The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  ‘Don’t, Patrick. Please don’t. We can’t go down that road, not yet. We owe it to Daniel. All I know is I need to find out. I need to look for the truth.’ Her voice breaks and Patrick’s hand is instantly at her face, cupping her chin. He looks into her eyes.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She holds his gaze. ‘And you’re right. I am afraid of what we’re going to find out. But I’m even more afraid of not finding out. We need to know, Patrick, and we need to start looking now.’

  He nods. ‘Yes.’ And ‘Yes’ again. He sounds resigned.

  She kisses him. ‘Why don’t you sleep, or just rest a little more? I’ll finish in here and maybe later, we could take a look at his computer?’

  ‘I can’t rest,’ he says. ‘And I can’t sleep. Let’s just do this, bit by bit. And let’s do it together.’

  Ella watches as his eye roves around the room. His gaze alights on Daniel’s computer. ‘Have you switched it on yet?’ he asks.

  Ella shakes her head. ‘No. I couldn’t bear to. I wanted us both to do it together, when we felt ready.’

  ‘Do you feel ready now?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  Patrick takes her by the hand and sits on Daniel’s swivel chair. Ella pulls over the blue chair, hesitates, and finally lowers herself onto the wooden seat. She glances to her right. Patrick is composed again; there is something of his old purposefulness struggling to the surface.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We are going to try every combination of names and numbers that we can think of, to see if we can unlock the password. Have you any idea what it might be?’

  Ella shakes her head. ‘He told me once that my password was too weak. That I should have numbers as well as letters. I can only assume that his will be strong.’

  ‘There are ways of doing this, you know, even if we can’t.’ He looks at her. ‘I’ve already spoken to Sophie. She says there are all sorts of specialized software packages that can unlock passwords. She’s promised to help if we can’t do it ourselves.’

  Ella’s face lights up. ‘Sophie! Of course! I never even thought of her, but, yes, of course!’ She feels suddenly filled with all the optimism of possibility.

  ‘Do you still want to have a go?’ Patrick is watching her. ‘Or will we just get Sophie to come over tonight?’

  ‘I don’t want to wait,’ she says. ‘I want to try. It’s important. We can always call Sophie later on if we aren’t getting anywhere.’

  Three hours later, they have given up. Patrick sits back in the chair and admits defeat. ‘That’s everything I can think of,’ he says.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ella says, ‘now that we know Sophie can help. Call her, Patrick. Call her now. Let her know what we need.’

  There is the sudden, unexpected peal of the doorbell. Patrick stands up. ‘I’ll go,’ he says. At least he’s fully dressed. Ella pulls her dressing gown more tightly around her.

  ‘I’d better change,’ she says. She hurries towards their bedroom.

  When Patrick opens the door, there is a young girl standing there, about Daniel’s age, dressed in a school uniform. She is small, slight, with the bluest eyes he has ever seen. Her white-blonde hair is roped into two severe plaits that hang almost to her waist. Her expression is grave, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘Mr Grant?’

  ‘Yes,’ Patrick says. He makes sure his tone is gentle. ‘Can I help you?’

  She holds out one hand, awkwardly. He shakes it, surprised at this old-fashioned formality.

  ‘I am Sylvia. A good friend of Daniel’s.’

  Patrick stands back, opens the door wider. ‘Sylvia. You are very welcome. Please, come in.’

  Sylvia

  I WASN’T SURE where to start, and I probably babbled on too much, but I told Mr and Mrs Grant everything I could. I must have jumped about a bit because his dad looked puzzled and asked me a question from time to time. I thought it was important to tell them first that Daniel was really good at art. That Miss O’Connor loved him; we could all see that. I was sometimes a tiny bit jealous of him. In my old school, before we ever came here, I was the best of everyone at art. I won the prize every Christmas. But even I could see that my pictures were only pretty. Daniel’s were different – always dark, always full of movement. ‘Dynamic, powerful’: these were only some of the teacher’s words. She would write her comments on the back of all our pages and Daniel was always eager to read what she had said about his. I did not even need to peer over his shoulder to see her praise: he would always show me. He was proud, but in a nice way. I had to get used to being second best.

