But the boy is now a man, and he has set his eyes upon the youngest sister. They have made plans, we hear, plans to leave Inisrún together. They will never come back.
And there will be no Crowley Girls left on this island then. Not a one.
Chapter Forty-Five
The day after Keelin had gone to the Crowleys’ house to beg Sinéad to have some sense, she had to watch her son leave her. Alex packed another bag, a larger one this time, shoving his favourite clothes and books into it roughly. He picked up a framed photo of him and Evie and wrapped it in a Superdry hoodie, placing it on top of his belongings, then zipped the case up. He took no other photos, not even the one from his first day at primary school, Alex resembling a miniature businessman in his shirt and tie, flanked by his mother and his grandmother, both women holding back their tears. He looked at the frame for a second, hesitating, then turned it face down on the bookshelf. Keelin tried not to be hurt by that.
‘Please,’ she said. She stood at the front door, her son halfway down the rose path, wheeling the suitcase behind him. ‘Alex.’ Her arms outstretched, reaching for him, for her baby, but he had gone too far from her. She couldn’t bring him home now.
Henry’s hand on her shoulder. ‘We have to trust him,’ he said, as she choked back a sob. ‘You have to let him go, darling.’
But she had lost so much, was it wrong that she didn’t want to lose Alex too? Evie rarely came home now, and it would only worsen when she went to university, when she started earning her own money and met a partner of her own. She would forge her own life, she would forget this island, and she would do so with frightening ease. All Keelin had ever wanted to do was to be a good mother, and it was clear she had failed with both her children.
Henry pulled her back inside the house and she tensed at the feel of his fingers on her skin. You’re dangerous, she thought. I don’t know what you are capable of. I am afraid of you.
But she said nothing. She let her son walk away. Alex would leave Inisrún that day and he would take the last Crowley Girl with him. Bríd and Brendan would be alone in that house, surrounded by photos of their dead daughter, nothing but their grief to sustain them. And it would be her fault, yet again.
As Henry led her into the kitchen, she thought about the Sunday morning after the party. The body had been found in their garden and Brendan Crowley was told to get there as fast as he could. Keelin never did find out who made that phone call. Perhaps it had been her, she thought afterwards; perhaps she had been the one to ring the Crowley house. There’s been an accident, she imagined herself saying. It’s an emergency. Brendan arrived within twenty minutes, running into the hall, his breathing laboured. Where is she? he shouted. He was wearing two different shoes, his hair sticking up at odd angles, his eyes wild. He looked around at the guests, the beautiful people shivering and crying, pale-faced. The debris of the night before around them, stale smoke, sticky floors, shards of broken glass glittering like diamonds. Where is my daughter? he said again, but quieter this time, as if he knew already what the answer would be. A woman raised a shaking hand and pointed outside. Henry tried to hold him back – he was a father himself, he would say to the guards later, he only did it to protect the man, he wouldn’t have wanted to see Evie in that condition if the roles were reversed – but Brendan pushed him off, forcing the double doors to the patio open, looking left, right, Where is she, where is she? And then he saw her.
No, no, Brendan said. He sank to his knees beside the body. Nessa.
There were no words after that. A noise came from the man and it was primal, gut deep, like an animal with its leg caught in a trap. His head pressing against the girl’s, her blood smearing across his forehead, like stripes of war paint. Daddy’s here now, he whispered. He scooped her up, cradling her limp body to his chest, but his legs buckled, giving way beneath him, and he fell to the ground, still carrying his daughter in his arms. He had only wanted to take her home, he would explain to the guards, when they asked why he had contaminated a potential crime scene in such a foolish manner. And he hadn’t known it was a crime scene then, Brendan told them. He had assumed it was an accident. All he’d wanted was to bring his daughter home, where she would be safe.
When it was over and Keelin could still hear that man screaming in her dreams, when she awoke, sweating, with the words ‘Nessa, Nessa’ heavy on her tongue, she would ask herself: was it worth it, what she had done?
