The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  Patrick

  I DON’T WANT TO SPEAK too much about the funeral, Daniel’s funeral. When Thursday morning dawned, we were both already awake, Ella and I. I had been for hours. Without a word, we turned to each other and held on tight. Last night’s conversation had given both of us a new impetus. Everything was out in the open: no more secrets. Now, at last there was, perhaps, something we could do for our son.

  ‘We’ll get through it,’ I whispered. ‘Somehow. We’ll get through it together. I love you so much.’

  ‘Don’t let go of me today,’ she said. ‘Not even for an instant. I need to feel us holding onto each other.’

  ‘I promise.’

  We came downstairs that morning to the heady scent of lilies and roses. The whole world had brought or sent flowers. The house was filled with them. Frances had arranged them everywhere. Every day since Monday, she and Sophie brought with them vases and bowls and blocks of green oasis that shed small dry pellets of itself everywhere.

  I know they tried their best to bring solace where they could. Each of my three daughters did. They seemed to be everywhere, no matter where I looked. And yet they moved almost silently around us. The three of them: woven together into a tight tapestry of loss. I caught them weeping together in the kitchen on so many occasions. Their grief for Daniel touched me, but I had to ask them eventually to take the flowers away. Their beauty made Ella ache.

  ‘I can’t look at them any more,’ she said, when the funeral was over. ‘Give them away to someone – anyone. I can’t bear to watch them die.’

  On the day of the funeral, once again, Ella and I had to endure that strangely comforting pain of other people’s kindness. Even now, I remember every minute of it. It was an extraordinary day. Its very existence was unspeakable, and yet the comfort it brought us both was immeasurable.

  Every hour of it was filled with family; with men and women who had once been colleagues of mine and of Ella’s; with neighbours who came from miles around; with friends. It was as though the whole world stood guard over us. I can still see George Casey’s crumpled face, feel the almost painful grip of his handshake. Distress was carved into every one of his elderly features. ‘A grand boy, a grand boy,’ he kept saying, over and over, as though everything he could ever want to say was contained in those few words. He trembled as he spoke.

  Daniel’s schoolmates – all of the second-year students, both boys and girls – arranged themselves into a guard of honour and accompanied him to the altar on that last morning. The youngsters’ school uniforms were pristine, their shirts a blare of white against the sea of navy. Some wept, some looked straight ahead. Others had that blank, nervous stare of those who are terrified of doing something inappropriate – like laughing, or letting flowers fall, or stumbling against the coffin.

  It was, of course, a day of exquisite beauty, the sort of Indian summer that an Irish September can bring. Blue sky, fragrant air, and temperatures of a kind not experienced since early spring.

  But I was filled with suspicion as I watched all these young people and their adult, stately progress down the church. I felt as though I had been filled with sand and gravel, something hard and gritty that would cement itself against my insides, making speech or movement impossible. I had to force myself not to give way. I made certain instead that my grip on Ella was sure and strong, just as I had promised.

  Instead of tenderness, I felt rage as I watched their young faces. I saw another kind of familiarity – a familiarity that brought me back almost sixty years to the cold halls of boarding school. Knowing what Edward had told us, and Gillian, and the pieces that Ella and I had put together for ourselves the night before, the teenagers’ features now became suddenly sharper, their eyes unkinder. A whole hierarchy was revealed in the solemn line that made its way down the aisle of the church. Half-remembered incidents returned to taunt me. Faces from almost six decades earlier began to trouble me again; they became indistinguishable from the faces of those I’d believed to be Daniel’s friends.

  Watching the young people in the church that day, I was consumed with questions. Was it you? I asked myself. Or you, who tormented my boy? I searched all the faces before me for the nine-year-old Jason, the one who’d been a bully even then. Rage filled me, taking the place of grief.

