“I guess there’s a pretty interesting story behind that picture.”
“Good night,” I said.
This one wasn’t a priest I knew very well, which made the prospect of my visit a little easier. He met me at the door of the glebe looking slightly dishevelled, showing signs of stress. I could smell alcohol, though it was still morning. Possibly from the night before.
“You know why I’m here,” I said when we were seated in his study.
“I could probably guess.” He lit a cigarette and toyed with the match, watching it burn until it was almost at his fingers. For a moment I was distracted by the proximity of flame to flesh. He shook the match then and dropped it in an empty glass, sighed and slouched. “I’m aware of gossip.”
“I’m afraid it’s more than gossip.”
“I see.”
“But I want to hear your version of events.”
“Why bother. I’m sure you’ve made up your mind already.”
So I just waited, which was what I’d learned to do. Somewhere in the distance a fire truck started up a frightening cacophony of sirens and blaring horns.
“You try to do your job proactively,” he said, fiddling with the cigarette. “You get bored. You go out of your way to engage with the young people. That’s the place to start, isn’t it? Maybe get them interested in a little bit more than the crap they watch on T V. Try to involve them in the life of the parish. Help make citizens out of them.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I ever tried.”
“You seem to be denying that there was anything improper in your relationships with …” I nodded toward the notebook in my hand, but I didn’t open it.
“I suppose it’s all written down there,” he said, staring at the notebook. “All the freaking lies.”
“There are five names, each with several specific allegations. I can go through them. But I’m not going to name names unless—”
“You don’t have to. I know who they are and I know what they’ve been saying.”
“Okay.”
“How much do you know about the five accusers?”
“I know what they’re alleging.”
He laughed. Is that all you know?
“Help me out,” I said.
“Do your homework. Look for the common denominator.”
“The common denominator?”
“Drugs. A bunch of little potheads. But different from the normal run of bad boys, the boys like I was—from the wrong side of the tracks. Down by the coke ovens. The guys who curse and swear and drink. Those, in your little notebook, are a bunch of little goody-goodies, little fags from Boulderwood who get caught using dope and start to make up lies to cover their tracks. They’re trauma tized. They make me want to puke. But enough of that. What are you here for?”
“You’re denying what they’ve said?” I flipped open the notebook.
He laughed and shook his head. “How long have you been a priest?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I replied.
“How come I don’t know you?”
I shrugged.
“Of course, I’ve seen you around and heard all about you. But you’re one of the few I don’t know personally. Why do you think that is?”
“I think this is a little bit off topic.”
“Maybe. But you know, there was a time when we were all more or less on the same team. Brothers, in a way. It had to be that way. We covered for one another. Somebody screwed up and the impulse was to protect the institution. Avoid scandal. We’re all human. Some of us slip up. Oh, we’ve all known Father So-and-So, the piss tank. And the odd guy who’s banging some parishioner’s wife or swiping money from the missions to cover a little gambling problem. But you never heard of them, outside the sacristy.”
“Where’s this going?”
“Now it’s dog eat dog,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “Someone makes a little slip and it’s ‘call out the troops.’ It gets in the papers and it’s ‘throw buddy to the wolves.’ Throw him off the freaking raft to make them go away … Can’t have them poking around our underwear drawers lest they get stuff on the rest of us. Right? Isn’t that the way it is?”
Before I left, I told him the good news. That we’d persuaded the families to drop plans to lodge a formal complaint with the police. The case was closed.
He looked away, managing to hide any feelings of relief. I knew it was an act and struggled to resist grabbing him and pounding his arrogance into pulp. Suppressed memories of my father and Sandy Gillis flooded my mind. Just for a moment I asked myself, Why can’t I be like one of them? A man for a change. The way I once, briefly, was. Smash him down. Rejoice over the sight and smell and taste of his blood.
“It’s really of no consequence to me,” he sighed. “I will say that, in spite of what you might think, I’m relieved that the diocese will be spared a lot of unnecessary scandal and expense. I figured, when this all first arose, that it was about money. A bit of blackmail. I, of course, would have told them where to go, and I hope you would have too.”
I interrupted. “You will go to Halifax tomorrow, early. You will be on a flight to Toronto at nine a.m. You will be met at the airport there and taken to a place called Braecrest. It’s a treatment centre. If nothing else, it’s a chance for you to deal with the booze problem.”
“And after that?”
“We’ll see.” I handed him the package from the travel agency.
He accepted it and stared at it for a moment. “This Braecrest,” he said wearily. “Does it by any chance have a golf course?”
It was mid-afternoon when I left him, and the thought of driving back to the university depressed me. The steel plant was still in business then and the reddish plumes hanging above the stacks of the open-hearth furnaces were like a summons. And then I was driving past the Tar Pond, past the sprawling mall on Prince Street and through the shabby streets of Whitney Pier. And though I hadn’t been there in many years, it wasn’t hard to find. The headstones, darker now from the years of soot and ore dust and airborne acid, more difficult to read.
