Redemption - Leon Uris [107]
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.