The Women of Primrose Square

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘So you didn’t get to see Alec at all?’ Susan asked, dishing up a helping of pasta for her friend.

  ‘Not a glimmer,’ Emily said, shaking her head. ‘I got such a shock, I was out of there like a scalded cat.’

  ‘Shit,’ Susan said, sitting down at the kitchen table opposite her. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

  ‘I know,’ Emily said flatly, picking at the food and feigning an appetite.

  ‘I mean, I’ve seen you after you went to see your mum and sister,’ Susan said, ‘and you were in bits. In absolute flitters. Yet Alec was the one person . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to remind me,’ Emily said.

  ‘You didn’t have to go crawling back to him . . .’ Susan said, trailing off.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I mean, this is Alec we’re talking about.’

  ‘I know,’ Emily repeated.

  ‘You could have held your head up high there. And Alec should have had plenty to apologise about as well.’

  ‘But life isn’t like that, is it?’ Emily said. ‘And now he’s off on his romantic date night with Poppy and I have to go back to the House of Pain, probably to be bollocked out of it by Violet for daring to use her Diamond Jubilee toilet-roll holder.’

  ‘What was she like, anyway?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘Who do you think? Poppy.’

  Emily sighed. ‘Young. Pretty. She probably hasn’t slept since she gave birth, she didn’t have a scrap of makeup on and she still looked well.’

  ‘I hate her,’ Susan said loyally.

  ‘I don’t,’ Emily said, after a thoughtful little pause. ‘After all, she’s not to blame really, is she? If anyone is at fault, it’s him. It’s Alec.’

  *

  Strange, Emily thought hours later, as she tiptoed in through the front door of number eighty-one Primrose Square. It was well past 11 p.m., yet there was still a light on in the front room – or the drawing room, as Hatchet-Face Violet constantly referred to it.

  Which was weird. The house was usually pitch-black by then. Emily had stayed in Susan’s as late as she could on purpose, so she could just slip back home in darkness and not run into anyone. If Frank – or rather, Francesca – was still up and about, that was one thing, but the thought of having to deal with Violet after the hellish day she’d just had was another matter entirely.

  Emily took her shoes off, padded noiselessly through the dusty hallway, then stuck her head around the drawing room door. A side table lamp was still brightly lit, and lo and behold, there was Violet, Cruella de Vil herself, stretched out on the knackered-looking chaise longue, out for the count and snoring lightly.

  Funny thing was, Emily thought, stopping in her tracks to take a really good look at Violet, the old she-devil actually looked nicer when she was asleep. Younger too. Softer around the edges. For a moment, Emily wondered what she would have been like when she was young. Was she ever young in the first place? Had she ever had a boyfriend, ever been in love?

  At that thought, Emily wanted to giggle. Not a chance in hell. When Violet was young, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, she was probably the exact same as she was now. People like Violet Hardcastle, Emily knew, only ever soured with age. She was born a black-hearted aul’ witch and would doubtlessly stay like that till the day she died, unmourned and unloved by anyone.

  Strange thing though – whatever thoughts Violet was dreaming, they seemed to be particularly happy ones, because, shock horror, her mouth was curved up into a small little smile.

  Before Emily went upstairs to the safety of her bedroom, she took up a worn, woollen throw that had been gathering dust on an armchair, and very gently wrapped it around Violet, so she wouldn’t get chilly in the night. Then she slipped off Violet’s shoes and placed a soft cushion under her head, like a makeshift pillow.

  What the hell, she thought, switching the light off and leaving her to snooze on in peace. Just because the woman is a complete horror story, doesn’t mean that I can’t turn the other cheek every now and then, does it?

  *

  The phone on Emily’s bedside table woke her the following morning, sharply pealing through the early dawn silence. 6.45 a.m., she thought, glancing at the time displayed on the phone before answering. Fuck’s sake. Who the hell was calling her at 6.45 in the morning? Was the building on fire?

