notes out of his wallet. ‘I suppose you’d better go and get something for yourself as well. It can do as your birthday present.’

  This was a surprise and she was mightily relieved. Suzy had come home from school full of tales about whose mother was buying what and that Valerie Reilly’s mother was going to buy a hat for the Communion. ‘Are you going to get something new?’ she asked her mother anxiously. Claire had expected to wear her lemon going-away suit that she had first worn at her wedding eight years previously. By dint of changing the buttons and adding some black trim and shortening the skirt, she had managed to update it and it was her ‘good’ outfit, worn many times. Suzy obviously hoped that her mother would buy something new for the Communion.

  Taking the notes that her husband gave her and with the eight pounds left out of her own cache, she bought the Communion shoes and a lovely mint-green summery suit in Dunnes. She even had enough to buy a cheap pair of white shoes for herself, which nearly killed her on the day. But at least she had looked well and Suzy was thrilled with herself in her finery.

  Claire knew it was hard on her children sometimes. They didn’t get the treats and toys that their friends got because Sean didn’t like to spend money on frivolities. She remembered Suzy, with her innocent little face, asking her was her daddy too poor to buy her a pair of roller-skates, because all her friends had them and she hadn’t and she really wished she could have a pair.

  ‘Santa will bring you some for Christmas,’ Claire had promised, but it grieved her. Sean earned a good salary. He could have given her the money to go and buy a pair but he wouldn’t.

  ‘You spoil the children, Claire. They’ve got to realize that they can’t have everything they want in life.’

  ‘Ah Sean, you were a child once. They don’t ask for much and a couple of pounds isn’t much to give to make Suzy happy.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed patiently. ‘But it’s skates now, the next time it will be a bike or some such like. You’ve got to draw a line somewhere.’

  Claire’s heart bled for her daughter. She knew what it was like. There had never been much money when she was a child, only what Molly could scrimp and save from the measly allowance that Billy gave her. But it was even worse with Sean. He had the money but he wouldn’t give it to her. Fortunately, Rosie was a very generous god-mother and always gave her godchild a decent present. She had rung from Dublin some time later wondering what to buy Suzy for her birthday and Claire had been able to say with delight that a pair of skates would go down a treat. But it galled her that she hadn’t the means to buy them herself.

  David, her quiet gentle little son, rarely asked for anything. He was such a good little boy. Even as a baby he had been so good. Claire had been devastated to find herself pregnant again three months after Suzy was born. She hadn’t even got used to her new baby when she was off again. The pain of childbirth was still fresh in her mind and the thought of going through the ordeal again had petrified her. But her second pregnancy was completely different. She hadn’t been as sick with David and even his kicking had been gentle, not like the lusty movements of his sister. She hadn’t been as big either and because she had so much on her hands with the new baby, changing nappies, mixing feeds, bathing, housekeeping and looking after her husband, she hadn’t the time to worry about herself as much as she had done during her first pregnancy.

  Suzy’s arrival had completely changed her life. No longer did she sit waiting patiently for her husband to come home from school. Now she prayed that he would be a bit late so she could catch up with herself. Every time her daughter cried she would watch her anxiously, wondering what was wrong. Each dirty nappy was scrutinized to make sure that there was nothing unusual in the colour. Every time the child’s cheeks got a bit flushed Claire would stick a thermometer in her mouth. If she didn’t sleep, Claire fretted. If she slept too long she worried about cot death. The first year of her daughter’s life, Claire was a nervous wreck, and knowing that she would have to go through the whole saga again with her next child made matters even worse.

  But when David was placed in her arms after a painful but mercifully short labour and she gazed at the little mite sleeping so peacefully, with his beautiful head of black hair and the little dimple in his cheek, she experienced the greatest moment of happiness in her life. There was something about him that calmed her. She studied his perfection for hours: the tiny perfectly-formed little hands and feet; the long curling eyelashes; the big eyes that looked at her so trustingly.

  She took him home to his father and sister and Sean had puffed up as proud as a peacock when he held his son, the heir and carrier of the Moran name. Suzy had been utterly put out and her tantrums at feeding-time caused Claire to smack her harder than she intended on one or two occasions. She always regretted it bitterly and both she and Claire would be bawling as David lay placidly, waiting to be fed. Her loss of control worried her. She’d want to be careful. Suzy was still a baby herself and she could so easily hurt her. It was just that she always seemed to know instinctively when Claire was at her lowest ebb and then she would start misbehaving.

  David never cried. He just lay waiting patiently for her to pick him up and feed him and then he would fall asleep until it was time for his next feed. As he grew older, Claire began to enjoy him much more than she had enjoyed Suzy as a baby. It lifted her spirits like nothing else to go into his room and peer into his cot, to be greeted with a gurgle and a smile. Those few moments that she spent alone with her son were something that she always treasured.

  To her dismay, Sean told her that she was spoiling him. And she was thinking she was doing so well this time! It was only years later that she recognized that her husband was jealous of the attention she gave David. She had hoped to breastfeed for a year – at least that might help prevent her getting pregnant so soon again – but as with Suzy she got mastitis and after three months was unable to continue. When Sean turned to her in bed ten weeks after David’s birth, she refused him for the first time in their married life. He had been most taken aback.

