Conor's Way (46 page)

"Ah-veem," she said, pronouncing the word
carefully. "What is that?"

"Confession. It's supposed to be good for the
soul, isn't it?"

Admha
í
m

"It was all because of the guns," he began.
"They wanted to know where the guns were hidden. Sean's American
rifles. We'd been smuggling them in for two years, right under the
noses of the British customs officials. Hiding them all over
Ireland, a hundred here, a hundred there. We were planning a war,
you see. Training camps and warfare tactics and weapons, all that.
We didn't know then it was a war we couldn't win."

He spoke almost tentatively, and Olivia knew
he had never talked about this to anyone before.

"We'd smuggled in nine hundred rifles and a
thousand rounds of ammunition before they caught us. Adam and I
were arrested for attempting to pull guns off a train north of
Dublin. They put us in the bridewell. They'd arrested Sean at a
safe house in Dublin. Someone had informed on us—we never found out
who it was." She felt herself being pulled into a world she knew
nothing about; he was leading her into the dark, twisted paths of
his nightmares, where there were safe houses and informers, prisons
and torture. Olivia bit down on her lip and listened, knowing she
had to follow him so that she could bring him back to her world,
where there was safety and light.

"They gave us a trial," he went on. "But Sean
had gotten word about the informant and managed to get the guns off
the train. He tried to let us know the guns weren't on the train,
but his man didn't reach us in time. Anyway, because they couldn't
find the guns, they could only convict us of attempted robbery.
They sent us to Mountjoy Prison."

He sat motionless in the chair, hidden in the
shadows.

"It was only the three of us who knew where
all the guns were hidden, Sean and Adam and me. But Sean was
useless to them. They knew he wouldn't talk. He'd been in many a
prison before, our Sean, and the British knew he wouldn't break. So
they killed him. Right in front of Adam and me. He was grinning at
me when the guard pulled his head back and slit his throat."

Olivia closed her eyes briefly, prayed for
strength, and opened her eyes again. She didn't want to hear this;
she didn't want to see what he saw in his mind. But she had to. Her
fingers curled tightly into the sheets as she listened, bracing
herself for the rest.

"The man let him go, and his body collapsed,
all the blood pumping out of him. He looked up at me with these
dead, sightless eyes and his blood spurting out of the artery in
his throat, but he was still grinning."

Suddenly Conor leaned forward in the chair,
his arms curling protectively over his head as if he were trying
to hide. "Oh, God," he moaned. "Oh, God."

Olivia waited, but he said nothing more. She
knew she could not let him stop now, not before he had told it all.
His inner torments had to be forced out into the open. It was the
only way for him to begin to heal. "What happened then?"

At the sound of her voice, he jerked himself
upright, stiffening. "They were so stupid," he said, his voice
flat, with only a hint of the contempt that lay beneath. "They
thought killing Sean would intimidate us, frighten us into talking.
All it did was make us hate them more, if that was possible. They
realized then that they'd made a mistake, that one dead martyr was
worth a dozen rebels. They separated us, Adam and me. I never saw
him again. They put me in a cell, with shackles on my hands and
feet, and kept me chained to the wall, except when they brought me
food. They made me eat on my hands and knees from a plate on the
floor, like a dog. Fish guts, it was. Raw, stinking fish guts, for
days and days. But I wouldn't tell them where the guns were
hidden. I wouldn't tell them."

He shook his head blindly. "Then they
wouldn't let me sleep. They walked me round and round the prison
yard, doused me with water if I fell asleep standing up. I saw the
sun rise and fall three times before I collapsed. Then they
flogged me. But I didn't break. I didn't tell them."

Olivia heard the defiance in his voice, but
with his next words, the defiance left him, and his voice changed
to one of bewilderment.

"I started to hear voices
in my head. My sisters'
. Tá ocrás
orm
,
Conor
.
Tá
ocrás orm
, over and over. It never
stops...a tide that never ebbs. I still hear it. Oh, Christ," he
moaned, curling himself tightly in the chair again, "they're so
hungry, and there's nothing to eat. They're begging me to find
food. Brigid and Eileen and Megan. I could hear them, but I
couldn't help them. There was no food."

He slammed his hands over his ears as if to
shut out the voices.

"I knew they were dead," he mumbled, "but I
could hear them in my cell, see their faces as if they were there.
And Michael, too, screaming for help, and I couldn't help him. And
the guards. 'Tell us, Paddy, tell us where the guns are. Tell us.
Tell us.'"

He lifted his head, staring straight at her
across the room, but she did not know if he recognized her. The
anguish was in every line of his face, every movement of his body.
She wanted to run to him, soothe him, tell him to hush, to stop,
but she knew she could not. She remembered her days at the
hospital and the soldiers who screamed about the cannon fire and
the blood, and she had learned to let them be, to let them pour it
all out.

"I cursed them, I sang, I shouted, but I
didn't tell them. I didn't break. So they took me to Arthur
Delemere, the warden." He rubbed a shaking hand across his jaw. "I
thought I'd already felt all the pain there was in this life," he
whispered, "but I was wrong."

Oh, Lord
, she thought desperately,
how do I
help him? What do I do?

"They strapped me down on a table." He closed
his eyes and a shudder rocked him. "Some things are beyond
description. They can't be put into words."

She pressed her clasped hands to her mouth.
Deep down inside, she began to shake.

