‘Keelin!’ someone shouted from the room below. She couldn’t hide in here all night; she would have to make an appearance at some point this evening. She was the guest of honour, after all.
As she walked downstairs, she passed people sitting in clusters on the steps, two men hanging out the large bay window, holding their phones up to the thunderous sky. ‘Have you anything? Even one bar?’ the shorter man asked his boyfriend, groaning when the answer was negative. ‘Hi, Keelin,’ they chorused. ‘Happy birthday!’ She smiled and kissed cheeks and asked about partners and children and ‘Tell me, where did you get that dress, Jemima? It’s fabulous on you.’ The DJ decks were set up in the hall, and it was packed tight, men and women dancing, grinding hips, roaming hands looking for soft flesh to fondle. She tried to manoeuvre her way through the heaving mass of bodies, flinching as a cigarette burned against her bare forearm. She walked into the lounge, to find three women with French-manicured nails sitting around the glass-top table, chopping out lines of cocaine. ‘He wants Imogen to go to Gordonstoun in September,’ one was saying, ‘but it’s so far away and she’s so little. It’s a beastly idea.’ She bent over the table using a silver straw to snort the coke. She sniffed, rubbing her nose with her fingers. ‘Oh, hi, Keelin,’ she said, passing the straw on to the woman next to her. ‘Want some, darling?’
‘I’m OK, thanks.’
‘Your son is over there,’ she said, pointing at the open door behind them. ‘He’s rather tight, I’m afraid.’
Keelin turned to see Alex standing in the hall, a bottle of champagne clasped in both hands. He was pale, sweat patches blooming under his armpits, and he looked disorientated, as if unsure of where he was. ‘Will you excuse me?’ she said to the women, closing the door behind her.
‘Alex,’ she said, placing her hand against his back. It was damp, the shirt sticking to his skin. ‘Are you OK?’ He took a swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth clean with his hand afterwards, and belched loudly. She’d never seen her son drunk before. She and Henry had encouraged him to have an occasional glass of wine with dinner – that’s what the French did, Henry said, it was far more civilised – but Alex always refused. He didn’t like the feeling of being out of control, he said, and Keelin had been secretly relieved. Her ex had always been at his worst when he drank. ‘Alex,’ she tried again, but her son continued to ignore her. You’re only seventeen, she wanted to say, but it would be hypocritical of her, considering her own age when she and Seán and Jo had started sneaking sips from her father’s bottle of Powers. But they’d never had access to champagne, and it made her uneasy somehow, that Alex would have access to such luxuries before he had earned the right to, like she had. Or be exposed to other things, she thought, hoping Alex hadn’t seen the drugs drawn out like battle lines. ‘I think it’s for the best if you—’ she began but her son backed away, telling Keelin to leave him alone.
‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ she said.
‘Fuck off, Mam,’ he roared, shoving her away from him. She fell against the edge of the door frame, bone against wood, and although it didn’t hurt much, she was so stunned she almost burst into tears. She stood up straight before anyone could notice what had happened, but her son was gone, disappearing into the crowd. Keelin hesitated, then went to follow him, smiling at the guests as they said hello, wishing her a happy birthday. These strangers, with their pupils rushing black, hugging her and saying they loved her, radiating euphoria and sweat as they came up on the same batch of pills. Who were all of these people? And where was Henry?
She found him in the sunroom, with Miles Darcy, the man he considered his best friend from school, although Miles often gave the distinct air that he was only tolerating her husband until someone more amusing came along for him to play with. Keelin had been bemused the first time she was introduced to Miles, recognising in him many of Henry’s distinctive mannerisms, the expressions her husband used, the stories he told, but she had instantly understood that it seemed more natural when Miles did it, less practised, somehow. Watching the two men together, she had the unnerving impression that her husband had modelled himself on his friend but wasn’t brave, or perhaps stupid, enough to perform the imitation in front of him.
He was showing Miles something on his phone now, and the other man was laughing, punching Henry on the upper arm, saying, Well done, old chap. ‘Henry,’ Keelin said, and he put the phone away as soon as he heard her voice.
