The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  ‘HEY, FRAN, WHAT’S UP?’

  I could hear the surprise in Sophie’s voice. We’d only just spoken, maybe five minutes earlier, making an arrangement to meet up for a quiet lunch together, just the two of us.

  I tried to steady my voice. I could feel it trembling away from me, just as my fingers had shaken above the keypad of my mobile phone, unable to land safely. ‘Something terrible has happened.’

  ‘What?’ All at once, the air stilled between us.

  ‘There’s been . . . there’s been . . . an accident. Daniel.’ That was all I could manage.

  ‘Jesus. How bad?’

  I couldn’t say it. My throat seemed to have closed over. I couldn’t breathe. It felt as though I was choking. For a moment, I lived the full horror of what it must have been like for my little brother.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  The word, spoken aloud at last, seemed to unleash all the anguish that had built up inside me. ‘Yes,’ I could hear myself wail. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in ten. Don’t move. I’m on my way.’ A pause. ‘Is there anybody with you?’

  I shook my head, as though my sister could see me. ‘No. Martin’s gone to collect the kids.’

  ‘Don’t move,’ she repeated. ‘I’m in the car. I’m on my way to you.’

  Ten minutes later, I heard her key in the lock. We’ve always shared our space like this: our houses, flats, rooms, going back to when we were small children together. The comfort of it is inexpressible.

  And now, that other part of my self – the better part, I often believe – walks into the kitchen. I don’t know what I would do without Sophie.

  She takes my hand, wraps her other arm around my shoulder, pulls me to her firmly. She makes me feel the ground beneath my feet again. But I cannot speak and my eyes fill, over and over.

  ‘What are you not telling me?’ she asks.

  I look at her. Shake my head.

  ‘Say it,’ she urges, gently.

  And then, I am unable to stop. I tell her what Dad has told me, word for word. It is his voice that comes out of my mouth, not my own. I tell her about the dash from the harbour, the silent house, the boy in his bedroom. About the attic and the rope. The rope from the Aurora.

  Dad’s sailing boat: the one where all of our children, Sophie’s and mine, had learned to master the wind and the waves. The boat that Daniel had learned to sail as though it were an extension of his own slight, strong body. I could still see my father’s proud smile, hear his jokes about the next generation of sailors – a particular delight, as none of his three daughters had been the slightest bit keen on the sea.

  Rebecca had always declined to be interested on principle – I think Dad accepted that. But he’d had hopes for us, for Sophie and me. As in so many areas of my life, I was too terrified to try, too scared to risk. Sophie had always been too busy doing other things: running marathons, training teams, that sort of stuff. It was either that, or she had her head stuck in some computer code book. Dad understood none of it – neither my physical fear nor Sophie’s constant, sporty busyness. He particularly couldn’t get his head around her technological obsessions. I felt suddenly, startlingly sorry for my father and all his unmet expectations.

  I don’t know why all of that seemed so important again on this awful evening. I don’t know why I was so filled with regret as I sat across the table from my twin. It was as though my brain had lost its ability to filter thoughts. It gave access to every painful, jagged fragment of childhood guilt: as though, somehow, if I had been a better daughter – perhaps if we both had been better daughters – then Dad would not have been made to suffer like this.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ Sophie says, slumping down at the kitchen table opposite me. Her face is paper white. It seems as though the skin has thinned suddenly. I can see the fine tracery of blue veins below its surface. ‘Do they have any idea why? Oh, Christ, is that a hugely insensitive question?’ She drags her hands through her hair, at that moment looking so much like our mother that she shocks me. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t take this in.’

  ‘I have no idea what happened.’ I can feel my voice about to break again. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine what was wrong, nor can they. Dad says he – Daniel – had cycled over to Edward’s before himself and Ella left this morning. He smiled to them, waved; all was well.’

  Sophie shivers. ‘We must go to them. Straight away. Come on. I’ll drive.’

  I stand, shakily. ‘I need to tell Martin.’

  ‘Call him from the car.’

