In A World Of Pure Imagination

Stuart has had enough of Violet. This much she knows. He lifts his face upwards to the Artex kitchen ceiling as if appealing to a higher power to give him strength.

“This can’t go on, Violet. We can’t go on.”

Violet says nothing as she watches him. Stuart ’s eyes are extraordinarily beady, and quite close together. He looks like a tall pink mongoose. It occurs to her that she really does not find him attractive at all. This realisation collides with a gut-punch of panic that he appears to be serious about ending things between them this time. She has always told herself that Stuart is better than nothing. In this moment the gulf between better and nothing suddenly seems unbridgeably wide, when nothing means nights alone on the sofa, no one to talk to about awful Natalie at work, and even less sex than she is getting now.

“You’re too much for me Violet, I’m sorry. Your life is just… chaotic. You’re underperforming at work, you never have any money, you don’t like my friends.”

 He folds his arms before delivering the killer blow.

“And you hate dancing.”

This last hurts the most. Violet does hate dancing. It is embarrassing and awkward. She cannot imagine why anyone would enjoy it, especially in front of other people. She starts to cry.

Stuart sighs. “Don’t make this harder than it is, Violet.”

Violet reflects on the poor standard of their sex life and Stuart’s recent inability to perform.

“Chance’d be a fine thing, duckie!” titters the Elizabethan brothel owner. She is one of a small but diverse cast of characters who provide the soundtrack to Violet’s inner monologue and is partial to a double entendre.

Violet bites back a laugh. Stuart has had enough. He swipes his jacket huffily from the back of his chair and sweeps out of the flat.

Violet is close behind him, late for her train. As she runs past him he is on the phone. She hears the words “It’s done,” and “absolute nightmare,” as she passes.

She catches sight of herself as she runs into the tube station. The pleated skirt and jauntily tucked in T-shirt were a mistake. Her hips are too wide for the look that everyone else seems to be pulling off with aplomb this summer. She looks like a Russian babushka.

Natalie is waiting outside the hotel when Violet rushes up with dark circles of sweat blooming under her armpits. She does not bother to greet Violet. “You’re late. Hurry up. The documents?” she snaps.

Violet would love nothing more than to give Natalie the documents she needs for the signing ceremony that is about to take place between the museum they work for and its biggest donor, but they are still on the table in Stuart’s flat in Stratford. She thinks she might cry again if she tries to articulate this so gestures wordlessly instead at her empty bag.

Natalie’s look is pure hatred. She snatches her phone from her pocket and jabs at it with a sharp purple nail. She does not bother to walk far enough away from Violet to shield her from the conversation, so Violet can hear. “I know. Fucking useless. Needs replaced.”

Natalie finishes her call, which has clearly borne no fruit, and walks back to Violet. “Any ideas?” she says with bright hostility.

Push her in front of a car, problem solved! says the pirate. His ideas usually tend towards the violent.

A red Hop-On Hop-Off tourist bus rounds the corner. Violet would like to push Natalie in front of the bus and watch her body fly high into the air before slamming down lifelessly onto the pavement. She imagines the tourists’ faces as Natalie sails across the London skyline in front of them. Perhaps they might think it is part of the tour.

Violet shakes her head instead. Natalie’s chin juts forward an inch as she stamps off into the hotel, Violet trailing behind her.

This morning Natalie has slicked the top of her hair back until it lies flat against her scalp and carefully tonged the ends so they curl upwards. Together with her deep orange tan and strappy pinafore dress Violet thinks she looks like a small angry Oompa Loompa.

She sniggers and clamps her hand over her mouth. Natalie’s head whirls round like the vomiting girl from the Exorcist. She flares her nostrils furiously. She would like to slap Violet, Violet can tell. 

The signatories to the document that is still on Stuart’s table arrive, the museum’s director and donor Sergei. A solution is found. Sergei and the museum’s director solemnly sign a piece of blank paper that the hotel has provided, across which Natalie has written SERGEI MAZAKOV – DONATION AGREEMENT in black pen. She has underlined the words DONATION AGREEMENT three times to lend them authenticity and gravitas. Sergei is deeply unhappy and begins to make excuses as soon as the documents are signed and photographs are taken. He can no longer have coffee with them now, he says. He must get in a cab to the airport. Natalie thanks him again for his donation but he is already ushering them out of the door. Natalie is crestfallen. This is all Violet’s fault.

Afterwards Violet and Natalie stand in the lobby and watch Sergei’s cab drive away. The museum director, not known for his work ethic and oblivious to the tension, announces cheerfully that he is going to sit in the bar and catch up on emails over coffee. Through the window between the bar and the lobby Violet can see him reading a Daily Mail article on his phone about Khloe Kardashian’s latest pregnancy and using his thumb and forefinger to enlarge a picture of her in a bikini on a yacht somewhere. Her lips twitch.

Natalie pulls out a packet of midget gems from her bag. She is the only person Violet knows who eats midget gems. Of all the sweets on offer, she does not understand why Natalie would choose these tasteless abominations. What do you get when you guzzle down sweets, Natalie? says the Victorian schoolmistress sternly.

Natalie tosses a handful of sweets in her mouth. She inhales piously and closes her eyes, the lids stretched over eyeballs rolling all the way to heaven, or at least the top of the trees in the Oompa Loompa jungle. Violet bites her lip but it is too late. The laugh is out there.

Natalie’s eyes snap open. “Go home, Violet,” she says sharply. “Take the rest of the week off. I need to think about where we go from here.”

Violet goes home.

