She looked at me, her gaze not wavering. ‘I’ve been waiting. I know you’ve been keeping something from me,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. Nothing can be worse than what I’ve been imagining.’
I reached over, took both her hands in mine.
I told her. About the train to Toulouse, about the Prado, about the hotel room in Madrid. Gillian’s phone call. All of it.
And then I waited.
Daniel
AT FIRST, it feels like nothing is really happening, nothing at all. Then all at once, tiny dark beads appear, unstoppable and shiny and red. Carmine, Miss O’Connor would probably call it. Or maybe even crimson – depending on the light. Sylvia was disgusted when Miss O’Connor talked about how artists used to boil dried insects in water to extract the carminic acid. She hated that sort of stuff. I loved it. And the names of all the colours, and their history. Art class was definitely the best. Sometimes English, but always art.
I like Sylvia. She’s not like most of the others. She’s softer. Edward asked me did I fancy her and I said yeah. But it’s hard to know what to do about it when we only sit beside each other in art class. We sit together at break, though, and most lunch-times. Edward comes to our table as well, when he’s not doing extra athletics. But I think I’ll have to stop because the Jays never stop whistling and whispering dirty things to Sylvia on their way past. It’s not fair. It’s me they hate, not her, but she’s getting some of it as well.
Once the blade stops, the red blood rushes out and the beads just disappear, running together, like they are hurrying one after the other to merge into one long line. And then, but only then, the feeling starts. At the end of first year, when things weren’t as bad as they are now, it was like a great big sigh of relief every time I did it. Like holding your breath for ages and finally letting go. Now, though, it feels like more of a shout. Something builds and builds inside, fighting to get to the outside and the only way to let it out is to cut.
When I do, I feel happy. Light and free and as though nothing can ever touch me again. But it does touch me again. It always comes back. I know when it is starting, building up like layers, one on top of the other. A bit like strata in the sedimentary rocks that we learned about in geography, the ones formed from the remains of living things. That’s how it feels: all that heaviness, pressing down on even more heaviness, making it hard to breathe.
I know it’s wrong to keep doing it. I mean, my head knows it’s wrong. Mum almost caught me once, but I got away with it. I didn’t hear her come into my room. But I was able to fob her off. She wouldn’t understand, and it would really upset her. And Edward nearly saw it once, too. He came into the second-year boys’ cloakroom, just as I’d finished. That’s only a week or so ago. That kind of frightened me. I really don’t want him to know. I think he’d tell.
I’d never done it at school before that – and it was just that one day. What happened was, I’d forgotten to take Granddad’s Swiss Army knife out of my jacket pocket the night before. It’s just as well nobody saw me – there would have been murder if I was caught bringing a knife to school. When I felt it, lying there under my fingers at hometime, just waiting for me, it was as though I couldn’t put off the cutting any longer, although I hadn’t been thinking about it until right that minute.
That was one of the really bad days. I don’t mind the physical stuff as much as the messages. I think I’d prefer all the pushing and shoving I got last year to the messages. I’d ask to swap them if I could. There were ten texts waiting when school finished, and then more came every few seconds. The phone didn’t stop vibrating for ages. Edward doesn’t know about them either. I’d never tell him. He sees what happens sometimes in school and that’s okay, well, not okay exactly, but the name-calling happens to both of us because we’re the same because we’re different. But I don’t think he gets all the phone and message stuff. If he does, he doesn’t tell me. And he has to share the one computer with his dad and his brothers so even if he did, he probably wouldn’t see them as much as I see mine.
Once I got home that day – it was a Wednesday, our half day – the messages kept coming every couple of seconds after I logged on. One of them was the same, over and over again, and I couldn’t help it. I followed the link. It was www.welovedaniel.com and it was the same sort of stuff, but even worse than what they sent me when I was in Spain with Dad. The day we didn’t go into the Prado. I could see how puzzled he was, but the pictures on my phone had made me sick. Pictures of me doing it with a dog. With another boy. With an old man. And videos – I don’t know how Jason made them.
