The Woman at 72 Derry Lane Read online

  Elise and Luca. They were good kids. Her kids. Wellmannered. She and George had insisted on it.

  Rea checked through the peephole and a gold circular monstrosity that had no business on anyone’s ear, let alone a middle-aged man’s, mocked her.

  Do as you want done, she thought, so she plastered on a smile. ‘Hi, how are you?’ Rea was determined to make a connection with the man. Maybe he’d had a bad day the last time he scowled his way through her delivery. Besides which, aside from the call to 112 and an unsatisfactory row with Louis Flynn earlier in the day, she’d not spoken to a single soul for days. Unless you counted Siri. She longed for a bit of human contact.

  Earring man of course couldn’t care less that she was desperate for company. He gave her nothing in response to her cheery hello, save for a disinterested shoving of a large, hot pizza box into her hands. Charming little bastard. What was it with people these days?

  ‘That’s great, thanks for that. Here, you can keep the change.’ Rea smiled again. Although this time it was through gritted teeth.

  Earring man grabbed the notes and turned on his heels, without so much as saying thank you or kiss my skinny flat arse.

  ‘You’re welcome!’ Rea’s sarcasm fell on unhearing ears to his already retreating back. Was she that invisible to him?

  But then she heard him mutter ‘fat cow’ under his breath.

  Did he just say that? The little shit, he bloody well did! He was happy enough to take Rea’s tip, fat cow or not. It was too much, insulting her less than five seconds after he took her money. What was wrong with him? Between Dickhead next door and now this gobshite, Rea saw red. Before she had the chance to think about it, she yelled down the path after him, ‘I see your bad manners, asshole, and I raise you a great big FUCK YOU!’

  The feeling of satisfaction was immense when he stopped and turned around to face her, his mouth all agog, taking in her single middle finger raised in that age-old gesture of defiance. Rea slammed the door behind her, feeling much better. Not so invisible now, am I, asshole? She giggled. His face! That felt good. Oh George, you would have enjoyed that, wouldn’t you? He loved her feistiness, as he called it. Wait until she told … and then her mirth was gone in an instant as she realised that, of course, he wasn’t here to tell.

  Rea knew that she only had herself to blame, but she couldn’t help how things had panned out. She tried, she really did, but they didn’t understand what it was like to be her. How it was for her to feel so scared all the time.

  The delicious aroma of sweet barbecue sauce, pineapple and the salty garlic chicken escaped the confines of the pizza box and filled her large hallway. An antidote to her every negative thought. She opened the pizza box as she walked, taking care not to look in the hall mirror as she did.

  In doing so, her eyes drifted to a framed photograph of her family taken at Luca’s graduation. Smiling, happy faces, full of pride and love. She looked at George and wondered what he would make of his wife right now? Gorging on pizza in the middle of the night, in the same pyjamas that she’d been wearing for two days solid.

  ‘Well, to hell with you, George Brady, because you’re not here,’ Rea shouted. The sound echoed around the empty house. ‘Oh, for goodness sake, I’m turning into a mad woman’

  Rea felt a lump in her throat and sadness enveloped her.

  She was alone and she could see her future stretched out in front of her. Day after day, she was destined to get crazier and crankier as she lived in her private hell.

  Alone.

  Chapter 4

  SKYE

  2004

  Just before it happened, before we lost everything, our family had a perfect moment. Together, standing shoulder to shoulder in the idyllic, calm, clear waters, with blue skies above us, we looked at each other and laughed. The sound rang out, like bells ringing in perfect harmony, drifting up to the blue skies. It was one of those times, rare for our family, where no words were needed. As we stood waist high in the warm water, in a circle facing each other, we knew exactly how each of us felt. Euphoric and giddy with delicious delight that we had finally made it to paradise.

  For years, we’d all been talking about our dream holiday. It all started the summer I was twelve and Eli was thirteen. It was 1999 and the Irish weather had once again lived up to its reputation of being precarious and was raining cats and dogs. Our two-month school holidays stretched out in front of us. Eli and I were sitting indoors, noses to patio glass, watching the puddles get bigger in our back garden.

  ‘How come we never get to go anywhere nice?’ I moaned.

