“What kind of experience?”
“I don’t know. But I thought … maybe he’d talk to somebody like you. Somebody he could trust.”
“He’d have to make that call.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t suppose I know this fellow?” I said.
“Actually, you do. I think you bought a boat from him today. From his dad, at least.”
For a week I’d drive down to the shore and just stare, until I grew conscious of people watching me. Eventually I started the motor, but the thought of untying the ropes and abandoning the land filled me with terror. So I just stood there gunning the diesel engine in ecstasy and fear. There were usually two or three men standing on the far side, watching silently, hands in pockets.
“One of these days,” I said as I was leaving.
“For sure,” they replied. “No rush.” They were smiling.
After about ten days, young Danny called and asked about the boat and I told him I thought everything was fine. Engine seemed to be running well. Everything as it should be.
“You should really take her out for a run,” he said. “Charge up the battery. And before you put her away, maybe change the oil. I’ll show you how.”
“Put her away?”
“For the winter.”
“Right.”
“Actually, Dad was saying I should give you a few tips on driving her.”
“That would probably be wise.”
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
I was up early and the day was warm. I took my coffee outside and stood at the top of the driveway looking out over the bay, which was black and seamless for as far as I could see. I noticed a car near the tennis court and walked down.
The woman was in her mid-thirties, trim and I suppose pretty. Honey-brown hair, searching grey eyes, a spray of fading freckles. She was wearing flimsy wind pants and a dark V-neck sweater over a white shirt, and she was bouncing a tennis ball lightly. When she spotted me standing by the tall chain-link fence, she called out a greeting and walked toward me. That’s when I remembered her from August. White blouse, playing tennis with the fence.
“I think I’ve been stood up,” she said. “I was expecting somebody. Do you want a game?”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t know how.”
“It’s simple. I hit the ball toward you and you hit it back. If I hit it more often than you do, I win.”
She looked familiar. Something about the eyes, but I was sure we’d never met.
“I’m Duncan MacAskill,” I said.
“Father MacAskill,” she said.
“Call me Duncan.”
“In that case, call me Stella.”
I laughed. Stella. Stella Maris.
“I know,” she said, looking up toward the church. “It’s an old joke. Distant cousin of Roger, the old baseball player.”
“Stella what, then?”
“Stella Fortune.”
I smiled.
“It’s a long story,” she said, rolling her eyes. And I thought, My God! And went silent for a while.
Finally: “I haven’t seen you—”
“No,” she said quickly. “The Stella is as close as I get to identifying with the Church lately. The gender thing, I guess. I don’t feel … welcome.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I’m sure you hear that all the time.”
“But you live here.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Up the mountain road. The new place. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“Should I have known?”
“My tennis partner is a friend of yours, I think. Sextus Gillis.”
“Okay.”
“We knew each other years ago, in Toronto. Then we met again, in town, at a social for the divorced and separated. The walking wounded.”
“He goes to those?”
“We both did. Once. We’re both … single. At least, he said he was.” She laughed.
“I’m fairly sure of that,” I said, although I wasn’t.
There was another long silence as we looked each other over. The fence between us gave me comfort. I realized that I was out of words and wanted to leave but didn’t want to seem abrupt.
“What do people normally call you?” she asked.
“Father. But I’m trying to break that habit.”
Her face was full of questions, but she said, “Okay, then. Duncan.”
“I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
“If you’re ever up the mountain, drop in for tea.”
“I will.”
“I’m always there in the evenings and on weekends.”
She smiled then, and I could feel the awkwardness that always sends blood rushing into my face.
“By the way,” she said, “I think you know my sister.”
“Oh?”
“Jessie MacKay, in Hawthorne. Married to Danny. I hear you bought their old boat.”
I smiled. “No secrets here, I guess.”
“You better believe it.”
As I walked up the hill, I heard her car engine starting.
jan. 24. it looks like i’m going to have to stop the spanish lessons. or get another teacher. something in alfonso’s manner. i think he suspects something or he’s jealous. i’m not sure how to handle it. and, god forgive me, part of me enjoys his speculations.
Young Danny was waiting at the harbour, the engine already running. He released the ropes and shoved us away from the floating dock.
“Okay,” he said. “Put her in forward.”
I hesitated, shoved the wrong lever. The engine roared, but there was no movement. I imagined crowds at dockside, smirking.
Then he was beside me, hauled the throttle back and shoved the gearshift ahead. The boat moved gently forward. I tried to steer, but she balked momentarily, as if aware of a stranger at the controls. Then she grudgingly swung her bow … too far. And we were heading toward the side of someone’s large, expensive boat. He gently reached past me again and corrected the wheel then stepped back, arms folded. I was sweating as we moved slowly along the line of docked boats toward what seemed to be an impossibly narrow channel out of the harbour.
“You’re doing great,” he said.
Once outside, I shoved the throttle forward again and my heart accelerated with the diesel. The boat surged.
