Chapter 17
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
Laura
Laura finds herself on a familiar street, on a cold night, her car left at home because of course she would never drink and drive.
She didn’t even wait to phone a taxi because storming out loses some of its dramatic energy if you have to repeatedly call the taxi company to be told your lift ‘is just around the corner’ multiple times.
What she had done instead was – as Aidan had asked how much she’d had to drink – lift the wine bottle to her lips, drink as much as she could in one go without puking everywhere, then put on her shoes, grab her coat, keys and phone, and walk out.
She had not uttered a single word. She had not trusted herself to say anything, knowing that if she did, there was a high chance she would say something that would not easily be forgotten afterwards.
Aidan had tried to engage her in conversation, in so much as he had talked at her while she had done her level best to tune him out.
She still wanted to be in her happy music moment.
She still wanted to be on the high of her class.
She still wanted to be in the bubble of joy and achievement she had been in earlier before her chips had been pished on.
But she is not in that place; she is instead standing outside of her mother’s house.
Or to be more accurate, the house that used to belong to her mother.
The sale of Kitty O’Hagan’s home had gone through six months ago, taking the house Laura had grown up in out of her family’s ownership.
It was now inhabited by a very lovely couple and their toddler who were delighted to get such a beautifully cared for house in an area where houses rarely come on the market.
The lovely couple would fill the house with all the love it deserved. It had been a good home to the O’Hagans and now a whole other family would be making their own memories in it.
Laura knows it is how things had to be, and that the house would be alive again with all the noise and craic that comes in a house with young children.
But she still feels a pang as she stands across the street taking in the full facade of the house.
It was home and it wasn’t home all at the same time, and she’d have given anything to go back to when she was young and carefree and dancing in the living room had been normal.
It had been encouraged even. She, Becca and Niamh would meet there every Thursday night when Kitty went out to bingo, and they would watch MTV and dance along to the music videos.
They’d light some tea-lights and some incense and convince themselves they were cool and edgy when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
They’d drink cans of own-brand Cola and talk about the boys they had crushes on before they would make up stupid dance routines and laugh until they burped.
Or, as on one very memorable occasion, they peed.
Or at least Niamh peed. Just a little but enough that it has become one of those lynchpins of their friendship that they always return to any time they’ve had a few drinks and are reminiscing.
God, to go back to those days. It would be amazing.
She would do things differently. Of course she loved Aidan.
And she absolutely adored Robyn even though Robyn seemed determined to do everything in her power to make that difficult.
But she knows she would still do things differently if she could.
She’d have gone to university at the same time as Becca and Niamh.
She’d have been the same age as Abby is now and would’ve been able to fit in with the rest of her classmates.
She’d be youthful and energetic. She wouldn’t have the persistent tummy pouch that refused to budge post C-section.
Her hair would be glossy and thick and not increasingly pube-like in texture.
More than that, she would have embraced the joy of youth more.
She’d have partied more and partied harder.
She’d have definitely spent more time talking to Kitty – made sure to have every conversation she ever wanted to have, and no doubt many she didn’t because no mother–daughter relationship is perfect.
Most of all she would have used those defining years to discover who she really was, and lay down the foundations for building on her strength and her power.
Instead she had headed straight into the world of work – working her way up the retail chain pipeline in a series of shop assistant jobs, then a supervisor, then a department head, then an assistant manager and finally she had her own shop to manage for a well-loved chemist chain.
It was hectic, and quite often thankless.
Being a boss, she learned, meant it was impossible to keep everyone happy all of the time but she had enjoyed it.
She’d enjoyed the income even more. It’s not so much that she regrets her path in life, more that she wonders how different it might have been if she had followed the same path her friends had.
She’s been thinking a lot in the last year about the path she chose, and whether or not she wants to keep walking it going forward. University might just be the first change in a series of changes that are on the way.
God, she wishes Kitty were here now to chat to.
She’d be typical Kitty and cut through the bullshit and get right to the heart of the matter in the quickest, realist way.
She would immediately be able to tell when Laura walked through the door that something was off and she would set about trying to make things better.
She wasn’t always able to fix things – God knows she would if she could – but she always managed to make them a little better.
Kitty O’Hagan was just one of those people and, by God, Laura is missing her.
Doing her very best to keep her composure and not break down into floods of tears, Laura looks at the house again and at the soft yellow glow of the lights seeping through the curtains – signs that a house is alive and loved.
Taking comfort from that, she allows herself to stand there for a while, until a twitch of the bedroom curtains and the confused face of a new resident jolts her into reality.
What might just be the former inhabitant of this house trying to capture a sense of home, and a hint of her mother’s caring embrace, probably looks very different to a woman looking out of her bedroom curtains.
Laura is wearing an oversized parka, the hood up to keep the rain off her face.
Standing in the half light, staring at the house, she realises she probably looks more like a serial killer in hiding, or a contestant on The Traitors, than simply an emotional mother and wife contemplating the onward trajectory of her life.
Frozen to the spot, she does not know what to do.
Should she just dart off into the night like the caped crusader?
Should she wave? Would that look worse? Would it make her look more like a stalker or less like one?
Shit, she thinks as she hovers, watching helplessly as the woman opens the bedroom window.
If she bolts now, there’s a chance she will get away, but also a chance the police will be called to report some suspicious activity.
‘Can I help you?’ the new owner leans out of the window and shouts.
‘No! No! Sorry. I was just looking,’ Laura says, realising immediately that doesn’t exactly sound great.
‘At what exactly?’
‘Nothing… Sorry. I don’t know…’ She stumbles over words, not sure what to say and feeling embarrassed to have been caught like a damp and possibly creepy saddo outside of their house.
‘Do I need to call the police?’ the woman shouts, and Laura has visions of being carted off in the back of a PSNI Land Rover and warned about her antisocial behaviour. Aidan will never let her live that one down.
‘No! I’m leaving. I just…’ She takes a deep breath and decides that honesty is the best policy.
‘I used to live here.’ Unsure whether or not she should pull her hood down in some sort of dramatic reveal or if that would make her look like even more of a madwoman, she pauses for a moment.
‘I’m leaving now. Sorry again. No harm meant. Just a walk down memory lane.’
She doesn’t wait for a response but instead turns and starts to walk away. The woman in the window calls out to her once more asking if she is okay, but she doesn’t answer. She just wants to get away from here before she embarrasses herself even more.
The sound of her phone’s ringtone cuts through her self-flagellation.
It’s probably Aidan, telling her to wise up and come on home.
Or it will be Robyn looking for a lift home, or money sent over so she can buy something to eat.
Or more likely a vape. Robyn thinks Laura is stupid and doesn’t know her daughter vapes.
Whoever it is they can just keep ringing, Laura thinks.
She is not in the mood to deal with either her beloved husband or her beloved daughter.
Both of them, at this precise moment in time, can feck off.
Or at least they can look after themselves for once.
Laura is on strike. She is rising up like the feminists she learned about just today and she is not allowing herself to be taken for granted any more.
Perhaps for the first time in her life, she is going to stand up for herself.
It might be the call of the woman from the window that she hears on the breeze following her down the street, but Laura likes to think it’s Kitty cheering her on. ‘About bloody time!’ she can hear her mother say, as clearly as if she were standing right beside her.
This worm is turning.