  ‘Jimmy is off to France next week. Again. That’s six times he’s been. And I’ve not even been once.’ Eli joined in. We were united with the sheer injustice of it all.

  ‘You think that’s bad? Faye Larkin is going to Florida for one whole month. Her family has a villa over there. With a pool!’ I replied. Faye Larkin was a pain in my backside. If she wasn’t banging on about her new camera she got for Christmas, she was flicking her newly highlighted hair in all our faces.

  ‘To make matters even worse, the pool and Florida sunshine are wasted on her, because a) she can’t even swim and b) one blast of sun and she fries like bacon on a pan!’

  ‘That’s an image I won’t forget easily,’ Dad said. ‘Thanks, love.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ Eli and I said at the same time.

  ‘Life isn’t fair,’ Dad quipped, not looking up from his newspaper. ‘When I was a lad there was no such thing as holidays in the sun … A day trip to Bray or Tramore, if we were lucky.’

  Eli threw me a look. We had to cut Dad off before he started on one of his trips down memory lane. Once he got going about the good-old-bad-old-times he could bang on for hours.

  ‘Yeah, we know, you walked to school in your bare feet and got coal for Christmas from Santa. Blah, blah, blah Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Get the violins out, Skye,’ Eli chipped in, then pretended to play an imaginary one on his shoulder.

  ‘You cheeky little monkeys!’ Dad replied, but he was laughing at us. He loved our cheek. That’s how our family rolled. We slagged each other off relentlessly. Mam would never let it go beyond fun banter, though, always stepping in if she thought for a second that we were going too far.

  ‘Don’t forget we’ve a week in Sneem again with your Aunt Paula next month. You guys love it down there,’ Mam said.

  ‘Do we?’ I was genuinely puzzled. Eli groaned beside me.

  ‘Go away out of that, you both adore it in Sneem.’

  ‘Someone shoot me now,’ Eli joked and even Mam laughed.

  Dad looked up from his paper and said, ‘Do you know there’s some mad yoke here, from Donegal, who swears she can forecast the weather from her asparagus.’

  ‘Go away!’ Mam exclaimed, peering over his shoulder to take a look.

  ‘Yep, she just throws a bunch of them down and, Bob’s your uncle, she can tell the future. Just like that. There’s a scorcher of a summer coming our way, it seems.’ Dad was laughing as he recounted the story to us.

  ‘What is this strange word you say, a scorcher?’ I said, in mock seriousness. ‘I’ve heard tell of such a thing in years gone by, but none in my young life.’

  Mam responded by throwing her tea towel at me. ‘The whinging from you two, you’d put years on me. Do you know something? There’s plenty out there right now that would be happy with half of what you both have. Tell them, John.’

  ‘Listen to your mother. What she said,’ Dad replied, sticking his head back in the paper again.

  ‘But I’m twelve now, I’m practically a woman and I’ve never been on an aeroplane. Not even once!’ I flung myself dramatically across the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m not able for all your dramatics, Skye Madden, do you hear me?’ Mam complained. She paced the floor for a moment, then crouched down low, rooting around the larder press behind me. I edged closer to Eli in case she was getting ready to peg something else our way. He’d be handy as a shield.<
br />
  ‘Aha! There it is.’ She triumphantly placed a large cylindrical glass jar, with a screw-on lid, on top of the table. It landed with a loud clatter, making Dad look up from the Irish Independent.

  ‘I knew I’d find a use for this one day. It’s been sitting at the back of this cupboard for donkey’s years.’

  Dad put his paper down and said, ‘Why do I get a bad feeling about this? Brace yourselves, kids, your mother has that look on her face she gets when she’s got a new brainwave! Go on, Mary, I’m ready, hit us with it … .’

  ‘Would you give over, John, and you’ll be thanking me when you hear what my “brainwave” is! I’m sick of listening to our two hard-done-by children harping on about sun and holidays. And I’ll be honest with you, I could do with a break myself. So, I was thinking, why don’t we start a dream holiday fund?’

  That got us all interested. Dad stood up and put his arm around Mam. ‘You work ever so hard, love. If anyone deserves a holiday, it’s you.’

