The Woman at 72 Derry Lane: A gripping, emotional page turner that will make you laugh and cry

The funny thing was, when he raged at his wife, his posh, arsey tone slipped and a much coarser accent was left. He cursed like a rabid dog. And tonight he was pissed at his wife again, for some unfathomable reason, and was letting her have it good time. As his temper flared, his shouting grew louder.

‘… you made me do this …’

‘… only yourself to blame …’

‘Why can’t you listen to me …?’

Rea stood close to the window, helpless. With every word uttered, there was the unmistakable sound of an accompanying slap. Sweat trickled down the small of her back as her own body reacted to the sound of him when he battered the young woman. Damn it, she never asked for this. She didn’t want to be a silent witness to their domestic rows, but she couldn’t un-hear them either.

Now small, pleading whimpers of the woman began. What the hell have you done this time, Dickhead? Rea couldn’t listen any more, so she went back upstairs to her bedroom. She slammed the door hard behind her. Enough already. She wanted no part of this.

But even though the door was shut and she could no longer hear the cries, it was not as easy to quieten her conscience. She had to try to help. Again. What if that was her daughter, Elise, in trouble? They’d be much the same age. She’d want someone to rescue her, wouldn’t she? As the thought of Elise threatened to undo her, she banished her from her thoughts. She needed to focus on the woman next door. The problem was that she’d rang emergency services several times following other incidents like this one. And to what end? Because the Gardaí would arrive and Mr and Mrs Perfect would give an awardwinning performance. He’d smile and tell them that all was okay and she’d agree, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, saying that they’d just had a heated debate. There was nothing to worry about, all a false alarm. Or words to that effect, she assumed, because the Gardaí would walk away, leaving her to his cruel hands once more. Why did she lie for her man like that?

At first, despite herself, the woman made Rea want to scream. She should speak up, stand up for herself. Why did she let him get away with his crap time and time again? She thought of Elise again and her conscience pricked her. That woman next door was someone’s daughter too. Who was she to judge, when she knew, better than anyone, that nothing was ever as simple as it appeared?

Terrified, no doubt. Trapped. She looked at the walls, the windows, the door. If anyone knew what it felt like to be trapped, it was her.

She walked down to the hallway, peering through the peephole of her front door. Derry Lane was quiet. Cars parked on either side of their road, under leafy oak trees. The street lights were on, casting shadows. Her house, number 72, was right in the middle of the cul-de-sac. She noticed a light on, across the way, in Louis’s house. She wondered if he was still awake. Probably on his iPhone; he was never off that yoke. But then she copped a strange car parked out front. Ha! A sure sign that his mother had a new man visiting. Linda might as well put a red light above the door and be done with it, the amount of traffic that went in and out of there.

Maybe she should call her all the same and tell her about the goings-on next door. Ask her to help. But no sooner had the thought struck her than she discounted it immediately. Linda Flynn was a silly, vacuous woman, who only had one thing on her mind – men. Maybe she was right. But at any rate, she’d be no use nor ornament to the plight of Mrs Dickhead next door. This was going to be on her shoulders, no one else’s.

At least the smell of the bins had eased, escaping through her opened windows. There again, she may have just gotten used to its stench. That was the thing with bad smells, eventually you didn’t notice them any more. Is that what it was like next door? The woman didn’t notice any more?

Rea felt powerless. She fantasised about running out of her home, jumping over the fence between their houses and pounding on his front door, demanding to see the woman. She’d bring a weapon. She looked around her and her eyes settled on the black poker sitting beside her fire. That would sort the boyo out good and proper. She’d land that up his arse and he wouldn’t sit down for months afterwards. Ha!

But thinking and doing are two entirely different creatures altogether. And Rea hadn’t stepped outside her house now for near on two years.

Her hand hovered over the phone. The last time she’d rang 112 they made her sound like an interfering old busybody. Someone who enjoyed the drama. They couldn’t be more wrong. She’d had enough dealings with the Gardaí to last her two lifetimes. She had no want nor will for any of this.

