The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil

by Lesley Choyce

  And then a very strange thing happened. The room became quiet. There was no wind outside. I could hear my own heart beating and I knew the same thought settled over both of us. Soon, there would be a child.

  This sudden thought, this reality, was somehow different from everything Emily and I had read or talked about. We had both been approaching the birth of a baby as an almost technical thing. We wanted to be sure everything was done right.

  But this was something different. There would be a birth and from it a child would come into this world and begin to grow and have a personality and a life. All this arose from sniffing the dusty pages of an old book. I allowed the communal silence to seal one further bond between us. But I could not properly fathom where I would fit into this new reality. It was conceivable that I did not fit into it at all.

  THERE WAS A CALENDAR now — a large one on the wall in the kitchen with a picture of a field of daisies. An unlikely image for the month of February. Cape Breton had become a hard, brittle land after a warm spell that had melted all the snow. Cheryl Hollis reported that nothing had been resolved legally but that, by April, she may not be able to hold back the tide of opposition. But she would try.

  Brian came to visit — always in the morning and leaving before mid-afternoon. He cared for Emily, it was obvious, and he was uncomfortable with me around. That and something else. He seemed troubled, agitated. Something was gnawing at him so profoundly that he could not let it go. I could not envision him in the father role, even if he could overcome the idea that someone else had fathered the child. I want to say, though, that I liked him but I did not. I could see past my own misgivings of him, however, to understand he was a prideful young man who needed to fight the wrongs of the world. But at what cost?

  On one of those hard, bitter mornings, I discovered that a fox had entered the barn and killed two hens and the old rooster we called Trudeau. Emily was so upset, she cried for much of the morning. It was the deaths but also the hormones, I understood. She convinced me that I needed to bring the remaining hens into the house until the fox problem was solved.

  “I’m not sure it would be good for your health,” I said.

  “Keep them in the firewood bedroom. Just for a little while until you can do something about the fox. Please.”

  So now there were chickens living in the house. And I set the old Havaheart trap I had bought for catching weasels and porcupines. It did not kill or injure the creatures but captured them in a wire cage. Then the marauders would be driven far away to a place where they would be set free, away from humans and houses.

  Soon after, Father Welenga returned for his weekly visit, this time with Brian in tow. Father Welenga noted the sound of chickens coming from the firewood room. “It is a fine thing to have birds in one’s house. The wings of birds lift the spirits of men.”

  I had captured the offending fox the night before and Brian was outside studying the trapped animal. “I’ll take him back with me and let him go near the cabin. He’ll be safe there.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Thank you, son.” That day he seemed more interested in the fox than in Emily, although this could have been my imagination.

  “He has as much right as any of us to live out his life.” He said this with indignation.

  “I know it’s in his nature to kill chickens or other wild animals. I know he can’t help that. I don’t blame him. I just want to relocate him.”

  “The trouble is … soon there may be no place to relocate him to.”

  “The forest around Margaree is a wonderful place for him.”

  “For now, maybe, but for how long?”

  “It will be my first time with a fox in my car,” Father Welenga said. “My family back in Cameroon will think this is very funny. They will say that Kofi is now a priest who drives around with a fox in his automobile. And they will laugh.”

  But Brian was not laughing. He had his face down close to the cage and he and the fox studied each other. “We should go soon. It’s not good to keep him caged like this for long. It’s cruel.” There were any number of things about Brian that I did not like, especially his occasional arrogance. But I had to admire his compassion for animals.

  FEBRUARY ENDED AS IT had begun: without snow and a dull grey brittle hardness to everything. The hens had returned to the barn, but there were few eggs with Pierre Trudeau dead and the hardness of the winter days and nights upon us. My health had been good and my mind honest and clear. I had put the visions of my father out of my life altogether, but I was more than a little disappointed that Eva was not appearing to me in the mornings or even in my dreams. But as we moved into the middle days of March, I felt a calm and clarity come over me.

  On the seventeenth, I decided to drive into town for supplies. I wanted to make sure we would not have to return until after the baby was born. And I knew it would be good for us to be seen together in public. Townsfolk in Inverary had adjusted themselves to seeing us together and it would be a reassurance that everything was as normal as could be expected.

  I parked in front of the IGA and helped Em out of the car. A few women stared directly at us, and I met their glaring eyes with my own so that they would turn away and mind their own business. It was then I heard the shouting from across the street. I didn’t understand at first what was happening. Someone with a bullhorn was shouting loudly.

  “Oh God, it’s Brian,” Em said, walking out into the street without looking for cars. One driver put on his brakes and squealed to a stop. I followed her, waving to the driver, nodding a thanks for the quick response.

  It was a demonstration in front of Morrison’s office. The American pulp company had begun to clear-cut the crown land near Margaree. Brian now had his nemesis, his clear and present danger. Emily and I were at the back of a crowd that seemed rather astonished that anything like this was happening here in Inverary.

  There were a dozen protesters in all and the one most surprising to me was Father Welenga. He held a “Save the Trees” placard high up into the air. Brian’s voice was full of anger. Some cheered as he spoke, others booed. From inside the storefront office, two Morrison company men looked out with disgust. One was holding a cell phone in his hand.

