“Right. He’s not a serial killer.
Ergo,
he’s the man of my dreams.” I hesitated and she said: “All right. Rehabilitate him in my eyes. Go ahead.”
I put my cup on the table and leaned forward. “He was with you in the hospital for two nights when you were ill; he was there when the baby was born. He loved you very much. Both of you.”
Sandra was completely still, her cup forgotten in her hand. She stared into my eyes. Then I could tell she was no longer looking at me but at a scene that had played itself out a quarter of a century before. Several minutes went by before she asked me in a low, nearly hostile voice: “How do you know this? Is this something he told you?”
“No. I heard it from the nurse who was on duty in the hospital at the time. Brennan doesn’t know I found this out. It’s not the kind of thing he would reveal. He was there, Sandra. He abandoned you after that, I know. He was called to the priesthood. You and I can’t possibly understand that. But he was there watching over you, sitting with you, stroking your forehead, talking to you. He was there for the child’s birth. He held the baby and sang to her. Then he kissed the baby, kissed you, and walked out.”
I could see Sandra struggling to keep her face from betraying her emotions. She and Brennan were cut from the same cloth in that respect, I thought. She said, in not much more than a whisper: “You know, from time to time, something would come into my mind, something I thought Brennan had said. Something about a baby. Then I would realize he could not have said it. I attributed it to someone else, or to wishful thinking on my part. These may have been things he said to me then, when I was in such a fever.”
She fell silent again, and gazed out the window towards the ocean, my presence forgotten.
So I’ll drink today, love, I’ll sing to you, love,
in pauper’s glory my time I’ll bide.
No home or ties, love, a restless rover,
if I cant have you by my side.
— Jimmy Rankin, “Fare Thee Well Love”
I
The Rebecca Cohn Auditorium was filled nearly to capacity on Saturday night. I had parked the car at the house on Dresden Row, and I waited for Maura and Tommy Douglas to get ready. Lexie Robinson arrived just after I did, her magnificent golden hair shining over her black coat and dress. We settled Normie with a babysitter and walked to the Dalhousie Arts Centre, where the Cohn is located. The concert was to begin with a few arias and choral numbers from Mozart’s operas, followed by a couple of short orchestral works. After intermission, Brennan would conduct the orchestra and chorus in the
Kyrie.
Brennan emerged from backstage just before the concert began, and sat in front of Maura, who was to my right. I expected to see him in black tie, but he was wearing the Roman collar. He turned and greeted Tom and his new love: “Evening, Mr. Douglas. Ms. Robinson.” They both smiled and Tommy asked Father Burke whether he was nervous. “Nerves of steel, my son, nerves of steel. Tempered in the forge of your
dad’s court room.” I had a momentary vision of Burke on the witness stand, being eviscerated by the Crown prosecutor, as all the salacious details of his past were exposed to the merciless light of day. I resolutely put it from my mind.
Brennan reached over and took Maura’s hand in his. “Any requests, sweetheart?”
She favoured him with a rare and beaming smile: “‘Mack the Knife’?”
“After the show. There’s a dinner party at the Faculty Club. You come, we’ll dance.” Brennan leaned over to me. “What did I tell you, Monty? I’m just a choirboy.”
And then it was showtime. Whenever I looked at him during the first half of the concert, his hands were in restrained but constant motion as if he were directing the music.
He disappeared backstage at intermission. Maura and I chatted with the Strattons and other people we knew until it was time to resume our seats. I happened to be looking around as the lights went down, and that is when I saw her. She had not been in the audience for the first part of the show. Sandra Worthington sat in the middle of the auditorium and looked straight ahead. There were snowflakes on her coat and in her hair. She did not see me staring at her. She did not know I saw the quick intake of breath, the hand going up to her mouth, when she caught her first glimpse of the man who had been her lover more than twenty-five years before, a man now dressed in the immaculate black and white of a cultic priesthood, with lines at the corner of his eyes and strands of silver in his black hair. Her unblinking eyes were riveted to the stage. I turned to watch Brennan as he acknowledged the applause. He stood with his military bearing, and bowed his head to the audience, his face as usual giving nothing away, then took his place before the choir and orchestra at the left of the stage, so we saw him in three-quarter profile. He raised his arms to begin.
