Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  It was bad enough having to listen to Cecily rubbing it in. She did it deliberately every time Lainey came home for the weekend. ‘I saw Steve and Helena the other night. Simon and I had drinks with them. Marriage really suits them. They look so happy. You and Tony should try it and give us all a day out.’ She laughed gaily with a pretended artlessness.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath, dear,’ Lainey said coolly, trying hard to hide her irritation. She knew full well what her sister-in-law was up to. She was trying to rub salt in the wound. Cecily had a malicious streak that seemed to surface when she was around. What Simon saw in his wife Lainey would never understand – she had never met a more selfish and self-centred individual. The carry-on of her when she got pregnant a few months after her marriage! It was obviously a miscalculation but one for which her brother had suffered dearly.

  After his day’s work he would have to come home and turn around and cook a dinner, while Cecily sat with her feet up, plump cushions behind her back, resting, reading magazines and stuffing herself with chocolates. Not any old chocolates either but hand-made chocolates. Cecily had told Lainey that she had such cravings and such terrible backache and heartburn and she couldn’t possibly think of cooking a dinner, it would make her sick. So either Simon cooked it or else they ate out. Lainey never ceased to be amazed at her sister-in-law’s utter selfishness. One weekend Lainey was visiting and Cecily was really playing the old soldier, complaining about not sleeping a wink because of the baby’s kicking. Simon was looking absolutely wretched and exhausted and, listening to the other girl’s moans, Lainey pitied him from the bottom of her heart. Cecily was so disloyal to him, always giving out about him in front of his family.

  ‘Honestly, the house is like a pigsty. I’ve been asking him for months to paint the windows and they’re still there waiting. Men!’ Cecily sighed, throwing her eyes up to heaven and giving her husband a filthy look. If anyone was suffering nine months of misery it was Simon. Lainey forbore to make any comment. Putting in a day’s hard work and coming home to cook and housekeep hardly left him any time for painting, she would have thought. ‘Don’t ever get pregnant,’ moaned Cecily. ‘Simon, rub my back.’ Her husband dutifully complied. ‘I think I’d like a cup of hot milk,’ she said five minutes later. Simon, the fool, rushed out to the kitchen to get the hot milk.

  ‘Is your gynaecologist worried about you?’ Lainey asked sweetly.

  Cecily looked surprised. ‘No, not that I know of. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh it’s just . . . it seems unnatural the way you seem to be . . . suffering. After all, pregnancy isn’t an illness, Cecily, it’s the most natural thing in the world. I have a friend in Washington who’s seven months pregnant. She gets up at five-thirty every morning, leaves for work at six, arrives for seven, works until five, doesn’t get home until six and you’d never hear a word out of her. She’s really terrific, totally in control of the situation. Isn’t it amazing how pregnancies differ?’

  Cecily was furious, absolutely ripping. Lainey, unable to take any more, stood up to leave. But her little speech had the desired effect; Cecily never again carried on like that in Lainey’s company. In fact she had been extremely cool with Lainey, who couldn’t give a hoot. The less she had to do with dear Cecily the better, as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Is she booking into the Portland Hospital?’ Joan, Lainey’s sister, wondered, as they sat discussing the pregnancy of pregnancies one evening after she had come up to Dublin to spend the weekend with Lainey.

  ‘The where?’ Lainey was confused.

  ‘You know! Where the Royals go to give birth in London.’

  ‘Bitch!’ laughed Lainey.

  ‘Well, I have to put up with it all the time, you only have to endure it on your flying visits,’ retorted Joan with a grimace. ‘You should see herself and Helena McGrath trying to out-do each other in designer maternity wear.’ She caught Lainey’s eye. ‘Oops! Sorry!’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ sighed Lainey. ‘Steve married Helena and not me and I’ve got over it. I had to, and if they have two dozen children that’s their business and nothing to do with me.’ She said this firmly although it had cut her to the quick when she had heard that Helena was expecting a honeymoon baby.