“Excellent,” he said. Then turned and walked toward the stern and just sat there, looking around.
We sailed toward an island that seemed to be about five miles out. “Henry Island,” he called out, pointing. The roar in the cab was deafening. The boat was determined not to follow a straight line, and when she’d veer away from the wind she’d pitch violently against the frothing waves. After about half an hour I turned back. The ride became smoother. Danny took the wheel and I went outside, then climbed toward the bow, clinging to a rail above the cab.
I was startled by the near silence there. The wind was icy and my teeth were chattering. Perhaps to reduce my exposure to the chill I lay flat, head over the side, watching the rush of water. Sluicing, foamy furrows fell away cleanly from the flared bow, the sea opening behind like a ploughed field. I thought I heard a strange, sad murmur, a voice I hadn’t heard for years. What are you saying to me?
Approaching the mouth of the harbour, Danny opened a window and shouted up, asking if I wanted to take her in. I shook my head. I’d hardly got her out; I couldn’t imagine manoeuvring my way back in and docking. He managed to do everything at once without hurrying. Turned and tucked the boat smoothly alongside the dock, stepped ashore and secured both lines, then turned off the engine. I just watched.
Ashore, my ears were ringing, my face was on fire. I was chilled to the bone, but I just wanted to laugh.
Just before he left, I said, “So you knew Brendan Bell.”
He shrugged. “Sort of. Everybody sort of knew him. Where did he eventually end up?”
“I heard that he’s in Toronto. I think he’s left the priesthood.”
&
nbsp; We stared at each other for a while. Then he said, “That doesn’t surprise me. I always thought he was more cut out for a place like that.” He was smiling and it disarmed me.
“Were you in the youth club?”
He nodded.
“So what was your impression of Father Brendan?” I asked.
He shrugged, looked away briefly, then asked me, “What was your impression?”
“I hardly knew him. Met him once in Antigonish. A couple of times here, when I’d drop in on Father Mullins.”
“Mullins,” he said dismissively.
I decided to make a small investment. “Well, Mullins can be a bit of a calleach. Do you know what that is?”
He laughed. “An old woman. I suppose so, though for my money he’s a bit of an asshole, Mullins.”
I felt the sudden heat in my face. “Let’s say I didn’t hear you say that,” I said.
“Let’s say I don’t give a shit if you did or not.”
I had looked away, but I could tell from the tone that he was staring at me still. So I faced him, locked on his eyes, fashioned a chilly smile. This, after all, was my specialty. “Maybe you’ll elaborate. Maybe you’ll tell me what your problem is … with Mullins.”
The fire in his eyes flickered then died. And he looked down, cleared his throat and spit. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t really have a problem with Mullins. It probably isn’t about Mullins.”
“Is it anything you want to talk about?”
“No,” he said, too quickly.
“If it isn’t about Mullins, who?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, moving away.
“Is it about Brendan Bell?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Brendan Bell.”
“Nah,” he said, focused on his foot, which was scuffing a rut in the dirt. “Look, I better mosey. I got things to do, and you probably do too.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll go out again before we put her away for the winter, eh?”
“I hope so.”
“Look,” he said, “I …”
But he turned suddenly and walked away.
I sat in the car for a long time before leaving. What is it that attracts the Bells? Priests of old were father figures. What happened?
Bell once told me with confidence: “People will see whatever they need a priest to be. Father, saviour, coach, ombudsman, shrink. Lover, even. Now that people don’t really need priests, they don’t see us at all.”
“You’re saying we’re obsolete,” I said.
“More like invisible.”
“So why did you become a priest?”
He shrugged. “Limited career options. Infantile piety. Need to please. Who knows?”
“Or invisibility?”
I thought the jibe would bring him down.
“That too,” he said, and smiled.
I wanted to say: I knew a man who became a priest to save the world. His world, at least. His people. A man who thought the priesthood was an agency of justice. I wanted to say it and the moment felt right. But it would have meant devaluing a precious memory. And it would have invited intimacy.
“What about you?” Bell asked.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
“I hear you,” he said.
“What will you do after this?”
He gave it some thought, then shrugged. I remember we were sitting at Mullins’s kitchen table at the time. “Maybe I’ll just stay here. I’m getting attached to the people. It feels a lot like home.”
And he grinned.
We went out once more that fall, on a grim, grey day. Danny Ban came with us. This time I eased away from the dock and out through the mouth of the harbour without any appearance of uncertainty and without any help. Outside, she pitched and bucked in the quick, choppy waves. And I remembered Alfonso’s advice, on horseback for the first time in Honduras. Ride with her, he said. You ride with the horse, not on top of her. Become part of her motion. It was true for the boat too.
I opened the throttle and looked around. Young Danny and his father were standing back near the stern, smiling.
The wind was bitter and the plunging bow sent shivers of freezing water over the cab. The two Dannys moved forward to stand out of the wind and sudden showers, looking back over the stern. Danny Ban was huddled deep into his coat, trembling.
