Redemption - Leon Uris [17]
Hunger pacified, he strung up his fishing rod automatically and selected a likely fly from his hat, hoping not to hook up seriously. He had yet to contemplate, to mourn, to allow flashes of memory to run through. He could never do that down off this hill because there were people around and things to do. What he wanted to ponder was not for sharing, even with Millie.
Liam commenced a long conversation with himself. In these kinds of discussions he could argue his case with utter clarity and dazzle the nonpresent adversary with his infallible logic. These arguments he always won. The fellow on the receiving end was almost always Rory.
The goddamned problem was that whenever Liam attempted to argue the case with Rory present he botched it. Rory would never give him the answers he had so positively anticipated.
After a time Liam stopped holding these conversations with actual persons, particularly Rory. He held them with himself up on the hill against the oak. It seemed that life between Liam and his son became a long trail of conversations that never took place.
It was like that in the old country, Liam thought. If you’re Irish enough, you can go an entire lifetime filled with conversations that never took place, like those between himself and his own father, Tomas.
Up here on the hill by the stream, Liam would even allow himself to journey inward deep enough to inflict upon himself the hurt of Ireland.
How many pricks must a man endure before he becomes numb? Liam knew early on his place in life was set. He learned the futility of trying to win his father over or to change his lot in life. Liam realized a short time after he was born that he was a small matter in a field of giants. NOT ANYMORE! Squire Liam Larkin was no small matter anymore.
“Dear Lord, must I go to me grave without Rory once having a taste and touch of my true feelings? All our conversations end in ruin. After a time, one stops even thinking about having them, it becomes that futile.
“What am I guilty of, son? Building this magnificent life here? What have I done wrong, Rory? Saved you from the blistering misery of Ireland and the hanging tree? Because of me you’ll never know the terror of going up a gangplank and down into the second hold of a tramp steamer on a voyage in purgatory with less than a quid in your pocket. I saved you from fear, boy, from puking over the rail and praying God for the strength to throw yourself into the sea!”
Liam’s face knotted as he recalled the ugliest incident between them that had taken place two years earlier. June MacPherson was sixteen, the daughter of Protestant farmers. They had a small but decent holding of about three hundred acres of crop with a few animals. June was a good-looking lass but in a state of perpetual heat with a reputation of being loose with her knickers.
Rory became the pot of gold at the end of her rainbow. Determined to become Mrs. Larkin, she seduced him without qualms on numerous occasions by methods that would have been considered rape, were she a man. Rory took responsibility for the pregnancy.
The Larkin household flooded with bitter memories. Unlike the acrimony shown them by Mildred’s parents, the Larkins decided to be real Christians about it. Moreover, Junie-girl was an answer to Liam’s prayers. With a wife and child, Rory’s roving days would be cut off at the knees. Now, he would have to remain in New Zealand!
June and all four parents seemed to be reveling in the plot, but Rory threw a wrench into it. He liked June very much. So had many other boys. She was not precisely the Virgin, but many girls had married after affairs with other partners and their marriages worked. It was a plain, simple, unfettered matter that he did not love her. There was more of this going on than the pious of the South Island were willing to admit. To be precise, June’s sister had been in the same condition a few years earlier and did not marry.
Rory