Chapter 20
On Christmas Day Granny’s chair was empty at the dinner table.
I missed her. But the day wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be because Mum, for the first time all year, it felt, actually engaged with Dad and me and spent the whole day with us.
She even ate most of the turkey dinner Dad and me had prepared.
She talked about Granny sometimes. Tears were shed, but they were tears brought on by good memories.
‘Grief is love,’ Mr Feeney always said. ‘The greater the grief, the greater the love.’
On Boxing Day the McCoys phoned. Their Christmas Day had been great, better than they could have imagined, they even slept all Christmas night because Ronan, after having had such a good time with his grandparents all day, was exhausted and slept right through; Mr and Mrs McCoy said they hadn’t had a whole night’s sleep in weeks.
‘Never underestimate the power of sleep!’ said Mr McCoy. ‘But a night of good sleep means many nights of no sleep to come. We know the pattern.’
‘Maybe that one night of sleep was Ronan’s Christmas present to you,’ I said and they laughed.
‘Oh, and Ronan absolutely loves the book you got him, Brendan!’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘It’ll come in handy during the sleepless nights,’ said Mr McCoy with a mock gloom.
‘Alright, Mr Positive,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘Anyway, speaking of staying up late, have you any plans for New Year’s, Brendan?’
‘No, we normally just stay in and do party food and watch Jools Holland,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s just what we were thinking of doing, nothing fancy, would you want to join us? Your mum and dad are more than welcome too?’
New Year’s Eve was one of Mum’s few nights off work over the holidays. Dad and me couldn’t believe it when she said she thought going to the McCoys sounded like a lovely idea. When New Year’s Eve came round it took her all afternoon to get ready.
Everything was just the same inside the McCoys’ home as it had been on Christmas Eve, except a fold-out picnic table had been set up in the sitting room with a spread of party food laid out on top: cocktail sausages, turkey sandwiches, spring rolls, tortilla chips and salsa, hummus and pitta bread and olives, chocolate brownie bites and shortbread fingers and iced buns and a tin of Quality Street.
There was an ice bucket with champagne, white wine and bottles of beer in it and a jug of iced lemonade on the table.
Ronan had a lidded tumbler in a holder on his wheelchair; a long straw came up from it to his chin so he could drink whenever he wanted.
He busted out another huge laugh when I came into the room.
‘Here comes the laughing man,’ said Mr McCoy.
If that was how Ronan greeted me every time I visited then it was going to be impossible to keep me away.
It made me feel like I was the person he’d been wanting to see the most, the same feeling I got when I used to wait at the school gates for him and I’d see his face with that big smile through the window of his parents’ car as he arrived.
It was exactly the same feeling as that, but in a new way.
Mrs O’Neill’s plan seemed to be happening after all.
‘I hear you liked the book I got you, Ronan,’ I said. He grinned and made a humming noise. ‘Maybe we can have a flick through it later?’ He did an awkward nod and shifted in his seat and hummed again.
‘He loves it, Brendan,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘wish we could get him as interested in some of the educational ones.’
‘Will that be resuming?’ Mum asked. ‘His education?’ I could see that she was feeling nervous in company after having spent so much time on her own.
‘Well,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘I think we realise now that many things are going to take longer than we thought. Obviously we’d love Ronan to be back at school but he’s not ready just yet.’
She said yet. I wanted to ask, when?
‘Well, it has only been a matter of months, things take time,’ Mum said.
‘I know,’ said Mr McCoy, ‘sure the way we were going you’d have thought we were expecting him to be up and running the eight-hundred-metre race again!’
Ronan yelped; it wasn’t a happy sound.
‘Aaron!’ scolded Mrs McCoy.
‘Ah, sorry, Ronan,’ he said. ‘Sorry, son, I’m a big mouth, aren’t I?’
Mrs McCoy shook her head. Ronan’s Adam’s apple was going up and down as if he was swallowing over and over.
The memory of his running days seemed to hurt him. But he remembered; maybe he remembered everything.
