Fit Month for Dying (19 page)

“That's right,” I say. “That was the stock answer. The noble lie. Health gave out. Like a politician who anticipates defeat. ‘I'm not going to re-offer because I want to spend more time with my family.'”

I bring the conversation back to ground. “What about your father?”

Knowing how Greg is reacting to Brendan's anguish, I can only imagine how Haley's father will react when he hears about the unpriesting of his son, much less the reason for it.

“Don't know much about him,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders. “I was nine when he left us. And just as well. He wasn't much of a father or a husband. As far as I know he went out to Vancouver. Got mixed up in drugs. The sixties stuff. Tune in. Turn on. Drop out. The Timothy Leary scene. We heard he died from an overdose. That is, my father did. Maybe Timothy Leary did, too, for all I know.”

Traces of compassion like those I had felt for the fossilized remains of Ed Strominski circle my insides. I want to comfort Tom Haley. I want to caress his shoulders, like I had caressed Brendan's the night before. I want to offer him platitudes, bake him brownies, tell him that this dark night will pass, that morning will come.

In the midst of this wave of compassion, a disturbing thought slices across my mind: had Greg been right when he accused me of confusing Tom Haley with Dennis Walsh? The same passion is evident. The same intensity. The same simplicity. Could these similarities have been the underpinnings of my desire for Brendan to join the Altar Servers' Association? Had I attempted to resurrect Dennis through Tom Haley? Had my selfish unmet need been instrumental in the ravaging of Brendan?

Guilt assails me, threatening to suffocate me. Rivulets of perspiration run down my cheeks and into my mouth. I search the pocket of my suit jacket for a tissue to sponge my face. I fan my damp hair with my hand. Cold drops of water trickle down my back and puddle at the clasps of my bra, and my spine itches in this spot. I want to rub my back against the spindles of my chair like a sheep scratching its haunches on a rock.

“You all right?” Tom Haley asks.

“It's a bit hot in here,” I lie, pushing up the sleeves of my jacket.

He goes to the window and pulls it open. The evening air doesn't even begin to cool my flesh.

“I've got to go,” I say, getting up from my seat and picking up my purse. “I've got to get back.”

He gives me a puzzled look but says nothing. I practically run out of his office. I can feel him watching me from his window as I hurry down the rectory steps to my car.

When Greg asks me where I've been for the last hour, it is on the tip of my tongue to say I went to vanquish the enemy but found him already vanquished. Not wanting to spark an argument, though, I give him a half-lie. “Drove around. I needed to get away from the house. Went up to Signal Hill to air out my mind.”

Chapter Nine

In the morning
Brendan continues to pretend to be sick. Both Greg and I insist that he go to school. He steadfastly refuses. He threatens to vomit in the classroom. As a compromise, Greg promises to pick him up at noon and take him to lunch so he won't have to be around Willie Farrell during unsupervised times. He experiences a miraculous cure.

Although the House isn't having a fall session, I still go to the office every day. There is always some issue to tackle or someone dropping by in need of my help. As well, going to the office affords me time to read the newspapers to keep abreast of what is going on both at home and abroad. On this morning, however, it is not easy to concentrate, absorbed as my mind is with the chaos in the family.

The news in the local morning paper is neither new nor startling. The editor is still insisting that Ottawa extend Canada's fishery management authority beyond the two-hundred-mile limit to include the nose and tail of the Grand Bank. The federal fisheries minister claims he is doing all he can to stop European countries from ravaging the fishery just outside the two-hundred-mile limit, while the foreign captains try to bribe fishery observers to lie about their catches. Salmon and trout rivers which were closed on account of low water levels have now been reopened. The brewery strike is still on. In the letters to the editor section, a voter demands to know how many other Hibernia-type projects will be allowed in the waters surrounding Newfoundland, prophesying that our waters will become a sea of concrete. The Star of the Sea Association in the Cove will be hosting a community breakfast on Saturday in honour of their parish priest, Father Wakeham, who is celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday.

I set the paper aside and make a note to remind myself either to go to the Cove for Father Wakeham's breakfast or, if I can't, to call him. Just as I am scribbling on my calendar, Greg telephones.

“All hell's broken loose,” he says. “I had a phone call from George O'Connell. The story is all over the school.”

“How? Who?” I shout, desperation making me forget that others can hear, and thinking that if I can get the how and the who there may still be some way I can keep Brendan's name out of the mess.

