“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, sculpted 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 t
hat 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.”
We retreated back into our silences. Somewhere nearby someone laughed.
“That’s encouraging,” he said. “The sound of happiness.”
“So, Jude, if you don’t mind my asking—what brings you here?”
He sighed. “I’m a thief.”
The word just sits there between us. Thief.
He’s smiling. “And what about yourself? What brings you here?”
“That’s a complicated question,” I say.
“You don’t strike me as one of the usual run of addicts.”
“I’m not. But I’m curious about you. I’ve known a lot of priests.”
He stared at me. “How do you react to a priest being a thief?”
“I’m assuming that you’re speaking metaphorically,” I said.
“No,” he said cheerfully. “I’m a plain, unvarnished rip-off artist. Stole from the parish where I was an assistant. Knew how to fix the books so it wouldn’t show. Then, of course, there was an audit.”
“But why?”
“I had the absolute worst addiction there is. I’m a gambler who loses. Then I became a thief.”
“Gambling?”
“It started with lotto tickets. Before I knew it, I was back and forth to the casino in Montreal every chance I got and then some, getting deeper and deeper in the hole, until finally …” He shrugged. “And then, as so often happens, I picked up another addiction to cover the disgust I felt. I found that there are pills. Legal pills. In the drugstore. All you need is a sympathetic doc. And hey, when you wear the collar, everybody is sympathetic to your screw-ups. Makes them feel better about their own when the clergyman goes down. Especially a doctor. They love fallen priests.” He laughed then. “I’m not being bitter about it. It’s all my own fault. From the get-go.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
He held up his hand. “Say nothing. It’s all behind me now. It’s history. No more addiction. Except for the smokes. I tell them all that, but it’s like they’re waiting for more. Waiting for the big one.”
“The big one?”
“The sexual stuff.”
I shrugged, hoping he would stop there.
“But when you have my kinds of addictions, celibacy is a snap. Sex couldn’t possibly match the ecstasies I’ve experienced. Sex is for the uninspired as far as I’m concerned.”
“I suppose you’re lucky,” I said. And I realized he was watching, waiting for my disclosure. “I’ve never had the problem,” I said finally.
He stared at me and the look said, You can talk to me, and I believed him.
“I have to admit,” he said, and I assumed it was to change the subject, “now that I’ve given up on the military and the classroom, I can’t begin to imagine what your calling could be.”
“My father was a soldier once,” I said.
“There you go. I wasn’t entirely wrong. You were perhaps ordained to be a military man.”
On my second visit to Dr. Shaw, he asked me: “Have you ever had … self-destructive fantasies?”
I hesitated, then I said: “Yes.”
“But you’ve never acted on them.”
“Obviously not.”
He laughed. “I mean … no false starts, or …”
“No.”
“And do you recall the circumstances that might have inspired these … fantasies?”
“Very clearly.”
He waited. I cleared my throat.
“I struck my father once,” I said.
“You struck …?”
“With my fist. I hit him. And he fell.” I know the trembling is obvious.
“Would you like a drink of water?” says Dr. Shaw.
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Try to go on.”
“I don’t think your father was ever out here,” Danny said. “He didn’t know anything about his connections. Seemed to me to be something else he didn’t want to talk about.” He laughed.
“So, what did you two manage to talk about to pass the time?” “Well,” said Danny, scratching his chin. “He talked an awful lot about yourself. The sun rose and set on you. Yourself and your sister.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I think your father only mentioned Effie the once. In a roundabout way. Something about her being away, for a long t
ime, not having much contact. Whatever.”
“Yes. Effie. So he didn’t talk about her?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
When I look back now, it seems that Dr. Shaw and I sat staring at each other for an hour, but it might have only been a minute.
“There was a misunderstanding,” I said finally.
He raised an eyebrow, professionally puzzled.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “We’ve reached the crux of my problem.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“He was fixated on my sister. I misunderstood.”
The panic swells until I must struggle to squeeze breath into my lungs. And discover I am sitting on a hard wooden chair at the kitchen table, face drooling on the pages of a book. A philosophy textbook. It is called The General Science of Nature.
A sip of water helps. Dawn is not far off.
“The incident itself was nothing. It was tied into larger matters, many of them mysteries, before my time. Something from the war.” I shrugged, hoping I’d deflected him.
I hear a floorboard creak. I just sit. Waiting. The moment has finally arrived. The shadow pauses near her bedroom door. A match flares briefly. I catch a waft of hellfire. His eye sockets appear empty as he leans into the cigarette. He draws deeply, the ember revealing a face I barely recognize. He turns toward the door.
Dr. Shaw was waiting.
“Look,” I said. “You have to understand the family situation. There was my father, my sister and me, just the three of us, no mom. Our father was damaged by something that happened during World War Two. In Holland. There was an incident. A girl was killed. The details were never very clear. But it had a lasting impact on my father and a friend who was with him at the time.”
The doctor made a note, briefly. “How was she killed, the girl?”
“A knife.”
“And your father never explained?”
“Only cryptically. Apparently she shot his friend and was about to kill him. It seems he got her first.”
“Did he ever mention why … she was …?”
“No.”
I move quickly, grab a shoulder, slam it to the wall. Our faces are close. His face, my face. The same face. I choke on the reek of yeast and sulphur and old sweat.
The Bishop's Man: A Novel Page 28
