City Girl (3 page)

Dragging herself out of bed she made a cup of very strong coffee and decided to go down to the seafront. She had to think and the sea had always calmed her. Catching sight of the calendar in the
small kitchen of their flat, Devlin stopped in front of it, grimacing ruefully. This day three weeks ago she had been on a beach in Portugal with not a care in the world and here she was feeling
decades older, having just experienced the most awful shock in her entire life. She looked at her watch. Three fifteen. It was on this day two weeks ago at around this time that Colin had
impregnated her. Colin Cantrell-King MB, MD, FRCOG, gynaecelogist to Dublin’s gentry Employer and impregnator of Devlin Delaney.

Heavy-hearted, Devlin tidied away her coffee cup in the untidy but friendly little kitchen that she shared with her best friend Caroline Stacey. They had been lucky to get such a nice flat after
the awful grotty hole they had first moved into in Rathmines. What a rip off that had been. The shower hadn’t worked properly; you were either scalded or frozen to death. The beds were lumpy,
the walls damp and the landlord was a right gurrier. They had stuck it a month before they were off again scouring the evening papers where they found this jewel of a flat in a big old house on the
Sandymount seafront overlooking Dublin Bay. It was clean and airy and they had a bedroom each as well as a sitting room and kitchen. It suited them both perfectly and was fairly close to their
working locations.

Looking out the kitchen window, Devlin could see that it was a beautiful late summer’s day. In the distance the distinctive ESB towers at Ringsend were bathed in sunlight and children
danced up and down in the warm puddles of water left by the outgoing tide, screaming with pleasure as they wriggled their toes deep in the wet squelchy sand. The Shelly banks! That’s where
she’d go: down to the ‘Shelliers’ to watch the tugs tow in the huge cargo ship that had just appeared as a dot on the horizon of the bay.

Leaving the flat she began to walk towards Ringsend, turning right before she got to the village so that she was heading down past the attractive new homes built on land triumphantly reclaimed
from Dublin Bay, down towards the Glass Bottle Co. and then on to the river, that long blue winding vein that flowed right through the belly of the city and on out to sea. Devlin sniffed the air
that was laden with the smell of Dublin and the sea and began the long walk down the Pidgeon House Road towards her destination. On her right, small terraced houses faced the panorama of dockland.
Cranes, containers, small boats ploughing up and down the river and gulls circling and screeching. Soon the tugs would be heading out down the river to meet the big ship coming to its
journey’s end. Her pace quickened; she wanted to be there to see it all.

Deliberately she emptied her mind of all worrisome thoughts. Only this was important now. Don’t think about anything else. Not that you’ve taken the day off work because you
couldn’t face the thought of going in when Colin wasn’t there. Don’t think that you’ll be in the house alone until Caroline gets back. Don’t think . . . don’t
think!

Down past the ruined dwellings of the coastguards, past the coalyards. Her tense face relaxed briefly into a smile. Once she’d been to a party on a ship in the days when Ireland had
possessed a National Shipping Company. She’d been dating one of the second officers from Irish Shipping and one day his ship had sailed proudly into its mother port having traversed the wide
powerful Atlantic. She had seen the pride on his face as he stood uniformed and smart on the gangway to meet her for the party the crew were throwing. It had been a wonderful party and she had seen
the pink gold sun rise over the city of her birth from the impressive bridge of the vessel. They had been good times, before unemployment had become rampant and an air of hopelessness had enveloped
the towns and cities of the country as jobs got fewer and the dole queues swelled like big malignant growths.

Almost before he knew it, her good looking sailor had been made redundant, as the government had liquidated the shipping company, leaving some of its crews under arrest in foreign ports, its
workforce destined for the dole and the liquidator earning thousands a week. The arrested crews had eventually been repatriated and Devlin had marched down O’Connell Street one Saturday with
them and their wives and mothers. The men were proud and dignified in their braided uniforms and white-topped caps. All they wanted was justice and their dues but sure who had listened to them? The
ordinary man and woman in the street wished them well but they were only one protest group among many on the streets of Dublin.

