The Most Perfect Gift

by Hubert Furey

  “Whaddaya say, Jimmy. Let bygones be bygones, eh? Put ’er there. I’m sorry about your mother, God rest her soul, and I’m sorry I said what I said back there on Prue’s Point. I was dirty-mouthed about your mother, God rest her soul, and I took an awful lacin’ to pay for it. Let’s call it square, eh?”

  His eyes were fixed on Jimmy, still imploring, his hand poised and waiting. Jimmy stared at the ugly scars that had been poorly stitched, the outstretched hand, the open admission in the eyes, and he stood dumbfounded, unable to move or speak. Mechanically and slowly, he raised his hand to meet Charlie’s, pausing before finally clasping it weakly, unable to be part of the totally unexpected encounter. Charlie’s grasp lingered, his eyes pleading forgiveness.

  “I heard you was looking for a bit of wood, so I brought up a big brin bag full and a bunch of splits. The front door was open, so I put it inside on the floor. It’ll get you through the night. I’ll bring you up some more in the pickup tomorrow if the storm lets up and the road gets cleared. Merry Christmas.”

  Jimmy let his hand drop, still unable to speak, totally unable to comprehend what had transpired before him. He tried to say “Merry Christmas” in return, but he couldn’t form the words and Charlie had already moved away, busying himself with hearty handshakes with everybody within reach around him. Inspired by Charlie’s action, other men close by extended their hands to Jimmy, but he could only acknowledge their gestures numbly, with a nod of his head.

  Barry O’Keefe again attracted his attention, waving to him as he turned to shake hands with the people in the pew behind him, smacking people boisterously on the back. Jimmy’s eyes rested on Sheila, who had turned and met his gaze over the distance. When he had looked at her first, his thoughts had been lascivious, almost gleeful for what he had done. Meeting her eyes over the distance now, he suddenly and inexplicably felt ashamed: ashamed of his earlier thoughts; ashamed of the evil grin which had accompanied them. He saw the day in the grove now for what it really was, taking an unbelievably beautiful woman and reducing her to the gutter world of his own unbridled passions.

  The prosecutor in that Halifax court was right. That prostitute wasn’t the first woman he had brutalized like that. He turned to look through the window, to avoid the pain he saw in her eyes, but he saw nothing there except howling snow pummelling the mass of cars outside the church, blotting out even the cars that were closest, rattling the timbers of the building. The storm had become a creature that had assumed form as it advanced toward him, hemming him in, seeking to reach him, crowding and suffocating him with its evil presence. His chest tightened, and panic rippled through his body, real panic that constricted his stomach and made his legs weak and wobbly. He closed his eyes and saw himself back in Dorchester again, and he wanted to scream.

  Jimmy had never panicked before, and for the first time in his life a sense of terror gripped him. He felt naked, as if his whole sordid life were being laid wide open, bare, exposed for all in the church to see. Yet when he looked toward the crowd, nobody was paying the least attention to him. They were moving on their way to communion, in various forms of reverence, focusing their attentions on the priest and the lay Eucharistic minister in front, while the choir sang “Silent Night” in soft, dulcet tones.

  He looked back again to the storm, but it was retreating now, moving away from the church. He could still perceive a form of evil, a form that was beckoning him to follow, inviting him to escape, from a life that should never have started in the first place. A life that began in the back seat of a car on Cutter’s Point! Christ! She couldn’t get past sixteen. What was she thinking about, bringing him into the world in a hole like Brine’s Cove, a mother who wouldn’t mention the name of his father? What was she afraid of?

  He wished now he had died on that street in Winnipeg. Maybe that would have been the best solution. Maybe it would still be the best solution. They say that it is one of the best ways to go. You start feeling warm and relaxed and you lie down and go to sleep, just as easy as that—and you simply don’t wake up. He had often heard his mother tell about old Jack Gunner like that. He had just left in the height of a storm to walk in the woods, and they didn’t find his body until the next spring. It would certainly solve their problem. He gave himself a violent shake. Thinking like that was weakness, and weakness didn’t keep him alive on the streets of Toronto or help him to survive ten years in Dorchester.

