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Clara’s feet dragged more than usual as she walked up the path to the Flanagans’ house. She’d been here before, but today it felt different. Today everything felt different.
A broil of uncategorised emotions churned inside her, but she wasn’t quite ready to face them. The events of this afternoon had seemingly turned her life upside down, but she was trying desperately to put on a brave face and stick to her routine and her schoolwork anyway. It was an exam year after all, and marks were important.
Feelings were important too, Clara reasoned - but feelings were much more difficult to predict. She’d largely tried to avoid confronting her own feelings, or upsetting anyone else’s, ever since her family moved here from Ballinclough all those years ago. Her older brother Padraig always delighted in stirring up the biggest feelings – or the biggest reactions anyway – and had dragged her into some very embarrassing scenes indeed when she was too young to know not to follow his lead. She’d been grateful of the fresh start, and even gave up Irish dancing in an attempt to put the embarrassment behind her. Over the years, she’d devoted herself more and more to her studies, as if to prove to Mammy and Granny and all the teachers that she was more level-headed, more conventional, more respectful of order and decency than Padraig.
Realising that she was now standing outside the front door, Clara rang the bell. She nervously re-adjusted the hair-ribbon around her unruly curls while she waited, wondering how much Mrs. Flanagan would know by now about the events of this afternoon.
The door opened promptly. Judging by the uncharacteristically suspicious look on Mrs. Flanagan’s face, she must have already found out quite a lot.
“Good evening, Clara! What brings you here tonight?”
“Hello, Mrs. Flanagan. I’m here to see Oisín – to study together same as last week” – she spat out the last half of the sentence in a panic, pointing at the bookbag slung over her shoulder, lest Mrs. Flanagan get the wrong idea about who she was and why she’d come.
“Oh, well in that case – come in, come in!” At the mention of studying, Mrs. Flanagan brightened up and motioned Clara inside. “Poor Oisín’s had a bit of heartache; that boy has been moping about since he came home. I told him keeping busy would take his mind off it, but he doesn’t like to listen to his mother, you know. Perhaps he’ll listen to you. Goodness knows he could use a bit of help with the schoolwork, anyway!”
Clara smiled gratefully as she stepped through the door. She’d come here a number of times before, always for the same reason. Her diligent approach to her studies - and the resulting consistently high grades - caused her to be sought after as a study-buddy among her peers. This year, with exams approaching, Clara had become increasingly unsure how many of her friends actually liked her and how many of them were just using her for free tutoring.
She didn’t mind studying with Oisín, though. He never tried anything dishonest and seemed genuinely grateful when she was able to explain a tricky maths concept or chemistry formula he’d struggled with. In return, he sometimes showed her amazing things he’d drawn for art class and tried to explain the techniques he’d used. Art had been Clara’s worst subject, before she finally dropped it this year, so she was always slightly in awe of his skills. Once or twice they’d even swapped funny stories about their mad older brothers (by now both abroad on J1s). If she stopped to think about it, Clara had to admit that Oisín seemed a nicer person than many of her other schoolmates, and the events of this afternoon had done nothing to dispel the impression.
His upbringing likely had something to do with his inoffensive behaviour, Clara mused as Mrs. Flanagan pressed a tea-tray into her hands at the kitchen door. Oisín’s mother was unrelentingly polite, proper, and generous; since Oisín’s father wasn’t around much, hers was the dominant influence felt by everyone who entered her home.
Although she wasn’t hungry, Clara knew better than to try to turn down the offer of a snack. If Mrs. Flanagan decided to feed you, you would be fed. Besides, the tea and homemade biscuits on the tray were probably intended as much for consolation as for sustenance.
Clara teetered slowly up the stairs, balancing the tray in her hands against the swaying of the bookbag on her shoulder. As she approached the door of Oisín’s room, she allowed herself to wonder how he would react to seeing her. He wouldn’t have heard everything yet – not what had been said amongst the girls, anyway – because who would have told him?
“Osh, it’s me, Clara. We had a study date tonight, remember?"
Silence. Trying to sound cheery, she added "I’ve brought my chemistry notes.”
A muffled groan came from behind the door.
“Your Ma made us tea and biscuits.”
After a short pause the door began to open. Oisín was still wearing his rumpled school uniform and looked utterly defeated. He glared at Clara with reddened eyes.
At the sight of her unfortunate classmate, Clara unexpectedly blurted out “I’m on your side” and added “Please let me explain.” Studying was important, but he was clearly not ready to think about formulas and equations yet. Besides, she wanted him to know her side of the story.
The expression on his face didn’t change, but he opened the door wide enough for Clara to enter with the tray, then closed it firmly behind her. She put the tray down on a sufficiently flat patch of blanket near the foot of the bed, dropped her bookbag next to the small desk, then sat down carefully next to the tray. Everything seemed horribly awkward.
“I’ve got all today’s class notes for Barry, by the way. I know he’s out of town for his granny’s funeral. And since the chemistry exam is coming up soon, I thought we could go over that section on chemical bonds you said you were having trouble with.”
Small details first, before she had to revisit the awful events of this afternoon. Clara held out a mug of tea to Oisín, who was already slumped in the chair beside the desk. He took it with the barest hint of a glance in her direction and wrapped his hands around it.
