Redemption - Leon Uris [50]
The problem for Roger Hubble was that all this Foyle business and the city itself had a Catholic majority and lay in County Donegal.
Ulster started over the river in Protestant Waterside. Roger Hubble’s most pressing political problem was either to finesse or crowbar the city into Ulster in any political settlement, and to do so he had to create utterly ridiculous boundaries.
That’s how it was in the colonies. The majestic, jewel-walled city physically and by population in one country, the colonizer wanting it in another.
This was the strain of tug and haul that ran through every facet of life in Protestant Londonderry or Catholic Derry, which were one and the same.
Andrew Ingram welcomed Kevin O’Garvey into an office bending under the weight of loaded bookshelves. The two billowed up, Ingram with a blend in his pipe, a honeyed mixture whose aroma monogrammed his office, and O’Garvey with the Irish politician’s trademark, a stout cigar.
Andrew knew right off that Kevin was on serious business. He gave himself away. When relaxed and jovial he turned his cigar slowly clockwise with his right hand. When it was serious stuff, Kevin’s thumb reversed the direction. Kevin tried to form his thoughts carefully to his friendly adversary.
“Conor wants to up and leave Derry,” Kevin blurted with a sudden absence of guile.
Andrew nodded his head and sighed. “What’s it been, six months, seven months? He hasn’t seen much of me since he’s been here, fierce pride mostly. I offered him a room and whatever. It was natural that he stayed with you, of course. I’m still an oddity in his life; you are his godfather.”
“You’ve a powerful sway over him, Andrew,” Kevin said, slipping open a few buttons on his vest to allow his belly to rove a bit. O’Garvey dressed like a dandy, but of the tattered variety, frayed collar, all of it slightly ill-fitted and rumpled.
“The first time he ventured into my classroom after school in his smithy leathers, I never before or since witnessed such bottomless hunger for knowledge as when he stared at the books, unable to read. It was the hunger of five hundred years of Irish spiritual starvation determined to break free,” Andrew remembered.
“When the blow-up came with Tomas, Conor wandered the countryside with a foggy mind and only came in to Derry when Liam’s ship was due to sail,” Kevin continued. “He pushed Liam up and cried,’You’re not the first Irishman to walk up the plank,’and looked about aching for the sight of Tomas to come and save the situation. So he bedded down over my stable and then a kind of a queer experience happened. Bit by bit he inched into the Bogside and began to change life there, despite the indignity of only being able to work making barrel rings and shoeing nags at the brewery. He began teaching people Gaelic in Celtic Hall, and young wanes after Mass would run to the place to hear out ancient legends. He mesmerized everyone with the tales of our history and our martyrs, producing every speech from the dock by heart. His talks were often behind drawn shades in candlelit rooms, with guards outside. Then he took to the football field, and you know that part—the old men pitching pennies at the base of the wall compared him to Ducey Malone, the greatest Gaelic footballer in Derry’s history.” Kevin knocked his fist on the desk sending ashes down his shirt.
“You see, Andrew, he is a light. I go off to Parliament these days without fear that something horrible may happen in my absence…because Conor is here. You see, when Parnell was alive, this disturbed us the most, always having to give up our brightest and most vital young people. It’s an Irish curse worse than whiskey. Every time I see a brilliant young man or woman I just start counting the days till they leave. Andrew, I’ve got to draw the line