The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

  The one where the Jays are chasing him and Leo is waiting to jump.

  I told Miss O’Connor about it yesterday and she promised to go and find it just as soon as she could. She told me not to say anything to anybody yet because this could be very important evidence. But I had to tell you and I had to give you this letter because I can’t stop thinking about him and I can’t stop crying.

  I miss him and I don’t know what else to do.

  Patrick

  I KNOW THAT ELLA and I sat in stunned silence for several minutes. Sylvia wept so hard that I could feel my own tears begin to well up in response. The poor child was broken-hearted. We had sat, riveted, throughout this young girl’s story. She was articulate, thoughtful and emotional by turns. At one point, she seemed unbearably vulnerable. At another, she unspooled her narrative with a degree of sophistication and awareness that astonished us both. We discussed her endlessly afterwards.

  Ella stroked her hands. ‘Thank you for telling us, Sylvia. We have an appointment with Mr Murray tomorrow morning. It’s really useful for us to know all of this before we meet him.’

  Sylvia sobbed and sobbed, and Ella tried to comfort her. But my thoughts were racing ahead of myself. I could hardly keep up with them. Would there be a record somewhere of Daniel and Sylvia’s conversations? Of their texts? Could these be evidence against whoever these obnoxious – dangerous – Jays were? Would we be able to gather enough to go to the Guards? I was impatient to phone Sophie. I wanted her here, today, tonight, so that we could follow this trail and see where it led us.

  I felt my thinking become clearer, faster. It was as though new neurons were firing, that new pathways were being carved – pathways that would lead us out of this maze of uncertainty and take us towards resolution. I had not felt so alert, so consumed with a sense of purpose in a long time. I remember another strange realization, too. I remember feeling that I had suddenly entered another world, one in which events were spinning around me, chaotic, disparate, puzzling. It was similar to what I had felt on the day we returned home to find Daniel in his bedroom. On that occasion, I felt that the world had suddenly spun out of control, that my own life eluded my reach and my grasp. But this time, I felt that there were things I could control, things I could structure, things I could organize towards knowledge. It was, finally, a good feeling.

  But now I had to ask this young girl something. I’d be as gentle as I could. ‘Sylvia,’ I began. ‘We both know how very difficult this must be for you.’

  She looked at me, her eyes bluer than ever.

  ‘You came to us because you want to acknowledge your special friendship with Daniel, and because you’d like to help, isn’t that right?’

  She nodded. I took a deep breath.

  ‘We need to start gathering evidence of everything that was happening to Daniel. Do you by any chance have the texts and the emails that Daniel sent you? Could we see them?’ My fists were clenched in my trouser pockets. I couldn’t bear it if her reply were to crush the first tentative stirrings of hope. I could see Ella watching me: I knew that she was thinking the same things I was.

  Sylvia motioned towards the envelope. ‘They’re in there along with my letter. Dad said they might be important. We printed them off last night and he took photos of the texts for you – but they’re still on my phone as well. I didn’t delete them. You can borrow it if you want.’ Her face was earnest, tear-stained innocence.

  I was swamped with an intensity of relief that left me breathless. ‘Thank you and your dad very much for this, Sylvia. I can’t tell you how grateful we are.’

  We sat and Ella talked to her. I couldn’t. My mind was working the way it should be at last, stripping away the inessentials, planning the outline of my response, winkling out every bit of information that might serve our cause. With a jolt, I remembered something that Sylvia had just said, had just reminded me of: that Daniel had used my laptop in Madrid on that fateful afternoon. My email account, rather than his own. I remembered that distinctly. I didn’t even need Sophie to find that bit of evidence – I could do it for myself.

  I was impatient now for Sylvia to be gone. I know that that was an ignoble way to feel, but that is the plain truth of it. There were so many things I needed to do.

  She left, finally, thanking us shyly for the tea. She refused a lift back to school, said that her bike was just outside. Ella took her phone number, gave her ours, told her to call at any time, that she would always be welcome. She got the girl’s permission to ring her father, to thank him.

