Francesca's Party

by Patricia Scanlan

  Yet, as angry as she was, fear was her strongest emotion. It had really hit her just how vulnerable she was when she’d written a cheque for the central heating oil. The price had increased by over £100 from the previous refill. She was at Mark’s mercy financially and it was a most unsettling feeling. He wasn’t mean, but nevertheless she was entirely dependent on him for money and she began to suffer from insomnia that left her exhausted. Night after night she would toss and turn, her mind a whirl as thoughts raced around her brain and she wondered what would become of her. Her stomach would clench into knots and her heart would start palpitating and it would often be dawn before she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  She tried her best to hide her distress from Owen, who had come back from America full of enthusiasm about going to work there for the summer and beyond.

  ‘You could come too, Mam. It would be good for you,’ he urged.

  ‘Stop worrying about me, Owen. You don’t want me in America with you when you’re sowing your wild oats, now do you?’ she teased.

  ‘I don’t like leaving you here on your own,’ Owen fretted.

  ‘I might sow a few wild oats myself when you’re gone, never you fear.’ Francesca planted a kiss on his cheek and smiled at him.

  He was a great son, she thought gratefully as she slid Alison’s note back in the envelope and slipped it into the drawer of her desk. She stood up, agitated. She had to get out of the house. Owen was back in college and the long day stretched ahead of her. She had a few bits and pieces of grocery shopping to do. It would get her out and about for an hour. She decided to drive down to Clontarf. She didn’t want to bump into any of her neighbours in Superquinn. She just wasn’t up to social chit-chat.

  Francesca did a bigger shop than she anticipated in Nolan’s and was grateful as she packed the boot that at least it wasn’t raining. She pushed the trolley back to the bay and idly scanned the noticeboard. A small typed advert caught her eye.

  * * *

  Urgently required.

  Temporary receptionist/clerk typist wanted for maternity cover in busy accountant’s office. Start immediately. Good remuneration.

  * * *

  A mad impulse found her rooting in her bag for her mobile and before she knew it, she had dialled the number given. A harassed male voice answered and she explained that she was ringing in answer to the advertisement.

  ‘When can you come for an interview?’ he demanded.

  ‘Now,’ she blurted.

  ‘Excellent. We’re on Seafield Road, the Vernon Avenue end.’ He gave her the number. ‘My name is Edward Allen. Just ring the bell and announce yourself. What’s your name?’

  ‘Francesca Kirwan,’ Francesca replied. Her voice quivered. Was she mad?

  ‘Right. See you shortly.’ Edward Allen clicked off and she was left looking at the mobile in astonishment.

  She hurried to the car and got in. She flicked open her compact mirror and brushed some bronzing powder over her cheeks and touched up her lipstick. Nothing could hide the suitcases under her eyes, she thought dolefully. Hopefully he wouldn’t hire her for her looks. She was wearing black trousers, a tangerine roll-neck jumper, and her fawn winter coat edged with fur trim. Like all her clothes, it was a casually elegant outfit. Still the bank manager’s wife, she thought drily as she ran a brush through her hair.

  What was maternity leave these days? About three months? If she got the job it would be something on her CV and it would give her a taste of what it would be like getting back into the workforce.

  Before she lost her nerve, she started the ignition and drove off. She was less than five minutes away from her destination. She pulled up outside the red-brick house and her heart began to pound. It wasn’t too late. She could drive off and forget the crazy impulse that had set her off on this totally unexpected quest.

  ‘Don’t be a coward,’ she muttered as she got out of the car and drew her coat around her. She pressed the intercom and said her name. The buzzer went and she pushed open the door and found herself in a shabby hallway. The red carpet on the floor and stairs was threadbare in patches and there was a faintly musty smell about the place.

  A bespectacled plump grey-haired woman popped her head out of a door along the hall. ‘Mr Allen’s room is the one across the hall. He’s waiting for you,’ she said, and disappeared.

  ‘Thanks,’ Francesca murmured faintly, to thin air. She knocked on the cream-painted door. The paintwork was chipped and cracked. It might be a busy accountant’s office but it certainly could do with a lick of paint, she thought as she waited to enter.

