Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  Don and Eve had made such a comfortable home for her in their granny flat. It was great really, she had her own privacy to come and go as she pleased, to have who she liked stay with her, and yet she had the comfort of knowing they were just beside her. Eve often came in to her for a couple of hours if she was there on her own at night. She really was one of the kindest human beings Liz had ever met. She was totally unselfish, unmaterialistic and had such a sunny nature that she made Liz feel ashamed of her moanings. Eve was the perfect optimist and Liz was going to take a leaf out of her beloved sister-in-law’s book, she decided, luxuriating in the comfort of the bath. She would take life as it came, she promised herself, beginning to feel a little bit sleepy. She got out of the bath, wrapped a fluffy peach bathtowel around her, tidied up and went into her bedroom. Liberally pouring moisturizing cream into her palms she rubbed it all over her body, loving the silky feeling it gave her skin. Matt had loved that little chore, she remembered a little sadly. ‘No sad thoughts, think positive,’ she told herself, remembering her new resolution. She pulled a clean silk nightdress over her head and slipped between cool sheets and soon felt her eyes grow heavy. Yes, she was definitely going to think more positively and take life as it came, she thought drowsily. After all, as Scarlett O’Hara would say tremulously, ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ That night Liz slept like a baby.

  Thinking back as she stood on Incarna’s patio looking out over the deep blue Mediterranean, Liz smiled to herself. Boy, had life changed after that night. She could safely say that the Lovers’ Mural had been the launch-pad of her career. And now she was about to take another big step. The biggest step she had ever taken. Eyes sparkling, Liz contemplated the future.

  Sunday 15 July 1984

  She had spent the day painting in Tijuana and Ensenada, contrasting the gaudy commercial city with the quieter, more authentically Mexican fishing port. Ensenada was beautiful and restful and she had got some great material but Tijuana, with its numerous bars, open-air restaurants and shops was a colourful bustling contrast which had translated into some great pictures on canvas. It was Liz’s last full day of painting before her return home to Ireland. She had been away for over a year-and-a-half and she had enough material for her own one-woman exhibition – which was one of the reasons she had gone abroad in the first place.

  Liz had been living and painting in La Jolla, in San Diego County, California, for the previous six months and had enjoyed every minute of it. Before that she had spent six months with friends up the coast in Los Angeles. She had come there from Washington. She couldn’t believe that the time had gone so fast but now she was looking forward to going home. It hadn’t been easy putting her hugely successful career at home on slow burn. Liz had thought long and hard about it and decided that her decision was the right one for her as an artist. ‘Polly O’Rourke, you did me a bigger favour than you know,’ she said to herself, remembering the fat little untidy woman who had interviewed her once. What she had written in her article had been one of the spurs for Liz to reflect on her career and radically alter course for a year-and-a-half.

  Liz poured herself a Bacardi and Coke, added a few ice-cubes from the freezer box and went out on to the deck to watch her last sunset in the Pacific. Sitting in a cane chair stuffed with plump cushions, Liz stretched out her tanned bare legs, feeling the heat of the sun on the wooden floorboards beneath her feet. A cooling breeze blew in from the ocean, lifting the hair from her forehead. Today’s water-colour sketches lay at her feet. She would do them in oils at home in Ireland. Her ‘Tijuana Trolly’ caught her eye. She had enjoyed that experience. She had made the short journey to the Mexican border town in a bright red trolly car and from the international crossing gate she had taken a Mexican taxi for the mile ride into town. It was a great way of seeing the countryside and she couldn’t resist painting the jolly red trolly car. Looking at the painting made her smile, and she decided she might keep it for herself. She was hopeless really – growing attached to her paintings. The thought of selling them in her exhibition dismayed her. Maybe she’d do a few duplicates of her favourite ones. But which ones were her favourites? The ‘Moonlight over the Potomac’ that she had done in Washington? Or the ‘Desert Rose’ that she had painted in Palm Springs? Or ‘New England Autumn?’ Then there was her Irish series. ‘Temple Bar!’ She loved that one. And her Mediterranean series. ‘The Fishermen!’ That was another favourite.

