Voice of the Heart (21 page)

Ryan gulped and opened his mouth but no words came. He glanced up at Katharine, his eyes filled with mute appeal.

Katharine was flabbergasted at her father’s words. If they had been uttered by anyone else she would have dismissed them as boastful idle talk, and to be taken with a grain of salt. But she knew her father meant every word, and she trembled inwardly for Ryan. Her brother was terrified, and with good reason; she tightened her embrace, drew the boy closer to her.

She said, ‘But Ryan doesn’t want to be a politician, Father.’ She could never bring herself to call him the more affectionate Da, as Ryan did.

Patrick glowered. ‘What?’ he demanded in a low tone that was ominous, even threatening. ‘What did you say?’

‘Ryan doesn’t want to be a politician. He wants to be a painter,’ Katharine replied in a quiet but resolute voice. Her father might strike terror in Ryan’s heart, but not in hers. She was not one bit afraid of him.

‘How dare you tell
me
what
my
son wants, Katie Mary O’Rourke!’ Patrick shouted, leaping to his feet. His face was brimming with dark colour and there was a dangerous glint in his steely blue eyes.

‘But Ryan is so gifted. Look at this watercolour,’ she cried, undeterred by his displeasure.

‘I don’t want to look at it! I’ll have no more of this sissy stuff in my house. You and his mother! Filling his head with artistic nonsense. It’s going to stop, and right now.’ He strode to the table, struggling with his anger, and snatched up the watercolour. Without glancing at it, he tore it in half, and threw it to the floor.

Ryan stifled a tiny cry, like a small animal in pain, and brought his fist up to his trembling lips. Katharine flinched, and gazed at their father in fascinated horror. With one furious gesture of his large hand, Patrick swept the paint box,
the brushes, the jar of water and the sketching pad off the table. He stamped on them, crushing them under his heavy feet. Katharine’s face reflected her disgust, and she thought: He’s a dreadful man. Vulgar and uncouth. He thinks he’s a gentleman with his custom-tailored gabardine suits and hand-made shoes and soft silk shirts, but he’s not. He’ll never be anything but an ignorant peasant. Shanty Irish.

Patrick pointed a long bony finger at Ryan and exclaimed excitedly, ‘Now listen to me, son. There’s going to be no more of this painting. I forbid it, do you hear me. It’s not for a great lad like you. It’s not masculine enough. You’re going to be a politician, Ryan O’Rourke, even if it kills me in the process. And the President of these United States one day. Furthermore, you’re going to start training for it immediately, with dedication and discipline and single-mindedness of purpose. Just like a boxer trains. Do you understand me, son? Have I made myself clear?’

‘Yes, Da,’ said Ryan meekly, still quivering with a mixture of fear and shock, and swamped with unhappiness.

Patrick turned to face Katharine, glaring at her. ‘As for you, young lady, I want no more interference. I’ve had quite enough of you lately. You’re a real troublemaker, not to mention a little liar, Katie Mary O’Rourke. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the unspeakable things you said about your Uncle George. Scurrilous. Disgusting. I never thought a daughter of mine would have such filth in her mind!’

Katharine felt as if the blood was draining out of her, and her legs wobbled. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick, and her large eyes became larger in her face. Beads of sweat popped out on her forehead, and she had to clench her fists to control herself. How could her father be so cruel and mean, embarrassing her by saying such frightful things in front of little Ryan. She took a deep breath to control herself and said, in a voice that was surprisingly steady, ‘George Gregson is not my uncle. He’s only your business partner.
And I didn’t tell you any lies!
’

‘Go
to your room immediately!’ Patrick thundered, harshness and fury bringing a rasp to his voice. ‘How dare you answer me back. You’re impertinent as well as a liar, it seems. And don’t venture downstairs for dinner, my girl. I don’t want to look at your face tonight. Annie will bring a tray to your room later.’

Katharine was rooted to the spot, and automatically, with a sense of protectiveness, she tightened her hand on Ryan’s shoulders. Her father observed this gesture, and commanded imperiously, ‘Stand away from your brother! Stand away! You’re always slobbering over him. It strikes me as you’re turning him into a girl like yourself. Now, go to your room.’

‘I will,’ Katharine retorted with some spirit, walking rapidly across the floor. ‘But not before I’ve looked in on Mother, to see if she wants anything.’

