The Women of Primrose Square

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘I imagine my employment terminated,’ Emily answered evenly, ‘because I had a tendency to use events my company organised as a chance to get royally scuttered with the clients. I called it client bonding; they called it alcoholism. But there you go, each to their own.’

  Then a memory popped into her head, unbidden and unwelcome.

  *

  A hot August night, just over three years ago, when Emily’s company had organised a huge corporate shindig for a large overseas tech firm. The drinks reception and dinner had gone off well enough, and the whole event was to culminate in a giant firework display, coordinated by a professional team who’d been hired in especially. Emily had tried to hustle everyone outside to see the fireworks, but apart from a few stragglers, no one budged from their tables.

  So what did Emily do about it? What she always did, of course. Made a holy, mortifying show of herself. Without a second thought, she strode up onto the podium, grabbed the microphone and yelled into it: ‘OUTSIDE!! NOW, YOU SHOWER OF OVERPRIVILEGED ARSES!!!’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t being serious,’ she remembered slurring to her boss Dee, when she was yanked outside and royally ticked off. ‘It was only a joke, that’s all. Fuck them if they can’t take a joke, eh?’

  ‘Emily,’ Dee had said crossly. ‘I’m only going to ask you this once and I’d appreciate an honest answer. Have you been drinking?’

  After that, the rest of the night became a blur. She remembered staggering over to the firework stand and grabbing one of the control levers on a giant whizzing rocket. She’d only wanted to help, but no one would let her.

  Then faces, voices, confusion, smoke. Voices screaming through the darkness. The rocket almost hit someone in the face, someone said. It grazed his cheek. One of the waiters, someone else said. A young, hard-working Polish kid, who was delighted to get a night’s work and hadn’t stopped serving food all evening. A lovely young fella, everyone said. A good, conscientious worker. He could have lost an eye, they all said. He could have ended up scarred for life.

  After that it was just fuzz and white noise and pain, so, so much pain that all the vodka in the world couldn’t numb.

  *

  ‘Miss Dunne?’ Harry Potter asked behind the glass grille, hauling Emily’s attention back to that dismal, dreary dole office. ‘I asked you a question. Before I can process your claim for jobseeker’s allowance, I need to know the reason why your last employment ceased.’

  Emily thought for a moment. If she wanted to get that precious bank giro at the end of every week, it seemed that only the truth would do. She reminded herself that she badly needed money, because apart from a few paltry quid she got from selling her car, she barely had enough rent money to pay Miss Hatchet-Face Violet.

  ‘Because I was very ill back then,’ she told Harry Potter out straight. ‘I was a sick woman. But I did what I had to do. I went for treatment and here I am, all cured and back to normal, and in dire need of cash. So come on, when does the state start paying me for a change?’

  Soon, it seemed. All the boring paperwork needed to be processed, of course, but in a few weeks at least, Emily hoped she’d be back in clover again.

  Well worth the humiliation, she thought, finally getting out of the dole office and wishing she had enough spare cash on her to buy fags.

  Not earning money was bad enough, she thought, but even worse than that was the boredom. It was barely 11 a.m. and the whole day stretched out ahead of her, with absolutely shag all way of filling in the time.

  Visit her mother? Ha! That was a laugh. The last time Emily and her mum had spoken, they’d had a row so vicious she thought the police would have to be called. Give Alec, her ex-husband, a call? Maybe even ask if he’d lend her a few quid, just to tide her over?

  Fat chance, she thought, striding on through the crowds.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Emily, you’ve got to stop this,’ Alec had said the last time they spoke, when Emily had rung him at 5 a.m., drunk out of her head, with a black eye that stung from a date that had gone badly wrong.

  ‘Come on, Alec . . .’ she’d slurred down the phone. ‘I only want to talk to you, that’s all . . .’

  ‘I’m hanging up the phone now, Emily,’ came his icy cold reply. ‘You can go right ahead and ruin your own life, because you’re done ruining mine.’

