Leon Uris (20 page)

That was fine, indeed, if it had been left right there. Now Rory was becoming curious about books. Liam contained himself because he did not want to play out the angry role with Rory that Tomas had played out with Conor.

Conor sensed his brother’s discomfort in short order and set his books aside. Likewise, he stifled conversation of Ireland’s epic. He would not be the brother to bring trouble. Could Rory’s eager enchantment for his uncle’s knowledge be stilled? The lad glued himself to Conor in hero worship.

“Take a look at RumRunner’s left front hoof.”

“Looks sound to me.”

“Thought I saw a wee split.”

“No.”

“Always liked this part of the station,” Rory said. “My da has his place up on the crown and his God-given greatest trout stream in the South Island. I like the woods and the scent of it here.”

“Myself as well,” Conor said. “We didn’t have much woodland in the old country.”

“How come?”

“The Brits cut down our forests to build a fleet to defend against the Spanish Armada and whatever else one uses wood for.”

“I didn’t know that. How come you don’t bring books in your saddlebag anymore?”

“You know very well why, Rory.”

“Want me to show you how to use the long whip to muster cattle? You’re very bad at it.”

“I’m too old. All the nags I ever rode had bad breath from age and swaybacks from the lack of decent breeding. Although Ireland itself breeds some of the finest horses in the world. I was at the Dublin horse show once, working as a farrier—” He cut short. Conversation, out of bounds.

“I want to know more about Ireland…about Ballyutogue…”

“It’s a sore point with your da. He knew a thousand tons of misery there.”

“It’s not his misery,” Rory said abruptly. “It’s his fear of me knowing. The same fear he has of books. There’s a St. Patrick’s Day celebration every year and quite a time…except Daddy takes a deep breath in the morning and holds it all day. He hates it.”

“He’s your father, I’m only your uncle.”

“You defied your da,” Rory pressed.

It was so damned apparent that Liam was trying to make his son live in a vacuum, cut off physically and now spiritually from Ireland.

“What about me!” Rory cried suddenly.

“I’ll tell you about you,” Conor answered. “You have the world by the balls on a downhill pull, Rory. You rove because you’re in pain. You need not bash your skull in to learn that the world is a filthy place. Your daddy has struggled for the things you were born into. This farm is a full-fledged station and will be a giant sheep station in a few years. So, what’s the purpose of glinking yourself only to find out that New Zealand is one of God’s perfect creations.”

“The reason I don’t like it up on the crown of the hill where my daddy goes is because I can see the ocean from there. The water is an evil jailer.”

“Or the safest moat in the world, Rory. The wise ones figure that out before they have to suffer for it.”

“The wise ones…or the dull ones?” the boy answered. “Too much peace here seems to drive a lot of people to religion and drink.”

“It’s so strange, lad. You leave Ireland hating to go but forced to go. Here, you leave for no good reason at all, except misplaced curiosity.”

“That’s not true. Your books tell me why there is something more than we can find here.”

“Oh, you’ll go, Rory, because you must. But always keep your eye on this place and thank your parents who gave it to you.”

“Maybe I would if my daddy loved me.”

Conor’s throat went dry. There would be no side-slipping this lad. Conor/Rory…Rory/Conor and poor dear Liam confused about who was who and why. Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, Conor thought. But why not? I did for my brother what I could. I righted my wrongs to him. Five years at sea brought me to a desperation of loneliness. Am I not entitled to my brother’s hand? Yet, has my coming here set off another cycle of Larkin madness?

“Of course your daddy loves you,” Conor finally said. “It’s just that he doesn’t have a way with words.”

“He has a way with them, all right, when they’re meant to bite,” Rory answered.

“He does love you, but things move slowly inside him. It is you who must give him time to work it out.”

“I was just about born a bastard,” Rory snapped.

“Well, that sort of thing happens all the time. It’s normal and natural. After all, they sat you down and told you about it. That’s love.”

“They never told me. It was shit on my head in the schoolyard one day.”

