‘You see, when you start looking at things differently everything changes,’ Jonathan exclaimed. ‘It’s not easy and you have to try hard but when it works, it works.’
‘She sounds like a lovely lady who talks a lot of sense. In fact I might pay her a visit myself sometime,’ Nancy declared, throwing a briquette onto the fire and sending a shower of sparks up the chimney.
Jonathan stared at his mother, astonished. Nancy had surprised him with her openness and acceptance of the esoteric teachings Hannah shared with him. He hadn’t been so accepting the first few times she had volunteered them. He had argued truculently with her many times, affronted that she could suggest that Gus Higgins was a ‘teacher’ on a spiritual level. But she had always given him time to absorb what she said and told him only to accept what resonated with him. When the pupil is ready the teacher will come. Even when you were nearly eighty, it seemed.
‘You’d love her and she’d love you.’ He smiled at his mother and she smiled back at him and Jonathan felt the tension drift out of his body and his eyelids began to droop as he lay against the plump Gigli-print cushions he had accessorized the sofa with.
He had lied every which way to his mother about his abuse but his intention had been good. He had saved her from a grief that would have ruined her old age. That was more important than anything. But he had shared his feelings with her and that made the huge bond they had even stronger. Articulating how he felt about being gay, as he just had, had been very empowering. He was a human being who deserved to be treated with dignity and equality, just the way his mother treated him, and if people didn’t like it they could lump it. And he wasn’t a victim, he was victorious. Yes, victorious Jonathan Harpur who had put the past behind him and was ready to embrace his future, a future that hopefully he would spend with Leon at his side. Jonathan slept peacefully on the sofa, and Nancy, content that she had broached the subject she had been dreading and had not had her worst fears realized, closed her eyes and joined him for forty winks before the Late Late started.
Nancy lay in the warm hollow of her bed watching a sliver of moonlight through a chink in the curtains. She felt strangely at peace after her heart-to-heart conversation with Jonathan. He was a very strong person, this son of hers, she thought proudly. And a very good person. Why could people not see beyond the labels they hung on each other? Why could they not see the human being with the kind and loving heart? ‘Queers’ they called men like her son. How hurtful and derogatory. But they were the queer ones with their closed, judgemental minds and hard hearts. Jesus would never call anyone queer, she reflected, knowing that much of the hardship her son and others like him endured was in the name of so-called ‘religion’. ‘Sure you wouldn’t say those awful names, Jesus?’ she said aloud to the picture of the smiling Sacred Heart that rested on her bedside locker. Her eyes lit up and an idea popped into her mind. Exactly, she thought delightedly. ‘Thank you, dear Lord, for putting the idea into my head.’
She lay drowsily against her pillows watching the moonlight disappear as the wind began to rise and the spitter-spatter of rain against the window lulled her to sleep.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-T
WO
‘Good morning, light of my life.’ Niall nuzzled in to her and Hilary felt him harden against her.
‘I was asleep,’ she griped, annoyed at being woken up.
‘I’ll wake you up,’ he murmured, cupping her breast in his hand. Hilary’s heart sank. She just wanted to go back to sleep. Niall had been drinking the previous night at his gig and she could smell the stale scent of beer off him and she just wasn’t in the mood for sex. All she craved was deep, uninterrupted sleep.
‘Can we do it tonight? I’m bushed. I just want to go back to sleep,’ she mumbled, turning over on her front and burying her head under the pillow.
‘We have a house full of teenagers tonight,’ he reminded her, disappointed.
‘Aw crap, I forgot about that. Tomorrow then,’ Hilary slurred drowsily. She was asleep in seconds leaving her husband frustrated and disgruntled.
The sound of the smoke alarm jerked her rudely from her slumber. For crying out loud, she thought in exasperation, how many times have I told him to keep the kitchen door closed when he’s grilling? She glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly eleven and groaned. She hadn’t meant to sleep in so late: Sophie’s friends were coming and the house had to be cleaned. Hilary yawned. She supposed it might be too much to expect that the girls had made a start on their chores.
She threw back the duvet and grabbed her dressing gown and slid her feet into woolly slippers. It was raining. She could hear it hurling against the window and when she pulled up the blinds she saw the wind bending the bare branches of the rowan trees that lined her street so that they looked like old crones with long streaming hair. Rivulets of water flowed down the