  A young girl called Louise sang ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. She was a soprano, a natural, with a voice of soaring beauty. I listened, bitterly, to the words. Ella had been right after all. There was no God, or at least none that listened to us. Daniel’s nieces and nephews – Rebecca’s, Frances’s and Sophie’s children, boys and girls alike – hefted his coffin onto their shoulders and made their way down the aisle. At that moment, I had to gather Ella to me, lift her bodily from the kneeling-board onto which she had crumpled.

  Enough.

  The day ended eventually. All days do. It ended in a blur of daughters and grandchildren, of food uneaten, of drinks untasted. I know that when we got home, Ella and I sat in the dark, unmoving, unspeaking, holding each other through the night. When the sun rose, we went upstairs and lay on the bed.

  It seemed right, somehow, that the old order be broken, or at least challenged. What was night had become day; what was day had become night. We slept a little, I remember. When we woke, Ella’s grief terrified me all over again.

  But this time, she let me comfort her. She willed herself back towards me, towards calmness. ‘We’ll find out what happened, won’t we, Patrick?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, with the certainty that now fuelled every waking moment. ‘We will.’

  ‘It’s the only way I can even begin to bear it,’ she said. ‘I have to understand whatever it was that we didn’t see.’

  I pulled her even closer, kissed the top of her head. ‘We’re going to find out. I won’t rest until we do.’

  Edward

  IT HAPPENED LAST SUNDAY exactly a week ago and I can’t stop thinking about Daniel. There are a few different things that I just can’t forget.

  Like there was this day at the start of second year only a couple of weeks back. I found Daniel in the cloakroom after going-home time. He didn’t come down to the bike shed and I was fed up waiting for him. Then I saw the Jays hanging around the boiler house smoking with some of the third year girls. They the girls I mean had already hitched up their skirts the way they do as soon as school’s over. There were three of them hanging around James and Jeremy. Jason had two girls of his own. He’s way taller this year than last and he was in California for three weeks early in the summer so he’s brown. All the girls are falling all over him since we went back. Even the older ones.

  There’s a spot just behind the boiler shed that can’t be seen from the school and it’s where everyone smokes during break. But Miss O’Connor has copped it I know because I saw her nab two third years while she was on break duty the other day. There’s no need to smoke there after four o’clock because everyone’s gone home even most of the teachers but the Jays do it anyway. It’s like the school is their kingdom and maybe if they go outside it they’ll lose some of their power.

  There still wasn’t any sign of Daniel so I went back inside. I didn’t want the Jays to see me waiting. I was afraid of what would happen next if they did. The bike shed was where they always hung around at home time, waiting to do stuff. Like that time in first year when they broke Daniel’s violin. Hey Paki, they said when we went to get our bikes. And the Lady Daniel as well – that was Jason saying that. The three of them surrounded us and took our jackets and our rucksacks and Daniel’s violin. But that time we fought them. Daniel got really mad and landed one on Jason’s jaw. It was more of a lucky punch and not all that hard but I think Jason was really shocked instead of hurt. Daniel had never done that before. So Jason just lifted the violin case and whacked it on the ground. Jeremy gave me a bloody nose but I got in a good punch or two and the same with James. Then the caretaker Mr Green appeared and shouted at us. The Jays ran. Me and Daniel cycled home.

  I didn�
�t want to go through all that again this year. They have been leaving us alone but. There’s been nothin this year although I keep waitin for it to happen. But I got lucky at the football tryouts and that shut them up too. Maybe they’ve moved onto someone else younger like the new first years. I don’t know but I’m just glad that they are leaving me and Daniel alone. So that day a couple of weeks back when I found Daniel I’d sneaked back into the blue corridor and run around to the green. And nobody saw me. Daniel was just sitting there in the cloakroom hunched over like he had a pain somewhere. There was a smell of feet in the cloakroom like there always is but there was a smell of something else as well that I didn’t know what it was not then I found out later. What’s up I said aren’t you comin home. He got a fright he hadn’t heard me come in. When he looked up his face was all dirty and his eyes looked really blue like he’d been crying and I think he had. He wiped his nose with his sleeve something he never did and there was a trail like a snail makes of all snot and tears.

