“Christ,” said Meredith. “Isn’t there anything else to write about?”
We huddled round, studying the picture of a younger, pleasant-looking Pittman. “Anybody remember the cunt looking like that?” asked Tommy.
“It’s the family,” Wilson said. “Goin’ on about brutality.”
“Well,” said Tommy leaning back and folding his arms. “One thing I know is we better remember what we said at the time and get on the same page and stay there when the new questions start.”
There was a quiet murmur of agreement around the table. I see that moment now as a point of no return.
I returned shaken to my office and after sitting for what felt like an hour just staring at the wall, I picked up the phone.
Sophie answered on the second ring.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
——
I shut her office door behind me. Then I locked it. She seemed to stiffen. “I don’t want anybody walking in here,” I explained.
“What happened?”
“It’s about Pittman,” I said.
“Ahh.” She stood and came from behind the desk, sat in the chair beside me and clasped my hand. “That was a year ago. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. It got in the papers. The family …”
“But you guys are okay, right? You did what you had to do.”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid not.”
“Tell me what you need to tell me, Tony.”
I did, making sure to emphasize my own responsibility. “I could have stood up to them,” I said. “But I went along with it. I chickened out. I hid behind the power structure. Tommy was the boss and it wasn’t up to me to intervene. But it was up to me, wasn’t it, Sophie? Any one of us could have called him on it. But nobody did. And now there’s going to be accountability.”
She folded her arms. Her legs were crossed at the knees and her foot was bobbing. She seemed to be studying her shoe. I stood to go. “I just wanted you to hear it from me before it gets around the place.”
She caught my hand again. “Sit,” she said. So I sat and the silence closed in around us.
Finally she said, “There can be no going back. There’s only going forward now. The issue isn’t what happened. It’s what’s going to happen. You know what I’m saying, Tony?”
I nodded.
“You can’t make a bad thing better. But you can keep it from becoming worse. How you do that will be up to you. But I’m sure you’ll do the right thing. I know you will.”
“What’s the right thing, Sophie? Pittman is dead. There’s no bringing him back.”
“It isn’t about Pittman anymore, Tony. And it isn’t about you and Tommy and the rest. It’s about a whole lot of vulnerable people. Vulnerable to each other, vulnerable to us. And it’s about how the system works to protect them from each other. And from us. You know that.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Have you spoken to Dwayne?” she asked.
“Dwayne?”
“He might have heard things. Just a thought.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She stood then. “You need a hug, Tony.” I stood, too, and she put her arms around me.
“I could happily become dependent on hugs like this,” I murmured.
She stepped back and stared at me for some moments. Then she went to a bookshelf. “Do you read poetry?” she asked.
“Only when I have to. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had to. What do you have there?”
“A poem,” she said. She had the book open to a page she’d bookmarked. “I don’t suppose anybody made you read Anna Akhmatova.”
“I’d probably remember a name like that.”
“I’ll copy this one for you,” she said.
“What’s it about?”
“It’s called ‘And after we damned each other.’ ”
——
The phone rang and the dog barked almost simultaneously. I picked up to a cheerful “Merry Christmas.” It was Neil.
“I was thinking I’d stop in on the way home from Mass,” he said. “It’ll be about noon. Unless you want me to pick you up on the way there.” He laughed.
“I’ll pass on Mass,” I said. “Why don’t I just drive myself to your place a little later in the day?”
“Nope,” he said. “We’re going to have an early dinner, about mid-afternoon. I thought it’d be nice for you and me to do some catching up beforehand. You can stay the night. But if you really want to go home I’ll drive you. I know the local constabulary pretty well, in case they happen to be out.”
I was surprised by a tiny tickle of elation, perhaps the Christmas spirit that we used to talk about.
“See you soon,” I said.
7.
The Seaside B and B was set back off the road at the end of a long lane through trees, mostly evergreens. It had been a farmhouse once, perched on a hilltop and surrounded by fields that were now grown over. I remembered it as distant, derelict, abandoned. Neil had obviously spent a lot of money to restore it. There was a new section attached that almost doubled its size.
“Got eight guest rooms,” he said, “set up so we can close up six of them come winter when there isn’t much business.”
“Do you get a lot of business in the summer?”
“She pays for herself. It’s basically something to do and a way to meet people. You get some pretty interesting folks passing through. You wouldn’t believe some of them. Movie stars. Hockey players coming around for the golf and the scenery. You can’t beat the scenery.”
I hadn’t expected such a view. You could see the shore, waves breaking silently and the sprawled gulf writhing, flecked with anxious whitecaps.
“Some view, eh,” said Neil. “This was all farm in my father’s time. In the family for generations, came down to an uncle but there was always a lot of friction. Passed to a cousin of mine but he got a little careless with the taxes and it went up for sale by the county back about twenty-five years ago. I got a tipoff from the courthouse and bought it at the tax sale. Good thing too. Some big real-estate outfit from Toronto was going after it but I had first dibs because of the family connection.”
“And what about the cousin?”
Neil shrugged. “I guess he learned to pay closer attention to his mailbox after that. There was a bit of legal hassle but it’s done now. Let’s go in.”
