Trinity

by Leon Uris

  Maud Tully was passionately singular in her determination to avoid the Bogside fate. She found a first crack of hope in the Gaelic League and its lure of Irishism. She was fierce in her drive to learn to read and write and she studied the old language and held a headful of thoughts about politics and poetry and nationalism and human desires.

  A woman of her sort was non-existent in Ballyutogue and totally fascinated the likes of Myles McCracken. When they walked together of a Sunday along the riverbank beyond the town, Myles would break into song, often as not, for no reason at all. They'd find a tree and she would read to him from books and they would talk about things a man could never get to know in Ballyutogue unless he was smart like Conor or Seamus O'Neill. Myles had no intention of comparing Maud to his true love, Brigid, yet he could not help but realize the difference. When he had been with Brigid, it was always in a state of sadness and frenzy. Maud made him laugh.

  *

  The August night was so sweltering that heat blistered the dust from the stones of Derry's walls. Conor was stripped to the waist and heavy with perspiration as he worked on some sketches for a new ornate commission of massive candle holders for the church in Buncrana.

  Myles appeared suddenly, looking the color of death. Conor glanced up from his work and was alarmed that Myles had fallen sick, for he stood there grunting and gasping.

  "What's wrong with you, man!"

  Myles wrung his hands. Great tears streaked down a tortured face. "It's Maud Tully," he blurted, "she's going to have a baby."

  Conor's fist boomed into Myles's mouth, careening him backward till he came to a halt falling back over an anvil. He sat there numb, his head swarming. He blinked his eyes dumbly as Conor hovered over him, then ran the back of his hand over his mouth and tugged out his shirttail to sop up the blood.

  Conor unclenched his fists, returned to his office, slumped behind his desk and covered his face. Myles got to all fours, staggered to his feet and swayed for the front door, his face already taking on a deep color.

  "Don't leave," Conor croaked.

  Myles turned, still uneven on his feet, unable to speak, and they stood opposite one another for what seemed an infinity.

  "I'm sorry," Conor whispered.

  "Nae, you've every right to kill me."

  "Nae, Myles, I've no right at all."

  "You can't know how bad I feel after all you've done for me, Conor, and all out of the love of your sister."

  "Shut up, man. We're all too butchered up from other people running our lives. I've no call to run yours."

  Conor patted Myles's shoulder tenderly, which only made him feel worse. "Do you hate me?"

  "I don't hate you," Conor said. "Do you love Maud?"

  "Aye, I do. I don't know when the change came, but I do, I love her."

  "We'd better go to see Father Pat right away."

  *

  Maud Tully wasn't the first Bogside girl to go to the altar pregnant, so the shame of it would be short-lived. The celebration afterward at Celtic Hall was particularly filled with joy and hope, for this one girl would make it out of Bogside if anyone did.

  Conor reckoned it would take Myles two years to be a complete ironsmith, one able to strike out on his own. There were two choices open: to emigrate, for there was always blacksmith work anywhere in the world, or to take over a smithy somewhere in the area. Maud wanted Ireland but the other prospect was palatable. Her determination to get Myles on his feet was strong and bottomless. A lot of girls had made the vow on their wedding day but those who knew Maud knew she would succeed where the others had failed.

  She made Myles give up his room and move into the family hovel in order to save rent. The place was perpetually overcrowded and they had to settle for an alcove in the kitchen which they made private at night by hanging up a blanket. She would continue to work at the shirt factory right up to the minute of the baby's birth and every last penny would be banked.

  The initial awe and fright of marriage faded for Myles with that snip of a lass at his side. He swore to match her sacrifice for sacrifice, with longer hours at the forge, and to cut out every luxury and pleasure, for he knew that what he had won in life was grand. Two years would be nothing at all; it would go by quickly and when it was over they could walk in the sun for the rest of their lives.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Each Tuesday Conor set out from Derry by horseback before daylight and would be at the Manor's forge and scaffold before the house was in motion. Lady Caroline's interest in the work was intense. She instructed her personal secretary that she was not available for outside activities on that day. After breakfast she showed up at the Long Hall where Conor went over the plans for the day and returned each evening with a light tea to inspect the progress.