I knelt, not so much in reverence but to once again examine the fading letters.
CATHERINE MACASKILL
MAY 15, 1920—MAY 24, 1951
Sith do d’anam
“Peace to your soul.”
I tried to imagine a face, but there was only darkness, the roar and the clang of the steel mill below me, a thunderous silence within.
Who are you? Who am I? Did he ever, in his moments of intimacy, tell you about himself, his childhood? Did he ever mention Hawthorne?
It was dark when I left. I could have spent the night at Holy Name or Holy Redeemer or St. Anthony Daniel. Any one of half a dozen parishes with their rambling, empty houses. But I knew what my unannounced arrival had come to mean. I knew what my fellow priests would think, seeing me at the door. I could imagine the fleeting look of fear, then wariness. And then the long evening of formality. Or perhaps, after a drink or two, lectures on the wickedness of lay people and the anticlericalism that was surfacing and victimizing all of us. How we should all be covering each other’s backs, not making matters worse, feeding the flames of hysteria.
I checked into the Holiday Inn on King’s Road. On the way I stopped at the George Street liquor store and bought a bottle of whisky. That night I sat in the darkened motel room watching television until the bottle was gone.
{12}
It was late April before I encountered young Danny MacKay again. I was at the harbour and they were there, he and his father. Their truck was backed up to the side of the wharf and they were unloading lobster traps. The wind was raw, but the glittering sun was beginning to convey some warmth again and they were working in shirt sleeves.
Young Danny seemed sullen and I attributed his mood to whoever or whatever had caused a conspicuous bruise on his cheekbone.
“We’re back for another year,” said Danny Ban. “The MS seems to be stalled. Remission, they’re saying. For who knows h
ow long?”
“And how are things with you, Danny?” I asked the boy.
“Good,” he said, continuing to heft the traps from the truck to the wharf. “Things are going good.”
“I haven’t seen you around lately. You should drop in sometime you’re in the area.”
“Maybe,” he said. And walked away.
His father and I watched him go in silence.
“He’s all right,” Danny Ban said eventually. “He turned into a good man in spite of everything.”
I waited for elaboration, but there was none coming.
He seemed to be studying the horizon, looking for clues about the weather.
“A fella never knows,” he said after a long pause. Then he excused himself and called out to the boy: “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Young Danny just waved a reply. Danny Ban slammed the truck door and drove away.
I stood for about fifteen minutes, leaning against the fender of my car, trying to ignore the chill. Finally the boy reappeared. He seemed surprised I was still there. He walked over, removing his work gloves slowly, studying the ground. Then he smiled.
“I was thinking afterwards. It must have seemed kind of foolish to you, that evening. Me dithering about something as ordinary as getting married. Making such a big deal of it.”
“It’s a big step. You’re right to think it through.”
“There’s things you don’t know. You aren’t the only one with things that can’t be talked about.”
“Maybe I know more than you think I know.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t doubt that. But there’s a couple of things you don’t know. Okay?”
“You’re the boss,” I said.
He laughed. “I’d never figure you as a priest. When I saw you and Aunt Stella coming in together at Christmas, I would have pegged you for anything but.”
“A priest is just another man.”
“Some are,” he said, then looked away quickly.
“I said before … any time you want to talk.”
“That picture. You and your friends, the woman and the other priest, wherever it was. I couldn’t get that picture out of my head afterwards.”
I was at a sudden loss for words.
“There was something in that picture. In the faces. Something powerful there. I couldn’t tell you what. But it hit me, just looking at it.” He spit on the ground. “Don’t ask me what I’m trying to say. But I was thinking afterwards … whatever it was I saw in that picture … that’s what’s missing here.”
“I could tell you about the picture sometime.”
“I’d like to hear the story. Everybody looked so happy in the picture. Maybe that’s what I’m missing.”
“We should try to get the most out of our happy moments. They never last.”
“Right on,” he said.
“Danny, if you can’t talk to me … there must be somebody. Talk to Stella.”
“I thought maybe going away would do the trick. I thought maybe getting out of here. A change. But Sally just thinks it’s me trying to give her the bounce. Me trying to dump her. You imagine—me trying to get rid of her.”
“I’m glad you didn’t leave. It’s going to work out.”
He looked away again.
I took a deep breath. “You mentioned once … work I had to do for the diocese. Involving some priests causing problems. I couldn’t talk about it. I still can’t. But … Brendan Bell …”
“I gotta go,” he said quickly, and strode off toward the boat.
After Mass on Sunday, Sally hurried by me with her head down as I stood by the door acknowledging my parishioners. I hadn’t seen her since the visit.
“Hey there,” I called out.
“Oh, hi,” she said as if she hadn’t noticed me.
“You’ve been a stranger.”
“You know the way the winter is around here. You go out as little as possible.”
“I saw your young man the other day. Down at the shore.”
“Oh,” she replied.
“How are things going there, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“They aren’t going at all.”
I waited for more. It was difficult to read her expression.
