Redemption - Leon Uris [47]
Des kissed her hand and tilted his head so as to look into her eyes, not directly, but obliquely. “I’m blasted. I’m blasted from the trimming I gave his lordship today. I’m also blasted from four divine Bushmills. And, alas, I am blasted from the sight of you, Atty. You are ravishing beyond fantasy. Besides, everyone in all branches of the movement think we make a smashing couple. So, what about it?”
“Why, Des,” she cooed, “give me some time to think about it.”
“How long? I’m very busy.”
“That’s long enough,” she said.
“Settled. Then, we’re a couple, or some such.”
“Yes, I think that’s what they call it.”
“By Jaysus, that calls for champagne.”
“How about a kiss, instead?”
“How about both?”
There was a kiss, a fine, stalwart kiss. Irishman to Irishwoman. In later days there would be lovemaking, Irishman to Irishwoman.
Since Jack Murphy had gone, Atty had chatted up the occasional lad and left her bedroom door open. She knew it was not fair to compare a new lover to those four days with Jack at the fishing lodge. However, the experience did tell her what was attainable. She had the range, the substance, and the daring, and she tried to make the best of the man she had to work with. No one could ever again take her like Jack Murphy, she believed, not even Desmond Fitzpatrick.
Atty pondered why two people, otherwise so intelligent and attractive, could reduce themselves to clods when it came to lovemaking. Was it an Irish affliction, the subject of barroom banter, that an Irish lad would crawl over ten women to get to a bottle of Guinness? What about intelligent people? How could a man like Desmond Fitzpatrick, so utterly profound in a courtroom, so literate, so worldly, reduce himself to perfunctory shallowness in a bedroom? How could this aspect of life be so horribly mismanaged in an entire society?
Atty also pondered Atty. Did she excite more than superficiality? Had she sniffed too much religious smoke of sin? What were the forces that combatted nature itself, that made a man and a woman who loved each other become strangers in that moment?
Desmond and Atty did make a smashing couple. The apparent lack of a wild and wondrous sex life seemed to be compensated by what they really craved, the electric charge they set off that played from one to the other, that bucked up their resolve as they plunged into battle as Celtic warriors.
They were two self-contained gladiators, gamecocks, always at the ready. They did not want to be caught without their swords, shields, body armor, and helmets…not even in bed. Except on the odd occasion.
Had not Ireland disdained all things of a royal nature, surely Desmond and Atty Fitzpatrick would have been crowned the king and queen of the republicans.
They had a private sanctuary on the fourth story of their Georgian home at 34 Garville Avenue, a warm and even sensuous library with a turf stove where they spent endless time, often until daylight, speaking of the next day’s tactics and long-term strategies.
There were, indeed, small affections, patting of hands, perfection of behavior in public, the occasional adoring stare. And the bed. Somehow the bed was a place to collect all the thoughts properly before falling off. He didn’t like to hold her, and she never melted into him. Des sprawled, she wrapped up mummylike. When they did meet, the touches were kind and automatic but from distant planets. Each could almost hear the other thinking of tomorrow, at times almost with a smell of smoke coming from their grinding minds.
There were times when Des needed her comfort, her mind, her words. Comfort didn’t include her beautiful round, rich body.
To be sure there was a bit of lust. Quick and meaningful, but once done, never dwelt upon. A pause to release those stuffed-in mystery feelings. Once the compulsion was satisfied, they regrouped for the rent-and-rate strike in Cork or Kerry and the joust at Four Courts.
They seemed content. Their long talks in the library were at the heart