‘And what would you rather happen to me?’ He leaned against the banister, looking up at her. ‘Should I rot away in the attic, like the proverbial madwoman? I can’t stay here, Mam. I can’t be around Henry any more. Not after what he did to me on Christmas Day.’ His hands went up to touch the back of his head, the wound still healing over. ‘He could have killed me, Mam, and you did nothing to stop him. You just stood there, exactly like you did when—’
‘That’s not fair.’ She didn’t want to talk about that night, about what she had or hadn’t done, all the ways she had failed her son. ‘Your stepfather is trying to protect you.’
‘Protect me?’ He stared at her. ‘You saw what he did, Mam. I was lucky I didn’t need stitches.’ He gripped the banister tightly. ‘I don’t know how you can stand it either,’ he said. ‘After what he did, I don’t know you can bear to be in the same room as that man.’
‘That was a long time ago.’
‘Maybe for you it was. But I . . .’ His voice was so sad it hurt her to hear him. ‘I don’t want to end up like you, Mam. I don’t want to be trapped here, on this island, surrounded by ghosts. Sinéad makes me happy, she’s—’
‘She’s Nessa’s sister!’ Keelin shouted. ‘You’re putting us all in danger. You’re putting me in danger, Alex. Don’t you care about what will happen to me, after everything I’ve done?’
‘Don’t put that on me,’ he said, switching the bag from his left hand to his right. ‘That was your decision, yours and Henry’s. I didn’t get much say in the matter, did I?’
‘I just . . . don’t want you to get hurt,’ she whispered. ‘Not again.’
‘No one is going to get hurt. It’ll be different this time.’
‘Are you trying to convince me of that?’ she asked, walking downstairs until she was beside him. She stood up on her tippy-toes and touched a hand to his cheek. ‘Or yourself, mo stoirín?’
Chapter Forty-Two
Keelin rarely went on Facebook any more. She’d been forced to tighten her security settings when her page was hacked after the murder, photos of her family copied and shared on social media, This is what a murderer looks like!!! captioned beneath. Her account was now under her maiden name, her profile photo a generic shot of a sunset and her friend list kept barebones small, but she still avoided the site as much as possible. She was protecting herself from the inevitable agony she would feel when confronted with a photo of Johanna and Susan and their adopted sons, twin boys she knew she should have been godmother to, rather than Susan’s older sister, or an update popping up to tell her Seán Crowley was ‘in a relationship’ with someone Keelin didn’t know, an olive-skinned woman with a Spanish surname. She should be grateful, she thought, that Seán and Jo hadn’t simply unfriended her, severing the final link between them all, but it still stung, these reminders of how far they had drifted from her. But she had to log on today; she needed to find Sinéad Crowley and she couldn’t just ring the house phone and ask Bríd if she could speak with her daughter, so she was reduced to searching for the girl on social media. She was surprisingly easy to find – young people, Keelin thought, no understanding of privacy – and she sent her a short message, telling the woman that she needed to speak with her urgently. She pressed send, then sat in front of the computer for the next hour, waiting for a response. The screen went black, and for some reason she found herself thinking of a summer’s day, many years before. It was during a heatwave and everyone on the island was complaining about the weather, how clammy they felt, how sticky the air was. Keelin had been sitting at the picnic tables down by the pier, the one marginally less covered in dried bird shit than the other, an ice lolly sweating onto the back of her hand. Alex was sitting next to her, turning the pages of his comic book, and as she looked down at her son she had the rare sensation of being utterly content, a lightness unfolding in her chest. There were children on the beach, running to the edge of the water and shrieking at how cold it was, their mothers calling, Stay where I can see you. Keelin’s eye was drawn to a blonde girl, maybe eight or nine years of age, and it took her a few seconds to recognise who it was. Nessa Crowley. She was picking something up from the shallows of the shore, pulling her arm back with as much force as she could manage, and throwing it back out to sea. Keelin tossed her ice pop into a nearby bin, wishing she had something to clean her hands with. She asked her son if he wanted to come for a paddle but he said, No, Mammy, I’m reading my book. Keelin said she would only be a few minutes and she walked down the uneven stone steps to the sand below, picking her way through seaweed and driftwood and cigarette butts, the odd Coke can crushed beneath them. Hello, she said as she approached the girl. What are you up to, Nessa? The girl held out her cupped palms for Keelin to see, and nestled in the heart of them was a round jellyfish, a translucent, quivering disc threaded through with purple veins. I’m rescuing them, Nessa said. I’m sending them home.
