"Thursday, you say?"
"Thursday."
"Well, I'll try to remember my lines."
"Aye, the lines are glorious," Seamus teased, "so don't feck them up."
On Thursday, Atty Fitzpatrick transcended Seamus O'Neill's lines, character, and play itself with a sudden surge of virtuosity that every actress prays will happen to her, never knowing when the moment of glory will strike or, indeed, if it ever will. The theatre was rapt as Seamus O'Neill, minor Irish playwright, sounded like Shakespeare on this night.
As Atty heard the knock on her dressing room door two words leapt out of her past-Jack Murphy.
"Aye, Jaysus, Atty girl," Seamus said through tears, "you've gone and immortalized me. Oh God, you were great."
The man behind was a tall man, above Seamus's head. Seamus turned, "Me pal, Conor Larkin, meet Atty Fitzpatrick."
Within a ha'penny of their introduction, without hesitation, Atty knew how her side of this relationship would go. Conor did not come as a stranger. His name in the Brotherhood Council had a mystique. His prowess on the playing field, as well as his great restoration in Hubble Manor, had been covered in the press.
He was the long-awaited return of Jack Murphy, and then some. So modest and compassionate in his manner, another woman might have fainted at this moment.
Atty was a respected widow emerging from her period of mourning and Conor had been without his Belfast girl a long time. Therefore, Seamus, bless his heart, suddenly remembered he had a late-breaking news story to cover and said he would catch up with them later.
Two people, although always in a crowd, were desolately lonely and grievously hurt, instantly recognized a need to know each other. Sharing similar hells made them want to talk things out, things they had hidden from the world outside.
The next night the theatre was dark. Atty invited him to dinner at her home. Atty's proletariat identification stopped at her doorstep. The house was an attached, flat front, three-and-a-half-story Georgian affair, the uniform of Dublin's affluent. A wildly colored door with a fanned window atop and gleaming grass said, "I am a Dubliner." It was a lovely home, filled with graces. Her son Theo and daughter Rachael were delightful and showed the maturity of character to cope with their mother's fame and the movement.
What a great little bird, this Rachael, Conor thought. Her da must have worshiped her. Well, not so. Desmond Fitzpatrick probably would have worshiped her if she had been a rare law book. Conor watched with enchantment the way Rachael kept an eye on her mother. In quick time he realized that the girl was her mother's big sister.
And there was young Theo, face screwed up, ready to stab an immortal word from pen to paper. Legal posturing at the desk in the drawing room...oh my, he'll be a terror in the courtroom, Conor thought.
"What might you be pondering on so mightily?" Conor asked.
"Nothing," Theo answered.
"Nothing is sure eating up a lot of your energy, lad."
"As it should be," Theo said. "Nothing requires absolute dedication, as my essay proves."
"You wouldn't be having me on, would you, Theo?"
Theo dropped his pen. "Mom is paying good money to have me educated by the Christian Brothers. However, they know nothing. Therefore, I have become an expert on nothing, in nothing, about nothing, for nothing. As you see, the first page of the essay is blank. I start with nothing."
"You're glinking me."
"If my essay is Antichrist enough, perhaps the Christian Brothers will kick me out of their school so I can get properly educated by the wee folk in the forest."
Conor took the pages up. Indeed, the first one was blank. He read on.
"Nothing is my subject because it is the oldest thing in existence. Nothing was there before the universe was created and Nothing is greater than Nothing because Nothing is absolutely perfect.
"For a long time I have seriously thought of Nothing, read Nothing, and who will argue that I am perfectly qualified to discuss Nothing intelligently? I place high value on Nothing.
"Two gentlemen recently raced to get to the North Pole first but when they arrived, they found Nothing there. Likewise, Nothing is generally what prospectors find. Nothing is in the head of politicians.
"We must try to understand oft-misunderstood philosophers who actually do Nothing, think Nothing, and say Nothing, because he who does Nothing can do Nothing wrong. He who thinks of Nothing day and night plants no evil and Nothing offends no one."
"I want you to defend me if I need a lawyer," Conor said.
"On what charges?" Theo asked.
"Nothing," Conor said.
"I'll have you out in no time flat."
"The soup's not getting any warmer," Rachael announced. As if on cue, Atty made her appearance. She swept in so elegantly attired, so cleavaged, and with such a divine scent trailing her, that Theo knew Conor was something other than Nothing.
Mom had been nervous all day. The children realized, with great hope, that the new chap had nudged her from a year of hibernation. And after a second look, they thought Conor was a pretty fair specimen as well.
After dinner, which was a happy affair-good food, bright kids, and a family that was secure with itself-Theo and Rachael disappeared as if they knew Mom and the stranger had republican business. And, just maybe, some other business as well. Atty's poker face was overwhelmed by her most daring gown.
"Come along," Atty said, forgoing the formal salon of high debate, poetry, and wisdom. "There's something cozier than this."
