‘Do I ever do a half-assed job, Mr Feeney?’
‘Naw, Brendan, you never do.’
I walked out into the cold air towards the bucket, the sponge a deadweight at the bottom of it.
No, I never did do a half-assed job.
But no matter how hard I sponged and hosed the vehicle that day I just couldn’t seem to get it to gleam as much as usual.
17
I usually loved the weeks at school leading up to Christmas; the sound of the choir practising at lunchtime, the art room window with winter-themed drawings displayed, Brussels sprouts on the menu every day for lunch. But it wasn’t the same without Ronan.
The Feeney brothers were right, Ronan wouldn’t be coming back to school before Christmas. The McCoys phoned our house to explain and Dad held the phone so we could both hear.
‘We jumped the gun a bit,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘Well, yes and no,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘To be fair, Ronan’s recovery has been moving at an incredible pace but crowds and certain noises that didn’t bother him before really bother him now. We did talk to the so-called experts about bringing him back to school, but no one can give us an answer one way or the other, so we took the chance, but it was too much of a bombardment, as you saw, Brendan.’
‘Ronan’s down in his room if you want to say a wee hello to him, Brendan?’ said Mr McCoy.
I felt instantly shy. Dad nudged the phone closer to me.
‘No,’ I said quietly so that the McCoys couldn’t hear, or I hoped they couldn’t.
‘Would you answer them, Brendan,’ Dad hissed at me.
He pressed the phone to the side of my head and I shoved it away.
‘No,’ I said, louder this time. Dad tutted and shook his head.
‘He’s gone all quiet here,’ he said down the phone with his eyes fixed on me.
‘No, no worries, just … well … just to say we’ll be going back to the drawing board and working out a new plan,’ said Mr McCoy, ‘but we just wanted you to know how much we appreciated you being there for Ronan on his first day, Brendan, and we’re sorry that it didn’t go as we hoped it would, but we don’t want to cut you out of the picture.’
‘We do not indeed,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘The way Ronan goes on when your name is mentioned is a bit of a running joke in the house at the minute.’
‘Like when a dog hears the jangle of the lead and starts getting all excited,’ chipped in Mr McCoy.
‘Now, Aaron, that’s a terrible comparison,’ Mrs McCoy tutted, ‘comparing to a dog, for goodness’ sake, that’s just, no – just don’t say that again.’ Mr McCoy mumbled something. ‘Brendan, when you get your school holidays maybe we can arrange for you to come over for a visit; yourself and your mum and dad if they’d like and we’ll start things off on a more controlled one-to-one basis? Ronan would love to see you but the school environment isn’t allowing him to enjoy your company, too much going on. Would you be OK to come for a visit if we can work out a time over the Christmas holidays?’
Dad elbowed me and mouthed for me to say something.
‘Yes, Mrs McCoy, I’d love that,’ I said, ‘we’ve our last week of school just coming up and then we’ll be off for Christmas.’
‘OK, great,’ she said. ‘Let’s speak next weekend and we’ll get things sorted.’
When the call ended Dad turned on me.
‘What’s with the not talking? Can’t even say hello to Ronan? There’s his mum and dad asking you and you’re saying no, what’s that about?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t think I would.’
I stared at him, waiting for him to say more. When he didn’t I sighed and went up to my room.
I closed my bedroom door and started slamming my fists into my bed, over and over. When I stopped I could hear Dad in the kitchen boiling the kettle and I punched the mattress again.