Facebook Messenger dinged and Keelin shook the computer mouse quickly, re-awakening the screen.
Sinéad Crowley: Hi Keelin.
Keelin Ní Mhordha: Is Alex with you?
Sinéad Crowley: Yeah.
Sinéad Crowley: He’s here.
Keelin Ní Mhordha: Are your parents there?
Sinéad Crowley: No.
Sinéad Crowley: Dad had to go to the doctor so Mam took him to the mainland yesterday. They’re staying in my aunt Áine’s for the night, she still has the place on Model Farm Road.
Keelin Ní Mhordha: Can I come over?
Keelin Ní Mhordha: It’s important.
Keelin Ní Mhordha: Please Sinéad.
Henry would check the search history on the computer later. He often did that, just to make sure Keelin wasn’t googling the Misty Hill case, it would only upset her, he said. Henry had her passwords now too – just so he could check her social-media accounts regularly, delete any threatening messages, get rid of friend requests from voyeuristic strangers – but he would be able to see that Keelin had been on Facebook without discussing it with him first. He’d see the messages she had written to Sinéad, and he would be disappointed that she hadn’t listened to his advice, which was to leave this mess alone. Alex isn’t going to do anything stupid, her husband said. Why would he? And really, darling, you need to remember what happened the last time you came between that boy and a Crowley Girl. We’re still dealing with the aftermath of that disaster, aren’t we?
The computer dinged again.
Sinéad Crowley: Sure. Come away over.
Alex opened the door to the Crowleys’ house, his face reddening in frustration. ‘Mam,’ he said. ‘I know you’re upset, but you can’t do this. It’s not fair.’
Keelin didn’t look at her son. ‘Sinéad,’ she said, peering over Alex’s shoulder at the silhouette hovering at the end of the hall. ‘Can I talk to you?’ Alex spluttered in annoyance but Keelin ignored him. ‘Alone, please, Sinéad.’
‘This is not OK,’ Alex said. ‘You can’t control me like this. I’m not a child any more, Mam.’
But she kept her eyes on Sinéad, and she could see the younger woman relenting under her desperate gaze. ‘Go for a walk,’ the girl said to Alex, touching his arm with her small hands. They were delicate; thin fingers, nails painted a pale pink. Keelin thought of Nessa’s hands when they found her, digging into the dirt as if searching there for something to save her. Life must seem so precious when it’s about to be taken away from you. ‘Up to the lighthouse, maybe,’ Sinéad said. ‘Give me and your mam a chance to talk properly.’
‘I don’t think—’ he protested, but Sinéad wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his chest. ‘It’s fine, boo,’ she said, and Keelin tried not to show how taken aback she was at the comfort they had with one another, the level of intimacy that ‘boo’ conveyed in one word.
Alex let out a loud sigh. ‘I’m giving you twenty minutes,’ he said to his mother, grabb
ing his jacket from a hook on the wall. When the door closed behind him, she and Sinéad stood there, neither sure what to say. ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’ Sinéad said. ‘I will,’ Keelin replied.
She sat at the pine table, its legs wobbling on the uneven lino. The room was a shrine to Nessa, photographs of her smiling face on every surface. Her eyes moved from the photos to the dozens of knick-knacks; Bríd Crowley had developed a taste for the sentimental since she’d last been here. There was a fridge magnet declaring ‘Grief is the price we pay for love’; a pin cushion embroidered with ‘The more beautiful the memories, the more difficult the parting’; and an etching of a broken heart with the words ‘When a child dies, you bury the child in your heart’, framed on the opposite wall.
‘Do you want normal or herbal? We’ve lots of herbal teas,’ Sinéad said, opening the cupboard and riffling through the boxes inside. ‘Green tea, peppermint, we have chamomile, and I’m pretty sure we—’
‘You know you can’t keep seeing Alex, don’t you?’
