Chapter 44
‘Brendan,’ Mum called. ‘Phone.’
I made my way downstairs. We kept our phone on the third step closest to the wall even though the hall table was right there.
We kept it on the stairs because it’s where Mum used to sit when she spoke to Granny, which she had done every single night, but she didn’t sit for phone calls anymore, she always stood, she always crouched.
‘Jennifer,’ she said, straightening up and holding the receiver towards me on its spiral cord. I came down the next few steps to take it and sat down.
‘Hello?’ I said, as if Mum hadn’t said who it was.
‘Did you forget about me?’ Jennifer said.
I was supposed to have phoned her on the night of her last exam, but because of everything that had happened Jennifer hadn’t even crossed my mind; I had forgotten about her.
‘No,’ I said.
‘It was my last exam yesterday and … I thought … I thought you’d said you’d call.’
‘Sorry, Jennifer. Ronan got taken into hospital.’
‘Oh my God, is he OK?’
‘Yeah, or no, I don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
I told her everything I knew, which wasn’t much.
‘So that’s why I didn’t call, sorry.’
‘Oh my God, Brendan, no, don’t apologise, I’m sorry. I just hope Ronan’s going to be OK.’
‘I’m seeing him again this afternoon and tomorrow morning, more or less as much as I can.’
‘Absolutely, let’s raincheck our plans for tomorrow, that’s what I was phoning about so …’
‘Or …’ I said, feeling a kind of need, ‘… we could still meet. In the afternoon? After I get back from the hospital?’
‘Are you sure? I mean, I’d love to see you but …’
‘Yeah, no, let’s do it, I’d love to see you too.’
Jennifer, I discovered, liked mini marshmallows on top of her hot chocolate.
It wobbled as I took careful steps towards where she was sitting.
The place was usually very busy on a Saturday, she told me, so we were lucky to get the popular soft-chairs-by-the-window spot.
I set the tray on the table and sat down beside her.
‘Cheers,’ she said, lifting her mug.
‘Cheers,’ I said, lifting my mug of tea and clinking.
A blot of brown foam from her mug latched onto mine. I wiped it off with my thumb and licked it.
‘Do you feel up to talking about Ronan? How was he this morning?’ she asked.
‘Hard to know. They were going to do more tests after I left, but no changes while I was there. I’ll see how he is again tomorrow.’
‘Want me to come with you?’
‘They’re keeping visitors limited at the moment.’
She nodded.
‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘Our first date.’
She snorted and then covered her mouth.
I hadn’t seen Jennifer in her normal clothes before.
She had a quirky style: bell-bottom-type jeans with colourful patches sewn onto them.
In the awkward silence that was settling between us I found myself staring at those patches; one of them was a sunflower with a smiling face wearing a pair of sunglasses.
It was as if it was the actual sun on a stalk growing out of the ground.
Another, on her other leg, was a little rowboat with a goldfish onboard looking exhausted with a wooden paddle in each fin.
She wore a red checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a brown corduroy bucket hat on her head with her hair loose around her face. She smelt of something like lavender.
I was wearing my baggy jeans and surfboard T-shirt. I’ve never been surfing but I like the style.
‘I got you this,’ Jennifer said, handing me a folded pouch of red tissue paper. ‘It’s nothing much, just a little thing.’
It was a braided bracelet, green and blue.
‘My favourite colours,’ I said. ‘Did you make it?’
‘Yeah, just something to mark the end of an era, I have the same, see?’ she said, holding her wrist up to show me.
‘I love it,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been given a friendship bracelet before.’
Her eyes snapped to me, her face flushed red, and she flicked her hair.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d like the colours and everything so … I’m glad you do.’ She spoke as if she had something to swallow but didn’t. ‘Here, I’ll tie it on for you.’
She took my hand onto her lap, turned it palm up and tied the bracelet tightly in a double knot.
‘Is it next week you and your folks are off to Prague?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, Friday, so I’ll be here for your birthday, I warned them about that ages ago.’
I realised my hand was still on Jennifer’s lap. I turned it over to rest palm down and when Jennifer glanced at it I took it away.
‘You’re so nervous about stuff like that, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Just, I don’t know, close stuff.’
No one had ever said that kind of thing to me before and I didn’t have an answer for it.
‘It’s not a bad thing,’ she said, ‘I just noticed, obviously.’
Again, I didn’t have any words.
She laughed.
‘You’re so cute when you go all red and all embarrassed.’
‘I’m not … wait, you’re the one that goes all red when you’re embarrassed!’
‘I totally do! And I’m probably red right now?’
She was.
‘Anyway,’ she said, putting the backs of her hands to her cheeks as if that would help take the redness away, ‘let’s stop embarrassing each other – your birthday, you ready?’
