Was that it? he wondered. Was that what it took? To overcome his paralysing fear and stand up to the bully? Was the nightmare over? He finished cutting the grass and wheeled the lawnmower out the gate to Mrs Johnston’s, still half expecting his tormentor to come after him. But of Gus there was no sign. Jonathan could hardly believe it.
The following morning at half ten Mass he saw his neighbour dressed in his Sunday best walking up the aisle to receive communion as usual, his wife and two daughters following behind him. Dread enveloped Jonathan. It was certain that the two families would meet, as they often did after Mass, either in the church grounds or jostled together in the small corner shop that sold bread, milk and the Sunday papers. The old familiar stomach-knotting anxiety reclaimed him and he could hardly swallow the Host when he went up to receive.
‘Good morning, Nancy, morning, girls, morning, laddie,’ Gus greeted them affably as the crowds spilled out of the small church into the bright sunshine.
‘Morning, Rita, Gus,’ Nancy responded cheerily. ‘A lovely day, thank God.’
‘Did ye get the few fags I sent in yesterday?’ Gus asked, ignoring Jonathan completely.
‘I didn’t but thank you, Gus, you really shouldn’t have. Jonathan, you should have told me Mr Higgins was kind enough to buy me cigarettes,’ his mother chided.
‘Sorry, I forgot,’ Jonathan said truculently, glowering at Gus.
‘You’re very kind, really.’ Nancy smiled at her neighbours.
‘Not a bother,’ Rita assured her. ‘Sure isn’t Jonathan the grand wee lad going to the shop for Gus here when he runs out of smokes. We can always depend on him,’ Jonathan heard Mrs Higgins say. His stomach lurched.
‘Any time you need a message just let us know,’ Nancy said firmly. ‘Isn’t that right, Jonathan?’
‘I’m just going over to say hello to my teacher.’ Jonathan’s voice was almost a squeak but he raised his gaze to Gus, hoping against hope that the man would understand the implied threat.
Gus’s eyes narrowed but he pretended not to hear and turned to salute another acquaintance, while a friend from the quilters’ group accosted Nancy.
Jonathan pushed his way through the Mass-goers to where his teacher, Mr Dowling, was surrounded by some of his pupils. Jonathan wanted Gus Higgins to see that he would follow through with his threat to tell his teacher if Jonathan was ever put through a torturous episode again.
‘Hi, Mr Dowling,’ he said, glancing over to see his neighbour casting surreptitious glances in their direction.
‘Aahh, Jonathan,’ said the young master kindly. ‘How are you today?’
‘Fine thanks. I just wanted to say hello.’ Jonathan liked the new teacher who had recently taken over from Mrs Kelly who had gone to have a baby.
‘Done your ekker yet?’
‘Yes, on Friday,’ Jonathan grinned, liking that the master called his home exercises ekker and not homework. Mr Dowling was a Dub and that’s what the Dubs called homework.
‘Excellent. Good man. The day is yours then. Enjoy it,’ his teacher approved.
‘Thanks, sir.’ Jonathan felt strangely, uncharacteristically, light-hearted. If that dirty, disgusting thing ever happened to him again he would tell Mr Dowling. And if Gus Higgins did anything bad to his mammy he would tell him that too. Mr Dowling was kind and very knowledgeable. He’d know what to do. Jonathan saw his best friend Alice waving to him and hurried over to her.
‘Let’s have a picnic down at the river and plan our new secret club,’ she said excitedly. ‘I’ve a new Five Find-Outers book from the library, it’s brilliant. The Secret of the Spiteful Letters.’
‘And I’ve a Secret Seven,’ he said happily. Today was turning into a very, very good day.
‘Anthony Kavanagh and Darina Keogh want to join too. Will we let them? We could make badges and have a password and your shed could be our secret den,’ Alice burbled. ‘We could solve crimes, even a murder if we had to!’
‘And practise our invisible writing,’ Jonathan chipped in enthusiastically. ‘And we could make lemonade and bring biscuits, for a feast.’
‘I wish we could have ginger beer and anchovy paste.’ Alice linked his arm. Enid Blyton’s midnight feasts always sounded exotic and delicious to their mind.
‘I wish we had a dairy to go to where we could have buns and cream cakes,’ Jonathan said wistfully as his fears and anxiety receded and the prospect of an exciting afternoon beckoned.
For weeks after the encounter with Gus, Jonathan would feel sick to his stomach every time he walked past his house. Several times he saw Gus coming home from work, or at Mass. The man ignored him completely. Jonathan hardly dared to believe that the ordeal was over but as the months passed and the warm, bright days of summer ceded to autumn’s glory, he began to relax and committed the memory of those horrendous episodes to the far reaches of his mind. He was happy at school, in Mr Dowling’s class. Mr Dowling didn’t allow any name-calling, fighting or bullying, and the next two years were the happiest of Jonathan’s life, before he started secondary school and had to begin standing up for himself all over again.
The memories of his ‘lost years’, as Jonathan called them, brought fresh tears to his eyes as he sat on the bean bag in his bay window and wept brokenly at the grief and bitterness that engulfed him. Many nights he had lain in bed imagining how, now, as an adult, he would confront Gus Higgins with his abuse and tell him that he was going to bring a court case against him. It gave him pleasure to conjure up the shock, fear and apprehension that Gus