‘He’s looking really well anyway,’ Mum said, fixing her hair behind her ear, ‘and you both are too. I’ve been hearing about the sleepless nights.’
‘Ah, we’re pros at it now,’ said Mr McCoy. ‘We’ve been pulling the old night shifts ever since Boxing night – a bit like yourself, Christine.’
‘Well, at least tonight we’re staying up because we want to,’ said Mum.
‘Hear hear!’ said Mr McCoy, raising a glass and then, realising no one else had drinks, went about serving everyone.
I started flicking through the optical illusion book by Ronan’s side, sharing it with him, almost like we were having a conversation in our reactions to each picture; like in school, laughing at a secret joke in class when we weren’t allowed to talk.
‘I need to get us more books,’ I said, ‘we’ll be bored with this one at the rate we’re going.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs McCoy, who I noticed had been staring at us a lot, ‘we had been discussing something along those lines, actually, Brendan. Going forward, I mean; certainly more books and, well, more you.’
The four parents were standing at the food table, looking over at Ronan and me.
‘Now’s maybe not the time to discuss it,’ Mrs McCoy continued, ‘but we’ve mentioned something to your parents that we’d love you to consider. They can discuss it with you later and you can let us know what you think.’
‘You can ask me now,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Sure we’ll discuss it properly at home,’ Dad said.
‘Honestly, I don’t mind,’ I said, now intensely curious, ‘sure tell me now and I can think about it and we can discuss it later.’
They looked amongst themselves.
‘Well,’ Dad said, ‘Aaron and Emma have home schooling arranged for Ronan in the new year.’
‘Oh,’ I said, an immediate plummet; Ronan definitely wasn’t coming back to school then.
‘Three times a week to start with,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘So that leaves two days during the week that the tutor won’t be here and she said there’ll be some independent work for Ronan to do on those days,’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘A bit like homework,’ pitched in Mr McCoy.
‘Now, Aaron and Emma were wondering if that might be something you’d like to do with Ronan on those days,’ said Dad, ‘as part of a regular weekly thing; a kind of a “study buddy” thing, at least until the summer.’
‘I don’t even need to think about it,’ I said, bubbling with excitement, ‘one hundred per cent yes! I absolutely would love that.’
‘Now take a wee second to think about it, Brendan,’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘It’s your GCSE year, you’ve modules and exams and big career decisions to think about, planning for your A levels and choosing further education – these really are the most important months of your life coming up.
We’ve been hesitant to ask because it’ll require a bit of commitment from you, not just in time and having to learn all about Ronan’s condition and recovery, but also being a piece of his routine that you’ll be tied into.
We don’t want you to be under added pressure. ’
‘Think it over and discuss it with your mum and dad,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘And Mrs O’Neill, too,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘just so the school can have their say on any extra things you’re taking on board.’
‘I don’t know if we need to discuss it, do we?’ I said to Mum and Dad.
‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘I think it would be great for both of you, but it really will be a busy year ahead, Brendan. If you think it’s something you can manage then I really do think it would be great.’
‘I can absolutely, definitely manage.’ I turned to Ronan. ‘Isn’t that right, Ronan?’
Ronan yodelled a long, high-pitched screech that sent us all into laughter.
‘Well, how can we argue with that?’ said Dad.
‘Is that a yes?’ I said.
They looked amongst themselves again.
‘Alright,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘we’ll say it’s a go-ahead for now, but talk to your mum and dad tomorrow, talk to the school when you’re back and we’ll have a word with them as well, and if that’s all OK, and you’re OK, then we’ll set about getting things organised for you and Ronan for January.’
‘I think this deserves a wee pre-New-Year’s toast,’ said Mr McCoy, raising a glass. ‘To the study buddies!’
‘To the study buddies!’ we all said. I raised Ronan’s tumbler for him and we drank together.
When the countdown for the new year came, it seemed like the seconds couldn’t come quick enough; each second got me closer to getting my best friend back.