She didn’t answer.
We gave our name at reception and I could hear the hush that descended behind the glass hatch. Voices were suddenly quenched. It felt that everything around us – air, bodies, furniture – became immersed in stillness.
‘Please,’ the woman said, ‘take a seat. Mr Murray will be with you in just a moment.’
Almost at once, a door opened behind us and the principal stepped into the corridor. He approached us, buttoning his jacket. He held out his hand to each of us. ‘Mr and Mrs Grant, please, come this way.’ We followed him into his office. He indicated the two chairs in front of his desk, but neither of us sat. ‘Can I offer you something?’
We shook our head. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Please allow me to express again . . .’ He tried to continue, but Ella cut him short.
Graciously, politely, but nonetheless, she cut him short. ‘Thank you, Mr Murray. We appreciate everything you and your staff have done. More than we can say.’
I could see that she was struggling. Mr Murray glanced at her, his face alight with compassion. I could see in his expression the helplessness that had become all too familiar to me in the last couple of weeks.
‘Mr Murray,’ I stepped in. ‘Daniel’s phone is missing. That, and some other personal things. We’re here in case there is anything in his desk, or his locker, or a cloakroom – anywhere where kids might leave things.’
He nodded. ‘I understand. I took the liberty of summoning the caretaker when I knew you were coming in. If you don’t have a key, we’ll need to cut the lock in order to access Daniel’s things. We didn’t want to do anything without your permission.’
‘Thank you.’ Ella had found her voice again. ‘And, no, we don’t have the key.’
‘As for anywhere else – we’ve searched all the public areas, the cloakrooms, bathrooms and so forth. Even the woodwork and metalwork rooms, and the art room. We have some pictures for you, but nothing else, I’m afraid. My deputy principal, Miss O’Connor, would particularly like to speak to you. If not today, then she is very happy to visit you at home, if that would be more helpful.’
I suddenly needed to swallow. I could see the big black portfolio behind Mr Murray’s desk, one white paper corner peering out the top. It was creased, smeared with paint and its unexpected vulnerability made me want to weep. I imagined Daniel’s thumbprint there, could see him, vividly bent over his task, absorbed in that complete way he always had. Alert, attentive, focused on the moment. Was this, maybe, the picture that Sylvia had described to us? Had it been found?
‘Thank you,’ Ella repeated. ‘I think we’ll call Miss O’Connor and make an appointment for later. But perhaps we could open the locker now, before the change of class?’
I knew that Ella was terrified of meeting any of the children. For myself, I would not have been responsible for my actions if I thought I recognized even one of the Jays. I wanted to have the locker opened and emptied and be done with this place.
Mr Murray stood. To be fair to him – but I didn’t want to be fair to him, not on that morning: I felt suddenly enraged – he looked sad, distressed, his anxious face almost as crumpled as his linen suit. I decided there and then that today was not the day to discuss the Jays. They would have to wait until I had learned what to do with this abrupt surge of anger, with this wholly unexpected and overwhelming need to blame.
‘Of course,’ he said, quietly, ‘please follow me.’
Ella gripped my hand and we followed him down the corridor. I heard the muted sounds of learning all around me: a suddenly raised teacher’s voice, the murmur of readers, and, in the distance, the dull thunk of hammer on metal. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
A tall, rangy man was standing by a bank of lockers, a metal cutter poised over locker number four hundred and forty-nine. I could feel Ella begin to breathe deeply. The caretaker, a Mr Green, stepped forward and shook hands with both of us. I was taken aback. I don’t know why, but I had not expected such a courtesy from a school caretaker. For a moment, I was very ashamed of myself.
‘A lovely lad,’ he said quietly. ‘My deepest sympathy.’
‘Thank you,’ Ella’s voice was an ache.
Mr Green handed us a sturdy supermarket plastic bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t find anything more suitable. For Daniel’s things.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I managed. I was kicking myself for my lack of forethought. I should have brought his rucksack—
There was the sharp, metallic sound of the lock being snipped. Mr Green stood back at once. ‘Take your time,’ he said, softly. He glanced at the principal. Both men turned and walked several steps away from the bank of lockers and Ella pulled open the small door.