Devlin felt a bitterness rise within her. Frank had emigrated to America and how could she blame him? She too had seen the long queues waiting at the dole office once a week. Not that she had
ever really wanted for money – her parents were well off— but how people without any other means existed on social welfare was beyond her.

Glumly she walked on down past the power station, around the dump where birds scavenged like something out of a Hitchcock movie, then down the road where the sea lapped up against the rocks and
she could see Sandymount, where she had come from. On she walked, the wind rippling her thick blond hair, the sun caressing her still tanned face, oblivious of the children with their mothers, the
lovers sitting in their cars, the old men smoking their pipes chatting and reminiscing with their lined weatherbeaten faces, keeping a close eye on the fast approaching cargo boat. She passed the
fishermen and boys hooking their mackerel and bass with excited grunts of satisfaction and sat down halfway along the narrow finger of the South Wall that penetrated the bay for two miles. She
concentrated on the nautical activity in front of her as the two small tugs pushed and pulled the enormous ship up the river. The powerful throb of the engines, the white-capped wash breaking
against the wall over which her legs dangled and drenching her with spray made her forget the huge black shroud of worry that enveloped her. Fascinated she watched as the ship glided majestically
past her, so near that she could see the men on deck. All too soon it was gone, up into the heart of the decaying dockland and out of her sight. If only she could get on a ship and sail out of
Dublin, leaving all her worries behind her.

She’d have to tell Colin. He would know what to do; he was always so firm and decisive, exuding an aura of calm authority. It was one of the things she found so attractive about him. Then
she remembered. He wouldn’t be back for a few days. He had gone to Paris with his wife.

Misery attacked her again, so physical that she could feel it stabbing her like a knife in the heart. Colin had told her that his was a marriage of convenience when Devlin had said that she
didn’t go with married men. He had laughed and told her that he loved her innocence. Why hadn’t she listened and believed the nuns when they had warned about ‘married men’
and ‘rampant lusts.’ Had she listened she wouldn’t be in her present predicament. She remembered how Sister Dominica had been so pleased for her when she had heard that Devlin had
secured a job as private secretary to Mr Cantrell-King.

‘A wonderful man, my dear. You know several of the sisters have had little jobs done by him.’

Theirs was one of the better off religious orders. Southsiders, of course.

‘And my dear, you know he gives very generous donations to the Order every so often. You’re a very lucky girl indeed, Devlin. Come now, let us go and give thanks to the Lord.
It’s not easy getting jobs these days.’

Devlin had given thanks not only to God but to her Dad, who happened to be Colin Cantrell-King’s bank manager. When Colin mentioned that his secretary was leaving to get married, Gerry
Delaney told him that Devlin had recently been made redundant from her secretarial post in a small arty publishing firm but that she was well qualified.

‘Excellent! Send her along for an interview,’ Colin had instructed.

Devlin, desperate for a job that would get her out of her mother’s hair, had prepared very carefully for the interview, making sure that she looked well groomed and elegant but not
overdressed for the occasion. Usually she took interviews in her stride but she was nervous as she faced the tall good-looking man in front of her. Her mother was driving her crazy with her
constant nagging and drink-induced rages. She need not have worried. She did an impressive interview and her references were excellent. She was given the job along with a generous salary. CCK, as
she had privately christened him, was an extremely busy gynaecologist, whipping out wombs that needed whipping out and some that didn’t! Delivering babies, some that were wanted and some that
were not. Comforting menopausal and premenstrual tensioned females and charging hefty amounts to the many affluent fur-coated private patients who came from all over the country, day in day out, to
his rooms in Fitzwilliam Square.

Devlin got to know them all. Some would pour out all their woes to her. Others looked down their haughty noses at her and demanded to be seen instantly. The coldness would melt instantly when
Colin appeared at the door of the waiting room with a warm smile and reassuring handshake.

‘Ah Mrs Cochrane! Good to see you. Come in now and tell me what’s bothering you.’

