Bishop's Man (24 page)

Read Bishop's Man Online

Authors: Linden Macintyre

I protested that he shouldn’t take the incident at the hall so seriously. That I knew young Danny MacKay felt badly about it.
“Do you really think he’s the only one who thinks like that?” Donald asked bitterly.
“It doesn’t mean—”
“No?”
I could feel the sudden anger.
“Do you really think he’s the only person around here with that attitude?” He was staring through me and I could hear his unuttered question: What do
you
think?
I said nothing.
“I feel sorry for Danny MacKay, actually,” he said at last. “For whatever hang-ups made him do that. He just couldn’t keep it to himself, the way the others do. That guy is heading for big trouble.”
“Keep the money. Travel can be expensive.”
“Thanks, but I expect you can find better things to do with it. I hear they want to replace the Glebe.”
“I’d do anything to make you change your mind.”
He stared at me. Then, after what seemed like a long silence, he turned and walked away.
{14}
T
hen it was late September. The weather in summer can be unpredictable, but Septembers are, almost without exception, an unbroken flow of warm, still days drenched in sunshine. I had the engine uncovered, floorboards up. There was evidence of dry rot in the planks below the fuel tank. I wondered if the MacKays knew about it before they sold it to me.
Next one will be fibreglass, I thought. And then, in a spasm of distress, I realized the dry rot didn’t matter. In a few years I’ll be gone from here. There won’t be a next one.
I opened my cooler and brought out the rum. The bottle was wet and cold and comforting. I found a plastic cup and twisted the cap from the bottle.
There was a violent, startling thump. It was Danny. He’d jumped down from the dock and was walking along the washboard in my direction. His face was unshaven. He was wearing a ball cap backwards. I felt a momentary panic, sitting there with the incriminating liquor bottle in my hand. I fought annoyance.
“I was just pouring a cocktail,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested?”
“I don’t suppose the pope shits in the woods,” he replied. “Or is it the bear does that?”
I smiled.
He walked past me and stood at the stern, studying his boat with his hands on his hips. “You didn’t happen to notice who put my boat back in?” he asked.
The tone was hostile, so I lied. “No.”
“They could have told me.”
“I’m sure they tried to find you.”
“I’m not that hard to find.”
When he turned to face me, I realized he was still drunk.
“I’ll take it straight,” he said.
“Are you all right?”
“Never better.” He turned away again and studied his boat, drink in hand. “I’m thinking of getting rid of her anyway. I’ve decided. I’m going to pack up and head for Calgary. That’s where the future is. This fishin’ is for idiots.”
I said nothing.
“The government wants us all out of business. All the little guys. Turn the whole effing thing over to the big companies that can afford to bribe the politicians.”
I just listened.
“There’s a job for you. Speak up about that stuff. Raise a little hell. Stand up for the little guy, that’s what you should be doing. The way the old priests were, before they all went hippy-dippy.”
I shrugged.
He went into a long silence then and finally turned to me and asked, “How come you just let me get away with that?”
“With what?”
“You know. At the hall.”
“What do you think?”
He lit a cigarette. “You should have hit me back. That’s what you should have done. You should have poled me. That’s what old Father Donald would have done … so I’ve been told. That’s what I deserved. I wouldn’t have stopped you.” He stared at me, puffing on the cigarette. “Somebody was telling the old man you used to be pretty good with your hands yourself. Never took shit off nobody.”
“We outgrow that stuff.”
He laughed. “How about if I gave you a free shot. Right now. Just nail me.”
I stared, speechless.
“Come on. Right here. I deserve it. It’ll be my penance.” He stuck his chin out.
And suddenly, before me, I see the jutting faces of my father and our neighbour, Sandy Gillis, men misled by war to the belief that violence is a path to righteousness. I understand their problem now, how they got that way, how pain and guilt invite more pain. And I might have said to Danny, then and there, what I never said to them: Don’t you think that you’ve been hurt enough?
But I simply shook my head and turned away, silenced by uncertainty. We just sat there sipping our drinks, avoiding eye contact, listening to the soft wash of the tide slipping by.
“Did you ever think of going back to school?” I asked at last.
“All due respect, Father, you’re jokin’.”
“You’re still young, Danny.”
“That’s half the problem right there. I was born too late for anything that matters.”
“You’re wrong.”
“We’ll catch you later,” he said, setting his glass on the washboard then bounding up over the side of the wharf.
I wanted to call him back. But by the time I’d climbed up onto the wharf, his truck was racing up the shore road. I see it now, and the amber light of the falling September sun turning fields to gold and setting fires in the windows of the silent houses where all the secrets are.
“I have a feeling that you know more than you’re prepared to tell me. Am I right or wrong?”
Stella was silent on the other end of the phone. Then she sighed. “This is something very deep. He needs some help, but he isn’t ready for it yet.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
“No.”
I put the phone down and only remembered afterwards that I’d forgotten to say goodbye.
 
