After the Silence

by Louise O'Neill

  ‘Shut up,’ she shouted, and she wasn’t sure which of them was more astonished at her outburst. They didn’t behave like this, she and Henry. They had agreed when they married that they wouldn’t be the sort of couple who raised their voices; such behaviour was beneath them, they decided. Our house will be calm, Henry said. We will always be so kind to one another, won’t we, darling?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I was upset, I didn’t mean to talk to you like that.’

  ‘Mam!’ Alex, close behind her. ‘Mam, I can explain.’ He went to hug her, but she pushed him away. She couldn’t even look at him.

  ‘Alex has been—’

  ‘Dating one of the Crowley Girls?’ Henry said, folding the blanket up neatly. He put the lid on the box of chocolates and placed it on the coffee table, bending down to blow out the candle.

  ‘You knew?’ Keelin gaped at him. ‘Who else on the island knows about this? We have to keep this a secret; if it gets out, there will be—’

  ‘Surely that’s not all you care about, Mam?’ her son asked. ‘What the islanders think?’

  ‘Don’t start with me, Alex.’ She turned back to her husband. ‘You knew about this and you did nothing?’

  ‘Of course I did something,’ he said. ‘I always have to be the one to do something, don’t I? I went to Alex as soon as I saw the two of them together, sitting up at the lighthouse holding hands. Rather indiscreet, I thought, but we discussed the matter, man to man. Alex promised he would be more careful in future. He said he was well enough to handle this relationship, that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid. And that was that, really.’

  ‘How could you not have told me? I’m your wife – we’re supposed to talk about things like this.’

  ‘Alex wanted to tell you in his own time.’ Henry picked up his wine again. ‘He is an adult, as I keep reminding you, and the Crowley Girls have always been very attractive.’ He watched her son, waiting for his reaction. ‘I think we can all agree on that.’

  ‘Henry,’ Alex said, his hands at the side of his body, clenching into fists, ‘don’t talk about Sinéad like that, I’m warning you.’

  ‘What did I say? I thought you’d agree with me, considering how you felt about Nessa. I must admit, the resemblance is uncanny. Almost unnerving, one might say.’ Henry poured more red wine into his glass. ‘Does she know?’ he asked Alex conversationally. ‘About what happened between you and her sister.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Alex said. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘The Crowley Girls are not like, er, Pokémon,’ Henry said, his mouth twitching with amusement at his own joke. ‘You don’t have to “catch ’em all”.’

  ‘I said, shut up!’ Alex screamed, his face contorting in rage. He tore Henry’s wine glass out of his hand and smashed it to the floor, shards of crystal exploding in a white fire. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he shouted, swinging for the older man. ‘I’ll fucking kill you.’ Her husband jumped up, crunching glass beneath his bare feet. He was bleeding, but he didn’t appear to feel any pain, pinning Alex against the Murano glass accent wall that separated the lounge from the kitchen, banging her son’s skull against its shell with a sickening snapping sound. Keelin stood there, too paralysed with fear to move, watching as her son’s body went limp.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you,’ Henry said, letting go of Alex’s shirt. The younger man slumped to the floor, pulling his knees into his chest and burying his face between them ‘This sort of behaviour isn’t becoming of a Kinsella.’

  ‘I’m a Delaney,’ Alex choked. He felt the back of his head, moaning when his fingers came away damp with blood.

  ‘Oh, but you’re a Kinsella when it suits you,’ her husband said. ‘You’re a Kinsella when you need to be, aren’t you?’

  Henry balanced on the side of the claw-foot bathtub, removing pieces of broken glass with a pair of tweezers. The bathroom’s floor was tiled in squares of green and white, now spattered with blood, oozing into the immaculate grouting. She would have to clean that up before the housekeeper returned after Christmas; they couldn’t afford any more rumours about blood being shed in Hawthorn House.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ her husband asked, hissing as he pulled out a shard of crystal from between his toes.