  I didn’t recognize any of the other protesters and reckoned they’d come in from Sydney or Halifax. Most local people had been happy to hear of new jobs in the woods coming this way, but clearly everyone didn’t see the destruction of an old-growth forest as a cause for celebration.

  A single RCMP car arrived. Both Sealy Hines and Reginald Sheehan got out and walked slowly but purposefully towards Brian. Reginald was reaching for the bullhorn, but Brian pulled away and kept speaking in an angered, frantic voice.

  “Brian,” Emily said, in a whisper only I could hear. “Please Brian. Not this. Not now.”

  I could see in his face that Brian was not about to back down. Sealy and Reginald were calm as they tried to get Brian to put the megaphone down and talk to them. And then Father Welenga tried to intervene. Reginald could not see who it was who had put a hand on his shoulder but, having grown up the son of a bootlegger and accustomed to out-of-control bootleggers’ parties, his gut reaction was that if someone put a hand on your shoulder, you react.

  And react he did. Reginald turned quickly and his fist came down hard on the jaw of a surprised Father Welenga. The crowd drew in one communal breath of shock to see the familiar priest taking a powerful punch. They were even more shocked to see the priest recover so quickly and return the favour with such power that Reginald Sheehan was knocked down onto the cold Inverary sidewalk.

  The other protestors continued to shout and huddle together, but Brian swung a wild arc with the bullhorn. Sealy ducked, and then quickly grabbed Brian’s wrists and held them together tightly. Father Welenga was now trying to help Reginald back onto his feet and shouting for everyone to calm down, but Reginald seemed to have lost respect for the clerg
y because he put the African priest into a headlock. Em started forward but I held tightly to her arms to keep her with me at a safe distance. I heard the radio in the RCMP car let out a raspy question that would remain unanswered since the officers had their hands full.

  It was Kenny Beaton who moved forward from the gaggle of onlookers to assist the priest, taking advantage of the moment by punching Reginald viciously in the gut and then running away from there as quickly as his feet could carry him.

  The protestors were still shouting and Brian was wriggling to free himself, but Sealy ignored his fallen partner and handily dragged Brian to the rear seat of the cruiser where he handcuffed him inside, made a quick request for backup over the squawker and returned to help his downed comrade. Father Welenga was still begging everyone to remain calm when someone from near the street shouted out, “Hit him again, Father.”

  Sealy helped Reginald to the car and waited until a second RCMP cruiser arrived. Father Welenga put his hands up in the air to surrender himself the way they do in the movies when a gangster drops his gun and he’s all out of bullets. A few protestors had already left their posting and run off. The few stragglers who were left dropped their placards and tried to mix in with the onlookers before they too faded from the scene.

  Emily pulled me towards the police car and tried to catch Brian’s eye, but I was tugging her away and across the street. That’s when we were stopped by Edgar MacNaughton, who was directly in our path.

  “Emily,” he said. “This is crazy.”

  He looked angrily at me but said nothing.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I RECKON THE DEMONSTRATION did what Brian wanted it to do — drew attention to the clear-cutting of trees and the ruin of a beautiful forest. Brian and Father Welenga were released later that day and interviewed by the CBC TV crew that drove out from Sydney. By the evening they were on the national news. Cheryl Hollis immediately took on Brian’s case but the Catholic Diocese insisted on defending Father Welenga, who was facing criminal charges for hitting an RCMP officer. The media escalation brought the attention of the immigration office, which was calling now for the deportation of Father Welenga back to Cameroon. They say that the forestry industry lobby had considerable pull in Ottawa and this was one way to put a pugilistic tree-hugging priest on a plane and get him out of the way. Father Welenga was not allowed to lead Mass or provide Communion and this pissed off the older members of the congregation who had grown to love him.

  A few nights after the announcement of Father Welenga’s impending exile from his beloved adopted home of Cape Breton, someone tried to burn down Elliott Campbell’s constituency office. Campbell was the useless, but duly elected, Conservative Member of Parliament for this riding, who had fit neatly into the pocket of big fishing and big forestry right from day one. It was a small fire in a garbage can in his office that unfortunately Paul Kingsley noticed on his way for a late beer at the tavern. Little damage was done and the setting of the fire was blamed on unnamed (and probably non-existent) eco-terrorists living in the woods above Lake Ainslie. I, however, knew fairly sure from the rumours that it was a couple of octogenarian Catholics who had been loyal to Father Welenga from the time of his arrival and missed going to daily Mass at the church.

  Brian became caught up in a media whirlwind as a spokesman for saving the old-growth Margaree forest. He phoned from Cheryl Hollis’s cell phone to say that the Sierra Club had called him and were paying for a plane ticket for him to fly to Ottawa for some coaching and “workshops” on environmental activism. They were asking him to set up a local branch office and said they would provide funding.

  “He’s really excited about this,” Em told me sadly after the phone call.

  “Does he know the real due date of the baby?”

  “No. He’s going to Ottawa tomorrow. He’ll be back in two weeks.”

