After dinner, when they were settled beside the fire and he was relaxed, she was going to ask him out straight whether anything had ever occurred when he was young.
Nancy had a fierce knot of anxiety in her stomach. She remembered him coming home from school several times with a black eye or a bloodied nose after being in a fight. ‘Did you give as good as you got?’ she’d ask and he would always assure her that he had. Fighting in the playground was part of growing up, she knew that, just as she knew that she could not go and fight his battles for him, much as she longed to. How she’d wished her husband was alive to teach Jonathan to box, and to do manly things with him.
She’d signed him up in a judo club, which he’d surprisingly enjoyed, and it had given her some solace that he could defend himself better against the bullies who tormented him for being different. He might have been different but he was more of a man than any of those little thugs were, Nancy had cried, tossing and turning at night in bed, worried sick about him and wondering should she go and speak to the headmaster. She had mentioned this to Jonathan and he had begged her not to. ‘They’ll only call me a sissy and it will make it worse, please don’t. I can sort it myself.’ Reluctantly she’d acquiesced to his wishes and felt even more of a failure as a mother. When he’d got the job up in Dublin, she didn’t know whether to be glad for him or sad. Sad that he was leaving home but happy that he was escaping from their small rural town where his wings were clipped and he would never be able to soar to the heights he wanted to. But Dublin had been good for him. Made a man of him and let him have the life he wanted.
In the last few years she’d stopped worrying so much about him. She knew he had a great circle of friends and that was a huge comfort to her. If he could just find a partner to companion him through life she would die a happy woman, Nancy reflected. That, and if she knew that there was nothing in his past that he hadn’t shared with her.
She dreaded asking him had anything bad ever happened when he was young and she dreaded what she might hear even more, but if she was any sort of a decent mother it was a question that had to be asked. Better to know than to remain in ignorance and let her son carry a burden alone. The time had come to either put her fears to rest or never know a minute’s peace of mind again.
Jonathan Harpur was a really nice guy, Leon Kyle mused, sitting in the Friday evening snarl-up on the M50 and wondering what idiot had designed the toll bridge that narrowed to two lanes causing huge tailbacks.
Jonathan was a talented interior designer, for sure. He’d shown Leon some of his commissions and Leon had been more than impressed. It would be good to keep in with him. His new buddy might be able to put some nixers his way. What a pity he had to go down the country and visit his mother. It would have been nice to socialize with Jonathan this weekend in some of the capital’s gay haunts. Leon exhaled a deep breath. He had to be careful where he was seen. None of his family knew that he had gay tendencies. They would all be shocked. He was butch, manly, played soccer, had a child, and not one of his family or friends knew that his life was hell on earth and he hated himself. He hated that he preferred men to women, he hated that he hadn’t the guts to come out, he hated himself for preferring men. He hated that he had to sneak around and tell lies and watch that he didn’t slip up. He certainly wouldn’t be able to introduce Jonathan to his family and friends and definitely not to his eight-year-old son and ex-partner. They would wonder who was this exotic creature with the flamboyant scarves and sharp dress sense, who was as gay as Christmas. Nope, introducing Jonathan would be out of the question but there was nothing to stop him having a good time with Jonathan, discreetly, now and again. Nothing at all, Leon decided, flinging his coins into the basket and gunning the engine, impatient for the barrier to rise.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
Hilary glanced at her watch. She needed to get a move on. It had started to sleet again. She’d pick the girls up from school, nip in and have the promised cuppa and cake with Gran H, drop the girls home and do her supermarket shop. She’d just go to Nolan’s in Clontarf. Driving out to Sutton to go to Superquinn on a wet Friday evening was not on – she was too tired and she had too much to do. Her cleaner, Magda, had not come back from Latvia after Christmas and had sent a text saying that her mother was ill and she would not be returning to Ireland, much to Hilary’s dismay. She needed to sort out getting a new cleaner too. She should have got the mini-maids in to get the house shipshape before Sophie’s friends arrived but