  So, what to do, Emily wondered, with the whole day ahead of her and the whole world against her? Who was left for her to turn to now? She found herself weaving her way around Trinity College, where a bunch of students had gathered at the railings outside and were handing out leaflets and flyers to the general public, asking them to vote yes in an upcoming referendum election.

  I used to be like you guys, Emily thought as she walked on by, taking a flyer that one of them had thrust at her. I used to be a Trinity student – an honours student at that. I used to be passionate about politics and equality, just like you. I used to be young like you, studying English and History, with nothing to worry about except looming exams and the dilemma of where to spend the long summer holidays that stretched ahead.

  But just take a look at me now, she wanted to stop and warn them. I’m a living, walking cautionary tale of what happens to you if you skip one too many lectures so you can hang out in the student bar instead.

  Emily vividly remembered wondering why she couldn’t have been like the rest of her friends back then. Why was it that everyone else around her could have one or two drinks and leave it at that? Why was it that she seemed to have no pause button? What was this deep need in her to keep on drinking till she could barely stand up? She was barely fourteen when she’d had her first proper drink – a vodka and tonic, filched from her dad’s drinks cabinet at home when her parents were out. It had made her sick as a pig, but still she’d kept going and had never looked back since.

  Oh, fuck this, she thought, marching past Trinity as quick as she could. As well as having to avoid half the pubs in central Dublin, she’d just have to find a route through town that avoided Trinity College. There were far too many horrible memories there, just waiting to jump out at her.

  Like her final year exams, for one. Sitting in that packed exam hall with an exam paper in her hand, barely able to focus on it, the words swimming in front of her. She’d gone for ‘just the one’ the previous night, to steady her nerves, but somehow that had turned into the all-night bender to end all benders. She’d woken up in a strange bed with some randomer, then helped herself to a bottle of brandy in his kitchen on her way out the front door. Breakfast.

  Throwing up in the exam hall . . . The disgusting smell of puke on the wooden floors . . . The college medics having to be called . . . The scene, the chaos, the fuss, three hundred horrified students all staring at her as she was carted out of the exam . . . Then hospital . . . A crowded A & E . . . Her stomach being pumped . . . The pain of it, the soreness and then the almighty hangover that followed . . . Her mother coming in to collect her, standing at the foot of her hospital trolley in floods of heartbroken tears.

  ‘You’re intelligent and bright,’ her mother said, with red-rimmed eyes from crying. ‘And that’s what makes this harder to bear than anything. Because you should have sailed through your exams. And now look at you. The provost is talking about expulsion, to make an example of you. Why, Emily? With all the wonderful things in your life, with the great future you had ahead of you, why do you have to throw it all away?’

  *

  Primrose Square. Suddenly Emily badly had the need to go home, even if it was back to that stultifying, filthy house with that nutter Violet glowering at her. A room of one’s own. Peace.

  I’ll just train myself to nap during the day, she told herself. That’ll kill a few hours, won’t it? I’ll think of some kind of job I can apply for, where even someone with my employment history is acceptable. Like stacking the shelves in a supermarket, maybe. Or else cleaning loos.

  To her surprise, when
Emily turned the corner onto the square and strode down towards Violet’s house, there it was yet again. That same bloody taxi that had been trailing around after her for the whole morning.

  Weirder still, there was someone sitting on the steps outside Violet’s house. An older guy in a leather jacket, with hair more pepper than salt and a greyish beard. He was twiddling car keys in his hands, like he was waiting for someone.

  Her, as it happened.

  ‘Emily?’ he asked, looking up as he heard her approach. ‘Emily Dunne?’

  She ripped the earbuds out of her ears and lit into him.

  ‘Who are you, anyway?’ she snapped. ‘And why are you following me around? If you’re someone I owe money to, you’re wasting your time, mate. I’m broke, penniless. Just take a look at where I’m living, for fuck’s sake,’ she added, gesturing towards number eighty-one, with weeds growing in through the windows and decades of grime caked into its redbrick walls.

  The guy stood up tall and glared at her.

  ‘Just get in the car, will you?’ he said crossly.