  ‘Stop it, Liz!’ she instructed herself, taking a sip of Bacardi. The setting sun was putting on a magnificent display. The size of it never failed to fascinate her. One minute it was there, the next, sliding silently into oblivion on the horizon, its dying rays slashing a violent farewell across the southern Californian sky. A thought crossed her mind. Maybe no-one would be interested enough in her paintings to buy them. After all, this would be her first ever exhibition. She was so lucky to have been asked to exhibit. Many artists spent half a lifetime trying to get a gallery interested in their work and often ended up sharing an exhibition whereas she had been approached by a prestigious Baggot Street gallery-owner and invited to hold a one-woman exhibition. It was a fantastic opportunity and all because of the way her career had taken off with her two murals.

  Liz grinned, sinking her teeth into a juicy peach. Boy, had her career taken off after the Lovers’ Mural party. The phone had been hopping all the next day with journalists and features writers wishing to interview her for their papers and magazines. Major New Art Talent Discovered screamed one of the tabloid papers. Liz Lauds Love proclaimed another. Photographers were hastily sent to snap this new young discovery who was making the headlines.

  ‘Seduce the camera, dear,’ one excitable young man told her as he danced around with his Nikon. He caused her to succumb to a fit of the giggles, much to his annoyance. She was invited on radio and television programmes and much to her surprise had become something of a celebrity. The work poured in. Incarna was in the seventh heaven of delight as she sifted through the offers. Watching Liz writing little notes on the back of an envelope to remind herself to keep appointments, she had thrown her eyes up to heaven and gone into Eason’s and bought her a Filofax.

  That Filofax made her the butt of much teasing from Christine, who informed her sister that she was turning into a yuppie, but it was soon bulging with appointments. Prospective clients, journalists and media people, it was all go, Liz decided, as she sat one morning about a year later, in the Kilkenny Design Centre, waiting to do yet another interview.

  It had been a year packed solid with work. In fact she was having to turn down commissions. She had worked for publishers, illustrating book covers. She had been invited by an author to do the artwork for a new book about Dublin. She had even done set-design for the theatre, which had been a whole new experience and which once again caused her to be hailed as a major talent, as the play was a success and her work was praised by the critics. Liz had worked non-stop and although she was enjoying each fresh challenge, she was looking forward to her little trip to Majorca with the girls. It was just what she needed. Liz was glad that she had had such a wide variety of work. At one stage she had been beginning to think that she would spend the rest of her life painting murals. But now she was really being stretched as an artist.

  She was also socializing a lot more than before, which she supposed was a good thing. She was being invited to so many functions, exhibition openings and the like, as a result of her celebrity status. Inevitably she had run into Marcus again but, much to his annoyance, she had played it very cool and acted as though nothing had happened between them. She made sure never to be in his company alone and if Angela was at the gathering, Liz made it a point to seek her out. She had forwarded the various college prospectuses to the older woman and had been delighted when Angela told her that she was working on a recognized interior design course. Angela was so enthusiastic about it all that Liz was delighted for her.

  Slowly Liz was growing accustomed to life without Matt. The periods of loneliness becam
e less intense although she could still cry over the silliest things. One day she was in a supermarket doing her shopping when the familiar voice of Gene Pitney came from the piped music system singing ‘Something’s gotten hold of my heart, keeping my soul and my senses apart . . . ’ Liz stood stock-still as a stab of grief pierced her heart and tears welled in her eyes. Oh God! That had been one of their favourite songs of all time. She tried to compose herself, feeling such a fool standing in a busy supermarket with tears running down her cheeks, but she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t bear to listen to the song, so abandoning her half-full basket she had left as quickly as she could and sat in her little Mini crying her eyes out. It was at such unexpected moments that it would all come back to her and she would feel her loss deeply.

  Christine and Liam got married and she had been her sister’s bridesmaid. That had been a tough day as memories of her own wedding came flooding back and she hated herself for the deep envy she had felt when she watched the look in her sister’s eyes as Liam slid the ring along her finger. Please let it all go well for her, she prayed swiftly, ashamed of herself.