  The priest was giving the final blessing, and the choir began the closing hymn, “Joy to the World.” Although most people remained standing, to await the priest’s recession to the rear of the church, some were already starting to move toward the exit, and Jimmy tried to lean farther back against the wall, to hide himself from the looks that he felt were now beginning to penetrate and uncover him.

  He stared toward the floor, trying to avoid the glances of the crowd that followed the priest to the rear of the church, chatting amiably and engaged in profuse wishes of Merry Christmas. He raised his head at one point and found himself looking directly at Sheila O’Keefe for the third time. As she forced her way with the crowd through the narrow passageway, he was again bewildered by the feelings her presence induced, feelings brought on by the recognition of the beauty which she carried so effortlessly, and what he had done to that beauty. More than any other girl he had wanted to drag her to the grove, take her down from her stuck-up perch, grin at her while she lay there helpless, totally at his mercy.

  Looking at her now, he felt appalled and sickened by the look of pain and hurt which had taken the place of the stony countenance. What was happening? He leaned his arm on the windowsill, trying once again to retreat to the world of the storm outside, but all he could see amidst the swirling whiteness was a confused jumble of movement, silent against the shrieking monstrosity the storm had become, as people hurriedly cleaned snow off windshields and slammed car doors, in order to beat the storm to their yards.

  The effects of the meeting with Charlie Mackay still remained with him, and he tried to seek out some comforting individual face to help him become absorbed in the confusion outside, but all that emerged to confront him were faces from the past, faces and images that crowded into the darkened recess of his mind, faces and images that he couldn’t force away, faces and images that demanded his attention, demanded that he watch them in their suffering.

  He saw again the bruised, bloodied face of the guard in Dorchester and the sad, drugged face of the prostitute on Barrington Street, the bloodied face of Charlie Mackay and the terrified, crying face of Sheila O’Keefe that day in Aspen Grove. Other faces emerged, from the depths of a memory he thought he had erased and destroyed, faces that he thought he had forgotten, faces from crimes to which he had not given a moment’s hesitation in committing. The old couple cowering under their bedclothes in Regina, the drunken Cree they beat up for a lark in Edmonton, the woman they terrorized in the parking garage in Toronto . . .

  “You’re Jimmy Blanchard, aren’t you?” The voice of the priest jolted him back. “I’m Father Joe MacIntyre. I run this place, along with a dozen others since the lads stopped going to the seminaries. You’re just out of Dorchester, aren’t you?” The priest was speaking factually, with easy familiarity, like Jack Gregory. The old defences sprang into action, but as he looked at the priest’s hand extended in greeting, his defences subsided.

  “Yeah! Finished up. For a while, I hope.” He was trying to be humorous, but the images had not yet completely disappeared. Father Joe MacIntyre slid the cumbersome alb from around his shoulders and folded it carelessly, before draping it unceremoniously across the back of the last pew. He suddenly became very serious as he addressed Jimmy for the second time.

  “Looks like a pretty wild night.” He was peering past Jimmy at the window behind, where wind and snow were striking the panes, pressing in on the glass.

  “Yeah! Pretty wild,” Jimmy responded, still uneasy. Jimmy wondered if the priest wa
s just hanging around to talk, then he became aware of what his presence must mean. He straightened himself up to move. There was a sharp edge to his voice. “Look! If you’re worried about my being here—stealing or anything like that—that’s all over. Finished. The house was freezing, and I just came in here to get warm, and I’ll be out of your hair in two seconds. Besides, if I lift a finger out of the way, the cops in Couteau will be crawling down my neck faster than you can say Pope Whoever.”

  The astonishment that greeted the remark faded before a mischievous smile that spread across the priest’s face. He was just like Jack Gregory. “I dunno. You’d have slim pickings if you robbed a church these days. Collections aren’t what they used to be. Anyway, Barry O’Keefe has already taken the offertory collection up to the house. We did have it stolen once last year. There might be a few cents in the vigil light box or the offertory box before the crib, but I can assure you, they’re not worth the police visit, let alone the jail term.”