  ‘We both work hard. And most of the time, these two are good kids …’

  ‘If you could only put them on mute every now and then,’ Dad cut in.

  ‘Hey!’ Eli and I shouted at the same time, followed quickly by, ‘Jinx!’

  Mam laughed and said, ‘Two peas in a pod, you two. If I had a pound for every time you both came out with the same thing … So what do you all think? Good or bad idea? Shall we start a saving jar?’

  Dad picked up the jar’s lid and threw it at Eli, who caught it with ease in his right hand. ‘Cut a slot in that lid for me, will you, son? This here is one of your mother’s better ideas.’

  Eli was our resident DIY king. His tool belt was never far from him. Within seconds he had a Stanley knife out and was working a slot into the metal lid, concentration making his forehead furrow.

  ‘My mother always said, if we start to take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves,’ Mam told us, her voice gone all preacher-like. We’d heard that one before, once or a thousand times. But this time, Eli and I didn’t even raise our eyebrows at her pious tone. We let her have that one, seeing as those pennies might bring us to Florida.

  ‘We’ll be no length getting the money together if we all work hard,’ Dad agreed. ‘I’ll do some extra shifts in work, get in some overtime.’

  Maybe I would even get to go on an aeroplane before I turned thirteen. My head felt dizzy for a moment, just thinking about it. Faye Larkin would be sick with envy!

  ‘I’ll make a label for it!’ I said, feeling a tremor of excitement run down my spine. A holiday. We were going to go on a holiday. I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

  Mam and Dad smiled at me indulgently, while I spent hours designing and colouring a rectangular piece of paper I cut out. Then with the help of some glue stick, our Dream Holiday Fund became official.

  ‘Let’s see if I can help speed things up and get you two on an aeroplane sooner rather than later,’ Dad said. ‘Look at this, straight from the central bank!’ He took out his wallet and waved a ten-euro note out.

  ‘I can’t get used to this euro malarkey,’ Mam complained. ‘I keep saying pound!’

  But she clapped and cheered with the rest of us when he placed it into the slot.

  I’ll never forget that moment. It’s locked in my head and my heart forever.

  ‘The first instalment,’ Dad said solemnly and then he placed the jar in the centre of the kitchen dresser on the top shelf. We all stood for ages, just looking at it, like it was the Holy Grail. I don’t know about the others, but I was dreaming about the places we’d visit. My head was full of ideas, all of which included white sands and blue water. I wanted to swing in a hammock so badly it almost hurt.

  ‘Where will we go, Mam?’ I asked, clasping my mother’s hand.

  ‘Paradise, love, that’s where.’

  Chapter 5

  SKYE

  From that day on, we all diligently threw any spare cash we had into our jar. If Eli or I saw any change on the ground we’d rush to pick it up. I started to babysit for the Whelan family, who were good payers. When a lot of my friends just got a fiver an hour, they always paid eight euro. I babysat for them at least one night a week, and as Mam often sniffed, they were never in. I cheered their hectic social life, long might it continue. As a rule, I donated one-third of my wages to the fund, except when it was someone’s birthday and I had to buy them presents. Eli started to work in the local hardware store at weekends and on school holidays. Like me, he donated a third of his wages to the fund too. Every now and then this went a bit pear-shaped, because he’d blow all his cash on materials for some new DIY project he had on the go.

  Saturday had always been takeaway night in the Madden house. Dad thought that Mam deserved one night off each week from cooking for us lot. I loved those nights. We’d all collapse onto the couches in the sitting room, with the long glass coffee table laid, waiting for Dad to come home with our supper. In front of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, we’d gorge ourselves silly. Yep, Saturday nights were my favourite of all days in the week. But then one morning, Mam said, ‘You know, I was thinking, I can make homemade chips myself. If I did that, we could stick an extra twenty euro in the jar each week.’

  ‘I’ve always said that your chips are twice as nice as the chipper ones anyway,’ Dad declared. ‘And I’ll even peel the spuds for you. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  ‘My hero,’ Mam said, laughing, then pointed to the dishwasher, ‘while you’re at it, you might empty that too.’

  ‘Give an inch and take a mile,’ but he still jumped to his feet to do as asked, as he always did.