  ‘Does Pete know?’

  Sophie nods. ‘Just what you told me, about an accident. I’ve asked him to say nothing to the kids just yet, not until we get back.’

  ‘I’ll do the same,’ I say. ‘We can tell them together.’

  Sophie drives. As I watch the road spool out in front of us, I have the strangest sensation that my brain has begun to unfreeze. Images of my father, of Ella and Daniel, begin to break over me in waves.

  Daniel’s thirteenth birthday party, some twenty months ago. He hadn’t wanted one this February, according to Dad. In fact, he was so adamant about not wanting a party that I think my father was hurt. ‘Come on, Dad,’ I’d said. ‘He’s fourteen now. Way too cool for family birthday parties. He’s growing up. Maybe he wants to do something with his mates.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Dad had looked brighter, suddenly happier with that explanation, but I’d no idea whether I was right. Anyway, last year, we’d all gone, all made the trip to be with Daniel, with the three of them. Dad loved our visits, and I know Ella did, too. She and I have become very close. I suppose our friendship really started when my twins were born, and Daniel was just three. It’s amazing how having children bonds you to other parents. I have great respect for Ella: she has her finger on the pulse of most things involving young people. Her insight, her empathy – and her patience – are all quite extraordinary.

  Anyway, on that occasion, the occasion of Daniel’s birthday party, Rebecca’s children, Ian and Aisling, were there too, along with our two, Tom and Jack, and Sophie and Pete’s three, Pete Junior, Cecilia and Barry. All of us arrived at Dad’s house – Dad and Ella’s house – within minutes of each other. And Rebecca had been gracious about attending on that occasion: there is, after all, something about reaching the teenage years that marks a rite of passage. I think we all understood that.

  My father couldn’t hide his delight. He has always been a wonderful grandfather, scrupulous in his generosity towards all of his grandchildren – he showed no favouritism.

  He couldn’t have: Daniel was quite simply the sight of his eye. No one else came near; no one else could come near. I felt sorry for Dad sometimes, that Daniel was so often taken for his grandchild rather than his son. It was a natural mistake: people never intended to be cruel. But still. It must have hurt.

  Seven adults and eight children make a great deal of noise – or at least, they do in my family. We held the early afternoon bit of the birthday party in Ella’s garden, on the patio; I often think of the garden as hers, even still, but Dad has really made it his own, too, over the years. He’d never been a gardener in his other life; his domestic duties had always been rather on the light side. But with Ella, all of that changed. He learned to cook; he learned to love planting and painting and just plain pottering. I thought it was great: a poke in the eye for all those people who believe that you can’t ever change the habits of a lifetime.

  That February day was a bright, sunny Saturday, all the chill banished by the patio heaters going at full blast. It was wonderful to sit outside even for an hour at midday: a sort of welcome-back party for the brighter days, the lengthening evenings that break the spell of winter. Even the garden obliged; we were greeted by a riot of crocuses and snowdrops. I found their colours cheering.

  We sat at long tables which were set with the beautiful white embroidered cloths that had once belonged to Ella’s mother. Years before, nervous about lemonade and choco
late stains when the children were younger, I’d suggested to Ella that she might want to remove them, to put them away safely. But she just smiled.

  ‘I want to use beautiful things every chance I get,’ she said. ‘My mother would not have approved of these being stuck in a drawer. Dad always said so. I want to get as much pleasure as I can out of using them.’ I was very struck by that at the time. It was as though Ella was guarding against a day when beautiful things would no longer bring solace, as though at some level she was aware that out there somewhere, in the not too distant future, tragedy might loom.

  I hope that doesn’t sound too fanciful, but I really felt something wistful in her words that day. I thought immediately of my father, naturally. I had often wondered how much Ella worried about losing him, given that he was so much older than she was. Twenty years’ difference is a lot. Who wouldn’t worry about it? That was what I thought then.

  Little did I know. Who could? Who could even articulate such a nightmare?

