The Secrets of Primrose Square

by Claudia Carroll

  Before this, Susan had really only ever been in hospital twice in her whole life. In a maternity hospital, as it happened, where she’d had Ella first and then Melissa five years later. She’d been well looked after and everything, but still. Having a baby didn’t really count as being sick, per se, and she’d only been too delighted when she was allowed go home after both deliveries. All she’d really wanted to do was to start her life with each of her precious little bundles, to bond with them, to love them, to watch them grow with Frank at her side.

  She was itching to get home again now too, for Melissa. It had almost cracked Susan’s heart in two, seeing her with Frank at their little anniversary service. Her youngest, her baby, putting a brave face on things as she always did, seemingly happy just to have her parents together and the three of them in the same room after such a long time. Never moaning, never complaining, just living in hope that all would be well again.

  Susan knew Jayne was taking great care of Melissa, but even so. All she really wanted was to be well enough to go home again and to start life anew, with Melissa to look after, to make a fuss of, and to spoil rotten. Her little one deserved a mother, a good mother, the very best mother Susan could possibly be. God knows, the kid deserved it, given everything she’d been through.

  On the plus side, though, Susan was doing reasonably well, physically at least. She was one hundred per cent off sedation and was down to just a half a sleeping pill a night. Progress. Not a lot, but still.

  ‘I still feel that you’re blocked emotionally,’ Dr Ciara had said to her. ‘But don’t you worry, we’ll get there.’

  Not only that, but she’d had a call from Jack Evans, their family solicitor, just the previous day.

  ‘Some good news,’ he’d said to Susan in that sing-song Cork accent.

  ‘Tell me,’ she’d said. ‘I could do with some good news.’

  ‘It’s about Josh Andrews,’ Jack said.

  What possible good news could there be about that arsehole? Susan wondered. That he’d been moved down by a truck, maybe?

  ‘His family have decided not to prosecute,’ Jack said. ‘They’re dropping the charges against you, of course on the strict condition that an incident such as what happened at the school some weeks back is never repeated.’

  ‘Oh,’ Susan said dully. ‘I see.’

  ‘This is pretty big for you,’ Jack had tried to impress on her. ‘You don’t sound exactly overjoyed.’

  Overjoyed? Susan said to herself. What did he expect, that she’d start dancing from the rooftops? Yes, it was certainly one less thing to worry about, but as far as she was concerned, no more than that.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Emily, who’d been using the shower in the tiny en suite they shared, burst back into the room, towel-drying her hair and keeping up her usual one-way monologue. So Susan sighed, put her pen down and resigned herself to listening.

  ‘I’m so glad I got to meet your husband the other day,’ Emily was saying, as she vigorously lashed about a half a can of mousse into her wet hair. ‘He’s really lovely, isn’t he? You know, the strong, silent, reliable type. Looks good in a uniform too. I’ve always thought I’d love to end up with a fella like that, except for some reason, I always seem to repel them. Mind you, that’s what two bottles of vodka a day will do for you.’

  There was a tiny pause and Susan knew she’d be expected to reply.

  ‘Frank’s more than that,’ Susan said, staring blankly out the window in front of her. ‘He’s a good man. Good father, good husband. Sometimes I take for granted just what a gem he is.’

  Only the truth, she thought. Frank was rock solid, reliable and dependable. All the things you looked for in a partner. Of course she was still furious with him for taking a posting abroad at the worst possible time. For letting her deal with Josh Andrews all alone; for single-handedly leaving her to get justice for Ella.

  But now that he’d been home again, now that they’d reconnected – maybe bridges could be built. It had felt so right to sit holding hands with him the other day. Maybe there was hope.

  It’s spring on Primrose Square, she reminded herself. Spring always brought fresh hope.

  ‘Bet he’s the kind of fella who’ll record your favourite shows on telly for you,’ Emily said, ‘without you even having to ask. And I bet he puts out bins for you and checks the tyre pressure on your car without you having to nag him the whole time. The perfect man, in other words.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Susan asked, shoving her journal away. ‘That’s your criteria for male perfection? A guy who puts out bins and knows how to use Sky Plus?’