Yes, she would whisper to herself, for she had to believe that it was.
It was worth it.
Chapter Forty-Six
The Crowley Girl
Keelin stayed in her bedroom the night of her thirty-seventh birthday party, and it was peaceful there, watching the lightning lick the earth clean until her bedside lamp began to flicker. A stutter at first, on–off, a whisper of a what was that? Barely perceptible, unless you were looking for it. Then on–off, and staying off, the island tumbling into a darkness so deep it felt as if her eyes had been cut out of her head. The music stopped, a roar of voices – ‘What?’ ‘Fuck.’ ‘Shit.’ ‘That’s my foot, you ass.’ Above it all, she could hear someone calling her name.
‘Keelin? Keelin?’
Footsteps on the stairs, too slow to be Alex’s, and not deliberate enough to be Henry’s, she wasn’t sure who this person was. A knock at the door – how did they even know she was in here? – then another one, more insistent, then a voice. ‘Keelin.’ It was Miles. He sounded sober, despite the coke; his capacity for drugs had always been much higher than Henry’s. ‘Are you awake? My apologies for disturbing you but we’re in rather a bind. The power has gone out.’
‘Miles?’ she said, making her voice sound sleepy. ‘Sorry, I had too much to drink and I . . . I must have dozed off.’ She was wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown, her face slick with night cream. She didn’t want him to see her like this, she would have bet good money he’d never seen his own wife without perfectly applied make-up. ‘Can you get Henry to fix it?’
‘We don’t know where he is, I’m afraid,’ Miles said.
‘OK. I’m coming.’ She swung her legs off the bed, cursing as she walloped her foot against the bedside locker. Using the light from her phone, she changed into leggings and flat boots, pulling her Musto rain jacket over a threadbare geansaí. ‘Right,’ she said to Miles when she opened the bedroom door, hoping he wouldn’t notice her oily skin, ‘let’s get this sorted, shall we?’
‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured guests as she passed them, downstairs and through the hall and into the kitchen, their worried faces illuminated by phone light. ‘We have it under control.
‘Have you seen Henry?’ she asked but everyone just shrugged in response. No, no, not for a while now, they said. Wasn’t he with you, Keelin?
‘There’s a small generator for Misty Hill,’ she told Miles as she hoisted herself up onto the counter in the utility room, feeling around the top shelf of the cupboard for a torch. She handed him the three flashlights she found there, along with two boxes of matches and a plastic bag of tea lights left over since Christmas. ‘But it needs to be switched on and I’m not sure where it is, Henry’s always taken care of that kind of thing . . . I don’t understand where he’s got to – it’s not like him to miss a party.’ She took Miles’s outstretched hand and jumped down, the bang of the cold tiles reverberating through her shoes and into the soles of her feet. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You distribute those – and tell people to be careful with the matches, will you? The last thing we need is for the house to go up in flames. I’ll go look for that husband of mine.’
Henry wasn’t in Evie’s bedroom, and Alex’s was locked, as it always was on nights like this, her son squeamish at the thought of strangers wandering into his room and touching his things without permission. She retraced her steps, feeling her way downstairs and through the hall, but it was so dark she could barely see, even with the candles twinkling on windowsills a
nd tabletops. She called out his name again, but it was lost in the chatter of voices:
– we’re stuck here, this is such a –
– this is what you get in the country, I suppose, but really I –
– bloody Ireland. I don’t –
– Do you have any signal yet? This is absolutely –
And then she realised. She still hadn’t seen Alex, and she hadn’t seen Nessa either. The girl had probably pulled her son into a corner, whispering that she wanted him, now, hoisting up her dress to show him how ready she was. She would care little that they were in Keelin’s house and could be caught at any time. That would be half the thrill for a girl like that, she bet. Keelin imagined Nessa pressing her body against Alex’s, reaching her hand down to – no, she said to herself, queasy. She wasn’t going to think about that. She spotted Miles lighting a row of tea lights on top of the mantlepiece, his forehead creasing in concentration. ‘Have you seen Alex?’ she asked, but Miles shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t have gone out?’ he asked, recoiling as a gust of wind punched against the windows. Was the glass strong enough to withstand the pressure; should she be warning people to stay away from them in case they shattered? ‘Not in this weather, surely?’