  ‘Emily?’ said a deeply familiar voice when she groggily answered the phone – and in an instant, shock had jolted her wide awake.

  ‘Alec?’ she said. ‘Is that really you?’

  ‘Were you at my house yesterday evening?’ was his brusque reply.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Jesus, Emily, it’s a very simple question. Did you or did you not call to my house in Stoneybatter last night, about seven in the evening?’

  Now that Emily had the chance to tune into the phone call properly, he sounded like he was on a bus or train with all the background noise.

  ‘I might have, yeah,’ she said.

  ‘I knew it,’ he sighed down the phone. ‘I knew it had to be you. Poppy was in bits about it afterwards – it took me ages to calm her down. For God’s sake, Em, what did you think you were playing at?’

  ‘So that’s her then,’ Emily said, at the exact same time. ‘That’s the famous Poppy.’

  Alec paused for a moment, as if choosing his words to spare her feelings before answering.

  ‘You know I had never intended for the two of you to meet like that,’ he said wearily. ‘That’s the very last thing I would have wanted. But yes, in answer to your question, that’s Poppy. She’s my fiancée now. And we have a seven-week-old son, as you probably realised.’

  ‘I know,’ Emily said flatly. ‘I saw. He’s a lovely little boy too. Congratulations.’

  She’d fully expected Alec to move on after the divorce. He had every right to and guys like him were never single for long. But now he was a family man too.

  Wow, she thought, slumping back against the pillows. Alec had always wanted to be a dad and now he is. Yet another person from my past whose life is one hundred per cent better off without me.

  Was that the life she could have had, she wondered? If she’d been a better wife to Alec, if he’d been a better husband to her, could that be the two of them now, blissfully happy and living in a cute little townhouse with a gorgeous baby of their own?

  ‘I’m really happy for you,’ was all she could say out loud, but she knew it sounded forced and fake.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alec said curtly. ‘And I’ll thank you even more if you leave us in peace from now on.’

  ‘But. . . . just one more thing,’ Emily said, as a fresh thought struck her. ‘How did Poppy know it was me at the door last night?’

  ‘Not hard to figure,’ Alec replied. ‘She came into the kitchen and said that a tall, middle-aged woman with long brown hair in jeans and trainers had called, asking if I was home. She was puzzled and confused when you ran off on her, so I put two and two together. For God’s sake, Em, what possessed you? What good could you possibly think would have come out of hammering on my door out of the blue like that?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, curling up into a tight little ball and hugging her knees to her chest. ‘And I’ll never bother you again, I promise. It’s just that I’m dry now, and in AA, they make you write a list of everyone you’ve wronged when you were drinking, so you can say you’re sorry to them and make amends. And that’s it, Alec, honestly. I was a horrible wife to you and all I wanted was to apologise.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, taken aback. ‘Right then.’

  There was a long, awkward pause before he spoke again.

  ‘I thought you were probably on the scrounge for money to go drinking with,’ he said.

  ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt,’ she said. ‘Never again.’

  ‘Well, you can take it as read that you’ve apologised to me,’ he said, clearly wanting to end this excruciating phone call.
r />   Emily wasn’t finished, though. Fuck it, she thought. She had him on the phone; if she didn’t say this now, she never would.

  ‘And while we’re doing apologies, Alec,’ she said, ‘is there anything you’d like to say to me?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ he said defensively. The background noise around him swelled, as if he’d just stepped off a packed bus or a busy Luas stuffed full of commuters on their way to work.

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry for everything I put you through,’ Emily said, her voice growing stronger the more she spoke. ‘I was mostly to blame. But I wasn’t entirely in the wrong, was I? I’ve taken the lion’s share of the blame, but don’t you think I’m owed an apology here too?’

  ‘What are you referring to?’ Alec muttered down the phone.

  ‘I dunno.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe the fact that you were seeing Poppy behind my back for the last year of our marriage had something to do with our break up?’

