Fit Month for Dying (16 page)

Greg knows he is skimming the truth and he looks towards me, soliciting help with his lie.

“Just wanting to make sure you won't be bothered by Father Tom again,” I say, neither supporting nor contradicting Greg. “Dad has his way of making sure and I have mine. We just don't agree.”

“What will they do to him?” Brendan's muffled voice is small, tentative. “You said something about the law. I heard you.”

“He'll probably go to jail,” Greg says. “If it gets into the courts.”

“Noooo!” Brendan wails. “Noooo! I don't want him to go to jail. I don't want anything bad to happen to him. He's really nice. Just that one bad thing.”

“Nice? You call that child molester nice? That pervert!”

Brendan pulls himself up in bed. “Yes, he is nice,” he says, his voice no longer tentative. “And he is good. He's just bad in that one way.”

Greg reins in a nasty retort as Brendan continues, as if now he is the adult and Greg is the angry child who needs to be reasoned with. “He is good, Dad. If you got to know him, you'd see that. He does lots of good things. And it's my fault, too. I should have told. But I was afraid of Willie Farrell. Willie's father is really poor, and Tom used to give Willie money, so Willie wanted to keep on getting money.”

He falls back down in bed, the futility of explaining evident to him. “I wish now I had said that Christopher was lying. I wish I had said, ‘Speak for yourself, Christopher. Don't try and drag me into anything.' If I had my time back that's just what I'd do.”

“That's foolish talk, Brendan,” Greg says. “That's stupid talk. That excuse for a priest has to be dealt with. He belongs behind bars, and I'm going to see that he gets there.”

Brendan emits another shrill “no” and rolls back and forth on the bed in agony. “I wish I could die. I wish I could die right this minute.”

“It's going to be all right, Brendan,” I say. “Maybe he won't go to jail. Maybe he'll just have to do community work. I've heard of that kind of thing happening. Maybe Dad and Mr. O'Connell will decide not to take it to court. Maybe they'll get the archbishop to send him away to get cured. Or maybe they'll send him up to...”

Greg gets up from where he has been squatting beside the bed. Without even saying goodnight he leaves the room. My pacifying lies are more than he can stomach.

After we are in bed, Greg and I continue to argue, although we make certain our voices are low enough to be out of Brendan's earshot.

“Why can't you settle for letting them send him to that place in Toronto?” I ask for what now must be the tenth time since George O'Connell came to our house. “Maybe he can be helped. You're not a doctor. Maybe the scare will be enough to stop him from ever doing the like of this again.”

“When hell freezes over, that's when he'll be helped.”

He raises himself on his elbow and looks directly into my face. I can almost feel the heat of his eyes. Certainly, I can feel the heat of his words.

“How do you expect Brendan to be able to live with himself if he doesn't show enough backbone to break this wide open? Other boys are going to be molested if he doesn't do something about it. Don't you think he should consider someone else besides himself and that pervert? And don't you think you should stop looking at this disaster through rose-coloured glasses?”

Because I surmise he is right and because I do not want him to be right, I savage him with a counterattack. “My oh my, how moral we are. I think it's your male pride, not your civic duty or high morals that are getting singed here. He despoiled your son, so vengeance is mine, saith Greg Slade.”

“And you want to give Haley a break because he reminds you of Dennis Walsh. If Father Perv was some fat old fart, I bet you'd have a different take on things. You'd be telling Brendan he'd have to have the strength to do what is right.”

“You're dead wrong,” I retort, not at all sure he is. “And I'll thank you not to sully Dennis's name by dragging it in to this sordid mess.”

We tear at each other for the best part of an hour. Our good night is strained and perfunctory. Neither of us makes a move to kiss the other. We push out to the far edges of our queen-size bed in case, in turning over, our bodies might inadvertently touch.

Chapter Eight

In the morning
the accusations and denials of the night before hang suspended between us. We pussyfoot around them at breakfast, excessively, coldly polite, each of us aware that what our son needs more than anything else is a united family.

However, all of our pretence, all of our laboured politeness is wasted because it is carried on without an audience. Brendan has refused to get out of bed. When we go up to his bedroom, he claims his stomach is sick. We coax and cajole to no avail, and finally, in exasperation, we tell him he can stay home from school for the morning, but we will re-evaluate the state of his health at noon. He sits up in bed, no longer deathly ill, and asks Greg whether he is still thinking about taking Father Tom to court.

“If it comes to that,” Greg replies. “I'm going to go see some people at the palace this morning. I have to make a start somewhere. I just telephoned to get an appointment.”

Agony crosses Brendan's face. Without saying a word, he lies back down in bed, turns his face to the wall and pulls the covers up over himself.

