The Woman at 72 Derry Lane

by Carmel Harrington

  To live.

  With every stroke, with every breath I took, I rationalised what I thought I knew. I had hallucinated my dad and Eli’s voice earlier. And once I admitted that, I realised that it was also likely that I had hallucinated the images of Mam and Dad climbing onto the roof. That image of my parents being sucked up by the water played over and over in my mind.

  It wasn’t the first time that my worst fears transcended into thought, paralysing me. When I was small, I used to have this recurring nightmare. I’d wake up screaming, inconsolable, that something had happened to my family. My mam would have to bring me into Eli’s room to prove to me that he was okay. Then she’d carry me into their bedroom, to see for myself that Dad was asleep and well. I’d climb in between them both and their presence helped erase the memory of my awful dream, where all my family died in a fire. The guilt afterwards would cripple me. How could I dream something so horrific? Did my subconscious really want those that I loved more than any others to die? It was an intolerable thought and I fretted about it constantly.

  In the morning, Dad would pull me into his arms and ask me, ‘Who do you love most in the world?’

  ‘You, Mam and Eli.’

  ‘Well, there you have it. That’s why you dreamt about us dying. Because you love us so much, your worst nightmare would be to lose us. Don’t you see that?’

  ‘I never want to lose you.’

  ‘Pet, that will never happen.’

  ‘Pinkie promise.’

  ‘Pinkie promise.’ And Dad took my little finger in the crook of his little finger and we shook on his vow. That he’d never leave me.

  I felt new resolve to push harder towards the shore, from danger. Don’t worry, Dad, I’m coming to find you all.

  People grabbed hold of the debris as it passed them by, using them as buoys. Their faces were ashen with exhaustion. I saw a woman clinging to a door, with her child – or at least I assumed it was her daughter – who had her little hands wrapped around her neck. The child sobbed in terror. For a moment, an irrational, stupid moment, I felt jealous of that little girl. She was on her mother’s back, clinging to her. And I was on my own. How awful is that? To be jealous of a terrified little girl. My shame at the uncharitable thought made me pause and I realised that, finally, the water was receding a bit and I could almost touch the bed of the ocean.

  ‘Over here!’ I shouted to the woman and child. ‘I can touch the ground over here. If you just move another couple of feet towards me, you can put your feet down.’

  The woman’s face was a mixture of surprise and relief. ‘Honestly, it’s only a few feet away. I can help you if you like.’

  ‘Come on, Daisy, that girl says Mummy will be able to stand in a minute. Can you swim with Mummy, for one more little minute? One more little push. That’s my brave girl.’ But Daisy started to scream, ‘no Mummy, no Mummy, I scared, I don’t want to get down, don’t make me Mummy.’

  I glanced back at the horizon. It still looked calm. What lay beyond my sightline? I looked at the woman, and repeated the words that had been said to me earlier on, ‘We need to get out of the water, climb high. It’s not safe to stay here.’

  She nodded and when she glanced behind her at the horizon, I knew she understood. ‘Daisy, I need you to be brave, just one more time. Mummy’s going to get us out of the water, I promise. But you must do as you are told.’ Her voice now turned firmer, as she said, ‘Now climb down, hold my hand and we’ll doggy-paddle towards that girl.’

  ‘Come towards me, I can reach you.’ I tried my best to smile and look friendly. I held my two hands out.

  It must have worked, because Daisy replied, ‘You won’t let go?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Okay, Mummy, I’ll try.’

  I swam close to the woman and I tucked my bum in and thrust my legs down. The ground beneath me never felt so good. I could just about reach it. The little girl was terrified, she was frozen, unable to move.

  ‘I can’t swim with her like this. We’ll both go under.’

  ‘Daisy, you like piggy backs, right? My Mam used to call them the mammy trains. I’d climb on her back and she’d go choo choo, all the way around the house.’

  Daisy was crying and screaming, “No, no, don’t make me let go,” so I kept going choo choo over and over and she must have thought I was crazy. But after a moment, she stopped screaming, looking at me with curiosity.

