FINTAN MURPHY:
I ended up staying in Manchester over Christmas, which was a difficult decision. My mother was in assisted living by this point. She had severe mental health problems that had deteriorated as I got older. My father, Patrick, had been bedridden with depression when I was a boy. It gave expression to a feeling my mother had always nurtured, that I was weak in some sense, that I’d crumble and let her down one day as well. Perhaps she had some inkling about my sexuality even then, even before I did. So she initiated a program geared toward toughening me up. All the old ways—sending me out to walk a mile in the rain, making me carry sacks of spuds back from town. Then she started trying to scare me. It started with me coming in and finding her collapsed on the floor one day. Except her eyes were wide open, and after the initial shock passed, I realized she was pretending to be dead. She could lie like that for hours, unnervingly still, never blinking, not responding. She wouldn’t get up until I’d calmed down, then she’d emphasize the importance of the lesson, that one day I would find her dead, and I had to be ready for it. Once I got used to that, she started to die in front of me all the time. She’d have heart attacks, brain aneurysms, or strokes and fall down on the ground. Sometimes she’d wet herself, even void herself for the full effect.
It was just the two of us by my teens, and there was something so self-evidently mad about her that I almost found it less disturbing than I should have. It’s amazing what can seem normal when it’s all you know. I spent my first five years dressed as the little girl she’d actually been expecting, which was confusing to say the least. Her issues grew worse as she started to drink more. I came home from school once thinking she was out for the evening, then got woken up some hours later by the sound of screaming coming from under my bed. I mean bloodcurdling stuff. She’d been hiding there the whole time, just waiting for me to nod off. She’d hide behind curtains, under her own bed, in other rooms and do the same thing. She was committed by one of my aunts before I went away. She was safe at least, but it made staying in town and trying to help the Nolans a difficult decision for me.
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Maybe it was the way things were between us. Maybe it was how I’d reacted to his suggestion I play Zoe in the reconstruction—not saying anything, just nodding along—but I was never asked by anyone to help with the charity. I was never involved in it at all. It’s true I’d already left town by the time it got up and running, but they shut me out of those early conversations.
FINTAN MURPHY:
I’m not sure that’s entirely true. I was in the room on several occasions when Robert tried to speak to Kimberly about it. With that said, it was amazing what you could miss at the time. I suppose it made more of an impression on me because the idea of two loving parents was revelatory in my eyes. Even so, when Robert told me that Sally had suggested I help out with what went on to become the Nolan Foundation, I declined. Honestly, I felt like I was already putting my studies in jeopardy by dedicating so much time to them as it was, and I’d also started seeing someone, my flatmate Connor. It was early days, but he was my first real partner, and there just wasn’t time for anything else. Then one day, Robert broke down and said he didn’t think he could do it without me. Sally was in too much pain, and his relationship with Kimberly was fraught, they weren’t on the same wavelength at all. I thought if he pushed her, they might end up in some huge fight again, so I agreed to help, not quite realizing how much work would be involved.
All I did that year was research.
Preliminary conversations trying to work out what would be required, a long way from actually forming the foundation. But, well, suffice it to say that my relationship with Connor suffered as a result. I certainly sympathized with Kimberly a lot more afterward. I got to see Robert’s great skill close-up. He can play people and make them feel like they don’t really have a choice in things.
SALLY NOLAN:
Rob thought Kim and I couldn’t take the strain of dealing with the foundation, so neither of us ever had much to do with it, even when it was still just an idea. I never suggested Fintan help out. It just wouldn’t have occurred to me. I mean, it made sense—he was an old soul even then. But no doubt Rob was telling another one of his white lies to try and get his way.
ROBERT NOLAN:
The way I remember it is that Fintan did all the early legwork without my ever needing to ask. You could probably say there’d be no foundation without him. I didn’t have that kind of patience. I was too hardheaded.
* * *
7 All interviews with Carys Parry were conducted by Joseph Knox and added to Evelyn’s text in 2019.
17.
“Bad News”
As Alex’s personal problems begin to spiral out of control, a figure steps out of the shadows with tragic results.
SAM LIMMOND:
After Christmas, Alex was different, and especially with me. Distant, wasted. I knew she was upset about Zoe, she was struggling, but we started spending less and less time together.
I still feel like shit about that now.
Drugs were something I just didn’t understand. They were out of my realm. Then, being a teenage boy, thinking everything was about me, I took her behavior as a rejection instead of a cry for help.
LIU WAI:
I’d gone back early after the Christmas break, expecting to be at the center of this big investigation, but it was like nothing had changed. I mean, nothing except the people, since everyone was acting different. I guess Kim was with her parents somewhere that night. Anyway, I called Sam because I didn’t know what else to do? I was in my room and I could hear Alex in hers, having what sounded like this huge argument with someone, laughing, swearing, the works. Sam was always quiet, always sweet, so I assumed she had to be with this infamous second boyfriend she had on the side. Except when I happened to walk by her room, the door was open and it was obvious that she was alone.
She was really agitated, really stressed out, and her eyes were all red from where she’d been rubbing at them. She heard me coming and launched herself across the room, like, nails digging into my arm, saying, “Can you see him? Can you see that man? Tell me you can see him?”
I was terrified.
My hairs were standing on end, it was like a film or something. I sort of stammered, said, “Alex, sweetheart, there’s no one there.” She looked at me like death, these red raw eyes, then went back into her room and slammed the door.