Apartment 3B Read online

  Patricia Scanlan was born in Dublin, where she still lives. Her books have sold worldwide and have been translated into many languages. Patricia is the series editor and a contributing author to the Open Door series. She also teaches creative writing to second-level students and is involved in Adult Literacy.

  Find out more by visiting Patricia Scanlan on Facebook.

  Also by Patricia Scanlan

  Apartment 3B

  Finishing Touches

  Foreign Affairs

  Promises, Promises

  Mirror Mirror

  Francesca’s Party

  Two for Joy

  Double Wedding

  Divided Loyalties

  Coming Home

  Trilogies

  City Girl

  City Lives

  City Woman

  Forgive and Forget

  Happy Ever After

  Love and Marriage

  With All My Love

  A Time for Friends

  First published in Ireland by Poolbeg Press, 1991

  This paperback edition published by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Patricia Scanlan 1991

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Patricia Scanlan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  PB ISBN: 978-1-47114-105-8

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-47114-106-5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Acknowledgements

  When I sat at a blank screen I always said a little prayer, ‘God, please inspire me.’ He never failed. Thank you, God.

  To Jo, my editor, and to Breda, my sales and marketing manager, who cosseted me through this book.

  To Margaret Daly and Kim Murray, who always do a terrific publicity job.

  This book is dedicated to family and friends, without whom I couldn’t have written it.

  To my mother, my rock of support.

  To my Dad, the best in the world.

  To Mary, my sister and best friend.

  To my brothers Donald, Hugh, Paul and Dermot and their wives, who are always there for me.

  To Yvonne, the best sister-in-law a girl could have.

  To Fiona and Caitriona, my beautiful nieces.

  To Rose, my sun-worshipping sister-in-law and companion.

  To Catherine, my sister-in-law, who read the manuscript and gave me great encouragement.

  To Maureen, my godmother, who spoils me rotten.

  To my Aunts, Ita, Lelia, and Flo, who always make a fuss of me.

  To Ger, Janet, Ann and Anne, the best of friends, who kept me going and gave me lots of pampering when the pressure was on.

  To Michele, who told me all about Saudi.

  To Annette Tallon, of the Dublin Centre for Complementary Medicine, who helped me change my life.

  To Alil, a great friend.

  To Aidan, for all the legal advice. (Paris, here I come!)

  To Albert, who taught me all about PCWs.

  To Brian, who is always getting me out of fixes.

  To Dr Frank Fine, who’s always there in my hour of need.

  To Henry a.k.a. Harry who can live with the slagging!

  To Paddy and Derek, my two good buddies.

  And finally –

  To all my friends in the Library Service, but especially to the staff of Finglas Library: Mrs Grogan, Alil, Ger, Rose, Bernadette, Martina, Christy and David. Great workmates and great friends.

  Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet

  Thomas Crum

  CONTENTS

  TUESDAY 23 APRIL 1991

  The Estate Agents

  The Seller

  The Residents

  The Viewers

  Hugh

  Claire

  Lainey

  Dominic

  Cecily

  THE SIXTIES/SEVENTIES

  Liz

  Hugh

  Claire

  Lainey

  Dominic

  Cecily and Simon

  THE EIGHTIES

  Liz

  Hugh

  Claire

  Lainey

  Dominic

  Cecily and Simon

  THE NINETIES

  Liz

  Hugh

  Claire

  Lainey

  Dominic

  Cecily and Simon

  TUESDAY 23 APRIL 1991

  The Viewing

  Liz

  Hugh

  Claire

  Lainey

  Cecily

  The Residents

  THE DECISION

  TUESDAY 23 APRIL 1991

  The Estate Agents

  ‘Where’s the file for Apartment 3B?’ Hilary Purcell muttered to herself, knowing that His Nibs, as she disrespectfully referred to her boss, would be requiring it later. Having located it, she placed it on the desk in front of her and returned to her typing. The phone rang.

  ‘O’Malley, Costello and Ryan. Can I help you?’ Hilary cursed silently as she made yet another typing error. Down the phone an angry tirade assaulted her ears. ‘Just one moment. I’ll put you through to Mr O’Malley,’ she said sweetly. She was damned if she was going to deal with the angry client on the other end of the phone. Typical, of course. On their first meeting John O’Malley had told the client that the firm took 2 per cent of the selling price. He omitted to mention that the 2 per cent did not include the price of the boards and photograph of the property and the advertising. Not to mention the 21 per cent VAT. So the poor unfortunate on the other end of the phone had got a much heftier bill than she had budgeted for.

  Hilary had had so many phone calls from shocked and irate vendors that she had decided to let the partners concerned handle them. Why should she have to listen to such abuse on the pittance she was being paid! If only she could win the Lotto! Hilary propped her head on her chin and a faraway look came into her eyes. She’d pay the mortgage on her parents’ house, buy a villa in the south of France for herself, give her brothers a couple of thousand each, and tell John O’Malley exactly where he could stuff his job. She wouldn’t even give him a day’s notice. She smiled at the thought. She might even misplace a few files, make a couple of phone calls to her brother in the States and be positively rude to the clients. Her humour began to improve immensely. Tomorrow she was definitely going to buy a few lottery tickets and if she won she wasn’t going to tell a soul except the family. She certainly didn’t want to be inundated with begging letters!

