The Woman at 72 Derry Lane Read online

  Just before the money left my clammy fingers, Dad grabbed my arm. ‘Hold onto that cash, love. You’ll be needing some spending money soon.’

  I didn’t catch on straight away. ‘For what?’

  ‘We wanted to wait to tell you today. A Happy Birthday surprise!’ Mam continued and then she started to cry. Big fat tears splashed out of her eyes. I jumped up, worried.

  ‘Mam!’ I cried, and threw myself into her arms. ‘Oh Mam, what’s wrong with you?’

  Eli pulled his headphones off. ‘Mam?’

  ‘What are you blathering on about?’ she replied. ‘These are tears of happiness, you eejits. Your dad and I have a surprise for you both. You tell them, John. I’m an old fool, can’t stop crying, I’m that happy.’

  ‘No you tell them, Mary,’ Dad replied, looking a bit emotional too and they grabbed a hold of each other, half laughing, half crying.

  ‘What are we like?’ Mam said to Dad and they laughed some more.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, will one of you tell us?’ I screamed and Eli shouted, ‘Yeah!’

  ‘There’s no need to shout,’ Mam said, sniffing. Then her face broke into the biggest smile. ‘We’re all going to Florida.’ And she and Dad started to bounce up and down on the spot like demented kangaroos.

  ‘You mean, we’ve saved enough?’ I looked at each of them and Dad’s eyes glistened with tears or excitement, or maybe it was both. Mam moved backwards and Dad moved forwards in a way I’ve seen them do ever since I can remember. In one fluid moment, her back was nestled against his chest, his two arms were wrapped around her. And even though Eli and I were now dancing around the table like eejits, even though it had been years since we’d done that together, I kept looking back at them, and their eyes never left us. It was perfect. Another of those moments locked in my head and heart forever.

  For hours, we all tripped up on our words, babbling on about our holiday in paradise, that it was finally becoming a reality.

  But the very next day, the first of what would be several holiday curve balls were thrown our way. Now, looking back, I wonder, was the universe telling us, as loudly as it could, that our family shouldn’t travel. That we should be content with our lot in Ireland, where it was safe and fun and full of loving banter.

  I wish we’d listened to the universe. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

  It was a blustery and cold evening. Home from school, we’d done our homework and now Mam had us out in the garden picking up rubbish. Our recycle bin had tipped over in the wind and my mood was as sour as the stench of milk in the carton I had just retrieved from a ditch. The garden was scattered with bread wrappers, empty tins and newspapers that were turning to mulch from the damp. My main concern was that someone I knew might go by and see me picking up said litter.

  ‘It would be just my luck that Faye Larkin will go by.’ I moaned, chasing a Cadbury’s Time Out wrapper up the garden.

  ‘Never mind Faye Larkin, grab that wrapper before it flies in next door. We’ll be the talk of the parish! Someone might even report us!’

  ‘It’s not fair. And look at him!’ I pointed to Eli, indignation making me furious. ‘Eli is doing NOTHING!’ I finally caught the wrapper and flung it into my black sack, before it could escape again. I bet Faye Larkin had a servant who does stuff like this.

  I looked back at Eli and once again he was faffing about, doing feck all. Making sure Mam wasn’t looking, I flung an empty tin of baked beans at my brother, my aim perfect. It clipped his head.

  ‘Ow!’ he yelped and I feigned surprise. He threw daggers at me and complained, ‘Mam, she did that on purpose.’

  ‘As if. Gosh Mam, that wind is really picking up,’ I said, poker-faced. I had to suppress a giggle when I noticed a trickle of tomato sauce sneak its way down the side of his face. Serve him right for being as much use as a chocolate teapot.

  He had this stupid tool he’d created, which he insisted on using to pick up the rubbish. He’d fashioned it out of a broom handle and some tongs. Not one of his better creations. Wiping the sauce from his face, he mouthed at me, ‘You’re dead.’

  Ha! As if I’m worried about him. Bring it on brother, bring it on.

  ‘A tortoise, blindfolded with one leg, would be quicker at picking up rubbish than you,’ I moaned.

