Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  Fourwinds had changed beyond all recognition since Steve had taken it over from his father. With the help of grants from Bord Fáilte, he had transformed it from a third-rate dingy hostelry into one of the smartest places on the east coast. True it was still small, but Steve had great plans for expansion. Not only that, but he had bought twenty acres to the south of Moncas Bay that he proposed turning into a caravan and camping holiday park. Steve was the most ambitious man Lainey had ever met. He reached towards his goals with a single-mindedness that awed her. Nothing and no one stopped Steve McGrath from getting what he wanted and he had stepped on quite a few toes in Moncas Bay since he had moved back home. Now he was a force to be reckoned with in the village and because Lainey was his girlfriend she was part of it all. The Lainey who had sat at Imelda Mangan’s dinner-party not knowing which cutlery to use no longer existed. In her place was a cool young woman who knew what she wanted and where she was going. In two years, Lainey had come a hell of a long way.

  She smiled as she thought of the Mangans. Imelda Mangan had never forgiven her for dropping Tony in order to start dating Steve. Not that she cared! Tony and she were still the greatest of friends. He was having the time of his life in Dublin and loved the freedom that college gave him. Only two nights before, he had met her for dinner and taken her to a Greek restaurant to relive memories of his recent holiday. He was bronzed and glowing and she had never seen him looking better. ‘Lainey, they carried me on to the plane at Mykonos screaming! I didn’t want to leave. I’ve never seen such beautiful men in my whole life. Lainey, I had a ball, literally.’

  ‘You’re incorrigible, Tony Mangan,’ Lainey remonstrated, laughing. Tony was great. He had such joie de vivre. He was so different from the suicidal young man she had saved from drowning a few years ago. Now, he was living his own life in the anonymity of the capital under no pressure to date women. He would never, he told Lainey, go back to Moncas Bay to live.

  ‘You’re dating Tony Mangan?’ Steve McGrath had asked, that first weekend two years ago, when she met him again at a barbecue the Mangans were holding. She had caught the flicker of interest in his eyes as he gave her an appreciative glance.

  ‘We’re just very good friends; it’s nothing serious,’ Lainey said truthfully, hoping against hope he would ask her out.

  ‘I see.’ His reply was non-committal.

  Blast it! thought Lainey. By pretending to be Tony’s girlfriend she had most likely scuppered her chances with Steve. But she couldn’t explain to Steve that Tony was gay and that she wasn’t really his girlfriend in the conventional sense. It wouldn’t be fair to Tony. She had promised to keep his secret. What a pickle! Just at that moment, Tony came over and gave her an affectionate hug. Oh Tony, she moaned silently.

  ‘Mother wants to introduce you to some of my aunts,’ he grimaced. ‘I’ve been getting hints about engagement rings. Wouldn’t they just sicken you! Hi Steve. How’s it going?’ He greeted the other man cheerfully while Lainey’s heart sank to her boots. Now she’d never get anywhere with Steve.

  ‘Excuse us,’ she said forlornly. What was wrong with her, anyway? She’d only met him for the few minutes on the train and here she was acting like a lovesick teenager. Cop on to yourself, Lainey Conroy, she told herself sternly, as Tony walked with her across the lawn to where his mother and aunts were waiting. Tony’s aunts eyed her up and down as the introductions were made. Whoever Tony Mangan married would end up as a member of one of the wealthiest families in Wicklow and they wanted to make sure she was eminently suitable. Lainey almost laughed at the irony of it. Poor Tony! What a pressure to be under. There was no way he could admit to his homosexuality to his family. They would never understand. Too much was at stake! If Tony didn’t provide a son and heir, there would be no continuation of their branch of the family line, or so he had confided to her. He was the only male Mangan left.

  She chatted and laughed, pretending a gaiety she did not feel, very much aware that Steve McGrath was surrounded by half the females at the party. Occasionally their glances crossed, his cool and indifferent, hers pretending to be unimpressed. Later, they all went swimming in the Mangan pool and she was glad that she had worked on her tan. In a brief white bikini, she looked stunning, and whenever Steve was swimming past he made a long cool study.

  ‘So when’s the engagement to be announced?’ he enquired caustically as she took a breather at the edge of the aquamarine pool.

  ‘There isn’t going to be one,’ she replied levelly. ‘I told you we were just very good friends, nothing more, nothing less. It’s no big deal, Steve!’

