City Girl

by Patricia Scanlan

  Devlin got to know them all. Some would pour out all their woes to her. Others looked down their haughty noses at her and demanded to be seen instantly. The coldness would melt instantly when Colin appeared at the door of the waiting room with a warm smile and reassuring handshake.

  ‘Ah Mrs Cochrane! Good to see you. Come in now and tell me what’s bothering you.’

  Invariably eyelashes would flutter and tremulous voices would waft down the hall as he led them to his surgery, sometimes winking at Devlin behind their backs. He was an immensely charming man, only forty but at the height of his career. He had, of course, inherited a large practice from his father and was a prominent member of Dublin’s high society, seen at many social gatherings around the city. He knew her father well. An ex-rugby player, he hadn’t an ounce of flab on his tall muscular body and the faint traces of grey at his temple lent him a distinguished mature air that Devlin found exceedingly attractive. All his patients were madly in love with him.

  Devlin, who was twenty, had always dated men of her own age or men in their middle twenties. Her only experience with older men was trying to avoid their sweaty roving hands in the dimly lit, faintly seedy night clubs they always ended up in on their Saturday nights on the town. She was an outgoing girl with a broad circle of friends and aquaintances who lived a relatively untroubled and carefree existence. Her only experience of the hardship of life occurred when she had been made redundant for a brief period, and rather than give up the freedom of flat-dwelling and return home to the uncomfortable atmosphere her mother’s behaviour caused, she had survived, well cushioned by a generous allowance given to her by her father. But it was not the same as having a salary.

  At present, it was nothing for Devlin to go into town on a Saturday and spend a small fortune on clothes. She loved her little weekend sprees. After a lie-in, Saturday would be spent shopping in Grafton Street with friends. She might treat herself to a little something from Benetton or Pamela Scott or if she was really in the money she’d hit Brown Thomas. Strolling past the colourful street artists, past the cheerful flower sellers she and her friends would meander along to Captain America’s to grab a quick lunch before she had her hair done in one of the many exclusive, expensive hair salons. Then it would be time to drop into the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre with its bright airy plant-filled ambience, to browse through the shops for a while before relaxing over a cup of coffee. Her biggest decision might be whether to buy the snazzy little suit from Private Collection or a Lainey Original. Devlin loved shopping in Grafton Street with its winding elegance, its stores filled with up-to-the-minute fashions. There was a buzz about Grafton Street that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the city.

  Then hurrying back to her little Fiesta parked on the Green, she would drop her friends home and drive like the clappers to get home herself to prepare for the night’s activities. By half past eight a crowd of them would be found drinking in the Shelbourne. Later they would stroll down to the Bailey or Davy Byrne’s for last orders, then head off to a disco where they would bop the night away before ending up in one of the city’s many night clubs. Dawn would frequently be upon them before Devlin’s tired head hit the pillows and Sunday would be spent recuperating after the excesses of the night before. But by midafternoon, revived and refreshed, she would meet the gang to go stock-car racing in Mondello, or to watch a rugby match in Wanderers. Sunday night she would go to the pictures or for a meal with whatever boyfriend happened to be in tow.

  Looking back she would realize what a charmed and sheltered life she had led and how she had so matter of factly taken it as her due. When she started to work for Colin she had no steady relationship, unusually for her. But Frank, her most recent boyfriend, had emigrated and so she was ripe to fall prey to the overpowering charms of CCK.

  At first he had been businesslike but friendly, asking her if she was settling into her job, urging her to ask him or Nurse McGrath if there was anything she wished to know. Gradually Devlin had settled down and taken control of all the secretarial aspects of the practice. Being quick and efficient she took pride in seeing that everything ran smoothly. One day Colin told her he would like to take her and Nurse McGrath to lunch and brought them in his luxurious metallic grey Merc to a quiet little Italian restaurant off Stephen’s Green, where they gorged themselves on pasta cooked as only the Italians know how. He had been all charm and after several glasses of wine Devlin had lost her slight awe of him.