“Haven't got the ins and outs of it all,” Greg says. “Apparently, Christopher left the school in the midst of the uproar there and went to where George was working to tell him. That's how George got the news, he called me, and I went and picked up Brendan. Willie Farrell went to Haley's after the morning Mass — he served the altar this morning — and he never went to school afterwards. I guess there was something going on in his class, a play or something, and Willie had a part. Anyway, the teacher phoned to see if he had gone home sick after Mass, and of course he hadn't, so John Farrell went looking for him and found him coming out of the rectory. And he hasn't any desire to keep things under wraps.”

“No! No! No! It's not true.” My voice is merely a moan.

“I'm afraid it's true. The way George heard it, John Farrell didn't get the story out of Willie at first. Willie made up some excuse why he was at the rectory. It wasn't until they were in the principal's office that he spilled his guts. He had missed a lot of school his father knew nothing about, forged his mother's signature on the absentee slips. It was the principal who wormed the reason for his absences out of him. John Farrell went nuts, screaming and shouting, saying he was going to kill Haley and sue the diocese and what all. He was so loud the class in the room next door, Willie's class, heard the commotion, and a lot of the boys there already knew what was going on with Haley, even if they weren't in on it themselves, so they got the gist of what was happening. They told the teacher the whole story. Maybe they thought they'd get blamed for being part of it if they didn't tell. Anyway, it's only a matter of time before the media gets wind of it.”

“The media?”

“Yeah. George says John hasn't the slightest bit of interest in keeping it quiet. He's bloodthirsty for a financial settlement from the diocese. He thinks the bigger the stink he makes, the bigger the settlement.”

“You've got to stop him. You've got to convince him not to go public.
We've
got to convince him.” With my free hand I begin stuffing papers into my briefcase, and I fumble around on my desk for my car keys, making ready to go see John Farrell. With what little breath that is left in me, I keep up a steady stream of possibilities for Greg's scrutiny.

“We'll tell him it'll ruin Willie. We'll tell him just to threaten to go public. Threatening will be enough to get the diocese to come across with whatever money he wants. We'll tell him we'll pay him to keep quiet. We'll mortgage the house.”

“Get hold of yourself, Tess! Do you hear what you're saying? You're advocating hush money! That's extortion! What you're suggesting is way outside the law!”

But I am beyond legalities. “Who cares?” I snap, “ We'll borrow the money. We'll use Brendan's college fund.”

“Tess, he'll want millions,” he says. “You'll have to mortgage a lot of houses like ours to get that much money. People like John Farrell are not up to being reasonable.”

I force my mind to settle down so I can think of some solution.

“I've got the answer,” I say. “I'll go to Mrs. Farrell. I'll explain to her that it'll be bad for Willie if it gets spread about in the media. She's a nice woman. I've met her. She'll find a way to stop that no-good drunk of a husband from hurting her son more than he's already been hurt. I'm willing to bet on that.”

The only sound on the line is the hiss of silence.

“Greg? Are you there?”

“I'm here.” He heaves a sigh so deep it could have come from the bottom of his feet. “It's too late, Tess. Too late to do a damn thing. He's already contacted the media. Your assistant told me the paper had just called you — they know that's your church, though I don't think they know Brendan is an altar boy. She said she screened the call and didn't put it through. She didn't want you ambushed, and she's probably waiting to tell you about it right now. The reporter left messages on the machine while I was getting Brendan, and he called again just as we came in. Wanted to know how you felt about the scandal involving your church. I said I wasn't interested in discussing scandal and hung up.”

In the morning the news breaks. It is in the newspapers. On the early morning radio news. On the television news.

A priest connected with St. Sebastian Church is alleged to have participated in wild sexual parties with a number of altar boys. It is purported that these orgies have been going on for some time. The situation only came to light when one of the boys, absent from school without an excuse, was found in the company of the priest.

With the breaking of this news, an ordinary Wednesday in late October suddenly becomes apocalyptic. In all of the televised street interviews, in all of the telephone calls we receive from supporters, in all of the rallying notes that are left on my desk and on Greg's, in all of the workaday encounters, no one simply says they heard about the scandal on the radio, saw it on television or read about it in the newspapers. Each person has to set the tragedy against a backdrop of his or her ordinary life, as if this is the only way they can absorb the enormity of it. And each person recalls in minute detail what they were doing and where they were standing or sitting when they first heard the news, as if it were John F. Kennedy's assassination or the end of World War II.

Rose Clarke telephones from the Cove to tell me that she and Frank were just puttering around in the kitchen getting their breakfast, taking their good old time because they had nothing special to do in the morning, when the news came on the radio. Frank kept saying over and over, “My God. I can't believe what I just heard. I can't believe it. That's Tess's church!” She had been filling the kettle with water, and she nearly froze to the sink. Bridey Flynn calls to say she was just taking a pan of cookies out of the oven, “the icebox kind,” she explains, as if there is some significance to this. “The kind you keep in the refrigerator.” So she said to Paddy, “That's the church where Brendan serves the altar.” The news took the good out of her for the rest of the morning.