  But Mam shushed me, ‘Don’t stifle his creativity. He’s a dreamer, our Eli. Leave him be.’ She smiled at him, as he unsuccessfully tried to pick up the beans can with the tongs.

  Gobshite.

  So Mam and I picked up the rubbish that Milo’s scooper left behind and soon the garden was clear, thus saving our blushes from the neighbours.

  ‘You know what, your dad is fierce late,’ Mam said as we sat on the porch step, drinking a glass of water. ‘I didn’t notice the time. He should be home by now.’

  And then, as if she’d summoned him, he walked around the corner of the house, into the back garden, sweat staining his shirt and dripping down his face. It was rare we ever saw him looking that dishevelled.

  ‘The car only blew up. About a mile down the road.’

  Mam rushed to him and he continued, ‘I swear it started to rattle, then smoke appeared out of the bonnet. It exploded like a fecking fire cracker, gave me a right start, I can tell you.’

  The next day, confirmation came that the car was not repairable. The engine was, as Dad said, ‘only fecked.’ Mam and Dad spent a lot of time whispering in their bedroom. Then they asked us to sit down in the good sitting room for a chat. That never bode well, in our experience.

  Eli cottoned on to the subtext first of all, ‘there’s not going to be a holiday, is there?’ He might be a dreamer, but he was clever.

  Mam looked at Dad and they both sagged. It was as if someone had pricked them both with a pin and the air was leaking out of them, making them crumpled and worn.

  Maybe I didn’t want to believe what was unfolding, or maybe I just wasn’t as quick as Eli, but I clung to hope and cried, ‘don’t be silly. We’re going to Florida this summer. Aren’t we, Dad?’

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, realisation came crushing down and I knew that we were going nowhere.

  Chapter 6

  STELLA

  Derry Lane, Dublin, 2014

  ‘Here you go.’ Matt placed a tray on the bedside table. Stella glanced at its contents: a pot of filter coffee, her favourite mug, and toast, buttered liberally with a small pot of orange marmalade beside it. Guilt food.

  Her abdomen ached as she tried to ease herself up to a sitting position.

  ‘Are you in pain, my darling?’ he asked, reaching out to caress her cheek.

  She pulled away, his touch added insult to her injuries.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ he pouted, pouring coffee for her. His defiant stare challenged her, but she remained silent.

  Matt forced a smile, ‘I’ve told you I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to fall.’

  Fall? He shoved her so hard her body actually lifted into the air, falling hard against the living-room cream-leather sofa.

  ‘You pushed me.’

  He looked at her, shocked by her tone. ‘Now now, don’t be a drama queen. It doesn’t suit you, Stella. It was an accident.’ His eyes dared her to go along with the lie. The pain in her side, his favourite place to kick, her weak spot, protested loud. Liar, liar, you cruel, nasty liar.

  He tried to pull her into his arms, as if his embrace could shush the accusations. She grimaced in pain.

  ‘If I could take your pain away and carry it myself, I would.’ His face twisted in false concern.

  Liar!

  ‘Here, have some toast before it gets cold. A special treat for my darling.’

  His darling.

  When she was six years old, her mam read Lady and the Tramp to her. Elizabeth Darling, the mother of the story, was beautiful and loving and Stella had been charmed by her name.

  ‘I wish I was called darling,’ she’d said.

  Her mam took her hands between her o
wn and replied, ‘Oh but you are already! The first moment you were born and I held you, I called you my darling and that’s what you will always be.’

  My darling.

  The first time Matt called her that, she felt her heart and head swell in love for him. A sign that he was the one. A sign that she could allow herself to fall in love. A sign that she could trust and hope for a future with a new family.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  ‘I’ll get some pain-killers for you.’ He walked out of their bedroom, stopping at the door to look at her, frowning, his face a picture of contrition. ‘I really am sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It’s just, well, you have no idea of the pressure I’m under at work.’

