After she came, a hand over her mouth to silence herself in case her daughter heard her, Henry dropped to the floor, pretending to be exhausted. ‘You’ll be the death of me, Keelin Kinsella,’ he said, as she shuffled her underwear back on, pulling her skirt down. She felt embarrassed suddenly, too exposed, and she wanted to cover herself.
‘Henry,’ she said cautiously, ‘about that photo – I’m not trying to be prudish here, but I still feel weird about it. Don’t yell at me, I can’t help it.’
‘I’m not going to yell at you. When have I ever yelled at you?’ he said, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘I’m sorry, darling. It was a stupid prank Miles was playing on me. It’s nothing for you to worry about.’
‘It’s just that it looked so much like . . .’
It looked like Greta Ainsworth, Keelin wanted to say, the dead girl. The woman she was not allowed to mention in her husband’s presence. She’d searched for Greta’s name on the internet before, finding some old modelling photos, a couple of magazine covers from the nineties, but there was so little information about her. She had died in a car crash at the height of her career, a newspaper article said, only twenty-five years of age, but there were no other details. Did Henry still have old photos of his ex-girlfriend? Was Keelin even allowed to feel uneasy about that?
‘You thought it looked like whom?’ Henry asked, watching her.
‘I thought it looked like someone I know,’ she replied.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Australians were away on the mainland until the end of November, setting up more interviews. They were hoping to talk to a journalist in Dublin who’d covered the Misty Hill case for The Irish Times, Jake told Keelin before they left, and a feminist activist who’d written extensively about how sexist the coverage of the case had been. He texted earlier that day – We’re back! Did you miss me? – and asked her to go for a walk with him. Henry read the message aloud to Keelin. You should go, he said. Wear that green hoody and the Lululemon leggings. Your hair in a ponytail, nothing fussy. She did as she was told, kissing her husband goodbye at the front door. She walked down the garden path, past Marigold Cottage, and the road before her began to rise, a pleasant ache in the back of her legs as she climbed with it. Even on a dull November day like this one, the walk to Dún Cholmchille was spectacular; the winding trail scaling the cliffs, the sheer drop to the sea below, shifting from grey to olive green. She found Jake at an inlet halfway up the hill, leaning against the back of a wooden bench engraved with the words, ‘I gcuimhne Peadar Ó Súilleabháin’. In memory of Peter O’Sullivan, Keelin had explained hundreds of times, to foreigners who didn’t speak Irish and wanted to know what was written on the fading plaque. She gave Jake a hug and told him she had indeed missed him while he was away. How had their trip been? she asked. Did you meet anyone interesting? It was then he told her about the interview with Alice Buckley.
‘Alice Buckley,’ Keelin repeated, picturing her old college housemate, a young woman in high-waisted jeans and platform trainers. They had lived together in their first year, that terrible house on Barrack Street with its damp rooms and wafer-thin walls, sharing with two other girls, Alice’s best friends from Ballincollig. They were nice enough, but beyond some initial curiosity about the ‘island girl’ they didn’t seem that bothered with her, and Keelin, who’d never had to make new friends in her adult life before, found she didn’t know how to do so. She only knew how to be friends with Seán and Johanna, relationships that consisted of knowing the very bones of the other person, with a shared history and language, decades-old inside jokes only the three of them understood. These new kinds of friendships – casual coffee dates and running to the pharmacy to buy a new lipstick between lectures, What do you think of this colour on me, Keelin? – felt vaguely intimidating, as if she was being tested, with no one ever telling her if she’d passed or not.