Rea wished her family were here. Luca would be out that door, George right by his side, ready to fight for that young girl.

Suck it up Rea, you’re on your own.

Turning to her phone, Rea asked the closest thing to a friend she had these days.

‘Siri, should I call 112?’

‘Calling emergency services in 5 seconds.’

‘Righto Siri, there’s no messing with you, my robot pal.’ In truth she was relieved that she took that decision from her. Rea gave the operator the details quickly and then waited. It was now as quiet as a graveyard next door. The walls of the Victorian semi-detached they lived in were thick, which made it difficult to hear anything unless a racket was being made. But when the windows were open in both houses, sounds would drift over. They snuck their way through the crevices of the houses, telling tales on what went on behind closed doors.

The saying ‘if walls could talk’ had never felt so apt.

Rea had been trying to distract herself by watching one of her favourite programmes, Suits, when she finally heard a car pulling up outside. She rushed to look through the peephole. There they were, the boys in blue. Although she didn’t believe in any God, she still found herself praying that the woman was okay. Rea didn’t even know her name. Wasn’t that the craziest thing? They’d moved in next door nearly a year ago and managed to avoid any real interactions with her or anyone else on the road. Okay, she wasn’t that sociable herself these days, but still. It was strange that nobody knew anything about them.

She used the banisters to help pull herself upstairs and peered out of her bedroom window to get a better view of the street below. There were two officers standing side by side in front of number 70. They pounded loudly on the front door and she held her breath, waiting.

The porch light flicked on and someone opened the door. Rea strained her neck, her head pressed close to the window pane. The cold glass was a welcome relief to her hot forehead. Someone moved forward out of the shadows, towards the Gardaí. She held her breath once more and crossed her fingers behind her back. Let the girl be okay.

Dickhead stood there in all his glory, holding his two hands up, gesturing wildly, to match the wild tale he was no doubt spinning. She couldn’t see if anyone was beside him, no matter how far she leaned over the windowsill. Maybe if she opened the window wider, she could see it all.

No big deal, you can do this, she thought. Her heart started to hammer in her chest so fast that her head buzzed. A vision of an exploding head popped into her mind. Only the head looked a bit like a big watermelon. That’s it, she’d officially lost it.

Her hands shook and her stomach began to flip as she pushed the window open wide. The boundaries of her prison were closing in on her day by day. She could open the windows downstairs, but found it difficult to do so up here. There was no rhyme nor reason to it.

She looked around her bedroom in panic and thoughts crashed in on top of her. I’m getting worse. Soon, I’ll not be able to leave my bedroom, never mind the house. An image of her lying dead on her floor, becoming cat food for an imaginary pet, made her gasp out loud. ‘I never liked cats,’ she said to the listening walls.

As she backed away from the open window, with every step her breath slackened. Finally she was at a distance that she could manage, that she felt comfortable with. With every foot she moved away, her levels of anxiety dropped tenfold. Calm again, she closed her eyes to concentrate and listened to the voices that were drifting upwards. It was better, she wasn’t noticed hanging out of the window anyhow. She didn’t want the neighbours to see her; a silent witness, rubbernecking their lives.

One of the Gardaí spoke first of all. He sounded like Daniel O’Donnell, with a lovely soft Donegal accent. ‘Good evening, sir, we received a call that there was a disturbance coming from your house. May we come in?’

She couldn’t hear the response. ‘He’ll be feeding you a line of bullshit,’ she whispered to his unhearing ears. ‘Arrest the dickhead, wee Daniel, there’s only one place fit for the likes of him.’

‘Even so, we’d still like to come in, see for ourselves, that everything is in order,’ the guard replied, firmly. Good man, Daniel. You might have a lovely soft voice, but you are no fool. There was no nonsense with this one. She appreciated that. Then they all disappeared from her sight and it went quiet once more. They must have gone inside. The soft click of the door closing confirmed that. She pointed to her head and said, ‘Up there for dancing, Siri, up there.’

