‘Great, enjoy your weekend.’ Leon sounded disappointed that their conversation was ending.
‘You too. Byeee.’ Jonathan hung up as he pulled up outside his old home. His heart was singing. Leon had phoned him, and had presumed Jonathan had a date, so it must have bothered him that he’d declined the Sunday night invite to the cinema. He had to be interested. He wouldn’t have phoned otherwise. And he was making all the running, even inviting him to check out his work. And Jonathan had played it cool and hung up first. He was particularly proud of his I’ll let you go. That sounded ever so casual. ‘Way to go, JH, way to go. You’re learning at last!’ he murmured, turning off the ignition and taking his Nokia out of the hands-free cradle. Letting someone else make the running was so empowering. Hannah was right. He should have listened to her long ago.
Nancy must have been on the lookout for him because she appeared at the door, beaming. Jonathan’s heart rose at the sight of her as he opened the small iron gate that he had painted Mediterranean blue for her the previous autumn. Maybe at last her prayers were to be answered and he had finally met someone he could spend the rest of his life with. ‘Hello, Mother mine.’ He dropped his overnight bag and wrapped his arms around her, loving the familiar scent of Avon cream and Max Factor powder that was part and parcel of her.
‘Hello, son, welcome home.’ Nancy greeted him as she always did, returning his hug. ‘I have the kettle boiled and the fire’s lighting so come in now and sit down and relax yourself,’ she urged. ‘You must be tired after the drive.’
‘No let me make the tea. You go and sit down and relax yourself,’ Jonathan instructed. ‘I have the lemon chicken all ready to go in the oven and it will only take fifty minutes.’
‘I would have cooked a dinner for you, you know that.’ Nancy shut the door behind him.
‘I saw this recipe and I wanted to try it out, and besides you deserve to have a dinner cooked for you after all the years of cooking for us. It’s time for you to sit back and take it easy.’ Jonathan took the tin-foil-covered dish out of a carrier bag, and set it on the kitchen counter, before turning on the oven and filling the kettle.
‘Go away out of that now,’ Nancy said firmly. ‘Sure what am I doing only enjoying myself. You’re the one who’s working hard. Inside to the fire and do what you’re told.’
‘Yes, Mammy!’ Jonathan pretended meekness and Nancy laughed, ushering him into the sitting room while she made them a cuppa.
Jonathan looked well. Even, dare she say it, happy! Nancy mused, pouring a good strong brew of tea into his favourite mug. Perhaps she was foolish to be worrying about him. Tossing and turning at night every time she heard one of those reports on the news about a new child-abuse scandal. There were so many of them now. Nearly every second day, reports of horrendous abuses covered up by the Church. She felt so disappointed, so betrayed . . . so angry with the Pope and the cardinals and the bishops. The hierarchy! Enabling these crimes against children. Enabling the rape of children. It was more than shocking. It was pure evil. And the Pope, that very same Pope she and most of the country had fallen in love with nearly twenty-one years ago, the one who had said, ‘Young people of Ireland, I love you!’ had done nothing . . . nothing except have these evil men moved from one parish to another, allowing them to carry on with their vile abuse. Nancy could not get her head round it. And it was terrible that all the good priests who gave so much to their parishioners, and who were true men of God, had to suffer because of those rotten apples.
Nancy’s brows knitted in a frown as she stirred in a heaped spoonful of sugar and added milk to Jonathan’s tea. Of course it wasn’t only clergy that abused children, there were many wicked paedeo . . . paedo . . . she couldn’t pronounce the word, but abusers of children was what they were, and the more she heard, and the more she read about this shocking crime, the more she worried something might have happened to her own precious son. It was something she could not get out of her head lately.
Nancy sighed and cut a slice of biscuit cake for Jonathan. He seemed happy today but she had seen him, over the years, down and depressed, in a dark mood that he would try and hide from her. Sometimes he went on antidepressants, she knew, because he had told her a few years back when he had been glum and gloomy and she had nagged him to tell her what was up with him. ‘A touch of depression,’ he’d said. ‘I must go back to my doctor and get some antidepressants.’
‘Why are you depressed?’ she’d asked. ‘Is there something wrong in your life? Are you not happy? Is there anything I or your sisters can do to help?’
‘No, Mam, nothing at all. It’s just me. Some people are prone to it and I’m one of those people.’
She’d asked the girls had he ever said anything to them about the reasons behind those dark moods and they had said no. Mind he’d improved a lot since he’d started working for himself. Maybe he hadn’t been happy at work, she’d surmised,