  After erection of the scaffold, Conor cleaned off two centuries of scum, rust and soot from the fires with acids, wire brushing and emory cloth, and bit by bit unlocked Tijou's secrets. The master had built the screen in sections and set it in place by block and tackle. Afterward he had covered each seam and weld in such a manner that only another master would be able to detect them.

  Age and neglect were only part of the problem. The screen had been twisted and weakened by bombardments, fires and falling roof at one time or another, demanding an inch-by-inch decision on what to replace, how to strengthen and what he could match with the old filigrees, leaves and vegetation.

  As one week fell behind another, the work began to take on an aura of elegance. Conor had deep-seated misgivings about working in Hubble Manor, just as Caroline realized he was a special case. He forced himself to set aside generations-old inbred hatred. The screen as pure art required his professional best and, moreover, he knew he was into an ultimate, experience working on something the likes of which he would never see again, and was headily devoured by it.

  Conor remained away from the mainstream of Manor life, gracefully warding off the aspirations of an entire flock of female domestics. In fair weather he ate alone outside on the lawn under a tree and when it was foul he remained in the Long Hall.

  The single friendship that blossomed was with Jeremy, the Viscount Coleraine, who seemed far more interested in hanging upside down from tree branches and spitting farther than anyone else than in his aristocracy and title. Jeremy was bound to show up under "Conor's tree" with football in hand and a dozen comrades in the wings and a plea for a short game. When the weather was bad he hung around the Long Hall, a privilege not even accorded Lady Caroline, and made himself helpful by fetching tools and ultimately doing apprentice work.

  As his own prejudices of Larkin for Hubble tempered, he admitted to himself he liked the way Lady Caroline held her arms out wide to her family as well as her relationship with her husband. Gossip was a sea on which all the great manor houses floated and he could not help but overhear the clucking about the Countess' stand against her husband and father to keep her sons in Ulster instead of transporting them to England for their education.

  Conor became eager for Tuesdays for something other than the screen and it annoyed him to the point of distracting his concentration on the work and set him to snapping at Jeremy and sending him off. As the rift widened in his own mind, he deliberately set distance between himself and the Hubble family.

  Caroline watched it evolve with annoyance of her own. Jeremy, obviously in a state of hero-worship, would not be put off. She was in her boudoir of a given Tuesday and caught a glimpse of Conor reading under the tree when Jeremy stormed toward him with football in hand.

  "I've no time for you today," Conor snapped.

  "Come on, Conor, please."

  Conor stood up irate, snatched the ball from the boy and booted it away. "Now go get yourself lost and don't bother me!"

  Jeremy simply stood there and stared up, then sobbed as he ran off for the ball. Conor watched him, disgusted with his own performance, and stomped off.

  Should she speak to him or just let it pass? Would that be extending too much familiarity on
a personal matter with a hireling? Or did Larkin's special status command it? As she pondered, she saw that he had left his book beneath the tree and decided to take it to him. With the volume in her hand an overwhelming sense of curiosity overrode the indiscretion of peeking into Conor's sanctum and she returned with it to her quarters.

  She curled up on the chaise lounge. Her eyebrows knitted in puzzlement at the title. The Kalevala by Elias Lonnrot. Pages within held the epic Finnish poem, a rambling folk legend not unlike a Celtic tale. There were several sheets of loose paper tucked away in the center of the book. Some held drawings, obviously for the screen, but others were filled with random scribblings in his hand, a series of small verses. She hesitated a final instant, then plunged.

  THE BISHOPS RAINED

  DAMNATION

  PARLIAMENT RUED

  TEMPTATION

  THEY DEEMED TO KILL HIM THRICE

  SICK MORALS SPEWED FROM VENAL LIPS

  DEMANDING SACRIFICE

  PARNELL IS DEAD

  PARNELL IS DEAD

  AND ERIN'S SOUL IS IN HIS GRAVE

  I loathe the swill 'neath Derry's walls,

  This pigsty Bogside place I'd flee,

  But if so prodded could I find peace

  As an immigrant whore on a foreign shore?

  Once out there I'd ne'er again

  Be bruised by sight of Derry's walls.

  Where is it, man? Is it out there?

  Or stay a swaddy in my tired land?

