The Secrets of Primrose Square

by Claudia Carroll

  Do you remember that Christmas? It was busy and hectic in our house as my own family were home from Canada for the holidays and I barely had time to draw breath. But come the New Year, I really had a chance to have a good, long look at you and, my darling, I didn’t like what I saw. Not one bit.

  Even your body language changed; gone was my languid girl, who’d lie for hours out on Primrose Square, trying to get a tan with a feminist book propped up against your nose. Instead you grew wiry, edgy and constantly distracted. Living under the same roof as you became intolerable, and my patience snapped when I caught you barking at poor Melissa to feck off and leave you alone, when all the kid wanted was to hang out with you.

  She adored you so much, Ella. She looked up to you and wanted to be like you. The hurt in her eyes is something that made me see red, so then, of course, you and I started rowing, constantly. So much so that I was half afraid lovely Jayne next door might call the Guards.

  Even Frank noticed. You were always your daddy’s girl and in his eyes you could do no wrong. ‘She’d be great in the military,’ he used to boast about you. ‘Providing she never had to use a gun. Could you imagine the lecture the enemy would get about the power of peaceful resistance?’

  But when he came home on his next leave-of-absence, even he couldn’t reach you. By then, things had deteriorated to the point where family life had become intolerable whenever you were around, and our dinner table a battlefield – on the rare occasions when we could get you to eat, that is. Or rather, when you’d pretend to eat.

  ‘We have to do something,’ Frank said, making an immediate appointment with our family GP. I had no choice but to agree with him. Up till then, I’d been in a sort of denial. This is just typical, moody teenage stuff, I tried to tell myself. It’s hormones kicking in – it’s normal. She’ll grow out of it in time.

  But you didn’t, my darling, did you? Instead things grew worse, like you were stuck in a never-ending vicious circle. We took you to the local medical clinic, but it was a waste of time. Your blood and urine results all came back clear as crystal. Later, I found out exactly how you engineered this, but back then, I was as green as the grass and couldn’t comprehend the level of deception you were operating at.

  ‘Ella will be fine,’ our GP told us. ‘She’s just stressed and under pressure with her Leaving Cert looming. Just cut her a bit of slack and she’ll be grand.’

  So I did, but things weren’t fine, far from it. After a time, things started to go missing from the house. Little things at first, knick-knacks that Frank had brought back from his army postings, but over time it got worse. Diamond stud earrings that my mother had given me for my fortieth birthday mysteriously went missing, and then a brooch that your dad had given me when I had Melissa. Cash too, small amounts at first, like the odd tenner I’d suddenly miss from my purse, but over time, the amounts became bigger and bigger.

  It got to the stage where I had to keep my purse under lock and key at home, in my own home. I asked you straight out about it. I even offered you a kind of amnesty. Just come clean, I told you, and we’ll forget about everything that’s happened and we’ll start afresh. But you did what all addicts do, didn’t you? You denied, denied and denied again. Right to my face.

  And throughout all this, the one constant in your life was Josh Andrews and his gang. Going back months now, ever since that infamous charity sleep-out.

  There’s so much I should have done differently. But then, don’t we all have twenty-twenty vision in hindsight? I should have listened to other . . . let’s just say, ‘concerned parents’. Like Marc Casey’s mum, who I bumped into at the supermarket, not long after all of this started.

  Marc had been a nice, quiet kid in your class, who’d fallen in with Josh and his gang. I wasn’t sure of the ins and out of it; all I knew is that at around the same time, his parents had announced they were yanking him out of the school and placing him in a neighbouring all boys school instead.