  Then I told them about how I got to know Daniel, when we were still in first year. She – Miss O’Connor – arranged us all in random groups for our project. I ended up sitting beside Daniel for that, and even when the project finished, we kept on sitting together. Miss O’Connor never minded if we chatted, as long as we got on with our work. And we always did: Daniel was serious like that. And so was I. I also liked the way he helped me sometimes. He would tell me something if he thought I was stuck. And often, when Miss O’Connor got into one of her abstract moods, I was stuck.

  I liked the still lifes or the playing with colour best. I even liked the drawing with charcoal – I did some really good portraits of Lisa in charcoal. Daniel grinned when he saw what I had done. I’d made Lisa’s nose even longer than it is, and made her ears stick out more. Just a little, so that it looked like I was at fault because of my drawing. I was careful not to ‘stray into caricature’ – we’d all been warned about that. But I don’t really like Lisa, and she does look down her nose at me. So I thought it was the right bit of her face to emphasize.

  ‘She looks so snobby,’ Daniel said, almost under his breath. I was startled – I hadn’t realized he was looking. I think I blushed. Either way, my face felt warm and I looked away.

  ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘’Cos she is snobby.’ He nudged me with his elbow, forcing me to turn and look at him. And then we both grinned. We were good friends after that.

  The day I remember most was sometime last May, just before we broke up for the summer. Miss O’Connor was at some teachers’ meeting, and we had a substitute, Miss Clarke. She was useless. Totally useless. It took her ages to get the class under control. ‘No more talking’, she kept shouting, over and over. She was the one making all the noise. What is wrong with talking when you are working? I have never understood that.

  In the end, she only managed to control us because Miss O’Connor had left us work to do, and it had to be collected once the double period was over. Most of us groaned when we heard what it was. Another one of Miss O’Connor’s ‘concepts’ – I never knew what to do with these random words that she used to write on the board. Things like ‘Wild’ or ‘Serenity’ or ‘Progress’ – stuff like that. They were words that always made me feel helpless, but Daniel loved them.

  When she finally got us quiet, Miss Clarke wrote just one word on the board: ‘Flight’. That was easier than most, I thought. I was relieved – at least I’d be able to produce something before the class ended. I looked over at Daniel. He was very quiet, but he often was when he was thinking something out.

  ‘You okay?’ I whispered. Miss Clarke glared in my direction, but I ignored her. She’d disappear after class anyway, and we’d probably never see her again. Lots of teachers came and went in our school. Students, I think. They were hardly ever any good.

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded, but he really didn’t look at me. Instead, his head was bent and he started work immediately. I thought maybe I’d done something on him, but then he looked up and smiled and I knew it was okay. He looked very pale, though, and his freckles stood out a lot. I never got to ask if there was something wrong. I tried to catch a glimpse of what he was drawing, but Daniel could be very secretive until he had finished whatever it was he was doing. It kind of annoyed me that day. It’s not like primary school, is it, where people curl their arms around their copy-books in case
someone else tries to steal their answers? You can’t really copy someone else’s art homework, can you?

  Anyway, I’d seen pictures of an albatross on the telly, just a few nights beforehand. Dad loves watching National Geographic and sometimes I sit with him. ‘The greatest wingspan in the world,’ he said, pointing at the TV screen. I have to admit it was impressive, especially when you saw a person standing beside the bird in a colony somewhere in New Zealand. It was huge. My idea was to fill the page with the wings of the albatross: just that, as though I was looking down on the bird from above. That way, the picture would say that the albatross was flying, but so was the artist. I’d have to be in flight too, wouldn’t I, to capture the bird from above? I was pleased with that. It seemed to fit the ‘concept’ that Miss O’Connor was always going on about.