  I remember everything he said but it didn’t make a lot of sense to me not then. He kept saying he was different and he didn’t fit in he’d never fit in. Then he said that he was like an alien the mothership had left behind. I laughed out loud but he was dead serious. I sat beside him and there was that smell again only a bit stronger like sweat that has gone all warm and coppery. He wiped his nose in his sleeve again and I saw it. Blood was on the inside of his wrist not like from a cut but kind of like someone’s painted it on with a smeary paintbrush.

  What’s that I said what happened nothin he said I just cut myself by accident. Then he stood up and said let’s go. I thought maybe he’d had a fight with Sylvia. He really liked her and I think she liked him too. She used to go to another school before ours. She said she had to improve her English before they’d let her into ordinary school. That was when she changed her name from Sylwia to Sylvia. Because people kept saying it wrong. But I didn’t ask Daniel if he’d been fighting with her not then. I didn’t ask him anything that day. He took his rucksack and swung it up onto his back he pulled his sleeves down hard and jammed his baseball cap on his head. Usually he waits for me but that day he cycled ahead so fast I couldn’t keep up. See ya I called at his gate but he didn’t answer so I just went on home.

  We’d had English last class that day and Mr Kelly had brought in this story from a magazine about someone called Matisse. He said it was arts journalism at its best and could we see where the writer was been subjective and where he was been objective. We had to read it and underline what bits we thought were one thing and what bits the other and then he asked did anyone know who Matisse was and Daniel said yes without thinking. I know it was without thinking because he went red and then white and kinda sank into his seat. But the whispers had already started and Daniel knew it. Mr Kelly was good at knowing where they were coming from and he stopped them right away. He has a sharp tongue himself so he does. But Daniel wouldn’t say any more. So Mr Kelly did instead and he went on and on about collage and stuff and I could see that Daniel had that look again like he was in pain and it would never go away.

  Daniel didn’t say anything else for the rest of the class and Mr Kelly didn’t ask him and he got me to leave the afternoon roll book down to the office quickly because he’d forgotten. I ran all the way but the bell went and when I got back everyone was gone Daniel as well. I took my rucksack and went to the bike shed I had no coat because September was warmer than summer had been. That’s when I waited for Daniel and he didn’t turn up which is why I went back to look for him in the cloakroom.

  I wish I’d said something. I don’t know who to maybe Mr Kelly or Miss O’Connor they’re both kind or Mr Byrne the woodwork teacher he’s sound. Now I don’t know what to do I feel sick all the time. I thought it would be better after the funeral but it’s not it’s worse. But at least the Jays are quiet everyone is.

  Sylvia hasn’t stopped crying. A lot of the girls haven’t. But Sylvia’s the one who knew him best. I’d like to talk to her but I can’t. I still can’t feel anything I keep expecting to see him around the corner. I don’t think I can say anything because how much am I to blame for last Sunday when he came over and then left without hardly saying anything. I don’t know what else I could of done and I wish I did it feels like something heavy is hanging out of my neck that I have to carry everywhere even at night when I’m asleep. And Mum’s starting to ask me if I know anything that might be helpful and I keep saying no.

  Besides, Fathersir says that other people’s battles are their own and people like us should keep ourselves to ourselves and our own counsel and our powder dry he says.

  Part Three: Aftermath

  Sylvia

  I KNEW NOTHING AT ALL until I came to school last Monday. We live too far away for any news to reach us quickly. What I remember is how quiet the school was that morning. Nobody was outside when I got there.

  I was late, almost twenty minutes late. I couldn’t find my phone. I looked everywhere. Finally, I found it behind the cushions on the sofa, but by then, Dad was shouting at me that I was going to be late for school. Oscar must have hidden it. He’s always doing things like that, just to annoy me. It was out of charge so I just left it there and ran. I hoped I might be able to sneak in through the senior mall once the first class was over. I’d done it once before and I’d got away with it.