  ‘I don’t want to get pregnant again. I want us to use contraceptives,’ Claire pleaded.

  He was shocked. ‘No, Claire, it’s against our religion.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she was nearly in tears, ‘I just can’t go through another pregnancy. I can just about cope with the two babies I’ve got!’

  ‘But Claire! It’s against God’s law,’ her husband muttered as his erection began to subside.

  ‘God doesn’t have to have babies. If he did his laws might be different,’ Claire replied wearily, turning away from him.

  ‘Claire! That’s sacrilege!’ Sean was aghast.

  ‘Oh Sean, go to sleep!’

  From that night on, she began to dread sex. She couldn’t relax. As her husband took his pleasure she feared the invasion of sperm, knowing that one of them could take control of her life and that there was nothing she could do about it. Between her worry and her periods, which had got really heavy and irregular, she was a wreck.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ Rosie exclaimed in disgust, when Claire confided in her one weekend when she was visiting her family in Knockross. Rosie couldn’t s
tand Sean and he couldn’t stand her. Rosie couldn’t fathom why Claire had ever married him.

  Once, when he was still single, Rosie and some of her friends had been at a dance. She had had a few jars and was feeling nicely tiddly when she espied Sean, dressed in a green shirt and brown jacket and trousers. ‘Oh lordy!’ she giggled, ‘He looks like a mint choc-ice on legs!’ The others exploded in mirth. Rosie had no cause to change her poor opinion of Sean the more she got to know him. For Claire’s sake, they made an effort to be polite to each other, but it was only a façade and they knew it.

  ‘Claire, I know a real nice doctor in Waterford. You’ve got to get yourself seen to and you’ve got to get some sort of protection. Otherwise you could end up having a baby a year!’

  This horrific thought made Claire decide to do something about her situation. She couldn’t go to old Doctor Harris in the village. He was a crony of Sean’s and, besides, when she had consulted him before she was married about painful periods, he had brusquely told her to go and have a few babies and that she’d be fine. He wouldn’t be a bit sympathetic. She made an appointment with the doctor Rosie knew in Waterford and found him to be most understanding.

  ‘I think, Mrs Moran, that you should start to take the contraceptive pill.’

  ‘Oh I couldn’t! Sean, my husband, wouldn’t let me. He doesn’t agree with contraception!’ she said miserably.

  ‘I see!’ The doctor’s tone was dry. ‘Well I wasn’t only suggesting it as a contraceptive. I am also recommending it for medical reasons, to regulate your cycle and lighten your menstrual flow. Do you understand?’

  ‘I still don’t think my husband would be too happy,’ she murmured.

  ‘He doesn’t have to suffer painful periods. Believe me if he did, he’d want a double dose.’ The doctor smiled while writing the prescription.

  ‘Now get this in the chemist’s, go home and take it as directed and come back to me in three months. All right?’

  ‘All right!’ she agreed.

  The first time she took the little white tablet her hand was actually shaking. If Sean ever copped on he’d have a fit. But she had to take some control over her life; she couldn’t carry on the way she was going. To be sure, she put on a half-stone, and found that she retained fluid and got a few spots, but it was better than being terrified about getting pregnant and suffering excruciating periods.

  She felt terribly guilty about deceiving her husband, never thinking that it was his selfishness that had placed her in such a position. In time, she got over her guilt, took her pill, pleased her husband in bed and at least knew that she was safe from another pregnancy for the time being.

  For six years she kept her little secret to herself. When Sean queried the money for the monthly prescription she told him that she was deficient in iron and had to have a supplement. He never dreamt that she would lie to him and took her at her word.

  She watched her children grow from toddlers to children as her husband became stricter and more intense. She seemed to be living day after day in a vacuum. Then, a cyst on one of her ovaries had started to cause trouble and necessitated an operation. Her doctor instructed her to come off the pill six weeks beforehand and between the time she came home from hospital and the time she was able to go back on the pill, her husband had once again successfully implanted a sperm in her womb. He hadn’t given her a chance even to get over the operation. Where sex was concerned, Sean was totally selfish, demanding his husbandly rights, and she, her mother’s daughter, rarely denied him.

  Well, she should have denied him, should have made sure she was protected. Now it was too late. Still, she couldn’t really complain, she thought, as she fought down the nausea. She’d had a break of seven years. Thousands of women weren’t so lucky. It was just the thought of moving into that old-fashioned house in Dublin and having to shift all their worldly goods that depressed her. It was a fine house, she had to admit, big and roomy, although it would be expensive to heat, Sean had warned. It was on the northside of Dublin, between Ballymun and Glasnevin, in a parish called Ballygall. There were fields to the rear of the house, a rarity in Dublin, she imagined, and in the distance she could see the purples, blues and greens of the Dublin mountains. Claire had rather liked it, once she was able to see beyond the old-fashioned wallpaper with the cabbage roses, the yellowing antimacassars on the lumpy old chairs and sofa, the pelmets with the ornaments on top and the kitchen with the big cast-iron gas cooker. These would all have to go, she told her husband, and he agreed hastily, relieved that she seemed to like the house. The jungle at the back would keep him occupied. If there was one thing that Sean had a passion for, apart from sex, it was his garden. Cost was never a consideration when it came to his garden. Well, he’d have plenty here to keep him occupied for the long days of his summer holidays. Claire had noticed a few children playing on the street and that had cheered her up. At least Suzy and David would be able to make a few friends.