Oh Liam! You dumb son of a bitch, Conor thought. Letting your lad suffer the pains of the unwanted. Conor’s arm went around Rory’s shoulders and the boy rested his head on his uncle’s chest. Rory never felt so protected, so cared for, so invincible as now.

“You’re but eleven, but you are wiser in many regards than your parents. It is you who must continue to be the understanding and patient one.”

“I try, Uncle Conor. I keep it stuffed until the fits overtake me, and when they do, it is beyond my will to stop myself. Then, I have to break things apart. It keeps happening over and over, and it will until I break loose of them here.”

“What is it you’re sporting for, boy?”

“Ireland.”

“But Jaysus, Rory…”

“Uncle Conor, this farm is Ireland, from morning to night. It carries an Irish name. The proprietor is Irish. These acres were misplaced in New Zealand. Every hour you and me have not talked about Ireland, Ireland was sitting up on the limb of that tree looking down and laughing at us. Why? Because Ireland holds my Uncle Conor in an iron fist. You can’t run from it, because you’ve tried and failed. Ireland owns anyone with the * name of Larkin. I’ve got to have my piece of it.”

Oh Lord, Conor moaned to himself. How many damned Irish pubs on how many waterfronts in how many shanty ports on how many continents have the Irish rovers gathered to slop in their beer and pine for all that dirty rock and hardship and British rottenness. What is its cursed hold on men! The memories are so bitter you’d think you’d close it off, once you escape. But no, it sneaks after you on the quiet watch in the crow’s nest. What the hell is it you long for…you don’t even know…you don’t understand it.

And here sits a lad who envisions it through a mist. His craving for it is worse because it is denied him by a bitter man.

‘Tis true that most men of ordinary cut have the wanderlust knocked out of them for fear of the unknown. But Rory lad is going to be no ordinary man. He will have to go after it.

What should I do? Conor wondered. It’s better to get out of New Zealand before this family blows like a volcano. My coming here has just brought salt into Liam’s open wound.

“I want to know about the sheilas,” Rory said, bending the subject to something more compatible.

“Women?”

“Jeeze, Uncle Conor, I’ve been watching rams and bulls fornicating all my life. I’ve even stuck RumRunner’s cock in a mare.”

“Well, then. I’ll talk to you, but only in generalities.”

Rory lay back and looked at the sky as his uncle spoke.

“What in life that is sublime, above everything, comes down to a simple proposition—a bed, or a place where a man and a woman make love.”

Rory began to line up the million and one questions about this most sublime subject.

“The thing you must remember about women is that you are holding a precious little bird in your hand. If you squeeze it too tightly, you’ll crush it. If you hold it too loosely, it will fly away. What women crave is patience. You must learn that, Rory. RumRunner can’t control himself. That’s why he’s a horse. The longer you can suspend time, the higher the flight, find that lovely balance between strong arms on the one hand and a velvet touch on the other.”

Huh, Rory thought, a bit different than he had reckoned, but surely Uncle Conor knew more about women than anyone, he was that handsome.

“Rule number one. It is always the woman’s choice to do it or not to do it. You present yourself charmingly…never try to overwhelm her, and let her size you up. She’ll let you know when she’s ready.”

“Sounds foxy to me.”

“It is. It’s fox and hounds. The more casual you are, the more interested they become. And once it’s a go, make her feel like a queen…before, during, and afterward. It’s called tenderness.”

“You ever been in love?”

“Of course,” Conor answered, “in a manner of speaking.”

“Desperately?”

“Aye, once.”

“With a queen?”

“Only a countess.” As Conor drifted into a schanachie’s tale of his unconsummated love, he found speaking of such things to the boy to be very easy. Conor had never spoken of his love of Lady Caroline to anyone but Seamus O’Neill. It seemed so wistful and lovely a memory that he wanted to share it with Rory.

As they horsed around, wrestling and boxing openhanded, Conor saw a bit of room for improvement. He had, after all, taught Liam the finer points of fisticuffs and his very prize pupil had been Seamus O’Neill.