‘There’s the birthday girl,’ Miles said, kissing her on both cheeks. He was so handsome, with his tanned skin and slicked-back hair, his jaw the sharpest she had seen outside of a superhero comic. She breathed in that familiar scent of oranges and mint, the cologne he had handmade by a tiny perfumery in Tuscany; nothing as gauche as a shop-bought fragrance for him. ‘You look ravishing, as ever,’ he told her. She had a flutter in her stomach when he looked at her like that, his eyes gleaming, and she hated herself for being an easy target.
‘Babe,’ she said to Henry, ‘I need your help. I’ve just seen Alex and he’s very drunk.’ She widened her eyes as she said the word ‘drunk’, so her husband would understand the severity of the situation. ‘I think we should put him to bed before he gets any worse.’
‘It’s a party, Keels. Let the boy get blotto if he wants to,’ he said, discreetly pressing his knuckles against the side of his nose. She gritted her teeth. Henry had promised he wouldn’t do coke tonight, not with her son in the house, but Miles never turned up to a party without a few grams and Henry never could say no to Miles Darcy.
‘Do you have a cold, darling?’ she asked him. ‘You seem to have a bit of sniffle there. Same one that you have, Miles – what a strange coincidence.’ She looked around, searching for someone in a white shirt and black tie, preferably holding a tray of champagne flutes. ‘Where are the waiters gone to?’
‘I sent them home,’ Henry said. ‘The weather was getting worse, so I thought it might be for the best.’
‘That was a good idea,’ she had to admit.
‘But not to worry, lovely,’ Miles said, one hand on her elbow. ‘Come, let’s get you a proper drink. Can’t have the birthday girl getting parched, now, can we?’
She began to thank him but he wasn’t listening any more, he was staring at something behind her. A slight downturn of his lips, a dip of the head. ‘Well, well,’ he drawled, arching an eyebrow at Henry. Keelin glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see Nessa Crowley walk into the room. She was wearing a short black dress, a slip of a thing, her cat-like eyes accentuated with heavy silver shadow. She had a bottle of wine and a card in hand, and Alex was beside her, his face ecstatic, as if he had been waiting all night for her to arrive.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Miles said, raising his glass to them both, ‘I’m going to say hello to Alex. It’s been yonks since I’ve seen the boy.’ Keelin yanked Henry by the elbow before he could follow suit, pulling him over by the patio door where she glared at him. ‘Darling,’ he said, ‘you’re not going to let Miles go and chat up Nessa Crowley, are you? Poor Alex won’t stand a chance once Darcy has her in his sights. Do we really want a heartbroken teenager pining around the place for the foreseeable future?’
‘What is she doing here?’
‘Keelin.’ Her husband’s face became weary. ‘I thought we’d moved past all that nonsense.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry that I haven’t “moved past” this “nonsense” quickly enough for you. I’ll try to hurry up in future, meet your exacting schedule of when and how I’m supposed to process my feelings.’
‘I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I wanted you to have a good time tonight. I did all of this for you.’ He threw his hands out, gesturing at the room, the patchwork bunting, the helium balloons, the gold banners with Happy Birthday, Keelin! printed on them. ‘I organised this party. I invited all of our friends, and—’
‘You invited all of your friends, you mean.’<
br />
He left the champagne flute on the windowsill, then put his hands on her shoulders. ‘I love you, Keels,’ he said. ‘Only you. I’ve never loved anyone else but you. I’ve tried to be the best husband and father I can possibly be and I would never do anything to hurt you, especially not with a girl who doesn’t know her arse from her elbow. Please –’ he leaned in until she could taste his breath on her lips – ‘don’t do this. You’re the love of my life.’
‘I –’ She moved towards him, almost kissing him, but then she remembered that photo and that tattoo and she pulled away. ‘No. I don’t want that girl in our house, Henry. Tell her to leave, please.’
‘You know I can’t do that,’ he sighed. ‘She’s Alex’s guest; it’s not my place. Just try and have a good night, OK?’