  So, with all of us working hard, every few months the jar reached cramming point. Eli and I would sit down around our kitchen table and count out the money saved into neat piles. Dad would scribble down the total amount in a little red notebook. Then with Eli and me doing a drum roll, he’d add up the grand total accumulated so far. The excitement rose as hundreds became a thousand and then, when we reached two thousand pounds, our dream became a tangible reality. We were going to do this.

  ‘I’m so proud of this family. Together we are fecking unbeatable!’ Dad said, delighted with us all.

  Dad lodged the money in his savings account so we’d not be tempted to spend any of it. Now and then, after dinner, we would lose hours around that kitchen table talking about where we’d go and what we’d do when we got there. Paradise was different for each of us and it was likely to change a lot. We were a fickle bunch, us Maddens. I don’t think Eli and I really gave any credence to Mam and Dad’s choices, though. We were selfish, as children often are, and I suppose we got so caught up in the excitement; it became all about us and what we wanted. And Mam and Dad, of course, let us have our own way.

  America was top of our wish list; we’d always wanted to visit Disneyland and Universal Studios. And even though we never actually took a vote, soon all we talked about was visiting the Sunshine State. I borrowed a book from the library all about Florida and a friend of Dad’s, who worked in the travel agency on O’Connell Street, gave us dozens of brochures, which soon became worn and dogeared because we would all thumb through them so often.

  Then, on my fourteenth birthday, two years after we started the fund, I got the best present ever. It took me completely by surprise. Aren’t they the best gifts, the ones when you truly have no clue that something wonderful is about to happen?

  I had received some money from Aunty Paula and my godfather Jim too, who usually forgot, so that in itself was worthy of note. Mam often remarked that it was ‘a pure waste of a godparent that fella. We don’t see him from one end of the year to the next and God help Skye if she’s reliant on him one day.’ All was forgiven as far as I was concerned, because when I bumped into him last week and casually threw in that I had a birthday coming up, he gave me forty euro. Forty! Anyhow, me being magnanimous, I had twenty euro of that to put in the jar. I glanced over at Eli, who had his headphones on and was mouthing along
to Eminem’s ‘Stan’. State of him. I kicked him under the table to get his attention. If I was going to part with all this money, I at least wanted an appreciative audience.

  ‘So Mam, Dad, Eli,’ I said loudly, ‘I’m going to put €20.00 into our fund.’ I paused to admire their shocked faces. ‘That’s right, I said, €20.00.’ I took a second to acknowledge the compliments from Mam and Dad, smiling with delight as they told me how good I was.

  Eli, the fecker, just ignored me and started mumbling lyrics from ‘Stan’ again.

  ‘My girlfriend’s pregnant, too, I’m ’bout to be a father, If I have a daughter, guess what I’ma call her? I’ma name her Bonnie’

  And with that all hell broke loose. Mam went a funny shade of red and clasped Dad’s arm, ‘Did he just say he’s gotten a girl pregnant?’

  ‘He did,’ Dad replied. His eyes were locked on Eli’s, who was blind to the comedy gold unfolding in front of me.

  ‘That Faye Larkin, she’s been sniffing around …’ Mam said.

  ‘Fine-looking girl, in fairness,’ Dad replied and yelped when Mam hit him.

  ‘He wouldn’t go near her!’ I said, horrified at the thought.

  ‘You hope and pray this doesn’t come to your door,’ Mam continued and I had to hide a snigger. She’d be knitting baby booties in a second.

  I’d normally have let something as delicious as this play out its natural course, but I wanted all eyes on me right now. It was my birthday after all!

  ‘Would you all cop on! He’s singing a song!’ I said to them and Mam blessed herself and threw some thanks up to Saint Anthony.

  I sighed loudly and rattled the jar for good measure until I got their attention again. My hand began to shake. I mean, a girl could do a lot of damage in Penny’s with twenty euro.

  ‘Anyhow, before Stan the Man over there interrupted me, I was about to donate HALF of my birthday money.’

  ‘We’re very proud of you. Your generosity knows no bounds,’ Mam said. I looked at her closely, trying to work out if she was being serious or taking the …