The Woman at 72 Derry Lane by Carmel Harrington

Author:Carmel Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008150143
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

REA

Luca’s face softened. ‘I’m sorry, Mam, I’m on my own. Dad is … well, he’s still in Australia. He doesn’t know I’m here. He thinks I’m away on business in Sydney.’

Rea felt disappointment flood her. She had hoped that George was back too, that he was waiting outside, to see how the land lay. She was ready to forgive and forget, why couldn’t he? She was stupid for even thinking for a second he would have come. She turned away from Luca to gather herself. She didn’t want him to see how upset she was.

‘Mam, are you okay?’ Luca was behind her, his hand lightly touching her arm. She longed to turn around and tell him, ‘No, I’ve not been okay for over a decade and I’m never likely to be.’ Instead, she said, sharper than she intended, ‘why are you here, what do you want?’

‘I wanted to see you. I missed you.’ The look on his face brought Rea back to when he was a boy.

‘You said the same thing to me a long time ago. Oh, it must be near on thirty years ago. You’d gone off with the scouts camping. But you hated it, thumbed a lift home and landed on our doorstep. You nearly sent me and your father to an early grave. The guards had been called, neighbours and friends all over the city were out looking for you. And then you walked in, not a bother on you. Your father and I wept with relief. Your dad said to me, afterwards, that he didn’t know whether to hug you or kick you in your arse. And when I asked you what you were thinking of, just upping and leaving like that, without a by your leave to your scout leaders, you said the very same thing to me. “I missed you. I wanted to see you”.’

‘It was true then and it’s true now.’

Rea closed her eyes. Every night in her dreams she went back to that time, when the children were young. Her happy place. And every morning when she awoke and felt fresh pain that her family were gone, she wanted to close her eyes again. It was nice there. It was pain-free. It was love. He touched her hand lightly and it seared her skin. Since George left, she’d not felt the touch of another human being. Then Stella came tumbling into her life and suddenly everything was changing.

Luca was back at number 72. Why had he stayed away so long? Why had he turned his back on her, though, when she needed him most?

‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done was staying away, breaking all contact with you,’ he said, reading her mind.

‘Then why do it?’ Rea screamed, ‘Why cut off all ties, when I needed you the most? When your father left me. When I’d lost everyone.’

‘It went against everything I believed, Mam. You brought us up to respect and take care of each other. That’s always been the way we rolled in this house.

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