Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  Wiping her eyes, she put up the fire-guard, switched off the lamp, washed up her dishes, put out the milk bottles and went upstairs to bed. Doing her last check, she smiled as she saw Caitriona with her little hands at the back of her head. No matter how often Liz put them under the quilt to keep them warm they would always be back behind her head the next time she looked in. Fiona lay sideways across the bed with her foot sticking out from under the cover, her cheek resting on her hand. Moving her gently and tucking the quilt tightly around her, Liz leaned over and kissed her very softly on the cheek. ‘I love you,’ she whispered.

  As she lay in Don and Eve’s enormous bed, thoughts flitted in and out of her mind and her eyes grew drowsy. Hugh’s proposal. She’d have to make her decision soon. He’d be home before the weekend. The interview that said she was a Nineties Woman who had it made. Princess Caroline and her grief. Fiona and Caitriona fast asleep. Her eyes opened wide. ‘I’m going to do it!’ she said aloud with conviction. She had been thinking about it for so long, pushing it away, drawing it to her, afraid yet excited. Well maybe she was a new breed of woman. It was a huge step to take, but this past two weeks had cemented the idea in her head. She’d go to Majorca with Incarna and really think it out and then she’d act on it.

  Feeling as though a heavy burden had finally been lifted from her shoulders, Liz dropped off asleep, only waking once when Fiona crept in to her aunt’s bed for a ‘cuggle’.

  HUGH

  Sunday 30 December 1990

  As he lay beside Liz’s sleeping form, Hugh reflected that as long as he lived no woman would ever amaze him as Liz continued to do. She was something else entirely, he reflected ruefully, listening to her soft even breathing as she slept in the curve of his arm, their bodies entwined after a night of passionate lovemaking.

  Who else but Liz would refuse his offer of marriage in one breath and tell him that she wanted him to father a baby in the next? Who else would consider the hare-brained scheme of giving up a fantastically successful career to go and live halfway up a mountain in Majorca to paint, with a baby in tow? Who else but Liz Lacey? And why the hell was he aiding and abetting her? And why the hell did America not seem as exciting all of a sudden? Women! They were nothing but trouble. She couldn’t be serious about selling the apartment! There was no way she’d sell Apartment 3B! Deep down he had known Liz would never come to America with him and he couldn’t in all honesty blame her. If he was to make it there he’d need to be unencumbered. He’d never be able to give Liz the attention their relationship needed while he was carving his niche. He knew it and she knew it. He was what he was, just as Liz was what she was but it didn’t lessen the love between them. That bond would always be there. If she got pregnant as she so desperately wanted he would be a father. Imagine. Hugh Cassidy. Father. It was a hard concept to grasp. His own father had died when he was young so he had never really had a role model. Maybe that was why he wasn’t into settling down and having babies and things. He could always go into analysis when he got to the States, just for the crack! Everyone did it there. And he and Liz used to be highly amused at some of the crap they’d had to listen to that people took so seriously over there. Would he be hard to analyse? Why was he so determined to succeed, even at the expense of the most loving relationship he had ever had? Was he getting hooked on coke? He needed it a lot more than he used to. And he needed much more of it to get a buzz. What kind of a daddy would he make if Liz got pregnant? All those questions and answers to none! Sighing, Hugh turned over, drew Liz closer to him and fell asleep.

  CLAIRE

  Friday 20 March 1990

  ‘I walked up the path and opened the front door . . . and it was terrible . . . terrible! He was hanging from the bannisters. David. My son, my beautiful son. Oh God . . . help me . . . help me understand. Why did he do it?’ Claire sobbed her heart out to the quietly-listening woman who was stroking her hand. She lay on a couch in the small dimly-lit room. This was her fifth session of acupuncture and there was something so understanding and caring about the petite dark-haired woman who was treating her that Claire found herself blurting out all about David. All the anguish that had been bottled up inside her since that terrifying October day almost six months before came rushing out in a torrent.