  I think Sylvia was proud of what she had done. When she left, her eyes were brighter and there was no longer any sign of embarrassment in her gaze. We promised we’d be in touch soon. Then we waited until she was safely on the road to school, waved, and closed the door behind her.

  Ella looked at me, her eyes full of anguished hope. ‘Patrick – tell me that that’s all really useful. I mean, now we can begin to grapple with what happened to Daniel, can’t we? What sort of monsters are these three boys?’ And her voice cracked on the final word. I held her hand, gripped her firmly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, we can get a proper handle on it. Thank Christ for Sylvia and her father.’ My tone was as grimly determined as I felt. I reached out for Sylvia’s envelope.

  ‘Come on – let’s go and find out what Daniel left on my laptop while we were in Madrid.’

  Edward

  ASSEMBLY WAS REAL quiet on that first Monday. We were all told to go there instead of to our classrooms and Mr Murray the principal and Miss O’Connor the deputy principal were waiting for us. I looked everywhere for Sylvia but she must of been late because I didn’t see her until much later and I knew to look at her that she had been crying. Edward, she said, and then couldn’t say any more. I put my arms around her and she sobbed and sobbed. Everybody was hugging everybody else and nobody said a word. Nobody was messing like other days either. It was like as though everybody knew how to behave even though nothing like this had ever happened before. I looked out for the Jays and they were there but you wouldn’t know by them that they had anything to feel bad about. They were standing beside Leo Byrne the guy who only arrived when we were halfway through first year. He came from the city so he didn’t really have any friends at least not in the old crowd. I didn’t really know him just that he sometimes hung around with the Jays. He looked sicker than any of the others that morning and I wondered if there was something he knew. Mr Murray was asking us to speak to the counsellors if we had anything to say even if it didn’t seem important or significant. We had our own counsellors that we knew and there were another two we had never seen before, plus another chaplain.

  It’s okay I said and patted Sylvia on the back but it wasn’t okay. I had to stop her from going over to the Jays, but. She said something about a picture and how they’d been chasing Daniel but I didn’t really understand her she was crying too hard. All the counsellors were saying how important it was to tell everything we knew that might have hurt Daniel. They said it over and over again, except in all different ways. Miss Burke was nice to me once and I just decided there and then to put my name onto a slip of paper and have a confidential meeting on my own. She waited until Miss O’Connor called everyone into the cafeteria for tea and biscuits. Sylvia had gone over to her friends. That way nobody would notice me gone, not with all the moving around that was going on.

  I followed her into her office and she was kind. Once I started talking to her I wasn’t able to stop. I cried when I remembered what first year had been like for me and Daniel and I told her everything. I told her that mostly I got called Paki and darkie but once nigger and one of the teachers was standing behind us so Jason got into a shitload of trouble. I told her the way they used to pick on us most days especially Jason but I think that sometimes Jeremy was worse. He was bigger and a year older and he was the one who pushed into us in the corridor and Daniel fell and banged his head against the wall he didn’t cry but I could see that he wanted to and Miss O’
Connor came running down the corridor. Sorry Miss Jeremy said I didn’t see him. But she just looked at him and said outside my office now. And I told her as well that Daniel said later that Miss O’Connor made it worse even though she was trying to make it better.

  Fathersir always told me to say if I got racist stuff like that but I never told him not once what was the point. Things only got worse when Daniel played the violin at the Christmas concert but he wouldn’t give in I kind of admired him for that but the Jays told us we’d better enjoy that Christmas because it was going to be our last.

  Patrick

  ALL THREE OF MY DAUGHTERS arrived together that evening.

  I mention them here because I have become increasingly aware as I write – and indeed, I was also aware even at the time – that, despite my best efforts, I had again begun to take the support of each of them for granted. It brought back painful memories of life after Cecilia’s sudden death, and I confessed as much to them.

  ‘It’s nothing like that time, Dad,’ Frances said. She shook her head at me. ‘You are a different man, and this is a very different loss.’