  ‘A word to the wise,’ Marc’s mum said, collaring me in the vegetable aisle, in a well-meaning way. ‘I’d be super careful of your Ella these days. That gang she’s started to hang around with . . . ’ She sucked her teeth in and trailed off there, so I had to prompt her for more.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, genuinely mystified. Back then, as far as I knew, Josh and his mates were spoilt and entitled, but other than that, the worst accusation I could make against any of them was they were a bunch of over-privileged idiots out for a good time. Not a hanging offence, surely? Besides, I kept telling myself, Ella has so little in common with that gang, she’ll see them for what they really are soon enough. I was surprised at this newfound friendship, but it would soon run its course, I was certain. This, I told myself, was one of those challenging times as a parent, when you just had to step back and allow a strong-minded teenager to make her own mistakes, without ever resorting to the ‘I told you so’s.’

  ‘Oh, come on now,’ Marc’s mum said, shaking her head at me. ‘Surely you’ve heard all the rumours?’

  ‘Rumours about what?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘Jesus, Susan, what planet are you on? Josh and his gang are into everything. I’ve had so many rows with Marc about it over the past year. And it’s a waste of time going to the headmistress to complain – she just kept telling us that without proof, she couldn’t make accusations. So now, we’re just taking Marc out of the school, full stop. Anything to get him away from those horrible kids before things get worse. I’ve already found paraphernalia at home and, as my husband says, this ends now.’

  ‘Paraphernalia . . . ?’

  She looked at me like I was an idiot.

  ‘Oh Susan, how can you be so naïve? I’m talking about drugs. Josh’s gang have been shoving God knows what up their noses for years. Marc admitted as much to me, when his dad and I caught him out. It all starts with smoking a bit of weed, but that’s nothing more than a gateway drug. Things got worse for us – fast.’

  ‘Worse . . . how?’

  To this day, I can still remember my shock at what she was saying, followed by a whooshing sensation of the ground sweeping up to meet me, as an annoying automated voice announced that there were ‘unexpected items in the bagging area’.

  ‘Ketamine,’ she said coolly. ‘And MDMA. Angel dust, as all the kids call it. Why do you think Marc wasn’t around all summer? Because his dad and I got him checked into a rehab clinic, to get our boy clean again. He’s okay now – as far as we know – but we’re taking no chances. So we’ve taken him out of the school, and as far away from Josh Andrews and his cronies as possible.

  ‘And if you take my advice, Susan, you’ll do exactly the same with your Ella. Now, for God’s sake, before it’s too late.’

  Jayne

  TROCADERO RESTAURANT, DUBLIN

  Jayne couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d been taken out to dinner. A proper dinner, in the evening time, in a posh, fancy restaurant like the one she and Eric were in now. Of course Jason had taken her out to gastropub lunches with Irene and the kids for birthdays, confirmations and communions, but it was never like this. It had been years, if not decades, since Jayne had got all dressed up in her good suit from M&S and been whisked off to a restaurant like this one. It was the famous Trocadero, right in the centre of town, and Eric had chosen it himself with particular care.

  ‘I hear this place is a Dublin legend.’ He smiled across the table at her. ‘Only the best will do for my girl.’

  ‘It’s absolutely perfect.’ Jayne grinned happily.

  They ordered: a risotto for Eric and a delicious-sounding cannelloni for herself. Then an easy, natural silence fell.

  ‘An angel must be passing,’ Eric said, after a thoughtful pause. ‘Although right now, I feel like I’m sitting across the table from a real earth angel. You look beautiful tonight, honey, by the way. You don’t get told enough how beautiful you are – inside and out.’

  Jayne beamed, utterly unused to being complime
nted.

  ‘Ahh, would you go on out of that . . . ’ She blushed furiously, but Eric wasn’t done.

  ‘I see what you did today for Susan,’ he went on, ‘and I see every day what you do for Melissa. I look at you and think, there goes Jayne, minding everyone all around her, but who’s minding her?’

  ‘You do, Eric,’ she told him, reaching her hand across the table to take his giant, tanned hand. He gripped hers back, in a warm, affectionate squeeze.

  There was so much more she wanted to say, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to articulate. She thought of Tom, her lovely, kind-hearted husband, and how much she’d missed him. The huge, gaping void that had been in her life after he died. How her whole world shrank so drastically that days would go by when the only people she’d interact with were her neighbours on Primrose Square

  ‘I’m so happy we met,’ she told Eric simply.