  ‘I managed to lift him down. He was still warm but he wasn’t breathing, and there was no heartbeat or pulse. I was screaming for help and one of the neighbours heard and came in and called an ambulance for me. We tried to resuscitate him but it was no use, he was dead. David was dead. My poor tormented son! What must he have been feeling to do such a thing? Didn’t he know how much I loved him? Didn’t he know I would have done anything I could for him? Oh if only I hadn’t sat daydreaming in Arnott’s over my coffee I might have been home in time to save him.’ The tears were streaming down her face and her body shook with sobs, great gasping sobs as her grief poured out of her.

  ‘You must not reproach yourself like that, ever,’ Emma, her acupuncturist said, quietly but very firmly. ‘There is a divine pattern to all our lives, Claire, and nothing or no-one can change that. If you were meant to get to David in time you would have – if it had been God’s plan.’

  Claire wept. ‘Oh Emma, I try to accept it was the will of God but I am so tormented.’

  ‘I know, I know. But the fact that you are talking about it to me and expressing your grief is very good for you. It means that you are not bottling it up inside you where it can go repressed for a long time and end up causing physical illness. Look at the progress we have made so far with your periods and the bloating. We will work through this together. Never fear, Claire. You are not alone.’ She stroked Claire’s hand gently until Claire, utterly spent, began to relax.

  With quiet unhurried movements Emma expertly positioned the acupuncture needles. Then pouring a little scented oil on the palm of her hand she gently massaged Claire’s forehead. The scent of roses filled the room and Claire inhaled deeply. ‘Relax now, Claire,’ Emma murmured. ‘Picture yourself in a beautiful rose garden. You are peaceful and untroubled and I am standing at the gate so no-one can come and disturb you. Now say this little prayer. It might give you comfort and help when things seem to be overwhelming you. ‘‘I cast this burden on the Christ within me and I go free.’’ Lie there, now, and let all the grief and sorrow flow out of you. I’ll be popping in and out if you need me.’

  Claire lay inhaling deeply as Emma had taught her in one of their previous sessions. The breathing exercises were a great help. At least now when she woke up having one of her terrible panic attacks she was able to do something to control it. If it wasn’t for Emma she would have gone out of her mind. Claire lay in the comforting darkened room, not wanting to leave it ever. Here she felt safe and protected from the horrors of her life outside. For the hour-and-a-half that she was under Emma’s care she always felt so peaceful. Despite the fact that Emma had other patients to treat and a thousand-and-one things to attend to, Claire never felt rushed or under pressure not to be taking up the acupuncturist’s time, as she had so often felt in her doctor’s surgery. But then the theory behind holistic healing was that the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional states of the patient were all intertwined and that treatment of the whole person was the key to well-being. There was no comparison between a quick ten-minute consultation with her harassed and overworked GP and the hour-and-a-half she spent every second week with Emma Morris. Emma had studied acupuncture in Singapore and nursing in Ireland, and blended the two traditions so skilfully and successfully that there was a three-month waiting list of people who were trying to get an appointment with her. Lying in the scent-filled room, Claire reflected that she had been lucky to get her appointment.

  It was Rosie, desperately worried about her traumatized friend, who had persuaded Claire to go to Emma for treatment. Haggard, exhausted from lack of proper sleep, drained and worn out from constant heavy periods and kidney infections, Claire had been a physical and mental wreck. Rosie herself went to Emma for tre
atment for a recurring sinus problem that conventional medicine had been unsuccessful in treating, and was delighted after several months of acupuncture to have her sinus problem cleared up. She finished her course of treatment feeling much healthier than when she started. Rosie knew that Emma was just what Claire needed.