  The priest continued to laugh quietly. Jimmy gathered his collar around his neck preparatory to leaving. The little money boxes might be more of a temptation for him than the priest realized. Fr. MacIntyre touched his arm in a gesture of restraint.

  “You don’t have to leave yet. Stay as long as you like, or at least until midnight. If I have Midnight Mass early, I always leave the church open till midnight on Christmas Eve. A little practice of mine. There’s an old tradition here where people like to visit the crib at midnight on Christmas Eve. We have to lock up then. I don’t want to find any of the lads sleeping off a load in the pews in the morning. They might have a bad attack of something when they discover they’re actually inside a church. We have to have Mass earlier on Christmas Eve because I have to say another Mass in Pinchgut after. At least, I had one scheduled, but I don’t think they’ll be expecting me across the barrens tonight in this storm.”

  He was peering again through the window, at a storm that was showing no sign of let-up. Then he turned and nodded in the direction of old Mother Hennessey, still in church, kneeling alone on the far side in front of the statue of St. Anne, eyes closed, alternately extending and compressing a rosary of shiny glass beads. That’s how his grandmother used to say the rosary. Jimmy had thought he was alone. The priest smiled mischievously.

  “You can keep Mother Hennessey company for a while. She’s not going to leave until she says her rosary in front of St. Anne, Mass or no Mass.” Then he looked through the window again, his voice becoming very serious. “Maybe you could have an eye to her. There’s no sense in me telling her to leave until she’s finished. She just lives two houses down, but I’d say she’s going to have trouble plowing through those drifts tonight. If you’re staying for a while, have an eye, will you? Save me the worry.”

  Jimmy nodded dumbly, uncomprehending. It wasn’t what he did best with old people. The priest winked, in a playful way, and turned and left.

  He heard the door close, and he felt alone again, in spite of the presence of old Mother Hennessey. A sudden cramp shot up his left leg, and he realized he’d been standing too long. He’d been doing a lot of standing since he walked out of Dorchester’s gate. He made his way quietly to a pew and sat back as far as he could, using the practice of years to find the maximum comfort from a difficult position. The old woman in front, absorbed in her prayers, seemed totally unaware of his presence. He followed her gaze at one point to the crucifix over the centre altar, but he instantaneously averted his eyes, resting his glance instead on the hunched figure of the old woman praying directly to his right.

  Mary Margaret Hennessey hadn’t changed much. Kneeling like that, she was barely tall enough to reach over the edge of the pew. She still had to crane her neck as she fixed her eyes on the statue in front. She whispered the repetitive prayers in a whistling, chirping fashion, loud enough to be heard all over the church, stretching her rosary at times almost the full width of her arms, bowing her head periodically at fixed points in the recitation. He used to make fun of his grandmother when she said the rosary like that, rocking back and forth in the old wooden rocking chair. His mother used to laugh with him, too, when she’d catch his eye, in a lighthearted way.

  He suddenly became very serious. It was the first happy memory of his mother that had ever appeared in his mind, and he began to feel something that he had not felt since a long time ago, that did not even surface when they told him of his mother’s death. It was a terrible feeling of longing, a searing ache, that he had kept hidden somewhere in the untouchable reaches of his being and that now forced its way into his consciousness, demanding exposure to the light.

  The last time he had experienced any kind of feeling at all was that Christmas morning when he was five years old. He had come out of his room and seen the red and blue wheelbarrow that he knew now his mother had gotten Bill O’Keefe, Barry’s father, to make. And there it was, his, loaded with a colouring book and green mitts and an apple and an orange and cardboard box shaped like a duck, filled with candy.

  Jimmy watched Mother Hennessey check off her beads, his mind going back again to that day on his front step, the day she brought the vegetables for the last time, the day before he left. It wasn’t a look of shock, anymore; it was bewilderment, a look that said “I’m only trying to help you.” He looked and looked at the old woman, who was totally oblivious to his presence behind her. That old woman had brought bags of vegetables and boxes of food to their doorstep time and time again before he left, and was the one person who visited his mother—every day—when she had gotten sick. His mother never failed to mention it in her letters. Suddenly, and again inexplicably, he felt horror at the obscenities he had launched at her: horror at the fact he had driven her away; horror that he had been what he had been.