‘To turn seventeen?’
‘No, well, yeah, but is the driving test not still going ahead that day? You’ve a lot going on with Ronan, so …’
‘I actually promised the McCoys I’d go ahead with it; we shook on it.’
‘You shook on it?’
‘Well, yeah, they want me to do an L-plate-tearing-up ceremony right after the test. Hopefully Ronan will be home by then. We’ll do a birthday thing too, maybe.
I don’t know, I’m finding it hard to think about all that but I’m just going along with it because it seems to give the McCoys something different to focus on. Just need to pass now!’
‘You will.’
‘Still feels like such a shock with Ronan, though,’ I said.
‘I know, but maybe the focus on the test will be a bit of a distraction for you.’
I nodded, looking down at my knees.
‘Or maybe distraction’s the wrong word,’ she said.
‘Starting back at Feeney’s on Monday might help, I always zone out there, but I’ll still be visiting Ronan every evening and Dad’s taking me out in the car every afternoon right up until the test. So it’s not too different to how it’s been all year with another busy schedule.’
‘But after your birthday you can relax.’
‘Hope so. It would be brilliant if Ronan has come round by then. It’s weird us all being in the room with him and him not conscious.’
‘I’m sure when it comes to your birthday Ronan will do all he can to celebrate with you.’
‘I wouldn’t need any other gift if I got that; if there’s one thing I’d use my birthday wish on it’d be that.’
‘Wish it, then,’ she said. ‘Wish it now.’
‘What, like … ?’
‘Yeah, just close your eyes, wish it in your head and it’s done.’
‘But don’t I need candles and a birthday cake and stuff?’
‘You can do that part on your actual birthday. I’m assuming there’s going to be cake and candles?’
‘There was for my sixteenth.’
‘OK, well, leave that to me, there will be cake and candles on your birthday. You need to make the wish now to let it start gearing up, then on your birthday you can blow out the candles and seal the deal for it to come true.’
For someone who was so logically intelligent, Jennifer had a very magical approach to life sometimes. A believer in the power of positive thinking and luck.
‘OK,’ I said and closed my eyes.
In my head I said:
I wish Ronan will be awake for my birthday. I wish. I wish. I wish.
I opened my eyes and Jennifer was looking at me.
‘Done?’ she said.
‘Done.’
‘Good. Leave the rest to me,’ she said. ‘And the universe.’
Both of us, at the same time, looked at the big clock on the wall opposite.
‘I don’t know if you were still thinking of it,’ I said, ‘but today’s probably not the day for … you know.’
‘Oh, definitely … no, I wasn’t even thinking about … you know, going back to my house or anything.’
‘I would have, it’s just …’
‘… Ronan’s the priority, we’ll have another time,’ Jennifer said.
‘Yeah,’ I said as the creeping worry rose up in me again.
It was a strange feeling, sometimes it just didn’t seem like all this stuff with Ronan was happening, that life and everything was OK. Then, within a second, a full-body cramp set in as the illusion of normality got vacuumed out and I was back to facing it all again.
‘I’m going to give the hospital another call when I get home.’
And then, only to try to cling on to a little bit of the illusion for a little bit longer, I said:
‘But … can we … for another wee while … just hang here?’
‘My sister said to give her a call when I’m ready for a lift, no time limit, so yes, I totally think we can.’
And we did. We didn’t talk about Ronan, or driving, or waiting for exam results.
We didn’t talk about anything that stands out clearly in my mind.
All I know is that we laughed a lot. We laughed until tears formed in our eyes and we had to wipe them away with extra napkins and there wasn’t a second of awkward silence between us the whole time. Not one second.
When we left the café and stood outside on the street on the other side of the window to where we had been sitting, we kissed, then hugged just before Jennifer’s sister pulled up and they drove off.
Standing on my own, I looked back through the window of the café to the table Jennifer and me had been sitting at: three empty hot chocolate mugs and three empty tea mugs and a plate scattered with crumbs from a chocolate brownie we’d shared; the remnants of our afternoon.
A waitress guided an elderly couple towards the table.
She seemed to be apologising for the mess as she cleared it away.
The man was using a walking stick and was dressed in tweed.
The lady was wearing a light shawl and had pure white hair.
The man was taking his jacket off as the lady sat down, turning to the window and staring.
I thought she was staring at me, but then she lifted her hand shakily to her head and fixed a strand of loose hair behind her ear, looking at her reflection in the glass.
Then her gaze focused differently and she saw me standing on the other side, she looked directly into my eyes and her head went slowly down and she smiled.
She smiled so that her features looked like a girl’s.
I smiled back and caught my own reflection.
There was something about me in the glass, something about how I smiled that made me look so old.
She turned away to face the man and I turned away to walk home.