Chapter 11 #2
Mrs McCoy looked different from when I had seen her last; less gaunt, even a little bright with her blue eyes shining in her cold-blushed face. She scrunched her shoulders up and down to shiver off the chill as she came closer to me with a smile.
‘Morning, Mrs McCoy,’ I said, and tried to smile back, but it didn’t feel like I was really smiling, not because it was cold and my face was a bit numb, but because smiling had a different meaning now, or at least the one we shared did; it meant we knew how hard this was but here we were, the day had arrived, we were at the beginning of a whole new journey.
‘Is Ronan ready for his first day back?’
I felt my face thaw hearing myself talk about Ronan as if he wasn’t in front of me.
I hadn’t properly looked at him or made eye contact with him and I saw a flicker in his mum’s eyes recognising my embarrassment.
My awkwardness. My mistake in not speaking directly to Ronan.
We’d only just begun and already I was getting it wrong.
‘He certainly is, aren’t you, Ronan?’ she said, leaning down and curling her head round into his vision.
His eyes slid over to meet hers and then his head turned a fraction as if it was difficult for him to do.
He glanced at her briefly before his eyes circled up and away from her again, it was hard to tell if he had heard her or not.
His nose started to run and his mum pulled out a packet of tissues and wiped it for him.
It came away a green colour. His eyes circled as she folded it over and went back for another wipe.
Ronan’s eyes settled on me. A very direct gaze that he held the whole time she was wiping his nose, and I had to look away.
When I looked back he was still staring at me.
I tried to keep my face neutral, but Ronan could always tell what I was thinking.
If he still could then he’d know I was thinking that I’d have hated for someone to have to do something like that for me and I was hating that someone was having to do that for him, especially as other students were filing past sneaking glances.
I didn’t like feeling it but I felt embarrassed for him.
If I’m honest, I think I felt disgusted.
It was something a mother did for a toddler, not a sixteen-year-old boy.
And if I’m really honest, I was worried that if I was left alone with Ronan I might have to do the same thing and I didn’t know if I could.
Glances from other students didn’t stop as we made our way to the assembly hall. Most of them kept their distance but a few well-meaning ones from our year came up to say:
‘Welcome back, Ronan.’
‘Good to have you back, Ronan.’
‘What took you so long, Ronan?’
Ronan made scrunching expressions on his face with each approach, which meant no one who greeted him stuck around.
‘We haven’t really been amongst crowds,’ Mrs McCoy said. ‘He’s sensitive to certain noises, just to warn you – it might all be a bit much for him today, so let’s just see.’
Kevin Sherry and his girlfriend Leanne were standing by the notice board pinning up a poster for the school formal in February, which they were organising.
Leanne saw me with Ronan and tapped Kevin.
He turned to look at Ronan with a blank expression.
Then he looked at me and that cocky smirk spread across his face and he put his arms out in front of him as if he were a zombie.
Leanne pulled his arms down and slapped the back of her hand across his chest. He stifled a laugh as she shook her head at me in apology before pulling him away and into the crowd squeezing through the doors to assembly.
When Mrs McCoy wheeled Ronan inside he moaned loudly but it couldn’t be heard amidst the rumble of voices.
‘No I think this is a bit much, Brendan. Maybe we’ll stay by the door here and see if that’s better for him.’
Mrs McCoy pulled Ronan back into the reception area just outside the assembly doorway.
His moaning eased down and his face unscrunched and his breathing evened out.
‘That’s better,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘We’ll stay put, Brendan, and watch assembly from here.
Do you want to stay with us or it’s OK if you want to go inside with the others? ’
‘No, I’ll stay with you.’
I looked down at Ronan.
‘With you both,’ I added.
Ronan was just staring into the hall, his chest going up and down with little quick breaths. He was the boy who always wanted to join in and now, it seemed, he wanted to stay out.