‘Let me check on that. Okay, I found this on the web, options for dinner and dancing,’ Siri replied in an instant.

She was puzzled for a moment. Then she realised that Siri, of course, wasn’t privy to the inside joke she and her husband George had shared for decades.

When was it they’d turned the popular phrase, up there for thinking, down there for dancing, around for the first time? Before the kids, anyhow. Whenever one of them would get something right, they’d point to their heads and say, ‘up there for dancing’ and the other would finish it off and say ‘down there for thinking’. Comedy gold. Well, it always made them laugh leastways.

Oh George, why aren’t you here with me? He’d be snorting with laughter in appreciation right now. He always had done. Now she had nobody to make laugh. Things could be worse, she surmised. She, at least, had an iPhone robot. Albeit with questionable humour.

She looked down at her phone at the lists of websites with details of dinner and dancing events on the screen. Rea smiled to herself at Siri’s literal take on her words.

‘You’re funny, Siri.’

‘Yes, sometimes I do feel funny.’

‘There’s tablets for that.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘You know what? I’m not sure I do either.’ Rea said, suddenly feeling stupid for having a conversation about a forgotten inside joke with a bloody phone. She swiftly turned Siri off.

It had been years since she’d gone out to dinner and even longer since she danced. There was a time when she could jive and twist with the best of them. And many a time George told her that she was as light as a feather on her feet. Those days were over.

She felt anger burn her stomach. You, young lady, whoever you are next door, if Dickhead hasn’t done you in, this is the time to be brave. Tell the Gardaí that your husband hits you, that you are scared. Let them help you. Don’t let that bastard get away with it one more time. You still have time to have fancy dinners and dance. Get out. Please …

Twenty minutes passed and when Rea didn’t hear sounds of ambulance sirens belting on their way towards Derry Lane, she hoped that meant that the woman was walking and talking.

Alive. Be alive.

At last, she heard noises from the street below and she jumped up to peep outside.

‘If you change your mind, Mrs Greene, you just call us. And, Mr Greene, we’d rather not have the need to call by here again. Your wife has been ‘clumsy’ far too much for our liking. You’ve been warned.’

Mr and Mrs Greene. So that’s what they are called. You know what? Dickhead suits you far better.

As she heard the guard drive away from the house, Rea had a terrible sense of foreboding about it all. A nagging feeling that the only way her neighbour would stop was when he’d killed that young woman.

And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

Chapter 3

REA

The drama from next door was over, for tonight at least. Rea could lie in bed for hours, letting her mind go to places that it hated. Or she could go back downstairs and watch some mindless TV. Besides which, her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she was ravenous. Always the same for her, whenever she was stressed she ate.

‘Siri, please dial Harry’s Pizza.’

She ordered a large barbecue chicken, thin crust, with extra pineapple on top.

‘Your usual, so.’ Harry said.

‘I’m at least consistent,’ she replied and they laughed together.

She promised herself that she’d just eat a couple of slices. She could save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch. Rea had great skills at telling big fat whopping lies to herself.

She munched on a bag of crisps while she waited. They were smoky bacon, her least-favourite from the Tayto family, but the only ones left in her treat cupboard. She was puzzled by that fact. Because there was a bumper pack of twenty bags only last week. Louis Flynn, you little fecker.

She was halfway through another episode of Suits when the doorbell rang. ‘At last,’ she sang out loud in her best Etta voice. Rea grabbed thirty euros from her purse to pay the delivery guy. She hoped it was Dave or Bill; they were the nicest of the regular drivers. They’d have a few words to share with her. Anyone but the earring guy. He was a new addition to the team and not one bit of an asset, in her opinion. Rude and downright unfriendly. Not that the others were particularly friendly, but they, at least, made an effort to pass the time of day when they stuffed their tip into their arse pockets. Manners cost nothing.

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.

‘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.