Obit (39 page)

“No, no. The dudes in the Circle Jerk.”

“The what?”

“The Circle J. A bar on the outskirts o’ town.”

Brennan stared at him. “What happened, they thumped you for no reason?”

“They may have misunderstood something I said.”

“That sounds more like it.”

“Christ, can we stop for a dacent pint? Nobody has ever heard the holy name of Guinness out there.”

After we found a bar and a parking spot, we all ordered drinks and settled in. “So, what was Shirley’s family like?” I asked.

“Real nice and quiet round the dinner table. ‘Pass the ribs there,
Mother. Tell me, Frank, what’s your line?’ I told them I was curator of the Museum of Modern Art. I later met her brother Fred, who really does run the feed store, and told him I’m an undercover narc who works the subways all night. He gaped at my bloodcurdling adventures underground.

“Anyway, we were sitting at her parents’ table, just the four of us, not a sound to be heard — I thought for a while I’d been struck deaf, maybe thanks to your intervention with a higher power, Brennan — and the old man said: ‘Well, Frank, what would you like to watch?’ I’d pretty well resigned myself to a tractor pull or a steer-roping contest. Or maybe they rope the tractors and pull the steers. What are steers anyway? I thought it was cows and bulls.”

“I think a steer is a bull that’s been castrated,” I put in.

“Why in the fuck would anybody do that?” Francis wailed. Nobody knew. “Doesn’t matter anyway, because the old man meant the tube. ‘What’s on tonight, Mother?’ She produced a scrap of paper from her pocket and read what I took to be a list of television programs. That’s when brother Fred stopped in. He asked if I wanted to go out ‘four-wheeling.’ I didn’t know what he was talking about so he invited me to step outside. I thought I was going to get pounded right then and there, but he just wanted to show me his ‘rig.’ A massive vehicle with a big rack of lights along the top. The kind of thing that turns up in the movies just after aliens have left a big radioactive circle out in the woods. I climbed up into it and I felt the onset of vertigo. Shirley beamed at me from the doorway and waved goodbye. There were a couple of yokels in the back. I kept up a stream of bullshit till we got in sight of the bar, then I got them to let me off.

“Not long after that, I was set upon by two big bruisers. Guess there was something about me they didn’t like.”

“Which was what, exactly?” Brennan asked.

“I walked in and asked the barman to pour me a Guinness. Since he was so far from the source, I gave him detailed instructions on how I wanted it poured. Then he told me he didn’t have Guinness. I told him what I thought of that. These two rednecks started laughing and one of them said: ‘Go back to the Bronx, asshole.’ So I turned around and pointed to the other one and said: ‘Is this guy your brother, or your cousin, or your brother-in-law, or all three?’ It took
them so long to get it, I forgot all about it. Then they were on me. Guess I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“At long last, the scales fall from his eyes,” Brennan remarked.

“So after they finished pounding me and they roared off in their truck, I dragged myself up to the bar and asked the barkeep to call a cab for me. He just laughed. ‘Gonna take that cabbie a long time to get here from Fifth Avenue, son.’ I walked all the way back to Shirley’s place, bleeding and in pain. Took me two hours. There was nothing out there. Nothing. Have you any idea how spooky that is? But it was better than hanging around the bar, waiting to get beaten to a pulp again. Half the guys in the bar had cowboy hats or ball caps on, over hair that was halfway down their backs. Hence the new look.” He patted his shorn locks, then took a long, long swig of stout. “And that was about it. So, what’s new with you guys?”

“Nothing much,” Terry said.

“So, what about Shirley?” I asked him.

“Hard to say.”

“I got the impression you were quite keen on her.”

“Oh, I am. As a matter of fact, all my stuff’s at her apartment now, because my landlady kicked me out for being behind in the rent. So I’ll stay at Shirl’s for awhile, see how it goes.

“Perhaps you guys will be interested in some scribblings I did on the way back east in the stage coach.” He directed his remarks to me. “Since you liked my work before. Any arrests made yet? Did you manage to track down my suspect? I think I captured him pretty well on paper.”

I tried to send him a “don’t ask” signal, but it was intercepted. “What suspect?” Brennan’s tone was sharp.

“You mean Sullivan,” Terry said.

“Who the hell is Sullivan?” Brennan demanded.

“Didn’t pan out,” I answered. I mouthed the word “later” to him and then to Francis I said: “Let’s see what you have here.”

He hauled his knapsack onto his lap. I leaned towards him and whispered:

“Tell me something. How did you really hear of the shooting? You didn’t read it in a newspaper in the wilds of Mexico two days after it happened.”