Neither of us looked as she tumbled the contents into the plastic bag, which I held up at the mouth of the locker. Both of us had been seized by a need for secrecy – something beyond privacy – as we gathered our son’s belongings to us. They were all we had left of him.
Ella folded over the top of the plastic bag while I made one more sweep of the locker floor with the palm of my hand. Nothing. She nodded.
‘May I offer you anything – some tea . . . ?’ Frank Murray’s voice trailed off.
‘I think we’ll be on our way, thank you,’ I said. I was aware of time slipping by. I wanted us to be well out of there before curious, raucous bodies tumbled out into the corridor at the change of class. I did not think that we would be able to bear such energy, such life.
‘Of course, of course.’ The principal held out his hand to each of us, and we shook. ‘Please remember that we are here, to help in any way we can. In any way at all that you might feel appropriate in the coming months.’ He looked me right in the eye as he said this.
I was startled. Did he know? And if so, how? Had others already learned what we’d been forced to find out? I glanced at Ella, but she was speaking to Mr Green. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I will be in touch. I appreciate your support.’
Ella was smiling at Mr Green. She took a step towards him. ‘Thank you so much for your help. You came to Daniel’s rescue once, when he had a puncture. He spoke about you. Thank you for helping him.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. I shook his hand again, too, although I could not wait to get out of there. I turned to Ella. ‘I think it’s time we went home. Classes will be changing soon. If you’ll wait for me in the car, I’ll go and collect Daniel’s portfolio.’
Mr Murray spoke at once. ‘Please, Mr Grant, allow me. If you would accompany your wife to the car, I’ll get the portfolio for you. I’ll be with you in just a moment.’
We walked down towards the double doors that led out onto the car park. As we did so, I could hear a noise growing in the background – a sort of preparatory noise, a subterranean rumble that precedes bodies spewing out onto corridors. I remembered it all too well. Shades of boarding school.
I put one hand firmly under Ella’s elbow and we fled.
As we drove home that morning, I was consumed, all over again, by memories of my own schooldays. If there was one thing I’d have willingly given my own life for, it would have been to save my son from the suffering I endured at school. In those days, cold dormitories were matched only by the coldness – and the brute strength – of those who were supposed to watch over us. I spent my life cowering. Not even my parents would listen to my pleas. I wanted to come home. I wanted to go to the local school, to be the same as my neighbours, to leave my house every morning and come home again every evening. But that was not to be tolerated.
My father’s advice, gruffly given, but with affection nonetheless, was to ‘toughen up’. He knew the world better than I did, he told me. I should listen to him. I tried, but with limited success. Taunted beyond endurance on the rugby pitch one day – I was an indifferent player at the best of times, and an unenthusiastic one – I punched one of my tormenters in the face. I remember I was stunned by what I had done. Even I knew that this was not
‘like me’: in the words of one of the teachers. But I remember being unrecognizable that day, even to myself. I’d broken under the unseen assaults of the bullies, felt the pieces of myself loosen and crumble as, once again, in the scrum, someone reached across and squeezed my balls until the pain blinded me. I lashed out, far harder than I knew, breaking Pete Mackey’s jaw. And then all hell broke loose.
I was punished severely, of course. My parents were summoned. My father said what was expected of him in the presence of Father O’Carroll. Afterwards, he put one hand on my arm, wordlessly. My ever-prim mother, her gloved hands and stylish hat so very much out of place in those grey surroundings, murmured that I had certainly deserved my punishment. ‘Try to behave, dear,’ she said, sighing, as she fixed the brim of her hat with one hand, taking my father’s arm with the other. I watched them walk away, down the long polished corridor. We never spoke of it again.