Greg and George's appointment at the palace is for ten o'clock. The archbishop is out of the country, and the calendar of the next in line, the vicar general, is booked solidly for the next three days, so they must see a monsignor who is an assistant to the vicar general. George and Greg talk over the ramifications of waiting for either the archbishop to return or for the vicar general's calendar to clear. They have settled for the monsignor in the hope that once the substance of their visit is revealed, the vicar general will quickly find the time to see them. They know, that without the vicar general, nothing can be done to get Haley out of the parish. At the last minute, on account of an emergency at work, George can't keep the appointment. Greg decides to go alone. I plead with him to accept laicizing Tom Haley.

“And what in the name of God is the good of having him laicized? So they take his collar away. He'll go get himself a government job. Fisheries officer probably. Like Donovan from the West End. One day he's a priest hearing confessions, the next day he's a fisheries officer catching people jacking salmon on the Humber River. And he'll still be out there marauding young boys, collar or no collar.”

He walks to the kitchen door, takes hold of the knob but doesn't turn it. “Why won't they admit up front that Haley is a rogue priest? There are rogues in every walk of life, every profession. God knows there are enough rogue lawyers, but that doesn't mean all lawyers are rogues. Or that we'd cover up for the rogues.”

“Just listen to yourself.” I move towards him, my voice rising in spite of my good intentions to keep Brendan from hearing. I am not only angry with him, I am frustrated with myself because I am unable to make any inroads into his resolve to accept nothing less than courtroom censure. “You're the one who believes people are innocent until proven guilty. Who says they're going to cover up? For all you know, they might stone him out of the parish. They might even hang him on Hickman's Wharf and castrate him with a blunt knife. How can you know beforehand what they'll do?”

He brushes past my sarcastic outburst, slips right over it. “What if they laicize him and he gets a job in the government that has some jurisdiction over children? He might even end up being a youth counsellor. Or a Boy Scout leader.”

The word counsellor triggers my thoughts in a different direction. “I don't know whether you thought of this or not, but we're going to have to get some counselling for Brendan. He'll need help.”

Greg lets go of the door knob. “For the love of the Lord Almighty, Tess, what good will that do? If Brendan's not willing for anyone outside of the family to know what happened, he's certainly not going to agree to talk to a counsellor. And a lot of good a counsellor will do if he doesn't know the problem he's dealing with.”

He is right. And I know it. A feeling of powerlessness overcomes me. “I don't know what to do. I don't know where to turn. The first time Brendan really needs me, and I feel so useless.”

Greg reaches out and puts an arm around my waist, pulls me close. His chin rests on my head.

“I feel the same way,” he confesses. “A father should have been able to protect his son from something like this. I'm furious with myself for having allowed it to happen.” He straightens up, removes his arm from my waist. “And on top of everything else, it turns my stomach that Brendan is more concerned over betraying that pervert than he is with getting the truth out. It just about tears my guts out to hear him taking up for that scumbag. I want to shake some sense into him.”

“Brendan is what we made him,” I carefully point out, trying to walk the fine line between defending Brendan's loyalty and understanding Greg's repugnance towards the object of it. “We're the ones who taught him to look for the good in people.” I brush my hand over the rough tweed of his suit coat. “And besides, you wouldn't want him to be a tough nut like this Willie Farrell. You know you wouldn't.”

“I suppose you're right. But that doesn't alter the fact that it curdles my stomach when he says Tom Haley isn't all bad. A saint with just a little touch of perversion.” He glances at his watch. “If I'm going to keep that appointment I'd better get a move on. The quicker I get there, the quicker it will be over with.”

Because I decide to work at home for the morning and I do not want Brendan overhearing our conversation when Greg comes back from his meeting at the palace, I ask him to call me as soon as it's over. We arrange to meet at a little café a few minutes' drive down the street from our house, and I leave on the pretext of needing some groceries.

In my anxiousness I arrive at the café before Greg does. I choose a seat with a view of the door. Greg comes in a few minutes later, so haggard and woebegone that my lungs clog with fear at the sight of him. He wears the look I remember from when he was doing family law and had lost a child custody case, a custody case where right had given way to might. I could always tell, even before he came into the house and I was able to see the wilt of his body, that he had lost. I could tell by the way he heaved the car door shut, as if he didn't care whether it closed or not.

“How did it go?” I rush to inquire the instant he sits down, my mind already racing ahead to disastrous conclusions. What if George and Christopher had backed down and Brendan was going to be the only witness? What if the palace had called in Tom Haley, and Greg had pulled the collar off him like he had threatened to do last evening and now he was the one being sued?

I stretch forward across the table, shortening the distance between our voices, and he drops his briefcase on the floor with the thud of the car door closing in the driveway. “How did it go?” I repeat.

“You got your wish,” he says. “I settled for the treatment centre and a promise to have him laicized. No court case.”

The steel vice which had been squeezing the heart out of me all morning suddenly eases up. “You did?” I say, and then because I fear that the end of one calamity may mean the beginning of another, I hurriedly ask, “What changed your mind? What happened? When you left you were going to push for going to court.”

“I caved in. I gave in to them. And don't get the notion I did it for some high-minded reason, either. Because I didn't.”