  At the end of the evening, just before we got ready to go home, Dad did his usual thing of hosting the kids’ party pieces. We’d all gone inside again after the long lunch, a bit reluctantly, on my part. But although it was still bright, we needed to move indoors to escape the increasing afternoon chill. ‘It’s freezing,’ Sophie murmured, nudging me, just before we left the garden. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ She had begun to shiver. I rarely feel the cold, though: perhaps because my bones are way more upholstered than those of my slender sister.

  Dad brought Aisling to the piano first and she played her party piece – Chopin’s Prélude in E Minor, op. 28 no 4 – and very well, too. Ian was next. He was obsessed with Bob Dylan that year and played ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’ on his brand-new guitar. He played it extremely well; he even managed to mimic Dylan’s aloofness from his audience. A tall, strapping thirteen since the previous July, he was already well on his way to becoming a man. His physical resemblance to Dad on that day was very evident. When he finished the song, his face was flushed with pride. Daniel whistled and stamped his feet and I caught a sudden glimpse of the hero-worship that I’d never seen before. I was suddenly sad that these two had never had the opportunity to be close.

  I glanced over at Rebecca then and saw that her eyes had filled. I felt an ache of sorrow for my sister. She had lost so much. I’d never really warmed to Adam – but then, he wasn’t mine to like. No matter what way you cut it, Rebecca was lonely, although she was far too prickly to let anyone know that, even her sisters. Perhaps particularly her sisters.

  My two, Tom and Jack, played the duet they had been practising. Trepak, from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. They acquitted themselves well, particularly Jack. I think we all knew that, while my mother’s musical talent seemed to have bypassed her daughters, at least her grandchildren had it in spades. I was proud of all of them.

  And then it was Daniel’s turn.

  Perhaps my memory of this party has acquired its particular luminosity because of hindsight: that because it was the last time all of us were together – Dad used to take Ella and Daniel away skiing every Christmas – it has acquired a clarity, a kind of brittle significance that other gatherings have not.

  Do I remember it like this just because Daniel is no longer with us? I don’t think so. I know that I was already aware on the day that it was, in some way, remarkable. That it would be memorable in ways that other gatherings were not. I don’t know how best to express it. All I do know is that Daniel’s playing on that day moved me in a way I cannot explain.

  I watched as he tucked the violin under his chin, expecting some of the scraping and grinding that I used to hear from my neighbour’s daughter, until she abandoned music completely – to my considerable relief. I’d heard Daniel play a few times before, of course, at other family gatherings. Children’s pieces mostly, whose names I have forgotten. I didn’t pay all that much attention: there was no need to. His was just one more party piece among so many others.

  But there was a different quality to him, and to his playing, on that day. He looked comfortable, confident, and I have to say that I wondered whether this was the self-possession of an only, treasured, doted-upon son, accustomed to praise, rarely criticized, unaware of the cut and thrust of sibling rivalries.

  Within moments, though, I had the grace to feel ashamed of myself. Daniel played with a sureness – an authority – way beyond his years. His tone was clear and true, his fingering faultless, his stance that of a true musician. He played Scarlatti’s Arioso in D Minor – not a particularly challenging piece – but he played it with an access to vulnerability, to loss, that moved me deeply.

  This was not just the technical perfection of the well-schooled; this was the nuanced playing of a mature, emotionally articulate, experienced musician. I had difficulty reconciling the slight, animated boyish figure that stood in front of me, with that unruly lock of hair – so like my father’s, falling across his freckled forehead – with the emotional depth and range of the music that I was hearing. I may not play an instrument with anything other than passing competence, but my mother taught me well. I know how to recognize the real deal when I hear it.

  When he had finished, we clapped, we hooted, we whistled, we cat-called. Daniel took a bow, his mischievous grin lighting up his face.

