The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  At nine, the house was finally quiet. But my restlessness was growing. I phoned a few people, could hear the false brightness of my tone. Nobody had seen my husband. It struck me then – it had struck me before, I’ll be honest, but not with the force that it made itself evident on that particular evening – that Adam and I had very few friends left in common. Very few acquaintances, even. Three calls later, and I had exhausted all the possible avenues of overlapping friendships.

  I climbed the stairs to our bedroom. There was something different in the air here, something I could not yet put my finger on. I closed the door to the landing and opened Adam’s wardrobe, aware that my heart had developed an uncomfortable rhythm. Even as I did so, I knew what I was about to find, what had been lying in wait for me to discover. His suitcase was gone. His new suits were gone, new shirts, sweaters. The only things that remained were those jackets and trousers that had seen better days.

  All the worn-out stuff, I thought. It was a sudden almost blinding realization, accompanied by a bitterness that was unsurprised, even then. Even before I knew the detail of what had happened to me, I knew. And the feeling grew and swamped me, making me angrier than I had ever been in my life.

  I found his mobile phone, stuffed under his pillow. I ransacked the bedside table, the chest of drawers, the filing cabinet in what had been his office. Empty. All of it. As though he had never been, as though we had never been. The only evidence of our fifteen years together was what he had discarded: a phone, some unpaid bills, his children. A life. Me.

  I know it struck me that night with some force: the bitter irony of my situation. Here I was, an expert in conflict resolution, an accredited mediator. Here I was, skilful in guiding couples towards reconciling their differences, or in parting with dignity and structure. Here I was in my father’s house: and my own husband had just walked out on me.

  I fled downstairs and headed straight for the wine rack. I poured myself a large glass of red, even then warning myself that this was not a good idea.

  Then I sat down at the kitchen table and rang my sister Frances.

  Patrick

  THAT DAY WHEN we went fishing at the lake is the last vivid impression I have of being on my own with my son. Perhaps there were other times – in fact, I am sure there must have been – but in my memory, so many of those were family occasions, rather than his and my shared ones.

  One such time was when we went to France, to the Camargue, in 2005 when Daniel was ten. We brought Edward with us that year, much to both boys’ delight. We had to be sensitive, of course, to Maryam and Rahul’s other children: we were concerned that they might resent the opportunity that Edward had been offered. But it seems that Edward’s position as the eldest in the family held some sway, and the matter was settled almost at once, and with no visible ill-feeling.

  I admit that I embarked upon the holiday with some trepidation. Pushing seventy, I remained to be convinced that camping was an appropriate way for a soon-to-be elderly gentleman to spend a holiday. In the end, it was Daniel’s excitement that persuaded me. I was, to be sure, relieved to find that Ella and I would be staying in a mobile home, with a proper bed. She had teased me beforehand. ‘Oh, but Patrick, a tent will be so much fun! It’ll bring you back to all your boyhood adventures.’ My boyhood adventures were the last place to which I should wish to be transported, but no matter. The joke was on me.

  The boys, however, did have a tent, pitched just outside our doorway. I remember that the evening of our arrival was punctuated by cries of ‘Deadly!’ and ‘Cool!’ and ‘Wicked!’ At around ten that night, I had to speak sharply to both of them, insisting that they temper their shouts and their enthusiasms: there were others around who deserved not to be disturbed. Nevertheless, Ella and I could hear muffled giggling and mimicry going on until well after midnight. It must be said that Edward was an excellent mimic: his version of my tone, and my mode of expression when I am irritated, was uncannily accurate. I enjoyed hearing it, and the lack of reverence of which it spoke. I did not like to feel that the boy was in awe of me.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for, then,’ Ella had said that night, laughing at me. ‘I think that Edward has your number.’

  We rarely saw the boys during that holiday, Ella and I. They swam, practised archery, played boules. They looked like a pair of urchins throughout: in cut-off shorts, grubby T-shirts, knees skinned and bruised. We went on day trips from time to time – the most memorable being to see the wild horses that are native to that part of the world. And we – Daniel and I – mastered the art of barbecuing at last, after several days of burned offerings.

  I know that I wondered on at least one occasion, with a wry smile, what Cecilia might think, should she be able to see me, long fork in hand, turning sausages and steaks. A modern, twenty-first-century man.

  I see those weeks as bathed in blue, shimmering light. I can still feel the heat of the midday sun, the intensity of well-being as Ella and I sat in the shade, reading our books, sipping a pastis or a white wine, smiling at one another as we heard the hoots of delight coming from the pool or the cycle track or the adventure playground.

  On the wall behind me now, here in the attic, are some of Daniel’s drawings from that time. The horses of the Camargue gallop across the pages, their shapes ghostly with the pastel shades that Daniel had chosen for them, their manes flying in the wind. Ella had four of the drawings framed for my birthday the following year.

  Then there was the time we went camping in Italy, just the three of us, when Daniel was twelve – the year he finished primary school. It was his choice: he wanted to visit Florence. We took him there for a day. He seemed indifferent to the heat and the crowds and the discomfort of long queues at the Uffizi. He was captivated by the gallery. He seemed to glow on the journey back to the campsite. I’d never known him so quiet. To be honest, I was relieved. Florence had exhausted me. I dozed on the train for much of the journey back.