I can't think of anything to say, and silence hovers between us until Greg says, “And I didn't do it for you, I can tell you that much. And I didn't do it for Brendan, either. And I sure as hell didn't do it for Father Perv.”

The waitress comes to our table and we order two coffees. We remain silent while she cleans up the spills left over from the previous customer. In this once again hovering silence, my mind poses a question: if he didn't give in for my sake or for Brendan's sake or for Tom Haley's sake, then for whose?

“I buckled under for my own sake,” Greg says as soon as the waitress leaves. “When push came to shove I didn't have the guts to go through with a court case. I wasn't in that monsignor's office more than ten minutes before I realized what I was up against.”

“Up against?”

“Everyone in this city thinks Haley is Christ incarnate. And it's not just the Catholics who feel that way. There were two monsignors in the meeting. One was Duffy, the other Collins. Collins has a parish out towards Torbay. Duffy is strictly with the palace.”

The waitress brings our coffees. Greg ignores his. I tear open a packet of sweetener and watch the chemical spill into my cup.

“Both of them told me that Haley lives a life that would give Jesus a run for His money. Or words to that effect. They said he practices the Corporal Works of Mercy with a vengeance: feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, harbours the harbourless, et cetera, et cetera. And ditto the Spiritual Works of Mercy. Comforts the afflicted and all that. And to top it all off he's got this great voice. Sings in a choir at the basilica. And plays the violin better than Itzhak Perlman. He just hasn't walked on water yet. But then, who knows? Maybe no one would know, because according to the palace, Haley would be much too modest to make it public.”

“None of this is news to me, “ I say. “It was his great reputation that made me think he would be a good role model for Brendan.”

“Some role model. A fiddler and a diddler.”

“But you're not explaining...I don't understand. What happened? If you intended to take him to court, how come you changed your mind? Mind you, I'm glad you did, but...”

“Can't you see? Every member of the parish and his dog and cat would be out for our blood if we blemished all that saintliness.”

He rips open one of the plastic thimbles of milk. Most of the milk squirts over the table, only some of it hitting his coffee. He doesn't notice.

“And then there's Brendan. I got to thinking about that on the way over. What if he throws the case?”

“
Throws the case
! For the love of God, Greg, you're talking about Brendan! Not some Chicago mobster!”

“You have no idea, do you, about what things can go wrong in a courtroom. You really don't. Not an idea in the world.” With his thumb and finger he absently flattens the empty milk container. “What if he breaks on the witness stand? What if he gets up there and starts blubbering that it is his fault, too? What if he says the pervert isn't all bad? I'll be laughed out of the courtroom. That's what I'm up against.”

“You're being ridiculous.”

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” He pushes his coffee aside, having lost interest in it. “Anyway, that's not the real reason.” He leans in closer so his voice won't carry. “It's not even close to the real reason. The scandal will be bad for the firm. That's the real reason. I got that message loud and clear from the palace. As soon as I told them what I intended to do, both monsignors mentioned the firm. They already knew where I work. Good friends with both partners, they told me. Apparently they checked up as soon as they got my phone call because they were quick to tell me that Murphy and Cadagan were basilica parishioners and neither of them would want the Church scorched on account of one bad apple. Duffy even reminded me that Murphy has a daughter in a convent. The verb is had, actually. She kicked the habit a few weeks ago, but I didn't bother mentioning that. Anyway, they stopped just short of saying I'd never make partner, like I've been promised, and that I might even be let go.”

He reaches for his briefcase as though he has wasted too much time on this issue already. “So,” he says heavily, tossing the price of the coffees on the table with his free hand and making ready to get up out of his chair, “you might say I sold out Brendan for a lousy job. Afraid to bring his tormentor to justice. Afraid it'll impact on...”

He quickly forestalls the comment I'm forming about his capitulation being all for the best. “And don't try and tell me you're glad for Brendan's sake! The day will come when he'll regret that nothing public was done about that pervert.” We leave the restaurant and together we walk to where our cars are parked.

“I made it quite clear,” he says, “that Haley has to get out of the priesthood ASAP because, I said, I'm sure as hell not going to stand for a pedophile parading around in priest's clothing. Actually, I repeated several times that the collar has to go. I said I'd keep track of things to make sure it did. And I'd give them a week to get Haley shipped off to the treatment centre, although I let them know that none of the literature supports a cure for pedophiles.”

As I start to get into my car he adds, “I really think there were other complaints about Haley. I don't think mine was the first one.”

“What makes you say that?” I ask eagerly, hoping for strength in numbers.

“They didn't seem overly shocked. They didn't protest my accusations. No one said ‘Hold on here! You better have sound reasons for making such a charge.' There was no asking if I had other witnesses. And they had their answers down pat. Off with the collar. Off to the treatment centre. No argument. “

“Sure does seem like they knew,” I agree, relieved things have gone as well as they have. “It's certainly not the reaction I would have expected. I expected them to ask if others had been involved.”