‘Alex doesn’t have a session with you today, does he?’ Keelin asked her. ‘Because he’s not here, if he does.’
‘That’s fine – I’ll wait for him.’
‘Well,’ Jo said to break the awkward silence. ‘As I live and breathe, one of the Crowley Girls in the flesh. How are you, lovely?’ She poured the young woman a cup of tea, Nessa shaking her head when Jo held up the sugar canister. ‘Are the biscuits gluten-free?’ she asked. ‘I’m coeliac.’
‘Are you now?’ Jo asked, her eyes darting to Keelin. ‘Well, then you’re in luck! Here you go.’
‘Thanks, Hanna,’ Nessa said as she took the biscuit, slipping into her baby nickname for Johanna. She never did that with Keelin; she barely acknowledged that they’d known each other before she started giving Alex grinds. If Nessa could have called her Mrs Kinsella, Keelin suspected she would have. Had she been as nervous of Seán’s mother when they’d briefly dated as teenagers? But that was different, she and Seán had been the same age, and they’d been friends for years. There was no chance she would have broken Seán’s heart, just to prove she could.
‘What were you all fighting about before I came in?’ the girl asked. ‘I could hear raised voices from the hall.’
‘Nothing much,’ Henry said, winking at Keelin. ‘Just my wife setting back the feminist movement by twenty years.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘But surely you consider yourself a feminist, Keelin?’ Nessa asked, her eyes widening. ‘I know a lot of women of your generation think it’s about man-hating and refusing to shave your legs or whatever, but actually, it’s just about equality. Equal rights for men and women, like. That’s all it is. It’s nothing to be scared of.’
‘Women of “my generation” have access to the dictionary too,’ Keelin snapped. ‘I don’t need a twenty-year-old with zero life experience to explain the meaning of the word “feminism” to me.’ She stood up, reaching across the table to grab the younger woman’s cup, dumping the ware in the sink with a clatter. She stood there, not daring to turn around; she didn’t want to see the exaggerated grimaces, Johanna’s mouthed What the fuck? to Henry. She gripped the edges of the counter as she tried to formulate a polite apology in her head, something to make her seem less ridiculous after that outburst.
‘Erm, right, OK,’ Nessa said. ‘I’ll head up to Alex’s room, I think. I can wait for him there.’ Keelin could hear the young woman getting up behind her, exchanging polite goodbyes with Jo and Henry as she gathered her belongings, her slow footsteps on the stairs. She wanted to scream after Nessa, to tell her to come back – How dare you! The cheek of you going to my son’s room without permission! – and insist the girl leave Hawthorn House immediately. But Keelin couldn’t do that, she had made enough of a fool of herself as it was.
‘Are you all right?’ Henry said under his breath, but Keelin was silent. Not now. ‘Got it,’ he said, hugging her from behind. ‘We can talk later. I love you.’
‘Jaaaaysus. What was that about?’ Johanna asked when they were alone.
‘Nothing,’ Keelin said. ‘I’m in bad form, that’s all.’ She took the biscuits and put them back in the tin before rinsing off the plates and tea cups and stacking them in the dishwasher. ‘Just ignore me.’
‘You know, Keels . . .’ Her friend hesitated. ‘There’s been some talk around the island. Saying that one of the Crowley Girls is forever up in the Big House.’
‘There’s always talk around the island,’ Keelin said, edging her way around Johanna, her hip grazing against the other woman’s body. She walked into the sunroom, Jo behind her, and they looked out the window. It was a grim day, the water chopping angrily at the cliffs, spitting spray into the air, the clouds heavy with the threat of rain. The two women stood side by side, their fingers not quite touching, staring at the sea that had surrounded them for their entire lives.