  From then on she was much more relaxed in his company. At work he would come out to her office between appointments and sit against the edge of her desk chatting casually. He might tell her about a difficult operation he had to perform, and confide that the Moore woman was an awful pain in the neck or that such and such was having an affair with so and so and what was her attitude to broken marriage and divorce? Devlin found him easy to talk to and she never took exception to his probing questions about her boyfriends and lifestyle, because she sensed his underlying interest. Because she was young, beautiful and very immature the challenge of exciting the interest of a very suave, older man was more than a little thrilling.

  Her friends, who had called on the pretext of seeing her but really to assess whether he was in fact the dish Devlin made him out to be, ended up agreeing wholeheartedly with her. He was much nicer than some of the geeks they encountered in the fleshpots of Leeson Street. Their obvious envy added immensely to Devlin’s pleasure.

  One day Colin strode into the office and found her pale and cranky.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, for heaven’s sake?’

  The query was laced with concern. Devlin blushed with embarrassment . . . and pleasure.

  ‘Nothing . . . I just don’t feel well,’ she said offhandedly, unwilling to tell him that she was suffering from severe and crippling period pains. She had often wondered what attracted so many men to gynaecology. After her own experiences in that area she would decide it was because of their immense envy that they could never reproduce and give birth as women did every day, every living minute of time the world over. The only way they could exercise their power was by controlling women’s pregnancies from the moment of conception and being there for the births. ‘Now push when I tell you . . .’ or by removing the life giving organ: ‘I’m sorry, it’s got to be taken out.’ If they couldn’t themselves reproduce, being in control was the next best thing. It was a well-known fact that there were far more male gynaes than female.

  Later, much later on Devlin would realize just how much Colin had manipulated her but then, in her naïveté she had been pathetically grateful when he had just nodded wisely, gone into his office, written a note and given it to her.

  ‘Devlin pet, in this day and age there’s no need to suffer from period pains. Haven’t you ever heard of the pill? Now take this to the Well Woman Centre when you’ve finished your period and they’ll look after you. Hmm?’

  She nodded in a frenzy of embarrassment. Laughing, Colin chucked her under the chin.

  ‘Devlin, you fool, I’m a gynaecologist for heaven’s sake! Don’t be embarrassed with me. Now take the afternoon off, go home and lie down for a while and take these.’ He handed her some tablets. ‘And go and get yourself seen to.’

  He was smiling down at her, his eyes so warm and exciting and crinkling up at the sides in the most attractive way. Her heart melted at his kindness and swam around inside her on a tide of ecstasy as she drove home.

  ‘He cares! He cares . . . ooohh he cares,’ she hummed to herself, letting herself into the flat.

  From then on the nature of their relationship changed. Subtly it became more intimate and there were more lunch dates, only this time Nurse McGrath did not accompany them. Colin confided to her that his marriage was on the rocks, that he and his wife only kept up appearances for the children’s sakes. The picture he painted was a bleak and lonely one and Devlin felt a mixture of pity and admiration for him, plus a strong sense of desire.

  After all, she reasoned with herself, the p
oor man needed the comfort of loving arms. If his wife was so cold and frigid, always out socializing, never home to cook his meals after a hard day in the operating theatres of Dublin’s hospitals and private clinics, it was only to be expected that he would seek companionship elsewhere.

  I mean it’s not as if you were setting out to cause trouble deliberately in his marriage, the trouble is already there, she comforted herself. She was in fact a little scared. Devlin had never really had a fully-fledged relationship with any man, sexual or otherwise. True, she had dated many boyfriends but it was really only social dating, being part of the crowd. She had indulged in a certain amount of fumblings and fondlings in the back seats of cars but she had never slept with anyone, fear of her mother and fear of pregnancy being the major deterrents when it came to losing her virginity. Unlike many of her peers she had led a sheltered life. The only daughter of an affluent banker and his wife, she had lacked for nothing materially. Having been educated in an exclusive Dublin school, she mixed with the young upper class set commonly known as ‘Yuppies’ or the ‘Yaws.’ ‘Why do you call them the “Yaws”?’ she had asked Maggie, who was living in the same house as herself and Caroline.

