The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  Even now, I can feel how it thrilled my veins, sharpened my memory, fuelled my determination to know, to find out. It draws me ahead of my story, but right now I cannot help that. I cannot help it because there is nothing more powerful than knowledge.

  After Rebecca left with Frances and Martin, I made my way towards the conservatory. The evening sun was still shining. I knew that if I sat in one of the armchairs, there was a good chance I might sleep. Sitting up, I felt that I could doze better and still keep one eye, one ear, open for Ella.

  Just as I eased myself into the cushions, I felt the mobile vibrate in my shirt pocket. I glanced at the screen and answered at once. ‘Gillian?’

  ‘Patrick. Can you talk?’

  ‘Yes. Ella is upstairs, resting. This is a good time.’

  ‘Can we meet, do you think? I’d prefer to speak to you face to face.’

  ‘No.’ My tone was more aggressive than I’d intended. ‘Sorry, Gillian. I mean, no, I can’t. I can’t leave Ella. I gave her half of one of your sleeping tablets earlier, and she’s just dozed off. But I don’t know how long she’ll sleep for.’

  I could feel Gillian’s uncertainty.

  ‘I’m fine, Gillian, really. I can do this. Tell me, please.’

  ‘I’m concerned about you, too, Patrick, it’s—’

  I cut her short. ‘I know you are, Gillian, and I appreciate that. Truly. But right now, this is my job, my work, my only focus. Tell me what you’ve found out.’ I waited, feeling the tension grow like a steel band tightening across my forehead. For a moment, it felt as though the air in the room tightened, too, in sympathy. Time hovered and I waited.

  ‘I spoke to Colm Tracey just now, once he’d completed the post-mortem. He was reluctant to give me any details, but I persuaded him.’

  I tried to calm myself. I could hear Gillian draw a deep breath. ‘There is evidence that Daniel has been self-harming, and probably for some time.’

  I closed my eyes. It was what I had been waiting for. That July day – a mere seven or eight weeks ago – the hotel room in Madrid, my young son: all swam into view again. Daniel, the bath sheet suddenly falling away to reveal scars that criss-crossed his white, vulnerable flesh. The crowding memories of the swift red marks were all too vivid. I didn’t need to ask how he’d harmed himself. But I asked her anyway.

  ‘Patrick?’

  ‘I’m here. What sort of evidence?’

  ‘Significant scarring across both thighs, his abdomen and several on both inner forearms. Some on his shoulders. Probably done with either a blade or a sharp knife.’

  I was grateful for her clinical precision. ‘Old or new?’

  ‘Both,’ she replied, without hesitation. ‘Most of the scars on the thighs and the abdomen are maybe seven or eight months old. Others, particularly those on the forearms, are very recent, possibly even within the last week or two.’

  I opened my eyes again. Gillian’s words seemed to hang between us. I could almost see them before me in the air, suspended on wings of accusation.

  ‘It’s very difficult to spot, Patrick. When kids cut, they tend to be very clever about hiding what they’ve done. None of these would have been visible, unless you’d seen Daniel naked.’

  I couldn’t reply.

  ‘Would you like me to come over?’

  ‘No. Thank you, Gillian, but no. I will tell Ella in a couple of days, once the funeral is over. I cannot ask her to endure any of this right now.’

  ‘And what about you? You are enduring this right now. How are you coping?’

  I gave a short laugh. ‘I’ll tell you when I know.’

  ‘Have you someone with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘My daughters. They are a fantastic support to both of us.’ At least that much was true.

  ‘Okay. Talk to them, Patrick. Confide in someone, it’s important. Call me anytime if you have questions. Day or night.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Do you need anything to help you through the next few days?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine. I’ll manage.’

  ‘All right, then. We’ll talk about this again. Don’t forget I’m here if you need me. Take care of yourself.’

  Why? I thought. Why should I bother taking care of myself? I leaned my head back, filled with the same extraordinary urgency I had felt on the previous day when we’d found Daniel. I needed to know. I needed to understand why. And for that, I needed to remember.