  ‘Aw, Aunt Frankie,’ he said, when he saw my tears. He walked into my embrace and we hugged for quite a time. I liked the fact of how unselfconscious he was – he didn’t shy away from my emotion, nor from my arms. He called each of us ‘Aunt’ – Rebecca, Sophie, me. I’m not sure why. I think it might have been his way of being respectful – or perhaps our first names embarrassed him: their use might have forced him to remember our slightly unconventional relationships. I know from my own two sons, that young boys – in particular, I think – are terrified of being seen as different from their peers. All they want is to be the same as everyone else.

  That is, until they are older. Then all they want is to be maddeningly different from everyone else.

  ‘Daniel, that was truly wonderful. Your grandma Cecilia would be so proud of you.’ The moment I said it, I embarrassed myself into silence. I’d got the relationships horribly wrong. But Dad was smiling hugely, as was Ella. I realized at once that the last place Daniel would have got his musical talent was from my mother – there was not even the most tenuous of blood relationships between them. But, right at that moment, I’d forgotten that. I think that on that day, more than at any other time in the previous thirteen years, Daniel felt, truly, like my brother. Perhaps that is why I remember it all so well.

  ‘Thanks, Aunt Frankie. Glad you liked it.’ He was a boy again, shy, bashful.

  Ella joined us. ‘Well done, young man,’ she said. ‘That was the best I’ve heard it.’

  He looked at her, impish, his head to one side. He’d had that cheeky expression even as a baby. ‘Worth all the times you said it made your teeth shriek?’

  Ella laughed. ‘Every last one of them.’

  ‘Golden Boy’, Martin said that night as we drove home. My husband is not a malicious man – quite the contrary. There isn’t a nasty bone in his body. No, he said it with admiration, with a kind of reverence that has also stayed with me.

  I think everybody saw on that night – with varying degrees of resentment and affection – a boy who had it all. Love, security, financial certainties, talents to burn. Daniel had been persuaded by Dad to show us his black-and-white photographs: the ones of birds and wildlife that had just won him first prize in the local photographic club competition. That led the conversation back to the camera, which in turn led us back to the photo essay, which led back to the school prize. And yet all of it was without bluster, without even a hint of youthful arrogance. If anything, Daniel was a bit embarrassed, his face flushed an unaccustomed pink. ‘Come on, Dad,’ he said. ‘Leave it.’

  I have my own photograph of that instant: the one that went ‘click’ and filed itself away in that part of my brain called m
emory. Dad, beaming. Ella, surrounded by every single one of the kids – she’d always drawn them to her. Aisling and Jack in particular used to stick to her like glue – had done so ever since they were small children. She was a real child-magnet: and she always had time for each of them.

  Martin and Pete, I remember, were leaning against the wall, their hands in their pockets. And Sophie stood, watching it all. I know because I caught her eye. At exactly the same moment, we looked over at Rebecca. She was stiff, unyielding in the oversized armchair, refusing to sink into its embrace. For a moment, her face was suffused with loss and longing, and something else; I don’t think it was bitterness, not any longer. But something was there, just for a moment, that same moment that Sophie and I caught each other watching her. If I didn’t know my older sister as well as I do, I’d have sworn that what I saw was guilt.

  Then Ian, Rebecca’s lad, broke the brief silence – a silence that had not yet become uncomfortable, but was probably about to.

  Ian said loudly: ‘Jaysus, Daniel. You’ve just made it impossible for the rest of us. Thanks a lot, man.’

  All of us, adults and children alike, dissolved into raucous laughter. Even Rebecca, who looked both surprised and amused. It was perfect, I thought. Ian’s response was both a rueful acknowledgement of Daniel’s many talents, and at the same time a celebration of them. But above all, there was a palpable sense of ‘us’, shared by all the kids – Daniel, the uncle who was pretty much the same age as his nieces and nephews – was also one of them: equal, independent, and part of the necessary conspiracy against their parents’ expectations.

  And that birthday celebration is the last time all of us were together.

  I’ve quizzed Tom and Jack as gently as possible over the past few years about what might have gone wrong for Daniel, but they have been unforthcoming.

  I know one thing, though: it was something outside the embrace of that home that Dad and Ella had created. It had to be. Nothing else made any sense at all.