‘I haven’t seen Alice since –’
Carlow. The local Dunnes Stores. Keelin was heavily pregnant with Alex, maybe seven months gone. Mark was in the Toyota outside; he had given her ten minutes to get the shopping. I’ll time you, he said, as if it was just a game. And there was Alice Buckley at the deli, like an apparition – Oh my God, Keelin! the woman said in her sing-song accent, reaching out to hug her. Look at the size of you! Are you having twins or what, girl? I can’t believe this. What a coincidence! I’m up here for the day with Mam – my sister is getting married, and apparently there’s a great boutique in town for mother-of-the-bride outfits, do you know it? – and on she continued, barely taking a breath. It was clear she was settling in for a proper chat, Alice had always loved to gossip, but all Keelin could think about was how Mark was waiting for her. She backed away, dropping her basket of groceries to the ground. Ignoring the look of surprise on the other woman’s face, Keelin turned on her heel and ran. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so long, she stammered as she climbed awkwardly into the car. Mark didn’t say anything on the drive home, his jaw clenched and his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He walked ahead of her up the driveway, shutting the front door behind him. She tried the handle but it was locked. Please, Mark, she’d pleaded, banging her open palm against the wooden frame. Please let me in. She watched through the living-room window as he settled on the sofa, opening a can of Coke and turning on the television. Dusk settled around her, the light turning a dark blue, then navy, until it was so dark she could count the stars and then there were so many, she could not. She slept in the car that night, shivering, trying not to cry. You’re OK, mo stoirín, she’d whispered, cradling her bump as the baby kicked inside her. I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.
‘I can’t remember the last time I even talked to her, or any of the girls from college,’ Keelin said now. ‘Why on earth would ye want Alice Buckley for the documentary?
‘Noah thinks she’ll add some context, I guess,’ Jake said. ‘Since she knew you before all of this.’
‘What . . . what did she say?’
That had been the worst part, over the last ten years. Picking up newspapers or turning on the news and seeing familiar faces – old colleagues and classmates and men she had dated briefly after her first marriage had broken down – telling anecdotes about the Keelin Kinsella they knew, but she could never recognise herself in their retellings. In their versions, Keelin was almost debilitatingly shy, she could be aloof, she wasn’t the easiest person to get to know, she kept people at a distance. I always thought Keelin seemed quite a sad woman, a college tutor told a journalist. I would wager there’s a great deal of unresolved trauma there, he continued, tapping the side of his nose. Keelin presumed she would have become hardened to it by now, this selling of stories, her trust broken anew, but every time it happened it felt like a fresh betrayal. You can’t count on other people, Henry told her as she cried herself out. It’s just you and me now, darling.
‘Alice said she liked you a lot,’ Jake said. ‘She told us you could be really funny, in a way that was so dry that she would only realise it was funny a few minutes later. She said you came alive when Johanna visited from Limerick, that you surprised the other girls by how much “craic” you were that night, insisting everyone take another round of shots before you left the club, singing The Saw Doctors on the walk home. You got up early the next day, cooking a fry for everyone; she’d never seen you look that happy before. She said she wished you had given them more of a chance, that she would have liked to have been your friend, if you had let her . . .’ He paused. ‘I’m going to be completely honest with you, Keelin. We did ask about your relationship with your ex-husband, what it was like when you first got together. She said . . . She said Mark had seemed like a nice guy, but it was clear he was the one in charge. You would have done anything in order to keep him happy.’
Keelin turned to face the sea, the wind whipping through her hair. She had once told a supervisor on her counselling course that the greatest misconceptio
n about victims of domestic violence was that the women were weak, they wouldn’t put up with this kind of behaviour if they were ‘stronger’. But actually it took a huge amount of strength to get up every day, she had argued, to go out into the world and pretend like nothing was wrong. It took a rare kind of resilience to stay silent when you were screaming inside. Not everyone could do it.
‘I hope I haven’t upset you,’ Jake said. ‘People like Alice Buckley have very little understanding of what it’s like to live in an abusive environment.’
‘Yeah, I know. Thanks for telling me though.’ She leaned against his shoulder. ‘You’ve been really good to me, Jake. Our friendship means a lot to me.’
‘And to me,’ he said. His phone beeped and he reached into his pocket to pull it out. It was from Noah, she saw, Jake turning away from her to read the message.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked, pulling her foot onto the bench and pretending to re-tie her shoelace.
‘It’s fine.’