  ‘He’s upstairs. I don’t think we need to worry about him sneaking out tonight; the Crowleys must have Sinéad under lock and key.’ Keelin wished she could do the same. She imagined herself going to the attic and attaching a padlock to her son’s door, making sure he couldn’t escape. ‘How long have you known about him and that girl?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘How can you be so calm?’ she cried. ‘We could be in serious danger here, Henry.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that? I have just as much to lose here as you do, don’t forget that. But what exactly would you have had me do in this situation?’

  She put the toilet lid down and sat down, her legs shaking. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was hoping it would burn itself out before you had to hear.’

  ‘So you would have kept lying to me?’ She stared at him incredulously. ‘You would have never told me about this?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have been able to cope with it. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘That wasn’t your decision to make.’ She put her fingers to her eyes, feeling the beginnings of a migraine forming behind them. ‘I’m not a child.’

  ‘You get so overwhelmed, Keelin, and as I said already, I presumed it would fizzle out on its own. What was the point in you getting upset over nothing?’

  ‘But what if Alex tells—’

  ‘Darling, let’s be realistic. Alex hasn’t had much luck in his relationships with Crowley Girls up until this point, has he? Why should this one be any different? No –’ her husband took out the last piece of glass from his foot, placing it carefully on a bloodstained towel – ‘it was better for you to have some peace of mind until there was any real reason to think this dalliance might last.’

  ‘But . . .’ She wanted to explain why she was upset, why she felt betrayed by his decision to keep this secret from her, but it seemed silly when Henry put it in those terms. Wasn’t this what she had always wanted, after all? A husband who would do anything to ensure her happiness? ‘I still think you should have told me,’ she said, rubbing at the edges of her wedding ring.

  ‘Come on, darling. You must agree I did the right thing here.’ There was silence and her husband frowned at her. ‘Keelin. You agree that I did the right thing, don’t you?’

  She hesitated just a second before nodding. It was easier to agree with him. He had always been too smart to argue with; it was like his words were coated in oil, slipping through her fingers before she could grab hold of them and make sense of what he was saying. He stood, wincing as he put weight on his injured feet. ‘And how exactly are you going to thank me, darling?’ he asked.

  She dropped her head and pulled her hoodie off, shucking her leggings down, removing her underwear quickly. She didn’t want to give herself too much time to think about this. Henry traced his fingertips across her collarbones, her ribs. ‘You’re so thin,’ he said, his voice admiring. He liked her this way, liked how pure she looked. He pushed her down on the floor, the marble tiles cold against her naked back, and he spread her legs. She turned her head away while he entered her, a tear trickling down her face, salt on her lips, but he didn’t seem to notice. And why would he? She’d always wanted Henry; she had never said no to him. He wouldn’t even think to ask Keelin for her yes, a yes that was automat­ically assumed. I love this man, I love this man . . . she repeated silently, like an incantation. And she waited for it to be over.

  When he was done, he rolled off, zipping his trousers up. She lay there, her legs apart and a stickiness between her thighs, unable to move. Her husband kissed her on the side of the jaw and he told her he loved her. ‘You are
my North Star, Keelin.’ He whispered. ‘You are my forever.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Crowley Girl

  ‘I saw Henry’s post on Facebook,’ a woman said to Keelin in the siopa that afternoon. ‘Looks like he went all out for Valentine’s Day! That man has you spoilt rotten, so he does.’

  Keelin smiled, handing over a twenty-euro note to pay for the sliced pan and bottle of white wine. Stuffing them in a cotton shopping bag, she hurried up the hill to Hawthorn House. In the study she sat at the computer – the Birdwatching folder was gone, she couldn’t help but notice, long since deleted – and she typed Facebook into the search bar. Henry had uploaded a photo of the enormous bouquet of flowers he’d had specially delivered from the mainland that morning, and the homemade pavlova in the shape of a heart, adorned with strawberries. Happy Wife, Happy Life, he had written underneath, adding a PS – Credit to our lovely housekeeper for helping me with pudding! There were dozens of gushing comments already, telling Henry how impressed they were, what a ‘lucky girl’ Keelin was to have a husband as thoughtful as he was. He often did this with social media, posting regularly about his ‘incredible’ wife, how wonderful his children were, how fortunate he was to live on Inisrún, and to be surrounded by such gifted artists at the Misty Hill retreat. They were like pieces of a jigsaw, she and the children and this house, slotting neatly in place to make a picture of perfection to present to the world.

