Apartment 3B

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘Could I paint it myself? The colour is a bit off-putting,’ she queried hesitantly.

  ‘Sure! If you supply the paint yourself, you can do what you like,’ the man said briskly. Claire thought he looked like a guard. He was just a little older than her and he had the navy trousers and the cropped hair. Besides, weren’t half the landlords in the city guards? The doorbell buzzed shrilly. More viewers. ‘Do you want it then? Before I let anyone else in to see it?’ he asked.

  ‘Mmm . . . yes . . . yes, I’ll take it then,’ Claire agreed hastily, feeling absolutely terrified. In a daze, she heard him answer the door, heard murmured voices and heard him say that the bedsit was taken. Well this was it! It was now or never. The man didn’t seem to notice her panic. He was explaining that he would require a fifty-pound deposit plus a week’s rent in advance. Feeling like she was signing her own death warrant Claire wrote out the cheque for the required amount. The first thing she had done when she started to work was to open a bank account and apply for a cheque-book. This was the biggest cheque she had ever written. But then, this was the biggest step she had ever taken, she thought, as she stood alone in her new bedsit holding the keys the landlord had given her. Feeling like an intruder, she gingerly sat on the sofa. It was comfortable enough but Claire felt as though she was sitting on hot coals. She stood up and walked over to the window. The pocket-sized front garden had a scorched weedy lawn with a faded, dried-up cherry blossom tree in the centre. Claire always thought that cherry blossoms turned so ugly after their magnificent flowering for those few weeks in the spring. Would she be here in the spring to see it blooming? Feeling extremely apprehensive, Claire let herself out of the bedsit and began her walk home. Sean would have to be told of her decision, and now that the moment was upon her she dreaded the confrontation.

  Many times, as she had lain in bed planning her future, she had practised how she would tell Sean. Always in her fantasy, she was calm, cool and collected but when it actually came to it she just blurted out, ‘I’ve got a flat! I’m leaving you.’

  Sean was incredulous. ‘You can’t do that! What about our marriage vows? We were married in the sight of God, for better or worse. You can’t break the marriage contract, Claire.’

  ‘I’m not looking for a divorce, Sean,’ Claire snapped back, irritated by his hypocrisy. ‘I just think that it would be best for the both of us. Let’s both try and salvage as much as we can from our lives. Don’t worry,’ she added, ‘I won’t expect maintenance from you, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  Sean glared at her coldly. ‘Go, then, if that’s what you want, but may God forgive you, because I won’t.’ Claire looked at the bitter, mean man that she had lived with all those years and found herself for the first time feeling faintly sorry for him. Sean had nothing, absolutely nothing, except his regimented routines. He had no friends, his son was dead, his daughter had emigrated and his wife was leaving him. All he had were his bitterness and anger to keep him company. Well, she was leaving all those feelings behind her in this house. She was starting out afresh in the bedsit on Botanic Avenue. Squaring her shoulders, Claire went upstairs and began to pack. She packed her clothes, books and personal belongings, her photos of David and Suzy and the white linen tablecloth her mother had given her for a wedding present. Then she phoned Rosie and asked her if she could drive her to her new home. Claire left her marital abode with fewer possessions than she had brought to it but she didn’t care. She was damned if she was going to be beholden to Sean Moran for one penny.

  Slightly stunned by the news, Rosie arrived to assist with the move. Claire wrote her new address and telephone number on a notepad by the phone and told Sean it was there if ever he needed to contact her. Carrying her case out the door to Rosie’s car, and then her box of belongings and, with Rosie’s help, the sofa chair, she left the big red-bricked house without a backward glance although her heart was aching. That house was her last link with David, however unhappy, but it was a link that had to be broken. In time, Emma had told her, she would be able to think of her son without grief. But now she felt very, very lonely.