  ‘I’m not sure you are sorry,’ Stella said impulsively. Months of trying to placate him, change him, counsel him, all flashed by. ‘We’ve been on this merry-go-round dozens of times. You have regret, that I well believe.’ She started to feel braver now as she continued, on a roll. ‘Regret that the Gardaí were called. Regret that a neighbour or passerby heard your abuse and knows a little of the truth of you. But sorry? No. You’re not sorry. It won’t happen again? Let’s not pretend that to be true.’

  He walked back into the room, looking at her with an eyebrow raised. He stared at her, puzzled at her audacity to question him. She was puzzled herself. Her mother always said, don’t poke the bear. But she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘I said I was sorry,’ he repeated, his tone sharper this time. ‘What do you want from me … blood?’

  ‘Blood?’ She asked. ‘There’s been too much of that spilled in this house. No I don’t want blood. But I would like to live a life where I’m not in constant danger.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Stella. There you go again with your drama. It doesn’t suit you. Nobody likes a whiner.’ He smiled, flashing his new white veneers at her and his eyes darkened. ‘I hold my hands up. I lost my temper and I’ll go to my grave regretting that. But let’s not pretend that there’s more to this than there is.’

  He walked closer to her, a challenge in every step he took. Stella weighed up her options. What would her mam say?

  ‘Choose your battles, Stella’.

  ‘I’m not hungry, I’m tired, Matt.’ She pushed the toast away from her.

  ‘Of course, you must be exhausted. It was a big night. You looked wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for more from you. Adrian was very impressed with you.’

  Sorry Mam, I’ve got to ask him. ‘Then why did you hit me?’

  ‘You know why,’ he replied. ‘You disobeyed me. I can’t allow that.’

  ‘Because I accepted a drink from your boss’s wife?’

  ‘I told you before we left, you were allowed two glasses of wine. At no stage did I say to you that a cocktail was allowed. Apart from anything else, do you know how much sugar is in a mojito?’

  ‘No idea. And I couldn’t care less. Would you have preferred for me to be rude to your boss?’

  Matt thought about this and then smiled again, ‘No. But you should have checked with me first.’

  There was lots that Stella should have done. ‘I shouldn’t have to ask your permission. I’m not a child,’ Stella replied.

  ‘Really?’ Matt answered. ‘Well, sometimes you sure act like one. Have you forgotten how much of a mess you were when I met you? Drinking too much, lonely, so desperate for love you’d do anything to get it. I dread to think what would have become of you had I not come along. You’d be nothing without me. You need me.’

  Stella eased herself back down into her bed, feeling exhaustion seep from her every pore. She lay her head on the pillow and closed her eyes, praying that he’d go. But then the warmth of his breath on her cheek made her shiver and he whispered to her. ‘Nobody loves you more than me. Don’t you worry, darling. Everything will be just fine. I’ll be more careful in future. I don’t know my own strength. You’re such a delicate little thing. It won’t happen again. Say you’ll forgive me. Say you love me.’

  Stella opened her eyes. She knew that like the previous times, her bruises would heal. But she was trapped in this house, in his power, in his control.

  Where could she go? She had nothing. No one. Her old life was a distant memory.

  She felt the fight go out of her. So she replied, ‘Yes. I love you.’

  Over the past year, she’d tried so hard to understand why he behaved as he did. She’d suggested counselling, which he would not entertain for a moment. At first she wanted to believe him when he told her that he would change. She wanted to believe that the act of violence was a one-off. A mistake. She would fix this problem. Together they could overcome anything. Because they loved each other. That’s all that mattered.

  So she stayed in a Jekyll and Hyde marriage that was all kinds of wrong. Full of contradictions, as love and tenderness were swapped for humiliation and pain in a fleeting moment.

  Mam had been right all those years ago. When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.

  Chapter 7

  REA

  Rea awoke with a start as the faces in her dreams blurred, drifting away from her conscious mind.

  ‘Come back,’ she whispered, reaching out to nothing, as they flickered into oblivion. In her dreams she was young again. Dreams were kind like that. Last night she was with George and the children. She closed her eyes for a moment and in the silence of her head she could hear Luca and Elise laughing. They both ran as she chased after them, round and round the kitchen table downstairs, in a make-up game of big bad wolf and babies.

