by Leon Uris
The old man, who had looked into the face of many challenges, did so again without a show of anger or menace. Time had told him what he had to do. He had tried to avoid it, but he knew he would go through with it. "I'm sorry too," he said.
*
As the bids were published and the contract awarded, Conor kept careful watch. Weeks turned into months with work fully launched on the school and city iron needs. Most of the Protestant forges in Waterside received the same work they had previously done under the old Caw & Train subcontract and their fears were quelled. Only at the graving dock itself and affiliated Orange Lodges did the rancor continue, and long memory was the most integral item of Ulster life.
St. Sinell had a particular identity in Derry's Bogside. On St. Sinell’s Day there was always a huge pilgrimage to Lough Erne in County Fermanagh to honor one of Ireland's twelve apostles. It happened to come on the same day that the Bogsiders" Gaelic football team traveled to Enniskillen for the season's big traditional game. Because the two events were in the same general locale, a special train was chartered that all but emptied out the Bogside.
Clarence Feeny's oldest boy, Ahern, was the apprentice scheduled to stand watch at the forge that day. The foreman had noted his son's unhappiness during the week. Clarence had fallen behind schedule on a commission church work as well, and on Friday told Ahern the good news that he could travel with the team and Clarence would stand watch.
The fire was concise. Conor Larkin's forge burned to the ground minutes after it erupted. The alarm bell never sounded. An imported arson expert from Belfast failed to note anything that hinted of foul play, although evidences to the contrary were abundant. In sifting through the ashes, hundreds of small tools which would not burn were missing. Most of the larger tools had been destroyed by something other than fire. The coroner's report stated that Clarence Feeny most likely had dozed after setting the fire accidentally and was caught in it. The inference was that he was a heavy drinker and more than likely intoxicated at the time. Although the corpse was nearly destroyed, the report failed to mention the skull was found bashed in in four places.
A week later all remaining work under contract to the Londonderry Corporation Council and the national school district was transferred to the Caw & Train Graving Dock.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A year of penance had done little to heal Kevin O'Garvey's wound. Whispers about had it that he had never really gotten over Parnell's death. Whatever brought on the change remained a secret and at times only Father Pat and Conor were able to get close to him.
Kevin deplored the deal he had made with Maxwell Swan almost from the moment he made it. His walks through the Bogside by night always brought him before the Witherspoon & McNab Shirt Factory, where the acid of guilt eroded his innards. His file of complaints and appeals for relief from the workers grew larger and went unanswered, for he had sealed their avenues of protest.
The price had shown him making a bad bargain, for few of the Bogside Association enterprises prospered and many faded. The apprenticeships they purchased made no impact in Bogside's chronic unemployment ailment or economic betterment.
Kevin entered the Georgian mansion on Abercorn Road that housed the headquarters of the Earl of Foyle's enterprises. His step was visibly slower. He stopped, as always, for a damning look down the street to the seven stories of lightlessness, airlessness, filth and danger, an aboveground dungeon that housed the shirt factory, and the stone in his chest became heavy again.
Ground floor of the mansion contained a bland collection of white-shirted, green-eye shaded male clerks and long-skirted women, all in rows and rows. An assistant whisked him upstairs to the dour office where Brigadier Maxwell Swan occupied a cracking leather chair. They exchanged minor amenities. Kevin stared from the window to the view of the river. Like so many things in Donegal, it was picturesque from a distance, a hillside fairy town on a winding waterway. From this vantage the perspective changed, for the rot was everywhere and the flaws showed like an old whore without her cosmetics. He turned back into the office, wiping his specs and seating himself wearily opposite Swan.
The Brigadier had harbored many hours of second thoughts over his compact with O'Garvey. Few men had been able to intimidate him, neither tough labor leaders, Fenians nor colonial rebels. He had cut men down and he, Swan, was the only one who could stand nose to nose with Frederick Weed. Yet O'Garvey annoyed him. Perhaps he had made a bad judgment, a miscalculation. O'Garvey's record showed the full anathema in his life of threats, physical beatings, imprisonment, excommunication from his church. Nothing had deviated the man's will or changed his direction . . . except that bribe.
Maxwell Swan thought himself extremely clever in detecting a flaw in O'Garvey, who spilled great salt tears over the men in the Bogside, and Swan had exploited that by throwing a few crumbs to the Bogside Association. Had he made a mistake? Although there had been no repercussions and O'Garvey had kept the Select Committee investigation out of Derry, he could not help but feel he hadn't come out of it cleanly. Obviously, a cloud of conscience continued to hover over his co-conspirator. The torment of O'Garvey showed in deepened crow's feet about the eyes and a sallow, pinched face. Maxwell Swan was rightfully disturbed by what he saw.
"Who did it, Swan?" Kevin said. "The leader of one of your more proficient goon squads out of Belfast was seen across the river two days before the fire."
"I didn't realize you were a detective along with everything else," he answered.
"You have to be when you have coroners and so called arson experts from the Royal Irish Constabulary on your payroll."