  ‘You’re only human, Liz. Stop trying to be perfect!’ Eve scolded her that night as she burst into tears on the way home from the wedding.

  ‘I felt so mean . . . my own sister . . . and I was thinking, why couldn’t I have been allowed to stay as happy as she is now, and for a moment I felt such resentment. There are times I hate myself. Am I always going to be like this? Crying for the least thing? I’m sick of it!’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Eve said consolingly. ‘But you can’t expect to get over Matt just like that. It’s going to take time. So stop pushing yourself so hard and give in to yourself now and again. These little upsets are only natural. Just look at what you’ve achieved this last year with your painting, in spite of your bereavement. Isn’t that something to be proud of?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Liz sniffed, wiping her eyes. Her sister-in-law made her outburst seem so reasonable. Maybe she was being hard on herself. That was the thing about being a perfectionist. Well there was nothing she could do, just plough on. She gave Eve a watery smile. ‘Who needs a psychiatrist when they’ve got an Eve around?’

  ‘My bill will be in the post!’ came the smiling rejoinder.

  Sitting at a round table and gazing over at Trinity, Liz smiled at the memory as she waited for the tardy journalist. She conceded that she had worked through the very worst of her grief. The ache was still there but the future did not appear so fearful as it had once done.

  Where was this woman, she wondered. Liz had got used to people ringing her up to arrange for interviews. Sometimes they came to her place or sometimes, if it was handier, they met in town. ‘How about the Kilkenny Design Centre at ten o’clock?’ Polly O’Rourke had suggested, and Liz had agreed, despite the fact that she had a million and one things to do. It was now ten-thirty. Polly had assured her that she knew what she looked like from her photographs. Polly was a freelance journalist who contributed to a wide variety of papers and magazines. Liz had read some of her articles and been a bit wary as Polly could be extremely judgemental sometimes. The restaurant, as usual, was buzzing; elegant women having morning coffee, grey-suited men deep in discussion, couples with eyes only for each other, singles like herself observing all that was going on around them. Liz thought about the beautiful pink lamp that had caught her eye as she walked through the shop to get to the restaurant. It would suit Eve and Don’s sitting-room perfectly. Maybe she’d run down and buy it for them as a little treat.

  ‘So sorry to keep you waiting!’ a breathless voice said beside her and Liz saw with surprise a stout little middle-aged woman, with dyed red hair streeling down her back, slump into a chair beside her. Polly was dressed in a low-cut black dress that revealed more than it concealed and that clung to each generous curve, and she was the most ungroomed person Liz had ever encountered. She waved imperiously towards the waitress, then held out her hand and gave Liz a brief limp handshake. Limp handshakes always put Liz off and the fact that the other woman was nearly three-quarters of an hour late for their appointment didn’t help.

  ‘I was at my aerobics class. I can barely walk!’ Polly said breathlessly as she dived into an untidy-looking sack of a shoulder bag and began rooting for a pen.

  You’d need an aerobics class, Liz thought with uncharacteristic nastiness as she watched fat fingers tighten their grip on the biro in preparation for the interview. It just annoyed her to think that she had gone to the trouble of being on time only to be left twiddling her thumbs for three-quarters of an hour while madame had been at her aerobics.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ Polly instructed in her clipped accent, trying to catch the waitress’s eye.

  ‘You have to queue,’ Liz said helpfully.

  ‘Drat!’ muttered Polly, ‘Well, never mind. Carry on,’ she ordered crossly. She was something else, thought Liz with amusement.

  ‘I was born and reared in Dublin. I have a brother and sister. I went to Dominican College, Eccles Street.’

  ‘Ah ha . . . a convent-educated girl,’ Polly said, seizing on this piece of information as if it were a particularly juicy nugget, her small beady eyes lighting up. Liz vaguely remembered from some of her articles that she had a thing about convent educations. Obviously Edna O’Brien’s stories had made a great impression on her. ‘Did you find it repressive?’ she queried eagerly.