  We were in the kitchen together, just she and I, making coffee. The others were in the conservatory.

  ‘I want you to know that I appreciate – that Ella and I both appreciate – all that the three of you have done. I don’t believe we’d have got through that first week without you.’ I meant it. Their presence had been an inexpressible comfort to me. I had felt profoundly sorry for Ella in her isolation: no brothers, no sisters, no family. No children.

  Frances kissed me. ‘We’re here for you, all of us. You only have to ask. And,’ here she looked at me, ‘you might take some small solace from the fact that Rebecca deeply regrets the breach between you. She really wants to make it right.’ Frances paused. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve probably spoken out of turn. I should let her tell you herself. Daniel’s death has truly devastated her.’

  It was a solace: a small, surprising one, but something nonetheless. It made me want to be generous towards my eldest daughter. Life is much too short.

  Sophie was already working on my laptop when we carried the coffee into the conservatory. Ella was at one shoulder, Rebecca at the other.

  ‘You’re right, Dad, it is all here,’ Sophie said. ‘Nothing has been deleted, as far as I can see. His email to Sylvia, hers to him, and the entire content of their gmail chat. I’ve managed to print it out, just for ease of access for you.’

  Rebecca’s face was a white mask of fury. ‘Who are these poisonous little bastards?’ she said, her words exploding around her.

  I think we were all taken aback. We stopped whatever we were doing and looked at her. I suppose Ella and I had had our initial shocks in small stages. We had begun to expect the worst: indeed, we were dedicated to finding it. But this was the first time any of my daughters had had to face this . . . this evil. It is not a word I use lightly. Nor was it, I believe, too strong a word in the circumstances.

  ‘They are known as the Jays,’ I said, calmly. ‘Three boys, Jason, Jeremy and James with someone called Leo on the sidelines. They attend Daniel’s school. We’re going there tomorrow to empty Daniel’s locker. We’ll meet the principal, and at least start a conversation about all of this. But we can’t really move on it until we have more evidence.’

  Rebecca was livid. ‘I’ve heard of this, of course,’ she said. ‘This cyber-bullying. But I didn’t realize how vicious it could be.’ She was shaking. ‘What can we do with the information we have?’

  The ‘we’ touched me.

  ‘Gather all of it,’ said Ella, at once. ‘Go to the school, gather more. Then go to the police, once we’ve gathered everything we can.’ As she spoke, she was putting Sophie’s pages into a folder, along with what Sylvia had given us earlier. We’d kept the girl’s letter separate, though. It was a careful, youthful outpouring, and its innocent tenderness had moved us both beyond words.

  Sophie nodded. ‘We can’t access the website that they created, the one that Sylvia mentions here. I suspect because they closed it down – either because they’d already had their fun with it, or because they suddenly got scared. I can’t get to it, not without more sophisticated methods.’

  ‘Is it possible to retrieve it?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Most things are possible,’ Sophie said. ‘I have a friend who works in the forensics lab. He’s brilliant. His name is Kieran and I’m meeting him tomorrow. I’ll know better then what the lie of the land is.’

  We had told them all about Sylvia, of course. About her visit that morning, her shy, earnest presence. I had found it particularly painful, looking at Daniel’s first potential girlfriend. But Ella took great comfort from her being with us. It might sound an odd thing to say, but I had the sense even then that she and Sylvia would become close. I was right. They still are. We both, but Ella in particular, have been supporters of Sylvia over the last few years. She will go to university, as will Edward. All of these things bring with them mixed emotions. I think my wife is better at dealing with all of them than I am.

  Later that night, Ella brought my three daughters upstairs to Daniel’s room to see Sylvia’s photograph on the collage. When they had left the conservatory, I remember that the air seemed to settle into an extraordinary stillness. I had a long moment of peace, of utter tranquillity – probably the first such moment since my son’s death.

