If you saw it in winter
Then your life would not be sought,
In summer if you look away
It’s often closer than you thought.
And when it has ploughed a path
Through the barley field, reaping,
There will be a harvest;
Full of joy, full of weeping.’
There was silence in the classroom. Cold sweat ran over my ribs. Shivery damp. Jennifer, still standing, glanced at me and then at Mrs O’Hagan, who swallowed before speaking.
‘Thank you, Jennifer, that was extremely hard-hitting. We don’t have time to discuss it now as Mr Colton is waiting for you for rehearsals but perhaps we can discuss it in tomorrow’s class – but well done, Jennifer, beautiful work.’
‘Thanks, Miss.’
Jennifer began packing up her bag. I could feel her eyes on me before she left but I was rigid in my seat, staring straight ahead.
For the rest of the day my mind was blurred. Jennifer’s poem had got under my skin in a way that none of the rumours about Ronan had. There was something in what Jennifer had written that didn’t feel like a rumour at all. I avoided her as much as possible throughout the week. English was the only class we had together; she was in the top group for every subject, English was my only top subject.
Mrs O’Hagan ended up not discussing Jennifer’s poem the next day and, for the rest of the week, I had managed speedy exits from English to avoid contact with Jennifer. But by Friday she had become wise to my tactic.
‘Brendan,’ she called after me as I walked quickly across the playground, ‘I really loved your poem today. I’ve never been to Kilmare Forest Park but it sounds lovely the way you wrote about it.’
I turned and nodded. I might have said thanks or I might not, some sort of noise came out of my mouth anyway before I turned and started walking again, but she caught up.
‘Brendan, I’m really sorry if I upset you on Monday. I wrote the poem inhonourof Ronan. I’d read in that article about what happened and then we had the theme of the land for the poetry assignment and it was the first thing I thought of –hewas the first, I mean. I suppose I just found it all so scary and I wanted that to come across in the poem, but I’ve just been hearing it over and over in my head and I think it was wrong of me to read it out in class, especially without checking with you first. I’m really sorry, Brendan.’
She unhitched her yellow leather record bag from her shoulder and took out a Christmas present.
‘I got you something to say sorry.’
We were the same height, but it seemed like she was looking up at me the way she was directing her eyes.
‘Jennifer, you didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t upset. MaybeI was a bit shocked or something, but honestly I wasn’t upset with you.’
‘Oh my God, Brendan,’ she said, sighing out dramatically, ‘you’ve no idea what that means to hear you say that. I haven’t been able to sleep all week worrying.’
‘Well, you can sleep now. It’s OK, really.’
‘OK,’ she said, shaking hair out of her face and doing an awkward tilting motion with her head, ‘but I still want to give you this and say sorry or Happy Christmas.’
‘Thanks, Jennifer, no one’s given me a Christmas present in school before.’
‘No, really? Oh, wow, OK, I’m honoured in that case then,’ she said, doing a mock royal bow.
‘So what do people do? Do I open it now or what? I usually only open presents on Christmas Day.’
‘No, you can open it now; school present, school rules.’
It was wrapped in brown paper with hand-drawn snowflakes and tied with a red ribbon. I opened it. It was a framed photo in black and white from sports day last year. I remembered the day because Ronan had run the eight-hundred-metre race with a dramatic last lap between him and Mick Maloney crossing the finish line millimetres apart. It was all tense while the judges conferred and then finally announced Ronan the winner. Everyone rushed towards Ronan, me amongst them, and hoisted him up in the air, cheering him. The photo was that moment captured. Ronan held high under a sea of people, the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen and there, just off to the right, was me standing looking up at him with an expression that looked so proud. I felt my throat swell.
‘I got it from the school newspaper team. They had a lot of negatives from sports day last year and I looked through them all on the machine and this one just stood out – can’t believethey didn’t choose it for the front cover, I just love it. And you’re both in it.’