  ‘And I am too,’ came the warm reply. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed staying with you over the past few weeks and really getting to know you properly. It’s been – as we say back home – awesome.’

  ‘We’re so lucky that there’s only one fly in the ointment for us,’ Jayne said, straight out.

  ‘I’m guessing by that you mean your delightful son?’

  ‘Who else?’ she said wryly.

  ‘Jason seems . . . all blocked up to me,’ Eric said, after a pause.

  ‘Do you mean constipated?’

  ‘No, honey.’ He smiled. ‘I mean emotionally. The thing is, I love spending time with you, Jayne. You’ve been everything I hoped for and more. I was so lonely after Clare died and it’s like you filled that gap for me. I thought I’d never smile again, or laugh again. Then I come to Ireland and whoomph – there you were.’

  Then he closed his eyes, the way he did whenever he was thinking deeply, so Jayne pretended to be glancing down through the menu, all the while thinking, Don’t leave. Don’t let my son and his family come between the little bit of happiness we’ve managed to forge for ourselves here.

  ‘Here’s a thought,’ Eric eventually said, sitting back against the plush red velvet banquette and running his fingers through his long, silvery hair. ‘Maybe there’s something I can do to help. So . . . ’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So if it’s not too cheeky of me, Jayne, can I ask you to just trust me?’

  Nancy

  24 PRIMROSE SQUARE (FOR NOW, AT LEAST)

  Nancy woke up after approximately fifteen minutes’ sleep, to the living nightmare she now found herself in. Just the previous night, the police had arrived and Sam Williams Senior had told them in no uncertain terms that he had categorically never rented out his house on any website of any description, that Nancy had no right to be there, and that as far as he was concerned, she could pack her bags and be gone by the end of the day.

  ‘This is my home,’ he’d told the cops crisply and clearly. ‘I have absolutely no idea what my son has been up to in my absence, but I can assure you, madam, you’re only here by fraudulent means.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ Nancy interrupted hotly, petrified at the thought of being turfed out. The house, her house, that she’d come to love so much and had started to feel so proprietorial over. The house had been like a sanctuary to her, after everything she’d run away from in London. Her neighbours around Primrose Square had come to mean so much to her. Who did this total stranger think he was anyway, telling her to clear off and vacate the property ASAP?

  ‘I rented here in good faith,’ she said curtly. ‘All I knew is that my landlord was called Sam Williams – how was I supposed to know that this was some messer pretending to be you? You can’t just barge in here and tell me to leave – I have rights too, you know.’

  ‘And look how clean and tidy she’s kept the place for you,’ Melissa had said, stoutly defending her friend. ‘If you ask me, mister, you should be thanking her, not giving out to her like this.’

  ‘So where’s your contract?’ said this particularly unpleasant incarnation of Sam Williams. ‘Where’s your lease agreement? With my signature on it? That I would very much like to see, please. I’m quite sure my legal representatives would be interested to see that document too.’

  That shut both Melissa and Nancy up.

  ‘Hey, come on now, take it easy, all right?’ said the Garda who’d been called to the scene, as he tried to referee between the warring parties. Though it was hard to take the guy seriously, given that he looked not much older than Melissa. ‘Now you both say you’ve a claim to this house,’ he went on, scribbling away in a notebook, ‘yet neither of you have any proof of occupancy?’

  ‘Well, what do you expect?’ Sam Williams went on. ‘I hardly travel around the place with the deeds to all my properties on my person, now do I?’

  ‘As for me,’ Nancy began to explain to the Garda, ‘I rented this place fair and square via the Homesitter website . . . ’

  But Sam Williams was in absolutely no mood to listen.

  ‘Now look here,’ he sighed wearily, addressing the Garda. ‘It seems we’re going round and round in circles and we’re getting absolutely nowhere. I’ve been travelling for eighteen hours, non-stop. I’m tired, jetlagged and badly in need of a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the Garda nervously, ‘but I still have to report this, don’t I?’

