Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  It was months before Lainey got another silent phone call but it didn’t bother her any more. If Cecily wanted to waste her money making silent phone calls for whatever weird reason she had, Lainey wasn’t going to get upset by it. And she was damned if she was going to go to the expense of paying to get another new number.

  It was a bit late even for Cecily, Lainey thought fuzzily as she picked up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she murmured sleepily.

  ‘I stood beside you today and smelt your fanny!’ a man’s voice said. For God’s sake! thought Lainey furiously. She had been woken out of her hard come by sleep by a jerk making an obscene phone call. ‘OK, so you’re bloody Pinocchio! Bully for you!’ Lainey snarled, slamming down the receiver and burrowing back under the bedclothes. A perfect end to a perfect day, she thought, thoroughly disgruntled.

  Saturday 10 September 1988

  Lainey sat in the mini-bus that was driving the flight crew to the compound in Jeddah and yawned mightily. She was absolutely shattered as it had been a long and wearying flight from Manila. They had been flying a 747 and her zone in the first-class section had been full up and she had been kept going. She might be making a fortune in tax-free riyals as a stewardess with Eastern Gulf Airlines but she was working her butt off.

  She clung on to her seat as the driver careered along, passing the Top Furniture store on Palestine Road. Then they were on the Corniche where the sunset was reflected in the marble-still waters of the Red Sea. It was the weekend and as usual hundreds had come to view the magnificent dusky pink and purple sunset. Sunsets were spectacular in the Middle East because of the light filtered through all the dusty particles and they always enthralled her. Lainey could see people resting against the metal and stone and marble sculptures as they viewed tonight’s magnificent one. The wail of the muzzein rent the multi-coloured sky as the call to prayer – a sound that she had grown so familiar with in her time in Jeddah – told the faithful that it was time to pray to Allah. The driver honked at a driver edging in in front of the mini-bus. Travellers were exempt from stopping to pray but elsewhere the city came to a standstill. The mini-bus turned into Al-Suror Street and she could see white-robed figures hurrying towards the mosque.

  Her uniform clung damply to her, her stomach and ankles were swollen from the long hours in flight. All she wanted to do was sleep. The heat was intense and smothering. At least the apartment she shared with three other stewardesses would be air-conditioned and cool. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper, horns beeping, angry drivers gesticulating. The rules of the road as she knew them did not apply here. Aggression was the thing! Beside her, Chloe, her French supervisor, nodded off to sleep. Lainey felt like doing the same. Ahead of her she could see cars stopped and she groaned. Not a bloody roadblock! That would delay them at least another half an hour. The mini-bus inched along. A sullen dark-eyed policeman boarded the bus, his gun swinging on his hip. Nudging Chloe in the ribs to wake her, Lainey got her papers ready for inspection. Roadblocks were a way of life here and she had got used to them.

  The policeman gestured abruptly and she handed him her papers. He eyed her up and down and she stared determinedly ahead. Women really were treated like dirt in Arab countries. It was something Lainey would never get used to. Only the thought of the tax-free salary that was piling up nicely in her bank account kept her going. Another year or so of this and then she was getting out. The policeman handed back her papers with a grunt and took those of the half-awake Chloe. Self-important little bastard! Lainey thought disdainfully. Just like that officious creep of a customs man it had been her misfortune to deal with when she had deplaned. After every flight that arrived in Saudi they had to go through crew customs. It was a real pain. It was bad enough having your luggage searched, bad enough that she couldn’t wear the little gold crucifix that her mother had given her, bad enough that he had gone through her new Woman’s Own magazine and ripped out pages which he had thought offensive, but when he held up a tampon and said, ‘What ees this?’ Lainey wanted to strangle him with her bare hands. ‘Womanly things,’ she snapped.

  ‘But what ees it for?’ he persisted insolently. You know very well, you little prick, she almost hissed but had managed to restrain herself. No point in getting into a hassle. Management didn’t like it and only last week one of the girls had been issued with a termination notice and been deported for being caught with a bottle of vodka. Stony-faced, she had stared at her interrogator until finally he had shoved everything back into her case and waved her on, muttering at her in Arabic.

