‘Something did happen,’ he said quietly.
‘I knew it. I knew it. When I started going back and thinking about it I knew something must have set off those depressions. Oh Jonathan, why didn’t you come to me, why didn’t you tell me,’ Nancy exclaimed, aghast, her face crumpling into tears.
‘Aah now don’t cry, Mam! Let’s bring our tea in beside the fire and we’ll talk about it and then I want you to put it out of your mind, because I have,’ he said firmly.
‘Did he hurt you? Was it anyone we knew? What age were you?’ Nancy sobbed.
‘No, no, no, no one we knew,’ he lied. ‘Go in and sit down, and I’ll bring in the tea.’ He hated seeing his mother cry, hated the way her shoulders had sagged when he’d confirmed her worst fears.
What would he say had happened him? He thought frantically, pouring their tea into mugs and sugaring and milking them. He couldn’t tell her anything like the truth. That would devastate her completely. He’d have to make up some story that wouldn’t be too disturbing for her but yet ring true.
He shucked some chocolate rings onto a plate and put everything onto a tray and carried it into the sitting room. Even in his distressed state the sight of the soft light, the terra cotta lamps spilling their warm pools of colour around the snug sitting room that he had decorated for his mother, gave Jonathan immense satisfaction. The fire was crackling in the grate, the yellow-orange flames flickering and dancing, casting shadows thither and yon. He had been so looking forward to lazing in front of the fire, but now both of them were upset and the evening was not turning out as he’d expected.
‘Now, Mam, here you go, and I want you to stop agonizing or I won’t talk to you about it, OK?’ He handed Nancy a mug of tea and offered her a biscuit. ‘Come on, take one. The world hasn’t come to an end.’ He tried to lighten the mood.
‘You should have told me, Jonathan,’ Nancy said miserably.
‘Mam, you had enough on your plate when we were young, and besides I dealt with it.’
‘But it sent you into depressions. I’m your mother, you should have come to me,’ she protested.
‘Well I know that, but part of the depression thing was because I realized I was gay and I didn’t want to be. I just wanted to be “normal”.’ He did air quotes. ‘Whatever “normal” is. I hated being different. I just wanted to be ordinary.’
‘And what happened to you and what age were you? Were you a child?’ his mother asked fearfully.
‘No, no, no,’ he assured her, knowing that he was chickening out but comforting himself that it was for the best possible reasons. ‘Look, I was a teenager and I was walking down by the train depot and this fellow jumped me and shoved me down Leyden’s Lane and . . . well basically he touched me up.’
‘God above, that must have been so frightening. You never think of it happening to boys or men. You always think of women when sexual assault is mentioned. It’s shocking.’ She shook her head. ‘You should have gone to the police.’
‘It was different in those days. Now I would,’ Jonathan assured her.
‘And did the judo help?’
‘Oh . . . oh . . .em . . . it sure did,’ he said hastily, forgetting when he had concocted his story that he was trained in martial arts and his mother would have expected him to defend himself. ‘I was able to flip him over my shoulder when I had a chance to manoeuvre and then I gave him a good kick before I took to my heels.’
‘And you didn’t know who he was?’
‘Not a clue. Whoever he was he had a couple of bruises when I was finished with him. I never saw him again.’
‘Thanks be to God I sent you to those classes.’ Nancy began to relax a little as she sipped her tea and nibbled on a biscuit.
‘They were such a help and I got great confidence from knowing I could use what I was taught if I got into a tight corner,’ Jonathan said reassuringly.
‘Well thanks be to the Holy Mother the priests and brothers didn’t abuse you, although I have to say we’ve always had very nice priests in this parish. That I know of,’ she added doubtfully.
‘We have, they’re sound. Father McManus is exceptional,’ Jonathan agreed, knowing how kind the parish priest was to the elderly of the parish.
‘You should have told me though. And I’m sorry I didn’t realize the difficulties you were going through about being gay. I didn’t really know what being gay was, when you were young. Things like that weren’t spoken about in our day. And being gay meant being happy and carefree,’ she added wryly. ‘I just thought you were a gentle child who liked playing with girls and doing girlish things. I thought that was because you had no male influence in your life, because of your daddy dying when you were just a toddler. And then when I did realize what it was all about I wondered was it