  ‘But the talk in the village is that you’re a strong item,’ he said sceptically.

  ‘Really!’ Lainey gave an amused laugh. ‘Typical of Moncas Bay. Don’t believe all you hear. I never listen to gossip,’ she finished cuttingly, executing a graceful dive and swimming away. Just who did he think he was, interrogating her like that?

  ‘Who was that hunk of a man you were flirting with?’ Cecily Clarke, her brother’s current girlfriend, said in her breathless girly voice. Lainey gave an inward sigh. Simon, her brother, had dated some dames in his life but this one was something else. Tall, blonde, model-thin, she looked good with her clothes on. In a pink one-piece that clung damply to her, Cecily had no bust, no hips and looked almost anorexic. Her motto, she had confided to Lainey soon after Simon had first introduced them, was the Duchess of Windsor’s, ‘You can’t be too rich or too thin.’ Cecily had come to Moncas Bay from Dublin, convinced of her superiority over the country hicks she was expecting to meet. Simon had pleaded with Lainey to secure them an invitation to the Mangans’ barbecue and it had been an eye-opener for Cecily with its style and unmistakable air of affluence. Cecily eyed Lainey with a new respect. After all, she was dating the son of the owners of this fabulous pad. Suddenly she had become much more chummy but Lainey had seen through her immediately. Cecily Clarke was an unmistakable social climber. And as far as Lainey could see, her brother Simon was going to be her means of escape from her dead-end secretarial job and her two-up two-down parents’ house off the North Circular Road. Unfortunately, Simon was completely smitten. She had never seen him so taken by a girl. All of a sudden he was smoking cigars, eating in all the right places, and going up to Dublin to shop for clothes. Where he was getting the money from, Lainey couldn’t fathom. Just as well his young dentistry practice was starting to take off. If he planned on marrying Cecily Clarke he’d certainly need plenty of money to keep her in the style to which she planned to become accustomed.

  ‘What will Tony have to say if he sees you chatting up gorgeous men?’ Cecily was wagging a coy finger.

  ‘I wasn’t chatting him up, Cecily. He was chatting me up,’ Lainey drawled. Cecily could just go and get lost. The last time she had met her, when Simon had invited his sister to join them for a meal, Cecily had been in one of her moods and had hardly spoken two words to her all evening. Now she was being ever so friendly. Lainey just wasn’t in the humour for it. All she wanted to do was to go home. She’d had enough of Cecily, the Mangans, and, most of all, Steve McGrath.

  ‘Excuse me, Cecily, I’m going to dry off,’ she said politely, gracefully climbing out of the pool, unaware that Steve was observing her. Wrapping a pale peach towelling robe around her she headed towards the changing-rooms, the sound of laughter and splashing following her. All the good had gone out of the party for her and she was disgusted with herself that Steve McGrath could have got to her so thoroughly. But there was something about him that had attracted her immediately. An animal magnetism, a sense of challenge. Lainey was used to men’s company. She had a good social life in Dublin, was a regular nightclubber and had several admirers, all of whom she dated. None of them had ever had the impact Steve had on her and she found it most unsettling.

  She heard footsteps behind her but didn’t bother to turn around. ‘Had enough of the pool party?’ an unmistakable voice enquired and her heart did a little somersault as she saw Steve outlined in
the moonlight, rivulets of water trapped against the dark tangle of hair on his chest. He was a handsome man, there was no denying that, she thought, admiring the firmly-chiselled mouth, the strong hard jaw, the grey glinting eyes ringed by dark lashes that would have made a woman weep with envy.

  ‘Frankly yes,’ she said coolly, damned if she was going to let him see what kind of an effect he had on her. His ego must be huge at this stage; every unmarried woman in the village was doing her best to get him to notice her since he had returned from his sojourn in Switzerland.

  ‘How about coming up to Fourwinds for a drink and a bit of peace and quiet then?’

  Their eyes met. It was as though he was challenging her.

  Lainey smiled. ‘I don’t think so, Steve. I’m rather tired. Goodnight,’ she said pleasantly. Steve McGrath wasn’t going to pick her up just like that. Without a backward glance she walked through the swing doors of the changing cabin, leaving Steve staring after her, a disgruntled expression on his saturnine face.