  ‘Come!’ a voice said gruffly.

  Francesca pushed open the door and her eyes widened at the chaos that surrounded her. Six filing cabinets groaned under the weight of box files and folder files. Bookshelves overflowed with tomes on tax and accountancy. Finance magazines littered the floor. Edward Allen sat at a big mahogany desk in the middle of the chaos. Computer and phone cables and extension leads snaked untidily across the floor.

  The accountant had a gaunt lugubrious face that reminded her of a particularly sad-looking bloodhound. His hair was slicked over the side to cover his bald patch and his grey suit hung ill-fittingly on his bony frame. He stood to greet her, his handshake limp and uninterested.

  ‘You must be Mrs Kirwan?’ He had a slow, ponderous voice. Clearly they would not be on first-name terms, Francesca realized as she sat opposite him in the chair he indicated.

  ‘Yes, Mr Allen,’ she said politely.

  ‘What experience of office work do you have?’ He joined his fingertips in a steeple and peered at her through his bi-focals.

  ‘Well, I can type, file, answer phones,’ Francesca murmured.

  ‘Hmm. What was your last position?’

  She had a wild urge to say ‘the missionary’. This was ludicrous. Could she seriously see herself working for this dry old stick?

  ‘I’m just coming back to the workforce. My children are reared and I want to get back to work, but I haven’t actually worked outside the home for twenty years.’

  ‘Hmm. But you can type?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Francesca assured him. She could do a passable two-fingers style of typing, so she wasn’t really fibbing she assured herself.

  ‘We were badly let down by a young madam from one of the agencies. She stayed half an hour and left us completely in the lurch. Maybe an older woman would be more reliable.’ He eyed Francesca up and down. ‘January is a particularly busy time as you know. We have to have our returns in and the pressure is intense. Miss Carter, my assistant, works in the other room across the hall. Your domain would be the room to the front of the house. It is also the clients’ waiting room. I would expect you to keep it tidy at all times and to make coffee for me as I require it, as well as attending to your clerical duties. The job is for three months’ duration with a possibility of it becoming permanent if Mrs Sullivan decides not to return. The salary is two hundred pounds per week. When can you start?’

  ‘Oh!’ Francesca was so surprised to be offered the job she couldn’t think straight.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ prompted Edward Allen.

  ‘Fine,’ Francesca stammered.

  ‘Very well. Nine sharp. Punctuality is of the utmost importance, I’m sure you’ll agree. I live upstairs so you don’t need a key.’ He picked up the phone and pressed a button. ‘Miss Carter, could you come into my office please?’ he instructed.

  Moments later Miss Carter plodded into the room. About fifty, with a helmet of iron-grey hair, she wore a navy pleated skirt and a navy cardigan buttoned up to the neck. A pearl brooch was her only adornment. She wore no make-up.

  ‘Miss Carter, this is Mrs Kirwan. She is our new receptionist. She is starting work for the firm tomorrow,’ Edward announced.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Miss Carter said tightly in a prim little voice. She held out a pudgy little hand that was withdrawn almost as soon as Francesca had extended hers. Her little brown eyes were hard and unfriendly as she
studied Francesca from head to toe.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ Francesca said brightly.

  ‘Excellent.’ A hint of a smile hovered briefly on Edward’s face. Miss Carter remained grim-faced as she surreptitiously studied Francesca.

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ Francesca repeated as she backed out the door.

  She let herself out of the hall door, pulling it shut behind her.

  What on earth had she let herself in for? She shook her head in bemusement. Wait until Millie heard this. And Owen. She wouldn’t tell Mark until she was good and ready.

  She might not tell Millie or Owen for a while either, she thought doubtfully. Edward Allen & Co. wasn’t exactly at the cutting edge of high finance.

  She drove home and set to work on a marathon cook-up. Feeding Owen was her number-one priority. All she’d have to do for the rest of the week was pop the made-up dinners in the microwave. She could have a bite to eat in Clontarf at lunchtimes and at least she wouldn’t have too far to travel. Maybe it would work out very well. She heard her son’s key in the door.

