Chapter 15
Ronan’s second day at school was going to be better than the first and I was going to make sure of that. Dad normally woke me up on school mornings with a rap on my bedroom door and an ‘up you get’ while switching on and off the light that hung above my bed.
But he didn’t even have a chance that morning because I was awake and downstairs well before him. I was motivated. Excited but anxious. I was Ronan’s best friend, he was mine, all we had to do was find a new road; a new day was like a new road. I even said it aloud, mouth full of cereal:
‘A new day is a new road.’
‘You’re up early, that’s a first,’ Dad said, coming into the kitchen.
‘Or you’re up late.’
‘No chance,’ he said, tapping his watch and looking at the kitchen clock. ‘You could set all the clocks in this house by me! Late? Don’t know the meaning of the word!’
I slurped the last of the milk from my bowl and swept past my confused-looking dad to wash my dishes at the sink when I heard Mum arriving through the front door after her night shift.
I put the dripping bowl and spoon on the dish rack and went down the hall as Mum was on her way upstairs.
On school mornings I tried to avoid seeing her as much as possible because I didn’t know what to say to her anymore and it hurt me that she didn’t seem to have the energy to say much to me.
‘Morning, Mum,’ I said.
She stopped in slow motion on the stairs and turned to look over one shoulder but froze as if she had a crick, then slowly turned to look over her other shoulder at me standing at the foot of the stairs. Her eyelids were heavy as if she was half asleep already.
There was a moment when her face made an expression like she’d just remembered something important she wanted to ask me. I waited. But she shook her head as if she’d lost whatever it was.
‘It’s freezing out there, put your warm coat on,’ she said as she began to turn away from me again.
‘Will do, night night, Mum,’ I said. It’s what I always said to her on her mornings back from night shifts.
‘Night night,’ she said. I watched her shuffle into the shadow of the landing where she’d get ready for bed and sleep the whole day through in the roof space.
Wearing my duffle coat, gloves and woolly hat, I stepped out onto the frosty ground and walked to the petrol station where the bus picked me up.
No one else that went to my school lived in my area so I stood there alone as always.
It was the last stop on the route; there was never usually a seat available by the time I got on, so I stood in the gangway.
I love the feeling of winter: the spiky air that makes you feel like you have a cold, the nip on your fingertips and toes, the childish excitement of the boy I once was and the belief in magical things.
But there was a new feeling that winter as I thought of the things I’d lost during the year.
I missed visiting Granny in her house with the open fire burning in the hearth and the soda farls on the griddle pan and tea stewing in the pot.
I missed Mum being the caring, sensitive person she used to be.
I missed Ronan running with me in cross-country every Tuesday morning in the winter months; I somehow didn’t mind it when he was by my side.
But now it was my turn to be by his side.
I bounded off the bus and took up my position at the school gates.
I had it all planned out. Matty would pull up and I’d go straight to the back doors to help Mrs McCoy get Ronan onto the electric ramp, I’d push him up to the school doors and get him to class.
In the book the McCoys had given me there was a technique called ‘Now and Then’ so I would tell Ronan:
‘Now you have to go to all your morning classes, then at lunchtime Mrs O’Neill is joining us and we can either go to the canteen or go to her room to eat.’
It was a way of preparing him so that he could set himself for one situation and plan for the next. The book said it could reduce the chances of an upset.
I’d been standing at the gates for a while when a hand came to my shoulder. I turned to see Mrs O’Neill.
‘Brendan, I’m sorry, we’ve just had a call from Ronan’s parents, he’s not coming in today.’
‘Why, Miss? What happened?’
‘No, nothing happened, it’s just he took a bit of a turn this morning and couldn’t be calmed down. His mum phoned reception just a minute ago to say it was probably best if he didn’t come in today to give him a chance to settle.’
‘Oh right,’ I said.
‘I think yesterday was a lot for him – it might be a bit like this to begin with, we might have to take things a bit slower than Mr and Mrs McCoy had planned on.’
Even though I was looking at the ground, I could feel her gaze on me, soothing me as best she could.
‘And I was really looking forward to our lunch together today,’ she said.
‘Me too, Miss,’ I said.
When I looked up she had that gentle smile on her face and I tried to smile back.
As positive as I was trying to be in front of her, I couldn’t help but feel it was my fault that Ronan had kicked up a storm that morning to avoid going to school and avoid a repeat of his first day all over again; avoid me.
I had woken up wanting to see Ronan more than anything, whereas Ronan had woken up and made it clear he didn’t want to see me at all.
There was only one time Ronan and me ever fell out and I don’t even think it really counts as a proper falling out.
It was before the Easter holidays in second year and a lot of boys in our year were doing this thing where you punched someone on the arm to make it go numb.
You had to hit in just the right spot or else it didn’t work.
A lot of boys were doing it to Ronan and he was doing it back and they all seemed to be having a good laugh about it.
But Ronan never did it to me.
One of the days him and me were queuing up in the canteen and Joseph Boyd started playing the punch game with Ronan. I got caught up in their laughter and energy and when Ronan turned away from me to get Joseph I took a step out and threw a punch at his arm in the way I saw all the other boys do.
Ronan turned.
‘What’d you do that for?’ he said, suddenly very serious.
‘I was just joining in,’ I said.
‘Oh right,’ he said, ‘with my back turned?’
‘I didn’t know that was the rule,’ I said.
‘It isn’t,’ he said, ‘it’s just something no one does, hitting someone when they’ve got their back turned.’
I started to feel a burn in my throat.
‘Right,’ I said.
‘Right,’ he said, frowning.
I told him I needed to go to the toilet even though I didn’t and left the queue.
I stood in the cubicle for five minutes, just staring down into the bowl, and then came out and washed my hands.
When I stepped outside a punch landed on my arm and instant numbness ran down the length of it.
‘That’s how you’re supposed to do it,’ said Ronan with a big smile on his face.
I looked at him, confused.
‘I had my back turned,’ I said.
‘Yeah, well,’ he said, ‘now we’re even.’ And he gave me a playful push. ‘I was only joking you anyway.’
I started to laugh and he did too. It wasn’t the same way we always laughed because most times our eyes were too screwed up to see each other, but for that one time only we laughed holding each other’s gaze.
On what should have been Ronan’s second day back at school, after everything that had happened the day before, all I wanted was another chance to get things right.
‘It might be a day-to-day thing,’ said Mrs O’Neill, ‘but we’ll let Ronan lead us.’
‘Same old Ronan, Miss, taking the lead,’ I said, trying to override my disappointment.
‘Just the same old Ronan indeed,’ she said. ‘I love your outlook on things, Brendan.’
‘Thanks, Miss. I don’t know where I get it from, definitely not my dad – don’t tell him I said that.’
‘No, I won’t indeed,’ she laughed.
The bell rang for first period. PE. Cross-country.
‘Brendan,’ said Mrs O’Neill, stopping me in my trudge, ‘lunch offer today still stands.’
I wanted that more than anything, to sit safely in her room and not be anywhere else for what I knew would be a long, long day.
‘Thanks, Miss,’ I said, ‘but I wouldn’t want to be starting any rumours.’
She laughed.
‘Well I won’t take that personally,’ she said, ‘but if you change your mind you know my door is always open.’
‘I do, Miss. Thanks, Miss.’
Later, amongst the herd of boys charging across the crispy grass, with numb feet and weak legs, my head sloshing like it was filled with water, I ran harder than I’d ever run before. But I was still the last one to finish.