I almost told Dad that day. But I couldn’t do it. When I was just about to, he took a hanky out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. He was really sweating. He kind of sank into a chair in the shady outside bit of the café and tried to smile at me. But his face had sort of collapsed and there were lines suddenly everywhere around his eyes and his mouth.
‘Are you okay, Dad?’ I was glad that Mum was coming tomorrow. Right then, he looked really old.
‘Mighty,’ he said. ‘Just a bit tired.’ He tried to smile, and it was better this time, but it still wasn’t his usual one. ‘I’m glad we’re not staying long in Madrid. Be nice to get back to the sea.’
Then he had a beer and I had a Coke and he started to look a bit happier. Back at the hotel, I asked if I could use his laptop. He only uses it for emails to Mum and to buy tickets and stuff like that. He’d never guess, so I didn’t mind being in the same room as him.
There were dozens of photos. My head put on bodies that weren’t mine. Naked bodies, some of them. Gross. Messages on Facebook telling me how much everyone hated me. Tweets saying the same things. Things I don’t even want to remember. And then, some emails from Edward and from Sylvia asking me why I had sent them such nasty messages. But I hadn’t; I never would.
I emailed back, from my Dad’s account. Then, just in case Sylvia wasn’t at her computer, I texted her. I told her what had happened, that it wasn’t me saying all that stuff, that someone had hacked my email account. That was the worst. Someone else pretending to be me and sending out stuff I’d never written, the sort of stuff I’d never write.
Sylvia said okay fine, and I think she believed me. I know Edward believed me. Sylvia said she was pretty sure it wasn’t me, but it had upset her anyway, the things they said. Then we gmail chatted for a bit on Dad’s laptop and she was really nice about it. At the end, I got a bit brave and said that I was really looking forward to seeing her again, although I wasn’t looking forward to going back to school. But I didn’t tell her that last bit. And then she said that she was, too. So that made me happier.
I know it’s the Jays. James is a bit of a thick, Jeremy is the biggest, he’s the one who pushes people around, but Jason is really clever. He can do all that sort of password stuff, no problem. He’s always boasting about how far ahead California is in technology. He knows a lot, and he can’t stop showing off. He showed off from the minute he came to secondary school. His mum and dad brought them back to Ireland after four years away. Jason thinks he knows everything. Mr Kelly in English asked him to tell us about his time in California, about what was different about living there. Jason gave this big talk about Silicon Valley where his dad worked and about the weather and the freedom and then about why they’d all come home. He said that Ireland had so many more opportunities now, except he said ‘opportooonities’ in that real American accent he has, but sometimes he lets it slip. He loves being the centre of attention. I remember him from primary school, and all the stuff he got up to. And he remembers me.
The others just go along with him, I think. They are all happy for him to be the boss. And this year, his gang just gets bigger and bigger. There’s loads of second years in it. It even has some third years now, and that new guy from our tutorial class, well not so new any more, called Leo. They’re just – they’re everywhere. I’ve tried not looking at my phone but I can’t. I need to know what they’re saying. I just can’t switch i
t all off. It keeps going around and around inside my head, building up into another shout.
I’m glad Edward is around. Most days, we just do our own thing in school, I mean separately. We’re not in the same stream for most subjects, apart from English. He hates the Jays as much as I do. They were always after us last year. But Edward thinks this year is easier, because they don’t wait for us at the bicycle shed any more, and they don’t trip us up in the corridors. That’s why I say nothing about the messages. For me it’s worse, way worse than last year. And Sylvia is nice to me. I’d never tell her anything about how bad it is, though – when I’m with her I just laugh it off.
But at least the weekends are good. I don’t switch on the computer when Edward’s here. And we don’t in his house, either. Some Sunday soon we’ll cycle over to the bird sanctuary again. I’ll bring the camera. It’s good that Edward doesn’t know, it really is. It means I can forget about the messages for a bit. We just use the 3dx or something. And we’ll probably go sailing again with Dad before the end of the season.