We were met by a blast of warmth laden with the fragrances of cooking. On the left of a large reception area was a living room dominated by a richly decorated Christmas tree, ablaze with multicoloured lights. A central stairway led up.
“We redid all this,” Neil said, “but you’d never know it. I used local carpenters, old-timers not afraid to work with an old place like this. Hannah!”
A woman materialized, wiping her hands on an apron. She was small and thin, dressed stylishly, modestly pretty but with a head of over-bothered blonde hair that I found distracting.
“Hannah,” Neil said. She extended a small hand and I grasped it.
“This guy and I go back a hundred years. You’ve heard me talk about him I’m sure. Tony MacMillan.”
“Welcome,” she said.
“How’s the dinner coming?” Neil asked loudly. “Hannah stayed home to cook. Can’t get her to darken the door of a church anyway, not even at Christmas. Figured I might as well put her to work getting a head start on the dinner.”
He was struggling out of his overcoat. Hannah was smiling at me. “Don’t listen to him,” she said. “I’m Jewish.”
“That’s not the point,” Neil said, pretending to be cross. “It wouldn’t kill you to go to church.”
“Lovely to meet you, Hannah,” I said. “And for the record, my name is Breau. Tony Breau.”
She stared from me to Neil.
“Long, long story,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.
He gave me a quick tour of the house, stuffed with a surprising number of antique
s, large beds with too many pillows, mass-produced landscape prints on a backdrop of busy floral wall-paper, and the overwhelming artificial scent of potpourri. “If worse comes to worse and you stay the night,” he said, “this’ll be your room.”
“I’d love that,” I said. “But there’s the dog, home alone in a strange house.”
“Right,” he said. “Caddy’s dog. You should have brought him.”
The tour ended in the kitchen where Hannah was monitoring the progress of a large turkey in a vast gas-fired oven. The kitchen was impressive, with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The contrast to my own sparse, musty quarters, Birch brooding on his coat, was stark.
Neil went to a cupboard and opened a door revealing an array of bottles.
“What’ll it be?” he asked. He moved some of them around before extracting one. “How about a nice single malt. This sucker is twenty-one years old, old enough to drink himself.” He laughed and grabbed two glasses. Hannah was already sipping on a glass of wine. In the harsh light of the kitchen she looked considerably older than her husband.
“You’ve done well,” I said.
“Not bad for a cop,” he said. “Being married to a Jew helped. Right, Hannah? Hannah has the brains in this place.”
She met my eyes, brows raised, over the top of her large wine glass. “Was he always such a motormouth?” she asked.
The whisky was mellow and I complimented him on his selection. When Hannah basted the turkey the aroma caused a wave of hunger. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, had only coffee in my stomach. I felt the whisky fumes caress my brain.
“So I wonder what they’re feeding Strickland today. I bet he’ll be eating as good as we are,” Neil said. “But he won’t have this.” He raised his glass and clinked it against mine.
Hannah stood up and closed the oven door, waved the turkey-baster in our direction. “Two subjects that will not be tolerated here today,” she said. “Dwayne Strickland and Saddam Hussein.”
We ate mostly in silence, bathed in Christmas ballads. I realized that it had been months since I’d eaten like this. Sitting down to a heaping plate, loaded with what Anna used to call “food groups.” Everything hot, delicious. I felt myself filling prematurely so I slowed down, listened to the old songs. Earlier it was Jim Reeves. Now Anne Murray.
“Lovely sound,” I said. “You must have a great system.”
“Top of the line,” Neil said. “Professionally installed. We love our music, me and Hannah. I said if we’re going to be living here where there isn’t much to do we’re gonna have technology to enjoy whatever is available. My four-wheeler. A Ski-doo. Satellite TV and the best goddamn audio system money can buy.”
“No point scrimping on technology if you like music. It’s all in the technology nowadays.” I was listening to myself, commenting privately: You’re so full of it. You know SFA about technology.
“First thing a burglar would head for,” Neil said, waving his fork for emphasis. “So’m’a bitch would make a pretty day’s pay in here, just that stereo and Hannah’s computer.” He turned to his dinner, face low over the plate. “When I think of some of the places I worked back in the States. This place would be cleaned out while we’re sitting here eating.”
“Too bad you couldn’t get a good security system,” I said. “Something wired for quick response. I was noticing your antiques.”
“Hah. I got all the security system I need upstairs in the bedside table drawer,” he said. He took a mouthful of wine. “All the security I need, right there.” Suddenly he sounded angry.
I laughed. “I don’t have to tell you that the gun laws are a bit different up here, especially for hand guns.”
“Don’t get me going on that bullshit,” Neil said. “Canada’s gun laws. The true north strong and free to do whatever the government tells you.”
I looked at Hannah. She held her wine glass to her mouth, but met my eyes and winked. She lowered her glass. “There, there now,” she said.
“Anyway,” Neil said, “it’s unlikely to get used around here, but if I ever need it, the last thing I’ll be worrying about is the gun laws.”
