I hadn’t heard. And why call me?
“Someone said that if anybody knew about it, you would.”
“Someone is trying to lead you astray,” I said. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. I could see his face, a window on his sanctity.
Keep the bishop out of it this time, I thought.
Father Roddie was a bit dishevelled when he greeted me at the door of his apartment, squinting in the dim light. The years had bestowed a reassuring aura of harmlessness. He was pot-bellied and grey. His face had assumed what seemed to be a permanent expression of piety and kindness.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “I haven’t seen you for years.” We shook hands. “You still have the grip,” he said with a laugh.
I smiled.
“I’d forgotten all that,” he said. “The misunderstanding.”
I nodded.
“And you dropped out of sight for a while, I do believe. The missions somewhere, wasn’t it?”
“Honduras.”
“Ah, yes. Lucky you. I always regretted missing the experience of the far-off lands.” He sounded genuine. “Actually, I remember you more clearly from before all that. When you were just a student. Quite bright. You stood out. Great grasp of … large concepts. You were interested in the European phenomenologists, I think.”
We were still standing in his doorway.
“It’s like yesterday,” he said. “You’d be coming to my place in Chisholm House for our little chats. You must remember? You’d be spouting Heidegger at me … just to get my goat.”
And we both laughed then.
“What am I thinking?” he said. “Keeping you standing here like a stranger. Come in. Come in.”
His room was austere, but the walls were jammed to the ceiling with books, newspapers and manuscripts strewn about, and half-read books lay open on every available surface. We made small talk for just a minute or two longer.
By then I had developed an instinct for guilt. You could feel it in the room even before it became obvious in the eyes.
After a lull in the conversation he said, “I think I know why you’re here.” He sighed and smiled. Removed his glasses, wiped them slowly with his sleeve.
“Oh?”
“No Heidegger today, I guess. Just as well. I’m a little rusty on my German. Would you have a drink of something?”
“No.”
“I’m aware of some of your … shall we say extracurricular activities during the past few years.”
“Activities?”
“Oh, come on. The Exorcist. You must have heard that one. The Purificator. No malice intended. You’ve done some great work. Hard, thankless work, performed with admirable discretion.” He sat there smiling, confidence returning like the tide. “A one-man Inquisition. Remember how mad you’d get when I’d bring up Heidegger’s Nazi affiliations?” He never stopped smiling. “By the way, does Alex know you’re here?”
“Alex?”
“Bishop Alex. We were classmates, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“We play bridge once a week. We’re partners. Maybe that’s how I know about your … work. Alex thinks you’re the cat’s pyjamas. Wouldn’t be surprised to see you in his job one day.”
“I didn’t know he played bridge.”
“I’d been planning to talk to him, actually. About certain malicious stories. You’ve obviously heard them. There’s a reporter spreading them around. A fellow named MacLeod, I think. You’re sure I can’t offer you anything? I think you like Balvenie.”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, then. Let’s just get it out in the open. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been putting it off. Confronting this thing.”
Always watch the eyes.
They were blue and I swear they twinkled. He had bushy white eyebrows, broken blood vessels at the tip of the nose.
He acknowledged that he had a drinking problem. It started in Korea. Didn’t I know that he’d served in the army? Just stupid drinking then. But after he came back, he’d hit the booze to escape the flashbacks and the depression that haunted him. The things he saw. The things he heard about. Did I know he was a chaplain with the PPCLI?
The what?
Princess Pat’s … light infantry.
I nodded.
“War,” he said. “An awful thing. But you know that already.” He sighed. “I thought, being a priest, I’d be able to handle it. I was sure the faith would help put everything in perspective.”
He’d been getting help, he said, for the drinking. The other stuff? It wasn’t worthy of response. Some poor little retarded girl and a combination of misunderstanding and miscommunication. “That and a chalice full of malice.” He smiled. “But I suspect you know the way it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Well. Your own father. Surely you, of all people, would understand.”
“He says he’s your bridge partner.”
I said it lightly, to avoid offence or pain.
The bishop looked like he was going to be sick. “I can’t believe you just landed in on him like that. It must have been a terrible shock for him, that kind of an … ambush. Especially with the history you two have. That business in the seventies.”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“But you’re bothering me now.”
“Yes. I’ve asked around. Credible people confirm it. Father Roddie isn’t a well man. Hasn’t been for decades. Even he admits he has a problem.”
He sighed deeply. “You just won’t let go of it, will you. What did Father Roddie ever do to you?”
“There’s possibly more to it than we know. I’ve met with one of the accusers, by the way.”
“You mean the retarded one?”
“You know about her?”
He waved a hand dismissively. He was sitting behind his desk, eyes cast down, fiddling with paper clips. “At least it isn’t an altar boy this time. At least it’s a … female.”
“These things aren’t about sex,” I said.
“Whatever.” He sighed. “Okay. Leave this to me.”
“That really isn’t—”
“I’ll handle it,” he snapped, eyes burning. “Are you getting hard of hearing?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Is that all?”
“Father Roddie made a strange reference to my father.”
“He did? So what.”