At least on Saturdays and Sundays I can kind of forget about all of it. About all of them. At least I have that.
Patrick and Ella
ELLA HAS LISTENED TO ME, filled with an extraordinary calmness.
‘He was self-harming,’ she says. ‘And I had no idea. No idea at all.’ She leans forward into the armchair, raising both hands to cover her face. ‘Jesus Christ, how could I not have known.’
It is not a question. I hold her hands, urgently, lower them so that I can see her face, her eyes, properly. I remember how she comforted Edward. ‘It’s not your fault—’ I begin.
But she cuts me off. ‘I’m a fucking counsellor, Patrick. A therapist – I’m supposed to know this stuff. I’m supposed to see it in others – including my own son. Especially my own son.’
She struggles to her feet, kicking at her dressing gown as its folds seemed to entangle her. ‘Of course it’s my fault.’
She paces, angrily, dragging her hands through her hair. She feels coiled, tight like a spring.
I stand up and pull her to me. ‘Then it’s my fault, too. I didn’t even know what I was seeing that day in Madrid. I had no real idea of what I was looking at.’
‘Neither did I,’ she says.
Tears begin to stream down her face. She starts to struggle in my embrace and suddenly stops, becomes limp. ‘But I do now, and it isn’t even three weeks ago.’ She covers her eyes with her hands and weeps.
I am lost. I don’t know what she’s saying. I watch my wife’s face darken as she remembers.
Daniel
I WISH THAT somebody would make them stop.
Now they’re sending around one of Jason’s made-up photos where I’m kissing another boy. You can’t see who the other boy is, but you can see me. Everybody has it on their phones. Everybody’s grinning as they go past me in the corridor. Even people I don’t know think it’s funny.
In the queue for the canteen the other day, some big guy from transition year nudged me and told me to lighten up.
We’re not even back three weeks yet. It feels like forever.
During the summer, I could forget. At least until they sent all that stuff while I was in Madrid with Dad. That brought it all back.
It really started to get bad at the end of first year. I remember one day in art, sitting beside Sylvia. We’d to do a picture based on the theme ‘Flight’. I liked sitting with her. She was nice. That was one of the really bad days, until I started to draw. Then I was able to let it all out onto the page, and it was a good feeling. Plus it was a Friday, last class, so I knew I could escape.
Me and Edward were going out with Dad on the Aurora on Saturday. Out in the middle of the lake, nothing could get me. The signal always failed around Casey’s boatyard, and Edward just had an ordinary Nokia, one where Mrs Maryam would text him if he had to go home.
It feels like they are closing in on me this year. The Jays. Even Leo. He hasn’t done anything since we went back, but I always feel like he’s waiting for their signal. He just stands there, ready to pounce.
That picture was one of my best, I think. I know that Sylvia was curious, I caught her looking at it when she thought I couldn’t see her. I almost told her that day, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Even though I had done nothing wrong I felt ashamed.
Some days, I can hardly breathe. Some days, I want to cry, to tell Mum what’s going on. To ask Dad’s advice.
But I can’t. They’d be so upset. They’d go to the parents and the school and everything would just be one big mess.
I have to try and sort it on my own. I have to. And some things are still good. Like sailing. Like drawing. Like chilling out with Edward in the TV room.
It’ll be okay.
It will. It will be okay.
Ella
IT IS A FEW DAYS into the new term. Daniel has cycled home from school and left his bike in the garage, as usual. Ella smiles at her son as he enters the kitchen. He drops his rucksack just inside the door and heads straight for the fridge.
‘Hi there,’ she says. ‘Have a good day?’
He shrugs, staring at the shelves full of food. But he doesn’t choose anything. He stands there, just looking. Ella comes and stands behind him. She puts one hand lightly on his shoulder. To her surprise, he flinches and moves out from under from her touch. She is about to say something, but he walks away.
‘Daniel?’ she says. ‘There are some wraps left over from lunch, if you want.’
‘Nah, it’s all right. Not really hungry.’ He walks back to the kitchen door and grabs his rucksack, slinging it over his right shoulder.