  Keelin took a deep breath and shut down the computer. It was 2009 now; a new year, a fresh start, and she had promised herself – and Henry – she would put all that unpleasantness from Christmas behind them. Nessa Crowley was back at UCC, Seán told her when she bumped into him while walking past Peadar Ó Súilleabháin’s bench the other day – ‘Keels!’ he said, embracing her. ‘I’ve been trying to phone you for weeks. Where’ve you been hiding, girl?’ – and, according to Seán, his neice wouldn’t be back on the island until Easter at least. Needs to buckle down, apparently. You know what students are like, he laughed.

  Not that any of this was Nessa’s fault, Henry explained to her. Alex had been using his stepfather’s computer for a school project – that naked photo of Nessa had been sent to Alex’s email account, not his. I don’t know what he was thinking, saving it to the desktop, Henry said, Evie could have seen it, for goodness’ sake. But I didn’t know what to do, I’m not the boy’s father, I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. I panicked, and I made an error in judgement, I admit that. But how could you think I would cheat on you, Keelin? Especially with Alex’s girlfriend? Do you think I’m capable of doing something like that to you?

  Henry kept talking, reiterating everything he had already said until Keelin felt like he was carving the letters into her bones. Nessa Crowley is a child, he said. Why on earth would I be interested in her? I love you, Keelin. Do you honestly believe I would do this to you?

  She didn’t know what to believe. She could have asked Alex to confirm the photo was his, that was the most obvious solution, but the thought of doing so made her squirm with embarrassment. (And what if her son said, What photo? What are you talking about, Mam? What would she do then?) She was exhausted, trying to pretend for the children that everything was fine; Evie already demanding to know when she would next see her beloved Nessie. Keelin would smile, tell the little girl that Nessa was busy with college but she’d be back soon, avoiding her husband’s eye as she told the lie. If she divorced Henry, she’d have two failed marriages under her belt at the age of thirty-six, two children by two different men. Who would have her then? And where would she even go if she did leave? She kept waking in the early hours of the morning, her nightgown damp with sweat, but instead of counting sheep to help her fall back asleep, Keelin began to count numbers. She spent hours calculating different budgets in her head, trying to figure out how much money she would need to support herself, Alex, and Evie without the Kinsella safety net, but the figures never seemed to add up correctly. It was impossible.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Henry asked her when he came home that evening, and somehow she knew her husband wasn’t asking about Valentine’s Day dinner or what television programme she wanted to watch for the night. It was time for Keelin to make a decision about the future of their relationship.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said.

  ‘I love you. You must know that.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, and for the first time in their marriage, she wished it wasn’t true.

  ‘Let’s have a party.’ He sat next to her on the sofa. ‘It’s your birthday next month – that’s the perfect excuse to throw a bash.’

  ‘My thirty-seventh,’ she said. ‘Not exactly an important one.’