‘Do you remember when we were kids?’ Jo asked her. ‘God, I was never out of trouble, was I? I was non-stop talking,’ she laughed. ‘If I had a student like that in my classroom now . . . I don’t know how Mr Ó Gríofa didn’t murder me. But you –’ she looked at Keelin – ‘you were so well behaved.’ She had been a quiet child, so quiet that the teachers rarely paid her much attention. Keelin Ní Mhordha was known as bright but not brilliant; she did her homework diligently but never raised her hand to answer questions, her face burning when the múinteoir called upon her in class. ‘But whenever I was caught being bold,’ Jo went on, ‘you would insist you’d been messing too, that you deserved to be punished as well, even though you never did. And the two of us would be made to stand at the top of the classroom together, like a right pair of dunces. Remember?’
‘What’s your point, Jo?’
‘My point is that I’m still standing here beside you and I’m not going anywhere either.’ She touched her fingertips against Keelin’s. ‘You would tell me if you weren’t fine, wouldn’t you?’
Keelin didn’t reply. She just squeezed Johanna’s hand as tightly as she could.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Henry was furious for weeks after their disastrous joint interview for the documentary, although he claimed he didn’t blame Keelin ‘in the slightest’, and she was being ‘absurd’ to suggest otherwise. It must have been a figment of her imagination then, how he slammed doors and stomped around the house like he was trying to dislodge the floorboards. In mid-September, he decided they needed to clean the house from top to bottom in preparation for autumn, inspecting Keelin’s dressing area, querying why lids weren’t on night creams and why cashmere jerseys didn’t have lavender sachets tucked beside them. Did Keelin want her clothes to be destroyed by moths, was that it? Those sweaters were expensive but it was his money, so it didn’t matter, was that it? And when she tried to apologise, he would tell her that she had nothing to say sorry for, he wasn’t angry with her, for God’s sake. Why did Keelin insist on behaving like he was some kind of tyrant? He just wanted things to be done correctly, he wanted things in their proper order, and no one else seemed to care.
But when night-time came, Henry was a different man. He would tell Keelin he loved her then, pulling his wife close and staring into her eyes. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ he said. ‘It’s important we feel connected to one another, don’t you think, darling?’ She smiled her agreement, waiting until he fell asleep before attempting to wriggle out of his grip, but he refused to let go, his head tucked into her shoulder, the sounds of his snores grating against her ears. They would lie like that until the sun rose. ‘I haven’t slept this well in years,’ Henry said when he woke, stretching his arms in satisfaction, and Keelin would smile and say yes, me too, but when she stood up she was dizzy, a rush of blood to the head, clouds swirling in her eyes. She became clumsy again, banging hip bones and knees against sharp edges, examining her skin for new bruises, and she was forgetful too. I’m so sorry, she said when she missed her daughter’s first day back at school. Don’t worry, Evie replied. Daddy sent a beautiful bouquet of flowers to wish me luck. At least one of you remembers that I exist.
‘Jesus,’ Henry spluttered. It was the afternoon and Keelin was sitting at the kitchen island, her head nodding forward and then jerking back as she tried to stay awake. He rushed to the kitchen sink and spat out a mouthful of tea. ‘You’ve put salt in there instead of sugar,’ he said, picking up the canister, dabbing his finger on the grains and holding it to his tongue. Had she? She couldn’t remember re-filling that container in ages. ‘Sweetheart, are you quite all right? I’m worried about you. Maybe we should get the doctor to pay a visit to the island, look at your prescription.’
‘I don’t think that’s—’ she began, but Henry was hugging her, murmuring, ‘Poor Keels,’ into her hair. She started to apologise, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but he put his fingers to her lips. ‘You need to rest, darling,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some quiet time, just the two of us.’
He barely spoke to her for weeks after that. He would leave the room when Keelin walked in, and he checked her mobile every evening, looking at the phone calls made and received, scrutinising her search history. ‘You need a digital detox,’ he said, tutting when she asked for her iPhone back. ‘We spend too much time on our screens these days. I read an article that links it with depression. We don’t want to risk it, not with your history.’