‘Okay,’ she says, easily. ‘I have a client at five, so we’ll eat about seven. If you change your mind, you know where everything is.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Thanks. See you later.’
She watches him leave, puzzled. She’ll have to choose her time, probe a little deeper. Something is not right. Something must have happened at school. Ella sighs. Ever since school started again, there is a reticence, a secrecy to Daniel that makes her feel uneasy.
She and Maryam have already spoken of it. And Patrick. ‘Rahul says that Edward is becoming a man, that I must step back,’ Maryam says. She shrugs as she says this, raising her palms in the air to show her lack of comprehension. ‘He says that it is normal to make a distance with your parents when you are their age.’ Which is pretty much what she and Patrick have already discussed, too.
But still – there is something here, something about her own son that Ella cannot quite put her finger on, something new that makes her feel as though a vital link between them has suddenly weakened, or gone missing.
The Daniel she met up with in Madrid, less than two months ago, has nothing in common with the Daniel who has just walked out of the kitchen.
Some hours later, Ella stands at the bottom of the stairs and calls out to her son. Patrick is in the kitchen, serving food. ‘Daniel? Dinner’s ready, love.’ But there is no answer. She calls him again. Silence. Exasperated, she begins to climb the stairs. She knocks on his bedroom door. Nothing. So she knocks once more, and pushes the door open at the same time. She calls his name again.
Daniel is sitting on his bed, his back to her. She can see the white of the earphones, the curve of his navy sweater as he bends over something, absorbed. ‘Daniel?’ she says, and takes a tentative step towards him. She’s afraid of startling him. Suddenly, he jerks around towards her, tugging at the slender cable of his earphones. One by one, they fall to his shoulders. He stands up, pulling at the cuffs of his school shirt. He looks distracted, his face flushed.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I didn’t hear you come in. Just listening to Bob Dylan. Ian was right. He really is deadly.’ And he grins his old grin.
Ella feels an inexplicable jolt of relief. Its intensity puzzles her. What exactly has she been she afraid of? There is nothing wrong here, after all. Her son has just
smiled at her. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she says. ‘I’ve been calling you.’
He nods. ‘Cool. Down in a sec. Just need to use the bathroom.’ And he pushes past her.
Now she remembers the smears of what she’d thought to be red paint on the sleeves of his school shirt. Smears that he’d told her were red paint, no more than two weeks ago. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ he said, ‘didn’t see the stuff on the desk. But it’s not oil. It’s poster paint – it’ll wash out fine.’
And it had. Daniel had filled the washing machine himself – one of his usual Saturday chores. On Sunday night, as normal, he’d ironed his school shirts for the week. It was a token independence, but Patrick had insisted that he learn these things.
‘Learn them early,’ he’d said to Daniel. ‘It’s no fun not being able to look after yourself.’
Daniel had grumbled a bit at first; but more, Ella believed, because he felt he had to. Afterwards, he never complained.
‘See?’ Daniel had lifted the shirts for her inspection on that Sunday night. ‘All the paint’s washed out.’
Ella stares at Patrick now, finally understanding the gnawing sensation that she’d felt, listening to her son’s casual explanation. She pulls away from him, searching his eyes. And the horror grows as she sees Daniel again, smiling, standing at the ironing-board. ‘How bad?’ she asks Patrick. ‘How bad was the self-harming?’
Patrick moves closer to her. ‘Bad. Gillian said there are new scars as well as old.’
‘Where?’
‘Where we’d never be likely to see them. Tops of his thighs; abdomen; shoulders. The newest ones are on his forearms.’
‘Jesus.’ She covers her face with her hands for a moment. ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do with all of this?’ She gestures around her, her face, her hands: helpless.
‘We’re going to find out what happened,’ Patrick says. He takes her in his arms. ‘And, once tomorrow is over, we’re going to go back to Edward, to the school, to everyone we can think of. We’ll find out, I promise you.’
The Things We Know Now Page 22