Principal Pickereen walked on-stage and the hall quietened down for assembly to begin. Ronan appeared to be intensely listening the whole time, never taking his eyes off the stage.
‘And we’d like to say a big welcome back to Ronan McCoy,’ said Principal Pickereen as assembly neared its end. ‘We’ve missed him greatly and I know everyone will do their best to make him feel right at home once again.’ On hearing his name Ronan shifted in his seat and turned his head away.
As the hall was about to empty, Mrs McCoy made a speedy spin of Ronan round to an area that was clear of the flow of students beginning to pour out.
I saw Mrs O’Neill weaving her way through the crowd with a woman who she said was from the special needs class that Ronan would be joining; her name was Roberta.
Mrs McCoy would be leaving soon and I could see she was nervous and a bit emotional.
But Mrs O’Neill and Roberta told her everything would be fine and they would phone if anything wasn’t.
Roberta suggested that I come back to the reception at lunchtime to take Ronan to the canteen so we could have lunch together.
‘Are you OK with that, Brendan?’ Mrs McCoy asked.
I didn’t know if I was. What did lunchtime with Ronan mean now?
‘Yes, I’ll be OK with that; lunchtimes are what Ronan and me know best,’ I said lightly.
After Mrs McCoy left and Roberta took Ronan to join his new class, Mrs O’Neill said I’d better hurry off to my own class, which I was already late for.
First period was English. We were reading John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony, which I had been enjoying, but my head was too busy to concentrate.
It was the same in Maths class afterwards.
At breaktime I looked for Ronan, but I didn’t know what classroom he was in or if he got the same breaktimes as me.
I wandered around alone, hoping not to run into Kevin and his gang, until the bell rang and I had to go to double Biology.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the mannequin in the corner of the classroom; stripped of skin, red muscles, organs, eyes wide, staring.
When the lunch bell rang I made my way to reception.
I hadn’t been waiting long before I saw Roberta at the end of the corridor with Ronan.
His eyes were fixed on me as he came closer but I kept looking down, finding it hard to see him being pushed when he used to be the boy who ran.
When he arrived in front of me I tried my best to smile.
Roberta asked again if I was comfortable taking him to the canteen and I said I was.
I think she thought I had more experience with Ronan than I did, or else she was just eager to get her own lunch.
‘If you’re happy to go ahead I’ll join you shortly,’ she said and went into the staff room.
I pushed the wheelchair for the first time.
It was harder than I imagined. It was a sturdy piece of equipment that had electrics on it which could be powered by a joystick on one of the armrests.
But Ronan couldn’t use his hands, so I didn’t understand why he had an electric wheelchair; maybe it was an incentive for him to think that one day he would be able to control it himself.
I pushed him over the ridge of the double doors with a bump and out onto the wet tarmac path that led to the canteen, which was about thirty yards away in a separate building from the main school.
It was a silent walk. Ronan was always the one to start a conversation.
I didn’t know what to say to him staring at the back of his head so I didn’t say anything.
It was easier to be speechless when I didn’t have to look into his eyes.
The only other time I remember looking at the back of Ronan’s head for so long was during cross-country when he ran in front and I tried to keep up.
When we got to the canteen it was packed.
Ronan began shifting in his seat. A dinner lady came up to us and pointed out a clear area in the corner of the canteen close to the open doors so that we didn’t have to go too far inside and could be separate from the crowd.
Ronan seemed OK with being there; even though it was loud, we weren’t surrounded by people.
That little area was all ours. There was a high table to allow room for Ronan to be pushed in close and a plastic chair opposite for me.
‘Can I get you boys your dinner for yous? What would yous like?’ said the dinner lady.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll come up and have a look, thanks very much.’
‘No problem, love, just come straight on up to the hatch, don’t be joining that godforsaken queue,’ she said and limped off to the table behind us to clear rubbish. I was sure I heard her curse.
‘I’ll go up and see what there is,’ I said to Ronan.