‘I don’t know.’ Keelin tried the handle to the patio, and the door flew open, almost taken off its hinges. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, struggling to close it behind her. She pushed against the wind, feeling as if she might be knocked off her feet with the weight of it. ‘Alex,’ she yelled. ‘Alex!’ The sky was on fire, like shooting bursts of fireworks. A cracking whip of light and then an ear-splitting grumble of thunder, too close together for comfort. The storm must be right above the house, she could hear her father warning her; she needed to get inside immediately. She stumbled, the wind slamming her into the garage, her spine straightening in pain as she felt the wallop of the wooden wall against her back. She could barely see now, blinded by the heavy rain, but she fumbled until her fingers grasped the iron handle, trying frantically to slot it sideways. She nearly had to crawl into the garage, using all of her strength to pull the door closed behind her. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered as she pushed herself to standing, shaking the wet off her like a dog.
Then, with a prickle against the nape of her neck, she could feel that something was behind her. She turned around, trying to see in the shadows, but there was nothing. Still, she could sense a presence, a person. Someone holding their breath and waiting for Keelin to move first.
‘Henry?’ she said uncertainly. ‘Is that you?’
‘Darling.’ She heard her husband come towards her, his steps heavy on the wooden floor. ‘I came to get more food – the caterer’s left the platters out here and we’ve enough to feed an army, but the weather was so frightful I thought I should stay here and wait it out. But I don’t think it’s going to get any better, is it? What rotten luck.’ His hand on her waist, nudging her towards the door. ‘Let’s go back to the house, shall we?’
‘But we have to get the generator sorted and I can’t find Alex, where –’ She stopped, inhaling deeply. No, she thought. It couldn’t be. No. She took another breath in through her nose, until she was sure, she needed to be sure. But she had been correct. It was the scent of apple shampoo.
A flare of lightning, double quick, throwing the room into relief. The shape of a person standing beside her husband, tall and thin. A woman. She disappeared into the night again but Keelin pressed the keys on her phone with trembling fingers and held it up, pointing it in their faces. Smeared lipstick and an unbuttoned shirt and a short black dress, bunched around the woman’s waist, showing lace knickers and long, lean thighs.
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ Henry said, and Keelin couldn’t help but laugh, because of all the stupid, clichéd things her husband could have said when she caught him fucking a twenty-one-year-old, that had to be top of the list.
‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘Just shut up, just, just –’ And she reached out and hit him across the face as hard as she could. She did it again, scrawling at him, wanting to feel his skin under her fingernails. She would draw blood from this man. ‘I’ll kill you,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll kill you, you piece of shit.’
‘Keelin . . .’ The young woman’s voice. ‘Stop it. You’re hurting him.’ Nessa stood in between them, wincing as Keelin’s flailing hands struck her too. ‘Henry.’ She crouched down. ‘H, are you OK?’ As Keelin kept her mobile light trained on the two of them, she could see the girl stare at her husband like she had loved him for years. It was then she realised this wasn’t a one-time thing, a drunken snog after too many glasses of wine. This had happened before, and more than once. The worst of it was how good they looked together – they made sense in a way Keelin suspected she and Henry never had. Both tall and beautiful and infinitely desirable. How long had this been going on for? she wondered, suddenly nauseated. How could she have been so blind?
‘Get out of my house right now,’ Keelin told Nessa Crowley. ‘Or I’ll kill you too.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Maria Crowley, Nessa’s first cousin
Maria: I wasn’t a Crowley Girl, not really.
Noah: How do you mean?