  ‘Oh yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.’

  ‘Emily,’ he said evenly, ‘I’m Leon. Remember me? You’ve hung the phone up on me? I’m your AA sponsor and I’m not going anywhere till we talk.’

  ‘Suppose I tell you where to go?’

  ‘Suppose I tell you this is something you agreed to, before they let you out of St Michael’s? So come on, what’s it to be?’

  Violet

  Personally, Violet thought she had been extraordinarily gracious. She’d permitted not one but two tenants to lodge in her private home, but regrettably, the experience had not been entirely successful.

  With Frank Woods, it appeared to be a case of so far, so good. Say what you like about the man – and Violet certainly wasn’t one to hold her tongue – but he was at least quiet and polite around the house. He’d already mopped and bleached the kitchen from top to bottom, much to Violet’s approval. And he’d offered her a nice cup of tea the previous night. Of course, he hadn’t used the correct leaf tea or served her the tea in the china cup she liked – the one she’d purchased via mail order to celebrate Prince William’s wedding – but still, the kindness of the gesture wasn’t lost, not even on Violet.

  His family, however, were proving to be a grave annoyance. Particularly that young daughter of his, the girl with the ridiculous name that sounded like a gemstone. Ruby? No. Amber, that was it. Cheeky scrap of a thing had the nerve to hammer roughly on Violet’s front door earlier that day. Where did the girl think she was, anyway – some kind of public boarding house?

  ‘Hi, Violet,’ she’d said. ‘Will you give my dad a message when he gets home?’

  ‘It’s Miss Hardcastle to you,’ Violet barked back. ‘And no, I will most certainly not pass on a message for you. What do you think I am, a social secretary? Your father is in work and may I point out, young lady, that you should be in school.’

  ‘But I’m on my school holidays!’ Amber protested.

  ‘Then I strongly suggest you go and find some sort of gainful summer job for the holidays.’

  ‘Please, Violet – I mean, Miss Hardcastle,’ Amber went on, refusing to budge off the front doorstep. ‘It’s such a lovely day, I thought Dad could take me for a picnic in the square. Will you at least tell him I called?’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ Violet snapped, slamming the door firmly in the girl’s face. What appalling manners, she thought. Primrose Square used to be gentrified and genteel back in her day. And now? Overrun with youngsters who behaved as if they’d been raised in a barn.

  That aside, though, Violet didn’t have much else to gripe about when it came to Frank Woods, as a lodger. Of course, were she to discover him kitted out in . . . female clothing – then he’d be out on his ear without a second’s notice. She shuddered at the very thought. A grown man who dressed up as a lady for pleasure? Not under her roof, that was for certain.

  Her second lodger, however, was proving to be far more challenging. An opinionated, unruly woman was Violet’s first impression of Emily Dunne – and her first impressions of people were unwaveringly correct. Madam Emily had barely been under her roof for twenty-four hours when Violet had caught her red-handed smoking a cigarette out of her bedroom window. Needless to say, the ensuing row had been legendary.

  Think of the financial reimbursement, she reminded herself, over a nice soothing cup of leaf tea in the privacy of her own drawing room. She’d finally been able to settle her account with those wretched people at the electricity board for one thing. She’d made sure to write them one of her spidery letters along with her cheque, informing them that harassing elderly, infirm ladies such as herself was an utter disgrace, and asking how they’d like it if their own mother had been spoken to in such a manner.

  The following morning, Madam Emily was on the receiving end of one of Violet’s missives too. She personally deposited a handwritten note on the bed in Emily’s room, reminding her of house rules.

  NO SMOKING MEANS NO SMOKING!

  Violet took particular care to write in bold red ink, and that insufferable madam could take it any way she liked. Then, later that day, she spotted Madam Emily out on the front step consorting with a strange man, who appeared to have been loitering beside his car on the pavement, waiting solely for her.