  ‘I’m going to catch you!’ She roared as she ran after them, her heart racing as they all snorted with laughter.

  ‘Mama, you’re too slow! You can’t catch me!’ Luca said, then squealed with delight when Rea snared him between her arms.

  ‘Catch me, catch me too!’ Elise shouted. ‘My turn now!’

  Elise always wanted all that Luca had. Whatever he did, she would copy, that’s just the way it was in their house. It was like that for most younger kids, she reckoned.

  Every part of Rea craved for the chance to see her children again. She knew that if the devil himself came down this minute and asked for her soul in exchange for the chance to go back to that time, she’d happily agree. She’d live a lifetime in the depths of hell to be back again, with her family complete. Even just for five minutes. Because that would do her. They were the happiest moments of her life, when the children were young. George and her, united, in love, making a home in number 72.

  She glanced in her dressing-room mirror and for a moment she was shocked by what she saw. She was no longer the young woman of her dreams. Every line on her face a roadmap to the life she once lived. Her oncevibrant auburn hair frizzy with coarse grey hairs.

  Unshed tears glistened in her tired eyes, which were windows to both the joy and sorrow she had witnessed in her sixty years. She walked downstairs slowly, the latenight drama making her bones weary. She was getting old, feeling every day of her age. She also knew that the extra weight she was carrying wasn’t helping her joints. She sat down gratefully on a stool by the kitchen window. When she glanced out at her unruly back garden, now a shadow of its former glorious self, she was despondent. Her father would be so cross with her, allowing it to get like that. So would George, who had carried on her father’s dedicated care of it for decades. Shame pricked her conscience, because its demise was another thing that was on her shoulders alone.

  She thought of her new pal, the robin, and wondered if he would come by today. A few days ago she’d noticed him for the first time. The window opened, she’d heard a cheep cheep and looked out to see him flapping around. She could have sworn he looked right out at her, but then he swooped away. Now, he seemed to dip in and out of her garden every few hours. She left out titbits for him on the windowsill or on the garden table. The robin liked cheddar cheese in particular. I wonder, Rea thought, looking at some crusts left over from last night’s midnight feast. She ripped it
up into small robin-sized chunks. Then she opened the back door, throwing them onto the garden table a few feet away. Her aim was good. All those years of playing catch with the kids not wasted.

  The smell of flowers hit her. She could see her hydrangeas, hardy and strong, fighting their way through the weeds. The rose bush wasn’t faring so well. Her grandmother had planted that. She needed to find someone to come and sort out the garden. Louis? No. Maybe. All she knew was she couldn’t neglect it any longer.

  There was a time she loved being out in the garden. It was her favourite place to sit, to read, to just have some quiet time to herself. She missed the sun on her face. The smell of freshly cut grass, the scent of the roses. Now, she had to make do with standing at her back door, using her eyes to take it all in. The ridiculousness of the situation she found herself in angered her. What on earth was there to fear in her own safe back garden? She had no answer to that, but somehow or other the thought of putting one foot in front of the other, to find out, caused her to slam the door hard in front of her. If you would have told her twenty years ago that this is what her life would end up reduced to, she would have been incredulous.

  She stood at her window, waiting to see if the robin returned. When a black crow swooped down and confiscated the crust, she thought, well there you go, the big bad guy wins once more.

  She looked around her old kitchen. Oak cupboards with brass handles, with a tiny rose-bud flower engraved on the front, lined the walls. There were glass panels in the upper cabinets, filled with tea sets that were collected by generations of her family. The double Belfast sink that washed dishes, soaked stained clothes and had bathed her babies and herself too, once upon another time.

  The kitchen was the heart of her family home. Her childhood home. She knew that she was lucky. Not many got to live somewhere that held so much personal history. She closed her eyes for a moment as she pulled from her memory bank the voices of her past: her parents, her sisters, laughing, teasing, living.

  She didn’t have to try hard to see her Mama kneading bread as her Papa shared his wisdom with his children around the large round kitchen table, recounting tales of the olden days. Oh how she loved her parents so. She had no fear back then.