Swan took up his military best, his deep voice rolling out words with surety and his blue eyes of a caliber to slice steel. "What's the difference? You know damned well we're not going to allow a precedent to be established in Londonderry like a contract leaving Caw & Train. You've got to share the blame, O'Garvey. You should have told your people what the rules were when you gave them loans."
"Oh, most of them knew that, all right. That's why their businesses failed."
"I can't take the blame if your people are incapable of operating a simple shop or two."
"Of course they're incapable! They've been made incapable by generations of subjugation! I lied to those men. I said, "Here's a few quid, set yourself up." But they never had a chance when you couple their ignorance with the fact you cut their windpipes by eliminating competition. And I lied even worse to those women across the street in your abominable sweatshop and I've wept with shame every time I've walked through the Bogside. I should have screamed in protest when it was in my power."
Swan cleared his throat. "I can't be responsible for your morbid philosophies and, in the end, nothing will really change here."
"Perhaps not, but I've got the power to take you down to hell with me."
"I think you'd better be careful."
"What for? Letting my life's work end up in a deal with an animal like you?"
Swan managed to conceal his reaction but, never having known a raw clutch of fear before, the feel of it was pure terror. He was stricken with the same kind of dryness he had inflicted on a thousand men before. He wanted water but he knew if he reached for it he would reveal a trembling hand. He shrugged at last. "Do what you damned please."
"I intend to," Kevin answered, coming to his feet.
"Let's talk," Swan uttered, amazed by his own sudden failing.
"Our little scheme, yours and mine," Kevin said, "has succeeded in giving a few men dignity. Now that they've tasted it, no matter how infinitely small, you're not going to crush them. We break your strangle hold, here and now. You went at the one man, Larkin, who has said, "Look, lads, be proud of yourselves," and you set out to destroy him. But you're going to rebuild his forge and you're going to return his contract."
"Or what?"
"Oh yes, conspirators always have little things hidden in their pockets." Kevin threw down an envelope containing the story of his deal to accept a bribe
in exchange for keeping the Select Committee away from the shirt factory. "Would you like a half hour to read this?"
"Never mind," Swan answered, "I know what it says."
"And you know where the original copy of it is?"
"With some journalist in London, I suspect, with instructions on when and why to open his copy."
"It's good to work with a man like yourself. It saves so much time in explanations."
Swan weighed it feverishly. He was reasonably certain that O'Garvey was ready to face prison for his role in it. How much damage could the Hubbles and Weeds sustain? Nothing between himself, Lord Roger and Sir Frederick was in writing over the deal. If it were exposed, Swan knew he would have to shoulder the entire blame in order to save his bosses. He would be finished if he tried to turn on them. Moreover, he had carried out far too many covert duties not to know what Weed would do to him if he turned rat.
The brilliantly honed veneer of Maxwell Swan splintered and the iron beneath that collapsed to dust. He had faced other fanatics before who were ready to go to the wall but never one who carried such a counter threat O'Garvey seemed only too delighted with the prospect of his own self-destruction in order to purge his soul.
What queer stroke had taken him to O'Garvey in the first place? In the end he might save the shirt factory and some of the industrial filth but at the same time he was opening Londonderry to economic competition.
If it blew open, the scandal that would follow the revelations would sweep into Parliament and bring about just the very legislation he attempted to block. Certainly Witherspoon & McNab would be targeted at once for investigation.
He should not have played with O'Garvey because men like him enjoyed getting strung up for their dirty little causes. Swan, the manipulator, had manipulated himself into a noose.
"The Larkin forge will be reopened and the contract returned. I want all copies of this masterpiece returned to me and your assurance you'll not author another."
"It's a pleasure to do business with you, Brigadier Swan." Kevin put on his hat.
Swan welled in an unprecedented surge of rage. "You know what happens to men who go back on their word!"
"Yes, I rather suspect I do."
"You know if you cross me it will mean your life."
"I know."
"You seem only too anxious to throw it away, so if you go back on this, I promise you, Larkin and a few of your other friends will never see the end of the day."
"I know," Kevin whispered.
"And from now on, keep your people in the Bogside where they belong!"
"I'm afraid they might not listen to me. Good day, sir."
Swan fell into his chair with the violence plunging as quickly as it rose. “O'Garvey," his voice trembled. "Why?"
"Why?" Kevin said. "My father whom I never knew followed Daniel O'Connell, our liberator. He followed him with the same adoration I followed Parnell. O'Connell and Parnell were men of peace and decency without a violent bone in their bodies. Their reward was a trail of betrayals, and final destruction by your filthy lying Parliament. You see, Brigadier, I've come to realize it's a fixed game I've played all my life because I've played it in your court by your rules. Oh, you bend a little here and there when the going gets hot but at the bottom of it there is always British deceit. In the end there will have to be an uprising. I've only now come to realize that it will be the only way to throw your fucking asses out of Ireland."
CHAPTER EIGHT
1897
When the villagers of Ballyutogue exhaled, they did so wailing with grief. However, when they inhaled, they sighed silently with relief. Blessed Father Lynch had fallen to a sudden and fatal heart attack. Their outward display reached sorrowful proportions as Reverend Bishop Nugent, rigid with age himself, tolled the final mass. After their priest of four decades was put under, a big dark cloud lifted from the parish and floated over Lough Foyle toward Scotland.
