‘Nah! Nah!’ he shouted.
‘Well, if you don’t want him to go you’ll have to calm down,’ said Mrs McCoy, now half bent over at Ronan’s head height.
‘I’ve got some news for you, Ronan,’ I said by way of trying to help.
‘Hear that?’ said Mrs McCoy.
Ronan made eye contact with me.
‘Goodnews?’ asked Mr McCoy.
‘Secret news,’ I said, smiling over at Ronan, ‘between him and me.’
Ronan was settling down.
‘Oh right, is that how it is?’ said Mr McCoy with mock offence.
‘Afraid so, Mr McCoy,’ I said.
Mrs McCoy was bringing a straw to Ronan’s mouth for him to drink from a tumbler of water. He began to take small gulps and then pulled his head away. With more encouragement from us all and more sips of water, Ronan had really calmed down.
‘Right,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘what say we let Brendan get a bit of Buddy Time with you, Ronan? Is that OK?’
He yelped out a more subdued version of his usual greeting, which made us all laugh with relief. He did it again a bit louder and I did exactly the same back. It was the first time that sound had come out of my mouth in the same way as Ronan. I suddenly felt embarrassed hearing myself do it. It wasn’t meant to imitate him, it was spontaneous and it felt natural. His parents did a version of it too, and then Ronan started laughing at us.
‘Right, Brendan,’ said Mrs McCoy, ‘think this is a good place for us to leave.’
As soon as we were alone I dashed over to Ronan and pulled up a chair in front of him.
‘I did it! I asked Jennifer to go to the formal with me and she said yes!’
I braced myself for his reaction but I didn’t expect him to turn red again, to screw up his face again, to scream.
‘Ronan, Ronan, what’s wrong?’ I said, trying to calm him down, but his screaming was so loud I didn’t know if he could even hear me.
The door opened and Mr and Mrs McCoy came back inside. I looked at them helplessly as Ronan continued to scream and thrash his head around from side to side. I felt a hand on my shoulder, I felt myself being ushered gently backwards as Mrs McCoy changed places with me and sat down in front of Ronan, her hand on his forehead, stroking his cheek with the back of her other hand as I continued to be moved gently backwards by Mr McCoy, back and back into the hallway, feeling his hand leave my shoulder to reach out and close the door in front of me, locking out the sight, locking out the sound.
I turned to Mr McCoy in the hallway.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Mr McCoy was looking down at me.
‘I told him my news and he got upset again,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think it would upset him, I didn’t think … I thought he’d …’
‘Brendan, look at me,’ Mr McCoy said, crouching down to meet my height. ‘One thing Emma and me have had to stop each other doing is apologising, because half the things we end up apologising for are things that have had good intent. So unless you did something like insult Liverpool to set him off then I don’t want to be hearing any apologies.’
‘No, I didn’t insult Liverpool,’ I said, half laughing.
But I had upset Ronan. I couldn’t understand it, I thought he had wanted me to ask Jennifer and wanted me to go to the formal, I thought he’d have been over the moon, I’d been so excited to tell him and I felt so stupid.
‘You can’t be sure of anything on any given day, Brendan,’ said Mr McCoy as if reading my thoughts. ‘You could be here tomorrowand say exactly the same thing and he’d have a completely different reaction, it’s just the way it is – the mind’s a funny thing, especially when it’s suffered the kind of thing Ronan’s has suffered.’
The door opened and Mrs McCoy was there.
‘He seems to be wanting to see you again, Brendan, it’s almost like he’s trying to say your name,’ she said, brushing the hair out of her face. ‘But he’s quite agitated this evening, it’s OK if you want to leave it for tonight.’
I could hear Ronan making noises inside, but not as intensely as before. I nodded and Mrs McCoy opened the door further for me to walk inside. Ronan’s hair was plastered down flat with sweat. I stood in the middle of the room and all was quiet apart from Ronan’s loud breathing.