  ‘Not at all!’ Liz responded, surprised. ‘I found the Dominican nuns extremely enlightened and very forward-thinking. They urged all of us to aim for our full potential and were open to all kinds of discussion and argument. There were very few rules in the school and the few they had they expected us to keep. We were treated as adults and given a good all-round education with as much emphasis on physical education as intellectual. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at school,’ Liz finished firmly. Nun-knockers annoyed her.

  Polly looked extremely disappointed. The interview proceeded. ‘Will you marry again?’ she asked finally after a gruelling hour.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Liz murmured, wishing she wouldn’t be so intrusive.

  ‘Don’t you want a man to take care of you?’ Polly asked, round-eyed.

  ‘I can take care of myself. I can provide for myself. I’m earning a good living from my art,’ Liz assured her, amazed at her attitude. But then she was of a different generation. She came from a generation where it was the norm for men to marry women and provide for them. The independent-minded career woman was obviously still a novelty to Polly O’Rourke.

  ‘Well may I say that you are an inspiration to us all and that will be the theme of my article,’ the older woman gushed as she shoved her notepad into her bag and threw a grey shawl around her shoulders.

  ‘Well that’s nice. Thank you very much,’ responded Liz, glad that the interview was over. It had been an experience, she mused, as she watched Polly waddle through the restaurant. Not one that she had particularly enjoyed when she compared it to some of the interviews she had done with very approachable and genuine people. With Polly she had felt like a specimen that was being dissected. She glanced at her watch. It was almost midday. The whole morning was gone, she thought ruefully. Well, she might as well have lunch. She decided to have the carrot soup, cod Provençale and fresh fruit salad and she thoroughly enjoyed her meal. Not being in the humour for work, she dawdled in the shop, bought the pink lamp and two gorgeous soft cashmere scarfs for her mother and Incarna and spent a few relaxing hours meandering in and out of the shops on Grafton Street. She made up for her sloth the next day.

  A few weeks later, as she lolled around after lunch one Sunday, she heard Eve give a horrified gasp.

  ‘The bitch!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Liz, startled.

  ‘That O’Rourke one! Her interview with you is in this paper.’

  Liz had forgotten all about it. ‘Well what does she say, then?’ she yawned lazily, not too pushed. Eve had cooked a feast of roast beef and Yorkshi
re pud and roast spuds and veg and all Liz wanted to do was have a snooze.

  ‘Here, read it yourself,’ Eve said, disgusted.

  Liz took the paper. ‘Well the photo is nice,’ she grinned at the sight of herself with paintbrush and palette in hand. ‘Rather artisty!’ She began to read and her eyes widened in amazement.

  Liz Lacey, one of the Filofax brigade, has recently emerged into the limelight of Dublin’s arty set. Applauded as a rising new star in the world of ‘Art’ she undoubtedly has a talent for what many would see as ‘Chocolate-Box Art.’ Liz comes from a middle-class family and had a happy childhood and girlhood. Her biggest trauma was the tragic death of a young husband. She has weathered the storm well. Pretty in a gamine sort of way, she is very offhand about her new-found fame. She was dressed in a cool summer dress that she confessed to buying in Roche’s Stores and she has obviously not spent her loot in any of the capital’s posh clothes spots!

  ‘Chocolate-Box Art! Confessed to buying . . . ! Well the old bag – the cheek of her! And the state of her, I’ve seen better-dressed scarecrows! And I was supposed to be an inspiration! Huh!’ Liz finished the rest of the article and threw down the paper. She couldn’t believe it. Polly had been so smarmy about the mural and the rest of her work and here she was calling it chocolate-box art. Why hadn’t she been straight about it at the interview? Liz didn’t mind criticism at all. She had the commonsense to know that her work would appeal to some while others could take it or leave it. If Polly had said that her art wasn’t to her taste Liz would have much preferred it. At least she would have been prepared. There wasn’t a mention of forward-thinking nuns either!