‘Yeah-ssh,’ he said slowly and quietly, hissing out the S sound for a few seconds.
‘OK, deal,’ I said.
Knowing I was taking on a role that was meant for him.
Knowing he knew it too.
Both of us agreeing to it.
To try.
––
Mr and Mrs McCoy were in the kitchen having a cup of tea when I was ready to leave.
‘Brendan, that sounds lovely,’ said Mrs McCoy after I told them about my idea for Sunday. ‘Do you want to join us for lunch as well? One o’clock?’
‘I don’t want to put you to any hassle,’ I said.
‘Not at all, it’ll be brilliant to have you and hear all about the Valentine’s night formal,’ she said.
‘The Valentine’s Night Formal,’ said Mr McCoy in a Dracula voice, ‘sounds like the title of some horror film.’
‘Oh I’ve just had an idea,’ said Mrs McCoy, walking over to open a drawer, ‘we have one of those new digital camera things, it’s very compact – would you mind taking a few snaps on the night and we can look at them together on Sunday? Do you know how to use these things?’ she said, taking it out of the box.
‘Yeah, I’ll work it out,’ I said.
‘Thanks, Brendan, that’ll be great. Looking forward to Sunday myself now,’ said Mrs McCoy.
The beep of a car horn signalled my dad’s arrival.
‘Great, look forward to seeing you Sunday,’ I said.
‘And watch out for Cupid,’ called Mr McCoy after me, ‘he’s a busy man on Valentine’s night, so you may watch out for those arrows!’
‘Oh, don’t you worry, Mr McCoy,’ I said, ‘Cupid’s got bigger fish to fry than me.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Brendan,’ he said, ‘when it comes to Cupid he doesn’t care about the size of the fish, he only cares about catching the best one.’
‘Thus spake Captain Ahab!’ said Mrs McCoy, laughing. ‘Go, Brendan, before he gets worse, he’s in one of those silly moods tonight.’
‘Just keep swimming,’ Mr McCoy said.
‘Stop!’ said Mrs McCoy, laughing more. ‘Get out while you still can, Brendan.’
I left feeling boosted, somehow less anxious about the formal now that I’d be able to share it with Ronan.
Share it with him in a new way.
Our way.
33
There were two reasons I didn’t sleep very well the night before the formal.
The first was to do with Dad.
He’d decided we should do a double driving lesson on Friday evening because I was missing Saturday and Sunday’s lessons by going to the formal and visiting Ronan. We spent the first hour of the lesson doing the usual rounds of St Matthew’s car park, but when I refused to go onto the main road for the first time, he started to get frustrated with me.
