Chapter 12
‘Brendan, what’s wrong? Come in, come in.’
Mrs O’Neill’s voice had the effect of making you drop all defences, especially if you were on the cusp of crying; her tone could tip those tears right out.
And her eyes, they seemed so shiny to me, a clearness that made her gaze feel like a balm.
Her face itself was magnetic as if to draw in and catch all that a boy may try to hide.
There was simple safety in her presence.
It’s why I was crying hard when she sat me down in the chair beside her desk.
There’s a type of crying I only remember having when I was really young.
It was like a combination of an asthma attack and crying, a winded kind of crying that left you gasping and messy.
There’s another type of crying that feels like a heavy press of dark cloud on top of you, squeezing those tears out through a painful gauze; that was the kind of crying I got in January when Granny died.
Then there’s the helpless kind of crying you get because of an injustice, because you’ve run out of all reasonable options and you cry because of how unfair things are; like when a boy in primary school accused me of saying a bad word when I hadn’t and the teacher wouldn’t believe me and kept telling me to stop lying in front of the whole class until I eventually broke down and cried and said I had said the bad word.
I cried then because of the forces against me that made it impossible for the truth to win. I was outnumbered.
When I cried in front of Mrs O’Neill that day it was like all those kinds of crying balled into one. A great big overwhelming wave. Mrs O’Neill sat down beside me.
‘Now Brendan, I know I’m the RE teacher but biblical floods aren’t in my skill set,’ she said in a gap in the noise I was making.
‘You’re causing a right old downpour, I’m expecting Noah to come sailing in his ark pretty soon.
’ She gave a little laugh and I couldn’t help but do that laughing-crying thing at her joke and sniffed up all the mess in my nose and rubbed my face with balled fists.
‘Sorry, Miss.’
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’
That voice. That gaze.
‘Miss, nobody told me what Ronan likes to eat now that he’s …
he’s … because … well I didn’t know what to get him, I know he likes cheesy pasta but they didn’t have it today and I didn’t know how he could have ate it anyway and he also likes doughnuts but I didn’t know if he could eat that kind of thing either because it’s all sticky and everything and they only had the jam ones today anyway and then the other stuff on the menu was stuff he didn’t like and I was worried if I got him something he didn’t like it would upset him now that he’s, now that he’s, he’s like this now and I wanted a hot dog but I couldn’t sit in front of him and eat it without him eating anything so I got us a pink milk each and he did drink that but then he started screaming and Roberta took him away but she wasn’t with us the whole time and everyone was staring at me and …
oh crap … I mean, sorry, Miss … I forgot to put our rubbish in the bin, the milk bottles, I know they were still basically full but it still counts as rubbish doesn’t it and I know one dinner lady who’s really strict about that and will definitely know it was me so she’ll probably report me to you, Miss, but now you know the whole story I won’t get in trouble will I, Miss? ’
Those eyes.
‘Will I, Miss? Because I’ve told you now?’
Her face.
‘Miss, someone might have just put the bottles in the bin anyway and I’m worrying for no reason.’
Mrs O’Neill simply stared and I simply fizzled out.
‘Brendan, you may indeed incur the wrath of Maggie and her dinner ladies but I don’t think that’s what’s upsetting you. Am I wrong?’
I shook my head.
‘Today is a big day for you, Brendan. And for Ronan. And,’ she leaned in closer, ‘don’t tell anyone but it’s a big day for me too. I was excited for Ronan coming back but I was also scared.’
‘Were you?’ I said.
‘Of course. It’s OK to be scared. And, Brendan, I’m so sorry you were left in that position at lunchtime – that was really unfair and Roberta should have been with you.
I’ll have a chat with her and we can work that out.
Adults make mistakes too and we won’t let that happen again.
We just need to get the hang of things. So, first off, does that sound OK? ’
‘Yes, Miss, that sounds OK to me. It was only my first day.’
‘Of course it was, it was the first day for all of us, no one expects anyone to be on top of everything on a first day. Maybe I should have been there with you myself, Brendan; I should have thought of that. How about I join you both for lunch tomorrow? The three of us can go to the canteen and if Ronan doesn’t want to be there then we can come and have lunch here instead, just us, how about that? ’
‘Yes, Miss, that sounds good, I’d like that. And, Miss, the second day has got to be better than the first day anyway, hasn’t it? Because … because it’s all not so new?’
‘That’s a good way of putting it, Brendan. Sure think of your first day here, joining the “big” school for the first time – remember what that was like?’
‘Yes, Miss; actually do you remember? Because I got a nosebleed when Ms Toner was giving her speech and it was actually Ronan I was sitting beside and he interrupted her to tell her and she told Ronan to take me to the nurse but we just went to the toilets because I get nosebleeds all the time and I know what to do.’