  Part of me wanted to get the hell out of the water, that I’d be quicker on my own, but I knew I couldn’t leave her.

  I reached out my hand and waited to see if Daisy would grab it.

  ‘Choo choo train?’ she asked and I nodded. She reached across and I pulled her towards me. The woman swam towards my side, then placed her feet down too.

  She pulled Daisy into her arms and held her tight, with her little legs wrapped around her. ‘You did it, you brave girl,’ she said over and over, and we waded our way until finally, out of breath, we reached the shore.

  It looked like a nuclear bomb had struck. We collapsed in a heap, beside each other, and I felt Daisy’s little hand grab mine again.

  Her touch anchored me. The size of her hand in mine made me realise that to her, I was a grown-up. I’d felt in no man’s land for some time – not a child, nor quite an adult. But this was no longer the case. I was on my own for now and couldn’t rely on Mam, Dad or Eli to rescue me. I had to rescue myself. And as Daisy squeezed my hand, I felt something else stir up inside of me. Joy. That I had played a part in helping these two.

  I looked around and noticed a man sitting down, holding onto his arm, with a wound that gaped wide open. Amongst the bloody gash white bones beneath were revealed. There were other people who were lying down, exhausted from their swim to shore too. I pulled myself to a standing position. Maybe, lying on this sandy beach, amongst the chaos, was my family too.

  ‘Head for that hill, up there. Or one of the hotels that are up high.’ I felt a cold hand clasp my arm and I jumped in fright. It was open-wound man, now standing. ‘It’s not safe here. There’s no time to lose.’ He pointed to what used to be the beachfront. Our hotel was somewhere up there amongst the rubble.

  ‘I need to find my family,’ I said.

  ‘My husband and little boy are out here somewhere too,’ the woman said.

  ‘I want my daddy,’ Daisy cried, now that the thought of him had entered her little mind.

  ‘That’s where they will be, up high, if they are still …’ he stopped, almost embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. But you need to get moving.’

  ‘I need to get Daisy safe,’ the woman said. ‘I have to believe that my husband and son are together somewhere, waiting for us.’

  I nodded and knew that it made the most sense. It’s just it felt wrong, walking away from the beach. Every step felt like a step away from my family. I had to hold onto the belief that they were already inland. We’re fighters us Maddens. A hardy lot, that’s what Mam always said. We never get sick. Half the world would be in a heap with flu and colds, but never us.

  ‘I’m Maria and my daughter is Daisy,’ the woman said, touching my arm lightly. ‘Thank you for helping us, for staying with us. You’ve saved our lives.’

  ‘I did nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me,’ I replied. But I was chuffed with her words. ‘I’m Skye.’

  The sand cut my feet, as bits of metal and glass bit into me. Maria carried Daisy, piggy-back style, and every now and then I took a turn. Wearing very little clothing, with bloody gashes of open wounds, I looked down and was relieved to see that I was still wearing my bikini bottoms. We trudged on forwards and began our climb upwards.

  The landscape around me was blighted with collapsed buildings. The merciless sea had wreaked carnage on our once-idyllic paradise. It was hard to work out where we were, because known landmarks were obliterated. I couldn’t compute the scene I was looking at with the one I had grown accustomed to these past few days.

  I passed a sign amongst the rubble. Sunshine
Tiki bar. We’d had a drink there on Christmas Eve. I looked up, searching for our hotel. Let it be standing. Let it be in one piece. There it was. Upright at least. Trees crashed through broken windows and a truck smashed against the lobby.

  ‘That’s my hotel,’ I shouted to the man.

  He shook his head. ‘Not high enough.’

  I didn’t like him very much. But he seemed to know what he was doing.

  ‘Can you help?’ I heard a polite voice cry out. For a moment my mind played tricks because I thought it was my mam calling out to me. Which was silly, because the voice was English, not the soft Dublin lilt of my mother.

  A lady was sitting with a bone sticking out of her leg.

  I moved towards her, not realising that in that step, we would become connected to each other, for ever more.

  Chapter 31

  SKYE

  I felt myself heave at the sight of her protruding bone.