  When I got to school, I hurried to put my bike in the shed. I couldn’t find the key to the lock either and finally I just dumped it there. I felt really angry then: everything was going wrong. I didn’t care about the bike. It was old anyway, so probably nobody would want it.

  Miss O’Connor was waiting at the door to the junior corridor. I just thought, great. No way of slipping in past her this time. Now I’ll get detention as well. It wasn’t the first time I’d been late since school began. And she had warned me twice this term already. But this morning she just looked blotchy, as though she had been crying. I thought it was funny that she didn’t look cross – I mean, strange, not really funny.

  ‘Good morning, Miss,’ I said. But she didn’t answer. She just held out her hand to me and touched my arm.

  ‘Sylvia,’ she said. ‘Come with me.’

  I was puzzled. But still I thought that I was the one in trouble. She brought me into her office and patted the back of a chair that stood in front of her desk. ‘Sit down, Sylvia,’ she said. But she didn’t sit behind her desk. Instead, she took the chair beside me.

  I sat. And then I waited. I knew that something really strange was going on. I knew that class would have started ages ago and the corridors would be quiet anyway, but this was a different sort of quiet. Miss O’Connor seemed to have difficulty speaking and I began to feel afraid right then. ‘Is there something wrong, Miss?’ I asked. I mean, I knew I’d get into trouble, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.

  ‘Sylvia, I have some bad news.’

  Bad news? At first, I was confused. So this wasn’t about being late for school, after all. So what was it, then? My thoughts started to get a bit wild. I’d just left Dad so it couldn’t be him. Had something happened to Mum on her way to the hospital for the early shift? Or to my little brothers? I think Miss O’Connor must have seen what I was thinking because then she began to speak all in a rush.

  ‘I am so sorry to tell you that there has been a terrible tragedy involving one of our second-year students,’ she said. ‘One of your own classmates.’

  What was she talking about? I could feel that I was beginning to take something in, whatever it was, but she was only feeding me bites of information little by little. ‘Who?’ I said. I felt stupid then. I didn’t even know whether that was the right question to ask.

  ‘Daniel Grant,’ she said.

  ‘What’s happened to Daniel?’ I could feel my heart begin to thump. It was almost painful, the way it suddenly started knocking loudly against my ribs.

  Then she reached across and took my hands in hers. ‘There is no easy way to tell you this,’ a
nd she paused for a minute. Now I was really frightened. ‘Daniel died yesterday,’ she said quietly. ‘I know how close you both were. I am so, so sorry.’

  At first I didn’t believe her. ‘No,’ I said. ‘We had art together on Friday.’ You were there, I wanted to tell her. You taught us, you silly cow. I began to get angry. ‘No,’ I said again. ‘It’s a mistake. What are you saying?’ And I wrenched myself away from her.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and made me look at her eyes. ‘I am so desperately sorry, Sylvia, but there is no mistake. Daniel is dead. He died yesterday afternoon.’

  At first I said nothing. I just kept looking at her, waiting for her to change her mind. Waiting for the story to be different. And then I wailed. Her eyes were so clear and so honest that I had to believe her. I don’t remember the next bit very well. I know that she gave me a glass of water, that she sat close to me, that she stayed with me until I stopped crying, at least for a while.

  I had to ask. ‘How?’ I said. I had to ask her this question, although I was suddenly terrified inside that I already knew the answer.

  ‘He committed suicide, Sylvia. I’m sorry, there is no easy way to tell you that either.’

  ‘Does everyone know?’ I don’t know why I asked her that, but it seemed important at the time.

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Mr Murray and Father Kelly and Reverend Lane are with all of the second years now, in assembly. I’ll take you there in a few minutes, as soon as you feel ready.’

  ‘I couldn’t find my phone,’ I blurted. ‘My little brother hid it behind the sofa cushions and then it was out of charge this morning. And then I lost the key to my bike.’ I was wailing again, but it wasn’t about the phone or the key or the bike, not really. Everything made me sad all over again. Everything made me see Daniel’s face in front of my eyes.