  What was I going to tell Ella? And how could I tell her without all the Furies being unleashed upon me? I’d seen the marks on my son’s young flesh, and had done nothing about it. I’d chosen to believe that all was well, that whatever had caused Daniel grief in the past was just that: in the past. The couple of months that had now elapsed since our last holiday had all seen my boy revert to his usual, happy self. Once Ella arrived in Madrid, the mood of that tense afternoon in the hotel dissipated at once. Daniel had been bright, funny, interested in everything again.

  So much so, that I’d begun to question what I’d seen. I’d keep a close eye on him, certainly: I promised myself that much. And I’d involve Ella the moment I saw any further cause for concern. But I hadn’t. I didn’t. There was nothing else that caused me to worry.

  I forced myself now to remember. The InterRail trip, that afternoon in Madrid, what exactly I’d seen and felt. In a strange way, I also needed to remember so that I might, someday, be able to . . . not forget, no, not ever that. But to absorb, to accept, to understand what had suddenly come crashing into our safe, secluded family. It was difficult to form any coherent train of thought just then. I felt suddenly ill, weak with exhaustion. Pinpoints of light danced before my eyes, mocking me.

  I allowed my head to drift, rested it slowly against the chair’s broad back. And then, there was nothing. Nothing but deep, welcoming darkness.

  Rebecca

  AS SOON AS we got back to Frances’s on that first dreadful Monday night, I collected Ian and Aisling. I went straight home with them and locked the front door. We talked for hours. The white stunnedness of their young faces made me want to weep. And I had no answers. But they were old enough to understand that. Old enough to know that sometimes there are no answers.

  After they went to bed, I shut up shop. I left messages with my clients that normal service would not resume for at least two weeks, due to the sudden, tragic death of my young brother.

  Nobody asked questions. Nobody complained about my lack of availability. So much for thinking yourself indispensable.

  The following afternoon, Tuesday, I drove back once again to see my father. Magda came over to stay with the kids. Ian and Aisling had refused to go to school, and I didn’t push them. Time enough after the funeral. There was constant toing and froing between my sisters’ houses and mine during those awful early days. I think that Frances and Sophie were as unwilling to let any of our children out of their sight as I was. My house – ironically, our old family home – became the ‘centre of operations’ as Magda called it. She looked after everyone’s kids while my sisters and I looked after Dad and Ella, as best we could.

  And she was brilliant, always available, never intrusive. Aisling really opened up to her, for which I was extremely grateful. Even Ian, to my surprise, spoke to Magda about Daniel in a way that he hadn’t spoken to me.

  Sometimes, I suppose, families are just too close: sensitivities are too raw, too close to the surface. And ours was a particularly tangled extended family, perhaps, for all sorts of reasons. But Magda was an objective, affectionate ear. She dutifully reported back to me the substance of whatever she and the kids had talked about. Without them knowing, of course. It made it easier for me to judge when to intervene, when to step back. I looked on her with greatly increased respect after that.

  I had the grace to feel ashamed of myself for my earlier reaction – about a ‘childminder’ being with the kids when Daniel died. I guess it said a lot more about me than I would like: about my feelings around myself and my own frequent absences from home.r />
  When I got back to Dad’s house at about four on Tuesday afternoon, Ella was in bed. I was relieved. Now at least I could seize the opportunity to speak to my father on his own.

  ‘She’s exhausted,’ he said. ‘I got Gillian to give her something stronger. Even for the next three or four days. She can’t go on without sleep. She hardly closed her eyes last night.’ He shook his head. ‘She just can’t go on like this.’ He led the way through to the conservatory.

  Nor can you, I thought. Nor can you. I followed him down the hallway, noticing all over again the pronounced stoop of my father’s shoulders. He appeared to shuffle as he walked. He looked at least ten years older. And he was unshaven and slightly unkempt: an all-too vivid reminder of how he had given up on life, on himself, after my mother’s death all those years ago. We sat, facing each other in the conservatory, surrounded on all sides by the glory of Ella’s autumn garden.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I asked. ‘You’re trying to keep it all together for both of you. You must be exhausted as well.’