  This time there was silence from the other end of the phone. Just the background noise of the early morning traffic and car horns blaring.

  ‘You remember when I found out?’ Emily persisted. ‘Because I do. It’s very hard for me to forget. Mainly because that’s what propelled me into the worst drinking binge I’d ever gone on. I ended up hospitalised, Alec. And you didn’t even come to see me – not once. Have you nothing to say to me about that?’

  There was a long pause before he answered. All Emily heard was the siren of an ambulance blaring, deafening her, even down the other end of the phone.

  ‘I have a meeting now,’ he said curtly, cutting her dead. ‘I really have to go.’

  Before she’d even had the chance to say goodbye, he’d hung up on her. He was gone.

  *

  Later that morning, Emily texted Leon and as ever, he suggested meeting up in a café.

  So I can have breakfast and you can sip coffee and pretend not to be starving.

  She texted back immediately:

  Fine. Just need to talk. Badly.

  And his response:

  I was joking. Of course I’ll stand you breakfast, you eejit. Humble pie not v filling, is it?

  Thank God for you, you grouchy fuck, she thought, hauling herself out of bed and into her jeans, with the same battered pair of trainers she’d been wearing for months. How had she been so dismissive of Leon when they first met? How could she have been so thick? Had she really been arrogant enough to think she could just sail through recovery without any help at all?

  ‘Did you ever meet a greasy spoon café that you didn’t like?’ she said to him, arriving into a run-down snack bar off Pearce Street in the dead middle of the city centre.

  ‘Gimme a break, would you?’ came Leon’s growled reply. ‘In the first place, I got parking here, and in the second, I’m buying you breakfast. Now sit down and order. Then tell me what the feck is wrong with you.’

  They ordered – a coffee and a bowl of porridge for her, the usual full heart attack on a plate for him.

  ‘Not bothered about your cholesterol at all?’ she said, as their food arrived and Leon lashed butter onto a slice of toast that came with fried eggs, sausages and rashers, all swimming in what looked to be a big puddle of grease.

  ‘When you’ve just done an all-night shift ferrying drunks on stag nights from one watering hole to another,’ he quipped back, ‘then trust me, high cholesterol is the least of your worries. Right, come on then, fill me in on why you wanted to talk. How bad are things with you?’

  ‘Oh God, so bad,’ she groaned, slumping back against the cheap bright red plastic seat. ‘But the good news is that at the very least I did it. I went to my mother, my sister and my ex-husband, and I told all three of them that I was very sorry.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And in two cases out of three, I practically had doors slammed into my face.’

  ‘Two out of three?’

  ‘Mum and Sadie, my sister.’

  ‘And what about your ex?’

  ‘Another story,’ Emily sighed deeply, ‘for another day.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, wolfing into a sausage dribbling with ketchup.

  ‘So,’ Emily went on, ‘I suppose I just wanted to meet you this morning to say thanks for all the time and trouble you went to with me. Not to mention the free breakfasts.’

  ‘All part of the service.’

  ‘And I hope the next ex-drinker you get to sponsor is an easier case than me.’

  ‘So you’re just giving up, then?’ Leon asked, wiping sauce off his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Well, what choice do I have?’ She shrugged, trying not to feel too sorry for herself. ‘My ex has moved on and my family have made it pretty clear to me that they all have far better lives without me. So that’s it. Clean, sober Emily will just have to navigate life from here on in all on my lonesome.’

  It hurt, though, just articulating it out loud. Emily had been alone for so long, she thought she was immune to feeling isolated and lost by now. But maybe she wasn’t after all. Then there was a pause while Leon stopped eating, sat back and looked across the table at her.

  ‘There’s something I have to ask you,’ he said.

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘What the hell happened with your family in the first place?’ he said. ‘Sorry, Emily, but I have to know. For your own mother to turn her back on you, it must have been something pretty spectacular. Usually with recovering alcoholics, it’s the reverse. There’s always at least one family member who welcomes you back to the fold like the prodigal child.’