  No ceilidhe or fair or pleasure I seek,

  Could match the sheer joy of wracking week,

  With the salt of the sea in your mouth

  And you actin' as free as the loon

  With the girls all wet from the harvest of kelp

  And their breasts showing fullness of bloom.

  FATHER LYNCH

  BOW, KNEEL, PROSTRATE,

  ACT OF CONTRITION

  SHAKE WITH SUBMISSION

  GUILT, FEAR, PENANCE,

  FOLLOW THE BLIND,

  OF EMPTY MIND

  CONFESS, REPENT, ABSOLUTION

  LIFE IS BLED,

  SAFE IS DEAD.

  A Walk to Derry

  Tumbled homes,

  Famine walls,

  Mouths gone green from eatin' grass.

  Are we horses or cows feeding?

  Swollen bellies,

  Fever wards,

  Death ships wait with stinking holds,

  Are we horses or cows being transported?

  Corpses piled,

  Communal pyres,

  God save our noble queen . . .

  There was more, a long, unfinished, mystic sonnet to his father and half-coherent scribblings about the thrill of football and a friend named Seamus O'Neill and a hedgerow teacher.

  Caroline closed the book pale and quickly retraced her steps down to the lawn. Conor had returned, looking for his book. She handed it to him.

  "I'm afraid I'm guilty of shameful prying," she said.

  "Not to worry," Conor answered softly. "We're all alike, you know. I suppose the one thing Ireland doesn't need is another bad poet."

  "Mr. Larkin, would you tell me right off if you've misgivings about working here?"

  Conor studied his hands. The black of the forge was never fully out of them, like a coal miner's lungs. "I've a personal liking for yourself," he said in his best evasive Irishness. "As for Lord Hubble, I've been treated fairly and I've a sincere liking for young Jeremy and Christopher as well."

  "You've avoided my question with consummate skill," she said.

  "Aye, I've had mixed emotions."

  "Are you going to finish the screen?"

  "I made a bargain."

  "But you don't want to," she pressed.

  "I want to finish it for two reasons," he said. "It would be a criminal act to know you can do something about a work like that and leave it undone. I've enough conceit to believe you'll not find another like me."

  "I agree," she said, "and reason number two?"

  "Perhaps when we see or hear of each other again in future times it may not be so pleasant. It's been an unusual and lovely relationship. I'd like it if you and Jeremy always kept some kind thoughts of me. I don't know why it's suddenly so important, but it is."

  "Thank you for that," Caroline said.

  *

  As the end drew near, Caroline Hubble toyed with the idea of creating a commission that would keep Larkin on, but she abandoned the notion. It was filled with things that had best be left alone.

  One day the screen was done and he said good-by.

  One of the strengths of the Hubble marriage was an understanding that two people could love each other with complete devotion but still hold normal admirations, love and even physical desire for someone else. So long as Caroline and Roger freed one another to hold such thoughts and so long as the two of them talked about it openly it had never become necessary to act out their desires in secret. It took no special insight on Roger's part to realize his wife was taken by the Larkin chap, probably in all sort of ways. Caroline had never abandoned her adulation of muscled, sweaty workmen and Larkin certainly had his share of both. When Caroline or Roger had such passing pulsations in the past it was cause for playful and dirty conversation. What was annoying to Roger about Larkin was that Caroline never mentioned him. It was as though she was cheating for the first time by wanting to keep this particular fantasy to herself. Yet when one shares the freedom and trust they held, it would have been poor form on his part to throw up Larkin like a jealous bull. However, he could not help but feel a sense of relief when the screen was done.

  On the evening Conor departed, Roger came down to dinner disturbed. "You'd better see to Jeremy," he told Caroline. "He's up in his room crying." Later, Roger broke an evening-long silence during their billiard game. "Damned place acts in mourning. Did Larkin get to many of our girls?"

  "I'd be the last to be informed of that."

  "Did you get to know him really well?" Roger asked.

  "No, he kept a distance."

  "Well, he certainly made a mark on Jeremy."

  "Rugby, that sort of thing."

  Should I or shouldn't I? Roger inquired of himself as he lined up a shot. He did. "Did you find him terribly attractive?"

  "I suppose so," Caroline answered.

  "You might have mentioned it."