  ‘Given that the last fella I dated ended up in jail for embezzlement,’ Emily replied coolly, ‘yes, I’ll take whatever I can get. And I’m telling you, missus, your Frank seems like a rarity. One of the few good guys left out there, trust me.’

  ‘Well, he’s certainly put up with a lot from me, that’s for certain,’ Susan sighed.

  ‘He’s stuck by you, though, hasn’t he? That’s a great sign. Shows hope for the future. No offence or anything, but most fellas I know would have run screaming by now, after everything your family has been through. Or else run off with the nearest twenty-seven-year-old and blamed it all on a mid-life crisis. But not your Frank. You’re very lucky to have a man like that, Susan. You just don’t know how lucky. At least, not yet you don’t.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Susan said in a small voice, as a pang of loneliness hit her. She was always left feeling low when Frank had to go back to Lebanon, but with her in St Michael’s now, kept apart from her little Melissa, somehow this separation felt fifty times worse. ‘You’ll just have to forgive me if I don’t feel very lucky right now,’ she added wearily.

  ‘Oh, sorry, love,’ said Emily, hastily covering her mouth with her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any offense, I only meant . . . Oh, don’t mind me. Come on, let’s change the subject. What are you writing in that journal of yours anyway? You’re always scribbling away in it. Are you keeping a diary?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Susan said. ‘Dr Ciara suggested I write down all my memories of Ella, as if I were talking directly to her.’

  Absently, she flicked through the pages and pages she’d already written out. So many memories of her perfect child. Yet now . . . somehow she’d run out of ‘perfect Ella’ stories and she was beginning to remember a whole lot of other stuff that she’d kept buried for the longest time.

  The not-so-good memories. The bad days with Ella, the rows, the vicious fights they’d had, particularly during that last, hellish year of her short little life.

  Everything that Susan had struggled so hard to actively block out.

  Because no matter how hard she battled against it, all the secrets she’d been keeping so tight to her chest were slowly beginning to surface.

  Nancy

  24 PRIMROSE SQUARE

  ‘Wow, that was just incredible,’ Melissa said to Nancy, as the two of them strolled back to Primrose Square together much later that afternoon, when the run-through was over. That was to say, Nancy strolled as Melissa almost danced around her, she was so beside herself with excitement.

  Nancy didn’t answer her, though; she was too wrapped up in a cloud of worry.

  Mbeki, she thought, as an anxiety knot tightened in her stomach. Mbeki knows. I don’t know how she found out, but somehow she did. Mbeki had wanted to meet for a drink after work, but Nancy had to put her off – for the moment, at least.

  ‘I need to get Melissa home safely,’ she said quietly to Mbeki after the run-through. ‘How about I call you later and we can arrange to meet then?’

  Mbeki had nodded, but gave absolutely nothing away. So, for better or for worse, Nancy would just have to wait it out till the two of them got to chat privately.

  I have to compartmentalise that particular worry, she told herself sternly. I have to focus on Melissa now and on making her day a good one. I have to put whatever Mbeki knows or doesn’t know right
out of my mind.

  Which shouldn’t have been too difficult. After all, wasn’t that what she’d been doing ever since she got the hell out of London?

  ‘Nancy?’ Melissa said, puncturing the silence. ‘You’ve gone so quiet! If I were you, I’d be dancing down the street, like in La La Land right now. The show is amazing!’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad effort by any means,’ Nancy replied, walking with her hands shoved into her coat pockets, lost in her own worries. ‘Though there’s still a pile of work to be done. A stagger-through like this one, though, is incredibly useful to us’.

  ‘Why do you keep calling it a stagger-through?’ Melissa asked, mystified. ‘It was so good, you could have charged people to see it.’