“Your being left-handed gives you a distinct advantage. Now then, take your pose…always circle to your right, which takes away my right hand…that’s it…that’s it…to your right…I flick out my left jab…bob under it and throw a thunderous right hand to me ribs…aye, that’s the lad…under the jab…move to your right…under the jab, unleash that right to the body…good lad…now get away and circle right.

“After five or six slams to the ribs, your unworthy opponent will start to paw with his jab, fearing your blow to the body. When he starts pawing, go over the top to his face…poor chap won’t last long…

“The madder they become, the calmer you become…you’ve got a target now because his ribs are getting red…move right…under the jab…unleash, move out…fearsome, utterly fearsome.”

“Don’t I ever get to throw my left hand, Uncle Conor?”

“In due course, lad, in due course.”

*  *  *

They spoke of wrought iron and Shakespeare.

They spoke of a kind of sound Rory did not know…music played by great orchestras of eighty or ninety men and of operas sung by women with voices of nightingales.

They spoke of the wonders of the new century, of electric power and moving film and another magic kind of film that could see into a person’s body.

They spoke of great boxers and of artists and men who painted the ceilings of cathedrals.

And places with magic names…Damascus…Calgary…Ponte Vecchio…and Montenegro…

But never a mention of Ireland or the book
Rights of Man
by Thomas Paine. Rory hungered to know the thoughts behind Conor’s silence. The yellow and brown and black Bogsides all over the world, wretched creations of the colonizers.

What he spoke of and what he did not speak of was everything denied this lad from the South Island of New Zealand. The catalogue of Rory’s longings grew so obviously that Conor knew he had better leave.

One night Conor announced to Liam and Millie that he would be going down to Christchurch and perhaps up to Wellington to inquire about a berth on a ship. There was always a need for blacksmiths afloat, so something suitable was bound to come along in short order.

After a sigh of relief, Liam suddenly was jolted by the other side of the coin. He remembered twelve years ago in Ballyutogue when he had broken the news of his own emigration to Conor. Conor had gone into a panic. Liam’s darkest memory of all was the family’s ugly scene over Conor’s futile attempt to keep Liam in Ireland.

From his initial reaction of deliverance, Liam was seized with fear. Conor had filled Rory’s head with taunting notions of the world beyond. Rory had made his mark on Ballyutogue Station. Rory had to keep the continuity.

Manipulation. Aye, that’s the name of the game. Practiced by the family, the tribe, and the order of nations since man came down from the trees and moved into the caves.

Few practiced it with more precision than our dear Irish compatriots. You see, there is so infinitely little to manipulate, five acres of land, a ha’penny more on the price of flax, the fear of sex…. Manipulation at the family level was no less an Irish art than their poetry.

There was much more for Squire Liam at stake: Ireland
against New Zealand—keeping his needed son, Rory, in the country to ensure continuity and a new generation of manipulators.

After all, Liam reasoned, he was
not
his father, Tomas, trying to lock Conor to his land. Could Conor, who had never been taken by a need for wealth or power, suddenly become smitten by the idea that the two brothers could build their holdings into something even larger than an earldom?

Perhaps the promise of peace could hold Conor? He had known poor little of it. A return to Ireland would only guarantee a life of battle.

Peace, plenty, family.

There was the magnificent parcel of land. If Conor took the new farm and built toward Ballyutogue Station, when the two merged it would be the largest spread on the South Island.

Yet, even as Liam offered the proposition, he could see that Conor had to go. His brother was inquiring after a ship. Liam railed against an Ireland that had brought them nothing but misery. He pleaded the case for New Zealand’s greater offer of freedom and dignity.

“Funny,” Conor answered, “how everyone loves the Irish once they leave Ireland.”

A letter had been sent to Liam in care of Conor from Seamus O’Neill in the event Conor showed up in New Zealand. When Liam handed it over, he learned there could be no keeping his brother.

The letter spoke of Irish stirrings, a heightened revival, and more…the probable renewal of the Irish Republican Brotherhood with the return of the old Fenian Long Dan Sweeney.