He had told me the opening chords of the
Kyrie in D Minor
would terrify me into submission to the Almighty, and I knew what he meant with the orchestra’s first massive, threatening chord. The dark and foreboding music was taken up by the chorus, and the plea for mercy unfolded with sombre dignity. The music would be especially
meaningful, I suspected, to a man who must have prayed ceaselessly to his God for mercy, as he faced the very real possibility of life in prison for murder. What I had seen in Brennan with his children’s choir, I saw again. His face, transfigured by the music, registered every nuance of Mozart’s divine composition. Nothing else existed for him; the audience was forgotten. When the last note sounded, the audience’s reaction was immediate and heartfelt, the applause loud and prolonged. This time, as he acknowledged the applause, extending his hand to the chorus and the orchestra, he flashed a smile that reached his eyes and made him a new man. He had lived through the immeasurable stress of a harrowing year and had come out on the other side, doing what he most loved to do. Graciously, he turned and made a little bow in my direction. He was about to leave the stage, the applause still washing over him, when he froze and stared stupefied into the audience.
Eventually, he returned to his seat in front of us, but kept stealing glances to the middle of the auditorium for the duration of the concert. I did not dare turn to see if the glances were returned. When the music was over and the audience was filing out, dozens of people came up to compliment him on his part in the concert. He thanked them warmly but it was clear he was distracted, his eyes searching the crowd for that one face he had never expected to see. Then, when she finally appeared in front of him, all he could do was stare at her without speaking.
Sandra put out her hand and he took it in his. “Nothing to say, Brennan?”
“Be careful what you wish for,” came a tart voice as a woman brushed past them. Marguerite Dunne, on her way out.
“The music was wonderful,” Sandra said to him. He nodded. “You’re looking very distinguished, Brennan.”
That’s when I could see the beginnings of a smile on his face. “Didn’t I look distinguished way back when?” They stood, taking each other’s measure. “And you, a woman of shining loveliness then and no less now.”
“I’m going way out on a limb here, but it’s not half bad to see you, Brennan.”
He put a hand to his chest. “Be still, my heart!”
“Hi, Father!” The little voice came from somewhere below shoulder level. I recognized a brother and sister from the choir school. “We won’t have to do that spooky
Kyrie,
will we? I mean I liked it and you did a good job and stuff, but...” The boy turned beet red.
“Ian, if you say it’s off the program, it’s off.” He ruffled the little guy’s hair.
Then Father O’Flaherty popped up, with a young priest I had never seen. Maura came over after seeing Tommy and Lexie off for the evening. When I looked around again, Sandra was gone. Brennan noticed this a moment after I did. He scanned the crowd to find her, but she had vanished. He turned to me. “Monty. Did you see the one I was just talking to here? About this high, short hair, lovely face, did you see her?” I realized he had no idea I knew who she was.
“Yes, I did, but I don’t see her now.” Why did she bolt like that?
“Excuse me,” Brennan said to the person speaking in his ear, and he made for the exit.
“Are you going over for the party?” Maura asked me.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Where is Brennan off to?” she asked, craning her neck.
I shrugged, and we started for the Faculty Club, a short walk away on the Dalhousie campus. A light snow was falling over the stately neoclassical stone buildings. The wind was starting to pick up. Father O’Flaherty was outside the auditorium, in a bright blue parka, with a gaudy, badly knitted scarf wrapped around his neck. I asked him if he was coming to the party.
“Monty, I cannot, as much as I regret to say so. I have a hospital visit I can’t in good conscience put off any longer. Isn’t it grand to see Brennan recovering from his ordeal?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Thanks to you, Monty. Though I suppose... how should I put this? It must have been expensive for Brennan.”