“Is that what you mean by ‘I’m on your side’? Notes and homework? I can’t believe you just have studying on the brain, like nothing happened” he said in a strained voice.
Oisín’s scornful tone and his obvious distress pained Clara. She stared blankly at her hands, which fidgeted with the edge of her jumper as she spoke.
“No – I mean, I’m upset too, and I feel awful for you” she began, trying not to let her voice disintegrate. “I did bring my chemistry notes, so we can study if that’ll take your mind off it, but – please don’t hate me – there’s more stuff you should know.” She spoke faster now, desperate for him to hear all her words, especially the please don’t hate me.
“I’m not Niamh’s friend anymore. She’s nothing but a two-faced –” Clara choked back the vulgar name she had been about to bestow on her former friend, in deference to Oisín’s all-too-recent affection for the girl. He didn’t deserve to be upset any further. “I’m not talking to Siobhán or Kate anymore either, because they took her side and they all laughed at you behind your back.”
Clara paused for breath, and Oisín interjected cynically “They laughed at me to my face, too, remember?”
“Yes, that was horrible! They were being totally unfair. I did try to stop them, but they just laughed at me too. I’m trying to say I had no idea they’d be like that. You know, I used to think they were the cool girls, always good craic – I didn’t think they’d actually be so mean and – and say those things, and kick someone when they’re down.”
Oisín was looking at Clara now, warily but not unkindly. She glanced at him briefly, afraid of misinterpreting his gaze, then gulped a mouthful of tea and continued.
“I was so dumb for not – I don’t know, noticing something sooner, I guess. For not realising how shallow they all are. For not warning you. I mean, Niamh had said some things to us before – that weren’t very nice – about you, but I thought it was just banter and she didn’t mean it. Then she told us this morning that she didn’t want to go out with you anymore because she thinks you’re not cool enough for her.”
Clara leaned forward and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, even though there was no-one else around to overhear. “She told us she’s hoping Ciarán will be her boyfriend instead.”
Oisín’s disgusted expression precisely matched Clara’s feelings on the subject. She continued hurriedly, wanting to prove she really was on his side. He deserved to know the whole story.
“Right?! It’s like she doesn’t even care that he’s a Grade-A arsehole. I thought she had way better taste than that. It’s like I didn’t even know her at all, or any of them really. They were all just pretending to be my friends so that I’d help them with their homework and stuff, because I like to help people. They didn’t even really want to learn; they were always trying to find the easy way out. Well, no more Miss Nice Girl. They’re not getting any more help from me ever again.”
Oisín was nibbling a biscuit and seemed to be listening attentively. Engrossed in relating the story, Clara was beginning to feel better and braver. She threw aside caution and spilled out - for the second time that day - thoughts she’d once been too shy to articulate.
“It was cowardly of her to dump you on the one day Barry’s not around, too. I’m sure that was on purpose. Niamh actually said to Siobhán and Kate and me that she didn’t like you spending so much time with Barry. Like she was jealous of your oldest friend! She said ‘If Oisín loved me he wouldn’t be spending time with that idiot Barry. Maybe they’re always together because they share one brain cell between them.’ Then Siobhán and Kate were laughing like this was funny. Oh, I was raging. I said ‘Oisín’s too good for you, he’s too good for any of yous! If you think he’s gonna be giving up his best mate just for you, you need to grow up! He’s after hanging around with Barry all the time because Barry doesn’t really have any other friends. Oisín’s just sound, he’s being a good friend, he doesn’t want Barry to be all alone! Can’t you see that? He cares about people – he cared about you – did you not care about him? He’s not stupid either; he’s probably smarter than all of yous put together, plus he actually wants to learn stuff instead of trying to cheat all the flipping time! You think you can just toss your fella out like rubbish when you fancy shifting someone else, but that’s not fair; you’ve really hurt him. I thought yous were better than that. I don’t want to be around yous anymore, and yous can forget about getting homework help from me ever again.’ That’s what I told them. Ugh. I don’t care if they hate me now.”
Clara downed the last of her tea and let a tiny hint of smugness creep into her voice as she plunged ahead to the one bright spot in the whole story.
“You know what, though? They were planning to cheat on the exams. They asked me the other day if I’d help them cheat, but of course I won’t. They’ve been trying to mooch off me all year instead of studying properly, and now this is their stupid plan to save their grades. So tomorrow I’m going to tell Mr. Doyle what they’re planning. You know he hates cheaters. I don’t care if they find out I told on them; they deserve to get in some trouble after what Niamh did to you.”
Clara had to catch her breath; her face felt very warm. Oisín’s face wore an expression she couldn’t decipher. Had she said too much, or the wrong thing? She felt the truth had needed to be told. He needed to know she didn’t agree with what those heartless girls thought, that she’d noticed his worth and tried to defend him. After what he’d been through, he needed to know it wasn’t just him and Barry alone against an uncaring world.
Their eyes met almost accidentally. Was she imagining things or was he looking less devastated, maybe even a bit hopeful?
Somehow the thought of him one day being happy again made her feel even warmer.
After a moment Oisín broke the silence with “Thanks for… all that.” He passed her the plate with the last biscuit on it, and with an unfamiliar hesitation in his voice quietly added:
“So, uh, now… are we going to review our chemistry? You know, there’s still some stuff I don’t really understand about the formation of bonds.”