  By the time I got started, Daniel was really into it. He used to get that way sometimes. His face would become one whole focus, like a lens directed towards the page. His mind must have gone away somewhere else, too, because he never even looked up when I asked him to pass me the pencils.

  We started packing up around ten past three, our usual ten minutes before class ended. Miss O’Connor was always very fussy about things being put back in their proper place, pencils in their boxes, or brushes cleaned if we were using them, paper tidied away. When Daniel left to put the A2 sheets on the shelf, I sneaked a look at his page.

  For a moment, I couldn’t move or think any sort of a thought that made sense. Daniel’s page – all of it – was filled with the most dramatic picture I’d ever seen him do. This was way beyond Miss O’Connor’s ‘dynamic’ or ‘powerful’. It frightened me. It was like a vision from hell. I saw what Daniel had done: he’d taken ‘Flight’ to mean ‘Escape’. My first, almost jealous thought was that Miss O’Connor would be well pleased with him. This was a concept, all right – and I bet he was the only one to twist it around like that, in a good way, a real artist’s way.

  There was a figure in the top left, fleeing from whatever was pursuing it. The figure was just like what Daniel had done lots of times before, only better. With a few bold, black strokes, the figure shimmered. It seemed to move across the page, hands outstretched, running for its life. In pursuit were three – what can I call them: hounds? Again, just a few strokes to create strange creatures, with fangs and eyes that were wild and staring. And then there was a fourth figure, in the lower left-hand corner. This figure wasn’t chasing; it was crouching instead, looking ready to pounce at any minute. There was something familiar about all four of them. Something that made the back of my neck prickle. While Daniel’s back was turned, I pulled the sheet of paper closer to me, while pretending to be busy packing away the pencils.

  As I looked, each of the creatures’ faces began to settle into something that I recognized. But I still didn’t know what it was that I recognized. It was something that disturbed me, and I could not get it out of my head.

  Miss Clarke came along then, telling us all to hurry up, the bell was about to go and nobody was going anywhere until the room was left as it should be, blah blah blah. Once the bell went we ignored her, of course, all spilling out into the corridor at the same time.

  I never got the chance to ask Daniel about it. And by the time Miss O’Connor would have seen it, it was too late. The summer holidays had already begun: and maybe she never meant to see that day’s work, anyway. Maybe it was just a way to keep us quiet for Miss Clarke.

  It was around ten that night. I’d finished my homework and Oscar and Philip were already in bed. Mum was getting ready for the night shift at the hospital, and Dad was on the sofa. I’d known that things were bad from the moment I came in from school. Dad hates doing nothing. Hates it even more when he sees Mum going out to work. It’s not her fault. And of course it’s not his fault either. I feel sorry for her, for both of them. That’s not why we came here: we could have had it this bad in Poland, without ever leaving home.

  It was when I heard the front door close that I realized it.

  The creatures in Daniel’s drawing had faces, real human faces. Recognizable faces, and I know that sounds mad. Because when I looked first, all I saw were fangs and eyes. So the shock when I understood it made me feel breathless for a moment. The hounds had the faces of the Jays – Jason, James and Jeremy. The crouching figure, that one that looked like a lion, that was Leo. Which meant that the fleeing figure had to be Daniel. I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.

  I wish I had known. I wish that I’d done something anyway, even if it didn’t make any difference.

  I wish I’d had somebody to tell.

  Patrick

  IT MUST HAVE BEEN early in the week following Daniel’s funeral. Things get a bit hazy, they slip from my memory from time to time, so I that can no longer be certain of exact days or dates, but I don’t struggle any more if they evade me. Such exactitude is not so important now, anyway, three and a half years later. What is important is our first meeting with Sylvia. I remember opening the door and being surprised by this diminutive presence standing between two pots of hydrangeas. She looked both terrified and determined.

  I had no idea who she was back then, or why she had come. Of course, I knew that she had to be a student at Daniel’s school. Her navy uniform told me that. She introduced herself and I invited her in. I don’t remember exactly what I said to her, but I know that I did my best to make her feel welcome.