‘I do actually remember that,’ she said with a laugh. ‘What a first day. You with a bloody nose and Ronan not knowing what to make of you.’
‘I know, Miss, but he couldn’t do anything anyway, I can only really stop it by myself.’
She smiled and nodded.
‘I suppose a bit of company wasn’t a bad thing, though, especially with all the pressure of the first day.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘even just to talk until it stopped bleeding.’ I could see the scene in my head as if I was looking down on the two of us standing at the sinks. ‘And we’ve been friends ever since.’
‘Best friends.’
‘Yes, Miss, best friends.’
I could feel the biblical flood starting to well up in me again.
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘today is a wee bit like that first day all over again – all the pressure, except this time Ronan needs you. You might not always know what to do just yet, but simply being there by his side will be enough for now. It will definitely be enough for Ronan for now.’
‘I just want us to be best friends again,’ I said.
‘Brendan, you’re already best friends, that hasn’t gone away, it’ll just be that you’re new best friends, because everything’s new.’
I couldn’t help but see the Ronan from before and the Ronan from today side by side in my head like a spot-the-difference.
‘I just wish, Miss … I just sort of wish that this was actually the first day all over again with Ronan as he is now and that I didn’t remember how he was before.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes, Miss.’
She nodded with a frown and looked down at the lino floor so that I was staring at the top of her head.
‘Because he’s not really Ronan anymore, Miss, is he?’
She didn’t look up.
‘Miss!’ I said, louder than I expected. ‘He’s not really my friend anymore, is he?’
She slowly looked up, gleams of light from the window sparkled her gaze.
‘He isn’t,’ I said.
‘What makes you say that?’ she finally asked.
‘Because Ronan would never do what he just did, he’d never make me feel …’
I didn’t want to say any of the words in my head: embarrassed, afraid, alone, angry. Every one of them made me feel ashamed.
‘… feel like I’ve lost something,’ I said instead.
‘And what is it you feel you’ve lost, Brendan?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Him. Ronan. The one from before. Why can’t he just be like that? Why’s he acting like this?’
‘Well,’ said Mrs O’Neill, joining her hands and leaning towards me, ‘Ronan’s been through a lot and I don’t think any of us can really comprehend how it feels for him.
But could you imagine if you came to me today with all these feelings you have but you had no way of communicating them to me? What would you do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘I don’t know either,’ said Mrs O’Neill.
‘It’s a big change for everyone and sometimes we just have to meet changes head-on in whatever form they take and treasure the memories from before.
Who’s to say that’s not the very thing that Ronan himself is trying to do?
Now I know you said you wish you didn’t remember Ronan as he was but would you really want to wish away all those treasures of your friendship and start all over again? ’
The reel ran in my mind. Ronan and me stifling laughter in the assembly line because he farted and everyone was starting to smell it.
Ronan’s earnest eyes looking at me as he handed me a sympathy card on the first day back to school after Granny died.
Ronan’s determined frown after school one day as he practice-drilled me for the hundred-metre race for sports day.
Ronan, upside down in the canteen, practising handstands until the dinner lady kicked him out and then seeing his two feet through the window as he did a handstand-walk the entire length of the canteen from outside.
I ran out to join him and found him lying flat on the ground in hysterics.
I stood over him. Any time Ronan laughed like that, I did too.
‘No, Miss,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Brendan, because those were wonderful times you had, wonderful memories, weren’t they? You wouldn’t want to throw those away forever if you had the choice, would you?’
‘No, Miss, it’s just that remembering makes it harder.’
‘I know. But not impossible. Not impossible to feel like that again, for both of you,’ she said.
‘So I think I was wrong when I said everything is new, because some things are the same, aren’t they?
It’ll just take a bit of time, patience and strength to find them again.
We’ll just have to find and feel the old things in a new way. ’
‘You should copyright that, Miss,’ I said, ‘“find and feel the old things in a new way.”’
We laughed.
Then we were quiet for a short time.
‘Do you want to sit here for a bit and I’ll go and speak to Roberta and see how Ronan is?’
‘OK, Miss. Thanks, Miss.’
‘You’re welcome, Brendan. Everything’s going to be fine.’
I wasn’t sure if I could see Ronan again that day or not, I was still a bit shaky, and as it turned out I didn’t even get the chance.
Mrs O’Neill told me his mum came with Matty to pick him up and take him home.
I felt miserable all afternoon, convinced everyone was looking at me and talking about what had happened.
I wanted the day to end and yet I was dreading home time because the last thing I wanted to do was get on a bus with all those gossiping voices.
I sat on the front seat and tried to deafen myself to the noise, staring out the window and watching the wintry world flash by until my stop came and I stepped off and breathed.