‘We’ll be scrapping this alphabet chart soon anyway by the sounds of things,’ said Mr McCoy. ‘So yes, Buddy Time’ll just be you two doing whatever you want really – within reason.’
I was so relieved. I’d been building myself up to try to tell them what Jennifer had made me sure of, about Ronan just wanting me to be his friend. But they’d beaten me to it.
I don’t think Ronan was too happy about me being his teacher anyway,’ I said.
‘You and me both,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘Right,’ said Mrs McCoy, packing up all the tutoring books, ‘so it’s officially non-educational, non-parental time for you two from now on, how does that sound, boys?’
‘Yee-ah!’ said Ronan.
‘Ha! What he said!’ I said. ‘Geez, I just can’t believe you’re speaking.’
‘Right, I’m off for a nap,’ said Mr McCoy.
‘Oi! No you don’t!’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘Well, you might as well,’ I said. ‘I think Ronan and me’ll be OK.’
‘I think you will too,’ said Mrs McCoy.
‘The only problem you might have now, Brendan, is getting him to shut up,’ said Mr McCoy.
Ronan made a noise that was clearly meant for his mum and dad to leave us alone.
‘I think that’s our cue,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘Shout down the hall if you need anything.’
‘Me or Ronan?’ I said, which tickled the McCoys as they left us.
When the door closed it was Ronan and me all by ourselves, just like he’d wanted all along.
‘Ronan, you are flippin’ amazing!’ I said and we both laughed for a long time. It wasn’t only Ronan’s voice that was coming back, his head seemed steadier too and he was holding eye contact longer and more directly, but not in the effortful way he had done the week before. He did a neck circle as if to loosen out tension and then his eyes met mine.
‘Remember Jennifer Beattie?’ I said. ‘I think I fancy her.’ He held his look, circled his head a little bit but his eyes stayed tied to mine – ‘and I think she fancies me.’
He was very still.
I don’t know why that’s the first thing I said to Ronan on the night he started to speak. We didn’t ever talk about anyone we fancied and neither of us had had girlfriends before. I didn’t think Jennifer was my girlfriend but I definitely didn’t feel the same way about her as I did other girls. Ronan’s eyes were shifting around the room, avoiding me. His breathing increased and he began to wriggle in his chair. I was expecting a laugh to come but it didn’t. He screwed up his face and held his breath and then let it out slowly.
‘I mean, what could she possibly see in me?’ I said to try and make him laugh.
He looked at me quickly and then closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them again. There was a wetness forming around them, not tears, but there was a shine.
His reaction made me think something. Something that I couldn’t have said even if I’d known how to say it. If his legs were affected and he couldn’t walk, if he needed help going to the toilet, if his brain was injured and he thought certain things about certain girls, or whatever, I wondered if he could feelthings in his body when those thoughts happened. Because I felt feelings in my body when I thought about those things. I knew other boys at school did too because every Wednesday lunchtime John McKeever sold condoms for a pound in the toilets and there was always a queue. I went there one Wednesday and Kevin Sherry was there with a twenty-pound note saying how that should be enough to last him the weekend. I bet him and Leanne haven’t even done it yet.
‘Do you think she’s good looking?’ I asked him, having no idea why I kept talking about Jennifer when it seemed to be having a strange effect on him.
He didn’t say anything but made a humming noise and tilted his head from side to side.
‘What? You don’t think she is?’ I said with a bit of a laugh, hoping he’d do the same.
He wriggled and kept eye contact.
I was staring at him thinking, would he ever get the chance to fancy someone? To be fanciedbysomeone? Is that what he was thinking too? Is that what was causing him to look so sad? And why couldn’t I just stop talking about this?
‘But, like, I was thinking of asking her to the formal. I wasn’t going to go at all because I think the formal isn’t really for people like me but then before Christmas Jennifer …’
I thought of the poem Jennifer had written.