  Inside, she stared at herself in the mirror. Steve McGrath had asked her to go for a drink. And she had refused! Was she crazy? He obviously fancied her as much as she fancied him. But she was right, she decided. She wasn’t going to fall into his arms just like that. She had her pride after all! She knew that Steve would ask her again. Lightheartedly, all bad humour gone, she started to towel herself dry, humming happily to herself.

  The next day was the day of the Moncas Bay regatta, one of the highlights of the social calendar. And as Lainey sat on the bank, the breeze whipping her blonde hair around her tanned face, she concentrated her gaze on the blue-and-white sailing boat that Steve had entered in the race. It was a beautiful day. Fluffy clouds scudded along in the azure sky. Small white-capped waves frothed against the sides of the boats that were bobbing up and down waiting for the start, their gaily-coloured sails fluttering in the breeze. The top of the bank was lined with spectators, many of them having picnics, as below on the beach crews made last-minute preparations for the race. Near Lainey, her mother and her sister Joan, Cecily and Simon sat quaffing champagne on a checked car rug! ‘Edward and Mrs Simpson,’ she murmured dryly to Joan, who went into a fit of giggles. Her mother gave her a reproving glance but the corners of her mouth quirked in amusement. Lainey should have been sailing in the regatta in Tony’s boat. They had been practising any weekend they both got down to Moncas Bay and although she knew they didn’t have much of a chance she would have enjoyed the race. It was so invigorating to be out on the waves with the sea-spray and the wind against your face. Unfortunately a badly cracked mainmast had put paid to their plans. Still, Lainey was enjoying herself immensely, watching all the activity from the top of the bank. And the comments of some of the old seafarers from their vantage points amused her greatly.

  When Daniel Flynn, a local businessman who was very conscious of his image and position in the village, went down the slope kitted out in a brandnew Aran jumper and thigh waders, old Dick Roberts, who had sailed around the world more times than Lainey had had hot dinners, said caustically, ‘Would ye look at Sir Walter Raleigh! Be janey, they go on about these regattas. I’ve been longer on the crest of a wave.’ There had been a guffaw that had travelled the length of the bank. Dick was not known for keeping his comments to himself.

  Regatta Day in the Bay was a day for everyone. Boats from as far south as Rosslare entered and today there were about fifty. After the race there would be a buffet and dance in a big marquee on the village green. Lainey hoped she’d bump into Steve again. She lifted her binoculars and trained them on Steve’s boat, the Fourwinds Fancy. She could see him in shorts and stripped to the waist, issuing instructions to his crew. A strange heat suffused her. She’d like to feel his hard muscled thighs against hers. He was the sexiest man she had ever laid eyes on. Lainey was still a virgin, despite her sophistication. She had not, in all her dating, met a man whom she felt sufficiently interested in, or attracted to, to sleep with.

  She had grown up with the idea that sex was for marriage alone. Well, Lainey wasn’t too sure about that. What about if you didn’t want to get married ever? Did that mean you had to be celibate for the whole of your life? Was getting married just an excuse for some who wanted a sex life but were afraid they’d be sentenced to final damnation if they had sex outside marriage? If sex was supposed to be a gift from God and such a wondrous gift why was there so much guilt about it all? As far as she could see, all the Church preached about was the sixth commandment. What about all the other commandments? Lainey rarely heard a sermon about treating people with dignity. About the rights of workers. About social justice. There were so many other things to life and yet it seemed that most of the time the emphasis was on the evils of sex, contraception and divorce. Lainey didn’t go to mass any more except to please her mother when she was at home. There were too many rules and regulations in the Catholic Church for her taste. What right had these men of the Vatican to decide that contraception was against the law of God? Surely having two or three children that you could provide for instead of eight or nine that you couldn’t feed, couldn’t be wrong? If any of those yokes had to go through ten pregnancies there would be a rapid about-change of policy and no doubt about it. It seemed to Lainey that with all the concern about rules and regulations and dos and don’ts, the real loving merciful God had been lost sight of. Well there were many paths to God and she’d find hers. And when she did lose her virginity she wasn’t going to feel one bit guilty.