‘OK,’ she said after a moment. ‘Listen, I’d better get back to the house – the boys will be waiting for me.’ She hoped they would be anyway. She never could tell with Alex, these days. Her son had become an increasingly difficult person to track down.
‘But I thought we were going for a walk,’ Jake said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘We haven’t seen each other in two weeks. We have loads to catch up on.’
‘I’m sorry, pet,’ she said. ‘It must have slipped my mind. I’ve been worrying about Alex, to tell you the truth. He’s going out a lot, which sounds grand in theory but it isn’t like him. It’s ju—’
‘Alex isn’t a child. He can do what he wants.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ Her words were sharper than she’d intended and Jake flinched. He didn’t like sudden noises, Keelin had noticed; he was on edge if anyone raised their voice around him, shrinking in his seat as if to hide. ‘I’m sorry.’ She softened her tone. ‘It’s just that you never stop worrying about your children, no matter what age they are.’ He bit his lip, no doubt thinking of his own family, how he had no one left to worry about him now. Shit. She shouldn’t have said that. ‘We can have dinner tomorrow night,’ she rushed on. ‘What about if I come over to the cottage early and help you cook? That’ll be fun, won’t it?’ He nodded reluctantly. ‘Now –’ she pointed at the pathway winding past them – ‘go up to Dún Cholmchille anyway. It’ll clear your head.’
The wind beat against her face and roared in her ears as she walked back down the hill. Keelin turned her head to the side for momentary relief, and she was outside the Steins’ old house, a stone bungalow with a polytunnel and a wire chicken coop out the back. The lilac door was opening and Keelin’s heart tightened in her chest, with hope, maybe, that she had found a portal back in time, that it would be 1987 again and a teenage Johanna would walk towards her, proudly waving the latest copy of Jackie magazine.
But it was Noah who was leaving the Steins’ house, his camera bag in hand, calling goodbye over his shoulder to either Lena or Oskar; Keelin couldn’t see which one of Johanna’s parents it was. He adjusted the bag on his shoulder, stopping in his tracks when he spotted Keelin.
‘Hi, Noah.’
‘Hey,’ he replied. He paused, clearly hoping she would walk ahead and he wouldn’t be obliged to make conversation with her. But she stood still, and irritation flashed across the young man’s face. He brushed past her, apologising when the edge of his camera bag jammed against her hip, but he kept moving as fast as he could.
‘What were you doing in the Steins’?’ she called after him. Noah spun around, taking down his bun and shaking out his hair. ‘Johanna hasn’t lived there in years.’
‘She’s home for the weekend,’ he said. Keelin instinctively turned towards the house, and she thought she saw the twitch of a curtain, someone ducking out of sight – a woman. Jo – and she felt the loss of her friend like a physical pain, a bruise beneath her chest bone, still tender after all these years.
‘It wasn’t her I wanted to see – not this time, anyway,’ Noah said. ‘But don’t worry, her old pair refused to talk about you on camera. They gave me heaps of tea and a disgusting piece of bread and sent me on my way.’
Johanna’s father had tormented himself for years trying to perfect his recipe for soda bread, but it invariably turned out rock hard and practically inedible. Keelin had been the only one who ever ate it, smothering it in butter and blackberry jam, lying to Oskar that it was delicious. The way he looked at her when she said that, the grin almost breaking his tanned face in two. Danke, meine Liebling, he would say, ruffling her hair. Sometimes Keelin missed Oskar and Lena as much as she did Johanna.
‘I see,’ was all she managed to say in reply. What did Noah mean, ‘this time’? Had they already interviewed Jo for the documentary? Surely her friend wouldn’t have broken her silence after all these years? And why hadn’t Jake told Keelin if she had? ‘But why are you by yourself?’ she asked. ‘I just met Jake and he’s—’
‘I know where he is,’ Noah said. ‘But it’s pretty clear his loyalties are divided right now and I, for one, still care about journalistic ethics. It’s important to remain impartial, you know? I’ll have to do some of this work alone. Keep asking the questions, try to find real answers.’