  Daniel spent hours drawing in the days that followed, but most of what he produced there he tore up, despite our cries of dismay.

  ‘Not good enough,’ he kept saying. ‘They’re just not good enough.’

  ‘Fine – but at least let me keep three or four of the sketches,’ I pleaded. ‘The human body is notoriously difficult to draw.’ He looked at me then, paused in the midst of his act of destruction. At least I had his attention. ‘If I keep even a few of your attempts, then we’ll be able to see how much you’ve improved by the time you go to college.’

  Daniel had already decided that the College of Art was what he wanted. We encouraged him, Ella and I. We were secure enough financially to help him make his dreams come true. We did not need to entertain the misgivings of others that something ‘more sensible’ or ‘more practical’ or even, God forbid, ‘more marketable’ might have been a better choice. We supported all of his aspirations in every way we could. Daniel finally did hand over some of those charcoal sketches to me, signed and dated with a flourish. Daniel Patrick Grant. July 2007. Campsite at Siena. They are here beside me now, resting in the wide middle drawer of my desk. I am acutely conscious of their presence.

  And then there was our last holiday together in 2009, an InterRail adventure in Europe, just before he went back to school that September, to begin his second year. Daniel and I had four weeks together; Ella joined us for two. But that was when everything changed.

  That’s not quite true: things had already changed. I sensed something of it even then, but I was unaware of how much, how crucially, how irrevocably my son’s universe had turned. I should have listened, should have had a parental ear attuned to what I now know he was trying to tell me, on all those long journeys we shared. They were truths I had to confront later: I was not equipped to do so then.

  The afternoon we spent in that hotel room in Madrid haunts me. It is no excuse to say that I hardly knew what I was looking at, that I hardly had the words to explain it to myself. My son, wrapped in a bath sheet: the scars that were suddenly v
isible as the towel fell away for an instant. The opportunity that I lost at that moment: an opportunity that never came again.

  The opportunity that I never created again.

  I regret that bitterly.

  There were other things, of course, that occurred during those years too: wider family things that I have not dealt with here. I have not dealt with them because, as I have said, this is my story and they did not seem to form part of it.

  However, I have discovered whilst writing this that ‘my’ story is extraordinarily difficult to separate from the myriad stories of others. Our lives are so intertwined that sometimes I am no longer certain what is ‘mine’ and what is ‘theirs’.

  Two years after Ian’s birth, Rebecca and Adam had a little girl, Aisling. She was born in August 1996. I was startled at how like her mother she was. Not just physically, although that too: but she later resembled Rebecca so much in the force of her character, the strength of her will, that I had the strangest sensation of having been catapulted back the best part of forty years. We did not see all that much of each other, Rebecca and I. Perhaps some of the heat had gone out of our estrangement, but it had been replaced by a calm indifference on my part. To be honest, once I had Ella and Daniel, I wasn’t too bothered about seeking out the company of others, particularly Rebecca. Frances and Sophie and their husbands and children, along with Lynn and Steve with theirs, were regular visitors to us, and we to them. It was enough.

  However, when Ian was ten and Aisling eight, something terrible occurred.

  It was Sophie who told me. When she phoned, she sounded hesitant at first. I remember the call well. It was the week of my sixty-fifth birthday – March 2004. We’d been joking with Daniel about his dad being officially an old-age pensioner. ‘I’m telling you this, Dad,’ Sophie said, breathless, ‘because I think you should know. Rebecca will probably be mad at me, but I don’t care.’

  My fatherly antennae were already on high alert. ‘What is it? Is anybody hurt?’ I could hear Sophie draw a deep breath.

  ‘No. Everyone is safe. But Adam has walked out on Rebecca and the kids. He’s cleaned out their joint bank account and all their savings. He came home from work yesterday afternoon and just disappeared. There is no note, nothing. She has no idea where he’s gone.’

  I swore silently. A phrase leaped to mind, unbidden. Even the worm turns.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘At home – you know, our old home.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Yes, this afternoon. She asked me to collect Ian and Aisling. She doesn’t know what to tell them yet. They’ll stay here with us for a few days; it’ll give Rebecca a bit of breathing space. And their cousins will be a distraction.’

  I sighed. ‘Right. Thanks for letting me know, Sophie. Say nothing. I’ll go over straight away.’ I hung up, pressing the heel of my hand against my eyes. Ella was at my side at once.

  ‘Patrick – what is it?’

  ‘Adam has done a runner. Left Rebecca and the kids high and dry. That was Sophie on the phone.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I have no idea. Just that he’s left, cleaned out the bank accounts. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Are you going to her, to Rebecca?’

  ‘Yes. I said I’d go right away.’

  ‘Let me take you,’ Ella said. ‘I’ll drop you and collect you. You’re as white as a ghost. I don’t want you driving all that way alone. We can talk on the way.’

  I was grateful that she didn’t ask for explanations. ‘What about Daniel?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s on a sleepover at Edward’s, remember?’