  "I found him distressingly attractive, soberingly so. He is a strong, keen man and I've a feeling we've not heard the last of him. I don't mean him alone, I mean all of them. He gave me an opportunity to have an insight into our enemies. It makes you shiver a bit to think there is a country here filled with his sort."

  "Yes," Roger agreed, "Father grumbled about that on his deathbed. Well, so long as Brigadier Swan is watching the store, things will be in good order during the rest of our days."

  "And Jeremy's and Christopher's?"

  Roger laughed at the serious turn, replaced his cue stick in the rack and embraced his wife. "The screen is absolutely smashing," he said. "I'm glad it's solved, once and for all."

  *

  After six months Dary was allowed a Sunday visitor and permission to leave the seminary grounds. Over the Burntollet Bridge there was a lovely wooded stand called the Ness, which included a stunner of a waterfall, Shane's Leap, named after a legendary Robin Hood of Derry who was said to have made an escape by jumping it.

  Dary and Conor picnicked and soon the red squirrels and birds were chattering and scampering about looking for handouts. Conor smiled at his brother. It was so much like Dary with the little beasties eating from his hand, sensing no fear. Dary had been the object of Conor's pity, a beautiful small and delicate creature seeming hardly geared to take on the sorrows of life. Yet there he sat in total command of himself and in a full bloom of inner peace.

  Dary knew his brother was bubbling up for an explosion. He had read Conor's anxieties in the words of his new poems and throughout the day Conor nibbled around the edges of his frustration. There w
as always the matter of his disapproval of the priesthood and he made the usual pecks at Dary's loss of freedom.

  "See here," Dary said abruptly. "I'm happy. There's no lock on the seminary gate. Someone always thinks it's a tragedy when a brother goes into the priesthood."

  Perhaps you're right, Dary, Conor thought, if you end up being a priest like Pat McShane. But I have seen the spirit drain from Father Pat's eyes as well, and yes, I've seen those fleeting instances of human longing. You'll suffer, too, and you'll hunger.

  "There hasn't been a priest who hasn't battled with temptation," Dary said, reading his brother's mind. "I don't suppose I'll be the first."

  "You're too bloody smart for a kid," Conor snapped.

  "You're ready to burst, Conor. For God's sake, tell me what's going on with you."

  Released from his self-imposed bond of silence, Conor mused. "I don't know, Dary. Maybe it was the bloody screen at the Manor. It was a queer situation. Here I was giving my heart in a place and to a thing that is a total symbol of injustice. I liked their kids and I liked that woman. I suppose, more than I can admit. It was like a dream working on that screen. I couldn't wait for Tuesday to come. I'm lonely without it and I'm disgusted with myself."

  "You've had some fires stoked you'd rather have left cooled. You didn't want to see anything decent in people you've been born to hate. You didn't want to like them. You wanted them to be evil clear through to confirm your hatred," Dary said.

  "Damn you, Daryl You're scary the way you see through people!"

  "You're my brother, Conor. It's not the Hubbles that ail you and it's not the screen . . ."

  "Oh, you'll make some bloody priest, you will," Conor said, stripped of his rationalized defenses.

  "Then what is it, Conor?"

  "If you want to know, wee Dary, come walk with me through the Bogside. Look at the pleading eyes of the little wanes all scrawny and old, old men of ten and eleven, and the glazed expressions of their beaten daddies and look, if you will, at all the tough young micks huddled against the cold drizzle with their hands shoved deep in their pockets wasting another day and another and another until they chase the final fantasy to America. And the gangs of factory girls dragging home too weary for singing or love-making or knowing joy, only to have their bellies filled till they waddle and become even more drained of life. And the puke in the gutters and the fist fights and shrill screaming, venting frustrations on each other like animals. And them up in Hubble Manor seeing to it the Irish monkeys are kept unfit for anything but mucking their sewers. I've betrayed Conor Larkin, that's what! There's a roll of fat growing around my gut from endless money to buy endless pints and I'm so fucking pleased with myself I can't hear the sounds of their weeping any longer. I don't hear it because I don't want to hear it. I want peace but there can be no peace. Do you know why? There's a curse on me as there's a curse on the Larkin name. The curse comes back, again and again, to taunt me! Ronan! Kilty! Tomas! And now me! What are the Irish among men? Are we lepers? Are we a blight? Will there ever be an end to our tears?"