When the phone rang at mid-morning, I assumed it was Sextus calling about the wallet, but it was the bishop. He was conciliatory. He wanted me to come over right away. We should sit down together with the lawyers, get their advice. He used “we” a lot and I knew it was deliberate. There were the Mounties and there was MacLeod. There was going to be publicity and we needed guidance.
“We need a strategy,” he said. “Plus, you have an in with MacLeod.”
Finally I said: “I’m not sure what I can contribute.”
I knew he was having a difficult time suppressing his exasperation.
“Don’t you worry about that,” he said wearily. “Just get yourself over here. I’m going to tell them two this afternoon.”
When he was gone, I looked at the clock. Not quite noon, I thought.
Ah, well. It’s noon somewhere. Reached for the cupboard.
{25}
I showered and dressed. I think it was just as I reached for the can of shaving lather that I decided: No power on earth or in heaven could persuade me to go to see the bishop. I’m finished.
Pat came by a little later, before I’d completely lost control. I heard the car outside and had time to conceal my glass. I was sitting in the living room, breviary on my lap, when I heard her in the kitchen.
“Hello,” I called out. “Who is it?”
“Only me,” she answered in her merry voice. “Just checking in.”
Plans for the baptism, I thought as she entered the room and perched on the arm of an easy chair. I waited, but she just sat and seemed to be studying me.
“You look so tired,” she said eventually. “How have you been sleeping?”
I dismissed the inquiry with a wave of my hand. “You get old. You always look tired.”
“Old. You’re far from old.”
“You’re a nice lady.”
“I was just heading for town,” she said, standing. “Wondered if there was anything you need.”
I assured her that I didn’t need anything she could find in town.
She laughed. “I’ll go, then … Do you mind if I use the bathroom first?”
There’s a small toilet off the kitchen, but I heard her footsteps on the stairs, then I heard her moving about above me. And then silence.
When she came down, she seemed distracted and I asked if everything was okay.
“Yes,” she said. With a weak smile and a wave of the hand, she left, and it was only when she was gone that I understood.
The wallet, I told myself. She was looking for the wallet, and I almost laughed aloud.
When Stella arrived, my cheer was much improved. This time I didn’t have a chance to hide the glass, so I asked if she’d join me. She declined.
“You’ve had an early start,” she said.
“Oh, come on. What’s wrong with a cocktail before dinner?” When I stood to reassure her, I staggered, and sat down again quickly, hoping she hadn’t noticed. Finally I said, “You’ll have to forgive me.” And to my horror, I felt hot tears of self-pity. Fortunately, she was looking away at that particular moment.
Then she stood in front of my chair and leaned to rest her hands on the arms, staring directly into my eyes. “I’m really worried about you.”
I remember reaching up clumsily, attempting to draw her down toward me. But she caught my wrists and freed herself.
“No,” she said quietly. She bent, reached down beside my chair and took my glass, and was about to leave when I spoke sharply. Considerably louder than I’d intended.
“God damn it, put that back.”
She turned, a shocked expression on her face.
“I’m not a child,” I said. “I don’t need a mother.”
The words seemed to hang in the air.
“I don’t need a mother,” I repeated. The words had a grand liberating ring to them.
“Fine,” she said, and handed me the glass.
I didn’t realize she was gone until I heard the door close behind her.
Then Mullins was standing in the room.
“Jesus Christ,” I said sharply. “What is this? Grand Central Station?”
I’ll say this for Mullins: he’s quick on the uptake. “I seem to have come at a bad moment,” he said.
“No, no,” I said, struggling out of the chair. “You’ve come at the perfect moment.” I was in danger of falling. “What can I do you for?” And I started to laugh. One of my old man’s favourite expressions: What can I do you for? “Come on. Let me get you a little drink.”
He had his hand on my arm, attempting to steer me toward the chesterfield. “Here, I think you should sit over here and rest. Close your eyes for a minute. I’ll wait.”
I tried to shake him off but, fearing a complete collapse, sat heavily. “I don’t know how this happened,” I muttered.
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly.
“Where did you drop from?”
“Just passing by.”
I wagged a finger, eyes closed. “Lying is a mortal sin,” I said.
I’m not sure how long I slept. Maybe an hour. When I opened my eyes, Mullins was still there.
“Hey,” he said. “He is risen. Alleluia.”
The room was softly lit.
“Let me get you a cup of tea,” he said, walking toward the kitchen. “I took the liberty.”
I struggled to my feet and followed him. He was pouring.
“I have a prayer group tonight,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be off. You’ll be okay?”
“I’m fine. You didn’t have to bother.”
“No bother at all,” he said, handing me a steaming mug. “I’d really like to stay, but—”
“Really. You shouldn’t—”
“By the way,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “His Excellency over the way called while you were asleep. Seemed surprised that I was here. I acted as though we visit all the time. He said he was expecting you … over there.” He paused for a moment, expectantly. “I told him that I’d just dropped by and that you were out. I don’t consider that a lie. Do you?”
Not a bad fellow, that Mullins, I thought, watching him disappear down the lane.
