Leon Uris (3 page)

The benevolence of Squire Larkin grew along with his acres. He built a church for Father Gionelli at Methven and beautified it with stained-glass windows dedicated to his father, and later, his mother. He pondered as he had never pondered for almost six months but finally ended up calling the church St. Columba’s, the same name his childhood church bore in Ballyutogue.

He was a benefactor of Father Gionelli’s nonsectarian orphanage in Christchurch, which he thought was a noble idea worthy of the attitudes of New Zealand.

Although it was not the same as seeing the priest arrive at Methven with his donkey train, Liam was chief contributor for the purchase of a Model-T automobile from America to carry the Father up and down the mountain road.

And he had been a benefactor for the folks back in Ireland! He made sure his mother, Finola, lived like a queen in her village. The Larkin cottage roof had slates, a singular signature that one of the family over the water had made it big. Liam sent money for fine new tombstones for all the Larkins who’d gone on to their rewards.

For his brother, the priest Father Dary Larkin, there was a generous fund for Dary’s good works.

Try though he might, Liam could not carry out his phi
lanthropies without a measure of revenge still attached to it. He guessed he was a hard shot. As Father Gionelli had told him years before, “It just doesn’t go away. We are never free of our blood.”

Liam realized that there was only one way to find an accommodation with his childhood, and that was to be certain his own children would not suffer from him.

He and Mildred often spoke in terms of advanced thinking for his times. The daughters, Spring and Madge, were coming into courting age. Unfortunately, they were behind the door when good looks were passed out. Yet all was not lost: The girls were nice young ladies and not only inherited their mother’s ampleness but her pleasant manner and keen mind as well.

Although, please God, they would never interfere or try to dictate the girls’ lives, Millie was certain that with Squire Larkin’s strong name they would be attractive beyond their physical liabilities. Liam and Mildred had come to a unique idea that there was nothing wrong with
daughters
inheriting land. It would mean marrying men with different names, but Ballyutogue Station would always be over the entry arch.

Liam even dared to take it one step further. If, God forbid, Madge and Spring fell in love with Protestants, and they were decent Protestants, they would be welcomed as sons-in-law. Of course the grandchildren would have to be raised in the True Faith.

He christened Tommy, proudly named after his daddy, Tomas Larkin. Alas, resemblances to his father were only name deep. Tommy seemed to have the bottom half of everyone’s traits. He was a good lad, mind you, a strong and rough-hewn number. He had all of Liam’s dull and awkward ways but none of his peasant’s instincts.

Because unconsciously Tommy reminded Liam of himself, and because consciously Liam knew he had to put wisdom and field smarts into the boy’s head, the two became plastered together indelibly. Liam’s heart of hearts
cried silently because Tommy had a hundred-acre limitation.

Tommy would be schooled and schooled hard. He had to be pushed through so he could live a life of quality. It would be a chore. If worse came to worst there would always be something for him at the station.

So there it was, Madge and Spring with good husbands who would have shares in the station. So long as it was overseen by a Larkin, all would be in good order.

Yes, Mildred and Liam talked of it often. They would not manipulate the lives of their children the way they had been manipulated. They would not be played off one against the other for land. Wisdom and guidance, and all would be well.

Everything was in hand for Squire Larkin except for one small matter. The operation of the station would rightfully go to his oldest, Wee Rory, and Rory was a man equal to the task.

However, there were slight problems with Rory and his wild ways with the girls and his hell-raising and growing wanderlust. Ah, he’d calm down. He did love the land and from the junior lads on up to manhood, he was winner of every kind of shearing and riding and roping and breeding prize the South Island had to offer.

And, a rugby hero to boot.

Shyte, if truth be known, Liam had spent many an hour with Father Gionelli steeped in worry over Rory. On a turn of the ha’penny, Liam’s worry turned to fear.

War had broken out in Europe. In that instant, remote and placid New Zealand changed. The seemingly tranquil lads in this faraway countryside were suddenly charged with war fever and were queuing up for blocks outside the recruiting stations.

It made no sense. New Zealand had no quarrel with Germans or Austrians and none had ever seen a Turk. Why in the name of Jesus and Mary should they rush off like a mob to die for the British Empire? What would they find out there that could hold a candle to the life in New Zealand?