  There was a long, measured moment before she could answer.

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ was all she could say.

  ‘If I took you to an AA meeting,’ Leon persisted, ‘would you talk about it there?’

  ‘My private life in front of a roomful of strangers?’ she said, shooting a warning look at him. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘Lots of recovering drinkers find meetings helpful.’

  ‘And the best of luck to them.’

  ‘Then tell me and consider it an act of penance,’ Leon insisted. ‘It won’t be easy getting it off your chest, but at least I’ll understand why your own family want nothing to do with you. Start with what happened between you and your mother. Go on, then – you talk and I’ll listen, while enjoying my high-cholesterol breakfast in peace.’

  Emily sighed. This is it, she thought. Leon is absolutely right. This is what real repentance feels like.

  ‘I may have drunk her house,’ she eventually said.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, with his mouth stuffed full with a rasher. ‘Go on, tell me more.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, fortifying herself with a sip of coffee before she could go on. ‘Before my dad died, my parents were very comfortably off.’

  ‘Figured as much,’ he said as she raised an eyebrow back at him. ‘You may dress like a homeless person, but you sound very posh.’

  ‘I’m a waste of a perfectly good education,’ Emily told him. ‘At least, that’s what my mother always said about me.’

  ‘Go on, then – the house. What happened?’

  ‘When my dad was still around, I was – believe it or not – happily married to a very nice guy called Alec. Or at least I thought he was a very nice guy back then. Anyway, we lived a perfectly ordinary, middle-class suburban life, thanks very much.’

  ‘Except that you were hitting the bottle.’

  ‘Yeah, but I was a secret drinker back then,’ Emily qualified. ‘I was a functioning alcoholic for a long time before it all started to fall apart. Anyway, a few years before Dad passed away, he developed dementia, so my sister Sadie and I took power of attorney over all his financial affairs, because Mum didn’t want any of the responsibility. Sadie already had a house of her own, so Dad had willed the family home to me, knowing I’d never live in it and that my mother could stay there for the rest of her days. On paper, at least. That was it in theory.’

  ‘Oh good Jaysus,’
Leon groaned. ‘Don’t tell me you sold the house from under the woman’s nose?’

  ‘Not quite,’ she said, ‘but almost as bad. Equity release, so I could get cash to go drinking with. Then, of course, when I couldn’t make the repayments anymore . . .’

  ‘They repossessed. Course they did.’

  ‘The same month that my father died. It all happened at the exact same time – the shit hit the fan and Mum realised she’d have to move out. So she was widowed and made homeless within weeks. She said she’d never forgive me for it – and so far, the woman has certainly stuck to her guns.’

  Emily’s voice cracked as snippets from that awful time began to come back to her.

  *

  Standing outside the family home – a gorgeous Edwardian house in the poshest part of Sandymount – all the neighbours had clustered together, gathering around a hearse that had come to take her dad to his final resting place. His coffin was just being carried out of the house, followed by her mother and Sadie, both dressed in neat black coats. The front garden was thronged with neighbours, distant cousins and well-wishers, who were all there to support the family through their trouble.

  Yet when Emily appeared, the respectful hush seemed to shift, and now distinct mutterings could be heard. Mrs Kennedy, the biggest gossip on the road, and Mrs Bergin, her mother’s bridge partner, began to nudge each other.

  ‘The cheek of her, turning up after what she’s put her mother through . . .’

  ‘Some people just have a brass neck . . .’

  Then someone whose face Emily couldn’t see actually stuck up for her. ‘Come on, it’s her father’s funeral . . . She has every right to be here, doesn’t she?’

  ‘You mean you didn’t hear what Emily Dunne went and did?’ Mrs Kennedy said disgustedly. ‘Turns out she remortgaged the house and never kept up the repayments . . . So now, on top of all her troubles, her poor mother is being turfed out of her own home . . . Utterly unthinkable . . . Such a disgrace . . . Her own father must be spinning in his grave.’