  ‘Stay with me until we’ve decorated the place a bit,’ pleaded Rosie, trying to hide her dismay at the sight of the olive green colour-scheme. Claire was sorely tempted. But she knew if she didn’t start as she meant to go on and stay in the bedsit the first night, she’d never stay there. Besides, hadn’t she paid her rent? No point in wasting hard-earned money.

  ‘Thanks Rosie, but I’d better stay and get used to it.’ Claire forced herself to sound cheerful.

  Rosie shook her head. ‘You can be so stubborn, sometimes. But if that’s what you want, OK. Just promise me one thing!’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If you get lonely or you want to come and stay with me for a while, promise you’ll ring me. I’ll be right over.’

  Tears filled Claire’s eyes. Rosie had stuck by her all these years, offering unconditional friendship and support. Rosie was her Rock of Gibraltar, able to take her as she was, warts and all. With Rosie, Claire never had to be anything other than herself.

  Hugging her friend, she sniffed, ‘It’s a pity you can’t marry your best friend. Think of all the hassles it would save.’

  Rosie grinned. ‘Mmm. If you had the right equipment now, it would be perfect. The difference one little willie makes!’

  Claire laughed, feeling better. Rosie always cheered her up.

  They began to unpack, putting away clothes in the wardrobe. Claire put her photos on the chipped mantelpiece. Each week since she had thought about moving she had been buying sheets and towels and cutlery and the like on pay-day and she had accumulated a little cache of necessities that would get her started. She and Rosie worked companionably, cleaning out the presses and putting away the linen. They made up the bed and covered the duvet with the colourful floral cover with matching pillowcases that she had bought that very day in a drapery shop under the footbridge in Finglas.

  ‘There, that looks better,’ Claire murmured approvingly as she stood back to admire their handiwork.

  ‘Ah when we’ve painted the place up a bit it will be fine,’ Rosie said reassuringly, always ready to look on the bright side. ‘Now let’s go out and have a bite to eat. You didn’t have your dinner, sure you didn’t?’

  Claire shook her head. She had been too sick at the thought of breaking the news to Sean to eat anything. But now, after the couple of hours of hard work on the bedsit, she was feeling hungry. ‘Where will we go?’

  Rosie considered for a moment. ‘Well the Skylon Hotel is handy, it’s just down the road.’ Then a thought struck her. ‘Do you like Chinese?’

  ‘I’ve never tasted it,’ Claire admitted. Sean would no more venture into a Chinese restaurant than go to the moon.

  ‘Oooh, you’ll love it. Come on, get a bit of lipstick on. We’re outta here, big time.’ Rosie rubbed her hands at the thought of food.

  ‘Out of here – what?’

  ‘Big time,’ grinned Rosie. ‘Isn’t it the pits? They use the expression all the time in the States. My devoted husband told me that if I don’t stop using it he’s going to divorce me, citing mental cruelty. Come on, let’s go and treat ourselves to a slap-up.’

  Singing ‘Food, Glorious Food’, Rosie drove down Botanic Avenue and turned left at the lights. As with the apartments, Claire had never given Drumcondra more than a glance whenever she had travelled through it, but now she noted with a new interest that there was a Quinnsworth supermarket, a fried-chicken place, Thunder’s famous bakery and lots of other shops around. There was a launderette too, the landlord had told her. That would be handy in the winter. Pulling up at the Chinese restaurant just across the road from the Skylon Hotel, Rosie said cheerfully, ‘Come on and we’ll go into the hotel and have a drink first and then we’ll nip across to the restaurant. We might as well make a night of it. After all it is a special kind of night.’

  ‘OK,’ agreed Claire, hoping she looked dressed-up enough. She wa
sn’t used to going into hotels. ‘Do I look all right?’ she asked, patting her hair nervously.

  ‘You’re fine. When you’re settled in we’re going to go out together at least once a fortnight. It’s time to have a bit of fun again,’ Rosie stated firmly. They went into the hotel and Rosie ordered champagne. Claire’s eyes widened at this unheard-of extravagance. ‘A toast! To you!’ her friend declared as she held up her glass of bubbly. ‘To the start of a new chapter in your life, Claire. I think you really are brave. I’m thirty-eight and I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do what you’ve just done after what you’ve been through. But things can only get better.’ Claire sipped her first-ever glass of champagne and hoped with all her heart that Rosie was right.

