Bishop's Man
Page 38
“You know where,” I replied.
“Okay. I’m going to spend some time here, going over your boat. You have no objection?”
“None,” I said.
“Maybe when we talk . . . we can . . . catch up on a few other things.”
“Maybe.”
Much later, after the policeman came and left, it is important to remember the exact moment when I realized that my life had ended. The sequence of events is vivid now, preserved in the memory with extraordinary accuracy. I was in my study. There was bronze light falling through the doorway, illuminating a patch of wall. I turned and stared toward the large picture window in the living room. The fog had gone. The sky was a rich blue. It was a new day. I turned back to my desk.
Beside the journals I had stacked there near a cardboard box, I had placed the photograph of my father and his friends, Sandy, Jack . . . three young men, their transient optimism preserved by the camera for all time. Two soldiers in fresh army uniforms. Jack in his work clothes. And the dead buck draped over the fender of the truck. Only the face of the deer seems to reflect the gravity of where they are, the knowledge of what lay before them. Hunters and hunted. Indistinguishable, in the long run.
The photos and the journals spoke to me of failure. The tragedies that are the product of our inadequacies. One individual, the son of God who was also God, promised redemption from the consequences of our unavoidable failures. It is now so clear. The promise of redemption is another myth.
A peculiar sensation passed through me. And I wondered: Is this what Sandy Gillis felt? And Danny? Is this what the devil tried to tell me on the Niagara Escarpment? That faith and hope are fantasies? Can this be true? My faith is just another culture?
I knew a man who lived and died for faith and justice. And I believe his sacrifice brought hope to faithful people.
Could I ever be that man?
Then I remembered: It is Sunday.
I took a notepad and a pen. Wrote: No Mass Today.
Walked across the driveway and pinned the note to the door of the church. The air was fresh with the first scents of summer, dampness and new growth and the earth stirring from its sleep. The broad blue bay breathing softly.
I returned to my desk, studied the stack of journals for another moment.
Then I placed them in the box. All, that is, but two. The two Honduran years. There is still one secret I cannot share.
Stella called. “I just heard,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You don’t have to say it.” The voice was firm.
“Could you come by?”
“No. I have to go and see Aunt Peggy.”
“Of course.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“I understand.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“Just hang on.”
Sunday afternoon, the Mountie came again.
“There was a witness,” he said.
“Oh?”
“The witness said she saw him waving his arms around in front of you and kind of staggering. He had a blood alcohol reading of .31. He was bombed. There was some grappling. First she thought it was a fight. You moved so quickly she wasn’t sure if you were trying to steady him . . . or what. I guess she’s not exactly sure just what she saw.” He studied me for reaction.
I just stared back. “Who was the witness?”
“That doctor. She’s with the guy who owns the boat behind yours. That writer from New York. She was the blonde, declared the guy dead at the scene.”
“And what about her husband . . . the writer? . . . Did he know anything?”
“Not a thing. He wasn’t there. But he confirms old Willie was pretty out of it, talking a lot of foolishness earlier on.”
As he prepared to leave, the policeman told me I didn’t have a thing to worry about.
“Maybe you have time for a coffee,” I said.
“All the time in the world.” And he walked back into the room and sat.
I studied the nameplate on his jacket. Cpl. L. Roberts.
“What does the L stand for?” I asked.
“Leo.”
“I’m guessing you’re a Catholic.”
“Good guess. Though not a very good Catholic.”
“I suppose you know your prayers. The act of contrition.”
“I know that one,” he said, smiling. “What’s this all about, anyway?”
“I had a friend once, a priest, who used to say that the act of contrition was just a bunch of words. Good words, of course. But not an act of anything. He was a big believer in action, my friend.”
“I suppose saying I’m sorry and meaning it is an act of sorts. Speaking as a lapsed Catholic.”
“That’s exactly what I would tell him. But he was stubborn. The only real act of contrition is a deed that involves some kind of sacrifice.”
“That’s pretty extreme,” Leo said, lifting his coffee cup.
“My friend would say contrition is supposed to lead to changed behaviour. And nothing changes without action, sometimes violent action.”
“Pretty radical,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Where’s your friend now? Or maybe I shouldn’t ask.” He smiled.
“It’s a long story,” I said, remembering my father’s favourite evasion.
The box of journals was between us. I hesitated for just a moment. Then I shoved them toward him.
“I don’t think I’ll have any further use for these.”
The bishop phoned moments after he received my letter.
“I’m not buying any of this crap. It’s all stress related. You need a complete sabbatical. Take a year. Go to the Holy Land. Study. We’ll send you to Rome. Or just do nothing for a while.”
I thanked him. Said I’d think about it.
“Anyway, just so you know. I’m tearing this letter into little pieces. It never happened. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“I know the whole story. I have my sources. Blessings sometimes come in strange disguises.”
Stella walked across the field, came in the back way.
“This is private,” she said. “But you have to know. I’m confident it won’t go anywhere from here.”
I nodded.
Only she and her sister knew about it. “Danny Ban must never know.”
“Willie blamed the boy,” I said.
“The boy was nine, for God’s sake,” she said.
Stella was the first to come to terms with what had happened. She took a professional position, persuaded her sister that it had to be their secret, for Aunt Peggy’s sake.