  “And you didn’t tell him the truth?”

  She looked down. I allowed the silence of the evening to reign for several minutes.

  “No. John Alex, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I care about Brian, and we talked about me, about him, about the baby … about weaving our lives together. But this is not his time for that. You saw him in town. You saw the fire in him. And this is a good thing. This is what he needs to do. But it’s not for me.”

  “But I thought you still loved him.”

  “That’s the hard part. Maybe I do. Maybe I still love him.”

  “Oh boy,” was all I could muster.

  “But there’s more. Having doubts about Brian is making me have doubts about myself. Am I really ready for what’s ahead?”

  “That’s understandable.” I swallowed hard. It was a week before the baby was due and only Emily and I knew this to be the case. As far as everyone else knew — including Cheryl and Sheila — the baby was not due until April. This had given us more time, a kind of buffer zone, in case things became legally complicated. “Does this mean you have doubts about this? About being here?”

  “No. My heart tells me that being here right now is the only right thing.”

  “We can still check into the hospital later this week.”

  “They’ll know immediately when the baby is due and then I’m afraid things will move out of my control. I’m sure of it. I want to stay here.”

  “You still want to have the baby here?”

  “Yes. Sheila will be the midwife.”

  “Okay. And I’ll be … whatever I have to be to help.”

  “You’ll be the nurse, John Alex.”

  I smiled. “Funny, nursing was never much of a career option for a guy like me when I was growing up.”

  Emily smiled then and stood up, or tried to stand up. I moved quickly to help her to her feet and when I had, she leaned forward and hugged me, her large belly pressing against me. She had done this rarely. I touched her soft hair — so much longer now than when I’d first met her. I touched her cheek gently and then she pulled away and walked into the kitchen.

  I stood silently, listening to the cupboards and drawers opening. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m going to bake bread,” she said.

  This was a first. Neither of us had baked bread before, although I’d made biscuits from time to time. “Do we have everything we need?”

  “Yes, John Alex. Everything.”

  I HAD CHECKED WITH Sheila about her schedule for the week of the twentieth. Port Isaac, Mabou, Inverary, Belle Cote. I had memorized her home phone and her cell phone numbers but I kept a written copy with me at all times. I told Sheila that I wanted to stay in touch and if she didn’t mind, I’d call sometimes with questions about childbirth and such. She seemed flattered and I wanted to tell her the truth, wanted even to ask her to come stay with us. But I wasn’t sure it was right to draw her into our small conspiracy. And Em insisted we keep to the plan.

  I was getting nervous. Scared is a better word. Images of Eva’s stillbirth haunted me. Somehow I had always believed it was my fault. I had not acted with enough skill and courage when needed most. I had failed her.

  There was a snowfall — not much, just a few inches. Then there were three rather warm, damp, spring-like days and a gentle mist rolled up from the ice fields along the shoreline. Everything outside was soft and wet and somehow energized by the fog.

  All of our childbirth books were overdue and, on the pretext of renewing them, I phoned Sheila. Yes, she was with the bookmobile in Mabou now. And yes, she’d renew them.

  “How is everything going?”

  “Fine. Just fine. Just as planned. Why don’t you come visit us this weekend?” I asked.

  “I could do that, I suppose.”

  “I’ll call you with details, okay? Do you always keep your cell phone on?”

  “I’ll keep it on, John Alex. And you have my home phone?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Sheila. I’ll call soon.”<
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  I was pleased with the way things went. I was certain she would be available and not too far away when we needed her. It was a fine strategy we had going. A good plan.

  THE BABY DID NOT arrive on the twentieth or the twenty-first. The days had remained warm, but I had kept the fire in the stove well-stoked and the firewood room was full. Emily and I were both nervous but prepared.

  “Any time you decide that you want to change plans and go to the hospital, I’ll get you there.” My mind stayed focussed. I did not allow it to wander. I knew where my car keys were. In my mind, I used the words “on duty,” although I never said them out loud. Em slept a lot and when she awoke, asked me to help her sit upright and walk to the kitchen or bathroom.

  She held my hand to her and let me feel the baby kick. As I lay her back onto her bed, she pulled my head to her belly and asked if I could hear the heartbeat.

  “It sounds very strong,” I said. “It’s like a drum in there.”

  On the twenty-second, the mists from the ice fields crept further up into the Deepvale hills while a full moon hovered above. You could not see it distinctly, but its diffuse light gave everything a wet, surreal glow. And then it began to rain.

  I don’t know why, but rain without wind is not to be trusted on this side of the island.

  Emily and I baked bread again that evening. We had become quite good at it, baking it with near precision in the old wood cook stove. It was the late Dr. Fedder who had predicted the baby due on the twentieth or twenty-first. I understood these things were not exact. I understood from our research that the child could have come days earlier or it could arrive any day thereafter. I was prepared for the possibility of it being late — and if more than a few days, I had already practised my speech, had it memorized. I had found a daunting voice of authority within me that I would use. I would insist we go to the hospital.

  I had phoned Sheila several times, uncertain of the reliability of her cell phone, with questions that became more and more trivial until she thought I was phoning just to flirt.