She goes straight to bed and wakes up to find that it is dark outside. Her flatmate and landlady Millie is standing at the end of her bed, together with her boyfriend Al.

Al has a very bulbous nose atop the pencil slash of his mouth. He is a little smaller than Millie, but the sanctimonious, long-suffering expressions they are wearing are identical.

Millie fires the opening salvo. It is clear she has rehearsed this carefully.

“Violet, we need to talk about your tenancy. It’s not working for me anymore.”

Good, Millie! says the Victorian schoolmistress. Nice, clear, assertive language. Excellent diction.

Whose bleeding side are you on? says the Cockney gangster.

Millie continues. “You leave everything in a mess, you eat my food, and your attitude to the rent is…Well, I don’t understand it. Every month you pay it, when you do eventually pay it, it’s a different amount.”

Violet had hoped that Millie might be amused by her little financial inconsistencies with their built-in jokes. £666.66 after she complained that Stuart’s mother, a fearsome and doughty Aberdonian who makes them sleep in separate beds in her chilly cottage in Braemar, was the devil incarnate. £696.90 after Millie’s drunken observation about Stuart’s ineptitude in bed one night at the pub.

It seems she was not. She stands with her arms folded.

“I’ve paid the full £700 this month on time. It’s in your account,” says Violet.

“Yes, Violet. You have managed to pay the right amount this month, and on the right date,” concedes Millie wearily. “Well done.”

Say what you will about her, and much has been said about the fucking useless underperforming nightmare Violet today, you cannot accuse her of not paying her rent on time, nor of not paying the right amount. She is an exemplar of good tenancy. A swell of pride at her newly-discovered financial savvy puffs up in her breast that she will carry into a bright new tomorrow if only Millie would shut the fuck up and let her sleep.

Millie’s eyes widen and she recoils as if Violet has punched her. Violet realises that she has said the last part of the sentence out loud. This has been happening a lot recently.

“I cannot take any more of her,” Millie says in a small voice, directed at no one.

Al puts his arm around Millie. This is a mistake, because she is too incandescent to be touched. She pushes his hand away angrily. His bulbous nose bulbs. The end of it is very shiny, and Violet wonders if he polishes it.

Bad luck, Al dear, says the Victorian schoolmistress sympathetically. She is extremely forward-thinking for a Victorian schoolmistress.

Pam and her five sisters’ll be keeping you company tonight mate, cackles the Cockney gangster. The Elizabethan madam guffaws. Those two are as thick as thieves.

Take the hint, son. Girlfriend is not interested, says the sassy New Yorker, miming spinning a record on the four syllables of the last word.

The pirate is surprisingly prudish for someone of his profession and does not generally comment on matters sexual. He stares off into the distance in prim silence.

Violet splutters into her pillow. Al looks at her with uncontained disgust before he and Millie stalk out the room in lockstep.

“Absolute weirdo,” he says as he shuts the door behind him.

Violet closes her eyes and falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The next day she wakes up early. She goes into the kitchen to find some breakfast.

A woman who looks exactly like her, who in fact actually is her, is sitting at the table eating toast. She does not look at Violet as she takes a bite and brushes the crumbs from the side of her mouth.

“You’re underperforming, Violet,” she says as she chews. “You’ve been replaced.”

Violet walks around New Violet, who appears to be dressed for work. Her hair is in a neat ponytail. Her nails look freshly varnished in a tasteful nude colour not stolen from Millie. Her tights have a just out the packet sheen and Violet knows that they will be the kind of tights that sit exactly in place all day and will not need to have been yanked up by the waistband nine times before she even reaches Mile End station.

Millie walks into the kitchen and steps back slightly when she sees New Violet. She does not appear to notice Old Violet skulking in the corner. Old Violet begins to have the creeping suspicion that no one but New Violet with her perfectly fitting tights can see her.

“You’re not usually up at this time,” says Millie passive aggressively. She pours some of her expensive granola into one of her four (three, actually. Old Violet broke one last week and hid it in her wardrobe) Emma Bridgewater Black Toast bowls and sprinkles some blueberries on top. She sits down opposite New Violet. Millie is very pleased with herself and her breakfast. She gives a little sigh of contentment before she lifts the spoon to her mouth.

Put cat litter in it when she’s not looking, says the Cockney gangster.

Too subtle, says the Victorian schoolmistress. Cut out the middleman and shit in the packet, says the pirate. Old Violet can’t say she hasn’t considered it.

New Violet begins to speak. She sounds just like Old Violet. She has been ill, she tells Millie. She is sorry for all of the hurt and embarrassment and financial stress she has caused. She is going to do better from now on. Here, she has even made Millie some chocolate muffins to take into work. She knows they are Millie’s favourite.

What the fuck? mouths Old Violet behind Millie’s back. The last time she baked something it was a birthday cake for Stuart. He had been particularly annoying her that day so she flicked a bogie into the mixture at the end out of sheer badness. It gave her great enjoyment to watch him eat it.

New Violet jerks her head to the side with a ‘what are you actually still doing here?’ expression and looks at the back door. Music and light are softly trickling out from behind it.

Come with me…a voice sings.

Old Violet opens the door.

Living there you’ll be free…

In front of her is a chocolate factory on a Victorian street by Sergei’s fancy hotel where someone is playing records and no one ever ever has to dance if they don’t want to. People are laughing. A woman walks by pulling up her tights.

If you truly wish to be...sings the sassy New Yorker.

Violet turns round to look at the kitchen, but it is no longer there. There is only darkness.

She steps forward into the light as the door closes and disappears gently behind her.