“I’m sure you understand,” she said. What would have happened to Aunt Peggy if they’d turned Willie in? Even if he avoided prison, Danny Ban would have killed him. So they agreed on silence, for Peggy’s sake. Nobody would ever know, just Stella, Jessie and, of course, young Danny. “This is not uncommon in close families,” she said.
I agreed. All families have secrets. But why, so many years later, did the boy do this?
She shrugged. “He became friends with a young priest from Newfoundland. They talked a lot. Then rumours started. Probably related to the scandals over there, where he was from. You know the way that people are. I know the rumours bothered Danny. I think he felt, somehow, threatened by them.”
“Where do you think the rumours came from?”
“It’s anybody’s guess.” She was silent then. “I guess that’s all there is to say. I thought you should know, for your own peace of mind.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a big secret to carry around . . . you and Jessie.”
She smiled. “I’m sure you know all about the burden of big secrets.”
“Once, you mentioned a place in the Dominican Republic.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”
“Just say the word.”
I hesitated. “Maybe you’ll come too.”
/> “Maybe. And then again.”
“Then again what?”
She placed a cool hand on my cheek. “I make a poor substitute. I learned that, long ago, the hard way.”
“Substitute for what?” I said weakly.
“I think you know.”
I could only nod, silently.
“I’ll drop off the keys to Puerto Plata, and the name of the woman who takes care of it for me.”
“Okay.”
Danny Ban was crossing the parking lot at the mall in town when he spotted me. I hoped he wouldn’t. There was too much to explain. Too much to suppress. But he was moving slowly in my direction, using two canes now.
“Hey,” he said. “I was half expecting to get a call Sunday morning. Then they prayed for poor Willie at Mass. I figured you’d be too busy for boating.”
“One of these days,” I said.
“I hear you’re going away for a while.”
“Yes. I was just picking up a few supplies.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be gone at least a month.” I told him that I had a lot to think about. Maybe it was time for a major change of direction in my life.
“That’d be a shame,” he said.
“Nothing is decided.”
“You’ll be back, though?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about the boat. I’ll look after her for you. I’ve got good memories with that boat.”
I thanked him.
His face was suddenly very sad. “What do you think goes through their minds?” he asked.
“We can never know. We can only assume. That there was a moment at the end . . . some kind of peace.”
He nodded. “It’s a shame, you going. Priesthood needs more down-to-earth people like yourself.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said. “People say that.”
“No matter what else I’ll be, I’ll still be a priest. You know what they say: once a priest, always a priest.”
“But you know what I mean. I’m not talking about . . . theoretical.”
“You can think of me the same as now. I don’t plan to change much.”
He nodded.
“Just don’t call me Father anymore.”
“That’ll be hard,” he said. “I’m kind of old-fashioned that way.” And he suddenly gathered both canes in his large left hand and extended his right for a farewell handshake. “Just in case I don’t run into you again.”
Impulsively, I stepped forward and put both arms around his sagging shoulders, and my head alongside his where he wouldn’t see my eyes.
I remember standing like that for a long time, hanging on to his great weakened frame as he gently patted my back, the way you would a frightened child.
And I remember the people going about their weekend shopping and glancing uneasily at two grown men hugging in a parking lot. Wondering what might be going on.
{AKNOWLEDGMENTS}
I’m grateful to many friends and colleagues for feedback and advice as this story evolved. I owe special thanks to my agents, Don Sedgwick and Shaun Bradley, for sticking with the project for several years, and especially to Don, who read the manuscript and offered valuable criticism through many drafts. My wife, Carol Off, gave crucial encouragement and guidance throughout the process, and our friend Scott Sellers of Random House of Canada saw merit in the nearly final project when even I was dubious. My editor and publisher, Anne Collins, brought to the story the tender insights and editorial discipline it needed to transcend my many literary weaknesses.
Linden MacIntyre is the co-host of the fifth estate and the winner of nine Gemini Awards for broadcast journalism. His bestselling first novel, The Long Stretch, was nominated for a CBA Libris Award; his boyhood memoir, Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, was a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2006, and won the Edna Staebler Award for Non-Fiction and the Evelyn Richardson Prize.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPE
The Bishop’s Man is set in Janson, a misnamed typeface designed in or about 1690 by Nicholas Kis, a Hungarian in Amsterdam. In 1919 the original matrices became the property of the Stempel Foundry in Frankfurt, Germany. Janson is an old-style book face of excellent clarity and sharpness, featuring concave and splayed serifs, and a marked contrast between thick and thin strokes.
Copyright © 2009 Linden MacIntyre. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published by arrangement with Random House Canada, an imprint of the Knopf Random Canada Publishing Group, which is a division of Random House of Canada Limited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
MacIntyre, Linden.
The bishop’s man : a novel / by Linden MacIntyre.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-582-43699-9
1. Clergy—Fiction. 2. Catholic Church—Clergy—Fiction. 3. Catholic Church—
Corrupt practices—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9199.3.M3222B57 2010
813’.54—dc22
2010017808
COUNTERPOINT
1919 Fifth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
www.counterpointpress.com
Distributed by Publishers Group West