  If only they could move into the house after it was decorated. But Sean wouldn’t dream of paying to have the place done, so she knew better than even to ask. Well, she was going to get the house ready before the new baby was born. Sean didn’t know how lucky he was to have inherited a house. People were paying huge chunks out of their salaries for their mortgages. Sean wouldn’t have that worry and they’d save the money that they were paying on rent in Knockross. He could damn well spare a couple of thousand to get the house straight – otherwise she wasn’t moving! She’d make that clear tonight after the children were in bed; she didn’t want to spoil David’s big day with a row.

  She watched her precious son walk with his classmates up the aisle to receive the host. He was so anxious to make sure he swallowed it. ‘What will I do if it sticks, Mam?’ he asked worriedly.

  ‘It won’t,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll tell you what! We’ll practise with the ice-cream wafers on Sunday.’ Sunday was a big treat for the children, Sean allowed her to buy a small block of ice-cream to go with whatever tart she baked. The wafers tasted similar to the communion wafer and they had had great fun practising, she and Suzy and David. Suzy, of course, was an expert, having made her communion the year before.

  ‘Do it like this, David,’ she instructed, sticking her tongue out to its full extent as Claire placed a piece of the wafer on it. Claire had made sure that her husband was safely ensconced in the armchair beside the radio in the sitting-room, listening to his favourite programme. Sean wouldn’t have been impressed by her idea of practising for Holy Communion with wafers.

  Watching her son walk proudly down the aisle, cheeks working as he swallowed his wafer, Claire was so glad she had practised with him and taken the fear and anxiety out of his day. Catching her eye as he passed her seat, he gave her a big gap-toothed grin and she grinned back, resisting the urge to give him a big kiss and a hug there and then. With his unmanageable cowlick and his huge brown eyes smiling happily and his front tooth missing, he looked adorable. And in his new Holy Communion suit, he was so proud. She was wearing the same mint-green outfit she had worn the previous year. ‘Not much point in getting a new suit if you are going to be wearing maternity clothes,’ Sean told her cheerfully. He was delighted she was pregnant. Why, exactly, she did not know. He couldn’t really relate well to his son and daughter; there was always the element of the strict teacher in the relationship no matter how much she pointed it out to him. It was probably the fact that his manhood was proven again, she thought glumly, giving a discreet burp.

  At last the mass was over and they were outside and Molly was making a fuss of her grandson, who was so chuffed with himself. Suzy was talking to her friends and Sean was telling Mrs O’Toole that he’d got a position in Dublin and that they would be leaving Knockross soon. She’d miss Knockross. It was home. She’d worry about Molly. Her father’s health was bad, he had cirrhosis of the liver and life was not easy for her mother. At least until now she’d had Claire. The only small comfort was the fact that her father wasn’t drinking as muc
h, simply because he wasn’t able to. He spent most of his day in bed moaning and groaning. Claire wouldn’t miss him a bit and at least she’d have Rosie up in Dublin.

  Rosie was thrilled that she was moving. Her friend had done very nicely for herself. She had opened a small boutique which had done so well that she had opened another. Now, seven years later, she had five boutiques in Dublin and the suburbs and was pregnant with her first child. She had married an airline pilot she had met on holidays in New York and they lived in Howth. Claire had the greatest admiration for Rosie. She had always done exactly what she wanted with the intention of succeeding. Rosie never limited her vision nor did she let anyone else limit it for her. Her baby had been planned and was much wanted. If only Claire had had the nerve to go to Dublin with Rosie that time instead of marrying Sean, how different her life would be. Well, there was no use complaining about it now. It wasn’t that she was dreadfully unhappy or anything. Sean was a good provider and he loved her. Her children loved her and depended on her. It was just she had this vague feeling of restlessness. Her life was passing her by and she had not yet made her mark on it. Maybe the move to Dublin would change all this. She’d make it change. She didn’t want to be stuck for much longer in the rut she had carved for herself. Watching Mrs McNulty give David a pound, she smiled to herself. She’d make sure that her son spent that pound on whatever his little heart desired. They were going to Waterford to the pictures and then to have tea in a café as a special treat.

  The two children couldn’t contain themselves. ‘Can I have chips, Mam?’ Suzy danced along beside her as she walked towards her husband.

  ‘An’ me, an’ me?’ David piped up.

  ‘Of course you can! And you can have a banana boat each for dessert,’ Claire said cheerfully. She saw her husband’s eyebrows go into orbit at the mention of this extravagance but her children squealed with delight.