  ‘I thought I was bad,’ open-wound man said, ‘God help you, lady.’ He looked at us for a second or two, then continued walking up the hill, shaking his head as he went. I think he was praying. At least it sounded like the Our Father.

  ‘I tried my best to crawl, but I’m afraid I’m rather stuck,’ the woman said apologetically. She was English and sounded terribly proper. ‘I feel quite ill whenever I try to move.’

  I looked at her, struck dumb by her situation. I felt every day of my youth overwhelm me once again. I was ill equipped to deal with all of this. It was unfair of her to expect me to save her when I had no idea how to save myself.

  ‘Is that really ouchy?’ Daisy asked, peering at her leg, her little nose scrunched up. She didn’t seem too perturbed by the grisly injury, just curious.

  ‘Yes, it is rather.’

  ‘You need a big plaster for that. Maybe two,’ Daisy declared.

  ‘I rather think you are right.’

  People were running on around us, as we stood, looking at that broken leg. Sympathy flashed across their faces, but then it would disappear and in its place, fear would follow on.

  I won’t lie. For a moment, I considered running up the hill, away from this woman’s predicament. I looked at Maria and I could tell that she was wrestling with her conscience also.

  But then the woman said. ‘You’re very kind to stop. But I’ll be as right as rain once I just muster some energy up. Run on, quick, get as high as you can and don’t look back.’

  ‘Don’t look back.’ That’s what Dad said earlier. His kind face filled my mind and I knew that there was no way he’d ever walk away from someone in trouble.

  I was going nowhere.

  As I took in her situation, a thought struck me. This woman was my mother, my father, my brother and every other person who was out there missing. I had to believe that if I saved her, that the universe would pay me back. Someone else would save my loved ones too. I was aware that this was crazy; that life didn’t organise itself like that. But it made me spring into action.

  Over the following few days, countless times I witnessed kindness and bravery from people bound by a common humanity. People are good.

  ‘You better go on, Maria. I’ll be on in a bit.’ It was a pity to break up my newly formed gang, but I couldn’t ask them to hang around.

  ‘How on earth do you suggest you’ll help her, on your own?’ Maria hissed. ‘You’ll never carry her. I’ve got Daisy to carry, so I’m bloody useless to you!’

  ‘I’ve got to try something,’ I cried. Now that I’d made my mind up to do it, my determination kicked in tenfold. ‘I’ll find a way.’

  ‘I can walk all by myself, Mummy,’ Daisy said. ‘I’m a big girl now. You can help find the woman two plasters for her poor leg. It’s really ouchy.’

  She looked at me and down to Daisy, then back to the ever-ominous horizon that threatened to spill dangerous waves our way. I felt sorry for her, as once more she argued with her conscience.

  ‘Oh sod it, Skye. One for all and all for one, eh? Let’s be bloody quick, though. I’m getting a bad feeling. We’re not high enough.’

  ‘You said a bad word, Mummy,’ Daisy scolded.

  ‘Today, Mummy gets special dispensation, okay?’ Maria said. Then she whispered to me, ‘Good job she can’t hear my thoughts. They’ve been particularly blue this past hour or two.’

  I laughed and asked the woman, ‘Can you walk, do you think?’ No sooner had the question come out of my mouth when I realised the stupidity of it. Her leg was snapped in two. She wasn’t walking anywhere, least of all uphill.

  ‘We need a stretcher, something that we could drag her on. I wish I was more like Eli. He is much better at making things out of nothing than me.’

  ‘A McGyver. Handy to have around,’ the woman said.

  ‘Something like that,’ I replied, not having a clue who McGyver was. Memories of winters with Eli, making sleds out of all sorts, dragging each other down our back-yard hill, came flooding back.

  We all scoured the terrain around us, searching for something we could use.

  Then Daisy cried out, excitement all over her face. ‘Look, look!’

  I followed her pointed finger and saw a flash of something red. It was a sun lounger peeking out from under a pile of debris. ‘Good girl, Daisy! That’s perfect,’ Maria enthused and we both pulled it free and over to the woman.