  ‘Well, put it this way,’ Nancy said, ‘it highlights the areas of the show that really need fine-tuning versus the ones that are ticking over very nicely. Which are very few and far between, according to Diego.’

  ‘He did seem a bit grumpy, didn’t he?’ Melissa said, as they both crossed over the Rosie Hackett bridge on their way home. ‘If I was the director, I’d be over the moon. Everyone knew their lines and no one walked into the furniture.’

  ‘Diego lives his life in a perpetual state of grumpiness,’ Nancy explained patiently. ‘I think in his entire career, the man has only got about one smile on record. And that was for a show that went on to win a shelf-load of Olivier awards, so that’ll tell you how high the man’s standards are.’

  But even though Diego wasn’t exactly dancing in the aisles after the run-through, for her own part, she certainly thought the show held up pretty well overall.

  ‘Scenes in the ballroom are bad . . . baaad !’ Diego had decreed to her afterwards, as she frantically scribbled down page upon page of endless notes. ‘I do not believe that these cast people are really, truly living in the nineteenth century. They must live it, feel it, make me believe these are women who boxed into big hole by society if they are not married by age of twenty. It must be real or else is just big pile of popo de perro.’

  She’d googled it later. It translated as ‘dog poo’.

  *

  So it was a great distraction for Nancy to have had Melissa there; the child’s infectious enthusiasm was like the perfect antidote to Diego’s unrelenting criticism.

  It’s going to be okay, she kept telling herself, over and over again. It might even be better than okay, it might actually even be good.

  ‘That guy Alan is fantastic as Mr Wickham, isn’t he?’ Melissa chatted away, still on an absolute high and talking nineteen to the dozen. ‘I mean, he’s such a good actor. I still can’t believe I actually met someone who was in Harry Potter ! Wait till I tell them all in school on Monday – no one will believe me! He seems so nice and friendly offstage, but as Mr Wickham he was so sleazy and awful – I wanted to scream at him when he ran off with Lydia.’

  ‘Which is exactly the kind of reaction you’re supposed to have,’ Nancy said, with a little smile. ‘So at least we must be doing something right.’

  They continued nattering away the whole walk home, about Darcy and Lizzy’s onstage romance and about how vile Lady Catherine and Mrs Bennet could be to each other offstage, while being all sweetness and light to everyone else.

  ‘Mind you,’ Nancy said, thinking aloud, ‘I think on some level deep down, the pair of them actually do have a sort of irritated fondness for each other. I don’t know how else they’d put up with all the sniping and bitching otherwise.’

  ‘You know what I’ve just decided?’ Melissa announced, as they finally reached Pearce Street, and strolled on down towards the square. ‘When I leave school, I think I want to be a director too. You really do have the best job in the whole world, Nancy. You get days like today every single day – and you even get paid for it!’

  ‘You might not say that when it’s production week.’ Nancy smiled. ‘And I’m living at the theatre twenty-four/seven with just days to go to opening night, tearing my hair out. Believe me, you won’t envy me then.’

  ‘Today was so perfect, though,’ Melissa said feelingly. Then, after a pause, she said, ‘You want to know something else?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Nancy said, suddenly aware that her little friend’s mood seemed to have shifted a bit.

  ‘Well . . . I thought I’d be all sad and upset about my dad leaving today to go back to Lebanon. And, you know, with my mum still not well enough to come home just yet. But instead, I had one of the happiest days I can remember ever since . . . well, you know what I mean.’

  She trailed off there as Nancy squeezed her hand supportively. She knew exactly what Melissa meant, as it happened. She’d bumped into Jayne on the square a few nights ago, and Jayne had taken care to fill her in properly. Nancy was only too glad that she had. It was good for her to know that, just at that particular time, the kid needed that bit more care and attention.

  ‘I know, love,’ Nancy said simply. ‘Of course, this of all weeks must have been especially tough for you. And I’m so glad you had a good distraction today. The cast all loved having you there, you know, and you’re so welcome to come back to see us again. Mind you,’ she added lightly, ‘Diego might just shove a script in your hand and put you to work next time.’