  ‘I think all of your birthdays are important, darling,’ he said, and he kissed the inside of her wrist. She recognised that look on his face. He would want to have sex with her tonight. They hadn’t fucked since Christmas Eve, since before she found out about Nessa Crowley’s swallow tattoo. She thought of a client she’d worked with, years ago, an anxious woman with mottled hands who started every sentence with ‘I know this is going to sound crazy but . . .’; the same phrase all her clients used when they described how their partners had terrorised them until the victims were convinced they were the ones who were insane. There were rules in my house, this woman had told Keelin. You did not say no to my husband. You did not answer back. You did not keep him waiting, if you knew what was good for you. What about sex? Keelin asked her. The woman had looked away, flushed. First job of the morning, last job at night, she said, her voice so low that Keelin had to strain to hear her. Whenever, wherever, however he wanted. And in that moment, Keelin had felt so sorry for the woman, but she’d felt grateful too, grateful she had Henry, who had awakened something in her that she hadn’t even known was there. How could she have known, before him, that her body would respond so intensely to being called a whore, a dirty little slut, until she was crying out, begging him for more. She had thought what they shared was special, but when Keelin closed her eyes now, all she could see was that photograph. How slim the body was, how spare the flesh covering its bones. The black ink against the pale skin, a bird flying across snow. The legs spread, proudly; there was no shame there. Nessa was a girl born in a different time to Keelin, a different Ireland, a country that sold condoms in pub toilets and Playboy magazines displayed in plain sight in village newsagents. Nessa didn’t see her body as something that she should cover up or hide away for fear of what might happen to it. Nessa saw her body as something to be proud of.

  ‘A party?’ she said. The Kinsella parties were notorious. Champagne, nudity, cocaine, ketamine and weed. Burning turf and fire bright, everyone coming up as one, like they were made of shooting stars. She would look around and think how beautiful the guests were, how lucky she was to be among them. The chosen ones.

  ‘We can invite your friends,’ he said. ‘Johanna, obviously, and Susan. Seán Crowley too, if you’d like.’

  ‘No,’ she said. She had been avoiding their phone calls, instructing her husband to tell Johanna she was at the shop or out for a walk whenever her friend called. She couldn’t bear the idea of them seeing her like this, of knowing what a mess she had made of her life, again. If they got close enough, they would see how broken she was; they knew her too well; they would be able to smell the pain coming off her. Her friends would try to fix her, and some things, Keelin was beginning to understand, could not be fixed.

  ‘What do you say, Keels? A party for your birthday?’

  ‘Do whatever you want, Henry,’ she replied, pushing his hands away from her. Suddenly she couldn’t bear to have him touch her. ‘You always do.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  It was impossible to keep a secret on Inisrún. We had learned that as children, arriving home from a day running free across the island’s skin, and our mothers would be waiting for us, recounting a list of our wrongdoings, as if they ha
d been there to see them first-hand. It was a form of magic, we thought; the women of Rún must be witches. We didn’t yet understand this was simply the way of the island. Words skipping from mouth to ear, like pebbles skimming the water’s flesh, leaving ripples behind. We traded stories like we were bartering goods, for information was vital in a place such as this. We could not live so close to one another if we did not know each other’s secrets. The knowing kept us safe.

  It was after Christmas when we began to hear the whispers of trouble from up in Hawthorn House. Tension between the Kinsella man and the Delaney boy, all grown up now. Words that could not be unsaid and fists flying. More blood spilled on this land because of that family.

  We did not know yet what had been the cause of this fight, but we did not mind. We knew all we had to do was be patient and the island would reveal the truth to us, like it always did.

  And so we waited.

  Chapter Forty

  ‘The Australians are back, I see,’ Henry said. He was looking down at Marigold Cottage, squinting in the harsh January light. ‘They didn’t take very long for their Christmas break, did they?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Keelin put down the secateurs she was using to prune the wisteria, standing to stretch out her legs and rubbing away the dull ache in her thighs.

  ‘I didn’t get a text from the man at Baltimore pier. Did you know they were on their way?’ he asked, sitting on the old wooden school bench that Keelin had brought with her from her parents’ home. Her mother used to sit on that bench when the weather was fine, raising her face to the sun dappling through the two towering monkey-puzzle trees in the back garden. She would stay there for hours, drowsy with the heat and the heady scent of roses and the buzzing of bees. Sure, amn’t I happy out here? Cáit would say, when Tomás asked if she was ever coming inside again. Lig dom agus imigh leat.