Maria: Ah, you know. I lived in Dublin with my mam in those days – I was only on Inisrún during the summer. And I didn’t look like the girls either; I wasn’t going to be darkening the door of a modelling agency any time soon, let’s put it like that. And they were weirdly innocent in lots of ways. They didn’t drink, they never had boyfriends. Nessa used to think everything from Dublin had to be better. She’d want to see what kind of clothes I was wearing, what music I was listening to. I told her she was the lucky one, growing up full-time on the island, but she didn’t listen. (laughs) Nessa never listened if you were telling her something she didn’t want to hear.
Noah: Were the three of you close?
Maria: Róisín and I clashed a bit – we were probably too alike, to be honest – and Sinéad always seemed so much younger than me back then. But there was just the year between me and Nessa so we were inseparable.
Noah: Would you tell us about the Nessa Crowley you knew?
Maria: Everyone talks about how smart she was, but Nessa could be silly too; she loved stupid jokes, the sort of thing you’d only find funny when you were still in fourth class. She was a good singer too, better than half the chancers who came to record at Misty Hill over the years. When Saoirse sings now, she reminds me of Nessa.
Noah: Saoirse is your daughter, correct?
Maria: Yeah. I got pregnant when I was seventeen. He was staying at Misty Hill, a musician. He’s pretty well known in Ireland but he never made it anywhere else, much to his eternal disappointment. (laughs) I would have been screwed if it wasn’t for Keelin.
Noah: In what way?
Maria: When she heard I was pregnant, and it was a Misty Hill resident who was responsible, it was Keelin who insisted the Kinsellas step in. She knew what it was like to be a single mother, how scary it could be, you know? She persuaded Jonathan and Olivia that the retreat needed a hairdressing salon and I should be the one to run it. I try and remember that when . . . well, I try and remember it, anyway.
Noah: We heard it was you who told the guards about Nessa having a relationship with Henry Kinsella. Is that true?
Maria: (pause) It is. I was in shock when they came to talk to me and I just blurted it out, but the guards promised it was all ‘confidential’. Confidential, me hole – sure, who else could have leaked everything to the press later on?
Noah: When did Nessa tell you that she was in a relationship with Henry Kinsella?
Maria: It was the autumn of 2008, maybe September or October? She was back at college anyway. I kept saying, you’re only messing, this is a joke, right? Like, everyone thought Henry was a ride, but he was almost twenty years older than us and he was married! To Keelin – our uncle’s best friend. It was mental.
>
Noah: Did you tell anyone else?
Maria: No. Maybe I should have. But Nessa swore me to secrecy and I didn’t want to betray her trust.
Noah: Did you ever tell Nessa to end things with Henry?
Maria: Did I what? I begged her to break it off from the very first moment she told me, but there was no talking to her. She was weak for that man. She kept telling me how sweet he was, how amazing he was in bed, how he made her feel things she didn’t know were possible. She couldn’t see beyond him.
Noah: Were you shocked by their relationship?
Maria: Shocked? I don’t know about that. Nessa could be . . . she could be determined. If she wanted something, she would go to any lengths to get it. Everyone on the island was in love with her, but sure, of course that wouldn’t be good enough for Nessa, of course she’d have to set her sights on one of the Kinsellas, just to prove she could.
Noah: Were you jealous of her?
Maria: Jesus. You’re really asking the difficult questions, aren’t you? (silence) If I’m being honest, I suppose I was a bit. No, I was. I was . . . The three of them were so beautiful and I didn’t want that to matter to me, because it didn’t matter to them. But it’s easy not to care about your appearance when you look like those girls. And I didn’t.
Noah: Do you miss her?
Maria: Ah, come on. Of course I do. The pain never goes away. You’d have yourself driven demented thinking through all the different scenarios, the what-ifs and maybes. Wondering what our lives would be like now if Seán hadn’t suggested Nessa as a tutor, or if I’d refused to babysit Evie Kinsella on my own that night, made Nessa stay in the cottage with me to mind the two girls. What would she be doing now?
After the Silence Page 26