“I came late. Bobby O. invited me. We worked together at the mill for ages. I saw what happened. You did nothing to provoke it.”
“It’s complicated.”
He shrugged. “You took an awful wallop.”
“It was nothing.”
“I was afraid for the young fellow … I tried to hold him. I was worried what would happen to him after you got up. I remember when we were young.”
Before he left, he said: “My real reason for going to the hall that night was to apologize, sort of.”
“For what?”
“Back there in the winter, when I was on the bender … I got pretty gross. Sorry about that.”
“There was nothing—”
“I’m afraid I’ve got a streak of the old man in me.” Then he headed for the door.
Before he closed it, I said, “Maybe we both do.”
“I doubt that. I used to wonder … do they do something normal in the final seconds, like, say, the act of contrition. And if they did, would it change anything?”
I didn’t even try to answer.
† † †
After Danny’s funeral, I saw Stella by her car, head down. When I approached, I realized she was fumbling in her purse, trying to find her car keys. Her eyes were red, cheeks wet.
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m okay.”
“I could drive you home,” I said. Her sorrow was infectious. “We can talk.”
She just shook her head. “I’m going to stay with Jessie for a while.”
I was passing MacMaster’s when I realized the policeman was behind me again and now he was flashing his lights, indicating that I should pull over.
Only then did I feel the danger.
He leaned close to my open window. “How are you today, sir?”
I knew him from our previous encounters, but I didn’t think he’d recognize me because I was wearing a leather jacket and ball cap. My disguise.
“Could you step out of the car for a minute, Father?”
“Is there something wrong?”
“Just step out of the car, please.”
“What’s this about?”
“Just step out, please,” he said, and stood back, making room.
I shoved the door open abruptly, climbed out. Staggered slightly.
“Would you come with me, please?”
He walked toward his own car, opened the passenger side of the cruiser, with his hand on my elbow. I climbed in, fuming. The dashboard was cluttered with electronic paraphernalia. He got in on the driver’s side. He sat there for a moment, thinking.
“I’m going to drive you home,” he said finally.
“Was my driving that bad?”
“I didn’t notice the driving. But you do seem to have had a lot to drink.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“A visit,” I said.
“I stopped you because there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
Driving away, leaving my car stranded by the roadside, I was wrestling with the absurdity of the moment. I’ve been taught that the power of the man in uniform is from a lesser place than mine. But now I was under his control. We turned up the glebe house lane. The church towered over us but suddenly seemed to be as impotent as I was.
“What was it you wanted to talk about?”
“Father,” he said, “you should know … there is somebody asking questions about young MacKay.”
“That’s strange. Who?”
“A reporter.”
“A reporter? Why would that be news? It was months ago.”
“He seems to be suggesting that the MacKay thing was tied into … other matters.” He was studying me for a reaction.
I shrugged. “I can’t imagine what he’s talking about.”
He continued to study me for a while, measuring. “I thought we could talk about it, but obviously not today. Maybe someday soon, when you’re feeling up to it.”
“Any time at all.”
“By the way,” he said, “did you ever know a priest named Bell? Brendan Bell.”
“I knew a Bell, but he isn’t a priest. At least not anymore.”
He stared, then said, “I hope you’ll remember that I did you a favour today.”
You ask that Bell. And you find out who sent him here, and why. Then you’ll know.
“You didn’t happen to get a name,” I said.
“Name?”
“The reporter.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t write it down.” Then he reached across and handed me his business card. Cpl. L. Roberts. “You can reach me any time. Night or day.”
Through the eye of memory, I watch the cruiser drive down the hill, turn south and disappear. The spirit sags. Missed opportunity for an act of contrition, absolution?
Alfonso’s voice returns: The true act of contrition has to be a deed, an action that somehow leads to change. I study the Mountie’s business card for a moment.
The other voice says: Don’t even think about it.
Memory is episodic, a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Danny Ban was at the shore. It was November, barely a month after the dreadful day. I was getting ready to haul my boat out of the water and put her away for the winter. The Lady Hawthorne was in her usual place, just behind me. Looking at her made me angry.
Why, I wonder? Why should I feel anger?
Then Danny Ban was above me, hands in pockets. “How are you today, Father?”
I scrambled up and stood before him, trying to read his face. “How are you making out, Danny?” I asked, placing a hand on his forearm.
“Ah, well,” he said on the intake of breath. Then, exhaling: “A fella never knows one day to the next.”
I just listened.
“I thought it was me with all the troubles. He was young, eh? Strong and healthy. You take for granted nothing bothers them that much when they’re young and strong. I was too busy thinking about myself, I guess.” He looked away from me, studying the boat. “The women are taking it hard. Jessie and Stella. But at least they have each other. I’m glad for that.”
“If there’s anything I can do …”
He just shook his head wearily, then stooped, retied a spring line from the boat. “I guess I’m going to have to take her home. If she was made of wood, I’d just strip her down and burn her. But there you go. It’s the way things are now. Everything fibreglass and plastic. Even the car.”