I swung in a large loop and headed back. “It’s too cold,” I called.
“Cold?” Danny Ban shouted. “You call this cold?”
I let young Danny take the boat back in, and as he tied up, his father asked, “What do you plan to call her?”
“Call who?”
“The boat. He’s putting the old name on the new one. Can’t have two named the Lady Hawthorne. You can call this one anything you want now. After somebody special, maybe. Like your mother.” He rubbed his chin, thinking.
Walking by us, young Danny said, “You could always call her Sinbad, after the sailor fellow in the fairy story.”
“What?”
“You could make it Sin, comma, Bad.” He’d stopped and was smiling slightly.
“That’s hilarious,” his father said sourly as the boy turned away, now cackling at his own joke. Then, to me: “Give yourself lots of time to think about it. It’s an important thing, the name of your boat.”
“Jacinta,” I said, remembering the voice.
“The Jacinta? What would that be?”
“Just something that popped into my head. It’s Spanish, for a flower.”
“Spanish, eh?”
“I worked in Central America for a while. Learned some Spanish.”
“Yes. I heard some priests from here did that.”
“I think I’ll call her the Jacinta.”
“That’d be different,” he said. “The Jacinta.”
I could feel my face growing warm from speaking the name out loud.
“That’s often how the best ideas come,” he said. “Just pop into your head like that. Yes, the Jacinta. That’s a good one.” And after a silence: “How are you liking it up there in Creignish, anyway, Father? Must be a change after the university.”
“Yes, a big change,” I said, still savouring the name I now could safely speak.
“All those young people over at the university. Must be a big change, by yourself in Creignish.”
“It was time for a change.”
“Look,” he said quietly, “you didn’t get a chance to talk to the young fella?”
“Not really. He isn’t much for talking.”
“That’s different too. Used to talk the ear offa you. His little joke, before, about naming the boat? Sinbad? That’s the way he always was. Dizzy jokes and pranks.”
“They all change. It’s part of growing up.”
“Nah. It’s more than that. For one thing, you can’t get him to darken the door of a church anymore. Christ, he used to be more faithful than I was. Serving on the altar almost every Sunday. Mullins needed somebody, short notice, for a wedding or a funeral, he’d be there like a shot. And when that young Newfoundlander was around … Brendan something … he was down there all the time.”
“Is that so,” I said.
“Then—poof—he just quit. Maybe if you talked to him.”
“It’ll be up to him,” I said.
“I know. I know.” Then he laughed and, with a large paw on my shoulder, said: “Maybe you’ll put a word in for all of us, next time you’re talking to the Almighty.”
I said I would.
His son called, “Hurry up,” and waved.
I shouted up to where he was standing, beside the truck: “I can hardly wait for next summer.”
He shouted back: “There’ll be lots of summers.”
It’s one of those memories I cling to now, to rebut those who say it was only a matter of time. He told me himself and I can still hear him: There’ll be lots of summers. And he was smiling when he said it. He wouldn’t have lied. Not to a priest.
{6}
A southeast gale near the end of October stripped the mountain of its colour. Then it was November. The autumn days filled with rain that flattened fields and turned them into mud. The rain washed the hillside clean and now it lay bare, waiting for the snow. Leaves of chocolate and scarlet and lime plastered and clumped in the driveway and on the concrete doorstep of the church. This time of year the country turns to business. Pleasures finished, all the tourists gone. From the altar I asked for suggestions, parish activities that might get people involved. Half the population seems to be on a pension of some kind. Old-age benefits. Early retirement from the mill. People with time to kill, Sextus likes to say, before time kills them.
But there was hardly any response to my request for ideas. Someone mentioned bingo. I declined.
“Maybe we could start something here … for the divorced and separated Catholics,” Pat suggested.
“If you think we need it.”
“Actually,” she said, “most people prefer to go to town.”
“Things takes time,” Bobby O’Brian told me.
Danny called on a Sunday afternoon. “I don’t like to bother you, but I think we might need some advice.” “Okay.”
“I might be out of line. We really don’t know each other all that well … You can tell me, straight up, if—”
“What’s up?” I asked.
“The young fellow. He’s in a bit of trouble.”
“Really?”
“I think he went on a twister last night. Was a hockey game at the arena and I guess they celebrated a bit too much afterwards. Went on a rampage with the half-ton truck. Did a fair bit of damage.”
“Is he all right?”
He laughed. “Oh, yeah. But his mother is pretty upset. We were wondering if you might put in a word for him.”
“A word? With whom?”
“Father Mullins.”
Mullins?
Young Danny had driven his truck onto the lawn of the parish church in Port Hood. Spun up the sod, knocked over the sign for the Sunday Mass schedule, and was in the process of destroying the turf in front of the glebe when his wheels sank into the mud. Mullins caught him in the act. Sitting there spinning his wheels insanely. Nearly burned the clutch out of the truck, according to his father.
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