My schooldays were, most emphatically, not the happiest days of my life. After the fracas on the rugby pitch, I earned a modicum of grudging respect from some of my peers. The others left me alone. I had quiet friendships with one or two of the more bookish boys, but nothing significant. I shook the dust of that place off my feet at eighteen years of age and I never looked back. Not once, not even in my imagination, have I ever willingly returned there.
But I believed that things had changed in the intervening half-century. I believed, perhaps because I wanted to believe, that the light and air and openness of my son’s school meant that the cruelty that had driven me to violence would no longer be possible, no longer be acceptable.
On that day, my own past resurrected itself, refusing to be buried.
When we got home, we sat at the table in the conservatory and Ella placed carefully between us everything from Mr Green’s plastic bag. A geography book, a metal pencil-case, a ring binder that had seen better days. ‘There is nothing here,’ she said now, looking at the pitiful array in front of us.
‘Is that everything?’ I asked. I could hear my own disappointment even as I asked the question.
‘Yes.’ Ella rested her forehead in her hands, propping her elbows on the table. She looked defeated.
I reached across the table and took her hands. ‘Can you bear to look at the portfolio?’
She glanced towards where I had stood it against the sideboard, then she looked back at me.
‘You?’
‘The best way I can put it is to say I can’t bear not to.’
She nodded. ‘Okay. After this morning, how bad can it be?’ Her mouth trembled. ‘All those kids, just going on, life as normal. Bells ringing, teachers teaching, lunches prepared and eaten. What am I going to do without him, Patrick, what am I going to do.’
It wasn’t a question. I remember thinking that even if it were, I was the last person to be able to answer it.
We sat huddled at the table, our son’s geography book between us, his metal pencil case, and the ring binder that had seen better days.
And then the wave passed. We were calm again. I reached for Ella’s hands, filled with an overwhelming tenderness. She sat across from me, her head bent and I could see the threads of grey that were suddenly visible in her hair, shown up by the streaming morning sunshine. I was shocked. So soon?
As though she had read my thoughts, she suddenly said: ‘God, Patrick. I feel so old this morning. Old and wasted.’
I didn’t reply immediately, I remember. Perhaps because I had also felt ‘old and wasted’ myself. But as my wife was so much younger than I, I felt in some absurd way that my position had been usurped.
I stood up. ‘Let’s take a look at this portfolio.’
I brought it to the table and pulled open the sturdy elastic ties that kept the two sides together. There were perhaps a dozen sheets, filled with Daniel’s recognizable style. Some were formal studies: still lifes of fruit and vases and jugs, that kind of thing. A couple of portraits of classmates sitting on chairs. And there was one other – a much smaller portrait, taking up the lower corner of one of the A2 sheets.
It was a sketch, I suppose, more than a portrait – it looked more hurried than the larger ones. But it was of Sylvia, in profile. Of that there was no doubt. She was concentrating hard, her eyes focused on something in the distance. Whatever it was, she seemed completely unaware that Daniel was drawing her. Her hair was loose this time, flowing over her shoulders. A tiny earring was just visible in the lobe of one ear. I thought it was perfect. A simple, intimate moment. We framed it later, in a miniature Victorian frame, and gave it to Sylvia. She still has it.
And then I pulled out the picture that she had described for us. She was right: it was vivid, dramatic, terrifying. Ella could not tear her eyes away from the fleeing figure in the top corner. ‘Jesus, Patrick. He must have been absolutely terrified. What an appalling thing to do to anyone.’ She ran her hand over the drawing.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I just don’t understand it. Never did.’
She looked over at me. ‘I am so angry, Patrick. So angry that I could kill someone with my bare hands.’ She stopped. ‘These boys must be punished. This cannot happen again to anyone else’s child. Ever.’
I had no answer. I feared that it would. But I also knew that, at that moment, Ella’s grief began to be channelled in another direction. From then on, her instinct – a strong one – was to try to forge something different from her loss of Daniel: something other than rage and loss and bitterness. It did not mean that her sadness was any less – far from it – but her emotional intelligence led her to begin to transform her searing sense of loss into something that would eventually aid her in her recovery.
