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

       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.

      ‘We’ll