  I remember, too, that I suddenly had no idea what to do with her. Do you offer tea to an unknown teenager? Should she even be in my company while on her own? What laws of political correctness was I breaking?

  To my relief, Ella appeared in the hallway almost at once. Sylvia held out her hand to her. ‘Mrs Grant,’ she said in that grave way she had, ‘my name is Sylvia. I am a friend of Daniel’s.’

  I am a friend. That use of the present tense.

  I saw Ella look at her intently, as though she already knew her. She held onto the girl’s hand in both of hers. But she didn’t know her, did she? Did we? If we did, then I had forgotten.

  ‘Sylvia, how nice to meet you. I was just looking at your photograph upstairs. I was admiring your lovely hair.’

  I was startled. What had I missed out on? Or, more likely, what was I forgetting?

  The girl’s lip trembled. ‘Daniel kept a photo of me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ella, gently. ‘In the collage he did of his life. He only included those people who were significant to him. You were one of them.’

  She bowed her head. I was afraid she might cry, or flee from us.

  ‘How about I make us all some tea?’ I said. The Irish solution to all crises, national or domestic – but what else could I do?

  ‘Yes, please,’ the girl said. I was surprised at how she had suddenly composed herself. She turned to Ella. ‘I hope it is all right to come here today. My parents said yes and Miss O’Connor has given me permission.’

  ‘Of course it’s all right,’ said Ella. ‘We are very glad to meet you. Come and sit down, Sylvia.’ Ella led her into the conservatory, I busied myself with the tea things. When I followed them in, Sylvia had an envelope in her hands. I couldn’t help feeling intensely curious about its contents and about her visit.

  ‘I came to give you this,’ she said. ‘It is my letter to Daniel. There are others in the school, but I wanted this one to be private.’ She handed the envelope to me.

  I was nonplussed. What was expected of me?

  ‘I wanted to tell you some things, also,’ she said. ‘My father has said that they could be very important.’

  Ella leaned towards her. ‘We would be very happy indeed to hear anything you could tell us. Anything at all that might help us understand what made Daniel so unhappy.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘I will tell you everything I know.’

  Sylvia

  AND THEN I TOLD them that I liked Daniel.

  He was not the same as the other boys. He never called me Polack or signed rud
e things with his fingers or made fun of the way I speak.

  Daniel told me about going sailing and birdwatching and how he wished he had a brother, but he didn’t, and Edward was almost as good. I knew that the Jays had been horrible to him and Edward at first. I knew that they had broken his violin and pushed him over in the corridor and things like that. I thought to myself that they would probably stop over the summer holidays.

  I went home to Poland for June and July to stay with my grandmother and grandfather. Anyway, I started getting messages from Daniel at the end of July on my email. They were horrible. They said things that weren’t true. And there were some photographs. Of me, with no top on – but they weren’t of me at all, just my face. I cried and cried. Then I emailed Daniel and told him to stop and why was he being so horrible to me. He wrote back at once and said he was in Spain with his dad. He said that his dad’s email account was safe and I could answer him there. Someone had got into his address book he said. He promised he had not said any of those bad things.

  I believed him. We talked some more on gmail chat and then we texted each other. He said he knew it was the Jays. Mostly Jason, though – the others were too thick. He said they had a website of him with dirty pictures and that they were sending nasty messages to everyone they could. He said it never stopped and that he would prefer them to beat him up. At least they can only beat you up in school, he said, but with the messages they can beat you up all the time even at night and even when you are in your own bed.

  When we went back to school this September he was very quiet, but Daniel was often quiet so I didn’t mind. But then the Jays started whistling every time they saw us together at break-time or lunchtime, and James kept on making rude sounds. I don’t think I have ever heard James speak, not proper words. He just grunts, like an animal. Daniel said to ignore them and they would go away. But they didn’t go away.

  When this happened to Daniel last week, I remembered the picture that he had done just before we broke up for the summer holidays.