  That night, as she lay wide-eyed and tense in a strange bed, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of her new home, wondering anxiously if the lock on her door was good and secure, she reflected that she hadn’t enjoyed an evening out as much for a long time. Rosie was right: she thought the Chinese meal was delicious, especially the crispy duck, and it would be nice to do something similar on a regular basis with Rosie. The front door slammed shut as someone left the house, and she jumped in the bed. It was the first time she had ever been totally on her own at night. At least when she had been in lodgings in Waterford years ago, she had known her landlady and been treated like one of the family. ‘Oh stop it! And go to sleep!’ she scolded herself aloud, twisting to find a comfortable position. It was a really hot night but because her flat was on the ground floor, she was afraid to open the window in case of burglars. Tomorrow, she’d go and buy one of those little electric fans. She wondered how Suzy was getting on in Paris. She seemed to have settled in well with the family she was working for and she had phoned several times. Wait until Claire told her that she had made the move. She wondered briefly what Sean was feeling, alone in the house, but banished the thought. Sean had brought it all on himself and she had enough to do to try and find a little bit of happiness for herself.

  Gradually she settled in. She and Rosie painted the bedsit lemon and white and the difference a new coat of different-coloured paint made was amazing. It had been some job to scrape and bond the walls before undercoating and finally painting it the fresh lemon colour that immediately lifted your spirits when you walked into the room. A few lamps positioned here and there instead of the harsh main light made such a difference at night.

  She met the other people who shared the house. Rick and Pete were two students who lived across the hall from her and who came to her aid one day when her window had got stuck and she couldn’t close it. She had made a cup of coffee for them as they struggled to get the window back on the runner. ‘Tell Rachmann to get that window fixed,’ Pete, the blond one, said, referring disparagingly to their landlord as he tucked into a plate of biscuits. He looked as if he was starving, which he probably was. All the pair of them seemed to eat was burger and chips. They were nice young men, always ready to give her a hand with her parcels or whatever and Claire got friendly with them over the months. They always had a cheery word for her and one day she asked them casually if they’d like to pop over to her room for dinner one night. Eating on her own was something she had not grown accustomed to. They arrived with a bottle of wine and some chrysanths that Pete confessed to nicking out of someone’s garden. It was the first time Claire had ever been given flowers, and nicked or not, she was touched. They devoured the lasagne she had prepared for them, lavishing compliments on her, and she hid a smile. David had always had a huge appetite and these two were no different; they just didn’t eat properly. So occasionally she would have them in to dinner and they would take her over to the Addison for a drink and a bit of crack.

  Miss Byrne lived down at the back. She was a small, self-effacing woman who worked in the Corporation and went to daily mass. She kept very much to herself but was always extremely polite and pleasant to Claire when they met in the hall or outside the bathroom that they shared with Rick and Pete. Miss Byrne made sure that the bathroom and hall were kept spotless. The Hoover that was there for their common use was taken out every Saturday morning at ten on the dot, much to the lads’ annoyance as they were usually suffering from a hangover and trying in vain to have a lie-in.

  Upstairs, four nurses shared a big flat which was the scene of a few noisy parties, much to Miss Byrne’s dismay. The hallway was partitioned and divided off so that they had their own entrance and Claire didn’t really get to know the girls, except to say hello if they were entering or leaving the house at the same time. It was nice, she decided, having other people in the building. Her nervousness at night diminished and she began to sleep much better as she settled in.