Young men became restless and adventurous and convinced themselves that the liberation of Belgium—which was someplace or the other in Europe—was the noblest cause since the Crusades and they were hot to muck in and make a fist of it.

It made sense and Liam knew it. The British Empire was calling in its dues and debts. Without Britain there would have been no New Zealand. Without Britain they might well be speaking German and toasting the Kaiser.

For a thriving farmer on the South Island of New Zealand the war had put words into their language. Squire Liam Larkin was now a “sheep baron.” All the product the farmers could induce from this fertile soil was loaded aboard ships at prices never to be seen again and steamed away to try to fill the ultimate bottomless pit, war.

Sheep barons and their key personnel would be exempt from military or other war service. Every hand was desperately needed on the station. Surely, Liam could operate Ballyutogue Station himself, but if Rory had a sniff of the outside world it posed a danger to everyone’s future.

Rory had indeed inherited his father’s penchant for holding rage deep inside him. The fact of the matter being that father and son spoke an equitable station language to each other as far as sheep, cattle, and crops went, but were otherwise angry strangers.

Liam had deceived himself into believing that Rory loved Ballyutogue Station so much he would never consider leaving it, even if the two of them were never truly mates.

He wondered now if there were any way to catch up and reverse the past, even though he was not quite certain of what he had done wrong. What? When? How? Rory seemed angry, almost from birth. Why?

“I know when it started,” Liam said one night to Mildred. “It started ten years ago when Conor came to visit us. The boy changed from that moment on.”

*  *  *

It was another battle of silence between Rory and his father. The boy had gone up to Wellington to see the New Zealand All-Black rugby team defeat the Aussies, a game that ended in a piss-up to end all piss-ups.

When aroused, Rory was a battler of fierce proportions who could fight his way through almost anything with fist, foot, bite, or with any weapon available—chair, lamp, beer bottle.

Rank nationalistic remarks occurred from a bunch of Aussies crying in their cups. A Chinese brothel, permitted in this Christian land to service lonely seamen, was dismantled. Liam went north to pay the bill and get his son released. The rest was silence, utter silence.

In times like this Liam would go to the crown of his land, a high hill site by a trout stream, and communicate with himself, reliving his own epic.

Liam had laid claim to victory over Ireland by making his immigration a stunning success. Despite it, he was never free of hovering ghosts, the men who had created the Larkin legacy. Each, for generations back, was the big fellow in his own times. And he, Liam, lost and unheard among them. Every time he thought himself free, they reached out from their graves in the family plot in Ballyutogue.

His great-grandfather Ronen, beaten with the cat-o’-nine until the bones poked through his flesh during the Wolfe Tone rising of 1798. His grandda Kilty, who brought them through the great famine by fighting bare knuckles for pennies in the alleyways of London and later rode with the Fenian rebels. And his daddy, Tomas, the silent warrior, the man who made the Orangemen part like the Red Sea when they tried to block his way to the first vote given to the Catholic croppy.

Conor! He was the Larkin of them all. Conor had left Ireland after a tragic shirt factory fire in Derry and roved for five years. Ten years earlier he had stopped off in New Zealand. Liam tried to make him stay, but he returned to his life in dubious battle.

Conor joined the illegal Brotherhood and masterminded a gunrunning scheme, was caught, imprisoned, escaped, and now lived life on the run.

“Cripes,” Liam mumbled to himself. “I’m going down and talk to Rory, this time without anger. This time we’ll get to the bottom of what is hurting us. Oh God, I dare not think of it, but if Rory would stay in New Zealand out of newfound love for me, and maybe, me for him, then this unholy Trinity would be off me back. God help me hold my temper with the lad.”

Liam could tell the instant he saw Mildred that something terrible had happened.

“Rory!”

“No, he’s all right,” Mildred assured. “In fact he’s been mumbling to me about the curse of his temper. He feels badly about being such a nark.”

He damned well should! Too bloody right! Liam thought. That latest little piss-up cost me three hundred fucking quid. Three hundred quid! You could buy half of County Donegal with that!

“Good,” Liam said, “the other kids?”

“They’re fine. Everyone is waiting in the parlor.”

They were gathered about the fireplace as the squire was wont to do for a prayer and chat before supper. Rory’s head hung low as he poked the fire.

Well, someone caught him a good one in the chops, Liam observed. I hope to hell it hurts down to his pisser.

