Authors: Linden MacIntyre
“We felt bad for Father Duncan. You could tell the young fellow looked up to him. I think it bothered Duncan real bad that he never said a thing when they’d be around the boat together. Never let on that he … So. Then again, I guess it bothered all of us. The never letting on. We’ll have another little sip, then?”
“No, no,” Effie said, standing quickly. “We just dropped in for a minute. I was going to call ahead, but we were in the area. JC was trying to find his way to Bornish.”
“Bornish?”
Jessie opened the kitchen door and stepped outside.
“Come on,” said Danny. “There’s no need to run off. You’ll stay for supper. It’s only us and Stella. Effie, you know Stella. Just sit down. The two of youse can catch up.”
JC stood. “We’ll come back another time. I promise.”
“Ah, you don’t have to promise,” Danny said, looking toward the door. “I know you’re all busy.” He seemed to slump into the wheelchair, moving the shot glass from which he’d sipped his rum in small circles on the surface of the table. “I’m sorry to be like this,” he said. “But there isn’t much a fellow can do, is there.”
Effie heard the women’s voices at the kitchen door, the hand upon the doorknob, and she was desperate to leave. The women burst into the room.
“Effie,” said Stella in mock surprise. “Jessie was making me guess who the visitors were. I’d never have imagined. And the car! I’d have guessed Burt Reynolds!”
She turned toward JC, smiling. “JC Campbell,” he said, extending his hand.
Knowing Sextus as Effie did, it didn’t require a lot of imagination to see the two of them involved. Stella’s honey-blond hair seemed more sun-bleached than Effie remembered. The grey-blue eyes seemed over-cautious; tanned skin over a strong bone structure; a pinch of cleavage showing where a button was undone; subtly beautiful, in a substantial way. Effie felt a momentary anger, then a rare uncertainty.
Stella was shaking hands with JC, lingeringly, Effie thought.
“I don’t think we’ve met before,” Stella said.
“I’ve been away for years,” JC said.
“You’re from Toronto?”
“Yes,” he said. “And a lot of other places.”
She laughed lightly, let go of his hand, then turned to Effie, her smile tentative.
“And how is Toronto, anyway?”
“Toronto is Toronto,” Effie said. “Hard to describe, as you well know.”
“It is that,” she said. “I often regret leaving the place. But …” She shrugged.
“So when did you live in Toronto?” JC asked.
“Years ago now,” she said. “I kept a pretty low profile. Married then.”
“Ah,” said JC.
Effie observed his poise, his curiosity direct but somehow innocent. Suddenly she understood his peculiar interaction with the condemned man in Texas.
Stella asked her, “How long are you around?”
“Pretty well the summer,” Effie said.
“I’d love to get together,” Stella said. “We could meet in town, maybe. Have a coffee.”
“I’d love that,” Effie said. She leaned in then, kissed Danny’s forehead softly, swiftly hugged Jessie. “We must be off. We left something thawing.” Emphasized “we” for clarity.
Danny wheeled out to the deck, JC walking alongside, his hand on Danny’s shoulder. The three women walked behind. Stella looped an arm through Effie’s and kept it there as they walked across the deck.
At the head of the deck stairs, as Danny and JC professed their determination to have another, longer visit, Stella leaned close to Effie. “The man worships you,” she said.
“What man?” said Effie tightly.
“Sextus,” Stella said. “You know that.”
“Sextus worships Sextus.”
“We really should talk.”
Effie studied the searching eyes, in the daylight a deep, compelling blue, no hint of sorrow, just what seemed to be a genuine regret. “Okay,” she said. “But don’t get me wrong. You did me a favour.”
Stella swiftly hugged her and stepped away. “And how is … Father Duncan?”
“He’s well.”
“Will you tell him I was asking?”
“I will.”
“You tell Father Duncan, if he’s ever around,” said Danny, “it would be great to catch up.”
“I’ll be seeing him,” she said. “I’ll tell him.”
Through the trees they could see the sun low on a patch of distant water. The late daylight was murky, the air damp and heavy with a chill. The Mustang rumbled down the Hawthorne road, big tires crunching gravel. They were silent, privately processing.
Then JC said, “You didn’t ask about the boat.”
Effie didn’t seem to hear him.