Invariably eyelashes would flutter and tremulous voices would waft down the hall as he led them to his surgery, sometimes winking at Devlin behind their backs. He was an immensely charming man,
only forty but at the height of his career. He had, of course, inherited a large practice from his father and was a prominent member of Dublin’s high society, seen at many social gatherings
around the city. He knew her father well. An ex-rugby player, he hadn’t an ounce of flab on his tall muscular body and the faint traces of grey at his temple lent him a distinguished mature
air that Devlin found exceedingly attractive. All his patients were madly in love with him.

Devlin, who was twenty, had always dated men of her own age or men in their middle twenties. Her only experience with older men was trying to avoid their sweaty roving hands in the dimly lit,
faintly seedy night clubs they always ended up in on their Saturday nights on the town. She was an outgoing girl with a broad circle of friends and aquaintances who lived a relatively untroubled
and carefree existence. Her only experience of the hardship of life occurred when she had been made redundant for a brief period, and rather than give up the freedom of flat-dwelling and return
home to the uncomfortable atmosphere her mother’s behaviour caused, she had survived, well cushioned by a generous allowance given to her by her father. But it was not the same as having a
salary.

At present, it was nothing for Devlin to go into town on a Saturday and spend a small fortune on clothes. She loved her little weekend sprees. After a lie-in, Saturday would be spent shopping in
Grafton Street with friends. She might treat herself to a little something from Benetton or Pamela Scott or if she was really in the money she’d hit Brown Thomas. Strolling past the colourful
street artists, past the cheerful flower sellers she and her friends would meander along to Captain America’s to grab a quick lunch before she had her hair done in one of the many exclusive,
expensive hair salons. Then it would be time to drop into the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre with its bright airy plant-filled ambience, to browse through the shops for a while before relaxing over a
cup of coffee. Her biggest decision might be whether to buy the snazzy little suit from Private Collection or a Lainey Original. Devlin loved shopping in Grafton Street with its winding elegance,
its stores filled with up-to-the-minute fashions. There was a buzz about Grafton Street that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the city.

Then hurrying back to her little Fiesta parked on the Green, she would drop her friends home and drive like the clappers to get home herself to prepare for the night’s activities. By half
past eight a crowd of them would be found drinking in the Shelbourne. Later they would stroll down to the Bailey or Davy Byrne’s for last orders, then head off to a disco where they would bop
the night away before ending up in one of the city’s many night clubs. Dawn would frequently be upon them before Devlin’s tired head hit the pillows and Sunday would be spent
recuperating after the excesses of the night before. But by midafternoon, revived and refreshed, she would meet the gang to go stock-car racing in Mondello, or to watch a rugby match in Wanderers.
Sunday night she would go to the pictures or for a meal with whatever boyfriend happened to be in tow.

Looking back she would realize what a charmed and sheltered life she had led and how she had so matter of factly taken it as her due. When she started to work for Colin she had no steady
relationship, unusually for her. But Frank, her most recent boyfriend, had emigrated and so she was ripe to fall prey to the overpowering charms of CCK.

At first he had been businesslike but friendly, asking her if she was settling into her job, urging her to ask him or Nurse McGrath if there was anything she wished to know. Gradually Devlin had
settled down and taken control of all the secretarial aspects of the practice. Being quick and efficient she took pride in seeing that everything ran smoothly. One day Colin told her he would like
to take her and Nurse McGrath to lunch and brought them in his luxurious metallic grey Merc to a quiet little Italian restaurant off Stephen’s Green, where they gorged themselves on pasta
cooked as only the Italians know how. He had been all charm and after several glasses of wine Devlin had lost her slight awe of him.

From then on she was much more relaxed in his company. At work he would come out to her office between appointments and sit against the edge of her desk chatting casually. He might tell her
about a difficult operation he had to perform, and confide that the Moore woman was an awful pain in the neck or that such and such was having an affair with so and so and what was her attitude to
broken marriage and divorce? Devlin found him easy to talk to and she never took exception to his probing questions about her boyfriends and lifestyle, because she sensed his underlying interest.
Because she was young, beautiful and very immature the challenge of exciting the interest of a very suave, older man was more than a little thrilling.