Patrick seemed about to explode, but he said nothing. When she reached the door of the nursery, Katharine stopped and turned her head. She looked directly at her father, and said with cold deliberation, ‘I took a message for you earlier. It’s on the desk in the library. It’s from a Miss McGready. She said you can call her at the usual restaurant. In the Loop.’

Patrick’s jaw went slack and he stared at her, momentarily stupefied. His mouth tightened into a slit and his eyes hardened, and it was then that she saw the naked hatred on his face. Katharine recoiled, aghast. But she recovered herself at once and stared back at him defiantly, her eyes challenging, and she knew that he knew that she knew exactly what kind of man he was. Something rose up in Katharine like bile, gagging her, and with the child’s wisdom that springs from instinct and blind perception she understood that she was confronting evil. Her blood ran cold, and it was then that the first seeds of bitter purpose were sown in her. She vowed to herself that she would fight her father for Ryan, and for Ryan’s soul, if it took all the days of her life. She did not know that her own hatred blazed out from her
young face with such intensity and force that Patrick was staggered by it.

That night Katharine lay in her bed, listening to Ryan’s sobs through the wall. They had started almost immediately, when he had returned from dinner, and they had continued unabated. Her heart ached for him and she longed to go and comfort him. The only thing which prevented her from doing so was the thought of her father’s wrath if he caught her. It was not that she was afraid for herself, for, in all truth, she was not afraid of anything. Her concern was for Ryan. Instinctively, she knew that if she attempted to protect her little brother, her father would take drastic measures, would remove him from her care. With a prescience rare in a girl of her age she understood that things would never be the same in this house ever again. She would have to watch her step, for Ryan’s sake.

But in the end she could not bear to listen to the racking sobs any longer, and she got out of bed and crept to the door, opening it quietly. She peered out. The corridor was dark and silent, and no light filtered out from her father’s room, to her enormous relief. He was either downstairs or he had gone out. To meet Miss McGready perhaps. Holding her breath, she ventured forth into Ryan’s room and tiptoed over to the bed. ‘It’s me,’ she whispered, sitting down on the edge. She took him in her arms, and stroked his hair and made gentle hushing sounds. Eventually he calmed a little, and nestled against her, his small arms clamped tightly around her neck.

‘I’m scared, Katie,’ he whispered in the darkness, his body still heaving with dry sobs. ‘I don’t want to be a politician. I want to be an artist. What will I do? I’m so scared of Da.’

‘Hush, honey, don’t get upset again. We’ll think of something.’

‘Why did Da tear up my beautiful painting? I was going to give it to Momma.’

‘I don’t
know. Well, perhaps he was angry with
me
. But you’ll do another for Momma, Ryan, real soon.’

‘No, I won’t,’ he wailed. ‘Da has forbidden it. I’ll never be able to paint again, Katie.’

‘Please, honey, don’t talk so loud,’ Katharine cautioned, and went on with some assurance, ‘And you
will
paint, we’ll find a way, I promise. Everything is going to be all right.’

‘Are you sure, Katie?’

‘Yes, trust me, honey. Now try to sleep.’ She loosened his arms gently, and made him nestle down in the bed, tucking him in. She sat stroking his hair for a while, murmuring softly to him, until he began to doze. As she stood up, he suddenly roused himself, and clutched her arm, ‘Katie, what did Da mean when he said you’d told him lies about Uncle George?’

‘Shush, honey,’ Katharine whispered, ‘it’s nothing. Now go to sleep.’

‘Yes, Katie,’ he said with his usual obedience. He closed his eyes and curled up into a small ball, and Katharine slipped out.

Long after she had returned to her own room, Katharine was still wide awake, her mind filled with the hateful memory of that day when George Gregson had come to the house. It had been a Sunday. All the servants were off, except for Annie, the housekeeper, who was taking her afternoon nap. Ryan was out with Aunt Lucy, her father was playing golf, and her mother was in the hospital. She had been alone in the house, except for the sleeping woman upstairs. Katharine tried to block out the disgusting details, but they came flooding back, were relentless and distressing, and she lay, mute and shaking, covered in a cold sweat. She saw his ugly congested face. It was drawing closer to hers. She felt his hand on her small breast and the other one sliding up her dress, probing and pinching between her legs.