I realize, in retrospect, that it was inevitable Sextus would show up. But I was still surprised when he did. I must have known that he wouldn’t be able to pretend he hadn’t lost his wallet in the bishop’s room, and I can’t imagine that, with his devious mind, he wouldn’t have known that I’d have figured out what he’d been doing there. It was all so sordid, and probably, in a different time and place, funny in a farcical way.
When he finally arrived, I was at the kitchen table and I had the wallet opened up in front of me. Normally I’d have felt guilty, exploring someone’s privacy. When we were boys, he always carried a condom in his wallet. A French safe, we called it. The one place nobody would ever look. He only stopped when the familiar outline of the thing became permanently imprinted on the leather.
Now, no condom in the wallet. I understand women now take the responsibility. So much for Humanae Vitae. There was ninety-five dollars in cash. Credit and debit cards. The driver’s licence. A health card. All in little slots. I’d decided to explore deeper into the recesses. He’d obviously had it for years and it had softened and rounded to conform to his hip. I found old movie stubs, some tickets for the Toronto Transit Commission. A laundry receipt from 1989. And a small photograph of Cassie. His and Effie’s daughter. My niece. How did the bishop describe us? Asymmetrical, I think. A gentler word than dysfunctional.
“What are you doing?” he asked. I noticed traces of a chill in his tone.
“Just browsing,” I said.
“That’s my wallet.”
“So I see.”
“Do you mind?” he said, picking it up and examining it quickly.
I had Cassie’s photo in my hand.
“I have to say,” he said, colour rising in his cheeks, “I feel a little bit … violated.”
“Do you now,” I said calml
y.
I knew he was in transition from anxiety to indignation. Probably fretted all the way here about how he was going to broach the subject of the missing wallet, already informed by Pat that she didn’t find it where it should have been, at the scene of the crime.
Our eyes were locked. We’ve known each other so long, I thought, the mental processes are probably identical.
“Okay, then,” he said finally. “Let’s not fuck around. You found it. You know what’s going on. Give me the picture.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “How many times?”
“What is this? Confession?”
“Maybe that would be appropriate.”
“Okay,” he replied, smiling. “Four times. What’s my penance?”
“And, also just from curiosity, what was the charm of this place? Why didn’t you use your own pad for the little tryst?”
“What’s the difference? It was spontaneous and it happened here. Plus, the old lady keeps her on a short leash … She doesn’t want to stray too far.” He quickly snatched the photo from my hand and shoved it into a compartment of the wallet.
“She’s a beautiful young woman,” I said.
“Pat?”
“No. Cassie. John used to say she looks like a Gillis. But I see my sister in her face.”
He was looking at me suspiciously.
“Have you talked to Effie lately?” I asked.
“What’s this all about?” he said.
“I don’t know. Call me old-fashioned.”
“That’s your whole problem.”
“Really?”
“I could see it in your face, looking at Cassie’s picture. The longing. That’s the tragedy of your predicament.”
“Interesting way of putting it. ‘The tragedy of—’”
“You need a woman,” he said, taking a bottle from the cupboard.
“You seem to have some spares,” I said, but he ignored me. “Are you offering to share your inventory?”
He turned and smiled. “I guess we’re even now.”
“Oh?”
“Invading each other’s privacy.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“This Jacinta. You never told me.”
“You said you didn’t—”
“Ah, well,” he sighed. “I guess I lied.”
“You really are a prick.”
“And this Alfonso guy. How did you guys ever work out your little thing over—how do you pronounce that name? Jacinta? Or Ya-cintha. Your little … ménage.”
I just stared.
“You walked in before I got to the end of the story. You left me hanging. When can I read the rest?”
“Be my guest,” I said. “You know where my journals are.”
I walked out.
The church, I realized, is always warmer than the house. A waste of energy, I suppose, but necessary. Old buildings suffer when neglected, like old people. You have to keep them warm and busy. I’ve failed to keep the old place busy. Confessions from time to time. Sunday masses. A funeral now and then. Hardly ever a wedding or a baptism. The wind outside has a different sound now. Softer in its exploration of the corners and the windows. Soft hands pressing. Spring, I realize. It is spring again.
It was spring, May 29, 1977, to be exact. It was Pentecost Sunday. You could smell the freshness, the fragrance of hope. In the soft mornings the flower scents and the tart charcoal smoke mingled in the heavy mist when I’d creep through the silent house, getting the coffee ready for Alfonso and the others. But on this Sunday morning, May 29, he seemed to have risen before me. I know it was the twenty-ninth because, the evening before, he remarked that this day would be John F. Kennedy’s birthday. If he had lived, he’d be turning sixty. Hard to imagine. Kennedy an old man. And we speculated briefly on a different kind of world. A world without Johnson, without Nixon. Maybe without Vietnam. I wouldn’t be so sure of that, someone said. Kennedy was also an imperialist.
And now I could see a light from the tiny cubicle Alfonso calls his office. He didn’t answer when I softly called a greeting. I imagined that he did, but I now know differently. He was always quiet in the mornings. Alfonso was not a morning person. And when I brought the mug of coffee to where he was sitting, I realized that he had probably been there all night. He had his head down on the desk. It had become his common practice to stay up late, long into the small hours of the morning, reading, writing. Sleeping there was not uncommon, ever since March and the murder of his friend Rutilio. Always reading and writing. It was his way, he said, of finding truth in chaos.