  He nodded. ‘I suppose I am – although I’m not sure if exhaustion is the right word for it. I can’t go on, but I must. I don’t know if we’ll ever get through this.’ He shook his head again, his eyes lingering for a moment on the expanse of green outside the window. It had been another cruelly perfect September day. Abruptly, my father stood up and walked across the room. He closed the curtains roughly, almost savagely. I said nothing. I just stood up and switched on a couple of the lamps.

  ‘I can’t bear all that beauty,’ he said. ‘It’s like a physical hurt. My son is dead and the trees and shrubs keep on blooming.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘What sort of justice is that?’

  I knew he didn’t need an answer. ‘Sit down, Dad,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you a brandy.’

  ‘Whiskey,’ he said, curtly.

  I didn’t argue.

  When we’d settled again, I braved it. ‘Dad,’ I began, ‘I have no right to ask you this, but I’m going to ask it anyway.’

  He looked over at me, frowning. His face clouded with suspicion.

  ‘Is there something that happened to Daniel that you’re reluctant to talk about?’ I saw him stiffen, but he didn’t speak, so I took my courage in both hands. ‘I just feel that you have some kind of inkling as to what might have made him unhappy. I can understand that you don’t want to distress Ella any further.’ I leaned forward, bringing my face closer to his. ‘There is a lot of turbulent water under our personal bridge,’ I said. ‘But if you would like to trust me with this, I swear I will never divulge a word to another soul, if that is what you ask.’

  He didn’t answer at once. I remembered the tired dullness behind his eyes yesterday morning. I knew then that he was concealing something. His silence now confirmed it.

  ‘I can’t be sure of what it was,’ he said, finally. ‘But that’s because I didn’t listen.’ He looked at me then, his eyes filling. ‘I didn’t listen, because I was so intent on having the perfect son that I didn’t want to hear.’ He put down his glass and laced his fingers together, as though he was trying to hold on.

  I reached across and took his hands in mine. The knuckles were shiny, prominent. His hands felt almost papery, insubstantial. When I looked at him, up close like this, I was shocked at how much thinner he suddenly seemed.

  ‘You and Ella were wonderful parents,’ I said. ‘Nobody could doubt that. Whatever happened to Daniel, happened outside of these four walls. Teenagers are very secretive creatures.’ I stopped. I could see the anguish grow across his eyes.

  ‘That’s the point,’ he whispered. ‘He tried to tell me about some of the things that were happening at school. And, God forgive me, I didn’t take him seriously enough. Me, of all people.’ He bent his head.

  I knew something of my father’s own experiences of school. He had told all of us when we were teenagers about his years as a boarder. How he loathed it. He used to say how lucky we were to be girls, to be in an atmosphere where the bully did not reign supreme. Little did he know – and we never told him anything different. There is more than one way to inflict pain. And girls don’t need a rugby pitch to do it on.

  We protected him, I suppose. I know I did. I believe that children do – they instinctively hide things from their parents, the things that might make us angry on their behalf.

  ‘Dad, don’t torture yourself like this. Tell me what happened.’

  He took his hands away from mine and reached into his trouser pocket for a handkerchief. He wiped at his eyes, sighed, blew his nose. ‘I’ve been trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw together,’ he said, finally. ‘I can think of nothing else.’

  ‘Start anywhere,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to recall things in order.’ I remembered from my childhood how insistent my father had always been that a story be told logically, sequentially. It was as though he needed to own the information. Asides frustrated him: looping back and forth in the plot left him helplessly lost. With films, he hated flashbacks and interconnecting tales. It wasn’t that he couldn’t follow them: it was that he didn’t want to. He prized logic and scientific rigour over imagination. I am an engineer, he used to say, indignantly, not a bloody poet.

  ‘You remember Daniel’s thirteenth birthday?’

  I nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘When all the kids played their party pieces?’

  I nodded again. ‘I remember it clearly. It was a very special day.’