Finally on pavement, JC said, “I assume that was the other woman.”
She didn’t answer.
“That was tough,” JC said. “Seeing Danny MacKay in that condition. Jesus Murphy.”
Passing through Judique, he spoke again. “That Jessie. There’s one impressive woman. Danny’s a lucky man. You say she and Stella are sisters?”
Effie sighed. “Yes.”
“I remember,” JC said. “Jessie was one friggin’ witch when we were young. A little wildcat.” He laughed. “She was into throwing things when they were first married. We’d get gassed up at the Rondun or some place, and Danny would invite half the pub to come back home, if it wasn’t Sextus first, dragging us to your place. We’d arrive there and Jessie would go through the roof. More than once she chased us out.”
There was another long silence.
He reached across and placed a hand upon her thigh. “Of course, it was different at your place. You were what we always imagined the perfect wife should be.”
She stared through the car window. They were in Creignish,
where Stella and her brother had met when he was pastor there. St. George’s Bay sprawled off to the horizon, flat and black, the first lights twinkling on a distant mainland.
“So how come
you
never settled down?” she asked, still staring at the empty bay.
He seemed surprised. “I don’t know.”
“You struck me as someone who needed that. Needed somebody and a place of your own. I never really saw you as part of that gang.”
“Possibly,” he said.
“So why not? Ever. I’m sure there were lots of chances.”
“Fear, I guess.”
There was another long silence. They passed the Creignish church, and she noted with surprise that he raised a hand and made what seemed to be a small cross on his forehead.
“Did you just make the sign of the cross?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
She laughed, reached across and grabbed his free hand in both of hers. “So tell me, really, what you were afraid of.”
“Women change,” he said. “Or, at least, evolve. It’s a good thing. But it makes life unpredictable.”
“And men don’t change?”
“Men don’t change.”
“I’ve seen men change.”
“You’ve seen behaviour change. Men don’t change, essentially.”
“And women do?”
“It’s a known fact. Scientific. A little witch like Jessie turns into Mother Teresa. Danny stays Danny, MS or no MS. Trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Well … maybe not.”
At the roundabout, where the causeway joined the island to the mainland, he asked: “So what happened to their boy? I gather he died.”
“He killed himself,” she said.
“Jesus.”
“It was a tough time. It was hard on everybody.”
“What did Duncan have to do with it?”
“They were friends,” she said. “He bought their boat. That’s all.”
Preparing dinner, she wondered privately about the silences. Surely they weren’t out of things to talk about already. She noted that he drank more than she did, kept topping up his glass with rum.
“I didn’t know you were a rum drinker,” she said.
He just smiled at her, as if through a glass doorway.
She was alone when she awoke. She peered quickly through the bedroom window. The car was where they’d left it. She put on a housecoat and went downstairs. The house was empty. She boiled water for coffee.
She was pouring when he returned, wearing rubber boots that were wet and flecked with grass.
“Went for a walk,” he explained.
“And did you see anybody interesting?”
“Just a jogger.”
“Did you talk to him?”
He came to her and wrapped his arms around her, kissed her forehead. “You don’t talk to joggers. But he waved.”
“That would be John,” she said.
“John who?”
“John Gillis. My ex. One of them.”
“Right,” he said. “Remind me. How many are there?”
“Two. No, three. Counting Conor.”
“Conor. Right. You haven’t told me much about Conor.”
“There isn’t much to tell.”
“What’s for breakfast?”
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“Do you serve it in bed?”
“That depends.”
They left for town near noon. She needed house supplies, said that she could get anything she needed at the Walmart.
“The Walmart?” he replied. “I don’t do the Walmart.”
“There’s a bookstore at the mall,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll check it out. And I assume there’s a coffee shop?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s near the Walmart. We can meet there.”
She entered the mall from the Walmart, searching for the café where they’d agreed to meet. Then she saw it, a space that was more an alcove than a coffee shop. He was sitting at a small table, a book beside his coffee cup, intently listening to the woman facing him. Effie couldn’t see her face, just the back of a blond head, and for an instant she thought it was Stella. But it clearly wasn’t. The woman was smoking a cigarette. Whatever vices Stella had, smoking wasn’t one of them. Then JC reached across and placed a hand on the woman’s hand, which she turned palm up so that their fingers were interlocked. The woman leaned toward him, and they kissed in what seemed to be a friendly way, cheek to cheek. She stood, and Effie changed directions quickly, flustered.
