“What could a therapist do, anyway? You can’t take the milk out of the tea, right?”
“You have to make up your own mind.”
“Every time I think of going to one of them shrinks, I keep thinking of what the old man would say if he could see me. A good swift boot in the arse is all I need. That’s what he’d say, and he wouldn’t be far off the mark.” He laughed. “I suppose you saw a few shrinks yourself, in that place . . . in Ontario.”
The psychiatrist was a thin, athletic man, probably a decade younger than me. His name was Dr. Shaw, but he looked South Asian. He had my file in front of him. Look upon this as an opportunity, he was saying. A gift. Everybody should get an opportunity to take stock of things at some point, crisis or not. We all have our demons. I thought: He thinks he knows what I will know when I am finished here, and he believes that I will feel a certain awe and gratitude. This foresight makes it possible for him to overlook my sullen silence now.
“Your name,” I said. “Isn’t it Scottish?”
“I invented it. I used to be S-h-a-h. I’m in the business of reinventing people.” He smiled.
“I want to make a couple of things clear,” I said.
“Of course.”
“I didn’t come here by choice. And I have no idea what this place can do for me.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” he said. Then he stood.
“Let me introduce you to your group. Just first names. No details necessary.”
“Thank you.”
There were half a dozen men of different ages and backgrounds, yet somehow similar. I wrapped my arms around my rib cage.
“This is Duncan,” the group leader said. “He’ll be with us for a while.”
“HELLO, DUNCAN,” they said in chorus.
I sat down. The shrink left quietly.
The leader asked if I would like to talk a bit about myself.
“Some other time,” I said.
“I’m Scott and I’m an alcoholic,” he announced, unasked.
There was a supportive murmur from the others.
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “You’re among friends.”
They spoke about addiction as a common condition we all shared. A feature of some common culture we must try to come to terms with. Repeating with frequency that we are alcoholics, or addicts. I was reminded of how much I loathe the word “we” when used by strangers. It is coercion. But I sensed they got a certain feeling of comfort from the inclusiveness of “we.” And in the constant assertions: I’m an alcoholic. I tried it once and there was a feeling of easy and unexpected progress. Like after you’ve said “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I confess to the almighty God and to you, Father.” The false righteousness that comes after you’ve said “I’m sorry” even when you aren’t.
The room was always too warm.
“What do you do for a living, Duncan?” somebody asked.
I was stumped for a moment. “Human resources,” I said eventually.
Off to one side, Jude eyed me, eyebrows raised.
Danny went to the bathroom again, apologizing.
“It’s worse at night,” he said. “I’m up at least once an hour, wringing the mitt. That’s what the old man used to call it when he’d be pissing over the side of the boat. ‘I’m just wringin’ out the ol’ fishin’ mitt.’ For me it’s the old prostrate. They say it swells up on you. I suppose that’ll be next thing. Prostrate cancer.”
“Prostate,” I corrected.
“Prostrate sounds more accurate,” he said.
He laughed and shuffled away.
One member of the group was obviously a journalist. I felt I’d seen him somewhere before, then realized it was probably on television. He would never stand when he talked. He’d lean back on the hard metal chair, ass forward, legs stretched out, arms folded, head cocked to one side. Journalism is fuelled by alcohol and other drugs plus vanity, he declared during one of the sessions. A lethal cocktail.
But he talked mostly about a harsh father, a prairie farmer. He spoke dramatically about the desperation of surviving on the land, and about feeling trapped and stunted, longing for the day he’d get away. But he never really arrived anywhere he felt he could belong. Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa. Always imagining that he’d find his purpose in some kind of critical mass of energy and talent when he arrived at the next, larger place. But he always remained the outsider. His voice trembled.
The room was silent as a grave.
Finally, he settled in Toronto and got drunk and stayed that way until certain vital organs started giving out.
“You know, it takes about five years to really fuck yourself up,” he said. “That’s when you start to get really self-destructive.”
“I don’t think it had much to do with his concerns about the future,” I said carefully. “But if it wasn’t about his fear that he might not be able to make a go of it here, what do you—”
“I’ve been over everything,” Danny said, shaking his head. “Every possibility. Sometimes I think maybe there was no deep reason for it at all. That’s the trouble with guns. It’s so easy with a gun. If you’re impulsive. It’s just done without really thinking it through. And he was impulsive. I guess.”
“Do you think he talked to anybody? . . . Confided in anybody?”
“I’m suspicious about his mother. It’s like she knows more than she’s letting on. But you can’t get a peep out of her. I’ve quit trying.”