  Of the thirty that had started in her group only fifteen had stuck it out and Lainey was determined that only when she was good and ready to leave was she going to resign from Eastern Gulf Air – despite the insults and provocations and the stifling heat and dust and restrictions of life in Saudi. She had come here just three years ago to earn enough to buy a place of her own at home and she was well on target. She had planned to finish up and leave by Christmas but had been offered promotion to purser which was too good an opportunity to miss. Now, as second-in-command, working first class and making a mint in commission on the duty-free, she calculated that she could easily add another fifteen thousand to what she had already saved if she lived frugally. That would mean she’d have enough to buy a place and get a car as well. So one more year of hard work and hard saving and she’d be on the pig’s back. It was a wonderful feeling, having financial security. Never again would she be put through the anxiety she had experienced in the weeks that had followed her resignation from Verdon Books.

  Lainey stared unseeingly out the dusty window of the mini-bus as the arching orange sodium lights of the freeway sped past and they headed for the compound. The first few days of her unemployment had been pleasant enough. It was delightful to linger in bed having a lie-in as everybody else rushed out of the building and got into their cars or headed for bus stops and DART stations on their way to work. It was a joy to shower and slip into a tracksuit and watch morning TV while eating cornflakes and hot milk, a real treat. Usually Lainey grabbed a cup of coffee and breakfasted at her desk at work. The weather had been awful so she had been content to stay in, reading and watching TV and running up her phone bill. Dominic had come and played hookey from work and they had spent the entire day in bed. She had never made love in so many different ways. It had been glorious. But then he had had to go back to Cork and the weather improved and the walls started closing in on her and she had to get out.

  It had been an awful shock to her system having to wait on buses again. She had been accustomed for so long to being her own boss and driving when and where she wanted to, and it was most unsettling to have a car no longer and to be at the tender mercy of CIE. And the bus fares! Lainey had nearly fainted when she had handed the driver a pound and got a few pence change. Her ESB and phone bill arrived, things she never normally gave a thought to, and she had paid them grudgingly, knowing that unless she got herself fixed up soon she’d have to eat into the money she had saved towards her mortgage. That was not the plan at all. It was such a pain. Here she was, having worked for ten years with nothing to show for it, no car, no house, damn all. True she had saved fifteen thousand which would get her a mortgage if she had a job but right now she hadn’t got one and anyway she had wanted to try and save a bit more so she wouldn’t have a big burden of a mortgage on her shoulders. Lots of her friends who had them were working just to pay the mortgage, and had precious little left after. It looked like London might have to be an option if she planned on staying in publishing. In her restless state the idea had seemed inviting. She had always wanted to travel and had enjoyed her foreign jaunts very much when she was with Verdon. Maybe a job abroad would be just the thing.

  Dominic wasn’t too thrilled when she broached the idea but as he said himself he had no say in the matter. Lainey was her own woman and she owed him nothing. If London was what she wanted then she should go for it. He was lovely like that. He never made any demands of her and he often told her to go out wi
th other men, that it wasn’t right that she should waste her life being with him if the chance for a good and happy marriage ever came along. Lainey told him she had no desire whatsoever to get married. She liked being independent. She had got used to living her life as she wanted and she had no broody maternal urges, so far anyway.

  The day her last cheque from Verdon Books arrived in the post, she had ordered a taxi and hit Grafton Street and Dawson Street. A hair treatment in David Marshall’s, a silk Armani blouse from Brown Thomas and lunch in Pasta Pasta soon put a sizeable dent in it. But what the hell! She deserved a little treat after what she’d had to put up with in the past few months. Cecily would go mad when she saw the Armani blouse. Her sister-in-law was so silly like that, always wanting what the other person had, always trying to keep up with the Joneses. It was pathetic, really, and Simon was getting as bad as her. The last time she had been home, the carry-on of them because they had got a woman ‘in’ to help with Andrew, her little nephew, had been pitiful.