“Why don’t we talk about something nice,” said Hannah. “You guys reminisce. I love the old stories.” She poured herself more wine, then refilled our glasses.
And so we did. Specific boundaries of time and place soon fell away, releasing us to wander.
“The last time I remember seeing you,” Neil said, staring at the ceiling, “was I think Christmas, around ’65. It was just before I went to Vietnam. I seem to remember talking after midnight Mass.”
“I remember you in uniform,” I said. “But I’m not sure what year it was.”
“Had to be Christmas ’65,” he said. “I went over in early ’66. February it was, in the middle of Operation Masher. That was my baptism.” He shook his head, looking grim. “We won’t go into it tonight, but I know I got home on leave for a few days, I think in late January. You wouldn’t have been around then. In college I think you were.”
Hannah returned from another room with a photograph. “This was Neil back then,” she said.
He was tall and very lean, his expression stern, hair shorn. I had a quick flashback to that expression, how he’d gripped my hand on that Christmas Eve so many years ago, then lightly tugged my shaggy shoulder-length hair. “Barbers gone on strike?” he’d asked. And then he was gone to war. It was the talk of the place at Easter when I was home. Easter alone, Caddy gone away to Ontario. Easter was near the middle of April that year but it had felt like dead of winter.
“Sure,” I said, when Hannah offered to refill my wine glass.
“I was surprised when I heard that you went back for a second tour, to Vietnam,” I said. “I’d have thought once would have been enough for anybody.”
“I actually considered making a career of the military,” he said. “Figured a couple of tours would get me promoted faster. But I soon realized that without an education it wouldn’t be much of a life.”
“We corrected that though, didn’t we, dear,” Hannah said.
“After I met Hannah here, she insisted that I finish off my high school, at night school. It was that and the military record that got me on the police. So it was all good in the end. I became an American citizen, the whole shebang. Married Hannah and lived happily ever after. Strange how quick it all goes by.”
“Very strange,” I said.
“I was surprised when I heard you were after moving back.”
“Ah well,” I said. “When my marriage broke up I wanted to get some distance from where I was.” I instantly regretted the disclosure.
Neil and Hannah were both studying me, waiting for more.
“That would have been tough,” Neil said. “That and retirement. That’s a lot to cope with all at once. But you’re still a young man, Tony. You need something to do.”
“Same age as yourself, Neil.”
“I have this place, and Hannah here. Hey, did you hear old Alex MacFarlane got one of those mail-order brides? You could always look into that.”
“For God’s sake, Neil,” Hannah said, and stood. She moved some pots noisily around on the stovetop.
“Ah well,” said Neil. “We’re all screwed when we lose our sense of humour.”
“I couldn’t imagine being here with nothing to do,” Hannah said, as she started gathering the dinner plates. “The winters, my God. Maybe it’s different when you have roots in the place.”
Neil was studying my face.
“What makes you think I have roots here?” I asked. Neil looked away.
“I assumed …” she said.
“No roots anywhere,” I said. “I was adopted. Age five.”
Neil stood then, helping Hannah to distribute smaller plates and coffee mugs. “It’s quite the story, Hannah. How Tony came here. I don’t know if I have it straight. Tell Hannah, Tony.”
“You go ahead.”
“You’ll correct me if I’m wrong. To
ny’s dad, Duncan MacMillan, had a cousin working in the Little Flower orphanage over in Sydney. And he was visiting her one day and there was this little gaffer hanging around and Duncan spots him and asks about him. I’m not sure of the details. But isn’t it correct that on a later visit he got permission to take you home with him for Christmas? And he just never took you back. Wasn’t it something like that?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Things were pretty informal back in those days. It worked out great.”
“It did,” I said.
“And did you ever find out about your birth parents?” Hannah asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Eventually I found out about them. Not much to tell.” I shrugged. “A couple of youngsters. I heard that my birth dad was killed in a coal mine accident later.”
“So that was when you changed your name back,” Neil said.
“At some point I realized I never really was a MacMillan, right? Never having been legally adopted.”
“That’s so strange,” Hannah said.
“I remember being around here years later and people talking about this Tony Breau and I didn’t have a clue,” said Neil, placing the whisky bottle on the table. “We’ll have a small one to help settle the turkey. It was a great dinner, Hannah.”
“It was a wonderful dinner,” I echoed. “Thank you.”
“You guys take it easy, we aren’t finished yet.”
Neil was pouring. “I’ve never got used to that Breau business. You’ll always be Tony MacMillan as far as I’m concerned. As much a part of the place as I am.”
“Thanks, Neil. But the truth is I always felt like a bit of an outsider.”
“Tell me about it,” Hannah said. “They’re practically tribal here.”
“Ah, get away with the both of youse,” said Neil. “We’re in God’s country.”
After dinner Neil excused himself, announced that he was in need of a catnap. “Twenty minutes, max,” he said. “I’ll be fresh as a daisy. You two can talk.”
I actually welcomed the prospect of a break from conversation. There was music in the background again. I recognized a sad violin and another wave of longing leaked out of memory: 1966, young and so unaccustomed to such sorrow that you think it’s permanent.
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