  ‘Miss Purcell!’ Her boss’s suave tones interrupted her reverie. ‘I want you to ring Mr White and tell him that we’ve accepted his offer for the Santry property. Then ring Miss Carey and tell her that someone else has put in a bid of a thousand extra for the house in Donnycarney.’

  ‘But I thought we’d sold the Santry house to the Morrisseys,’ she said, thinking he had made a mistake.
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  ‘Contracts weren’t signed. We’ll return their deposit to their solicitor,’ he replied briskly, turning to stride back into his office.

  Swine! she thought. He’d gone and gazumped the Morrisseys and they’d had their heart and soul set on that house in Santry. And she knew quite well that no-one else had put in an offer for the house in Donnycarney; it was just a ploy to make Miss Carey pay an extra thousand. On second thoughts, if she won the Lotto she would buy out O’Malley, Costello and Ryan, through a broker of course, so they wouldn’t be aware of her identity. And when the firm was finally hers, she’d call a meeting and personally sack her boss. This exquisite thought got her through the morning until her tea-break. Then John O’Malley appeared beside her again.

  ‘Miss Purcell . . . ’ How she detested that voice! ‘I want the file on Apartment 3B in Mountain View, if you please. I presume you contacted the interested parties to tell them what time the viewing was arranged for?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said coldly, handing him the file.

  ‘And you’ve informed Mrs Lacey that I’ll be there fifteen minutes beforehand?’

  ‘Yes, Mr O’Malley,’ Hilary almost hissed. Hadn’t she been working with him long enough to know what to do when there was a viewing.

  ‘How many have confirmed?’ He perused the file. ‘Hmm . . . Hugh Cassidy, the TV personality. Mrs Claire Moran, Mrs Cecily Clarke-Conroy, Ms Lainey Conroy. Are they related?’

  ‘I don’t know really. A Mr Dominic Kent made all the arrangements for Ms Conroy.’ Hilary managed to refrain from informing her boss that, unlike him, she was not inquisitive enough to go into clients’ personal histories on the phone. Honestly, John O’Malley would ask you what you’d had for your breakfast! If Mrs Clarke-Conroy and Ms Lainey Conroy were related, so what! Maybe the two of them were having an affair with the man called Dominic Kent. Anything was possible. There were plenty of men buying apartments and town-houses for their mistresses. You saw a lot of goings-on in the estate agency business. She wouldn’t put it past John O’Malley to indulge in a bit of blackmail. The crook that he was! She knew that he madly fancied Liz Lacey, the famous artist who was selling Apartment 3B. Hilary got the impression that his interest wasn’t reciprocated. He thought he was a bit of a ladies’ man. But Hilary wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot bargepole. Just the thought of his marble-like hands with the wet fishy handshake gave her the shudders. And he had a way of looking at you and a way of making remarks that were very close to sexual harassment. If he didn’t stop annoying her, she would report him! It would be worth it to knock that smirk off his face.

  ‘Very interesting indeed.’ Her boss gave a supercilious smile. ‘I’m off to sell the apartment. I’ll be back some time in the afternoon. Take my messages. Goodbye, Miss Purcell. Be good!’

  ‘Goodbye and good riddance!’ Hilary spat as she watched her boss get into his BMW. At least she had her office to herself for a while. She hoped that selling Apartment 3B would take up a good chunk of his time as, unfortunately, he had no other appointments that afternoon and would be under her feet for the rest of the day. If Tim Costello was out, she’d nip in next door and have a chat with his secretary.

  Who would buy the apartment, she wondered. Hugh Cassidy? He was a bit of all right. Ireland’s most eligible bachelor, even more popular than Pat Kenny. Claire Moran from Drumcondra? She’d sounded nice on the phone – a gentle sort. That Clarke-Conroy one had sounded like a right stuck-up bitch with her posh accent. She knew all about the percentages and the VAT and the extra costs. John O’Malley wouldn’t mislead her. And Dominic Kent! He sounded like a right dish. With that absolutely gorgeous deep voice. Whoever bought 3B, she’d most likely meet him or her as they’d have to sign papers. It would be very interesting indeed to see which of the viewers would become the new owner.

  The Seller

  Liz Lacey’s blue eyes snapped open and immediately she was wide awake – that was the kind of person she was. Through her pale lilac drapes, she could see that the sun was shining. Good, she thought with satisfaction. She had read somewhere that sunshine always helped to sell a property and besides, it would show off her balconies to advantage. People were coming to view her apartment today and Liz wanted them to see it at its best. The estate agents had postponed the viewing twice and the strain of keeping the place immaculate was beginning to tell. Liz was not the world’s tidiest person. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ was her motto. If anyone looked under her bed they’d be horrified.