  ‘It’s so hard to get reliable staff these days!’ Cecily declared.

  ‘Indeed!’ agreed Simon. ‘But we got a wonderful little woman in,’ – Lainey clenched her teeth – ‘a wonderful little woman’. How condescending. Cecily was thrilled skinny. Apart from the fact that her wonderful little woman looked after Andrew, cleaned, washed and ironed and cooked an evening meal, Cecily was now on a par with Helena McGrath who also had a ‘wonderful little woman’. Lainey felt so sorry for her nephew. When he was a baby he had a Mothercare-decorated bedroom, with all mod cons, changing mats, playpen, mobiles, soft cuddly toys that matched the decor, and was dressed in his little Benetton romper suit. But Lainey had watched as Cecily tutted in disgust when he dribbled Liga on to his clothes. Now poor Andrew was growing up, fussed over by his parents, not allowed to get his good clothes dirty. He was being turned into a right little old man and it wasn’t his fault at all, the poor child! When Lainey met them on their Sunday afternoon ‘duty’ visit to her parents, Andrew had told her solemnly that they had got a new maid. Cecily had cast a triumphant look in Lainey’s direction as if to say, beat that! Then she described just how many people they had interviewed for the job and how hard it was to get someone just right.

  ‘Just right for the measly pittance she’s paying the poor woman,’ Joan whispered in the kitchen, where she and Lainey had escaped to on the pretext of getting the tea. ‘She was only supposed to be minding Andrew originally but her Ladyship has her doing the housework as well. Wee Slavey has nothing on poor Mrs Maguire. And imagine having to put up with Cecily blowing all day! God help her, is all I say,’ Joan murmured as she buttered her mother’s home-made brown bread. Lainey sliced some cold chicken and ham. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering. She’ll sit there picking as if she’s afraid she’ll be poisoned.’

  ‘Would we be so lucky!’ interrupted Joan with a grin as she snaffled a slice of ham and munched on it.

  ‘That’s lovely!’ Lainey said in mock disgust. ‘What a way to talk about your dear sister-in-law.’

  ‘Dear sister-in-law my hat!’ expostulated Joan. ‘You’re not constantly exposed to her like I am. Every blooming Sunday she’s over acting the lady and wouldn’t lift a finger to wash up. And that Simon fella is as bad, going around like Lord Muck. And you go over to their place and you wouldn’t even be offered a cup of tea, let alone asked if you had a mouth on you. Then she might meet you in the shop, and if Helena’s around Cecily wouldn’t have a word to say to you, as if to let you know you’re not lah-di-dah enough to move in their circles. You don’t know the half of it, Lainey.’ Joan was angry now, banging the cups on the table as she set it. ‘And you know something else, Lainey? That Simon charged me for a filling. He let me off two measly quid! Big deal! It just sickened me. I can tell you one thing – I won’t be going to him again. They’re not going to swan around drinking champers up in Fourwinds at my expense!’ It was so unlike Joan to give out. She was usually of such a cheery disposition and didn’t let things get to her. Cecily and Simon were really getting her down and Lainey understood very well her sister’s anger.

  It was true. Lainey only saw them when she was on her occasional visits and Joan had to put up with a lot more than she did. And just who did Simon Conroy think he was, charging his sister for a filling? And just exactly who did Madam Cecily think she was, putting herself above Joan and treating her like dirt in public. What was she only a jumped-up little snob full of silly pretensions and the most self-centred person going? Who did she think she was kidding with her airs and graces? Lainey had been in the two-up two-down house in Dublin where Cecily was reared. And there was nothing in the world wrong with a two-up two-down, Lainey would be the first to admit. Their own house in Moncas Bay was nothing spectacular. But it was home and her family had nothing to be ashamed about. They were the equal of anybody in Moncas Bay, or anywhere else for that matter. And Cecily Clarke-Conroy needn’t think she was impressing them with her carry-on. The cheek of her! Lainey was just the woman to tell her so too! In fact she was going to have a word with Madam Cecily and Sir Simon right this minute, she decided furiously. Enough was enough. The pair of them needn’t think they were going to get away with upsetting her sister.

