The Thorn Birds (79 page)

He flipped over onto his belly and flashed through the water, closer and closer. Panicked arms reached for him, clung to him, dragged him under; he managed to grip one woman around the waist long enough to stun her with a swift clip on the chin, then grabbed the other by the strap of her swimsuit, shoved his knee hard into her spine and winded her. Coughing, for he had swallowed water when he went under, he turned on his back and began towing his helpless burdens in.

The two Pommies were standing shoulder-deep, too frightened to venture any farther, for which Dane didn’t blame them in the least. His toes just touched the sand; he sighed in relief. Exhausted, he exerted a last superhuman effort and thrust the women to safety. Fast regaining their senses, they began screaming again, thrashing about wildly. Gasping, Dane managed a grin. He had done his bit; the Poms could take over now. While he rested, chest heaving, the current had sucked him out again, his feet no longer brushed the bottom even when he stretched them downward. It had been a close call. If he hadn’t been present they would certainly have drowned; the Poms hadn’t the strength or skill to save them. But, said a voice, they only wanted to swim so they could be near
you
; until they saw
you
they hadn’t any intention of going in. It was your fault they were in danger, your fault.

And as he floated easily a terrible pain blossomed in his chest, surely as a spear would feel, one long and red-hot shaft of screaming agony. He cried out, threw his arms up above his head, stiffening, muscles convulsed; but the pain grew worse, forced his arms down again, thrust his fists into his armpits, brought up his knees. My heart! I’m having a heart attack, I’m dying! My heart! I don’t want to die! Not yet, not before I’ve begun my work, not before I’ve had a chance to prove myself! Dear Lord, help me! I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die!

The spasmed body stilled, relaxed; Dane turned onto his back, let his arms float wide and limp in spite of the pain. Wet-lashed, he stared up at the soaring vault of the sky. This is it; this is Thy spear, that I in my pride begged for not an hour ago. Give me the chance to suffer, I said, make me suffer. Now when it comes I resist, not capable of perfect love. Dearest Lord, Thy pain! I must accept it, I must not fight it, I must not fight Thy will. Thy hand is mighty and this is Thy pain, as Thou must have felt it on the Cross. My God, my God, I am Thine! If this is Thy will, so be it. Like a child I put myself into Thy infinite hand. Thou art too good to me. What have I done to deserve so much from Thee, and from the people who love me better than they love anyone else? Why hast Thou given me so much, when I am not worthy?
The pain, the pain
! Thou art so good to me. Let it not be long, I asked, and it has not been long. My suffering will be short, quickly over. Soon I shall see Thy face, but now, still in this life, I thank Thee. The pain! My dearest Lord, Thou art too good to me.
I love Thee
!

A huge tremor passed through the still, waiting body. His lips moved, murmured a Name, tried to smile. Then the pupils dilated, drove all the blue from his eyes forever. Safe on the beach at last, the two Englishmen dumped their weeping charges on the sand and stood looking for him. But the placid deep blue sea was empty, vast; the wavelets ran up rushing and retreated. Dane was gone.

Someone thought of the United States Air Force station nearby, and ran for help. Not thirty minutes after Dane had disappeared a helicopter took off, beat the air frantically and swooped in ever-increasing circles outward from the beach, searching. No one expected to see anything. Drowned men sank to the bottom and didn’t come up for days. An hour passed; then fifteen miles out to sea they sighted Dane floating peacefully on the bosom of the deep, arms outstretched, face turned up to the sky. For a moment they thought he was alive and cheered, but as the craft came low enough to throw the water into hissing foam, it was plain he was dead. The coordinates were given over the helicopter’s radio, a launch sped out, and three hours later returned.

Word had spread. The Cretans had loved to see him pass, loved to exchange a few shy words. Loved him, though they didn’t know him. They flocked down to the sea, women all in black like dowdy birds, men in old-fashioned baggy trousers, white shirts open at the collar and sleeves rolled up. And stood in silent groups, waiting.

When the launch came in a burly master sergeant sprang out onto the sand, turned back to receive a blanket-draped form into his arms. He marched a few feet up the beach beyond the water line, and with the help of another man laid his burden down. The blanket fell apart; there was a high, rustling whisper from the Cretans. They came crowding around, pressing crucifixes to weather-beaten lips, the women softly keening, a wordless ohhhhhhhh! that had almost a melody in it, mournful, patient, earthbound, female.