Sinéad stilled, her hands dropping to her side. ‘But I love him,’ she said, as if it were that easy.
‘And you think that’s a good enough reason to break your parents’ hearts, do you? You’re a smart girl, Sinéad. You must know your mam and dad will never accept him.’
‘They might, in time.’
‘They won’t.’ Keelin shook her head. ‘You’re not a mother – you don’t understand how deep this goes. You bringing home a Kinsella is their worst nightmare.’
‘Alex isn’t a Kinsella,’ Sinéad argued. ‘And he was barely at the party that night; he passed out from the drink before the power cut.’
‘Are we really going to argue over semantics here? Jesus Christ, girl. What were you thinking?’
‘I wasn’t thinking,’ Sinéad said, sitting beside her. Keelin couldn’t help but breathe in, wondering if this Crowley Girl would smell like apple shampoo too. ‘For the first time since Nessa died, I wasn’t thinking about her or Mam and Dad.’ The girl dropped her head, a tear splashing against the table. It was filthy, toast crumbs and bits of food and a splodge of jam. When was the last time someone had cleaned in here? ‘I’d fancied Alex for years. Ever since he arrived home from boarding school,’ Sinéad said. ‘He came to the house to drop back a maths book he’d borrowed from Nessa, and he seemed different to the island boys – less obnoxious, or something, although that wouldn’t have been hard, the way they drooled all over us. None of them looked at us like we were real people, we were just a . . . a trio to them, a collection of bodies. The Crowley Girls. Alex wasn’t like that.’ She sniffed, touching her fingertip to her nose to stop it running. ‘But he was clearly in love with Nessa, and she seemed mad about him too. It had always just been the three of us before that. The three musketeers, my dad called us, like peas in a pod. But all of a sudden, the only thing she wanted to do was spend her weekends with Alex Delaney. Ró used to give out about it, say Nessa was being selfish, but I understood. I’d want to spend all my time with Alex too, if I could. But he wouldn’t have me, not while Nessa was around. The nights I spent crying myself to sleep because I thought my heart was broken.’ She tried to laugh. ‘I’d find out soon enough what it was really like to have a broken heart.’
‘I’m sorry.’ That was all Keelin ever seemed to say these days. Sorry, sorry, sorry. She had plenty to apologise for, after all.
‘I didn’t see Alex for years after Nessa died,’ Sinéad continued. ‘But when the documentary makers arrived to the island –’ That fucking documentary, Keelin thought; of course it would have played a part in this debacle – ‘and Mam and Dad were so het up about it. Hoping the Australians would solve the case, as if they’d be smarter than the guards. Dad keeps all the newspaper clippings, you know, he reads them every day. Every single one, as if he thinks he might find something this time, a clue we all missed. He didn’t like it when he heard the Australians were staying in your cottage; he thought it might prejudice them. He wouldn’t let it go –Will the documentary be fair, Sinéad, or do you think that man is paying them off? We need justice, Sinéad, that man can’t get away with this – and I thought I was going insane. I started heading out during the day, I’d walk for hours, back and forth between the lighthouse and the fulacht fiadh until I could be sure my father would be asleep.’
‘And it was there you met Alex,’ Keelin said, leaning forward in her chair.
‘Yes,’ Sinéad said. ‘At first I didn’t talk to him. I pretended like he didn’t exist. But after a while we were arriving at the lighthouse at the same time every day, and I couldn’t keep pretending that it was a coincidence. He followed me on Instagram and I followed him back. It didn’t seem . . . Well, it didn’t seem like anything in the beginning.’
Did you talk about Nessa? Keelin wanted to ask. Did Alex tell you it was her whom he loved, that it was Nessa who had been the girl of his dreams? Did he tell you what he wrote about your sister in his diary, the words he used to describe her, the things he wanted to do to her body? Did he talk to you about that photograph, pale legs, spread, and a tattoo dancing on her ribs, the one your sister sent so willingly?
‘We didn’t plan to fall in love,’ Sinéad said. ‘You have to believe me. It just happened.’
‘You have no idea what you’re doing. Alex is . . .’
‘Alex is what?’
