A Time for Friends (25 page)

He was really trying hard not to make the same mistakes this time, with Leon. He had even declined an invite to go and see
The Talented Mr Ripley
this Sunday with him, even though he
would have loved to go on a date to the cinema. Jonathan had a crush on Jude Law and Leon had confided that he really fancied Matt Damon, so it was a film both of them would have enjoyed. The old
Jonathan would have agreed to go on the night out immediately; the new, more aware Jonathan was being more restrained.

‘Perhaps during the week,’ he’d suggested casually when Leon had issued the invite. ‘I’ve plans for Sunday.’ He’d hoped against hope that Leon would
agree, and he’d been secretly delighted and relieved when his new crush had said easily, ‘Sure, whenever suits you. Just let me know.’ Now
that
was progress, Jonathan
assured himself, very pleased that he was finally following Hannah’s advice and taking things slowly.

It would be great too to be able to tell his mother that there was someone new on the scene. One of Nancy’s fervent prayers was that someone kind and loving would come into his life and
make him happy. Nancy was a wonderful mother, Jonathan thought gratefully. He was looking forward to spending the weekend with her and to seeing his sisters and his niece and nephews.

It was hard to believe that Nancy was almost eighty. She was still sprightly and looked years younger than her age. She cooked and baked and did her own shopping, in spite of her
children’s protestations. ‘Thank the good Lord I can look after myself for now and when I can’t and I need looking after you can look after me,’ Nancy assured them
spiritedly. But age had slowed her down and she couldn’t see well enough to sew any more, so she had turned to knitting blankets and hats, scarves and gloves and socks for children in
orphanages around the world. She was in a knitting club, was a member of a bridge club, she had choir practice every Friday evening, and Jonathan often teased her that she had a better social life
than he had.

It gave him great satisfaction to see his mother so relaxed and contented in her retirement after all the years of hard work and sacrifice. They were so lucky that Nancy was healthy and robust
for her age and rarely had to go for the medical appointments that often accompanied ageing. Jonathan only had to take time off work once, to bring her to an optician, and only then because she was
getting drops in her eyes that would have blurred her vision.

Every so often she would take the bus to Dublin and he would meet it at Busáras and watch her step jauntily onto the concourse with her neat travel case, looking smart and lively, and his
heart would lift at the sight. Nancy would spend a weekend with him and enjoy a trip to the theatre or a music recital or art exhibition before getting the bus home after lunch on Sunday. Rachel or
Maria would meet her in Rosslara and have her tea ready. Life had turned out well for all of the Harpur family, Jonathan reflected gratefully, swinging onto the slip road to exit the M50 and head
for home.

An hour later he drove off the motorway and went south. He could see the church spire of St Anthony’s in the distance and he took another left turn that would bring him to the winding
roads of home. It was almost 5.30 but still bright, although dusk was beginning to encroach. Nightfall wouldn’t come for another hour or so. He’d made good time. Jonathan loved arriving
home before dark. It made the weekend seem longer. The lengthening days since Christmas lifted the spirit with the promise of spring and summer to come. The rain had eased the further west
he’d driven, the setting sun flashing orange-yellow between the bare-branched trees and hedgerows. Already the winter barley was covering the rich loamy soil of the fields with a faint film
of green. He touched a switch and the electric window slid down smoothly and he inhaled the fresh country air. The birds were chirruping and singing before settling down for the night and in the
distance he could hear the drone of a tractor as it ploughed ruler-straight furrows in the winter-rested earth.

His mobile phone rang and the Bluetooth kicked in. ‘Hello, Jonathan Harpur,’ he answered, sliding the window up again, and hoping it wasn’t a client. Some of them could be very
demanding, expecting him to be at their beck and call 24/7.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ came the greeting from an unexpected caller. Jonathan’s heart soared.

‘Hi, Leon.’ He couldn’t disguise his pleasure at hearing his new friend’s voice.

‘So where are you? Driving somewhere, clearly.’

‘Correct! As we speak, I’m about half a mile from my mam’s.’

‘Oh! You’ve gone home for the weekend?’

‘Excellent deduction, Sherlock,’ teased Jonathan and they both laughed. ‘So what are you up to?’

‘I’ve just finished up putting in bespoke wardrobes in a new extension and if I say so myself they look pretty damn good.’

‘It’s great when you’re happy with the way something turns out, isn’t it?’ Jonathan enthused.

‘Yep, although you’re lucky, you work for yourself. I’m very tied to the building contractor I work for. We’re starting a new build next week in Rathfarnham, miles from
where I live, so that’s going to be a bummer of a commute.’

‘You should aim to work for yourself,’ Jonathan encouraged.

‘I’d love that! Who knows, we might work together sometime. Hey, if you’d like, I can show you the wardrobes so you can see the quality of my work. We don’t hand the
house back to the owners until the week after next when the painters are finished,’ Leon suggested.

‘That would be great, I’d love to see them! I’ll check my diary and see how I’m fixed.’ Jonathan remembered to sound laid-back even though he was over the moon at
the idea of meeting up with Leon.

‘So will you be back Sunday then?’ Leon asked casually.

‘No, Monday morning. I always like to spend a decent chunk of time with Mam when I come home and it takes the pressure off my sisters and gives them a free weekend because even though
she’s very feisty and independent, they keep a great eye on her, so it’s good for them to have time for themselves,’ Jonathan explained.

‘And here was me thinking you had a big date with someone on Sunday,’ Leon confessed.

‘I do, I’ve a big date with the ladies of the knitting club. I’m hosting a Spanish tapas supper night for them. Anyway, I’ve arrived now so I’ll let you go, and
I’ll give you a shout early next week, OK?’

‘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, and gradually she had let go of her worries as she saw how contented he was in his new career. But lately, with all these
disturbing headlines, she had started to worry that something had happened to him, something she didn’t know about, something he had hidden from her and carried alone, and
that
she
couldn’t bear.

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.