I have never quite managed such a transition. But perhaps what lies ahead in the coming weeks or months might enable me, some day, to meet that altruistic transformation at least part of the way.
I remember on that morning, too, the urgent need to do something ordinary. I felt as though the walls of the house had begun to close in on me. I needed air and light and outside space.
‘How about,’ I said, ‘just for an hour or so, a drive to the coast? Some fresh air and a walk along the beach?’
Ella brightened. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
But we didn’t get there, at least not that day. Events began to speed up. The ordinary had to be postponed.
For now, the extraordinary continued to demand our attention.
Ella
BUT AS ELLA GOES to collect her coat for that ordinary drive to the coast, she spots a shadowy figure in the porch. A large, bulky figure that is stepping from side to side – into view and out of it again. It seems to her to be indecision made flesh.
Curious, she goes to open the door. ‘Mr Nugent,’ she says in surprise.
The figure turns fully and looks at her. ‘Miss Ella,’ he says. He touches the peak of his none-too-clean cap. She doesn’t know what to say. Peter Nugent, a neighbour. The youngest of the three brothers who farmed less than two kilometres away. Her father had been particularly fond of David and Robert, the older boys – men – now both dead. Peter was the youngest by some fifteen years.
Apart from Daniel’s funeral, when the man had come and stood beside her, wordlessly wringing her hand, Ella has not spoken to him in some time. There has always been the polite salute along the road, the friendly wave, the courteous doffing of his cloth cap as she passed in the car. Ella wonders what has brought him here, what neighbourly duty he now feels compelled to complete.
‘Why don’t you come in?’ she says, breaking the silence. She stands back and opens the door, conscious of the ludicrous contrast between the vibrant pink of the hydrangeas and Peter Nugent’s muddy boots.
‘No, no, Miss, not at all. It’s just that I have something that I think might be yours.’ And still he seems to be undecided.
Patrick comes into the hallway then, looking for her. ‘Ella? Is everything okay?’
She watches as Peter Nugent’s face floods with relief. ‘Mr Grant,’ he says, ‘how are y
ou?’
‘I’m well, Peter. And yourself?’
They shake hands. Ella waits while this interminable choreography of politeness plays itself out. ‘I think Peter has found something, something that might be ours,’ she says, unable to be patient any longer.
Patrick looks at him questioningly. And then: ‘Come in, man, for God’s sake. We don’t keep our guests standing in the porch. Never mind the boots – it doesn’t matter a curse.’
Peter Nugent steps inside, Ella takes his coat and Patrick leads the way into the conservatory.
‘I’ll make us some tea,’ she says.
When she takes the tray into the conservatory, she knows that words have already been spoken, man to man. Patrick stands up. ‘You sit down, Ella. I’ll look after the tea. Peter has something he’d like you to see.’
‘I didn’t . . . I thought . . . if you were on your own . . .’
‘It’s fine, Peter. Ella understands that you wouldn’t have wanted to come here if she’d been on her own. That you didn’t want to upset her. We appreciate your kindness.’
Ella sits. She’s puzzled at the man’s arrival, but Patrick has explained enough. So she waits. She knows that Peter Nugent will get to the point in his own time. She notices how calloused and scratched the man’s hands are, how black and broken the fingernails. When he opens both hands, he displays a phone that fits easily into one of his palms. Ella cries out. ‘The phone! It’s Daniel’s iPhone!’ She looks from him to Patrick and back again, her eyes suddenly alight. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘You’re sure?’ Patrick asks her. ‘You’re sure this is Daniel’s?’ But she knows by his tone that he is sure, too.
‘Absolutely. Look.’ She reaches forward and takes the phone in both hands, hardly noticing that she is already crying. She sees discomfort written all across Peter Nugent’s face and she hastily pulls herself back together. She wipes her face, tries to smile and looks at him again. She turns the phone over and points to where Daniel had inscribed his initials in silver paint.
The Things We Know Now Page 27