  ‘He’s a self-seeking bastard anyway and you’re better off without him,’ Joan declared loyally. ‘If Helena hadn’t any money you can be damned sure he wouldn’t have looked twice at her.’

  ‘Well she had and he did,’ Lainey said miserably, wishing that Joan would change the topic of conversation.

  ‘Let’s go to a nightclub!’ Joan said eagerly. ‘What you need is a new man in your life!’

  ‘That’s the last thing I need, believe me!’ Lainey assured Joan as she began to get ready to go out. She meant it. She had no interest whatsoever in dating, despite the fact that she was constantly being invited out. Lainey was perfectly happy to socialize with Tony occasionally but mostly she devoted herself to her career. Besides, much of her work was socially oriented anyway. She was forever organizing and attending book launches, trying to make each one different and more newsworthy than the last. Then there were the book fairs and trade conferences to be attended and she was spending an awful lot of time in London, publicizing and selling Verdon’s books there. She rarely had time to dwell on her manless state or the fact that her heart had been broken by Steve McGrath. It was all go and she thrived on it.

  She moved from her Rathmines flat to an apartment in Monkstown. Patrick insisted she be given a generous increase in salary on her promotion and she decided to treat herself to a bit of comfort. The apartment was small and compact and a nice change from the cold old-fashioned flat that she had lived in for so long. Everything was new. It was the first time the owner had let it and it was in perfect condition and Lainey could even see the sea from her balcony. She had been saving hard herself, with a view towards getting a place of her own and in time, she promised herself, she too would be a property-owner with her own home. After all rent paid was money down the drain really, when you could be paying a mortgage, but for the time being the apartment in Monkstown suited her needs very well.

  She now drove a company car which was marvellous as she hadn’t to worry about tax and insurance costs or petrol expenses. But then of course she did a hell of a lot of driving around: bringing authors around the country for book-signing sessions; visiting the wholesalers and retailers; meeting artists who were designing the book covers. Lainey loved that part of the job. From the time she spent working in the library service, she knew the types of covers that appealed to people in the different markets. It was fascinating to discuss her ideas with an artist and a few weeks later to see the result of the discussion. As far as Lainey was concerned the cover was as important as the contents of the book. It was the cover that first attracted the buyer and she had always been fascinated when she worked in the libraries to observe what books people went for in the new book displays. Invariably a glitzy, glamorous cover meant that the book was never on the shelf for long.

  Now Verdon’s book covers were as glitzy and as glamorous as their competitors’ and it was paying off in sales. Their last blockbuster had been on the bestseller list for thirty weeks and the cover had been much admired and commented upon. The literati might sneer at mass-market fiction but it was commercial successes like these that made the profits and kept publishers in jobs and the public happy. But then it was great having a boss like Patrick who was so amenable to suggestion and who was so supportive. Once he had seen that she could perform her job well he let her get on with it and that suited Lainey perfectly; she had always felt so constrained in the library. At Verdon she could develop and use her talents to the full.

  As the water streamed down her back, Lainey stretched contentedly in the shower. She liked Cork and she liked staying in the Country Club Hotel. There was nothing she enjoyed more after a hard day doing the rounds than to sit, after dinner, in the beautiful big-windowed lounge and watch the lights of the city g
littering below her. She had a busy day ahead of her tomorrow. She was collecting an author from the airport and then they were doing a signing session in Eason’s bookshop as well as visiting the smaller ones around the city. Then there was a radio interview to be conducted as well as newspaper interviews that the PR firm had lined up. After that the author had to be wined and dined before being put back on a plane to London. So tonight, Lainey was going to take things easy and relax.

