‘That poor woman.’
‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I never thought “poor woman”, although I’m sure Mark did exactly the same thing to her as he did to me.’ A tiny, terrible part of Keelin hoped that he had. For what if it had only been her whom Mark had decided to hurt? What if his new fiancée was simply easier to love? ‘I was relieved,’ she continued. ‘I thought Mark would leave us alone then, he would forget about us. He used to come to the island, in the early years, begging me to take him back. And even when he finally accepted there was no hope left for us as a couple, he would still sit on the stone wall at the end of the garden and watch us. He wanted me to feel scared and to know he could do whatever he wanted, no matter how many times I complained to the guards. We can’t arrest a man for standing outside a house, they told me. Call us when he actually does something. When I got the letter saying he’d met someone else, all I thought was: he’ll leave us alone now . . . That was selfish of me, I suppose.’
‘Alex was better off.’ Jake looked away from her. ‘No father is better than a bad one, I can safely say.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Keelin said. ‘For what happened to you and your family.’
They sat in silence, listening to the waves crash against the pebble beach a hundred feet below them. The crests forming and re-forming and then breaking again. It had been the same for as long as Keelin could remember, and would be the same long after she was gone and everyone had forgotten about the Kinsellas and Misty Hill and the dead Crowley Girl. They were all inconsequential, at the end of it all.
‘What happened after that? After Mark’s letter?’
‘I thought I was grand but a few weeks later, I don’t know how to explain it, it was like I was coming down with the flu. I was tired all the time; I couldn’t stop crying. You’re grieving for what could have been, if that makes sense. The future I thought I’d have, the man Mark might have been if his childhood had been different, if he’d seen any kindness whatsoever from his own father. I had wanted to help Mark so badly and I felt like I’d failed him. Failed Alex too. My dad had been so important to me and the idea of Alex not having that broke my heart.’
‘That wasn’t your fault, Keelin.’
‘Maybe not. I don’t know.’ She pulled her hand back, threw the stone as hard as she could into the sea below. ‘But it was soon after I got the letter from Mark when I read an article in the paper about a course providing training in counselling for mature students, and I thought to myself that’s what I’d do. I had a mind even then that I could help other women who’d been beaten, like I’d been. The services are bad enough as it is now – funding seems to get cut year on year; who cares when women and children are the primary victims of abuse, I suppose – but Ireland in the nineties? No one talked about this stuff. You were expected to get on with things. I went to a solicitor in Carlow once, I just wanted to see what my options were if I did decide to leave Mark. And the man asked me when was the last time I’d had my hair done and did I wear make-up around the house? It was important not to let myself go, he said. And even when I’d gone home to Rún, Mam didn’t want to be hearing about all of that. When I told her Mark was getting re-married, I was expecting some sympathy, I suppose, but she told me I needed to get up off my backside and do something with my life. Alex deserved better than a mother sitting around moping all day, she said. I mentioned then I’d seen an ad for the counselling course, and it was she who made me apply.’
‘And you got in,’ Jake said.
‘I did. I felt guilty at the start, leaving Alex with my mother, but I told myself I’d be back every Friday evening, he’d hardly miss me. The island is a good place to raise children, they have so much freedom here. They’re –’ her voice caught – ‘safe. And I’d been having fun. I hadn’t had fun since I was a teenager. I hated college the first time around, I’d been so shy – this felt like a do-over But I shouldn’t have left Alex here,’ she said. ‘Mam was getting bad at that stage. She was so forgetful – I was afraid it was early Alzheimer’s for a while. It wasn’t fair on Alex, but he seemed to be the only one who could do anything with her, and I just wanted some time for me, for once. I was only in my late twenties. I wanted . . .’ She shook her head. There was no point in making excuses. ‘I can still remember that day,’ she said. ‘I was coming home from the library, the cherry-blossom trees were blooming and I remember thinking, I’m happy. Then I heard someone yelling my name, and it was the woman from the digs, waving at me frantically. There’d been a phone call, she said, an accident. Is it Alex? I managed to get out, and the fear, I can’t explain it. It was crippling, the idea of anything happening to him. But the landlady said no. It was my mother, she said. I was to go home immediately.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said, gingerly placing an arm around her shoulders.
‘She’d been on pills after Daddy had died, to help her sleep.’ Keelin’s voice was so calm, it was as if she was talking about someone she barely knew. ‘She hadn’t taken any of them in months, it turned out; she’d been stashing them away. And she’d phone me in the digs in Cork and she’d tell me she couldn’t sleep. Go back to the doctor, I’d say, those tablets should be knocking you out cold. But she didn’t want to go to the mainland alone, she said, and it was obvious she was hoping I’d bring her. And I should have. I should have. But I just pretended like I didn’t know what she was hinting at. I didn’t want to have to think about her, or Daddy, or even Alex, when I was at college. I wanted to be free.’ She was afraid to look at Jake to see what his reaction was. ‘You must think I’m a horrible person.’
‘I don’t, Keelin.’
