Redemption - Leon Uris [115]
To make matters even more serene and velvety was Shelley’s realization of how deeply Atty Fitzpatrick loved her man. She felt great empathy for Atty, as well as great respect for Atty’s dignity.
What an utterly mad triangle, Atty thought! I love them both and want them for each other! I must be coming unhinged! As she discovered the impossibility of disliking Shelley MacLeod, Atty sensed she had come to a new capability of loving. If, indeed, she was able to love so unselfishly, then there might be a love for her sometime, someplace.
Once married to Des, Atty believed that a Jack Murphy intensity of love would elude her for all of her life, until she set eyes on Conor Larkin. “I can love now, without reservation,” and this gave her a new and lovely path she must explore someday.
There was no getting around Rachael with child’s talk and, having no sister of her own, Shelley and the girl filled each other with laughter and hugs.
Poor Theo was burdened by being sixteen. Naturally, he had secretly fallen desperately and eternally in love with Shelley. All he could do was suck in his frustration and continually demonstrate how charming and witty he was.
“I have a new thesis,” Theo opened one evening. “God, we all agree, transcends all creatures, plants, livestock, and inanimate objects. God may choose to be whatever the hell God wishes to be—a mountain, a shark, ten trees, a lighter-than-air balloon. God, God forbid, may even be a priest. The only thing God cannot do is transform himself into a female. God only knows why, but God must be a man and certainly a man of our color. But, let us say, for the sake of argument God decided to be a trout, a male trout, naturally, and in his own infinite way let the clergy and the masses alike know that henceforth he will not be known as God, but as Trout. This would make a ponderous difference in our lives.”
Rachael, attuned to such gobbledygook, looked up from the desk and her homework. “We could never eat Trout again,” she said.
“Goes much deeper than that, Rachael. Take the British anthem, ‘Trout save our noble king, Trout save our noble king, Trout save the king.’”
“For Trout’s sake, Theo, you’re being ridiculous,” Shelley said.
“‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Trout,’” Theo bellowed.
“What Trout has joined, let no man put asunder.”
“Trout damned you, Rachael Fitzpatrick. Trout knows I try to be a kind and loving brother, but in the name of Trout I find it trying.”
“Trout Almighty, Theo, Trout is on my side.”
“No, Trout is on the Protestant side.”
“Beware the wrath of Trout, you two,” Shelley said, being drawn in against her will.
“This matter is in Trout’s hands…rather fins…”
Atty came from the kitchen and announced dinner.
“What are we having, Mom?” Rachael asked.
“God. Do you want yours off the bone or on the bone?”
As the days wearied on with no word of Conor, the two became extremely close and extremely dependent. Shelley freed Atty to pursue her calling and her calling now was speaking out at mass meetings on behalf of the Sixmilecross men.
When their days were done, they would retire to the library and light a turf fire and talk the hours away with words that took root in a fierce attachment.
43
“Free Conor Larkin! Free Conor Larkin!”
A small but boisterous clump of students marched with torchlights and placards, passing beneath the window of Lord Jeremy Hubble’s flat on Merrion Square. Ad hoc groups of young people from Trinity College and central Dublin were merging for a rally at St. Stephen’s Green.
It was unusual for Trinity College students to be involved, for the school had been the stronghold of the Anglo gentry from the time of Queen Elizabeth. It remained a gentrified Protestant institution. Sixmilecross had occasioned more than a hundred young people and a half-dozen teachers to a new and public awareness that they were Irish, if not precisely republicans.
Jeremy allowed the thick velvet drape to fall over the window, dulling the street noise.