  She dressed in a pair of black tailored trousers and a soft pink angora batwing jumper, wound her hair in a topknot, put on some lipstick and Chanel No. 5 and headed for the dining-room. It was busy enough but the waiter, who knew her well, placed her at a window table and after ordering she sat back to enjoy the view. She didn’t see anyone she recognized. Sometimes she would meet reps that she had got to know and have dinner with them but tonight there was no-one that she knew. Of course it was bank holiday Friday. Who else would be working on a bank holiday? But tomorrow there would be more people in town than normal, all the better for the signing and book sales. Across at another table from her, a well-built man with greying hair worked on papers from a briefcase as he ate. Someone else working, she mused. He caught her eye and smiled. Lainey smiled back and then the waiter was beside her with her egg mayonnaise and, starving, she tucked in.

  After dinner she went for a brisk walk. It always helped to clear her mind for sleep. Then as the dusk started to fall she headed back to the hotel for a drink before bed. Settling into a comfy window chair, she sipped her spritzer and glanced in a desultory way through her folder of covers for forthcoming books. There was a great selection of titles for the autumn/winter list and she was very pleased with them.

  ‘I think you dropped this,’ a pleasant male voice was saying and looking up she saw the man who had been working at dinner smiling down at her as he handed her one of her book covers.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Lainey smiled back, taking the cover from him.

  ‘You’re in the book trade then?’ He smiled at her and she liked the way his eyes crinkled up at the sides.

  ‘Yes I am. For my sins.’

  ‘I’m sure the recession doesn’t help,’ he observed.

  ‘Well it’s not too bad now. In fact we weathered it well and business is picking up. Are you staying over yourself?’ she asked. She had never seen him before; he wasn’t a rep that she recognized.

  The man laughed. ‘I live in Cork, actually. I was supposed to be having a business meeting with someone from Dublin but because of the train crash there was a hitch and he phoned to say he can’t make it until tomorrow, so I just decided to have dinner anyway and do a bit of work. It’s quieter than at home,’ he said a little wryly.

  ‘That was a terrible crash,’ Lainey remarked soberly. ‘I was supposed to be on the train.’

  ‘You had a lucky escape then.’ He smiled at her. She smiled back. He was nice. ‘Dominic Kent,’ he said holding out his hand.

  ‘Lainey Conroy,’ she reciprocated, and her hand was firmly shaken.

  ‘I was just going to have a coffee before I left. Would you like one?’ he enquired casually.

  It was too early to go to bed, she had nothing better to do and it was nice to have a bit of company. ‘Why not?’ Lainey smiled.

  ‘Why not indeed,’ Dominic said as he motioned to a waiter to come and take their order.

  Tuesday 22 June 1982

  Lainey gasped with pleasure as Dominic slid the silky blouse from her shoulders and gently cupped her breasts. Her nipples hardened with desire. It was so long since she had made love to a man and she was hungry for him. Lowering his mouth to her breast Dominic’s tongue caressed her, as his hands slid down to her waist and drew her even closer to him. He was as aroused as she and the heat from his body and the hardness of him made her ache with longing.

  ‘Lainey! Lainey!’ He was muttering her name, his breath coming harshly as he bent his head to hers and kissed her passionately. Frantically she unbuttoned his shirt, wanting to feel the roughness of his skin against her own. Her fingers gently caressed the tangle of dark hair at his throat, and then moved down his broad chest and over the lean flatness of his belly, to where the dark line disappeared inside the waistband of his trousers. ‘You’re beautiful, Lainey,’ he said drawing her down on the bed beside him as she slowly unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants.

  ‘Make love to me, Dominic,’ she whispered huskily. Drawing her close to him, he did as she asked.

  Later, much later, as he slept with his head resting on her breast, his heavy-muscled thigh hard against her own, Lainey lay watching the moonlit sky through the window. It was a warm night and they had just a sheet thrown over them. The last time she lay in bed with a man, her body tingling and invigorated after passionate lovemaking, had been with Steve. It was so long ago she had almost forgotten the pleasures of making love. Maybe it was a good thing that her memories of Steve’s lovemaking weren’t strong enough to compare with what she had just experienced with Dominic. And what she had experienced with Dominic was pure unmitigated pleasure. After years of celibacy her body was celebrating and she smiled to herself in the moonlight. Dominic had been a generous and thoughtful lover, making sure that it was as good for her as it had been for him. It had not been Steve’s way. If it had been good for him, he assumed it had been good for her. Dominic had made sure.