  They walked on in companionable silence. It was a mild spring evening and there were kids still out playing five-a-side soccer in the square, shouting and cheering each other on.

  ‘Ella, that was her name,’ Melissa blurted out, after a long, long pause.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Nancy said.

  ‘She would have been eighteen now,’ Melissa went on. ‘She’d probably have been in college and, knowing Ella, she’d have been out organising all kinds of protests against the Eighth Amendment or Donald Trump . . . oh, that’s just what she was like. My dad used to say that you could land Ella in a five-star hotel on a tropical paradise island and she’d still find some cause to protest about. Workers’ rights or the way chambermaids work for minimum wage. That’s Ella for you. I mean – that was Ella.’

  ‘She sounds like a very special person,’ Nancy said gently. ‘A crusader. A fighter. It’s the Ellas of this world who drive great change, you know.’

  ‘Mum misses her so much, it’s like something is broken inside her,’ Melissa said, sounding so wise and grown-up, it made Nancy love her all the more. ‘Except it’s not like a broken bone that just needs time to heal, like the time I broke my arm playing hockey years ago. This is hurting my mum so much that it’s driven her to a hospital, and now she has to stay there until she’s better again. And Dad is away working hard and everything, but I know the real reason why he’s away. It’s because he just can’t be here right now. With all the memories, I mean.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Nancy asked as they reached the door of number twenty-four.

  There was a tellingly long pause before Melissa could answer.

  ‘I miss Ella too,’ she said simply, looking so lost that Nancy wanted to hug her. ‘So, so much. I miss the way she’d make me watch Mean Girls and Suits and listen to Macklemore and Beyonce. I wanted them to play Run the World by Beyonce at her funeral, because it was her favourite song ever, but the priest said no. That it wouldn’t be respectful.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘You know, when Ella was alive, she used to kill me whenever I tried to borrow any of her clothes?’

  ‘Perfectly normal behavior for any sister.’ Nancy nodded.

  ‘Now, though,’ Melissa went on, ‘sometimes I slip into her room and take one of her tops and wear it, even though most of them hardly even fit me and every single one of them is black. But it’s just comforting, if that makes any sense. Like I’m inside Ella’s skin.’

  She was beginning to speak openly, and somehow Nancy got the sense that this was the first time Melissa had really talked about this to anyone outside of her parents. What the girl really needs now, Nancy told herself, is a listener. Someone who didn’t know Ella, so the kid could tell all her stori
es, and share all her memories afresh.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she suggested, opening up her hall door and beckoning Melissa to follow her inside, ‘it’s been a long day and you must be starving by now. How about if we order in a takeaway? We could always call Jayne and tell her that you’re safely here with me and that you’ll stay here for a bite to eat? Does that sound like a plan?’

  Melissa’s pale, serious little face lit up.

  ‘I’d really love that, Nancy.’ She smiled gratefully.

  ‘I just need to send a quick text message first,’ Nancy said, peeling off her warm winter coat and steering Melissa towards the living room.

  ‘Of course,’ Melissa said, plonking herself down on the leather couch then bouncing up and down on it.

  Can’t meet you tonight, Mbeki. Am so sorry, but I need to be with Melissa just now. It’s important. How’s tomorrow for you?

  The reply came through fast. Frighteningly, worryingly fast.

  The sooner the better.

  Susan

  ST MICHAEL’S WELLNESS CENTRE

  One of the staff nurses barged into Susan’s room without knocking, as was the norm in St Michael’s. But then, as Emily was quick to point out, they weren’t exactly in the Four Seasons and trained medical staff couldn’t be expected to act like room service.

  ‘Visitor for you, Mrs Hayes,’ this one barked, with a curt little nod in Susan’s direction. ‘Waiting downstairs in the recreation room.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Emily said enviously. ‘It’s like Grand Central Station here, with all the visitors. Except you’ll notice they’re always for you, and never, ever for me.’