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?

Noah: What do you think happened to Nessa that night?

Maria: Do I believe Henry Kinsella did it, is that what you’re asking? Well, he had more reason than most, didn’t he?

Noah: Because of the affair?

Maria: Not just that. I’m talking about the reason Nessa went to the Kinsellas’ house that night. What she was going there to tell Henry.

Noah: What was she going to tell him?

Maria: Nessa said she was pregnant. And it was Henry Kinsella’s child.