  ‘It started after that,’ he said. ‘Or at least, I really became aware of it after that.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Something happened to Daniel’s violin a couple of weeks later. He wouldn’t say what. But it got damaged. Ella tried to talk to him about it, but he shrugged it off. Said he hadn’t tied it properly onto the bike.’

  ‘And you didn’t believe him?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I got the violin repaired, and when I gave it back to him, I tried to probe a little bit. But he just said, “Leave it, Dad.” Ella and I discussed it. We decided to file it away in the memory bank, for later.’ He finished his whiskey in one gulp. ‘We watched him over the next few weeks, but he seemed fine. So we never brought it up again. We had no evidence of anything, but both of us were uneasy.’ He frowned, remembering. ‘Then he seemed to settle again. And he was so happy during the summer that, I suppose, we just regarded the incident as a one-off.’

  I thought that was reasonable, and I said so.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, standing up. ‘So did we.’ He reached for the bottle of whiskey.

  I let the silence linger for a moment. ‘Did something else happen afterwards?’

  ‘Nothing that I was aware of. I’ve been desperately trying to remember anything from the past year, and I can’t. But when we were in France and Spain this summer, before Ella joined us, he tried to say something to me then. We were on the train to Toulouse, just the two of us. And out of the blue, Daniel said he wasn’t looking forward to going back to school.’

  ‘That’s normal, surely?’ My two moaned constantly, come every August. I’d learned to ignore it.

  ‘It was the way he said it. He looked . . . haunted. Then we were interrupted by other people coming into the compartment. The train was really crowded that day. And, God forgive me, I never went back to it again. I never asked him why.’

  He filled his glass almost to the brim. I said nothing, but I wondered how much my father was stitching into his recollections. Had these moments been really significant, or did they just seem so in hindsight? It was so hard to tell: too much guilt. I could feel it hover in the air between us. And I didn’t know how to say that.

  ‘And there was one other time,’ he said, sitting back down and facing me. ‘We were in Madrid, just about to go into the Prado. He’d been really excited about it.’ His lip began to tremble. I reached forward, squeezed his hand.

  ‘He’d been texting all morning, or surfing, or whatever kids do on their phones.’ He looked at me. ‘And suddenly, he just wen
t white. All the blood drained from his face.’

  I began to feel sick.

  ‘I asked him what was wrong. He wouldn’t tell me. He kept saying “Nothing, there’s nothing wrong.” And then suddenly, he said he didn’t want to go into the Prado after all. He’d had enough of galleries.’

  This was delicate territory. How could I say that no fourteen-year-old I knew would want to set foot across the threshold of a gallery? That perhaps the visit was of my father’s making, and not Daniel’s?

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. He half-smiled. ‘Believe me, the Prado was all Daniel’s idea. I’d have much preferred to sit in the shade somewhere and have a beer.’ He shrugged at me. ‘I’m an old man, Rebecca. I was tired out by that stage – I was just holding on until Ella joined us.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean—’

  He waved my words away. ‘Daniel wanted to go to the College of Art,’ he said. ‘He talked about it a lot. After that day in Madrid, he never mentioned it again.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I quizzed him. But he wouldn’t give. He said he was too hot, too tired, the museum would be too crowded. So we went into a café and he had an ice cream and a Coke. He hardly spoke to me for the rest of the day. When we went back to the hotel, he asked if he could use my laptop.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I lay down on the bed, but I watched him. He had his back to me, but I could feel the intensity of whatever it was that he was doing. Later, when we had dinner together, I tried to talk to him. But he just clammed up.’

  My father was still holding something back. I could feel it. ‘What was going on, Dad?’ My voice was barely above a whisper. Something in the air was about to break. I could feel it straining between us. He put his head in his hands.

  His voice had dropped so much that I had trouble hearing him. ‘Daniel and I were sharing a room, just until Ella arrived.’ He ran one hand across his mouth as though trying to stop the words. But he couldn’t. ‘He had a shower before we went out that evening and he wrapped himself in one of those enormous hotel bath sheets.