“The funniest thing was I started getting Christmas cards from that same cop a couple of years later. Kind of his way of saying, if they wanted to do something, they’d have had no problem finding me. Real friendly cards. Every year friendlier, like we really knew one another. Actually, one came the other day. Where did you put that, Jessie?”
“It’s around somewhere,” she called wearily from the kitchen.
“He was saying how Toronto has changed. How it’s gettin’ dangerous. No more good clean fights, like in the old days. Nothin’ but guns and gangs anymore.”
Then there was a long silence.
“Isn’t going to be much Christmas around here this year,” he said.
I nodded sympathetically.
“I think he got to be deputy chief, that cop did. Retired now, of course.”
“That’s a good story.”
“It was me persuaded Jess to come home. Big mistake, looking back on it.”
Jessie returned and put a fresh drink beside me.
“Not to say bad things wouldn’t have happened there too. But it’s like you expect bad things to happen among strangers. They kind of catch you by surprise when they happen at home. You know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“He could have become anything, you know. With a few of the kind of opportunities you get in other places. He could have been a priest, for all I know. He talked about it once.”
I nodded. The comfort phrases normally would rise from instinct, but I couldn’t utter a word. So we sat quietly for another minute.
“I don’t think I mentioned this before,” I said eventually. “Father Bell, or former Father Bell, I should say … Brendan was around last summer asking about everybody. I don’t suppose you saw him?”
“No,” said Jessie. “But he called after the funeral and all. Expressing sympathy. He seemed to feel real bad about what happened.”
“Salt of the earth, that Father Bell was,” Danny said. “Typical Newf. Never knew a Newfoundlander I didn’t like. It never crossed my mind to ask him … maybe Danny tried to get in touch with him. That’s the hardest thing of all. Thinking he was so sad … and he never tried to talk to anybody.”
Jessie bowed her head and became silent. Wiped her face furtively.
“He never talked to you. Right?”
I shook my head. “I never really got the opening.”
“Oh, I can well understand that feeling,” Danny said.
But even if I had had the opening, what could I have said?
I remember Sandy Gillis on the doorstep. I think it was the last time I ever saw him. Mid-November, 1963. He seemed sober, which was unusual. He normally only came to our place drunk. To start fights with my father. Every time they talked about the war, they fought. Is the old man in? No, I said, even though he was asleep on the kitchen lounge. But Sandy seemed uncharacteristically subdued. Something about him changed. Fight gone. He seemed to be staring at my feet. Ah, well, he said, it isn’t anything important. But he continued standing there, as if trying to think of things to say. I think he asked about my studies. I remember his eyes, disconnected, as if wired into a different time and place, or some new, fatal knowledge. And still, the words were unusual for their warmth. I was uneasy. It was the disconnection between the words and the eyes and everything I knew of him. He turned suddenly and stepped away. Paused briefly.
“You don’t have to mention to the old fellow that I was here,” he said. “It was nothing in particular.”
And he was gone. I should have seen what was coming next. But the future has no substance until it turns the corner into history.
{18}
The bishop seemed concerned. I had two calls in a week. Not from the secretary or one of his flunkies, but from himself.
“And how is Creignish these days?” he’d ask, as if he didn’t know.
That was mid-December.
“Creignish is just grand,” I said. “Winter is settling in, of course.”
“You should plan on a getaway after Christmas. Skedaddle for a week. Someplace hot.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” He then paused, as if wondering how to get to the point of the call, so I decided to help him.
“I spoke to Mullins,” I said. “I relayed the message.”
“Ah, yes. Mullins. Good.” Then he cleared his throat. “You didn’t happen to hear from some reporter named MacLeod?”
The name was familiar. I hesitated. “About what?”
“The kid from Hawthorne. The suicide. You know the family, I think. MacKay. This MacLeod’s been calling around.”
I hadn’t heard from a reporter named MacLeod. “Who did he call?”
“Mullins.”
“Mullins?”
“He called Mullins, asking about Bell. Didn’t know the first name. I’m afraid Mullins gave it to him. Then Mullins called me, all confused. Asking what’s up with Bell. First I thought you must have filled him in.”
“The reporter is whistling in the wind.”
“Probably,” he said. Then: “I don’t think we have to worry about him. We were wise to keep Mullins out of the loop. I think I’ve dealt with this MacLeod before, years back. Over some of the other stuff. He’ll go away.”
“And how was Mullins?”
“I think he was more concerned about the protocol of me sending you to talk to him about his sermons on the shore than about Bell or some reporter asking strange questions. Knickers in a knot over that. I stroked him and he felt better. But you don’t think Bell …”
“I don’t think so.”
“Even so, there’s the optics. This would be our Mount Cashel if the media got wind of it.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to it.”
“Would you happen to know how to get a hold of Bell?”
“Maybe. To do what?”
“Tip him off. Tell him to keep his head down. Don’t talk to any reporters.”