  Claire had been too apathetic to argue and had let Rosie make the appointment for her and drive her out to the clinic in Sandycove. At her first visit, the acupuncturist had advised Claire that she should continue treatment with her gynaecologist and GP, explaining that the treatment she would receive at her clinic would be complementary to the conventional medical treatment she was undergoing. That first visit, Emma had not given her any needles. She had just talked quietly to Claire as she gave her new patient a thorough examination. ‘The first thing we must do is build up your immune system by good nutrition, supplemented by some vitamin therapy,’ Emma said. Claire listened with a complete lack of interest. She had come only so that Rosie would stop annoying her. If the doctors she had spent years going to and spent so much money on couldn’t help her, she didn’t think this quietly-spoken woman with the firm handshake and calm aura could do much. It was probably more money down the drain. Well she didn’t care any more. If it would shut Rosie and Suzy up, she’d go for a while.

  She had never felt as ill in her life as during the week after she made her first visit and started following Emma’s instructions. As she cleansed and detoxified her body, flushing out all the impurities, drinking gallons of water, not eating chocolate and junk foods, she felt so bad that she thought she could never go back. But some instinct of self-preservation kept her going and she persevered. The next week she got acupuncture and she began to tell Emma a little about her life. The other woman never probed; she just let Claire tell her what she wanted to tell her and they talked about it. It was their fifth session before Claire could tell her about David.

  In the peaceful room Claire lay wide-eyed. All her crying and the exorcising of the pent-up emotion had left her drained but somehow the black unrelenting burden that sat upon her shoulders and weighed her down, did not seem quite as heavy.

  Claire left the clinic a little later, having made her next appointment with Ann, the motherly receptionist, and decided to walk along the sea-front for a little while. She wasn’t in the humour for going home. It was only eleven-fifteen. She had had the first appointment, and it was her day off work. No point in rushing back to mope around a house filled with hideous memories.

  Claire shuddered as she walked, the brisk March breeze catching her hair and whipping it about her face. She drew her collar up against the wind and walked along the sea-sprayed path in the direction of Dalkey. She wouldn’t mind living beside the sea, she mused. There was something very calming to the spirit about the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tides. She’d like to live anywhere other than in that big cold house she had called ‘home’ for so many years. Now, just six months after David’s death, living there was like living in hell.

  She bit her lip to stop it from trembling, as she walked, head bowed, shoulders hunched, hands clenched in her coat pockets. No matter what Emma said about trying to let the past be, and not to be holding on to bitterness and hate, Claire knew that she would never ever forgive Sean for the things he had said to her after their son’s funeral.

  ‘Bastard! I hate you!’ she muttered aloud, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  ‘It’s all your fault, Claire!’ Sean had accused her as they stood in the kitchen on the evening of David’s funeral. They were still in their mourning clothes and Claire was making tea. Suzy was upstairs sorting out her brother’s things for her mother, who couldn’t bear to enter his bedroom. ‘If you hadn’t been so selfish about going out to work and neglecting the children this would never have happened!’ Claire couldn’t believe her ears. Sean was blaming her. After the way he had treated their son: forcing him to study the maths that he hated; pressurizing him about his exams and going to university; refusing even to consider the possibility of allowing him to become a carpenter as David so badly wanted. And then not letting him go away for the weekend to bring his girlfriend to the dinner-dance, the last straw for her poor unhappy son. And Sean was flinging accusations at her! A red mist danced in front of her eyes and before she knew what she was doing she was on him, clawing at his face with her nails, screaming horrible obscenities at him as hatred surged through her and she struggled to wound him physically as he had wounded her mentally not only on this occasion but all through the years of their marriage.

  Pulling off his glasses, she flung them across the room as Sean tried to defend himself from her fury.

  ‘It is your fault!’ he shouted. ‘You killed our son with neglect and you’ll have to live with that!’

  ‘It was you!’ Claire screamed back, pummelling him. ‘You never gave him a minute’s peace. You were always picking on him. You loved putting him down. You’re a bully and a bastard and I’ll hate you for as long as I live.’