  Maggie had grinned cheerfully at her and said in her down-to-earth no bullshit manner: ‘Because they say “Yaw” instead of “yes” and if I catch you at it . . . !’ She had shaken her finger warningly at the amused Devlin. Trust Maggie who wasn’t the slightest bit affected to bring her down to earth every so often. Devlin would have denied that she was a snob, but unknown to herself she contributed to a subtle social snobbery that was rampant within their social class. Had Colin been an Indian doctor or a working class man she would never have considered an affair with him. Unconscious though she was of them the prejudices of her upbringing were too strong.

  Having an affair with a married man was not something to go public about either. Ireland might have entered the Nineties but by European standards Dublin was a small intimate city where it was almost impossible to go anywhere and not meet people you knew. Although sometimes it seemed to Devlin that everybody in Dublin was having an affair and everyone else knew about it but didn’t let on. It had often amazed her how husbands and wives who were both conducting liaisons would appear together at Mass on Sundays, the very picture of unity, or at some social bash, while that very night they would fornicate happily.

  The hypocrisy of it sickened her and yet here she was contemplating doing the same. How confusing life was. Sometimes she felt she was a split personality. Her desire to love and be loved by Colin was intense, yet at the back of her mind lurked the shadow of her strict Catholic upbringing. The little voice of her conscience reproached her frequently and although a nun had once warned the class that the worst thing that could happen to Catholics was for them to lose their conscience she wished heartily that it would disappear for the duration of her relationship with Colin.

  And then there was her mother! Lydia would go crazy if she ever suspected that her daughter was even contemplating something so sordid as an affair. There had been a huge row when Devlin had said she was going to move into a flat.

  ‘What are you moving into a flat for?’ she had stormed, her tone of voice suggesting that Devlin was deliberately going to live with the lowest of the low. It had been bad enough when she had started going to discos and pubs. There would be the interrogations the next morning, lectures about the hour she had come in at and dire warnings about burning the candle at both ends. It amazed Devlin that her mother would concern herself so. Usually she was so busy with her charitable works and hectic social life and running her immaculate home that she never really bothered about what Devlin was doing. It was only since Devlin had started working that she had begun to take such notice of her daughter’s activities. Gerry, her father, would try and mediate between them but Lydia would turn on him in fury and another row would start.

  ‘You’ll end up just like . . .’ her mother had shouted at her once, stopping suddenly at the expression on her husband’s face.

  ‘That’s enough, Lydia!’

  Devlin had never heard her father sound so stern. ‘Just like who?’ she had asked, puzzled and angry.

  ‘Just don’t come into this house with any bad news, Madam, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Mum!’

  Devlin was shocked at her mother’s implication. Didn’t her mother realize that she was practically the only girl in her class who still hadn’t had sexual relations with anyone? Most of the girls she had gone to school with and still kept in touch with were sleeping with their boyfriends. Two of her classmates had become unmarried mothers with one of them handing her baby up for adoption, forced to do so by her parents, and the other kicked out of home completely. Devlin was under no illusion about what Lydia would say were she ever so unlucky as to be in that predicament. Sick of the rows, she moved out.

  All this she tried to explain to Colin but he always seemed to come up with the most logical arguments in favour of an affair, arguments that made her reasoning seem flawed and foolishly childish.