In the morning, I called the chancery in Toronto, told them who I was and that I was trying to find a friend who used to work there. Brendan Bell.
There was a chuckle. “Ah, Brendan.” She just happened to know that he spent his winters in the south. In the Caribbean, she thought. “You know he’s married.”
“Yes.”
“He’s done well for himself. Turned into quite the businessman.”
“Oh?”
“Hotels, I think. Anyway, he gets to spend his winters in the tropics, lucky man.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a way of reaching him?”
“Well, I have a cellphone number somewhere.”
A place in the tropics. A BMW. Hotels. A wife. I remembered the look of him the previous summer, all tanned and athletic. Handsome, you could say. Full of self-confidence. They say the eyes reveal the state of the soul, and his eyes were clear as the blue sky that day.
For a few foggy moments I couldn’t be sure if I was sleeping or awake. There was a phone call. Someone named MacLeod. It was 1988 or 1989. There was an older gentleman, the caller said, an older priest, a retired professor, now an assistant at the cathedral … living on the campus. There was a rumour. They call him Father Roddie.
I hadn’t heard. And why call me?
“Someone said that if anybody knew about it, you would.”
“Someone is trying to lead you astray,” I said. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. I could see his face, a window on his sanctity.
Keep the bishop out of it this time, I thought.
Father Roddie was a bit dishevelled when he greeted me at the door of his apartment, squinting in the dim light. The years had bestowed a reassuring aura of harmlessness. He was pot-bellied and grey. His face had assumed what seemed to be a permanent expression of piety and kindness.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “I haven’t seen you for years.” We shook hands. “You still have the grip,” he said with a laugh.
I smiled.
“I’d forgotten all
that,” he said. “The misunderstanding.”
I nodded.
“And you dropped out of sight for a while, I do believe. The missions somewhere, wasn’t it?”
“Honduras.”
“Ah, yes. Lucky you. I always regretted missing the experience of the far-off lands.” He sounded genuine. “Actually, I remember you more clearly from before all that. When you were just a student. Quite bright. You stood out. Great grasp of … large concepts. You were interested in the European phenomenologists, I think.”
We were still standing in his doorway.
“It’s like yesterday,” he said. “You’d be coming to my place in Chisholm House for our little chats. You must remember? You’d be spouting Heidegger at me … just to get my goat.”
And we both laughed then.
“What am I thinking?” he said. “Keeping you standing here like a stranger. Come in. Come in.”
His room was austere, but the walls were jammed to the ceiling with books, newspapers and manuscripts strewn about, and half-read books lay open on every available surface. We made small talk for just a minute or two longer.
By then I had developed an instinct for guilt. You could feel it in the room even before it became obvious in the eyes.
After a lull in the conversation he said, “I think I know why you’re here.” He sighed and smiled. Removed his glasses, wiped them slowly with his sleeve.
“Oh?”
“No Heidegger today, I guess. Just as well. I’m a little rusty on my German. Would you have a drink of something?”
“No.”
“I’m aware of some of your … shall we say extracurricular activities during the past few years.”
“Activities?”
“Oh, come on. The Exorcist. You must have heard that one. The Purificator. No malice intended. You’ve done some great work. Hard, thankless work, performed with admirable discretion.” He sat there smiling, confidence returning like the tide. “A one-man Inquisition. Remember how mad you’d get when I’d bring up Heidegger’s Nazi affiliations?” He never stopped smiling. “By the way, does Alex know you’re here?”
“Alex?”
“Bishop Alex. We were classmates, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“We play bridge once a week. We’re partners. Maybe that’s how I know about your … work. Alex thinks you’re the cat’s pyjamas. Wouldn’t be surprised to see you in his job one day.”
“I didn’t know he played bridge.”
“I’d been planning to talk to him, actually. About certain malicious stories. You’ve obviously heard them. There’s a reporter spreading them around. A fellow named MacLeod, I think. You’re sure I can’t offer you anything? I think you like Balvenie.”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, then. Let’s just get it out in the open. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been putting it off. Confronting this thing.”
Always watch the eyes.
They were blue and I swear they twinkled. He had bushy white eyebrows, broken blood vessels at the tip of the nose.
He acknowledged that he had a drinking problem. It started in Korea. Didn’t I know that he’d served in the army? Just stupid drinking then. But after he came back, he’d hit the booze to escape the flashbacks and the depression that haunted him. The things he saw. The things he heard about. Did I know he was a chaplain with the PPCLI?
The what?
Princess Pat’s … light infantry.
I nodded.
“War,” he said. “An awful thing. But you know that already.” He sighed. “I thought, being a priest, I’d be able to handle it. I was sure the faith would help put everything in perspective.”
He’d been getting help, he said, for the drinking. The other stuff? It wasn’t worthy of response. Some poor little retarded girl and a combination of misunderstanding and miscommunication. “That and a chalice full of malice.” He smiled. “But I suspect you know the way it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Well. Your own father. Surely you, of all people, would understand.”
