Redemption - Leon Uris [85]
…of the scents and danger of the waterfronts…
…of the rugby pitch…
…and a lot of man talk about the girls.
In the beginning Uncle Conor always had a couple of books tucked away in his saddlebag, but Rory’s incessant questions made the reading break impossible. Besides, Conor preferred conversation with his nephew.
There was a second, quiet reason Conor put the books away. Rory’s curiosity about what lay in the pages had apparently invoked a dour reaction from Liam. It came from nothing that was said, but certainly sensed. Liam didn’t like Conor’s books any more than their daddy had.
An old family theme was being played with a new player. Books had been slipped to Conor as a boy from a sympathetic Protestant schoolteacher and from his closest boyhood pal, Seamus O’Neill. Liam sorely recalled an almost nightly replay of Conor slipping books into the cottage and whisking them out of sight before Tomas arrived.
“Why are you reading all them books,” Liam would taunt, miffed. “You’re only going to be a blacksmith. Besides, Dary is the one who needs to read if he’s going to be a priest.”
Finola would quickly and automatically add, “Get those books out of sight of your daddy, Conor. You know how he feels about your nose being stuck in the pages all night.”
Damned right, Conor knew! It led to the fiercest explosion of his boyhood. To punish Conor and wean him away from the forge and back to the land, Tomas exiled him to the booley house in the high meadows to shepherd the flock for the summer. Conor and his pal Seamus hid a summer’s worth of reading in the bottom of a sack of provisions and Tomas discovered them. In the rage that followed, Conor dared his father by swearing he would run away if the books were taken from him. Tomas caved in.
It was all a puzzle to Liam, an illiterate. What mysteries stoked Conor’s insatiable drive? Liam came to learn that the pages held ideas, and Tomas feared ideas because pursuit of them would take his beloved Conor out of Ballyutogue.
All during his voyage to New Zealand, Liam longed for the knowledge in Conor’s books to ease his fears of tomorrow. As if Conor had always known something he did not know.
When Mildred took Liam in hand and taught him to read, it was a wonderment only second to the wonderment of Mildred herself. He conquered government forms and learned of animal diseases and occasioned himself of a roaring sea story or the cunning of the sleuths.
For the soul, one needed only one book, the Bible. One needed no further input on the human condition. After all, he was comfortable on his farm and cared little of the fecked-up world outside and all its misery.
When Conor arrived in New Zealand, Liam enacted something he had rehearsed in his mind a thousand times. He opened a book and read to his brother and Conor shed tears of happiness.
That was fine, indeed, if it had been left right there. Now Rory was becoming curious about books. Liam contained himself because he did not want to play out the angry role with Rory that Tomas had played out with Conor.
Conor sensed his brother’s discomfort in short order and set his books aside. Likewise, he stifled conversation of Ireland’s epic. He would not be the brother to bring trouble. Could Rory’s eager enchantment for his uncle’s knowledge be stilled? The lad glued himself to Conor in hero worship.
“Take a look at RumRunner’s left front hoof.”
“Looks sound to me.”
“Thought I saw a wee split.”
“No.”
“Always liked this part of the station,” Rory said. “My da has his place up on the crown and his God-given greatest trout stream in the South Island. I like the woods and the scent of it here.”
“Myself as well,” Conor said. “We didn’t have much woodland in the old country.”
“How come?”
“The Brits cut down our forests to build a fleet to defend against the Spanish Armada and whatever else one uses wood for.”
“I didn’t know that. How come you don’t bring books in your saddlebag anymore?”
“You know very well why, Rory.”
“Want me to show you how to use the long whip to muster cattle? You’re very bad at it.”
“I’m too