“How close was he to Brendan? Father Bell?”
“Now that would have been somebody worth talking to. They might have talked. But nobody seems to know where Bell ended up. You wouldn’t have any connections, now, would you?”
I shook my head. “No,” I lied.
“I suppose you have a family?” Jude said.
“No,” I laughed. “No kith, no kin.”
“That’s unusual. You being east coast and Catholic.”
I couldn’t suppress my surprise. “What makes you think that?”
“First there’s your accent. And . . . you left your rosary out on the table this morning. I wasn’t spying.”
“Very observant,” I said, relaxing.
We studied each other for a moment, recalibrating. I remembered thinking, He knows nothing at all about me. I never felt so free. Maybe I was wrong.
“Which of course would make you close to my own age,” he said.
“Oh? How so?”
“The rosary,” he said confidently. “You never see that anymore.”
I study the endless mass of the escarpment for a while. “So, tell me about being a priest,” I say at last. “What’s that like nowadays?”
He laughed. “A pretty big subject, that one. Especially nowadays,” he said with a smile.
“I’m only guessing,” I said uneasily.
“That’s okay. You’ve got me pegged. I’m a reverend father.”
There was another long pause.
“It’s actually one of the questions I hope to answer for myself while I’m here,” he said. “All ‘about being a priest.’ Nowadays.” Then, after another moment, he put a hand on my knee. “I’m going to play a little game. I don’t want you to tell me anything about yourself. I’m going to guess your line of work. Don’t worry. I won’t pry. I’m just going to figure it out for myself. All right?”
The absurdity makes me smile. “Okay by me.”
“Right now I’m leaning toward the military. Something in the military.” He sits back then and folds his arms, smiling broadly. Pleased at the prospect of a relationship, even if it’s about a game.
I stand. “Since you’re a priest . . . I told you a lie before.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, I have a sister.”
He nods. “I have nobody. Only child. Both parents gone to their rewards.”
There is a light fog that gives the escarpment the appearance of a medieval hillside village. I can imagine the shapes of parapets and battlements. Tall trees, s
culpted by the moving mists to look like ghostly towers. I say to Jude that it must be more than a little awkward to be a priest from Newfoundland in a place like this at a time like this.
“How so?”
“The scandals and the like,” I say.
He laughs then falls silent for a while. “Frankly, I was surprised that you’d agree to stay in the same room with me after you found out what I am.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” I say through a sudden wave of irritation. I knew, from the first moment I heard that I’d be rooming with a priest—this was penance. I sigh, perhaps too obviously.
“Anyway,” he says. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not one of Them.”
I looked at him. His eyes were squinting as he tried to pick out geological details in the distance. “So you’re just a garden-variety drunk, like the rest of us.”
“Not even that,” he said. “Never took a drink in my life. Except out of a chalice. You didn’t happen to bring binoculars with you? The birds here are something else.”
“No,” I said, remembering golden afternoons studying the boats and ships silently ploughing through a flickering sea.
“You’re okay?” He studied my face. I must be careful around this one.
“Of course.”
“No,” he continued. “Nothing quite as straightforward as alcoholism or sexual deviance. I think they’re related, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I’ve known some of the people involved,” he sighed. “Actually, a good friend, down in Burin. A Father Foley. It’s almost always something that’s brought out by liquor. I’m not excusing it or suggesting it isn’t in there even when there’s no liquor around. But I think it’s a simple case of reduced inhibition, loss of judgment and character weakness. A combination of the three.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said.
“That’s just my own observation.”
“I knew a priest from Newfoundland once. Maybe you heard of him. Father Bell. Brendan Bell.”
“Oh, dear. Young Brendan. Well, well, well. So you knew young Brendan Bell.”
There was a subtle variance in the sound outside, a soft bass tone, not unlike the wind. The dog rose under the table. Trotted toward the door, hard nails clicking on the floor. Barked sharply. Danny leaned across the table, placed a discreet forefinger on the curtain.
“Here’s Willie,” he said. Then sat back. “Actually,” he said, drawing a circle on the tablecloth with the large forefinger, “I never got around to telling you this. But I knew your old man. Angus was his name, wasn’t it?”
I must have looked surprised.
“I thought of it that day we met you at the shore . . . back . . . I forget when it was. A couple of years ago. But yes. I knew old Angus. We worked on the boats together.”
“The boats?”