“What’s it gotten us but the raw end of a whip,” Liam repeated, now speaking in a hollow chamber.

Conor tried to comfort his stricken brother. “Your sorrow is misplaced. It might appear to be the best for me to remain in New Zealand but the enigma of it would follow
us here as, indeed, it already has. You’d soon get sick of your big brother hovering about. My obvious love for Rory could throw us into an ugly contest and only complicate matters. Of course, there’s more. I wish I could explain this stranger who sits on my shoulder who will never leave me alone until I return. I can’t get rid of him, Liam. Five years of roving and I can’t get rid of him.”

Well, now comes the summing up. How did all the confused manipulation work out? Liam wanted his brother to stay and to leave at the same time. Why then did he feel relief when Conor announced his departure? Was Conor again casting his giant shadow?

What of it with Conor gone? Rory adored his uncle in a fever that only an eleven-year-old can muster, unadulterated hero worship. Conor’s departure seemed a guarantee for Rory to follow. However, Liam now had some years to play with to make Rory change his mind. But how? Liam thought of everything…except love.

Manipulation gave way to utter disarray.

“I think I’m sorry that I came,” Conor whispered to his brother.

Liam damned near collapsed.

“Oh Conor, man, you alone stuck with me. You paid off my passage. You gave me the first money for land. I owe you and I want to make it right for you. Forget my games. I don’t want to see you suffer no more.”

“I’d say we are more than even,” Conor replied. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you in Ireland. I should have been a better brother.”

Liam was about to shout out, I LOVE YOU, MAN, AND THAT’S WHAT IT’S ABOUT. I LOVE YOU. But the words died in Liam somewhere on the way out and were never said or heard.

“Well, being brothers means saying you’re sorry, all the time, eh?” Conor said. “You’re on an irreversible march
to becoming a powerful man and you’ve a grand family around you.”

“Except for the boy who is going to follow in your footsteps,” Liam said bitterly.

“All right, Liam, you’re a big man now, so here it is. Try giving Rory some love and honesty. You did him a rotten turn by trying to live a lie with him. You know how it feels to be unloved. Why are you trying so bloody hard to repeat Daddy’s mistake? How can you do this to your own boy after what you’ve gone through.”

Liam recoiled, stricken, denuded.

“I hear you,” he finally rasped.

“Liam, I’ve tried desperately to avoid what is unavoidable. You cannot shut your son in a dark room and close the door. Rory is a keen lad with a mind of a wizard and a heart full of life and inquiry. You’d better realize that whether I had come to New Zealand or not, you can’t turn him into a sheep-herding vegetable. He’s going to cut his own path. Don’t try to stop him. Only if you let him know that he is loved will he come back to this place.”

Well, brothers go through the act of making up when a gangplank is staring one of them in the face. Liam wanted to know how to weep in Conor’s arms but every time he felt a surge to do it, an even stronger surge of stubbornness prevented him. Their farewell was all proper, in the Irish manner. Figures looking small down on the dock. Kids and Mom crying. Liam rigid as a steel rod.

Rory stood on deck with his uncle. Conor slipped him an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“A list of books that talk about all the things we never got to talk about. They all say about the same thing. It’s a human truth that man can never accept not being free.”

“And do any of these books tell me about Ireland?”

“Aye.”

“To what avail?” Rory asked. “There is no way I can get them.”

“Sure you can. Your friend, Uncle Wally Ferguson, will be receiving them from me. Sorry to do this to your da, but what the hell, I did it to my own da.”

“Will you write me, and can I write to you?”

“I will, but remember it could be a real problem, Rory.”

“The Irish Republican Brotherhood?”

“Aye. But if you don’t hear from me, it’s not my choice, but necessity.”

“I understand.”

“And you must know, I love you very much, Rory.”

Liam held up his hand and waved as Rory came down the gangplank. He realized that his brother was taking his son’s heart with him back to Ireland and one day his son would go looking for it.