  ‘Right, we need to get you onto this. We’ll help lift you up. Then we can drag you up the hill. Easy.’

  She looked at me, doubt clouding her face. ‘I’m nearly two hundred pounds. You’re both slips of a thing. Had I known I would end up in this predicament, I might have refrained from dessert these past couple of weeks.’

  I liked this woman. Not once had she moaned. And not once had she asked anything of us. Making jokes, even in the midst of her pain.

  ’My mam always says I’m stronger than I look,’ I said to her, smiling.

  ‘Are you here with your parents?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘And do you know where they are?’

  I shook my head again and pointed upwards, ‘I hope up there somewhere.’

  ‘You go look for them. I bet they are frantic,’ she said to me, then turned to Maria, ‘and you get your pretty little girl up high quick. I’ll be fine.’

  We ignored her. ‘On the count of three, we’ll lift together, okay?’

  ‘I told you. Leave me. Go on.’ She looked down to the sea below and shivered. ‘I don’t want you all on my conscience.’

  ‘Then we better get a move on. I don’t know where my parents or brother are, but maybe someone is helping them right now. Same for your family and Maria’s. We have to help each other. We have to,’ I said, tears jumping to my eyes. Hold it together, Skye, there’s no time for tears.

  ‘Okay, then. Well, if we’re in this together, we’d better at least introduce ourselves. I’m Alice.’ She held her hand out, rather formally.

  ‘I’m Skye.’

  ‘My mummy is Maria and I’m Daisy. I’m six and I’m strong.’

  ‘Well, with you on our team, we can’t fail. Right, let’s give this a go.’ Alice gritted her teeth, preparing for the inevitable pain that was coming her way.

  I crouched low and put her arm around my shoulder. Maria did the same on the other side and Daisy watched, her eyes wide.

  ‘One, two, three!’ And then we hoisted her up with all our might. She screamed loud, just the once, but it was filled with such agony that the hairs on my arm prickled in response.

  She lay there panting and so pale it scared me. But we had no time to wait, so we started to heave the sun lounger towards the path. Even Daisy joined in, doing her best with her little arms. We didn’t let up, using all of our strength. Still it took us nearly five minutes to move only a couple of feet.

  ‘Alice, I’m sorry but I don’t think this is going to work without a little more help,’ I said, ‘Don’t move.’

  She made a face, saying, “really?” and we all started to giggle.

&nbs
p; I scanned the people as they climbed by us, up the hill. ‘We need a Good Samaritan.’

  ‘Let’s pick a strong one, though,’ Maria said with a smile, pointing to an elderly couple who were limping upwards slowly.

  A man walked by with a child in his arms and I could see the pain on Maria’s face. No words were needed. She was thinking about her husband and son.

  ‘We’ll find them,’ I said to her, squeezing her hand. I, of course, had no idea if that was true, but hope was the only thing keeping us all moving, one foot forward at a time.

  There were a couple of girls on their way up next, around my age and, like me, not a stitch on either of them. I walked over and tried to explain the situation we were in. But they became hysterical with my every word.

  ‘Let them go,’ Maria said. ‘Poor kids.’

  ‘It’s not their fault. Not everyone is as strong as you are, Skye,’ Alice said.

  Before I could tell her that I wasn’t strong, not in the least, I spied two men, arm in arm, coming towards me. They were wearing bright, long shorts, worn low on their hips, beads around their necks. They had long hair and their fit bodies were tanned a golden brown. I realised they were the guys from the beach this morning. One of them had taken our photograph in the water.

  Eli had teased me when he saw me sneaking a look at them playing on the beach earlier. I’d daydreamed about a holiday romance with one of them. Imagine that. How bloody stupid.

  ‘Caught rapid!’ Eli had teased and shouted to Mam and Dad, ‘Skye fancies those lads!’

  I nearly died with embarrassment because the whole group of frisbee-throwing lads turned to look at me. They heard every word my daft brother had shouted. With as much dignity as I could muster, I pushed the hair back off my face, flushing scarlet when they waved at me. Was that only a few hours ago? And now, I was half-naked asking them for help.