  He looked around, glad that there was nobody there to look at him, glad there was nobody to sense the tiny spark of feeling that had originated somewhere in the depths of his soul, glad there was nobody to see it become larger and larger, as it coursed through his veins and overpowered him, forcing him for the first time to squarely confront the evil of the person that he had become, the evil of the person that he was. The images returned again, the images that he couldn’t fight, of bloody faces and old couples cowering in terror in their bedrooms, of helpless panhandlers mutely submitting to brutal, sadistic kicking, of the guard in Dorchester, pleading with his eyes. And the women—the faces of the women.

  Especially their faces! He could not forget their faces: the face of Sheila O’Keefe and the face of the prostitute, fifteen years old. The one they derisively called Loonie because she was so cheap. The well-dressed woman in the garage, and the little French girl in the van. Faces sick with fear and agony and suffering, faces that had made him laugh deliriously, drunk with booze and drugs and sexual power as he thrust and tore like some savage, vindictive, unleashed beast. With the images came sounds, and for the first time since his victims returned to his memory, he could hear their anguished cries for help, their hopeless pleas for pity, their screams of pain and terror as they writhed in agony in the pitiless grasp of his inescapable, merciless strength.

  Please, we’re both over eighty. He has a heart condition. Oh! Please don’t hit him again, please.

  My God! You’re hurting me. Please! Oh my God.

  Please don’t hit me again. Please don’t hit me again. Please.

  Jimmy, Jimmy, please, this is not the way I want it. Jimmy, Jimmy, please don’t.

  He sat immobile, unable—not wanting—to repel the memories. And not for the sake of some perverse enjoyment. There was something happening that he couldn’t explain, and he wanted to remember, to be punished by the memories, to have the memories crush and torment his own spirit, as retribution, even as he had crushed and tormented his victims. He would always remember, and the anguish of not being able to reach back in time and undo would be its own form of torture. Yes, forgetting would be too easy.

 
His eyes again sought out the figure praying in front of the statue of St. Anne, and he thought, If it could only be that easy, but he knew he could never do that. You don’t suddenly change from being a ferocious beast to being a gentle, harmless lamb by a simple wish. He knew it would be harder than that. And why was the last image lingering, the image of a broken Sheila O’Keefe, now that he had witnessed her, alive and in the flesh? Was the fact that she was there and that he had felt revulsion some kind of sign that perhaps tomorrow would be better, that he would find a way? Was there some connection between his yearning to come back, Charlie Mackay’s plea for forgiveness, the priest’s warmth, the way he was moved by Sheila O’Keefe’s pained face? She had cried a lot, that day in the grove, and no doubt many a day and night after. They all cried a lot, begging, pleading, suffering.

  Jimmy looked again toward the storm, now encroaching again. He had never cried, at least not since that Christmas Day a long time ago, and he had bitten and kicked at Dick Furneaux’s older brother because Malcolm Furneaux was laughing and drunk and trying to tear off his mother’s clothes, while she was fighting and crying, too. He closed his eyes, shutting out the storm, shutting out the warmth of the church, shutting out the whistling sounds of Mother Hennessey’s rosary. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at the old woman for a long time. He could never do that. He could never pray like that. Whatever chance he had to pray had long since gone, gone with a soul so steeped in evil that he knew it was lost forever to any chance of repentance.

  He had despised his mother simply for being alone, for not telling him of a father he knew he would kill if they ever met. Jimmy had despised all those people he had destroyed with fists of speed and iron strength and vicious cruelty, the ones he had left numb and unconscious on freezing streets in nameless towns, for the sake of a few cents change or the last cigarette in a sodden package. He had despised the women he tormented and the women he beat and the women he humiliated. He opened his eyes and bowed his head, staring at the kneeler at his feet. He should never have come back. It was no good. He could never undo it—not one tiny piece of it—even if he tried.