  I did – once Ella reminded me. Lately, my forgetfulness had started to bother me. I was letting ordinary arrangements slip from my grasp, catching them only when someone or something jogged my memory. ‘Of course. A lift would be great, if you don’t mind.’

  Ella smiled. ‘There’s a great bookshop not far from your old house. It even has a coffee bar. What’s to mind? I’ll enjoy a couple of quiet hours there. You can take your time.’

  ‘Okay, then. Let’s go.’ I kissed her quickly.

  She picked up her bag and the keys and we locked up and left.

  Your house. Our old home. Ella and Sophie’s words brought to the surface a whole sea of complications. Six months earlier, Adam and Rebecca had sold their substantial home in the midst of a rising property market. They had made, in Adam’s jubilant opinion, ‘a killing’.

  I was happy for them to move into our old family home. Happy to put my plans for sale on the back burner. I had very little heart for it and Rebecca had been grateful. I have no difficulty remembering that. I do believe it meant a great deal to her to be back in her mother’s space once more.

  And I knew that I would never live there again – even if something unthinkable were to happen between Ella and me. And so I planned, eventually, to sell up and put something aside, to keep something back, just in case. I have always regarded King Lear as a particularly cautionary tale for a man with children.

  When Ella dropped me outside, I walked quickly to the porch door and inserted my key in the lock. As I did so, I rang the bell with my signature three blasts. I wanted to give my daughter some warning of my arrival, but at the same time, I did not want to allow her time to shut me out.

  Story of my life, I thought grimly as I stepped into the hallway. ‘Rebecca?’

  The door to the kitchen opened and she stood there, her face streaked with tears. ‘Dad?’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I was shocked. I have never seen Rebecca cry. Not even when her mother died. The last time I remember her in tears was when she was about four years of age.

  I walked towards her, pulling her into a hug. ‘I know what’s happened. I’m here to see that you are all right.’

  She resisted a little, but I pulled her back firmly. Ever since Ian’s birth, I thought that Rebecca had softened just a little towards me. Not towards Ella, nor indeed towards Daniel. But at least the hostilities were no longer so open.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. I could feel her fight for control and I let her go.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked.

  I nodded. ‘Sure.’

  She stood at the sink and I could see the effort it took not to break down. At that moment, I was reminded strongly of her mother. Despite Rebecca’s American fridge and freezer, this was the same kitchen in which the events of that momentous Christmas Eve had taken place. When Rebecca sat, she sat in almost exactly the same place her mother had sat more than thirty years earlier. None of these ironies was lost on me.

  ‘He’s run off,’ she said. ‘My husband has done a runner with a blonde bimbo half his age. Not only that, he’s cleaned me out. Current account, savings account, the lot.’ She poured coffee for both of us.

  I didn’t want to ask, but I felt compelled to. ‘Do you know the woman concerned?’

  She shook her head: not denial, just dismissal of my question. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, not now.’

  I could see the rage in her eyes. ‘When you say he has taken everything – not all the profit from the sale of your house, surely?’

  She nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. Every euro of it. I haven’t got a red cent. I’ll never be able to complete the contract on the new house.’

  I was filled with dismay. ‘But that was—’

  ‘Three hundred and fifty thousand in cash,’ she finished for me. Her voice was flat. Without emphasis. As though such betrayal was to be expected. ‘We lodged it in a savings account, waiting until our new mortgage came through.’

  Alarm bells were ringing. I began, hesitant: ‘Do you think, I mean – was any of this planned in advance? The sudden sale of your own house, the move back to the city – the whole thing?’

  She nodded. Her hands gripped her cup, the same way they had on that morning when we’d met in a coffee shop and she’d told me I was about to be a grandfather. I saw the same dark freckles litter the whiteness of
her knuckles all over again. ‘I believe so. I think the whole thing was premeditated.’ She shook her head, angrily. ‘I trusted him. He’d been behaving oddly for a while, kept saying he was fed up living where we did. If we sold up and moved closer to the city, we’d make a better pension investment, and have a fresh start somewhere new. I thought it was a midlife crisis. Little did I know.’

  My thoughts were speeding. I found it hard to comprehend such duplicity. I had once felt sympathy for Adam, because I believed Rebecca had worn the trousers, to use an old-fashioned expression. And perhaps she had. But all that was irrelevant now.

  ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘For what?’ Rebecca looked at me, astonished.

  ‘He’s cleaned you out. He has children he must support. You can’t just let him walk away from his responsibilities.’ I tried to keep the indignation from my voice. It was her decision, after all. I could support whatever she decided; but I could not insist.

  ‘They were joint accounts. There is no comeback. And if he ever tries to come near his children again, I will kill him.’

  I was shocked. But I believed her. I thought it best not to pursue that subject any further for now.

  And so Adam disappeared without trace. To this day, we have heard nothing of him, nothing from him. He discarded his life and his children like a worn-out overcoat.

  That evening, I felt a deep rush of sympathy for my daughter. Ever since, I have admired the drive and determination she has shown in providing for her two children. And she is still in our old family home – with her sisters’ generous acquiescence.

  Quite simply, she has nowhere else to go.