JONATHON - Book 1 [Watty Awards 2012]

Chapter 14

The couple of days passed very quickly, with family gatherings and visits to the hospital. Bea was glad of the chance to see Jonathon with his siblings. They obviously adored him but were not in awe of his prodigious talent or towering ego. They grounded him. They respected him as the eldest brother who had cared and provided for them when he was little more than a boy himself and not as the instantly recognizable celebrity he had become. And because they knew how important she was to him they accepted her warmly. It was so welcome to her after his mother’s icy disapproval.

The day of their departure they visited the hospital to make their farewells. Jonathon desperately wished he could stay until after her operation, but it was not possible; he had a tight schedule and immense debts to pay, financially and morally. He held his mother as if he never wanted to let her go, but he was so considerate and sweet with her, Bea felt her heart constrict.

‘Love you, mama. Love you.’ He kissed her goodbye and almost stumbled out of the room, eyes filling with tears, his beautiful, full mouth trembling dangerously. Outside he crushed Bea to him while he drew in deep, calming breaths. She gazed into his face and he nodded briefly. He was under control again. He took her by the hand and they walked together out into the pale sunshine.

At the airport Bea once again played the frightened passenger. As long as he had her to look after, comfort and reassure he could keep his own fears and demons at arms’ length.

Back in England, Jonny threw himself into his work. There were many calls to and from Ireland but he immersed himself in the job in hand because that was the only thing that kept him sane and the demons under control. That and Bea.

He made love to her now with an urgency and passion and even an element of roughness that she had not known before but she understood his desperation; he wanted to seize life by the throat and submit it to his will because death was looking over his shoulder. Not his own, he had looked that in the face, but his mama, his darling, beloved mama. He had seen her mortality and it terrified him.

‘Oh Bea.’ he sobbed when at last, his passion spent, he collapsed on top of her. ‘Forgive me. I was so rough…..’

‘Hush, hush my darling.’

‘I hurt you….’

‘You didn’t hurt me….. I’m tougher than that.’ she assured.

‘I’m such an animal. Me! Me! Me! What I want, what I need…’ his fist had pounded forcefully against his chest. She closed her hand over it.

‘Stop it. Don’t keep punishing yourself sweetheart.’

‘I deserve it.’

‘You do not deserve it. Jonny you are so, so loved. Why can’t you love yourself?’

His mouth twisted in a sneer of disbelief. She wrapped her arms around him and drew him even closer.

‘I love you Jonny. I adore you. God help me I love you more than anything or anybody in the whole wide word. Your family loves you. You’re the apple of your mama’s eye. Your brothers and sister, they love you; why would they not, all you have done for them.’

He lifted up and his tear-filled eyes were full of misery and self-loathing and she wished she had not reminded him of just what he had done for them.

‘You did it for love, Jonny. You did it all for love. Love of them. What greater love is there?’

‘But you don’t know it all Bea.’ His mouth twisted in self-disgust. ‘No-one would love me if they knew it all.’

‘I would.’ She said softly, believing he meant the details of his enforced affair with that man when he was just a boy. And his nerve failed him; he couldn’t lose her love, her regard by telling her the rest.