  Once they’d had a shouting match and Colin’s patience had really worn thin. ‘For Christ’s sake, Devlin, will you grow up!’ he yelled at her. ‘You can’t stay a damned virgin all your life. What a criminal waste, for crying out loud.’ He took her in a savage grip and marched her over to the mirror in the foyer. ‘Look at yourself!’ She turned away. ‘Go on. Look! Why are you wasting your beauty? Your youth? Just because of what some frigid old nuns told you. You can’t hang on to mammy’s apron strings for the rest of your bloody life. You’ve got your own life to lead. My God, Devlin, you were made for loving, you’re twenty years old.’

  His eyes were hard, angry and frustrated. She bit her lip to stop it from trembling and he said in disgust, ‘Don’t start bawling for God’s sake. Do you know something, Devlin, you’re the typical Irish female. The body of a woman, the mind of a child, not able to make a decision on your own about whether to love someone or not. If that’s your religion and your attitude to life you’re welcome to it. Wrap yourself in your little cocoon, you stupid little girl and let me give you a word of advice,’ he glowered at her. ‘You shouldn’t flirt and tease if you’re not prepared to carry it through.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to talk,’ Devlin retorted. ‘You’ll never have to worry about your next period. You’ll never have to worry about getting pregnant.’ Her voice was bitter, hurt. Devlin had never seen him angry before and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  ‘You’re on the pill, aren’t you?’ he retorted coldly. ‘You won’t have to worry either so don’t give me that hard-done-by female crap. If you feel like taking control of your own life let me know. Otherwise, Devlin, let’s keep our relationship purely business.’

  He slammed out the door and into his office, not even giving her the satisfaction of making a response, and she felt a strong desire to imitate Scarlett O’Hara and throw something at his treasured le Brocquy. Her fingers curled around a heavy glass ashtray but her courage deserted her. The painting was worth a small fortune and seeing as she was going to the Algarve the following week she could not afford to replace it. Reluctantly she let go of the ashtray but compensated by pounding hard on her typewriter for the rest of the afternoon.

  The following day Colin arrived in, cool and business-like as if their confrontation had never taken place. He did not look at her, dictated briskly and she was glad Nurse McGrath was away on holiday. At least she didn’t have to endure her poking and prying. It was with relief that she welcomed the temp who was taking over from her for the two weeks she would be away, because when Friday finally came she felt drained and mentally exhausted.

  Colin had called her into his office at five o’clock when the last patient had gone and handed her an envelope. ‘Enjoy your holiday,’ he said drily. ‘Who knows, you might be overcome by passion and come back a fully-fledged member of the human race. I believe Portuguese men are very charming and virile. Maybe one of them might succeed wh
ere I’ve failed.’ Devlin tried to swallow the deep sense of hurt that engulfed her. Deliberately moving around his desk, she looked him straight in the face, held the envelope that she knew contained her holiday bonus between finger and thumb and disdainfully dropped it into the waste basket. Head held high, she turned on her heel and walked out. To hell with you! she thought unhappily.

  Devlin drove home in the heavy rush-hour traffic of a Friday evening, the roads clogged with the big buses taking people back home to the country, clogged with weary city-dwellers escaping the fumes and dirt of the city as they drove bumper to bumper to spend the weekend in the wide open comforting spaces of the countryside. Heavy-hearted, depressed, she negotiated her way through the barely controlled chaos that surrounded her as cyclists, bikers, motorists and pedestrians jockeyed for position. To her left meandered the Grand Canal, the evening sun glittering on the calm surface that was untroubled by the lanes of fume-belching traffic. Already people sat in seats shaded by bright multi-coloured umbrellas, outside some of the canal-side pubs, drinking cool frothy glasses of dark rich Guinness, and Devlin swallowed, hot and thirsty and envious of their happy weekend joie de vivre.

  ‘Blast Colin,’ she muttered grumpily as she glared at two lovers entwined, oblivious, on Patrick Kavanagh’s memorial seat by the Baggot Street lock gates. The lights were out at Baggot Street Bridge and she wanted to scream with frustration as she jammed on her brakes for the umpteenth time to avoid a cheeky cyclist.