  Violet had watched the incident clearly from the upstairs window, which gave her a most convenient bird’s eye view right over the whole square. The man in question had a beard, so clearly he wasn’t a gentleman. And, of course, the minute Emily appeared, the two of them whizzed off together in his motorcar. Violet had rapped on the window with her stick and shouted: ‘No gentleman callers!’ at Emily, who’d responded by raising the middle finger of her left hand.

  Honestly, Violet thought. That woman is rudeness personified. Mind you, that’s what happens when you let an alcoholic into the house.

  She’d better check her china collection later on. Alcoholics were notoriously light-fingered and the lovely mug she’d treated herself to, to commemorate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, had already gone missing.

  Trying her best to banish thoughts of the wretched Emily from her mind, Violet settled down in front of the television box, planning to enjoy a most pleasant afternoon of racing from Royal Ascot. The Royal Procession down the racetrack cheered her up no end, Her Majesty the Queen looking particularly fetching in a sharp lime green hat with matching coat. Beside her in the carriage was Kate Middleton – now there was a young lady who knew how to comport herself with a bit of dignity. Madam Emily could certainly learn a thing about good behaviour from her.

  Violet must have dozed off during the last race, though, because next thing she knew, the racing was over and the evening news was on, showing highlights from the day at Ascot.

  ‘Doesn’t the Queen look fantastic?’

  Violet almost jumped out of her seat. Frank Woods was right behind her, that quiet little mouse of a man, briefcase in hand, having obviously just come in from work.

  ‘You startled me!’ she said crossly.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry about that, Miss Hardcastle,’ Frank replied politely. ‘But I just wondered if you’d like something to eat? I stopped off at the supermarket and bought a roast chicken with garlic stuffing and some new potatoes, if you’d like to join me?’

  Violet though for a moment. Her instinct was to tell him that she despised foul-smelling garlicky food in her kitchen, but then she felt her tummy rumble and realised she was starving. She’d been living off tins of beans for so long that the thought of an actual home-cooked dinner suddenly held great appeal.

  In the background, Sky News were running highlights of the day’s racing.

  ‘The Queen really is an astonishing lady, when you think about it,’ said Frank softly, his head tilted sideways as he studied the TV screen. ‘Ninety-three years old and look at her, as hale and hearty as ever.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Violet, still thinking abo
ut the roast chicken.

  ‘I mean to say,’ Frank went on, ‘how many ninety-three-year-olds do you know who can still leap in and out of carriages? And look at Camilla beside her,’ he added. ‘Doesn’t she look lovely in that hat?’

  ‘Philip Treacy,’ Violet said, interested in spite of herself. ‘That’s what the commentator said earlier.’

  Then a nasty thought struck her. Why was a man like Frank Woods talking about fancy hats? Surely not because he intended dressing up in one? Disgusted at the thought, she snapped off the TV and an awkward silence fell between them.

  ‘So, what do you say then?’ Frank asked after a pause. ‘Can I tempt you to a bit of roast chicken? I don’t know about you, Miss Hardcastle, but I’m starving and there’s plenty for both of us.’

  ‘Well. . . . I do hate to see perfectly good food go to waste,’ she said, hunger getting the better of her. ‘So in that case, thank you, yes. Dinner would be most agreeable’

  It was too. As well as cooking, Frank did everything else, insisting on setting the table with Violet’s good china, before serving up a delicious chicken with garlic stuffing, roast potatoes and fresh garden peas on the side. They had tea afterwards and Violet graciously permitted Frank to drink from the mug she got to commemorate Prince Charles’s first wedding. From there, they fell into a very interesting chat about the royal family, both discovering they’d long been admirers of the late Princess Diana.

  ‘More sinned against than sinning, I always felt,’ Frank said, sipping from the mug, which read: Charles and Diana, St Paul’s Cathedral, 29 July 1981.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Violet chimed approvingly, greatly enjoying the chat and relishing the chicken, which she’d devoured hungrily. ‘And from now on,’ she added condescendingly, ‘I think you may address me as Violet.’

  ‘Have you ever watched The Crown on Netflix, Violet?’ Frank asked her.

  ‘Net what?’