She led Conor to the top floor and opened the door into the front room. It was a combination intimate parlor, library, and office, and had been the private retreat with her late husband. It was now a memory room filled with his writings, law books, photographs, and other vestiges of the life they had lived for the movement. For a time after Desmond's death she scarcely left the room when she was home. Once she did, she had not reentered until this moment.
"Those are beautiful children you have," Conor said.
"Aye," she agreed. "I laid a lot of guilt on myself because I thought I had, well, not exactly neglected them, but brought them up too entirely on my own itinerary in life. I was given to wonder if their life had been dealt to them properly, in the right atmosphere. My most difficult decision was to join the Brotherhood."
"They're where they want to be, Atty. They hear the song you've sung them well. The other girl?"
"Emma hasn't a republican bone in her body. London and her grandmother suit her fine. In a strange way, it has made her closer to us because she was odd man out here, and now when we visit, it's very intense. She is going to be a lovely lady."
"Like her mother," Conor said, admiring the way Atty had handled this part of her life.
"I wanted you to meet the kids because if we do visit again, it shouldn't be here. I don't want them to know too much about who is Brotherhood. God forbid they are ever questioned about it one day."
"It will be my loss," Conor said.
"And theirs. Are you up for a fire?"
"That would be grand," he said.
Conor fixed the turf in the small grate below the marble mantel. He drifted back in time as the smell of it reached him. He was drawn to the books and stunned Atty as he dissected the innards of Keats and Shelley.
"Where'd you learn all that, now?" she asked.
"Self-taught candlelight scholar," he said.
"Like Abraham Lincoln?"
"Well, the Lincoln family did come out of County Donegal."
"Lincoln was Irish?"
"Don't take my word for it, Atty. I learned that from a friend whose opinion I rarely question. Actually, Seamus O'Neill taught me to read and write."
"Well, we've something in common. I love that fellow. Seems like he's the only one I can really talk to anymore. But it doesn't happen too often. Being on the Supreme Council, it's not good to have him over too often. Des and I would talk here sometimes through the night, and we'd be absolutely astonished to see the daylight come up on us. You know?"
And they talked. It was not like she and Des had talked. Not even as with Seamus. She had only spoken to one person this way, very long ago: Jack Murphy. With Conor, it was more so. In the end she had to recognize Jack was a weak man looking for a safe harbor, out of the line of fire.
The more gently Conor Larkin spoke, the more powerful he seemed. Conor fawned over some of her books and she offered him to take what he wanted.
"Might not be a good idea," he said. "They've your bookplates in them. Maxwell Swan's goons search my flat every so often. I don't think it wise to connect us."
"Do you have a hard time shaking them?" she asked.
"No, not really. They're very clumsy fellows. Last time they were on my tail I went to the museum and studied every painting for fifteen minutes. They nearly croaked."
The mantel clock tolled a late hour. Conor reckoned he'd better get back into Dublin to catch his morning train up to Belfast.
"The train makes a stop at Rathmines," Atty said. "I'll run you over in the morning. You can stay over in a spare room. Go on, put another brick on the fire."
Their eager minds grasped the opportunity for fine conversation, lightened by fine cognac. Bright and lonely people had much to talk about and as they did they sized each other up.
What came through to Conor was that Atty Fitzpatrick was an extraordinarily strong human being, strong as her reputation, and she loved her own strength. Belief in herself would get her through anything. Yet she had bulwarks of protection within...to ward off suffering...to discourage pursuit...to press for what she wanted against all winds.
The study spoke to him. It spoke of Desmond Fitzpatrick's peacockery, cocksureness, the courtroom matador. Oh, for sure, they made love in this room, he thought, but not to each other. They made love to Ireland.
With all her renown as a great beauty, Atty was ill at ease as a female, Conor thought. He sensed that Des needed her as a partner and she needed him, but not as man and woman...as compatriots.
Conor's charm drew her in. She felt as though he were undressing her with his mesmerizing manner. Little tiny flicks of conversation told her that he knew she and Des used one another as crutches. And what of this big fellow before her poking up the turf?
Conor Larkin was frightening, that's what. Here was a man, she knew from Seamus, who had waited his life for his love, and he possessed this Shelley girl. Only he could shine in his woman's eyes. God, Atty thought, Conor's grief over the loss of Shelley is as deep as my grief over the loss of a husband of sixteen years and three children.
Jack Murphy had owned her once, but only for a fleeting moment. She knew when she asked Jack to show her the hidden side of herself, he would soon be gone. That would not happen with Conor lad.
In a sudden flick, innocent and curious, Atty invited him to her bed. When the powerful blacksmith's arms enfolded her, she had never felt the likes of it.
Conor let her down, lovely. He still loved Shelley. He and Atty would have a long life together in the movement and she was not a woman he would take lightly.