  She had thought she would never get involved with a man again and she had certainly never envisaged herself making love to a married man. Lainey sighed in the dark. She felt a little guilty and yet from what Dominic had told her of his relationship with his wife and what she had observed in the almost two years that she knew him, she could understand why the dark-haired man sleeping so peacefully beside her would eventually give up on the relationship and seek to find happiness elsewhere. Rita Kent was a fool! Her husband was a good man and until now had been a faithful husband but she had not seen the emptiness and loneliness that had over the years become part of his life, as unthinkingly she had relegated him to the background of her life and children and friends and social life had assumed a greater importance. When Lainey met Dominic Kent he was ripe for an affair, taken for granted, neglected emotionally, if it wasn’t she, it would have been some other woman and Rita deserved a lot of the blame, Lainey decided. She had copped out of a lot of her responsibilities as a wife and she could take the consequences.

  Lainey hadn’t rushed into an affair with Dominic. There had been a lot of soul-searching and talking before they became intimate and only as she got to know and trust him and saw how genuine a man he was, had she slowly fallen in love with him. Two wounded souls searching for happiness, they had found in each other what Rita and Steve had taken from them. She would never have believed that night in Cork when she had first met him, just what an impact Dominic Kent would have on her life.

  She had completely forgotten about him that Saturday as she had rushed around Cork with her author. It was a hectic but successful day and it was a relief to get back to the Country Club Hotel where a table was reserved for them for dinner. They had enjoyed the meal but hadn’t lingered as the writer had a flight to catch and Lainey was bringing her to Cork Airport. When they were leaving the hotel she noticed Dominic and another man coming out behind them. They must have been in the bar as she hadn’t seen them in the dining-room. Giving a brief wave she opened the car door for her passenger and then got in herself. When Lainey turned on the ignition, she couldn’t believe her ears! A pitiful sound emanated from under the bonnet. Silently using every curse in her fairly varied repertoire, she tried again, and again. Then she gave up, got out of the car and stuck her head hopefully under the bonnet. Frankly she hadn’t a clue about the ins and outs of a car engine. Her talents lay elsewhere. She gave the distributor cap a twist, poked at the battery leads and offered up a silent prayer. Getting back in, she smiled confidently at her author, who was getting slightly agitated, and turned the key. This time the noise was infinitely more ominous.


  ‘What’s the trouble?’ Dominic was tapping at her window.

  She rolled it down and grimaced. ‘I think it’s the battery. I’ve been having trouble but the mechanic recharged it and assured me it was OK for the journey.’

  ‘I’ll try the jump leads on her,’ Dominic offered kindly.

  ‘Thanks a million,’ Lainey said gratefully, trying to ignore the deep sighs emanating from the author.

  ‘It’s as dead as a dodo, I’m afraid,’ Dominic informed her five minutes later after fruitless efforts to revive the deceased battery. ‘It’s not holding the charge.’

  Lainey got out to join him. ‘Oh shit!’ she muttered glumly, forgetting where she was. Dominic’s mouth quirked in amusement. ‘I beg your pardon!’ she apologized hastily. ‘It’s just that I’ve got an author in the car who’s got to get a flight back to London and she’s a bit of a prima donna. I’ll never hear the end of it if she misses her plane, and by the time I call a taxi and it comes out here and then back to the airport, she just might miss it! We left things a bit tight, I think.’ Lainey wondered what the hell she was going to do now. Her charge was insistent on getting back to London that night and if she missed the flight Lainey did not relish the thoughts of spending the rest of the evening in her company.