  ‘Hi, Ma.’ He raced into the kitchen, flung his bag under the table, gave her a kiss, divested himself of his coat and said, ‘What’s for dinner? I’m starving.’

  Francesca laughed. He said the same thing every day. ‘Roast stuffed pork steak,’ she informed him.

  ‘Oh yessss!’ Owen rubbed his hands.

  ‘Owen … umm … I wasn’t going to say it for a couple of days until I see how it goes but I got myself a job today,’ she blurted out as she busied herself serving their meal.

  ‘A job! Doing what?’ Her son was astonished.

  ‘It’s in an accountant’s in Clontarf. It’s clerical and reception work.’

  ‘How did you manage that?’

  ‘I’m not an imbecile, Owen,’ Francesca said indignantly.

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Ma,’ he assured her hastily. ‘I was just wondering how did it come about?’

  ‘I saw an ad in a shop window today and when I phoned about it they asked me to come for an interview immediately. They want me to start tomorrow.’

  ‘Jeepers, that’s fast moving,’ Owen remarked as he demolished a succulent slice of meat.

  ‘I’m not saying anything to anyone until I see how it goes.’ Francesca sat down to eat her meal but she wasn’t very hungry. Now that she’d told Owen it felt real. She couldn’t back out.

  ‘Well, go for it, Ma, and the best of luck.’ Owen raised his glass of milk in toast.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured. She was having palpitations already at the thought of tomorrow.

  She went to bed early and slept fitfully. She woke the next morning and lay snuggled in bed in the relaxed moments between waking and sleeping before suddenly realizing with a heavy lurching of her stomach that today was different. Today was the start of her life as a woman of independent means.

  She was parked outside the redbrick office at five to nine. Across the road she could see Miss Carter sitting in a sporty red Honda Civic. She was surprised at Miss Carter’s choice of car. Still waters run deep, she thought, amused.

  At precisely half a minute to nine Miss Carter got out of her car and crossed the road. Francesca got out of her own car.

  ‘Morning, Miss Carter,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘Morning,’ Miss Carter reciprocated primly as she glanced at her watch and rapped smartly on the door. It was opened moments later by Edward.

  ‘Good morning, ladies,’ he greeted them politely. ‘Mrs Kirwan, if you would kindly bring me some coffee? Black, no sugar. Miss Carter, will you show Mrs Kirwan the kitchen area please?’ he instructed.

  ‘Certainly, Mr Allen.’ Miss Carter gave a tight little smile. ‘This way if you please.’ She led Francesca into a gloomy, brown-tiled kitchen with an old-fashioned gas cooker. Mustard-coloured presses lay along one wall and Miss Carter pointed to one and said, ‘China and coffee. Mr Allen likes his coffee in a china cup, as I do myself. I take my coffee at ten. You may have yours at ten-fifteen until ten-thirty when I’ll answer the phones for you. Lunch is from one until two. I’ll show you your desk when you’ve made Mr Allen’s coffee.’ The accountant clumped out of the kitchen in her serviceable brogues and tweed coat.

  Francesca sighed as she took off her coat and filled the kettle. Scintillating conversation was not going to be the order of the day in Allen & Co.

  She made her boss a cup of black coffee, knocked politely on his door and entered at his command. He didn’t look up as his long bony fingers flew over a calculator. She placed the coffee on the desk in front of him and left him to it. This place was as dead as a morgue, she reflected as she knocked on Miss Carter’s door. Miss Carter opened the door with a thin smile.

  ‘I have some letters for you to type and some bills for you to send out. You should start promptly as we have fallen behind a little and that is not the way Allen & Co. do business. Here is your tape.’ She handed Francesca a tiny cassette. ‘Your Dictaphone is on your desk. Follow me, please.’ She marched down the hallway to Francesca’s domain.

  A desk with an electric typewriter and a phone was positioned at right angles to the window. The phone was an old-fashioned model and Francesca hid a smile as she remembered how worried she’d been that it was going to be a complicated switch system, when, in fact, it was extremely basic.