  Right then, I felt him close to me. His presence was all around me. I saw him again as he was on that memorable day when we had gone fishing together. When we’d come home, I’d given him – we both had – some precious bits and pieces that had once belonged to Dan. A hand-carved wooden box filled with the bright, jewel-like spinners that the old man had once made by hand. A calligraphy pen and some bottles of ink: we knew that this would appeal to the artist in Daniel. And the old man’s Swiss Army knife. Never to be taken from the house, we’d warned. Only to be used under supervision.

  I can still see my son’s bright smile. His eagerness to try out the calligraphy set, to paint the brightly coloured spinners. His solemn promise that he would never take, or use, the Swiss Army knife without permission.

  I remembered that then, and I remember it again now. Did we trust him too much? Were we not vigilant enough as parents? What kind of world was this that our only son could no longer live in it?

  We were on the threshold of finding some, if not all, of the answers.

  The following morning, Ella stopped, just as she was about to get into the car. She seemed to stumble and I reached out instinctively to place one hand under her elbow. She turned to me and smiled the palest ghost of a smile.

  ‘Poor Patrick,’ she said. ‘You’re spending your life on high alert. I’m okay. Let’s just get this over with.’

  It had been a tense morning, ever since we woke. The visit to the school loomed over us – a huge, threatening mushroom cloud. Both of us were emotional, in a way I hadn’t expected. I was learning all over again the ways in which grief fools you. The occasional moment of calm in which anything feels possible, even recovery, suddenly recedes; it leaves you beached, unprepared for yet another onslaught, the wave which has been gathering strength on the horizon while you looked the other way. That is the sort of morning this was.

  I squeezed her arm. I could not trust myself to speak. I felt like a fish trapped in a net. I could still swim back and forth, there was the illusion of space, of freedom – sometimes even of open water. But, this morning, it felt as though things were closing in on me. It felt merely a matter of time before I found myself flapping, flailing, discarded carelessly on some cold quay wall, like the trout that Daniel and I had once caught together.

  I’d been stung to hear Ella refer to me as ‘poor Patrick’ – as though I had merely some ancillary, supporting role to play in all of this. As though I wasn’t as consumed with grief and bewilderment as she was. I needed somebody’s hand under my elbow, too, from time to time . . .

  And then, just as soon as the feeling ha
d formed, I was awash with shame. This was becoming the pattern. I was learning to recognize it, learning a whole new language: an immersion course in chaos that threatened to unravel me, little by little.

  ‘You’re very pale,’ Ella said to me now, sitting into the passenger seat. ‘Did you sleep at all?’

  I turned the key in the ignition. ‘A little.’ I smiled at her. At least she was with me this morning, present in her eyes, in her whole expression, in a way that she often wasn’t. I’d been keeping a diary, making notes of everything that happened between us. I felt an urgent need to remember.

  Ella sighed, clicking the seat belt in place. ‘Mr Murray said to come straight to his office. If we get there before nine-forty, the kids will all be in their classrooms. The corridors will be empty.’

  Her voice broke on the last sentence. I reached out to her, stopped the car before we reached the road. ‘We can do it another day,’ I said. ‘If it’s too much today, just tell me. It will wait.’

  But she shook her head, and I saw again how her determination suddenly ignited: the determination I had seen so many times over the last days.

  There were still a few, navy-uniformed stragglers making their way across the schoolyard as we arrived. They were surrounded by an air of weary indifference – that ‘too cool to care’ attitude that Daniel had never affected. Looking at them now, I was jolted into an awareness of how different our son must have seemed. I glanced across at Ella, wondering if she had seen what I just had, but her gaze was focused on the school door.

  ‘Ella?’

  She turned to look at me, her whole face a blank.

  ‘Do you feel ready?’

  She nodded. ‘Do you?’

  I didn’t mean to, but I know I shrugged. ‘It has to be done. I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.’ I stepped out of the car and made my way around to the passenger door. Ella took the hand I offered her. ‘Hold on tight,’ I said. ‘Remember, this too will pass.’