It was about five in the afternoon; the barred sun was sliding westward behind the frowning cliff, but was still high enough to light up the little dark cluster on the beach, the long, still form on the sand with its golden skin, its closed eyes whose lashes were spiky from drying salt, the faint smile on the blued lips. A stretcher was brought forward, then all together Cretans and American servicemen bore Dane away.

Athens was in turmoil, rioting crowds overturning all order, but the USAF colonel got through to his superiors on a special frequency band, Dane’s blue Australian passport in his hand. It said, as such documents do, nothing about him. His profession was simply marked “Student,” and in the back under next of kin Justine’s name was listed, with her London address. Unconcerned by the legal meaning of the term, he had put her name because London was far closer to Rome than Drogheda. In his little room at the inn, the square black case which housed his priestly implements had not been opened; it waited with his suitcase for directions as to where it should be sent.

When the phone rang at nine in the morning Justine rolled over, opened a bleary eye and lay cursing it, vowing she would have the bloody thing disconnected. Because the rest of the world thought it only right and proper to commence whatever they did at nine in the morning, why did they assume the same of her?

But it rang, and rang, and rang. Maybe it was Rain; that thought tipped the balance toward consciousness, and Justine got up, slopped reeling out to the living room. The German parliament was in urgent session; she hadn’t seen Rain in a week and hadn’t been optimistic about her chances of seeing him for at least another week. But perhaps the crisis had resolved, and he was calling to tell her he was on his way over.

“Hello?”

“Miss Justine O’Neill?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Australia House, in the Aldwych, you know?” The voice had an English inflection, gave a name she was too tired to hear because she was still assimilating the fact that the voice was not Rain’s.

“Okay, Australia House.” Yawning, she stood on one foot and scratched its top with the sole of the other.

“Do you have a brother, a Mr. Dane O’Neill?”

Justine’s eyes opened. “Yes, I do.”

“Is he at present in Greece, Miss O’Neill?”

Both feet settled into the rug, stood braced. “Yes, that’s right,” It did not occur to her to correct the voice, explain it was Father, not Mister.

“Miss O’Neill, I very much regret to say that it is my unfortunate duty to give you some bad news.”

“Bad news? Bad news? What is it? What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

“I regret to have to inform you that your brother, Mr. Dane O’Neill, was drowned yesterday in Crete, I understand in heroic circumstances, performing a sea rescue. However, you realize there is a revolution in Greece, and what information we have is sketchy and possibly not accurate.”

The phone stood on a table near the wall and Justine leaned against the solid support the wall offered. Her knees buckled, she began to slide very slowly downward, wound up in a curled heap on the floor. Not laughing and not crying, she made noises somewhere in between, audible gasps. Dane drowned. Gasp. Dane dead. Gasp. Crete, Dane, drowned. Gasp. Dead, dead.

“Miss O’Neill? Are you there, Miss O’Neill?” asked the voice insistently.

Dead. Drowned. My brother!

“Miss O’Neill, answer me!”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes
! Oh, God, I’m here!”

“I understand you are his next of kin, therefore we must have your instructions as to what to do with the body. Miss O’Neill, are you there?”

“Yes, yes!”

“What do you want done with the body, Miss O’Neill?”

Body
! He was a body, and they couldn’t even say
his
body, they had to say
the
body. Dane, my Dane. He is a body. “Next of kin?” she heard her voice asking, thin and faint, torn by those great gasps. “I’m not Dane’s next of kin. My mother is, I suppose.”

There was a pause. “This is very difficult, Miss O’Neill. If you’re not the next of kin, we’ve wasted valuable time.” The polite sympathy gave way to impatience. “You don’t seem to understand there’s a revolution going on in Greece and the accident happened in Crete, even more remote and hard to contact. Really! Communication with Athens is virtually impossible and we have been instructed to forward the next of kin’s personal wishes and instructions regarding the body immediately. Is your mother there? May I speak to her, please?”

“My mother’s not here. She’s in Australia.”

“Australia? Lord, this gets worse and worse! Now we’ll have to send a cable to Australia; more delays. If you are not the next of kin, Miss O’Neill, why did your brother’s passport say you were?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and found she had laughed.