‘He’s damaged,’ Keelin said, the word searing, the shame of having to say such a thing about her own child. For it was her fault he had seen such terrible things. She had broken him herself, snapped him in two. He would never be the same again. ‘He’s been through so much, Sinéad. You don’t understand.’
‘Keelin –’ the girl stared at her – ‘are you honestly trying to imply that Alex is the only person who’s had a hard time since the night of Nessa’s murder? She was my sister. Do you know what my life has been like?’ She took a breath. ‘Róisín never comes home any more – she blames the cost of flights from New Zealand or the hassle of travelling with a toddler, but I know it’s because she can’t bear to be in this house. This crypt. All we’re allowed to talk about here is Nessa. Perfect Nessa, who would have cured cancer and stopped climate change if she was still around, according to Mam and Dad. They seem to have forgotten they ever yelled at her for sleeping in late or for never tidying her bedroom. That she made –’ She looked at Keelin, her face colouring in embarrassment. They both knew what else Nessa Crowley had done. ‘And now we have to act like she was this saint,’ the girl rushed on. ‘The rest of us can’t live up to it, and I don’t even want to try any more. I’m suffocating, Keelin.’ Her voice began to shake. ‘All along, I’ve told myself that I can’t leave the island because I’d be abandoning Mam here with Dad; Dad and his episodes and his medication and his conspiracy theories. I’m stuck here until one of them dies, and I’m praying it’s my father first, because if it’s Mam, I’ll have to mind that man for the rest of his life and I’ll never escape Inisrún. And I hate myself for even thinking like that but I’ve never been anywhere, I’ve never seen anything, I . . .’ Sinéad was sobbing now, the garbled words falling from her mouth. ‘I deserve to have my own life, don’t I? I love Alex, and he loves me too, even after everything that’s happened. Why can’t you be happy for us?’
Keelin closed her eyes, praying for guidance. She blinked and for a second she thought it was Nessa sitting before her, watching her. Maybe Nessa would always be there when she closed her eyes. Maybe she was destined to see the Crowley Girls face in the shadows, waiting for her, for the rest of her days. She put one hand over her mouth, waiting for the nausea to recede – it’s not her, it’s not her – and when her heart rate slowed down, she spoke again.
‘What age are you, Sinéad?’ Keelin put her hands on the table, spreading her fingers out, and she examined her rings. The large marquise diamond flanked by two trillion-cut stones, set in a platinum band, the simple silver wedding band tha
t had belonged to her mother. And she remembered the day Henry had knelt before her, holding out a small velvet box containing this engagement ring, and he told her he would love her forever. How happy she had been.
‘I’m twenty-five,’ the young woman replied.
‘You’re so young,’ Keelin said, meaning, you’re too young. Meaning, you’re just a child. You don’t know what you’re doing.
‘I don’t feel young,’ Sinéad said. ‘I haven’t felt young in a very long time.’
Chapter Forty-Three
The Crowley Girl
Keelin sat in front of the dressing table, staring at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She forced a smile, and when her expression returned to neutral, she noticed that the tiny laughter lines at the corners of her mouth didn’t disappear, like they would have before, but remained there, still creasing the skin. She was thirty-seven today and it felt like the end of something. She wasn’t old, exactly, but she was no longer a young woman either, her future stretching out ahead of her, full of possibilities to be explored, diverging roads to be chosen between, each one leading to unknown destinations. She had decided upon her path – marriage, children, this island – and she had to be happy with that. You just have to get on with things, her father always said. Mar a chóirigh tú do leaba, caithfair luí innti.
From downstairs, she could hear the heartbeat of the party, frenetic, pulsating fast. The murmur of voices, the occasional shout of laughter, pounding music, bottles dropped and broken, a hissed shit as glass shattered against the tiled floor. A flash of light streaked across the room, and she pushed the window open, leaning out to get a better look at the storm knifing the sky apart. We should cancel the party, she had said when the weather warnings were put in place for the weekend. Nonsense, Henry replied. Where’s your sense of adventure, darling? Maybe that was another thing she had left behind in her youth, her sense of adventure, along with her willingness to smile and stay silent when a man was making stupid plans.
After the Silence Page 24