  Neither did she when, a few months later, in the honeymoon suite of the Fourwinds Hotel, she gave herself utterly and completely to Steve McGrath. It was the most satisfying moment of her life, an affirmation of her womanhood, and she gloried in it. To be sure, Steve had been most surprised that she was a virgin and the first time had been sore and over too quickly but the night was long and she was eager to learn and Steve was a good teacher and she a willing pupil. It was a night of pleasure and revelation and she had fallen even deeper in love with Steve. From the night of the regatta when he had first kissed her, Lainey had known that Steve McGrath was the man for her. She hadn’t meant to kiss him. She had meant to play it cool and keep him dangling a little, but when he strode into the marquee with the winner’s cup in his hand grinning broadly as he met her gaze, she had grinned back in spite of herself and fell in love with him there and then. ‘Drinks for everybody,’ he called out to shouts and cheers and then he was beside her saying softly, ‘Would you be too tired to have a drink with me this evening then, Lainey Conroy?’

  ‘I’ve to catch the train to Dublin,’ she demurred. ‘I’ve work in the morning.’ She was saving as hard as she could for a car. If only she had it now, she could stay as late as she liked.

  ‘Couldn’t you catch the early-morning bus?’ he glinted at her.

  ‘I’d have to be up at five-thirty!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Be a devil!’ he laughed.

  She laughed back; she couldn’t help it. ‘Well maybe! I’ll see.’

  ‘Go on,’ he coaxed. ‘There’s going to be a hell of a party here tonight! And if you’re not here to rescue me, some woman might get her claws in me and I won’t be able to ask you out again.’

  ‘What a tragedy that would be for you!’ she said pertly.

  He laughed. ‘I like you, Lainey Conroy. I want to see more of you, if what you say about being just friends with Tony Mangan is true. How about it?’

  ‘You’re very sure of yourself, Steve McGrath, aren’t you?’

  ‘I know what I want. Nothing wrong with that. And I want to get to know you. You’re an interesting woman. I like your style,’ he said frankly.

  ‘I’ll see you here at eight,’ Lainey replied calmly. ‘Excuse me. I’m supposed to be getting my mother a drink.’ She walked away from him, outwardly composed but inwardly in turmoil.

  ‘You’re an interesting woman. I like your style,’ he had said. And the way he said it, the way his eyes looked at her, had made her insides melt. She felt almost intox
icated. She saw a few envious glances coming her way and smiled. She’d be the envy of the village if she started dating Steve McGrath. Mind he didn’t have as much money as the Mangans, not that she gave a hoot! But people would talk, and poor Tony would be fair game again for the young nubiles of the Bay . . . and their ambitious mothers.

  ‘I’ll pretend you’ve broken my heart and I’ll never come back,’ Tony laughed when she told him about the developments. ‘Lainey, it will be perfect,’ he assured her. ‘I can stay up in Dublin much more. It’s a bit of a drag having to come home at weekends. There’s so much to do with my friends up above, and I can’t invite any of them down here, really.’

  ‘People will think I’m heartless,’ Lainey mused.

  His face fell. ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘Well let them!’ Lainey tossed her hair back. ‘You and I will know the truth and that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Lainey, you’re the best friend in the world,’ Tony hugged her. ‘Some day I’ll repay you. Now go and slay Steve McGrath. You lucky thing. He’s absolutely divine. Are you sure he’s hetero? Did you ever see such legs?’ Lainey laughed. Tony was irrepressible.

  That night she didn’t get to bed at all. She went home, had a bite to eat, packed her holdall and dressed in a simple white broderie anglaise dress that revealed her shoulders and showed off her glowing tan. Sweeping her blonde hair from her face with two jewelled combs, she put on her makeup, the merest hint, liberally sprayed on her perfume and sallied forth looking fantastic. It was a marvellous night. She and Steve had danced the whole night long. He looked magnificent in a white jacket and black pants. He was most attentive and charming, making sure that she got what she required from the buffet, topping up her glass with champagne.

  In the early hours when the dance was over, they went walking on the deserted beach which was bathed in moonlight. He had put his jacket over her shoulders in case she felt chilled. Lainey loved the masculine musky scent of it, snuggling into its smoothly-lined depths. He carried her sandals for her and they laughed and talked and when he kissed her, that first lovely long languorous kiss, she thought she was in paradise. He took her to the bus, and on the early-morning journey back to Dublin, Lainey watched the pastel rays of dawn light up the eastern sky with a smile on her face and a glow in her heart.