“Before they were making paper here, they shipped the raw wood pulp out by boat. All over the world it went. You’d get a few days’ work when there was a boat in. That’s where I ran into him. He never had a car. So I’d give him a lift occasionally. And now and then we’d stop at the old tavern, Billy Joe’s, and have a couple and talk.”
I just stared.
“He was awful proud of yourself, that’s for sure.”
The dog barked twice more.
“Shuddup,” Danny said sharply. “Go lie down.”
The dog looked at him apologetically.
Danny leaned toward the window, moved the curtain again. “Oh. Looks like he’s leaving. It must have been your car. He’d figure if you were here, Jessie’d be here too.” He watched. “Yeah, he’s gone. Willie’s been on a little toot. Went up to Toronto last month. First time off the island. Hasn’t been the same since he got back.” He chuckled. “Jessie can’t stand poor Willie. Jessie or the dog. They get right hostile when he shows up. Women and dogs think they know when a man doesn’t like them. Claim to have an instinct. She says Willie doesn’t like women or kids or dogs, and they all sense that right away.”
“You hear that,” I said.
“Instinct is great. But I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.”
“Actually, I saw Willie in Toronto. I was staying at my sister’s after Braecrest and he was there.”
“And how was he?”
“Seemed fine to me.”
“Ah, well. He’s been on the sauce since he got back.”
“Jessie and Willie are first cousins, aren’t they?”
“Yes. You know, back somewhere in the woodpile, you might be related to him yourself.”
“Oh?”
“I just figured that out lately. Thinking back to your old man. Old Angus.”
“When was it you worked with him?”
“It was shortly after I came home. Around ’70. Not long before he died, actually. I heard about it afterward. Didn’t he freeze to death?”
“Yes.”
“An awful thing, that, but they say it isn’t a bad way to go.”
“I suppose,” I said. “If we get to choose.” And instantly regretted it.
He looked away for a while, studying a spot on the floor. Then he stood and stretched. “I guess your dad had a hard time in the war. He never talked much about it, but you could tell. You can usually tell, when they won’t talk about it, that there’s probably something to talk about.”
“There was something. Some incident, late in the war. We never really talked about it either. When you’re young, you aren’t usually interested.”
“Well, isn’t that the way. The things I’d like to ask the old man now. When it’s too late.” He was shaking his head slowly. “Oops. There it goes again. The old bladder. Sorry about this. I’ll be wearing frigging diapers before you know it.” And he headed for the hallway, lurching slightly.
When he came back, he said, “I’d offer you a drink, but I imagine, after all the trouble you went to getting off of it, you wouldn’t be interested.”
I waved a hand dismissively. “My sister mentioned once that we might be related to Willie.”
“Ah, yes. How did it go? Through the Gillises out here. There was a family. All died out now. Jessie’s grandfather and Willie’s mother were brother and sister. And I gather there was a close relative. A cousin, I believe, who went away young then kind of dropped out of the picture. Your dad said that might have been his mother. I gather he never knew his real mother and father.”
“So I understand.”
“Wouldn’t that be something. All of us related.”
I laughed.
“Poor Willie,” he said. “There’s no harm in Willie.”
Jude was struggling inside his memory.
“I think we’re a little bit related. Brendan and me. If I have it right, my grandfather’s mother was a Bell. Anyway, we come from the same place. A little village round the bay. I’m sure you never heard of it. He was only a little fellow when I left.”
“When did you last have contact?”
“Oh, I can’t remember. It would have been around the time I left. But I was getting news all along, when my folks were still alive. It was the second-biggest thing that ever happened to the village. Him going off to be a priest. I, of course, was the first big deal.” He sighed. “It’s hard to explain what it used to be like when a young fellow from a place like that ended up in the priesthood. It was like you belonged to everybody.”
“I can imagine.”
“So it’s bad news for everybody when it doesn’t work out. Right? A huge disappointment.”
“So Brendan didn’t work out?”
“Well, you might have heard yourself. He left. Went into business. Did well for himself, but it wasn’t the same thing.”
“Did anybody ever figure out why he left?”
“I guess so. But it isn’t something anybody would want to talk about. Not openly.”
“I understand. You wouldn’t by any chance know how to get in touch with Brendan?”
He looked at me in surprise.
/> “Some friends of mine,” I said, staring off toward the flanks of the escarpment. “They were close. I think they’d like to know where he got to.”
“I think I have a phone number somewhere. A Toronto number. It might be in my book. Somebody from home gave it to me . . . in case I was ever in Toronto.”
Bishop's Man Page 31