MacLeod remembered me. There was familiarity in the voice on the other end of the line. “How’re ya doin’, Father?”
He reminded me our paths had crossed before, when there were rumours about some elderly priest. Did I know Roddie MacVicar? Doc Roddie, he was called by some. The eminent philosopher. Aquinas expert. Suspected pervert.
“I had him as a prof,” I said.
There was gossip years ago. My name came up, according to MacLeod, because it seems I was a parish assistant where something happened. There was even a story of a physical confrontation involving me and the old man. And that I got exiled over it, to somewhere in Central America.
“Absurd,” I said.
“That would have been some story, eh? What I heard was … you, I guess, half throttled the old guy. I said at the time, ‘If what I hear is true … more power to him.’”
“Somebody was pulling your leg.”
“I’m sure. Wishful thinking on someone’s part. But maybe if there had been more of that kind of old-fashioned reaction to things back then, we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re looking at now.”
“What,” I asked, curiosity now in charge, “was the eventual outcome of your story back … when was it?”
“The seventies, I think. I dropped it. I remember calling the bishop at the time. He denied it flatly. In the end he persuaded me that the potential damage to an important institution like the Church was a strong argument for discretion.”
“I suppose there’s something to that.”
“It was probably the right call … then. I’m glad we didn’t get sucked into the hysteria, like in Newfoundland and Boston.”
“That wouldn’t have helped anybody.”
“Precisely.” There was a long pause before he asked: “So you probably don’t remember the second time I called?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“The old boy got up to it again. Late eighties, I think.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He laughed. “You gotta hand it to the old bugger. He must have been near seventy that time. It was about some handicapped person. A girl.”
“And what happened to that story?”
“The usual. Nobody talking. The old stone wall treatment. Anyway. That’s history. We might have a new situation now.”
He said Brendan Bell’s name turned up while he was following the recent prosecutions of priests in Newfoundland. He noted a reference to our diocese, Antigonish. A priest with a sex-related conviction in Newfoundland had ended up in Nova Scotia. Interesting, he thought, that they’d send him here. Did I know anything about it?
“What was the name again?”
“Bell. Brendan. I’m told you might have been acquainted with him.”
“The name sounds familiar. It rings a bell.” We both laughed. “Have you asked the bishop?”
“I did. He claims this Bell guy is out now. Gone from the priesthood. Hasn’t got a clue where he landed. I thought of you. Maybe you’d know.”
“Me? You obviously think I’ve been mixed up in all the scandals.”
“Well … I wouldn’t mind talking about that sometime if you’re comfortable with it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Okay, then. Bell. What do you know about Bell?”
“I remember his name and I think I heard he got married, as a matter of fact. He dropped out of sight a while back.”
“Got married?”
“That was what I heard, I think, from someone at the archdiocese in Toronto. They definitely said that Bell was getting married.”
You could feel the deflation on the other end of the line. “That’s kind of weird,” he said finally.
“What is?”
“Father Bell, getting married.”
“Not so weird anymore. More than half of my classmates from Holy Heart are happily married family men now.”
“Yes. I suppose. There’s that. But Bell? I wouldn’t have thought he’d be the marrying kind.”
There was a long pause.
“I’ll be honest with you, Father,” MacLeod said at last. “I got a tipoff. That this suicide in Little Harbour—I’m sure you heard of it, this young MacKay fellow from Hawthorne—I heard it might have had something to do with abuse. This Bell guy’s name came up.”
This is where you say nothing.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I sighed.
“I know what you’re thinking. The witch hunt, eh? People looking for sexual abuse under every rock.”
“You have your job to do.”
“I know. It isn’t something I particularly enjoy. I appreciate your understanding.”
“The truth is all that matters. We have to find the truth.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“Give me your number. Just in case I remember something.”
When he hung up, I called the bishop on his private line.
“MacLeod surfaced,” I said.
“What did you tell him?”
“You don’t have to worry.”
“Don’t be too sure of yourself,” the bishop replied. “The scandals in Newfoundland and the States are making them bolder.”
“He sounded reasonable. This MacLeod says he spoke to you before, about Father Roddie. Do you remember?”
“Vaguely.”
“He seemed to know certain details that only you and I and … well … one other person knew.”
“I wouldn’t give it another thought.”
{19}
C
hristmas was grim. The end of miserable 1995. Around suppertime on Christmas Eve, I called Sextus but got no answer. Heard a dozen vague confessions. Tried to nap but couldn’t. Called John. Got his answering machine. Checked in on choir practice. There are four people in the choir. Three women and Bob. Bob has a warm baritone. They make an okay sound. Had a few cocktails alone, waiting up for eleven o’clock when I’d go over. Carols at eleven-thirty. The silent, holy night was still, air sharp. You could hear the heavy breathing from the bay, a giant lung. Feeling the poetry of inebriation. They say drinking alone is a bad sign. But what if you’re always alone? What if solitude is the norm?
Sextus would have said if you worry about drinking too much, you probably aren’t. But I never brought it up with him because it didn’t occur to me that I might be. What was it my father used to say? All things in moderation.
You can drink like a fish as long as you’re moderate.