“Give me your mother’s address in Australia; we’ll cable her at once. We
have
to know what to do with the body! By the time cables get back and forth, this will mean a twelve-hour delay, I hope you realize that. It’s going to be difficult enough without this mix-up.”

“Phone her, then. Don’t waste time with cables.”

“Our budget does not extend to international phone calls, Miss O’Neill,” said that stiff voice. “Now, will you please give me your mother’s name and address?”

“Mrs. Meggie O’Neill,” Justine recited, “Drogheda, Gillanbone, New South Wales, Australia.” She spelled out the unfamiliar names for him.

“Once again, Miss O’Neill, my deepest regrets.”

The receiver clicked, began the interminable burr of the dial tone. Justine sat on the floor and let it slip into her lap. There was a mistake, it would all sort itself out. Dane drowned, when he swam like a champion? No, it wasn’t true. But it is, Justine, you know it is, you didn’t go with him to protect him and he drowned. You were his protector from the time he was a baby and you should have been there. If you couldn’t save him, you should have been there to drown with him. And the only reason you didn’t go with him was because you wanted to be in London so you could get Rain to make love to you.

Thinking was so hard. Everything was so hard. Nothing seemed to work, not even her legs. She couldn’t get up, she would never get up again. There was no room in her mind for anyone but Dane, and her thoughts went in ever-diminishing circles around Dane. Until she thought of her mother, the Drogheda people. Oh, God. The news would come there, come to her, come to them. Mum didn’t even have the lovely last sight of his face in Rome. They’ll send the cable to the Gilly police, I suppose, and old Sergeant Ern will climb into his car and drive out all the miles to Drogheda, to tell my mother that her only son is dead. Not the right man for the job, and an almost-stranger. Mrs. O’Neill, my deepest, most heartfelt regrets, your son is dead. Perfunctory, courteous, empty words…. No! I can’t let them do that to her, not to her,
she is my mother, too
! Not that way, not the way I had to hear it.

She pulled the other part of the phone off the table onto her lap, put the receiver to her ear and dialed the operator.

“Switch? Trunks, please, international. Hello? I want to place an urgent call to Australia, Gillanbone one-two-one-two. And please, please hurry.”

Meggie answered the phone herself. It was late, Fee had gone to bed. These days she never felt like seeking her own bed early, she preferred to sit listening to the crickets and frogs, doze over a book, remember.

“Hello?”

“London calling, Mrs. O’Neill,” said Hazel in Gilly.

“Hello, Justine,” Meggie said, not perturbed. Jussy called, infrequently, to see how everything was.

“Mum? Is that you, Mum?”

“Yes, it’s Mum here,” said Meggie gently, sensing Justine’s distress.

“Oh, Mum! Oh, Mum!” There was what sounded like a gasp, or a sob. “Mum, Dane’s dead. Dane’s dead!”

A pit opened at her feet. Down and down and down it went, and had no bottom. Meggie slid into it, felt its lips close over her head, and understood that she would never come out again as long as she lived. What more could the gods do? She hadn’t known when she asked it. How could she have asked it, how could she not have known? Don’t tempt the gods, they love it. In not going to see him in this most beautiful moment of his life, share it with him, she had finally thought to make the payment. Dane would be free of it, and free of her. In not seeing the face which was dearer to her than all other faces, she would repay. The pit closed in, suffocating. Meggie stood there, and realized it was too late.

“Justine, my dearest, be calm,” said Meggie strongly, not a falter in her voice. “Calm yourself and tell me. Are you sure?”

“Australia House called me—they thought I was his next of kin. Some dreadful man who only wanted to know what I wanted done with the body. ‘The body,’ he kept calling Dane. As if he wasn’t entitled to it anymore, as if it was anyone’s.” Meggie heard her sob. “God! I suppose the poor man hated what he was doing. Oh, Mum, Dane’s dead!”

“How, Justine? Where? In Rome? Why hasn’t Ralph called me?”

“No, not in Rome. The Cardinal probably doesn’t know anything about it. In Crete. The man said he was drowned, a sea rescue. He was on holiday, Mum, he asked me to go with him and I didn’t, I wanted to play Desdemona, I wanted to be with Rain. If I’d only been with him! If I had, it mightn’t have happened. Oh, God, what can I do?”