  ‘If you wish to put a call through to Mr Allen, push the first button. If you wish to put a call through to me, push the second one. Personal phone calls should be taken or made sparingly. Mr Allen is very strict about that.

  ‘The typewriter should be unplugged each evening and the photocopier also.’ She indicated a huge antique of a machine in the alcove beside the old-fashioned fireplace. Four hard dining chairs stood along the wall opposite the window and a coffee table held a few well-thumbed copies of Business and Finance.

  ‘This is your appointment book. We have two clients calling this afternoon. Any VAT or income tax returns you direct to me. Mr Allen deals with all other business—’

  The phone rang. Francesca almost leaped out of her skin. ‘Answer it,’ instructed Miss Carter.

  ‘Hello, Allen and Co., how may I help you?’ Francesca said politely.

  ‘I’m after getting a threatening letter from those VAT people saying they’ll send the sheriff after me in twenty-one days,’ came a very irate voice down the line. ‘I want to speak to Miss Carter.’

  ‘Certainly, who may I say is calling?’ Francesca asked calmly, aware that she was under Miss Carter’s beady-eyed scrutiny.

  ‘Tell her it’s Francis Kelly.’

  Francesca put her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s a Mr Francis Kelly for you. Something about the sheriff calling in twenty-one days because of non-payment of VAT.’

  Miss Carter flushed a deep red. ‘Tsk. Put it through immediately,’ she instructed coldly, much to Francesca’s relief. Miss Carter was hard going.

  She sat at the desk and switched on the typewriter and ran her fingers over the keys experimentally. The golf ball clattered noisily. Obviously the receptionist/clerk typist was not deemed important enough for a computer. She slipped the cassette into the Dictaphone, inserted her ear plugs and pressed play. Miss Carter’s starched voice came tinnily into her ear. With a sigh, Francesca switched it off, inserted some headed paper into the typewriter, lined it up, restarted the tape and began to type slowly. She had just got to the last paragraph when she hit the wrong key and wrote assisyance instead of assistance. Groaning, she replaced the offending y with a t. Her next letter was more successful and it was ten-fifteen before she knew it and Miss Carter was standing at the door telling her that it was time for her break.

  Francesca sat alone in the brown and mustard kitchen sipping her coffee. She must bring a book to work in future she decided, as chatty tea breaks were obviously not a feature of Allen & Co.

  At ten-thirty precisely, Francesca was back at her desk. The phone rang several times. On one occasion she put a call through to
Mr Allen which was meant for Miss Carter. On another she put one through to Miss Carter which should have been taken by Mr Allen. Miss Carter was quite snippy about it and Francesca had to resist the urge to tell her to get lost. She ploughed through her letters, pleased with her progress, and at twenty to one brought five completed letters in to Miss Carter to sign. The accountant’s office was even more chaotic than her boss’s, which surprised Francesca as she had assumed that Miss Carter would have a pristine office with a place for everything and everything in its place.

  It was a relief to leave the building for an hour. The morning had gone quickly, she had to admit, but she had a tension headache that was getting worse. She hurried down to the seafront and slipped into Casa Pasta for a bowl of carbonara and a cup of coffee. It was strange not being her own boss, knowing that she couldn’t go home and flop in front of the TV for the afternoon or take Trixie for a walk on the pier.

  Miss Carter was waiting for her when she got back, her eyes glittering with antagonism. ‘Mrs Kirwan, a word. We never send out Tipp-exed letters at Allen & Co. You’ll have to redo two please,’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘Oh, I see. Did you ever consider getting a computer for your clerk typist? It would be much less time-consuming in the long run,’ Francesca suggested.

  ‘Our previous employee was an excellent typist, she didn’t need one,’ Miss Carter said snootily as she plonked the offending letters in front of Francesca. Fortunately a client arrived and Miss Carter scuttled back into her own office to prepare for her meeting.

  At three-fifteen Edward made an appearance. He presented Francesca with a tape and requested that the letters be ready for the evening post. Francesca’s heart sank. She’d have to work fast but carefully seeing as Tipp-ex was not permitted.