Alex asked if she was OK. You’ve been very quiet recently, Mam, he said. And she lied and said she was fine, just a touch of laryngitis, that’s all. She thought her son might question her further, he was usually so attuned to her moods, but Alex was distracted these days. He’d taken to going out at night in a waft of hair gel and aftershave, wearing a denim jacket with sheepskin lining that Keelin had never seen before. She badly wanted to ask where this new jacket was from and why he was making such an effort to go down for a pint in the local pub, and who was he meeting there? Who was he talking to? Was he being careful? Her son walked out the door every evening with such hope shining in his eyes. When was the last time any of them had a reason to feel hopeful? She wished she could discuss the matter with Henry, she was desperate to talk about anything really, the clamouring thoughts rapping their knuckles against her skull, whispering, Hello, Keelin? We’re here. Let us out, please. She was going mad with the need of it.
It was a Saturday evening in late October and Alex was out, again, and Henry didn’t like the TV show she had chosen. Do you mind, darling? he said, taking the remote control from her. The presenter’s voice gives me a headache. His hand on her knee as they watched a documentary about the Holocaust, pictures of emaciated children, brittle bodies piled up in a cavernous pit, and Keelin could feel her gag reflex contract and she was afraid she might be sick all over the carpet. (A pity, she imagined Henry saying. That rug was Persian, and rather expensive.) Her mind was skipping over memories like a child jumping rope, over and over and over and – I am going crazy, she realised. I will lose my mind on this island, like my mother did before me.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she said, her voice hoarse.
‘Can’t do what?’
‘This . . . silence. I can’t—’
‘I’m trying to help you, Keelin,’ he cut across her. ‘I do these things because I love you and I want to take care of you. I don’t want you to become ill again. You don’t know how frightening that time was for me, for all of us.’
‘I do know,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry I put you through that. But let me take care of you for a change.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m going to go to Marigold Cottage,’ she said. ‘You were right about Jake. We will be friends, he and I. We have plenty in common, don’t we? Maybe it’s time I reminded him of that.’
Her husband hesitated, uncertain, but then something broke in him. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and for a moment she thought he might cry. ‘I love you, Keelin. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I love you too.’
It was obvious Noah hadn’t expected Keelin to be knocking on their door. He was in a vest and pyjama bottoms, his long hair held back with a tartan bandana, and there was an open box of sweets in his hands. He froze when he saw it was her. ‘Shit. I thought it was more trick-or-treaters looking for lollies,’ he said. It was Halloween tonight, she realised; she’d forgotten. Keelin thought of October nights celebrating Samhain as a child, watching her mother bake the barmbrack, stirring a coin, a pea, a rag, a ring and a stick into the mixture. Tomás would cut Keelin a slice, slathering it with butter, whispering to his daughter that he bet she would find the ring, its golden sheen foretelling of a white dress, a walk up the aisle and a handsome man waiting for her at the end. Keelin took a bite, testing the brack for any hard edges, and for a moment she hoped she would find nothing there. She didn’t want to grow up, she didn’t want anything to change. She wanted this house and this island, her parents, Seán and Johanna. What need did she have of anything or anyone else? But she started to choke, spitting out half-masticated brack into the palm of her hand, spying a tiny wooden twig within its gooey mess. She whimpered, looking up at her parents in distress, but her father told her it was just a load of rubbish, and she wasn’t to be worrying. He cut her another slice, handing it to her. Here you go, mo stoirín, he said. Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they?
‘Keelin,’ Noah said now. ‘Keelin, I’m so sorry about what happened during the interview. Jake pushed it too far, he knows that. We didn’t mean to upset Henry, or you for that matter. Jake gets really passionate about this stuff and he—’
‘I’m here to see him,’ she said. ‘Jake.’ It looked cosy inside the cottage, the fire lit, a half-eaten lasagne in a baking tray on the table. Noah nodded, disappearing into Jake’s room, and she could hear them talking in hushed tones. ‘All right,’ she heard Jake say. ‘I get it, mate.’ Then he appeared, standing on the slab of stone outside Marigold Cottage, zipping up a North Face fleece, his persistent cowlick standing on end. His mother would have fussed over that, Keelin bet, wetting her fingers and trying to smooth it down as best she could, but to no avail.
‘I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been phoning and texting non-stop, Keelin. I was so worried about you.’