Brendan refuses to leave his bedroom. In between angry outbursts and tears he blames us for the situation he is in. If Greg hadn't gone to the palace, there would be nothing for Christopher to tell Willie, and Willie wouldn't have cut school to go to Father Tom's to talk over what was happening. That Willie had cut school to go to Father Tom's on many other occasions is not a point he is interested in considering. If I hadn't encouraged him to join the Altar Servers' Association, he never would have joined of his own accord.

Although we worry most about Brendan, we also have to think about Philomena. I have to get out to the Cove right away, before she gets around to listening to the mid-morning news or before outsiders bring the news to her. Even if she never considers that Brendan was involved in the orgies, just the fact that he was associated with those who were will be enough to worry her to death. Because Brendan absolutely refuses to come with us, Greg decides to take him fishing out in Big Pond. This will keep him out of reach of the media, and I will go to the Cove alone.

“Blessed God! Blessed God! Oh Holy Virgin Mother! Holy Mother of God!” Philomena cries when I tell her what she will be hearing on the news. Since it doesn't occur to her at first that Brendan may be involved in any way, her immediate concern is for the Church. She asks, “Are you certain about it all? Are you really sure it happened? What did Brendan say? He'd know what's going on. You don't want to spread scandal about the Church unless you're really certain.”

“Brendan's one of the boys, Mrs. Phil. He told us himself. And his friend Christopher also told us it's true. He's involved, too. Every bit of it is true.”

“Oh Glory be to the Almighty. Oh no!” She clasps her hands across her breast as she rocks her anguished body back and forth. “'Tis not true! 'Tis not true! 'Tis not true!”

After she accepts that there might be at least a kernel of truth in what I have told her, she says, “If it's all true like ye sez it is, then what that priest did to those boys is enough to make God rear up on His hind legs. 'Tis enough to singe the soul of a saint.”

When she is more fully collected, she wonders whether Brendan's name will be spread all over the papers, all over the television, all over the radio. No, I tell her, on account of his age, but the media have already connected me to the parish, and because of my position, they'll hound us. In fact, the hounding has already begun. She prepares a snack for us, and as she pulls a slice of toast from the toaster and butters it with Good Luck margarine, she chastises herself for not having known there was something not right about Father Haley.

“Never took a fancy to him, that's what I didn't. Mind you, I only met him a couple of times at your place when I was in visiting. I thought he was too good looking, for one thing. A pretty boy. And for another thing he kept clearing his throat. Kept hacking away as if he had a pit-prop stuck in his craw.” She slathers the toast as if she is angry with it, first one side of the knife and then the other, the way Martin used to sharpen his razor on a strop. “How could I let something like that pass right underneath my nose? I should have known that clearing his throat was a sign he had something to hide. A fellow down home when I was a young girl cleared his throat like that. It turned out that at night he was stealing gravel from a government gravel pit, pretended he was getting it from his own pit, and the next day he was selling it back to the government for a wharf they were building. A real schemer he was.”

In the next breath, she turns her pain on me. “And where were you all this time? Surely a mother would know her son was in the hands of a blackguard?”

I offer little in my own defence. I say much the same as Brendan had said — that Tom Haley had always done good works. She waves this information away. “A cover, that's what. Just a cover. And you couldn't see through it.”

I meet Frank Clarke on my way from Philomena's. He had seen me going in to her place and watched for me to leave. He leans in through the car window to commiserate. “That two-faced bastard. Suckin' up to God on Sundays and ravaging young boys on Mondays,” he says without even mentioning Tom Haley's name. “He deserves to be strung up by the you-know-whats. And ruining those boys. Just children. Scandalous, that's what it is.”

I make no response because I can't think of anything to say, and then Frank asks, already knowing the answer, “Brendan is an altar boy, isn't he? In that parish?”

“Yes, he is...was...an altar boy.” I am unable to say that he was also one of “those boys.” But Frank doesn't need my confirmation on that. Why else would I be out to see Philomena in the middle of the week?

He rants some more about Tom Haley and about the punishment that should be meted out to him, and then, the inveterate politician, he adds, “So girl, let's hope that leadership campaign doesn't get underway too soon. Things need to blow over. Lots of Catholics in the party. And when the Tories sniff out that Brendan is an altar boy...well, you know how it goes...even if they can't name names, they'll be hinting that Brendan was the one who squealed. And scandalizing the Church will be laid on your shoulders. Even here in the Cove you're going to find a backlash. No mistakin' that.”