Katharine now experienced the same revulsion which engulfed her when George Gregson had unbuttoned his
trousers and pushed her face down into his lap. She leapt out of bed and flew to the bathroom, staggering to the washbasin, filled with nausea. She leaned over it retching, and she threw up again and again, just as she had vomited on that terrible Sunday, all over George Gregson’s trousers.

Katharine had not told anyone Gregson had molested her, for she was too ashamed and embarrassed, and also curiously afraid. But when he had attempted to waylay her on several succeeding occasions, she had endeavoured to communicate some of her mounting fears to her father. She could not confide in her mother, who was far too sick. Haltingly, choosing her words carefully, Katharine had informed her father about the incident as delicately as possible. To the girl’s amazement, and immense shock and distress, her father had not believed her. He had called her a damned liar. As he had done that very afternoon in the nursery.

Katharine shuddered, wiped her face and drank a glass of water. She ran a bath, pouring in great quantities of the bubble bath her Aunt Lucy had given her. She lay in the water for a long time, and afterwards, when she had dried herself, she covered her entire body with talcum powder and cleaned her teeth three times. Only after this long ritual of cleansing was she able to return to her bed, and finally, as dawn was breaking, she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Contrary to what Katharine had expected, her father made no reference to their altercation at breakfast the next day. Nor did he bring it up in the days which followed. Slowly, things drifted back to normal, and although Ryan was not given new paints, the two children were allowed to spend their days together, and Katharine found herself breathing a little easier. But at the end of the summer vacation their father moved with efficiency and speed, and, to Katharine, with an awful finality. Ryan was packed off to a military academy on the East Coast, and she herself was enrolled as a boarder in the convent where she had previously been a day pupil. One year later Rosalie was dead and buried.
Katharine was devastated by grief, and inconsolable; there were times when she so yearned and fretted for her mother that she made herself violently ill physically. It was her Aunt Lucy who eventually brought die thirteen-year-old girl a measure of peace and a semblance of security, through her understanding, compassion and love. The two drew closer together as the next few years passed, and when Katharine was sixteen it was Lucy who prevailed upon Patrick to send the girl to school in England, as Katharine wished. Patrick had readily agreed, as Katharine had known he would. She was well aware that he could not stand the sight of her, or bear her silent accusations, or face her condemning gaze.

After Katharine left the English boarding school, she had gone to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, again through Lucy’s intervention with Patrick. In all this time she had rarely heard from her father, or from Ryan. She attributed her brother’s silence to fear of reprisals from their father if he communicated with her, convinced that he was under Patrick O’Rourke’s thumb. But her Aunt Lucy was a diligent and regular correspondent, and kept her well informed about their activities, and a cheque from her father arrived promptly every month.

Katharine blinked, and straightened up on the white sofa. It was patently obvious her father was paying her to stay away from Chicago. He was glad to be rid of her. Apart from the fact that she knew too much, he was afraid of her influence over Ryan. He would not let anything, or anyone, obstruct his schemes for Ryan, schemes which she had never once been foolish enough to discount, even when she was a child. Her father fully intended to carry them through no matter what the cost, for he craved power, and he believed that Ryan was the key to the greatest power in the land, the Presidency of the United States.

Katharine’s mouth twisted contemptuously. Well, she thought grimly, I’ll show him yet. And when I’m a star and have enough money of my own to support Ryan, I’ll
send him to study art in Paris, or wherever he wants to go. This thought galvanized her. She had much to accomplish before that day came, and she could not afford to waste a single moment dwelling on Patrick Michael Sean O’Rourke. The bastard. As far as she was concerned, the die had been cast years before. And she herself had been set upon a course from which she could never deviate, even if she so wished. Saving Ryan and thwarting her father had been intricately interwoven into the fabric of her destiny, had become integral threads in her excessive ambition for herself.

Katharine now picked up the breakfast tray and took it into the kitchen. Automatically, her thoughts turned to the impending screen test, upon which so much depended, and for which she had one week to prepare. She was not especially worried about her performance. What concerned her more was the material she would use. She knew exactly what this should be, but it must be adapted and written out as dialogue, and for this task she needed a professional writer. Her mind began to work with its usual avidity and an illuminating smile spread itself across her face. Why, she could surely solve that little problem over lunch. Providing she was persuasive enough.