  ‘Never mind your report,’ Sam Williams said authoritatively. ‘So here’s what I propose. I’ll make one concession to this total stranger in my house and one only. For tonight, I’ll check into a hotel and hopefully get a good night’s rest there. Then tomorrow, I’ll be in touch with Sam Junior to sort this unholy mess out once and for all. In the meantime,’ he added, swivelling back to Nancy, ‘you can consider this your official notice to quit. And I can promise you, madam, you’ll be hearing from my solicitors.’

  *

  Nancy tossed restlessly around in Sam Williams’ huge double bed and remembered a Shakespeare play she’d worked on at the Globe years ago. When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. She’d already been sick to her stomach worrying about Mbeki and whatever she knew or didn’t know. And now on top of everything – this.

  Serves me right, she thought. That’s what I get for thinking I could have a happy ending. Did I really think that I could just leave the past behind me, up sticks to Dublin and live happily ever after in a beautiful home? Didn’t I know that one day it would all blow up in my face?

  Melissa, brave little soul that she was, had been fabulous the previous night – she’d even asked if she could stay over, ‘to keep you safe, Nancy. In case that horrible man comes back to threaten you.’ Turned out Jayne was out on what sounded like a date night, so of course Nancy was delighted to have her little pal sleep over in Sam Williams’ luxurious spare room. Which only meant, of course, that it would be much later that morning at the earliest before she finally got to sit down with Mbeki.

  Oh God, she thought, her stomach twisting at the conversation that lay ahead. If her worst fears were confirmed and if Mbeki had heard what the whole of London seemed to be chattering about . . .

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a text pinging through on her phone.

  Him. Sam.

  Not that Sam, she thought, reaching out for her phone, not the actual owner of the house. The other one, the son. Or the ‘gobshite’, as they said in Dublin, who’d been stringing her along for weeks now.

  Hi Nancy, so how was your Saturday night? Sadly for me, I had to attend the most boring work dinner known to man with business clients over from Frankfurt.

  Then, as if to hammer the point home, came a load of sleepy face emojis.

  But it’s not all bad, because at least dinner was a) held in one of Shanghai’s Michelin-starred restaurants and b) entirely on expenses. Ever eaten dog liver or chicken feet? Quite the delicacy in this neck of the woods. Believe me, Nancy, you haven’t lived till you’ve tried.

  Then another text, hot on its heels. This one
the length of a short story.

  The one upshot is that at least I get to swim in the South China Sea in the evenings and really marvel at the view. Wish you were here to see it too – it’s breathtaking. Beach, azure blue sea and a skyline to rival Manhattan’s overlooking it all. So here’s a late-night thought for you, Nancy. If you fancy dinner in Dublin when I’m home, we’ve got to do a walk on the beach afterwards – that’s my condition!

  And yet another one – sent just moments later.

  Seriously, when I do get back, there’s so much about my home city I want to show you and tell you about and introduce you to. You haven’t lived till I’ve taken you for a pint of Guinness in the Storehouse, or till you’ve done a lap of Stephen’s Green in a horse-drawn carriage, with a snipe of champagne to mark the moment. So what do you say, Nancy? You in? Can I be your Dublin tour guide?

  At that, Nancy was suddenly boiling with fury, fingers hovering over the phone, poised to ping off some cutting, smart-alecky reply, to let this psycho know that his sick little game was up. But then she paused, wondering what would she say to him anyway? Your dad turned up on my doorstep last night and if you bothered to check your voicemail, you’d realise that the shit has well and truly hit the fan?

  So instead she resisted, put the phone back on the bedside table and tried to compose herself.

  After all, she reminded herself, she’d worked on a lot of Jacobean dramas in the past and if there was one thing she’d learned, it was this:

  Revenge was a dish that people of taste preferred to eat cold.

  From the journal of Susan Hayes