Liam became aware of the silence. Then he saw it on the table. A cable envelope. What the hell! We get cables, lots of them. Ballyutogue Station in New Zealand must have gotten twenty cables last year. He lifted it. It bore a black star, indicating a death.

“We’ve been waiting for you to open it,” Mildred said.

Liam afforded himself a quick glance at their distraught faces then left the wreckage for Millie to contend with.

Rory stopped his father on the stairs. “Da,” he croaked.

What the hell, Liam thought, you loved Conor more than you loved me. “I need to be alone, boy,” he said.

As he pushed open the bedroom door, Liam could hear the family weeping in the parlor, which was suddenly punctuated by a door slam, Rory’s signature that he was going flat tack to get drunk.

Mildred made heavy-footed haste up the stairs to the bedroom where Liam was packing his kit. He was all Liam now, containing his grief. He reckoned he would head again to the high meadow for whatever delayed reaction might come. In went a bottle of poteen, a vile moonshine. He creaked the springs of the bed as he worked on a pair of hobnail boots.

“I need to be alone.”

“There are others here with needs as well,” she snapped.

“I’m no good at this, Millie. You’ll have to do it for me.”

“Let me come.”

“No.”

“At least have a word with Rory.”

“Shyte, he’s probably halfway down to the junction already. Damned kid can hold more booze than my old man could.”

“Rory didn’t leave,” Millie persisted. “He’s in the barn. He’s weeping.”

Rory weeping? Rory seldom cried, except in a rage. Sure, he’d be weeping now. Conor was all to him. For ten years Rory has been trying to walk in Conor’s footsteps. Just what Ireland needs, another fucking Larkin martyr. “Rory has never needed my comfort,” Liam said.

“Liam. This house is shattered! Touch him! Just touch him and tell him we’ll get through it together.”

“I’m no good at this, Millie.”

“One word of kindness could have saved a lot of tears.”

“I…ugh…I’ll try.”

Liam entered the barn gingerly and turned up the lantern, mesmerized by the sobs coming from the far end. The flicker showed Rory on a hay bale, face in hands. Liam opened a stall, led his mare out and saddled her, as Rory watched in torment.

I know that look, Liam thought. I must have looked that grief-torn myself. Well, nothing can ever hurt me like that again. Nae, not even this news. So, what is it I’m supposed to say? he wondered. The damned fool corked it with no help from us. Daddy always said he’d end up from a hanging tree, one way or another. Fuck Ireland!

Liam cleared his throat. The two stared like startled deer caught in torchlight. Liam cleared his throat once more. Yes, Squire, he thought, you’re just like your daddy. Old Tomas would not have shown the likes of Liam any sentiment. Liam lowered his eyes and led the horse from the barn. In a moment there was a whinny and the sound of pounding hooves, away to the hills.

Squire Larkin was soon on the crown of his land. Everything in view belonged to him. He blew on the fire until it flared and bit into the chill, then he reached into the tent and felt for the poteen, tossed one down and leaned against the great oak that he considered the personal altar and throne of his kingdom. A wind carried up faint bleatings and tinkling bells of the flock in the east pasture. The
bells blended into a steady rising and falling tone as if the animals were having a natter with him.

“The beauty of Ireland lies slain! How the mighty have fallen! Ye mountains of Donegal, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, for the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away. He was lovely in his life. He was swifter than an eagle. He was stronger than a lion. How the mighty have fallen! Thou, Conor, thou hast been slain in thy high place! How the mighty…how the mighty…how the mighty…my beloved brother…has fallen.”

Liam dropped to his knees. “Conor!” he shrieked and the echo returned on the tinkling bells…CONOR…Conor…Conor…

“Oh God, man! I loved ye so!” Liam beat at his breast and groveled and screamed as his pain and confusion convulsed him. Felled to his hands and knees, he crawled and gagged and vomited and grabbed the great tree, wailing softer and softer into exhaustion.

A time later, a beastly chill cut through him. Liam awakened to a cloud pawing its way through the top of the hill. The fire was down. Liam moved quickly into the tent and wrapped himself in the heavy bedroll until his shivering quelled into rhythmic grunts.

“God,” he whispered, “punish me for that instant of elation that swept me when I read the cable. God, please punish me, I loved you, Conor lad, and that’s the truth of it.”