You should, she thought. You would, if you knew the truth about me. ‘It was Alex who found Mam,’ she said. ‘He’d been out exploring – he was always the sort of child who preferred his own company. He would roam the island all day, coming home spinning tales of pirates and smugglers, hidden coves in the sea cliffs. Mam had given him a packed lunch, told him to stay out as long as he liked. When he came home, he . . . he found her there, in her bed. He said it was like she was waiting for him.’
A doctor came from the mainland to pronounce her mother dead, a wake quickly arranged. It was a muted affair, the islanders huddled into the cramped parlour around the open coffin, everyone cutting glances at Alex. The poor lad, Keelin overheard a neighbour say through a mouthful of buttered scone, and that mother of his off gallivanting on the mainland when all this was going on. Sure the dogs on the street could see Cáit Ó Mordha was in a bad way. Terrible stuff all together, they agreed. Keelin took Alex’s hand in her own and he stared up at her with those new eyes of his, eyes that had seen too much for one so young. I will never leave you again, she promised him silently, and she barely left his side in the weeks to follow. Not that her son seemed to notice. He was practically catatonic, fighting sleep every night because he was terrified the spirit of his mamó would haunt him in his dreams, arriving at the breakfast table in the morning pale and drawn. It was Henry Kinsella who suggested a child psychologist, Henry, who was fast becoming a – a friend, maybe? Keelin wasn’t sure. It had been years since she had last seen the younger Kinsella brother, and she’d tried to hide her surprise when he arrived at the funeral to offer his condolences, so tall in his long navy overcoat, smelling of expensive cologne. Her mother would have liked that, delighted her funeral had been graced by one of the Kinsellas, but Keelin hadn’t given him another thought until ten days later when the phone rang, that deep voice and its plummy accent on the other end. Henry Kinsella here, he said. Just wanted to check in. He rang again, once a week in the beginning, then twice a week, and soon they were talking every day, or Keelin was talking at least, telling Henry things she had never told anyone else – about her first marriage and what Mark had done to her, the guilt she felt over leaving Alex alone with his grandmother, her fears for her son, this voluntary vow of silence the boy had taken. Henry didn’t say much in return, but duri
ng their next conversation he told her a consultation had been scheduled with a child psychologist in Cork, a woman whose reputation was so renowned that even Keelin’s supervisor hadn’t been able to help her get an appointment. Henry shrugged when Keelin asked how he’d managed to skip the consultant’s notoriously long waiting list. I had a friend make a call, was all he said. When the day of the appointment came, Keelin felt sick to her stomach but she smiled at her son as they stepped onto the ferry, leading him to a bench inside the poky cabin. He sat there, staring at the posters on the walls – safety procedures to be followed in case of emergency, B & Bs that had rooms for rent on the island, restaurants in Baltimore offering a ten-per-cent discount to anyone who presented their ferry ticket – while Keelin smiled at Murphy’s, who were off to visit their daughter in Dublin. We’re going to the mainland to get a new pair of school shoes for this one, she fibbed, and she pretended not to see Alex looking up at her sadly as she told the lie. Come, mo stoirín, she said, when the ferry docked. Let’s go. And there, at the top of the steps at the pier, she saw Henry Kinsella, reaching out his hand to help her. I thought you might need some extra support today, he said.
‘Keelin,’ Jake said now, and she started. He was fumbling in his pocket, pulling out a small packet of Kleenex, and it was only then she realised she was crying.
‘Thanks,’ she said as he handed her a tissue. ‘You came prepared.’
‘Irish weather,’ he said. ‘I’m constantly sniffling. It’s driving Noah mad.’ He took a tissue himself, as if to prove the point. ‘Thank you for sharing that with me, Keelin,’ he said gently. ‘I know it’s not easy but I’m honoured you would open up to me like this.’
‘I don’t know why,’ she replied, ‘but for some reason, I feel like I can trust you.’
She said goodnight to Jake at the gate to Marigold Cottage, telling him she would call in the morning for her next interview, as planned. When she was at the bottom of her own garden, she looked up to see Henry standing at the bedroom window, waiting for her.
‘Darling,’ he said, when she slipped under the covers beside him, wincing at how cold the sheets were. ‘Did it go well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
‘Will you do something for me now?’ she said, pausing until he nodded. ‘Will you keep an eye on Alex? Find out where he’s going in the evenings? I’m worried about him.’
‘I’ll take care of it,’ her husband said, and he reached down between her legs, smiling at her intake of breath. He touched her until she came, silently shuddering. ‘Goodnight,’ he whispered, and he moved away from her, to his own side of the bed. For the first time in weeks, Keelin had enough space to breathe.
She fell asleep instantly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jonathan and Olivia Kinsella, Henry’s parents
Archival footage taken from a 1998 programme, The Island of Secrets.
Olivia: We met in 1965.
Jonathan: I thought we met in ’64?
Olivia: No, darling. It was 1965. I was only twenty-two – can you imagine? I was a baby.
Interviewer: Legend has it you first met in a Kinsella hotel.
Jonathan: Yes, that’s correct.
Interviewer: Most of the people watching this programme will have heard of Kinsella Hotels; many will have stayed in one at some time or another. It’s one of the most successful hotel chains in the UK.
Olivia: And Ireland, please. We’ve been a free state since 1922, lest you forget.