  To think that she, Liz Lacey, artist extraordinaire, darling of the media and jet-set, girlfriend of one of Ireland’s most famous and eligible bachelors, never knew what she was going to find under her bed, never mind in the bottom of her designer Sliderobes. Liz grinned as she remembered the battles she had had with her good-natured mother.

  ‘What’s pickling under the bed today?’ her mother would inquire each Saturday morning as a clean-up got underway. When Liz bought her luxury apartment, she had resisted strongly the suggestion made by her sister-in-law, Eve, that she buy a bed with drawers in the base. Under the bed saved her so much hassle. Being without it would be like not having her handbag, which weighed a ton and was almost an extension of her body.

  Leaning out of bed to pick up the large bulging Italian leather bag, Liz dipped a hand in, rummaged, skirted a tube of paint and a box of charcoal sticks and found her Filofax. Both bag and Filofax had been a present from her great Spanish friend, Incarna, who tried her best to organize Liz. If she were left to her own devices, she would write down appointments on the back of envelopes. Liz flicked through the address section until she found the estate agent’s number. She might as well ring and confirm, in case they had decided to postpone the viewing once again. If they had she would bloody well give them hell. Maybe she would have been better off just selling privately, but it had seemed so easy just putting it in the hands of an estate agent. At the time she didn’t realize that there were two people she knew who were interested in buying.

  One of them was the mother of Hugh Cassidy, her partner of many years, but by the time that Hugh realized that she was really serious about getting out and changing her life, she had already put Apartment 3B in the hands of the estate agents and signed a sole agency agreement with them. She had also disappointed Dominic Kent, her neighbour from downstairs, who had approached her upon hearing the news that she was selling, to tell her that Lainey Conroy, his partner, was anxious to buy a place in Dublin and that Apartment 3B would be perfect. Liz had immediately agreed to let Lainey view the place and Dominic had contacted the estate agents for details and to make an appointment on Lainey’s behalf. So she was going to be bidding against Hugh’s mother. Well, it couldn’t be helped. Hugh should have known she meant what she said about getting out. And she wasn’t going to disappoint Lainey now that she had made the arrangement. Liz liked Lainey, one of the most elegant women she had ever seen, very glamorous and sophisticated but with a delicious sense of humour. Apartment 3B would suit the well-travelled woman of the world very well. Lainey was the kind of woman who should live in an apartment like 3B.

  Fortunately, Hugh was always very fair-minded and he told her to have as many people as possible view the place in order to get the best price she could. Liz didn’t know who else was coming. No doubt Mr Suave would be along in his grey pinstriped suit, showing just the right amount of cuff, his neatly-manicured hand holding on to his Gucci briefcase as though the crown jewels reposed there. She just couldn’t take to John O’Malley of O’Malley, Costello and Ryan, Estate Agents. He was much too smooth for her taste. Well, let him sell Apartment 3B. He had told her that he had several very interested viewers and he would certainly get the best price for it; all she knew was that she wasn’t going to be there. She couldn’t bear to be around as people looked at her apartment, so she had made an appointment with Nikki and Susan across the road in Kris Morton’s to have her hair done and have a full beauty treatment. It was her little treat to herself. She’d miss her sessions
at the elegant pink, grey and black salon but she’d be back in Ireland regularly, commuting from the little whitewashed villa in Majorca that now awaited her. Now that she had made the most momentous decision of her life, she was anxious to leave the past behind and begin living her dream.

  Her eyes took on a faraway look. It wasn’t how she had ever thought she would end up. Her finger caressed the smooth wedding band on her left hand. Hugh had never been happy about her continuing to wear her wedding ring. It irked him, this link with her past, but although she loved Hugh in her own way, and he loved her in his, Liz would never love anyone as she had loved Matt, her tall, quiet, good-humoured husband. Sighing, Liz drew aside the duvet, and walked across the thick pink-and-grey carpet to her balcony. How ironic life was, she mused a little sadly. Here she was, owner of a luxurious apartment that she was going to sell for a huge profit, successful beyond her wildest dreams, and she would turn her back on it all to have lived for ever in the little flat near Harold’s Cross Bridge, whose threshold Matt had carried her across as a deliriously happy new bride. To live with Matt and have his babies was all she had ever wanted but fate had decreed differently.

  ‘Ah, Liz!’ she chided herself aloud. It was rare for her to dwell on the past and what might have been. She was much too positive a person for that. Still, so much had happened in the last two months and now, with her life about to change so dramatically, it was inevitable that her thoughts would turn towards the past.

  She was doing the right thing. She had thought it through over and over and discussed it with Don and Eve, her brother and sister-in-law, without whom she would never have contemplated making the move. Her face softened into a smile as she thought of Eve, her sister-in-law. How lucky Don had been in his choice of wife. Eve was one of the warmest, most generous and loving human beings Liz had ever met. From the moment Don had introduced them it was as though they had been friends all their lives. It was Eve who had let her share every moment of her pregnancies and who made her feel very much a part of her family life. Fiona and Caitriona, her two beautiful nieces, were like her own children and they were her greatest joy in life. Now Eve was expecting her third child.