The woman was young, maybe in her mid-thirties. JC stood. They embraced. The woman stepped back, brushed her cheek or perhaps a stray strand of hair. They were still holding hands. Another kiss, this time lightly on the lips, and the woman walked away. Effie could only think of one word to describe the look on JC’s face. Bereft.
JC sat. Effie turned and walked quickly back to the Walmart, where she knew there was a washroom.
He was sitting in the same position when she returned, now leafing through his book. He smiled broadly when she walked up to him. “Hey,” he said. “How was Mr. Walton’s mart?”
“The usual,” she said, looking for evidence of deceit in his expression but finding only clarity.
“Look what I found,” he said. “What a great bookstore.”
It was a red book,
The Breed of Manly Men
, a regimental history of the Cape Breton Highlanders.
“How do you pronounce that?” he asked, pointing to a motto on a crest. She said it for him, swiftly.
Siol na Fear Fearail
. A Breed of Manly Men.
“I didn’t know you were a military buff.”
“I’m not,” he said. “But back at the house, I saw a photograph of some soldiers, and on the back it said they were Cape Breton Highlanders, in Italy, I think.”
“My father was in that outfit,” she said. Then sat and folded her arms, waiting.
“I’ll get you a coffee,” he said.
“No, thanks.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
He seemed to hesitate. “The damnedest thing just happened,” he said. “I’m in the bookstore. I see this book. They only have one copy. On an impulse I decide to buy it. Forty bucks. Highway robbery, but what the hell. I take it to the cash, present my credit card. The woman goes away, comes back and asks me where I’m from. I tell her. Then she asks if I ever knew anyone from Isle Madame. I say maybe. And … if she doesn’t burst into tears …”
“Not …”
“Sylvia,” he said. “My kid.” Suddenly his eyes were full.
“Oh my God,” said Effie.
“I thought I told you about her,” he said.
“Oh my God,” she repeated. “I’m so sorry …”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, I’m so happy …”
“I brought her here, hoping you’d come back in time to meet her, but she had to get back to the shop.”
“We can go there now,” Effie said.
He hesitated. “No,” he said at last. “There’ll be another time. My head is kind of screwed up now. I’ve had enough emotional drama for today.”
“Okay,” she said.
Driving back from town, he said, “You’ll have to forgive me.”
She caught his hand. “You’re forgiven.”
“I knew there was a remote chance that I’d bump in to her. But I never really expected …”
“Just let it filter in,” she said. “It’ll take time.”
“I asked her for a phone number,” he said. “She told me I could reach her through the shop. Do you think that’s strange?”
“Perhaps her life is complicated.”
“Yes,” he said.
He seemed to withdraw then. She felt no resentment for his sudden melancholy. His visit had created an archive of new memories that would, in time—she was sure of this—renew the old place and make it unambiguously hers. They’d walked it and talked it, eaten it and drunk it, and saturated it with an uninhibited abandon neither would easily forget, if ever.
“When we come back next year …”
“Next year,” he’d said, continuing her thought. “Let’s try to make a trip in early June, or even May. Put some plants in the ground.”
At home, she said, “I think I’ll take a walk. You interested?”
“No,” he said. “I think I’ll put my head down for a bit. A little nap to freshen up. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She heard the chainsaw before she realized the sound was from the Gillis place. Walking up the lane, she calculated that she hadn’t been there in nearly thirty years. John didn’t see her coming, so she stood and watched him, trying to remember the boy she married so long ago, the man she fled. In 1968, in that field, Duncan, newly minted as a priest, had solemnly pronounced the terrible finality of their commitment, till death. Sextus had come home from somewhere and stood by, smiling. At the end, he kissed both cheeks lightly, like a foreigner, squeezed her hand.
From behind, John had the shape and posture of an old man, shoulders rounded, back bent slightly. She could imagine skinny legs inside the baggy work pants. The sawdust flew; the noise was horrifying. Then it stopped suddenly, and the silence startled her. If he was surprised to see her, he managed not to show it. He slowly removed his work gloves, whacked his pants legs, then
ambled toward her. She held out a hand. He hesitated, then touched her fingertips.