He walked away from her, joining the other group and clapping a hand on Miles’s back with more strength than was strictly necessary, causing the other man to jolt forward, spilling champagne onto his shoes. Henry patted his breast pocket as he leaned in to say something to his friend, and the two men disappeared, probably to find a toilet so they could shove more cocaine up their noses, leaving Nessa and Alex behind. Alex was whispering in the girl’s ear, his forehead gleaming with sweat, while she looked at the ground, her face vacant.
I need a fucking drink. In the kitchen, Keelin opened a fresh bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé that was in the wine cooler and poured herself a generous glass. She exchanged terse hellos with the young women perched on the counter-top, their high heels in a heap on the floor. ‘Sorry,’ she said when one of them waved a mobile at her in desperation. ‘The reception is shocking on the island, I’m afraid.’
She couldn’t remember their names although they had been introduced earlier that evening. Two of Henry’s London friends were recently divorced, and they’d each turned up for the weekend with a blonde barely out of her teens, delighted with themselves. Is this how things would be from now on? Henry’s friends would get older but the women they dated would stay the same age, swapped out for a younger model once they hit their twenty-fifth birthday? It was such a cliché, Keelin thought, but more than that, it felt unfair. She knew if she turned up to a party with a younger man, she wouldn’t be greeted with elbows to the ribs and a muttered ‘well done’. She’d be stared at with pity and a hint of derision. Poor Keelin, they would say out of the side of their mouths. She looks like that chap’s mother, doesn’t she?
She drained her glass, then poured another one. She drank the second glass in three gulps, swaying a little as the alcohol rushed to her head. She would get drunk, she decided. That was the only way she would be able to endure this night.
‘Keelin?’ a soft voice said. The left strap of Nessa’s dress was falling off her shoulder, a creamy shimmer highlighting the sharply outlined collarbones. Keelin had a strange urge to touch them, to see what it would feel like, those delicate bones beneath supple skin, and she suddenly felt ashamed. Ashamed that her own collarbone was not what anyone would describe as thin. Ashamed of her soft belly straining at the material of her dress, ashamed of the empty glass in her hand. The shame felt corrosive and horribly familiar, and in an instant she saw herself in that house in Carlow again. Take off your clothes, her ex-husband would say, his face twisting with revulsion as she did as she was told. You fat bitch, he said when Keelin was standing in front of him, naked. You fat, disgusting bitch.
‘I wanted to give this to you,’ Nessa said, holding out the wine and the card. ‘In case it gets lost. I’m sure things can get pretty hectic at these parties.’
‘Yes,’ Keelin said, looking at the bottle. It was a cheap Chardonnay, a ten-euro special from the shop in Baltimore, she guessed, not anything Henry and his crowd would drink. ‘How are you, Nessa?’ she asked. ‘And how on earth did you manage to make it across the island in this weather? And in those shoes?’
They both laughed and Keelin wondered at herself, making polite chit-chat with the young woman who had sent her son such a lewd photo. But she couldn’t help it – she was Cáit Ó Mordha’s daughter and she’d been taught to be polite to guests. She would smile at Nessa and she would make the girl feel welcome in her home, even if it killed her.
‘I only came from Maria’s place; I didn’t have far to travel, really,’ Nessa said. ‘Don’t worry, Evie was in flying form – she loves my cousin almost as much as me,’ she said, as Keelin opened her mouth to enquire about her daughter. ‘Maria’s a great babysitter. They were all watching some Disney movie when I left.’ She nodded at the card. ‘There’s another present in there.’ She brushed off Keelin’s protestations with a bashful, ‘Ah, would you stop, it’s only tiny.’ Keelin opened the envelope and found a silver chain inside, an ice-cream charm strung on it.
‘It’s stupid,’ Nessa said. She rubbed her hands against the thin material of her dress, causing it to pull at her breasts and making it very obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra. ‘I remember waiting at the pier with Seán to welcome you home from college, and you would always buy me a 99 cone in the siopa afterwards.’ She looked down at Keelin – she was so tall, she must be easily over six foot in those heels – and her skin still had that perfect plumpness that seemed to vanish once you hit your mid-twenties. ‘I thought . . . I hoped the two of you would end up together. My sisters did too. We wanted you to be our aunt.’