  Suzy was delighted that she had finally taken the plunge and her letters were full of encouragement. Claire wrote to her daughter faithfully every Sunday night, fifteen or twenty sheets sometimes, as she told her about all the new experiences she was having: paying her first ESB bill; having Rosie and her husband over for her first dinner-party; going out for a drink with Rick and Pete; going swimming in the airport pool with Rosie; going shopping in Quinnsworth or Superquinn on Thursday night after work. It was all new and enjoyable. It had taken her so long to get used to the idea that she could put whatever she liked in the supermarket trolley without Sean standing disapprovingly at her shoulder. The first time it really hit her was when she picked up a container of chicken liver paté with garlic. She had tasted paté at Rosie’s several times and loved the taste of it. Old habits dying hard, she had put it back on the shelf and started to move along when it suddenly dawned on her that if she wanted the paté she could buy it. She could buy a dozen cartons if she wished. Sean wasn’t paying for the shopping, she was. It was her shopping. That night, a carton of paté, a melon and a packet of assorted shelled nuts had gone into the trolley. She had put back the pineapple; that was being wildly extravagant. She came home with her booty, lathered half a packet of crackers with the paté, cubed the melon, decorated it with nuts, made a pot of tea and went out to sit under the huge hydrangea bush in the back yard, with her tea and her library book. It was great having the library so near to work as she could pop up during her lunch-hour to select a book. It was always hectically busy, particularly after the cutbacks, when it had had to close two nights a week and two mornings, much to the dismay of the Finglas community. Despite this, the staff were always extremely helpful. The smiling man at the desk had told her that it was quite possible to reserve a book if it wasn’t on the shelf so she currently had about ten of the latest bestsellers on order. And all for free, she thought contentedly, as she settled down to munch and read in the balmy scented breeze of an early August evening. She was reading To School Through the Fields, by Alice Taylor, and thoroughly enjoying it. Parts of it reminded her so much of home when she was young. Smiling, she remembered the exploits of old Mickey Hayes and Paudi Leary, the bachelors gay of Knockross. You could write a book about that pair and it would be a bestseller.

  She had gone down to Knockross a month after leaving Sean, to tell her mother about it. Molly had just sat quietly holding her daughter’s hand. ‘You were right, child,’ she said finally. ‘Everybody is entitled to try and find a bit of peace and happiness in their lives, no matter what the priests and the Church say. I should have left Billy long ago, but what would I have done, where would I have gone? At least you have your independence, Claire, your own job and money in your pocket. It’s different now – and about time,’ her mother said almost vehemently. Molly had come to Dublin to stay with Claire for a few days and had had a marvellous time, walking through the nearby Botanic Gardens, strolling around town on Claire’s day off, going to the pictures and then for a meal, a rare treat for Molly.

  ‘I love the city, I always did,’ she confessed one evening as they walked arm-in-arm around the big park beside Claire’s bedsit.

  ‘Do you?’ asked Claire in surprise.

  ‘Oh yes, dear. There’s so much to do, without ever spending a penny. And you’
d never be lonely,’ the old lady said sadly.

  ‘Are you lonely at home?’ Claire was ashamed that the thought had never really struck her.

  ‘I missed you terribly when you left.’ Her mother smiled.

  That night, as she lay in the sofa-chair, while her mother slumbered contentedly on the divan, Claire thought about what her mother had said. Although she was still extremely active and sprightly, the time would come when she might need looking after. Because of Billy and his drunkenness, Molly had never had a chance to make many friends, Rosie’s mother being about the best she had. She’d never leave Knockross and come and live in Dublin, would she? Claire decided to ask her in the morning. They could get a place together. They had always got on well and it would be no hardship for Claire to have her mother living with her.

  ‘What would you think of leaving Knockross and coming up to Dublin to live with me?’ Claire asked the next morning. They were getting ready to go to mass.

  Her mother paused in the act of putting on her hat. ‘For good?’ she asked, startled.

  Claire nodded, smiling.

  ‘You’re a good daughter to me, Claire, and always have been, but I wouldn’t like to be a burden on you,’ Molly said firmly.

  ‘You’d be no burden to me. I couldn’t think of anything nicer.’ Claire leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek.