The Woman at 72 Derry Lane. Carmel Harrington

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 late-night 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.

      She opened her eyes, sighing, and ran her arthritic hands along the weathered surface of her kitchen table. Arthritis, another recent gift from age, that old bugger. Her fingers traced a long groove in the wood that Luca had made one day with a knife. He was in a temper because she wouldn’t let him go out to play. She had good reasons too, but when you’re twelve it’s hard to understand a parent’s point of view. It was late and rumours had been rife that a white van was out and about with a faceless predator ready to snatch children.

      Luca was fiery and, as far as he was concerned, he was untouchable. But the thing with Luca was, his temper always disappeared as quickly as it flared. He was a good boy really, always had been.

      ‘I’m so sorry, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I should never had said all those things to you. I don’t blame you for anything. You did nothing wrong. Forgive your mother. She’s a silly old fool.’

      She’d write to him. Tell him that. Back then, when she was full of grief, consumed by it, she couldn’t see straight. He was the first to leave, to start a new life and because of him, they all left too. She was angry, but of course it wasn’t him she was angry with at all.

      ‘We have to let him live his life,’ George said when Luca announced he was emigrating.

      ‘I can’t bear to lose him.’

      ‘If we don’t let him go, we’ll lose him anyhow,’ George replied. He was right, of course. So they wept tears privately, but smiled brightly when they waved Luca goodbye through the departures lounge. She couldn’t be selfish, she couldn’t keep him by her side forever. And he thrived over in Perth, Western Australia. Soon his weekly letters reduced to monthly ones and the phone calls became more sporadic.

      ‘It’s a good sign,’ George declared when she fretted. ‘He’s having fun.’

      Too much fun, because as was always the way with Elise, within twelve months she declared that she was going out to visit Luca.

      ‘She won’t come back,’ Rea ranted to George.

      ‘Elise is our little home bird. She’ll come home to her mama,’ George said, but his face looked doubtful.

      ‘See you in a few weeks. Don’t miss me too much!’ Elise said, hugging them both tight.

      Rea clung to those words. It was only for a few weeks; she’d be back.

      She did come back, but it was only to say goodbye. She loved it downunder and was going to stay with Luca. Rea took no joy in being right. But this time, when they went to the airport, neither of them could hold back their tears as she walked out of their lives.

      Both her children went to the other side of the world to live new lives. They had dreams, new loves and passions that didn’t include her any more, or their father. Not that they didn’t care. Of course they did; they were good children. They loved her and George and begged them both to come out to visit. They promised they would and planned a long holiday after Christmas.

      But that was then and this was now. George went to Australia alone. She might as well accept it. Her family were all gone. She was the lone keeper of memories and secrets that seemed to matter years ago, but were meaningless now.

      Elise. Luca. George. How she missed them all with every fibre in her body. Rea longed to return to that sweet sleep of dreams, but this time she didn’t want to wake up. She was of no use nor ornament to anyone any more. Her body felt alien to her and she had become a prisoner in her own home.

      Enough was enough. She was ready to die. If she just willed it, maybe her body would just give up. She moved to the couch in her living room and lay down, closing her eyes.

      The shrill ring of the doorbell startled her. It was eleven am, maybe it was the postman. He’d be doing his round by now. ‘I’m in no humour for company,’ she thought. Her curtains were still drawn, so whoever it was could feck right off. Hopefully they would assume she was still in bed.

      The smell of her overfull, rancid bins reminded her that it might be bold Louis Flynn, the Scarlet Pimpernel himself. She seeks him here, she seeks him there and if she finds him, she’d seek his arse and give it a good kick. She skipped along the hall, kicking the air as she went. It cheered her up a little.

      She made a cup of tea and wondered if you could order online a