He managed to smile.
There was talk of renaming the harbour for Danny MacKay, to bring him, somehow, back to life. MacKay’s Point. Mullins thought it was a good idea, it had a double-barrelled meaning. I agreed.
Mullins had it on good authority that government people wanted to dismantle the place and that Danny’s death might make their plans a bit more difficult politically. Putting his name on the harbour would make them seem more callous if they shut it down. It would be like killing the boy all over again. Each Sunday, it seemed, Mullins attacked the politicians and the bureaucrats from the altar with greater zeal. They’re out of touch, he’d say. Paternalistic. Like the greedy merchants of the old days. Making our decisions for us.
I envied him his cause and his courage. Alfonso would be proud of Mullins.
But then the bishop called me. What’s going on down there? he wanted to know. Is Mullins getting nutty in his old age? Talking politics? Renaming harbours? MacKay’s Point, my rear end.
I told him not to worry. The community was rattled by a suicide. A young fisherman named MacKay. Mullins is probably worried because there are a lot around here like him. Overextended at the banks, and the outlook for the fishery pretty grim. Mullins is trying to give them a place to focus, other than on themselves. Trying to give them hope.
“Well, be that as it may. You try to find a way to tell him to tone it down,” the bishop said. “People are getting riled up. Our job is to bring people together, not divide t
hem.”
What people? I wondered.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said.
“Good. How are things otherwise?”
“Maybe you and I should talk.”
“Any time at all,” he said. “But keep an eye on Mullins. I want this political nonsense to stop. We’ve got to keep our noses out of public matters. That way, perhaps, they’ll keep their noses out of ours.”
{16}
Father Chisholm, the priest in town, phoned in late November. He was brisk. Heard about what happened to your young friend from Hawthorne. I’ve been praying for him. Terrible, the pressures on the young these days. And by the way, could I take the evening Mass in town the Sunday coming? Just this once. Sickness in the family. Have to go away for a few days. We should get together when I’m back. We can talk about despair.
Perhaps.
“But I can count on you this Sunday?”
“I’ll mark it down,” I said. “November twenty-sixth. The evening.”
We used to call it the drunk’s Mass, but such blunt irony is out of fashion now.
“You’re a good man,” he said.
I still call it the new church, though it’s been there for at least twenty years. One of the signs of aging, I suppose. Past time compresses. For me the place will always have that look of newness, with the sunshine flooding from a skylight just above the altar, modern slit windows, floors banked so the pews rise in front of me and to the sides like in an auditorium. And the faces are mostly new. Even those that look familiar seem to be at least a generation down from my experience. I said my first Mass in this parish, in the old church, the old St. Joseph’s. One of the many that have burned down. Filling in for Chisholm on November 26 was a challenge. But it was being useful.
Sandy Gillis’s funeral was on the twenty-sixth, four days after he shot himself. It was a Friday, but they didn’t find him till the Sunday. They found him sitting in a hole in the ground, an old, abandoned cellar in the woods, a place out back called Ceiteag’s. It took us years to find out why he did it. I asked the crowd to pray for Sandy’s soul. A personal intention, I told them. I could see some nodding heads.
During the recessional I remembered certain faces, understood the hands raised to shield the whispering. Old MacAskill’s boy from out back. Remember him? Up the road from Sandy Gillis. He’d pray for him, all right. He’d know all about it.
And I remember my father, in his cups, celebrating after my first Mass, telling me with surprising calm: “When Sandy Gillis done himself in there … you know, it was really my fault. I did everything but pull the trigger.”
By then I didn’t want to know. But he kept it brief and sanitary.
“I told him something that we done. Overseas. He’d forgot …”
“And what was it you did?”
“Ah, well. There was this young girl.”
I remember waiting. Braced for more.
“It was her. The girl. She shot poor Sandy. He never remembered a thing afterwards, until I told him.”
And that was all.
I remember reassuring him with notions of contrition, reconciliation. He listened respectfully, nodding.
“I hear what you’re saying,” he said.
† † †
Once outside, the crowd dispersed quickly. The bitter wind, sweeping up the strait from Chedabucto Bay, whipped the edges of the vestments. Thank you. Thank you. Hurry them along to finish off their interrupted weekend.
“Have you heard anything from Father Chisholm, how are things at home?”
“Everything is fine. He’ll be back in a day or so. If anything comes up before that, call me in Creignish.”
And then a face with traces of the familiar in the folds of flesh. Something about the eyes.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said.
I struggled, on the edge of recognition. Probably I don’t, I wanted to say. The chill was in my marrow.
“We were in school together. The old Hastings school, years ago. Don Campbell.”
Don Campbell?
“Donald A.,” he finally admitted. “From Sugar Camp. Out the Long Stretch.”
“Ohhhhkay,” I said. Remembering, vaguely.
“I got to be Don, working away,” he said, smiling back at me.
“You’re at the mill now, I imagine,” I said, gripping a substantial hand.