  Joan saw the look on Lainey’s face and put out a restraining hand. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to give that pair a piece of my mind. Just who do they think they are?’ she said hotly. Lainey had a terrible temper when roused.

  ‘Now calm down, Lainey!’ Joan said hastily. ‘Don’t cause a scene – that Cecily one is a little tinker behind all her airs and graces. She’d go for you bald-headed if you started, you know what she’s like!’

  ‘I’d like to see her try!’ Lainey was not to be mollified.

  ‘Look, don’t mind me moaning. I got my period today and I’m like an Antichrist,’ Joan explained. ‘Usually I couldn’t care less about them. Please, Lainey, let it go, I have to live here – you don’t. I was just getting it off my chest.’

  ‘Some day I’m going to tell that one exactly what I think of her,’ Lainey vowed.

  ‘But not today?’ Joan said anxiously.

  ‘Not today,’ agreed Lainey, giving her beleaguered sister a hug.

  ‘Phew!’ exclaimed Joan in relief, wiping imaginary sweat from her brow. ‘The apocalypse has been averted for the time being. Lainey, you’re something else when you’re in a temper.’

  ‘I know,’ Lainey smiled sheepishly. It took a lot to get her going, but once it happened, the results could be awesome. ‘Mind,’ grinned Joan, ‘that lady won’t know what’s hit her if you ever let fly at her. Keep me a ringside seat.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind to put Brooklax in her tea. That might clear some of the crap out of her,’ Lainey grumbled, as she arranged cucumber and tomatoes artistically around the plates of cold meat.

  Sitting in Pasta Pasta, Lainey promised herself she’d give Joan a ring later to find out how she was. A few weeks after the episode, they had gone to Kinsale together for a long weekend and had a whale of a time and Cecily and Simon hadn’t been mentioned once. It had done Joan the world of good. When she got another job, they must do it again, she mused. She was just finishing a plate of delicious tagliatelle, wiping her plate with a piece of garlic bread when a familiar voice hailed her.

  ‘Lord above, it’s Lainey Conroy as I live and breathe.’

  Lainey looked up, startled, and her face broke into a broad grin. ‘Anne, how are you? You look sensational! What have you been doing with yourself?’ It was her old friend from her library days and she was looking a million dollars. Tanned, reed-slim, dressed in a beautiful tailored suit, makeup impeccable, she looked as if she had just stepped out of a glossy magazine. ‘Are you coming or going?’ Lainey demanded.

  ‘I’m just going to have a quick bite. I’ve to head off to the airport; I’m on standby for a flight to London. Can I sit here and you can tell me all the gossip.’ Lainey was delighted. She and Anne had always got on a bomb be
cause they shared the same sense of humour. Anne had left the libraries soon after Lainey and had gone to London. They had lost touch so it was really great to have the chance of catching up on the news.

  ‘What are you doing? You look so well! Is that an engagement ring?’ Lainey demanded as the waitress brought her a cup of coffee and took Anne’s order. Anne laughed.

  ‘To answer your last question first, No! this is not an engagement ring. There’s enough people making eejits of themselves, thank you very much, without me adding to them. And I’m air-hostessing for Saudia Airlines. I applied for the job in London three years ago and I’ll do it for another few years. It’s a fantastic way of seeing the world and I’m even saving money – and that’s something for me to say.’ She laughed. Lainey smiled back, remembering how broke her friend always was when she worked for the Corporation. ‘I’m based in London now so I actually live here in Dublin and commute. I’m flying over to London today and working on a flight to Jeddah tomorrow. It’s as cheap to commute as to rent accommodation in London. What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment!’ Lainey said ruefully, and went on to tell her of her resignation from Verdon Books.

  ‘Aw, that’s a shame!’ exclaimed Anne. ‘I know you loved it there.’

  ‘When Patrick was running the company it was great, but Peter hasn’t a clue,’ Lainey sighed.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Anne asked as she devoured a plateful of spaghetti Bolognaise.