He was circling his eyes again, but the canteen noise didn’t seem to bother him as much as the assembly hall had.
He had his back to the packed tables, which helped I think because all that was in his vision was the view through the window: fields stretching out into the far distance.
I went to the hatch to see what was on offer but kept looking back to Ronan.
I didn’t want to leave him too long on his own in case anyone came up to him and unsettled him.
Cheesy pasta was a favourite of ours but they didn’t have it that day.
Hot dog and chips was usually my backup because it was on the menu every day.
But Ronan didn’t like hotdogs; in fact, he was a very picky eater.
On a day with no cheesy pasta and the only other choices being chicken curry, spaghetti meatballs and mushroom stroganoff Ronan would have probably gone for a large doughnut and a bottle of strawberry milkshake.
But that was Ronan before, I had no idea what Ronan ate now.
Why hadn’t Roberta told me? And where was she?
She was supposed to be with us like she said.
I stood at the hatch and looked over to Ronan still staring out the window.
I decided to avoid the eating situation altogether and got two bottles of strawberry milkshake, took two straws from the pot by the tills, paid and went back to sit opposite Ronan, whose gaze settled in my direction.
I pierced the foil lids of the milk with the straws and took a draw of my own, then reached across and held Ronan’s straw towards his mouth.
His lips morphed into a sucker, like a sea creature, feeling for the straw.
When it was in the clutches of his lips he sucked the pink milk in little gulps.
He didn’t dribble, as if to spare me the task of wiping his mouth, as if he remembered me looking away that morning when his mum wiped his nose for him.
My face began to burn. I couldn’t help it. And I knew Ronan could see it. So I looked down at the table as he drank until I felt the little sucking pulls on the straw stop. When I looked up Ronan was also looking down at the table.
‘Finished?’ I asked.
He let the straw go from his lips but kept his eyes down.
I took the bottle away and set it in front of him as he began to make grunting noises followed by a tiny burp.
Behind him I saw the football team entering, led by Kevin Sherry, still in their mucky football strip.
I didn’t keep up to date with school football matches but there must have been one against another school that morning and we had won apparently.
‘Champ-ee-oh-nee, Champ-ee-oh-nee, oh-lay, oh-lay, oh-lay.’
The whole canteen joined in, drumming the tables and stomping their feet on the ground.
The vibrations made our milk bottles rattle on the table.
Ronan’s face began to contort and redden.
His eyes crinkled up and he started to make a raspy groan that I could just about hear under all the noise.
I immediately brought the milk back to his mouth as a kind of distraction but his lips didn’t respond, he turned his head away and his face got even redder and then turned purple as his groaning got louder.
I looked around at what else I could do for him.
Then he screamed.
His mouth opened wide. Spittled pink stalactites hung from the roof inside as he let out a loud wail that cut through the chanting and caused it to stop abruptly so that he was the only sound.
Every head in the canteen turned towards us.
The football team with Kevin at their front froze.
Ronan kept screaming and screaming. It seemed to go on for an eternity until Roberta appeared from nowhere and without a word to me wheeled Ronan back outside, crooning, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK. ’
In the stillness of the canteen with every eye on me, Ronan’s screaming could be heard fading in the distance.
Painfully slowly, the rumble of chatter began to fill the canteen again.
Even as people turned back to their groups they would glance round at me every now and then.
Kevin Sherry smirked at me before he too turned away to skip the queue ahead of everyone else to get his food at the hatch.
Every stare stung me as I sat there. I was supposed to be Ronan’s friend and yet I couldn’t help him or understand him enough to do anything and the whole school witnessed it.
I looked at Ronan’s milk bottle opposite me with just a few sips taken.
I felt the muscles behind my eyes start to ache.
Leaving the two milks behind, I screeched my chair back, stood up quickly, walked out of the canteen and felt the half-blind blur of tears pooling in the bottom of my eyes.
The cold air made it worse. It was the cold air that made me cry.