“No such luck. Working construction. Coming and going. Away a lot. Probably why I haven’t seen you for a while. Following the jobs. Out west, up north. You haven’t changed a bit yourself. I’d know you anywhere.”
The face was full and red, maybe from the wind, but the eyes were watery from long experience.
“It’s queer thinking of you as Father,” he said, laughing lightly.
I laughed too.
“I well remember Sandy Gillis,” he said. “And the way he went, in ’63. The old man and I were there when they found him. At Ceiteag’s.”
I just nodded.
“An awful shame when it comes to that. I guess he never got over the war.”
I nodded, looked away.
“Some mess he made. I’ll never forget it. I was just a youngster myself.”
“You have a family, I suppose,” I said.
“Just the wife home now. Two boys. Up the way, one in Toronto, one in the States. Though I see more of them than the poor wife these days, with all the travelling for work. You’ll have to come by. Have a drink and reminisce. The house next to the little store on the old Sydney road. You’ll know it.”
“Someday I will,” I said.
I watched him go. Now he’s known as Don, for having been away. And I was thinking about our growing up together in that strange place out back, outside the magic circle of significance. And how much we hide in platitudes.
Sextus wasn’t expecting me but didn’t seem unhappy I was there.
“I said Mass for Chisholm this evening, and since I was in the neighbourhood …”
“Come in,” he said.
His apartment was dimly lit. A near-silent television flickered in a corner and a book lay open on a coffee table.
“It came back to me this evening. Saying Mass in town. Thinking about your uncle Sandy … It was thirty-two years ago today we buried him, wasn’t it? I was thinking of him during Mass. Got them to pray for his soul.”
“That’s wild. It completely slipped my mind. You’ll have a dileag, for the cold?”
“No, thanks. Have you been hearing from my sister?”
“Now and then. I think she’s staying put this Christmas. I wonder how John is doing these days?”
“He’s fine. He came to see me. He’s been on the wagon since February.”
“That was a bad one, last Christmas.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about this Christmas.”
He sat then, arms folded. “We’ll see.”
I appraised the room. “Actually, this is about all I really need. A nice little apartment. I don’t know why we have the glebe house anymore. A waste of heat and power.”
He shrugged.
“I ran into Donald A. Campbell this evening after Mass. You remember him. We were talking about Sandy. He said to say hello.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Calls himself Don now.”
“When did he come home?”
“He didn’t say. I hardly knew him. He mentioned he was one of the ones that found Sandy. He was with the search party.”
“He’d have been pretty young.”
“A little younger than we were at the time.”
“Donald A.,” he repeated, smiling at some private memory. “I don’t suppose the wife was with him?”
“He was alone.”
He laughed aloud then. “Probably just as well.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Surely you remember Barbara.”
{17}
Mullins told me to wait in the kitchen. He had somebody in the office. He wouldn’t be long. Twenty minutes
later I was still there, fidgeting. The kitchen told you just about everything you’d want to know about him. Bright yellow walls and clean white cupboards, a Formica countertop devoid of any clutter. Sink empty, aluminum and chrome blinding in the mid-afternoon sunshine. Dry dishcloth draped primly over a glinting faucet. Faint odours of furniture polish.
I used to enjoy coming here. The neatness, the meditative silences when Mullins was away. The place feels stifling to me now.
It was close to three in the afternoon. The sharp December sun slanted through a window facing northwest. Port Hood Island sat abandoned, waiting for the snow, the homes of the summer Americans silent and secure. Water in the foreground danced, tossing foamy spittle into the sharp wind. A chilly view, I thought, but inside the sun warmed the sanitary kitchen.
The house was silent. Whoever he had in the office was either mute or speaking very softly. I could feel an irritated boredom settling into my bones. Typical Mullins.
In the summer I’d escaped to the island on my boat a dozen times at least. Tucked the Jacinta inside the U-shaped wharf, the way young Danny showed me on that hot day in July. Meandered up to the little church he’d pointed out. Real peaceful there, he said. Obviously he knew. I’d sit in meditative silence with the ghosts of the solid, thrifty islanders of old moving quietly around me. The odd board squeaking in the floor and walls the only sound.
“Wait in the kitchen,” he’d said, as if I were a salesman.
Have a quiet word with him, the bishop said.
I’d kill for a drink right now, I thought. Next thing I’ll be carrying a flask. Smiled to myself. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. Ohhhh no.
There was a large black housefly staggering along the windowsill and it reassured me in a way. A small imperfection to humanize that sterile place. The window in the bishop’s room is full of them. Where do they come from? Hundreds clustered in black, miserable clumps. Are they dead? Or hibernating? How did they get in there?
I stifled a yawn. I wondered if he keeps a bottle in the cupboard like I do. I could look. What harm in checking?
The fly was now stymied in a corner. No. He recovered. Started up the windowpane. I decided to give Mullins five more minutes and remembered: Bell sat here. For a year. Eating, drinking, bullshitting. Entertaining God knows whom or how. What is it about a guy like Bell that draws them to him? The guitar? Maybe if I was musical. No. He had charm and talent.
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