Part of Atty was furious. Mainly, she was furious at her own shamelessness. She was also flabbergasted at his honesty, and she felt he spoke the truth about his respect for her. That was nice, very nice. Even at her moment of rejection, she had only good feelings toward him. She did not like seeing him hurt and even wanted him to find his Shelley girl again. Having never fostered such feelings before, Atty was rather pleased with herself. He told her he wouldn't take her lightly, and she damned well knew she could not take him lightly.
He continued to hold her softly, and in their quiet she had a moment of strange revelation. They lived life on the brink, a life filled with odd twists and turns. They were thrown together as comrades in arms and they would work in close contact, sooner or later.
Someday, Atty thought, Conor Larkin was going to be a free man, and when that time came, she was going to have him.
"I'm going in to Dublin," he said at last. "If I stay, I'll not sleep all night. If you think I don't want your breasts, you're daft. Atty...if Ireland had a queen, Atty would be her name. You are far too great a woman to be trivialized."
"Thank you, Conor," she whispered, "thank you, luv. There's a taxi rank just two blocks down. On your way before I rape you."
40.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tattat-tattat!
The Lembeg drum put all other war drums to shame when it came to striking fear into the heart of the enemy, real or imagined. It rattled in the "marching season" as Protestant Ulster celebrated its annual rebirth. Beginning on the Fourth of July, a date to ennoble themselves with their American cousins, a month of parades and rallies recalled ancient victories over the papists in song and sermon. Multitudes of banners, partial to orange, fluffed and glorified King, Empire, the Reformation, and above all, Ulster's patented, eternal, holy, indivisible loyalty to the British.
The Orange Lodgemen, beribboned, sporting derby hats and rolled black umbrellas, marched hither and yon, to and fro and round and round.
Oh, it's old but it is beautiful, And its colors, they are fine, It was Derry, Augrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne My father wore it as a youth, In bygone days of yore, And on the Twelfth I love to wear, The sash my father wore.
On the Twelfth of August the marchers converged on their sacred city of Londonderry where they marched once again atop Derry's walls for a last hurrah in memory of a siege won in 1690.
Sure I am an Ulsterman, From Erin's Isle I came, To see my British brethren All of honor and of fame And to tell them of my forefathers, Who fought in days of yore, That I might have the right to wear The sash my father wore.
They rained pennies down on the Catholic Bogside to re-humiliate the unfortunate losers and went to the town diamond for a final exaltation of their savior, Oliver Cromwell....
And lest we forget another battle, the Battle of the Boyne, of no less importance than Waterloo and Trafalgar, where their beloved William of Orange, on his alabaster steed, wounded in the right hand, took up a saber in his left hand to lead the charge. King James, the papist, cowering and quivering on a horse of another color, tucked tail and fled, thus liberating Ulster from Vatican venality forever! And ever!
Let us pray.
For the industrialists and other rulers of the province this was the time of year that their religious and political messengers were able to introduce new agendas as well as reiterate ancient fears.
Marched silly and harangued silly, the righteous were easily ignited into anti-Catholic mobs, after a bit of blood and arson.
Sir Frederick Weed's agenda this year was union busting and, with a captive mob within his yard, had them frothed into burning down the copper shop where most of the Catholics worked. It was, after all, an obsolete facility and well insured by Lloyd's.
Conor Larkin got wind of the scene and was able to get the Catholics out of the yard. He returned to save Duffy O'Hurley, the driver of Weed's Red Hand Express, and an essential man in the gunrunning scheme.
The mob caught Conor and nearly beat him to death. Only Robin MacLeod's last-moment intervention saved his life.
Morgan MacLeod cared deeply for Conor Larkin and in the early days of Conor's relationship with Shelley, he stood by them forthrightly.
Morgan was a man to be reckoned with: a leader of the Shankill tribe, a deacon in his church, foreman of Weed's largest dry dock, and an Orange Lodge Grandmaster whose son had captained Ireland's only Admiral's Cup team.
No one in the Shankill cared when Shelley became the mistress of a married man. After all, this David Kimberly was upper English, a high midlevel career diplomat. Truth be known, Kimberly had been somewhat of a coup for a Shankill lass.
Conor Larkin was another matter. Although an R.C., he was under the patronage of Sir Frederick himself and also a member of the Belfast Boilermakers. Well, let's say Larkin was one of the good ones.
Although Conor and Shelley represented a kind of tentative truce, Belfast, a final sludge hole of the Industrial Revolution, passed out its tender mercies grudgingly.
When Conor and Shelley broke up and returned from holiday in England separately, Morgan MacLeod could not help but sigh in relief and hope to God his daughter would fall in love with a good, decent, Protestant lad. But he saw his beloved Shelley grow wan and listless without Conor.
Conor quit the rugby club. Morgan's information had it that the Larkin was like a dead man.