‘But the two of you are a team,’ Keelin said, an unpleasant dip in her stomach at the thought of Noah out there, searching for ‘real answers’.
‘We’re still a team. But unlike Jake, I’m not looking for a replacement mammy wherever I can find one.’
‘I don’t know why you’re being so mean ,’ she said, taken aback. ‘I’ve never been anything but nice to you, Noah. I don’t deserve to be treated like this.’
‘This isn’t about you, Keelin. I have a job to do. A woman died on this island. Have you forgotten that?’
He walked away, taking tentative steps as the hill dropped in a steep decline, careful in case he might stumble. How could she forget? she wanted to scream after him. No one would allow her to think about anything else except the dead Crowley Girl in the last ten years.
When she got home, she called her son’s name. ‘Alex? Alex, where are you?’ She looked in the attic, in the television room, in the kitchen, but there was no sign of him. In the dining room she found Henry, sitting alone in the dim light. ‘Do you know where Alex is?’ she asked her husband, turning on the overhead chandelier so she could see properly. ‘I can’t find him anywhere. Surely he’s not gone out, again! That’s every night this week. What are we going to do about this, Henry?’ It was only then Keelin noticed the candles, the fresh flowers in the vase and the two plates of food on the table, untouched.
‘Oh God, were you waiting for me? I’m so sorry.’
‘I thought it would be rude to start without you. You know how important I consider good manners to be,’ he said. He stood up, taking his plate with him. Keelin followed him to the kitchen, watching as he swept the chilli con carne into the bin, his knife scraping against the china. ‘I thought we were having cod for dinner tonight,’ he said. ‘At least that’s what I asked you to tell the housekeeper to prepare.’
‘But you like chilli, don’t you? It’s almost December, I thought you might prefer something more warming than fish at this time of year.’
‘The table wasn’t set properly either,’ he continued. ‘She used that cheap cutlery you bought in Dunnes ages ago. I don’t know why you insist on keeping it; you should throw it away or, better yet, give it to the boys down in Marigold Cottage. They’re practically family at this stage, aren’t they, Keelin? You’d probably offer one of them a kidney if it was needed.’
‘I’ll remind Gosia tomorrow, I promise. I’ll tell her that she—’
‘Forget it,’ he said, throwing the dishes into the sink with such force that Keelin jumped back, her heart beating against her ribcage. ‘Why do you look so anxious?’ h
e said, reaching for her. His hands on her hipbones, pulling her closer to him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I . . .’ She willed herself not to cry. ‘I hate when you’re angry with me.’
‘I’m not angry,’ he said, leaning in to kiss her. ‘Why would you think that, silly? I’m just expressing my feelings. That’s important in a relationship, isn’t it? You’re the one who always says communication is the cornerstone of a healthy marriage.’ He backed her into the cupboard behind her, a round knob twisting into her spine. ‘I’m grateful we can talk about these things openly. Aren’t you?’ His hands nestled around her neck, caressing her skin gently. ‘How was your date with our Australian friend?’
‘It was fine,’ she said, looking over his shoulder. Her eyes on the open door. ‘Jake trusts me.’
‘I would hope he does, for both our sakes,’ Henry said, kissing her again, slipping his tongue into her mouth. His fingers were against her throat and she coughed as he increased the pressure. She coughed again, starting to choke, silently pleading with him to stop, I can’t breathe, please, please . . . ‘I love you,’ he whispered, and he loosened his grip on her neck, touching his lips to the place where his hands had been, covering her with delicate kisses. Later Keelin examined herself in the mirror, trying to see if he had left any trace. She was searching for bruises, she thought, for evidence. But there was nothing, her skin was perfect, flawless. And she wondered if it had really happened, or if she had imagined it all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Crowley Girl
‘I’m sorry – what?’ Keelin was about to place a bauble on the Christmas tree but she stopped, staring at her husband. ‘You want to invite Nessa Crowley to the Christmas Eve drinks party?’
After the Silence Page 15