‘It was never like that with Seán and me,’ Keelin said abruptly, putting the silver charm back in the envelope and tucking it into a side drawer in the dresser.
‘I know,’ Nessa said. ‘I just . . .’ Her eyes flicked to the door then back to Keelin. ‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ she said. ‘Alex said it would be fine, but it’s not right. I . . .’
She looked as if she might cry, and, despite herself, Keelin couldn’t help but feel sorry for the girl. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked as Nessa nodded a half-hearted ‘yes’. Her eyes on Keelin again, and she was about to say something, there was a weakening there, an unravelling of sorts on her face. ‘Keelin, I need to—’
‘Awww,’ one of the blondes behind them said, hopping down off the counter. ‘You two are so cute! Did you say she’s your aunt?’ she asked Nessa, who was dabbing her eyes with the tips of her fingers as delicately as she could, trying not to disturb her make-up.
‘No—’
‘That’s not—’
They both hurried to deny it, speaking over one another, but the blonde was either too drunk or too high to pay much attention. ‘Adorable,’ she cooed, aiming her iPhone at them. ‘Smile!’ The woman was almost cross-eyed – definitely pills, and strong ones – as Nessa wrapped an arm around Keelin’s shoulders, her hair swishing past Keelin’s face in an inhale of apple shampoo. Keelin pulled her mouth into a rictus smile, wishing it was all over and she could go to bed. Why had she allowed Henry to talk her into this stupid party in the first place? ‘Oh my God, you look amazing,’ the blonde said, holding the photo out so Nessa could admire her own beauty. ‘Wait.’ The girl tried to grab Keelin’s arm as she walked away, fingertips grazing flesh. But she didn’t turn back.
Upstairs, she locked the bedroom door behind her, falling face first on the mattress with a groan. She lay there in the dim room, concentrating on her breathing. A crack of thunder outside and the sky was lashed with lightning, burning bright for just a second. She hated this. She hated the small talk and the slurring voices, the same, boring tales being told over and over, smiling blankly because she couldn’t hear what the other person was saying and she didn’t want to ask them to repeat themselves for the fourth time. She hated feeling as if she was a ‘bore’ because she didn’t do drugs and would rather Henry abstained in front of her teenage son. She hated all of it. When she was younger, Keelin would have made herself stay downstairs and pretend that she was having fun. She would have kept refilling her glass of wine, hoping no one noticed her discomfort and thought her strange. She would have smiled through it all, silently wondering why she
couldn’t just relax and enjoy a party, like a normal person, what was wrong with her? That was partly what had drawn her to Henry in the first place, how gregarious he was, how comfortable he seemed in any social situation. She had hoped some of his confidence might rub off on her, and even if it did not, she could hide behind him, bask in his reflected glamour. But she was thirty-seven now, and she didn’t have to pretend any more. She was who she was; she had nothing to prove to anyone. She sat up on the bed, and tied her hair into a high ponytail. She would stay here for the night, and she would watch the storm tear the sky apart. It was her birthday. She could do whatever she wanted.
The guards would ask about that decision, when all of it was done. They’d wonder what Keelin was doing when a young woman lay in the grass outside their house, dying alone in the dark.
I was in my room, she would tell them. I don’t know what happened to Nessa Crowley. I swear.
She said it so many times she nearly believed it herself.
Chapter Forty-Four
No, we said, when we first heard the rumours about Alex Delaney and Sinéad Crowley.
No, it can’t be.
We refused to believe it was true because memories have always been long on the island; the past was a country we kept close to our hearts. We could remember Alex and Nessa, the way he would look at her. We remembered the boy’s grief when she died, his bloodless face as he stood at her grave. We knew he had suffered as much as we had done and we forgave him because of it. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, we said to each other. The boy is an innocent in all of this.
After the Silence Page 25