Interviewer: Sorry, yes, my mistake. The UK and Ireland. And you built it from scratch, Jonathan, you’re entirely self-made. It really is a remarkable story.
Jonathan: I got lucky.
Olivia: Luck had nothing to do with it, Jon. (looks at interviewer) My husband came from nothing. He grew up on a council estate where most of his friends were either in jail or dead before they turned eighteen. His mother was an alcoholic, his father left before Jonny was even born. Nothing was handed to him, like this younger generation seems to expect. He never looked for handouts, did you, darling? Pulled himself up by his bootstraps.
Jonathan: Yes, well, I was lucky in other ways. I met Robert.
Interviewer: You’re referring to Robert Calloway of the Calloway London Group?
Jonathan: Yes. By the time I met Robert, I’d been working at Calloway London for about five years. I’d worked my way up from kitchen staff to restaurant manager and I guess Mr Calloway saw something in me. I didn’t drink – couldn’t stand the stuff, not after what it had done to my mother – and that marked me out as different in this industry, more serious, I suppose. Reliable. But that’ll only get you so far – you still need someone to believe in you. And Robert did. He took a punt on me when no one else would. And when I found the right property –the place was cheap, it was falling down and infested with rats, but it was near the King’s Road. That was where all the cool people were, the artists and—
Olivia: Mary Quant opened her first store there! London was so much fun in the sixties.
Jonathan: It was the right place to be, if you wanted to get that crowd, and I did. I knew I couldn’t get their parents – and those kids wouldn’t want to hang out anywhere their folks approved of at any rate. But the banks wouldn’t lend me the money; they said I was an ‘unproven entity’. It was Robert who backed me. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.
Olivia: You paid Robert Calloway back within three years. The full loan, with interest. That man had nothing to complain about.
Jonathan: Then I opened the second Kinsella Hotel in 1964—
Olivia: 1965, darling.
Jonathan: Sorry, 1965.
Interviewer: And you were a receptionist at the hotel, is that correct, Olivia?
Olivia: Yes. I wasn’t the usual type for a job like that – I was Irish, I didn’t have the right accent, I didn’t go to the right schools. But I went for the interview anyway, because word on the street was the man who owned the hotel wasn’t the usual type either – his surname was Kinsella, for heaven’s sake! I presumed he was Irish too, thought it might help my case. And it must have done, because I got the job.
Jonathan: It helped that she had a cracking pair of legs. She still does.
Olivia: Jon, really.
Interviewer: And was it love at first sight?
Jonathan: It was for me. I was thirty at the time—
Olivia: And unmarried, and never seemed to date anyone. People were beginning to talk.
Jonathan: Who was ‘talking’? No one cared about that stuff in those days.
Olivia: None of the kids on the King’s Road cared, darling. But others did, including the bank managers you were so desperately trying to charm. Here was this man in his early thirties, successful, but permanently single. You can imagine what people thought.
Jonathan: I didn’t have time to date! I was trying to get a business off the ground.
Olivia: You mean you were waiting for the right person, darling.
Jonathan: Sorry, yes. And then I found her. This beautiful redhead at the front desk who was completely indifferent to me. She barely gave me the time of day. Good morning, Mr Kinsella. No messages today, Mr Kinsella. It took me weeks to even get a smile out of her.
Olivia: I knew what I was doing. I saw the way the other girls were, fawning all over him. I knew I’d have to play it smarter to get what I wanted.
Interviewer: You married quickly; it was a whirlwind romance.
Olivia: Married in ’66, and we had Charlie in ’67. He was a honeymoon baby, nine months to the day after our wedding. We hadn’t expected to have children quite so quickly, did we, Jonny? But Charlie was such a blessing.
Jonathan: We had our second son in 1970.
Interviewer: Henry, who is, of course, dating th
e model Greta Ainsworth.
Jonathan: Yes, that’s it.
Olivia: We adore Greta, don’t we, darling? Brings a dash of glamour to the place, and, let me tell you, artists, especially the serious ones, absolutely love some glamour.
Interviewer: I think our viewers will be interested in what brought you to Inish . . . I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m going to make a terrible hash of this pronunciation.
Olivia: It’s Inish-roon. I was born here. My mother was an islander, but she died when I was a baby. My father never settled after that; he was from Dublin originally, and when the war ended he brought me and my older siblings back to the city. I went to England when I was sixteen, I even changed my name – Olivia Walsh seemed far more cosmopolitan, more London than Orlaith Breathnach, I thought. And that was that. There was nothing left for me in Ireland any more. (pause) But after Charlie was born, I suppose it was only natural that I started to wonder about my roots.
Jonathan: And my great-grandfather was born in the west of Ireland, a little village in Mayo, but he went to England during the famine. I had grown up listening to stories about the Old Country, but I’d never actually been to Ireland before our first trip in ’69. I must admit, I was shocked by the place. The island didn’t have power, they used these things called tilley lamps, that’s all they had for light. And the people here were so poor, those who were left anyway. I remember one man telling me that he had forty-two first cousins living in Chicago. Forty-two! And more people emigrating every day.
After the Silence Page 13