Sunday, October 8. It occurred to me that Bobby O’Brian was avoiding me. People consider me to be aloof; a word I’d never have thought of, but Sextus used it once when he was explaining the trouble with people like me. We hide behind this forbidding exterior, he said, and it fools most people. He had a hand on my lapel, fingering the heavy wool fabric.
“The cloth … the outward sign of your authority,” he said. “Something cultivated by old black-robed priests to save them from accountability.” Sextus uses the word
accountability
a lot. And
transparency.
Words, I assume, that people use more often in the larger places. But Bobby O. never seemed to notice my aloofness. Bobby O. is one of those people who always seemed comfortable with the priest.
“Bob,” I called out as he marched, head down, toward his car.
He hesitated. He was clearly wondering if he could get away with pretending not to hear me. So I broke away from a little group of women near the door of the church and walked toward him.
“I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Been pretty preoccupied. Union stuff. You know the way it gets.”
I asked him if he was hearing from his son.
“Ah, yes,” he replied reluctantly. “He’s doing good. Got a teaching job in Korea. Think of that. Korea.” He was trying to seem pleased.
There was a long pause then.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “It was embarrassing. I just don’t know any other way to put it. He kind of built up all those hopes, then … running away like that.”
“It isn’t running away. He just needs time. He was wise to go away, where he can think about it without feeling pressure.”
“It wouldn’t have been any different for him. You know what I’m talking about.”
And then I understood the anguish in his face.
“Things like that don’t matter when you’re a priest. Right? You have help, the Lord’s grace. Isn’t that what they tell us? I always figured he’d be safer as a priest.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“I gotta tell you, I worry about him. It’s a dirty rotten world.”
“Say hello for me. And if he ever wants to drop a line.”
“I’ll do that.” Then he said, “I hear young MacKay isn’t doing so good. I hear he’s been on a bender for weeks now.”
I nodded.
“I feel bad about that. He used to be a nice little fellow. I remember when they were both in the high school. They were buddies.”
“It’ll work out,” I said, feeling embarrassed at the poverty of the comment.
“Ah, well. Young people, eh?”
He headed toward his car, and I felt a wave of sorrow from somewhere deep, a place I rarely dare to go.
Thursday, October 12. Young Danny was on the phone in the morning.
“I was just wondering … I’ll probably haul the boat out next week. How about if I do yours at the same time?”
“That would be fine,” I said.
“The weather is closing in … they’re expecting some storms. Might as well put ’er away for the winter.”
“Can I help?”
“I’ll handle it. Call it a little act of contrition.”
We both laughed.
“Ego te absolvo,”
I said.
“What?”
“You’re forgiven.”
“Cool,” he said. “I feel much better now.”
 
Then it was the fifteenth. I clearly remember a high wind out of the northwest flinging cold rain against the hills and the houses, autumn leaves cascading from the tragic trees, congealing in rich coloured clumps on the road. After Mass that day, the people ran to their cars holding their parish bulletins over their bare heads. Rushing to their welcoming homes. I stood in the doorway of the church for a full five minutes, watching the storm racing over the bay, gathering up the whitecapped water, smashing it against the land. Something about my house made me want to linger in the creaking church, where there were still traces of living humanity. My house, a dead place compared to this and the living storm outside.
Then I saw the red half-ton turning up the lane. Sextus, I thought with surprise.
“Isn’t it grand,” he said, standing with the rain lashing his face. “I love this. I drove out to the old place, but the wind is blocked by all the trees. Then I thought of you here, and the view. I brought a jug of wine. Thought we’d have a little brunch.”
“Why don’t you step in here before you get soaked.”
“I just love the smell of it. The smell of the fall, nature throwing off the summer things. What else rots so fragrantly?”
I suspected he’d already started drinking, the way he was waving his arms around.
“Come on to the house. I’ll fry up some bacon and eggs. Put on a pot of coffee.”
 
He opened the wine. I had my Sunday Bloody Mary and set about the kitchen while he pulled a chair back from the table and sat there watching me.

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