Father Cluny, who was elevated from curate, was an infinitely gentler man and, without Father Lynch about to prod him into petty tyranny, a blissful peace prevailed.
Brigid Larkin approached her twentieth birthday, which meant her twenty-first was not far behind and that was a time of uneasiness for most unwed girls. Once a lass crossed that line, spinsterhood loomed large and the number of spinsters in the village was growing. She would no longer be the object of all those plots and schemes. Her battle of wills with Finola took on aspects that marked the Larkin stubbornness and the ugly trait of living together in silence. Her affair with Myles McCracken stagnated from sorrowful encounter to sorrowful encounter. They continued to meet secretly, hold hands, lament in circles of despair and then depart unfulfilled and morose.
Every so often Myles had his fill of it and would tighten up with anger and refuse to rendezvous or threaten to leave Ballyutogue and Brigid became swept up with fear. The only way she knew to pacify him was to permit a few uncontrolled moments of passion which were shut off abruptly when they reached the threshold of the most mortal of sins. Each such scene was followed by days of gnawing frustration.
Brigid grew increasingly nervous, short-tempered, and was given to sudden spells of semi-hysteria Finola said that it was the work of the fairies, that Brigid was being invaded by them. After a time Brigid began to believe it and question her own sanity.
So long as Father Lynch was alive, she was too terrified to confess the sins she had committed with Myles. This added to her unhappiness and she was among those who inhaled the most deeply with relief when the old priest died. At last, she thought, she could go to Father Cluny.
She picked the day of her confession with deliberateness and marched to St. Columba's. Once through the door, with no turning back, she trembled at the gravity of having withheld her sins. She prayed that she had not truly gone mad as her mother suggested, and that some miracle might intercede for her and Myles. At the end of a long shopping list of favors, she also prayed for the strength to resist having sex with Myles until they could be married.
"O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, my dear guardian angel, and all you blessed angels and saints in heaven, pray for me, that I may make a good confession and from now on lead a good life, so I may join you in heaven to praise our dear Lord, forever and ever."
Consumed with tears, she recited an act of contrition twice for having offended God. She prayed herself into a trance and, thus mesmerized, entered the confessional and knocked weakly.
The little door opened.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Father, please forgive me, for I have been sinning for three years."
Father Cluny's high-pitched voice could not be mistaken. "This is a grave thing you are saying. What is your sin, my child?"
After a desperate period of silence during which ideas of escape flitted through her mind, she cleared her throat and leaned ever so close to the little door and whispered. "Please understand, Father, I have confessed all my other sins regularly, all that I could think of except for the sins in this particular matter."
"I understand, my child."
"Father," she croaked, "Father. . ."
"Yes, my child."
"Oh, Father," she blurted, "for three years I have engaged in giving impure looks and touches to a boy. I have . . . kissed . . . and embraced."
"I see," the voice answered grimly. "With just one boy?"
"Of course only one boy!"
"Now how many times have you done this with this boy?"
"Before coming here today I made my best effort to recall. I must have met him on one hundred occasions. Half of these were in secret places. To the best of my recollection, I kissed him at least twenty times at each secret meeting."
"Let me see, my child. That would be a thousand kisses, more or less."
"At least," Brigid concurred, taking Father Cluny's Word.
"Tell me, my child, were they of a deeply passionate nature?"
"Oh yes, very passionate. And I had been giving him impure looks for two years bef
ore I kissed him."
"Is that the full extent of your sins?"
"Oh dear." Her voice quivered. "He touched me a few times . . . not more than twenty or thirty . . . and only for very short periods . . . and . . . and . . . I touched him once . . . well, two or three times."
"Is that it?"
"I have thought unchaste thoughts so many times, I am unable to count that high."
"When was the last unchaste thought you had about this boy?"
"To be honest, just before I came here to confess."
In the ensuing half hour Brigid made full disclosures, which included rolling in the grass and hay with him, pressing her body to his deliberately and enjoying it to the point of allowing further liberties on her breasts and three times between her legs, however with clothing in between.
Since the death of Father Lynch, Father Cluny had been receiving a great number of retroactive confessions. Some were more serious than this, some were better. He was thinking in terms of declaring a general amnesty rather than have half the parish serve penance. Their crops might rot, what with all that praying.
Only two days earlier Father Cluny had heard the confession of a young man who clearly matched up to the one he had just listened to and allowed as he had heard from Myles McCracken and Brigid Larkin. It was becoming a great sport for him during meditation to match up confessions. At any rate, things would not be dull in the parish confessional for some time to come.
*
Tomas Larkin was alone in his home and dependent on Brigid for a heavy share of the labor. A new century was coming into focus and, with it, new hope of sorts, but that concerned him little. His sons were gone and one by one friends were being laid down in the St. Columba graveyard. So many of the young men had left and so many of the old had become world weary. Death reached beyond the mere taking of people. The scent of it filtered through the entire village and onto the land itself, for the land was as old and worn as they.