  ‘Mam! Dad! Stop it! Stop it!’ Suzy was standing white-faced at the kitchen door, watching them struggle and listening to them abusing each other. Rushing over, she dragged Claire away from Sean and put her arms about her shaking shoulders. ‘Don’t you ever say anything like that to my mother again!’ she spat at her father, who was trying to locate his glasses.

  ‘Oh typical!’ he ranted. ‘Take her side as usual. Well, the two of you can go to hell for all I care. And don’t you back-cheek me, miss, or you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Come on, Mam. Come in and sit down,’ Suzy urged Claire, ignoring her father. Claire sat shaking with her daughter’s arms around her for a long time. To think that she was capable of such violence shocked her but she wanted to hurt Sean and if she had had a knife in her hand at that moment she would have stabbed him, so complete was her loss of control. She slept on the sofa that night – not that she slept much. Memories of finding David, his funeral, and then her horrific fight with Sean flooded through her mind and when she finally did sleep, she had terrible nightmares.

  The next day Claire decided that she was going to go home to Knockross to her mother’s house. Molly was deeply shocked by her grandson’s death but had been unable to travel to the funeral because of an attack of bronchitis that had kept her in bed. Claire wanted to get away from the house where she was so tormented and would spend two weeks with her mother. Everybody had been extremely kind and understanding at work and her employers told her to take as much time off as she needed. Suzy decided that she was going too. Although she was in her last year at school, she was bright and had no trouble studying and her teachers assured her that they would give her extra tuition so she would catch up on what she missed. Sean didn’t say a word when Claire told him coldly that she was going to her mother’s for two weeks and that Suzy was going with her. His pale eyes glowered coldly at her from behind his cracked glasses and she knew that he would never forgive or forget her attack on him. She knew, too, that in his view she was responsible for his son’s death, that it was something he had had to make himself believe to exonerate himself from any feelings of guilt. He would justify his treatment of David as that of a concerned parent and being a past master at self-delusion he would be able to convince himself of his innocence and her guilt.

  It was a bitter, heart-sick woman who got on the Waterford train that wet miserable October day. If it were not for Suzy, Claire knew that she would never have gone back to Sean, or back to Dublin for that matter. She never wanted to see her husband again. Any feelings she had ever had for him had slowly been ground away over the years and now she hated him and she blamed him entirely for the death of her son. If Sean hadn’t been so unreasonable and so tough on David and if he had allowed him to go to Knockross for his planned weekend he would never have taken his own life. Claire, uncharacteristically bitter, hoped that Audrey, David’s girlfriend, who had been so annoyed with him for not taking her to the dance and who had hung up on him during their last telephone conversation, was fee
ling the worst kind of remorse. She had been at the funeral, but Claire couldn’t bring herself to talk to her and had asked Suzy to keep her away from her. Sitting on the train, watching the countryside flash by in a grey rainswept blur, she was consumed with hatred for Audrey and for her husband.

  Rosie’s mother collected them off the train and drove them to the cottage, where they found a welcome fire and a supper that she had kindly prepared for them. Molly, wheezing but on the mend, was sitting wrapped in a dressing-gown by the fire. She held her daughter tightly and Claire clung to her like a little girl. The two weeks at home helped her a little. The bond between her and Molly grew even stronger, as her mother tried to ease the pain of her child’s grief. Suzy, though herself grieving deeply, was extremely protective of Claire and they too drew even closer, bonded by their shared loss. Claire could not have cared less what Sean was doing or how he was coping, and not once during her two-week stay did she contact him or he her.

  When they did return to Dublin, Claire thought she was going to be sick as she walked up that garden path and was overwhelmed by frightening memories. Sean ignored both of them and she and Suzy spent the evening in the kitchen while her husband sat correcting copies in the sitting-room. Once again, she slept on the sofa. The next day she went into town and bought one of those bed-chairs. She asked Suzy if she could put it in her room and sleep there with her. Never again would she share a bed with her husband. As far as Claire was concerned the marriage was over.