"I would pass out from the pain," he said,
"and when I would awaken, the guards would be gone, and Delemere
would talk to me. Tell me how he understood what I was going
through, and how he would like to help me, but he couldn't unless I
told him where the guns were hidden. He'd tell me to think about it
for a while, and he would leave. But then the guards would come
back, and we would go through it all again.

“I... I lost track of time. One moment
blended into the next, one day into the next. I would lie there and
count backward from one thousand, focusing on remembering the next
number, making it the most important thing in the world, trying not
to feel the pain. It worked for a while. I even tried to pray, if
you can believe that. I said the rosary, but I couldn't remember it
all. I couldn't remember."

He raked a hand through his hair. "It didn't
matter. God wasn't listening. Not Mary, nor Jesus, nor all the
saints heard me screaming. No one heard but Delemere. He became the
only thing that seemed real to me. He brought me food and water. He
sat beside me after the men were done, and he talked to me
endlessly. He bathed my face with cool rags, wiping away the tears
and the vomit and the blood. He kept telling me that he was my
friend, that if I would help him, he would help me. I don't know
how long it took, but I started to believe him. I started to
rationalize it all in my mind. I made up places, thinking that
wasn't really telling. So, Delemere would have me taken back to my
cell, and have the doctor come to patch me up as best he could,
while he sent men out to find the guns. Of course, they'd come back
empty-handed a few days later, so they'd have me in, and we'd have
another go."

He folded his arms across his knees, hunching
forward as if he wanted simply to curl into a ball and never move
again.

"It took three, maybe four rounds," he said
dully, staring at the floor. "I just wanted the pain to stop. I
wanted him to kill me; I begged him to kill me. When we were alone,
he would whisper to me. He kept promising me that he would make it
all stop if I would just tell him the truth. There came a point
when I believed him." There was a long pause. "So, I told him."

He lifted his head and the moonlight hit his
face as he looked at her, the agony in his expression far beyond
memories of physical pain. "He laughed when I told him. Laughed. It
was all a joke, you see. They already knew where the guns were;
they'd confiscated all of them days before. Adam, Delemere told me,
had been much more cooperative than myself. It had taken only two
days to break him."

Suddenly, he straightened. His hand slammed
down on the tiny drop-leaf table beside him with such force, Olivia
jumped.

"They took everything I was!" he cried.
"Everything I believed in. They destroyed what I thought myself to
be, and remade me into what I despised most. They made me an
informer against my own people. I tried to stop them. God, I
tried." His voice broke. "I fought so hard. But I couldn't stop
them. And it was all for a joke."

He shoved at the table and sent it skidding
across the floor. It crashed into the wall. "Delemere didn't care
about the guns. He wanted to break me just to prove that he could.
And the worst of it was, the bastard didn't keep his promise. He
didn't kill me."

There was one question Olivia had to ask.
“And what about you?”

He frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re
asking.”

“You said you killed a man.” Olivia took a
deep breath. “Who? Was it Delemere?”

“What if I did kill him?” He looked at her,
his blue eyes defiant. “Would that matter?”

She looked back at him steadily. “Not to me,
Conor.”

“It was in the ring,” he answered. “In
Belfast. A simple uppercut to the jaw, that’s all it was, but the
man went down, and he didn’t…” Conor paused and swallowed hard. “He
didn’t get up again.”

“I see.” She nodded, not surprised that it
was something like that. “Yes, I see.”

“No, you don’t!” His voice was savage. “If
I’d had the chance, I’d have ripped Delemere apart with my bare
hands, and any man who was in the room with him. He did die that
night, though not by my hand, and the fact that I’m not the one who
sent him to meet God is something I’ll regret every day of my life!
Well?” he added when she didn’t reply. “Isn’t it time for you to
say something about the murder that’s in my heart, and how I need
to repent for the sake of my soul? Or perhaps now would be a good
time to remind me of the evils of the boxing ring?”

The mockery in his voice, she knew, was
directed not at her, but at himself. “What happened?”

“There was a riot, some of the prisoners
escaped, and one of them got Delemere. Prime Minister Gladstone
found out about it and heard about the torture as well. There was
a hue and cry about it; people protested, marched, rioted in the
streets, demanded that the Fenians involved be released. It took
nearly a year, but I was eventually given amnesty, along with
several others. It was too late for Adam. Word had gotten out
right after the guns were confiscated that he'd informed, and the
Fenian Council had one of their men on the inside execute him.
Stabbed him in the prison yard with a piece of a bed frame a week
before Delemere died. I wish to hell they had done the same to
me."

His face bore the same harsh expression that
she had seen the night he'd gotten drunk.

"People knew what had happened to me, but no
one knew that I had told Delemere about the guns. My friends all
shook my hand, and gave me pats on the back, and bought me drinks.
I hadn't broken, they said. I was a hero, they said. They cheered
me; they boasted about me; they were proud to know me. Proud, for
God's sake! I didn't have the guts to tell them the truth, and I
couldn't face the shame of knowing I didn't deserve their praise.
That's why I left and came to America. That's why I can't go home.
I'm not their bloody hero. I'm a sham. And I'm a coward."

Olivia felt his self-hatred and his shame,
and she spoke very gently. "You did what anyone would have done in
your place."

"No. I’ve known so many people stronger than
I, who suffered more than I, who had more courage than I could
ever hope to have. Delemere proved that in the Mountjoy." He leaned
forward and buried his face in his hands. "Jaysus, why didn't he
just kill me?"

Olivia did not know what to say. She did not
know how to reach him, she did not even know if she could, but she
had to try. She rose to her feet and began to walk toward him very
slowly, speaking to him very softly.