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

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.

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 once vibrant 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.