“You’re right, Mike. I cut our fees as much as I could. I never understood how a priest could have that much money saved up but he assured me —”
“Oh, he’d have been coddin’ you; he wouldn’t have money like that. He had a line of credit, so I think he borrowed the money. You know his sister Maire was determined to pay for his defence. The two
of them own a lovely piece of land outside Dublin. Apparently he’s been willing to part with it for years, to help her out financially, but she always refused. She loves the place. Yet she was willing to give it up for her brother. She wanted to put it up for sale without telling him and forge his signature to sell his interest in it. Maire and I had sharp words about it over the phone! I urged her not to sell.”
“That’s what your calls to her were about? Brennan thought you were carrying on a long-distance love affair!”
We left him on the sidewalk, gobsmacked.
Maura and I entered the Faculty Club and ascended to the Great Hall, with its huge multi-paned windows, hanging tartans, and chandeliers. There were tables throughout the hall, many already taken. A buffet was being set up at one end of the room, and I took note of the bar at the other end. There was a small stage with microphones, a piano, and guitar. The Strattons waved us to their table. “Where’s the good Father?” Rowan asked. Did the Strattons know Sandra had come from Chester to see the performance? Just then Brennan strode in, his black clerical shirt open at the neck, the white collar gone.
“Evening, fans. No, don’t get up,” he said, then immediately turned to whisper in my ear: “The one I asked you about?”
“Yes?”
“Ever see her again?” I said I had not, and he gave a short sigh of frustration. Then he put his game face on and offered to get us a round of drinks.
“Make it a double,” Maura demanded and Brennan went to the bar.
When he came back, he turned to my wife. “Got your dancing boots on, MacNeil?” She allowed as how she did. He swigged down his drink in two gulps and went for a second. A young man was playing ragtime on the piano.
I was thinking about Sandra’s disappearance. If she had made the effort to see Brennan after all those years, why would she leave after exchanging only a few words with him? Was his new life so foreign to her that she felt they had nothing to say? I caught Rowan’s eye and gathered that he too had been aware of Sandra’s presence. I went around to his side of the table.
“What do you think?” I whispered. “Has she bolted?”
“Unlikely,” Rowan replied. “Good manners, if nothing else, will ensure that she sees the evening through, now that she’s made her appearance. Why not take a look outside? She may not know where we’ve all got to.” I nodded, left the hall, and bounded down the steps. I was headed for the exit when Sandra came through the door in a rush of fresh, cool air.
“There you are, Monty! I had to run off to move my car after the performance. I’d left it in a no parking zone.” She smiled at me and I put my arms around her.
“It’s great to see you, Sandy. Let’s go in.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes, with the Strattons and my wife.”
“You didn’t tell me much about this wife of yours,” Sandra remarked.
“Well, as I told you, we’re...” I paused theatrically “...
estranged. “
She put her hand on my arm and said in a British accent: “I do hope it won’t be... awkward.”
“It’s been awkward for more years than I can remember.”
Sandra and I pushed open the door and went into the big room. Brennan had a drink in his hand and was sharing a laugh with Maura. He looked at the door, and did a double take. Rowan, Sylvia and Maura all looked at the same time. I saw Sylvia lean over and speak to Maura, obviously filling her in. Brennan put his glass down and made a beeline for us.
“You two know each other?” he demanded, the penetrating dark eyes moving from Sandra to me. We nodded. “You’ve been holding out on me, Collins.”
“You held out on me all year when I was trying to defend your honour, Burke.”
“So, you’ve met before. Where?”
“New York,” I answered.
“What?
When was this?” He did not look pleased.
“Brennan. I was not going to get anything out of you. I had to know whatever the police were going to dig up in your background.”
“You were probing into my life? Questioning Sandra?” The arms were crossed over the chest, the voice clipped. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“And I can’t believe you’re questioning his methods, Brennan,” Sandra said, “given the outcome.”
“Was this the time you and I were down there?” he asked. I nodded. “So you were with my... with Sandra, then you went out with me, and you never saw fit to mention it?”
“How would that have gone over, Brennan? Clearly, from what we’ve heard tonight, it would not have been well received.”
“Why not? We could all have been together,” he protested.
“Brennan,” Sandra retorted, “use your head. We’ve been living on the island of Manhattan all our adult lives. We never got together in all that time. You forgot I was alive, till I showed up to watch you on stage tonight.”