“He says he’s your bridge partner.”
I said it lightly, to avoid offence or pain.
The bishop looked like he was going to be sick. “I can’t believe you just landed in on him like that. It must have been a terrible shock for him, that kind of an … ambush. Especially with the history you two have. That business in the seventies.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“But you’re bothering me now.”
“Yes. I’ve asked around. Credible people confirm it. Father Roddie isn’t a well man. Hasn’t been for decades. Even he admits he has a problem.”
He sighed deeply. “You just won’t let go of it, will you. What did Father Roddie ever do to you?”
“There’s possibly more to it than we know. I’ve met with one of the accusers, by the way.”
“You mean the retarded one?”
“You know about her?”
He waved a hand dismissively. He was sitting behind his desk, eyes cast down, fiddling with paper clips. “At least it isn’t an altar boy this time. At least it’s a … female.”
“These things aren’t about sex,” I said.
“Whatever.” He sighed. “Okay. Leave this to me.”
“That really isn’t—”
“I’ll handle it,” he snapped, eyes burning. “Are you getting hard of hearing?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Is that all?”
“Father Roddie made a strange reference to my father.”
“He did? So what.”
MacLeod remembered me. There was familiarity in the voice on the other end of the line. “How’re ya doin’, Father?”
He reminded me our paths had crossed before, when there were rumours about some elderly priest. Did I know Roddie MacVicar? Doc Roddie, he was called by some. The eminent philosopher. Aquinas expert. Suspected pervert.
“I had him as a prof,” I said.
There was gossip years ago. My name came up, according to MacLeod, because it seems I was a parish assistant where something happened. There was even a story of a physical confrontation involving me and the old man. And that I got exiled over it, to somewhere in Central America.
“Absurd,” I said.
“That would have been some story, eh? What I heard was … you, I guess, half throttled the old guy. I said at the time, ‘If what I hear is true … more power to him.’”
“Somebody was pulling your leg.”
“I’m sure. Wishful thinking on someone’s part. But maybe if there had been more of that kind of old-fashioned reaction to things back then, we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re looking at now.”
“What,” I asked, curiosity now in charge, “was the eventual outcome of your story back … when was it?”
“The seventies, I think. I dropped it. I remember calling the bishop at the time. He denied it flatly. In the end he persuaded me that the potential damage to an important institution like the Church was a strong argument for discretion.”
“I suppose there’s something to that.”
“It was probably the right call … then. I’m glad we didn’t get sucked into the hysteria, like in Newfoundland and Boston.”
“That wouldn’t have helped anybody.”
“Precisely.” There was a long pause before he asked: “So you probably don’t remember the second time I called?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“The old boy got up to it again. Late eighties, I think.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He laughed. “You gotta hand it to the old bugger. He must have been near seventy that time. It was about some handicapped person. A girl.”
“And what happened to that story?”
“The usual. Nobody talking. The old stone wall treatment. Anyway. That’s history. We might have a new situation now.”
He said Brendan Bell’s name turned up while he was f
ollowing the recent prosecutions of priests in Newfoundland. He noted a reference to our diocese, Antigonish. A priest with a sex-related conviction in Newfoundland had ended up in Nova Scotia. Interesting, he thought, that they’d send him here. Did I know anything about it?
“What was the name again?”
“Bell. Brendan. I’m told you might have been acquainted with him.”
“The name sounds familiar. It rings a bell.” We both laughed. “Have you asked the bishop?”
“I did. He claims this Bell guy is out now. Gone from the priesthood. Hasn’t got a clue where he landed. I thought of you. Maybe you’d know.”
“Me? You obviously think I’ve been mixed up in all the scandals.”
“Well … I wouldn’t mind talking about that sometime if you’re comfortable with it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Okay, then. Bell. What do you know about Bell?”
“I remember his name and I think I heard he got married, as a matter of fact. He dropped out of sight a while back.”
“Got married?”
“That was what I heard, I think, from someone at the archdiocese in Toronto. They definitely said that Bell was getting married.”
You could feel the deflation on the other end of the line. “That’s kind of weird,” he said finally.
“What is?”
“Father Bell, getting married.”
“Not so weird anymore. More than half of my classmates from Holy Heart are happily married family men now.”
“Yes. I suppose. There’s that. But Bell? I wouldn’t have thought he’d be the marrying kind.”
There was a long pause.
“I’ll be honest with you, Father,” MacLeod said at last. “I got a tipoff. That this suicide in Little Harbour—I’m sure you heard of it, this young MacKay fellow from Hawthorne—I heard it might have had something to do with abuse. This Bell guy’s name came up.”
This is where you say nothing.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I sighed.
“I know what you’re thinking. The witch hunt, eh? People looking for sexual abuse under every rock.”
“You have your job to do.”
“I know. It isn’t something I particularly enjoy. I appreciate your understanding.”
The Bishop's Man: A Novel Page 20