“A person can only take so much,” she said at last.
Effie arrived in early June. She said she’d be around for a few days of what she called fieldwork. She was writing a book. She wanted to visit the old lady we had met at Christmas. Old Peggy, in Hawthorne. It was mostly just an excuse to come home on someone else’s dime, she said. She had a small research grant.
“To research what?” I asked.
“As if he has to ask.”
“So where will you be staying?”
“Somewhere warm,” she said, smiling. “But I do want to open up the old place and air it out. I brought new curtains. Do you mind?”
“Be my guest,” I said.
She thought the kitchen stove was shot. Would I mind if she bought a new one?
“Why don’t you come to Hawthorne with me?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on. She’s an old lady. She’d love a visit.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or won’t?”
“I’m busy,” I said.
Perhaps it was the idleness. The images would come back spontaneously, at unexpected moments. And the self-doubt.
I had him by his throat, hard against the wall. I remember his glasses tilted almost sideways on his face, his thin grey hair all sprung, revealing pink scalp, mouth moving but no sound coming out. The boy was gone. And I was suddenly uncertain. Did I really see a boy? Where am I? Who is he? What am I doing?
Maybe the bishop was correct. What we think we see doesn’t always represent reality. The eye is unreliable sometimes.
Once, long ago, I saw a flash of something pale. Perhaps, as Father Roddie told me later, they really were looking for a missing pen behind the desk. A special pen, he said. You could believe it. I wanted to believe it. He had that quality about him, the kind of credibility that comes with utter self-confidence. And he was generous, reviewing what he called my “irrational” response. It is from appearances that scandals hatch, he said. He thanked me and forgave me, even for laying hands on him.
“You’ve been spending too much time with the existentialists. They’ll get you in trouble every time.” His eyes were teasing.
“I didn’t mean to … touch … you.”
“I’m a country boy. I’ve been grabbed before, and worse.” He laughed. “You have powerful hands, you know. I can only imagine if you had hit me. Whew.”
You want it to be true. You find comfort in the eyes, reassurance from the heavy hand that he has laid upon your shoulder, the sombre voice that speaks of collegiality, of character. He has been a mentor. He has been an exemplar. He is what you, in your pious dreaming, wanted to become. Revered, respected by lay and ministry alike. A priest who is also a Man. And thus you are reassured, all too easily. You agree, eventually: some time away will be restorative. And your bishop was prescient: it was in Honduras that your mission first came into focus; you saw, among the poor, the human fate as our Redeemer saw it, etched in lines upon the faces. I could see my mission in their eyes, the hope I represented. The bishop said I’d see the living faith the way it used to be. And he was absolutely right.
But in the darkness of insomnia, when the undisciplined mind revives the furtive images that started everything, there is the one that dominates, and it is unambiguous: the boy’s face, livid with disgust, and then transformed to terror when he sees what must be knowledge in my outrage. It is an image that will not go away.
Effie stopped by briefly on her way back to Toronto, her field trip finished. I knew she was troubled, and I knew why.
“How much of Daddy’s story do you know?” she asked.
“It depends. I know that his father never had a chance to marry his mother and that he died somewhere. Perhaps in the Fir
st World War.”
“The people out in Hawthorne treated Daddy’s mother like a tramp when she came home pregnant and unmarried. You knew that?”
“It doesn’t surprise me.”
“They basically sent her away to avoid scandal. The place was well named. Hawthorne. Think of The Scarlet Letter. Our grandma was Hester Prynne.” She laughed but didn’t smile.
“What are we driving at here?” I asked uneasily.
“You know she gave him up. For years he didn’t even know her name, for God’s sake.”
“Why does this stuff matter?”
“Because people matter, their stories matter.”
“Getting too wrapped up in ‘people’ and their stories can be dangerous,” I said.
“You bet your boots. But what else is there?”
The expression on her face invited argument. Come on, it said. Roll out your revelations, about eternity and resurrection, life in Paradise.
“So. When will you be home again?” I asked.
There was a knock at my door on a hot Tuesday morning in early July. Hardly anybody knocked by then; they’d usually just walk in, call me from the kitchen. Through the window of the study I could see a small green car parked near the church, a BMW. I went to the door full of curiosity, and it was Brendan Bell.
He was smiling broadly, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. His face was tight and tanned, his black hair swept back and held secure by a dose of gel. The little ponytail was gone. On his left hand was a shiny wedding ring.
My curiosity passed for a welcome and he came in.
“I was just going to make some coffee,” I lied.
He was passing through, he said. His wife had gone out west to visit relatives. This was a chance for him to touch base back in Newfoundland. Going to loop around Cape Breton on the way through. Perhaps stop in Port Hood for a day or so to look up some old acquaintances. “I heard you were here. How is everybody?”
“As usual,” I replied.
“Mullins, still the barrel of laughs?”
I laughed with him.
“Actually, old Mullins and I got along fine,” he said. “Mercifully, he didn’t know about my sordid history. I thank you for that.”
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