Redemption - Leon Uris [325]
He had deliberately pushed the button.
“That’s right,” she said angrily.
“But when I’m gone, Atty, let me say you’re going to be sorry as hell.”
“You know, you’re a real bastard. You know I’m afraid of you.”
“Yeah, you’re scared as hell you’d find me flying you to the moon.”
“That’s right,” she said.
“So, have it your way,” he said sliding the roof open.
“You’d love it my way, sonny boy,” she retorted.
“And you mine, darlin’.”
“I’ll go up the ladder first so you won’t have to worry about me looking up your leg.”
“You know I’m in torment, Rory! What the hell are you trying to do to me! You’re out of bounds!”
“Are you all that innocent, Atty? I know when I’m being worked.” He set the ladder into place.
“Good luck, now,” she gasped.
As he looked at her she backed away. “Do you want me to come to you, or not?” he demanded.
Atty was stopped by the wall, teary-eyed, wild-eyed. She was desperate for him! She wanted him to go!
“All right,” Atty cried, ripping the top of her blouse open then pulling her straps and freeing her breasts. “You want to see them. Here, have a look, Rory boy. Come on, lad! Feel them! Put them in your mouth. I’ll lie down for you!”
“God Almighty!” Rory cried. “What am I doing! Oh God, God, God, I’m so ashamed.” He plunged to his knees with his face in his hands in an eruption of self-hatred. “I’m not fit to live…” He pawed out with his good hand, keeping his face turned from her. “Please, cover yourself. Please, try to forgive me.”
The river that had backed up against the dam now burst uncontrolled. He groveled and cursed himself. Rory felt something on his head. It was Atty’s fingers softly running through his hair. “Can you hear me, Rory?”
“I’m so ashamed. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Listen to me, Rory. We’ve been on a mad ride since the moment we laid eyes on each other. I was trying to recreate a moment of something dead and gone. And you, insanely, wanted something that belonged to Conor.”
“Yes,” he sobbed.
“You’ll find love again and I’ll find the comfort of a good man, but it can’t be with each other.”
“I know…I know…I’m so ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Of deliberately tormenting you. This lust was devouring me, Atty. Even when I first loved Georgia, I was a wild colonial boy looking for sport. Georgia and I found real love that grew by itself over time. But you, Atty Fitzpatrick! Bells, cannons went off, madness engulfed me. You’re right, I wanted Conor Larkin’s woman. I wanted to feel once what Conor felt. I’ve worshiped him. In death his power brought me halfway around the world. But can’t you see, living under the shade of this enormous tree, I wanted to be as tall as himself for only a minute…and ended up covering myself with disgust.”
“You’re very much forgiven. And the truth is that you are very much like Conor.”
“Atty! Why doesn’t he let go of us!”
“Ah, don’t you know? It isn’t Conor afraid of letting us go. It’s always been us, afraid of letting him go.”
86
Father Dary Larkin and Rachael Fitzpatrick walked a quay of the river Liffey as a priest would with a family member, envying the soldier boys and their girls, affectionately entangled.
They took a bench, probably not far from where Molly O’Rafferty had once bade farewell to Jeremy Hubble. They were still shattered that she had had an early miscarriage of their child.
Yet, it served to awaken them from their short, forbidden excursion into dream places. It was the medieval year of 1916 and they were now face to face with a firestorm of hard truths.
Truth was that Dary, in a moment of madness, grasped white hot iron and nearly burned himself up. He was again in the clutches of his vow, a vow as strong as Conor’s had been to the Brotherhood. Rachael’s tender years and his putting her on the edge of disaster drove home the impossibility of their situation.
“What did Bishop Mooney tell you?”
“He told me that there is no greater blood sport in Ireland, more vicious, than destroying a defrocked priest.”
“It sounds like the same kind of intimidation