‘Why?’ she asked, genuinely curious. Why did all of the men in her life worry about her? What was it about her that prompted such concern?
‘Because of Henry, he was fuming after the interview. Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked, peering closely at her. ‘You look exhausted.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. She didn’t need Jake to tell her this; she was well aware of what she looked like. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
It was very still as they picked their way down to the headland. The lighthouse on the mainland blinked slowly, and all across Inisrún the houses were lit up like jewels, smoke unfurling from chimneys in peels of grey. The bracken was turning at this time of year, dropping into a deep russet, but they couldn’t see that now, not in the dark. They could only hear the roar of the waves, their feet against the ground as they walked to the cliffs, and their uneven breaths, a fraction out of sync with one another.
‘Watch it,’ Jake said, grabbing Keelin’s arm to pull her back. ‘You’re too close to the edge.’
‘There’s a joke to be made there,’ she said, ‘but I can’t quite seem to find it.’
She crept further, the stones loosening beneath her boots, crumbling into the sea below. Keelin had always needed to go to the cliffs and stand as close to the end of the earth as she could possibly go, staring at the flat expanse of sea and sky, tasting salt on her tongue. Next stop, America, the islanders said, and for the first time she yearned for that place. For dirt and car fumes and buildings so tall it would give you vertigo to look up at them. A place where no one recognised her name, and they’d never heard of the Crowley Girl. She could die in a city like that and no one would know, no one would even care. The prospect was oddly thrilling.
‘Keelin,’ Jake said again, a note of fear creeping into his voice. ‘Be careful, please.’
Still she did not step back. She found that she could not, that the swirling vortex of water below was holding her in its trance. Would it hurt? she wondered. If she fell. Would anyone care as much about her death as they had done about Nessa’s?
‘Are you angry with me about what happened during the interview?’ he asked. ‘I only wanted to push Henry a little, see if I could get something new out of him. It’s worked with other subjects, you know? And Noah and I need this doc to be a success if we’re going to break out of the Australian market, we have to prove we’re not just one-hit wonders. I misjudged the situation, clearly.’ His hand on her elbow, making sure she wasn’t going to jump off the cliff in front of him. ‘But Henry says he won’t give us any more interviews now. We can stay in Marigold Cottage if we want, he�
�s not going to be petty about it, he said, but he won’t be involved from here on.’ Jake led Keelin back to a large rock, and pulled her to sit on it beside him. ‘Noah is fuming,’ he admitted. ‘We’re not totally fucked yet – we have plenty of other people to talk to; we’ve lots lined up on the mainland and in the UK for the next few weeks – but Noah says we’ll be wasting our time with that, our whole USP was unrestricted access to Henry Kinsella.’
‘What age are you again, Jake?’
‘I’m twenty-nine.’
‘Interesting.’ She bent down to pick up a small pebble, worrying it smooth between her fingers. ‘When I was your age, I was married for the second time with a nine-year-old son to take care of.’
‘Is this your way of telling me that the documentary is meaningless in the greater scheme of things?’ he asked. ‘Because I don’t think Noah is going to see it like that, or the production company for that matter.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant at all. I suppose it’s funny, given how similar you and I are in some ways and then . . .’ She trailed off, still rubbing the stone in her hand. ‘When I was in my twenties, I couldn’t have imagined travelling halfway across the world, like you’ve done – I’m not sure I was ever that brave. For a long time, I felt like I was just surviving. I loved Alex but I never thought I’d be a single parent, that this would be my life, you know? Mark – that’s my ex-husband – he sent me a letter in ’96, saying he wanted to start the divorce process. He wanted to marry his new partner. She was a nurse, he wrote, and he included a photo of the two of them, like I was a relative living out foreign who needed to be kept updated with all the Delaney family news.’ Keelin had recognised Mark’s handwriting on the front of the envelope immediately, her heart pulsing in her throat as she opened it, the small snapshot falling to the ground. She looked at that photo for hours, scanning the nurse’s limbs for bruises, wondering if she could see a shadow of something in the other woman’s eye. If she looked scared the way Keelin had done.
After the Silence Page 12