I touched his shoulder gently. Hey, buddy, I whispered. Room service. He didn’t move. And then, in the light of the reading lamp, I saw that the papers spread in front of him were blackened from a viscous stream that began behind his ear, followed his jawline and his arm over the back of his pale, motionless hand, covering his documents then dripping over the edge of the desk, finally pooling on the floor around my feet.
I heard the sound of wind stirring, but it was not the wind. It was the church door, opening carefully, closing softly. I felt his presence behind me. Breathed deeply.
“I wasn’t sure where you went,” he said quietly.
A small sound then, some tiny creature scurrying, disturbed by our voices.
“It’s peaceful here,” he said. And then he was beside me. He was carrying a tumbler and it was almost full.
“Take a sip.”
I did, and it was strong. Straight liquor.
“I really am a prick,” he said. “Why didn’t you just slug me?”
“I haven’t slugged anyone for years. Plus, it doesn’t help.”
We were side by side, looking straight ahead toward the small, flickering lights beside the altar.
“True,” he said. “There really isn’t anything we can do.”
“No.”
“Just go with the flow, I guess.”
We sat like that for a while, handing the glass back and forth.
“We’re the spawn of the most screwed-up, violent, self-absorbed, navel-gazing century in human history.”
“Hmmmmm.”
“And buddy up there, hanging on the Cross,” he said, nodding toward the front of the church. “He’s done dick-all to mitigate it. He dropped the ball. Agree or disagree?”
“What’s it doing out?” I asked. “Is it windy?”
“God, no. It’s beautiful. It’s almost spring.”
A car drove past.
“Who was this Alfonso, then?” he asked. “He must have been some heavy guy. Politically.”
“Ahhhh. Alfonso.”
Who was Alfonso?
“Alfonso was … I don’t know. Just a priest, I guess.”
BOOK FOUR
† † †
In the Lord put I my trust:
how say ye to my soul,
Flee as a bird to your mountain?
PSALMS
{26}
And then it was June. The corrosive winter wind had stripped long flakes of paint from the hull of the Jacinta. A cab door had blown open. The VHF aerial veered crookedly, half off the roof. I made a list of the jobs I had to do. Charge battery. Change oil. Sand and repaint hull. Replace ropes. The clarity was a relief. Perhaps it would clear the way for larger questions and answers. The sound in the distance, a vehicle rounding the turn by MacDougall’s, was a distraction. I stopped and watched. It was a truck.
I returned to the examination of my boat. A week of work, I figured, and she’d be ready for the water again.
The truck slowed, turned toward where I was parked. It was Danny Ban. He drove carefully over the rutted ground. Stopped and climbed out, a large hand gripping the door frame as he steadied himself. He approached carrying a cane, shook my hand wordlessly, examining my face.
“It’s staying cold,” he said.
“It is.”
“June is always like that here. You can’t trust the slut.”
I smiled. I noticed a faint trace of
alcohol on his breath. I’m more conscious of it now.
“How are you, anyway, Danny?”
“Ah, well,” he said, studying the horizon. “Gettin’ by.” He turned away then, to study the Jacinta. “She’s looking a little the worse for the hard winter we had.”
I nodded.
He moved slowly between the boats, bending, examining, eyes narrowed. Reached into his pocket and removed a jack-knife, opened the blade and jabbed at the bottom of the hull in places. “She’s in good shape, considering the shape she’s in. A little soft here and there, like the rest of us.” Stood straight and smiled. Then looked toward his son’s boat. The Lady Hawthorne. “This one stood up okay. That’s where the fibreglass puts them ahead of the old ones. Snow gets in, but it doesn’t bother them.”
The face was sorrowful. “I suppose you heard. I sold her last month. Got a decent offer and figured what the hell. She’s no good to me. Just another reminder. Got enough of those. I told the fella I’d prefer if somebody took her out of here altogether. Jackie Dan J. sold the Lady Amy and she went to Cheticamp. That’s what I wanted. Somewhere far away from here. But buddy said he wants to stay here in Little Harbour. So I told him he was going to have to change the name and paint her a different colour. He agreed to that.”
There was the sudden roar of a diesel reversing, a boat returning from the lobster banks, positioning itself below the winch at the loading dock. We stood and watched for a while.
“Cameron Angus D. is late today,” he said.
“So who bought it?” I asked at last.
“Oh. I didn’t tell you. That American who ties up behind yourself. Dave. He needs something for getting back and forth to his island. Wanted something bigger than the one he had so he can make her into a yacht eventually.”
I laughed. The American.
Finally he said, “You were away for a while.”
“Yes. A little rehabilitation.”
† † †
Though it was near the start of spring, winter still ruled the darkness. Our feet crunched the crystal snow as Sextus and I shuffled beside his truck, thinking the words that failed to capture our regrets. He laid a hand on my forearm briefly, then opened the truck door and climbed in.
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