“Nah. I keep in touch with my sister Molly in London. She called me. I figure if the rest of them know where I am, I’ll be bothered by all kinds of blather from them. Now, have a look at these.”

He carefully removed what looked like a couple of posters rolled and secured with an elastic. On the first sheet of paper was a charcoal sketch of Shirley. Technically, it was well done, though he had taken some liberties and shaved a few pounds off her. She was accompanied by three young fair-haired boys.

“Her nephews. Cute little peckerheads,” he remarked.

“You did this?” Terry asked.

“Why not?”

He put the picture aside, then flattened the second page with his hand. This one showed his own family seated in the dining room. Francis was at one end of the table, looking comically perplexed, one hand to his chest as if saying: “Who, me?” The table was littered with broken crockery, and a burning cherry bomb was flying towards the other end of the table, where there were two figures. Declan was portrayed in a military uniform and beret. His eyes were hidden behind the kind of dark glasses I had seen in photographs of
IRA
funerals. At his side was Brennan in his Roman collar, looking down his nose in a caricature of arrogance. These two figures cast a shadow that travelled the length of the table and enveloped Francis completely. All the other figures were half in and half out of the shade. A closer look revealed something that appeared to be the laurel crown of a Roman emperor over Brennan’s head. There was the shadow of a rifle over his father’s shoulder. With his back to the artist and his head turned to his father and older brother, Terry sat with a pint of stout in his hand, his mouth twisted as if he was telling an amusing tale. Beside Terry was Teresa, her face turned towards Francis; she favoured him with a loving smile. On the other side of the table, an adorably beautiful Bridey laughed with mischievous glee at her clever brother Fran. Standing beside her was Patrick, his face radiating kindness, his right hand raised in a gesture of benediction over his assembled family.

Nobody spoke; we were riveted by the tableau before us. There was no subtlety in it, but that was not his intention. I stole a glance at the artist. His attempt at a casual expression did not mask his
apprehension. He had eyes for one man only; Brennan’s was the only opinion that mattered.

For his part, Brennan could not tear his eyes away from the picture. Finally, he found words: “We thought you were sitting around all these years pulling yourself. Is this what you’ve been up to?” The younger brother’s face flamed red and he started to retort, but Brennan continued: “I hope to Christ it is.” He fell silent again, then began muttering about the picture. “Look at this. Mam’s hair, the way she ties it up. He’s got that exactly right. And the folds in Pat’s jacket, where his arm is raised. If you put your arm up —” he did, and examined the folds in his jacket “— that’s just how they go. But it’s the life and personality in the faces and in the bodies; how could he capture that in a sketch?” He seemed to have forgotten Francis was there.

Eventually, the artist spoke up. “Listen, could you guys take those home for me? And my knapsack? I want to go somewhere.”

“Well, then, why the hell did you call for a lift?” Terry asked.

“I just thought of something. Gotta go.” He stood and left the bar with a distracted wave in our direction.

“Where would he have to go, for Jesus’ sake?” Terry growled. Brennan shrugged, then gently rolled the pictures up and bound them with the elastic. Terry slung the knapsack over his back, and we left the bar.

Francis didn’t have to go anywhere, I knew. The unveiling of the family caricature was too much for him. No doubt he was afraid that if he stayed around, he would blurt out something inappropriate and spoil the moment.

“Imagine having that kind of talent. It’s brilliant!” Brennan exclaimed, a man of no little talent himself. I wished Francis had stuck around a minute longer.

Brennan was walking ahead, and I held Terry back for a hasty legal conference. “Sit Francis down right away, tell him what really happened, and get him a good defence lawyer. Not a word to the police or anyone else. Never mind that you think you’re exonerating your brother. Just keep it to yourself. Fran has an alibi for the night of the shooting; he was still in Mexico. So counsel will want to gather the supporting evidence: eyewitnesses, plane tickets, what have you. But
the police have his prints on the box, so they think he at least imported the rifle. And now there’s no Colm Sullivan; he’s really Gerard Willman and Declan doesn’t want Gerard’s name to surface in this. Some good legal manoeuvring should halt this thing for Fran before it goes any further.”

†

Terry, Brennan and I were back at the Burkes’ kitchen table when we heard someone coming in the front door.

“Ah,” Declan said, taking us all in with his steely gaze. “I suppose young Collins has filled you in on last night’s episode.”

“He has,” Brennan replied.

Declan turned from his sons and looked towards the window. We could almost see his mind working, sorting through the long and complex series of events in his life, events we had only glimpsed in part. What must he have been feeling as he contemplated the brutal death of Gerald Connors, a death that shattered the Connors family and set Gerald’s son on a path of revenge that took him nearly forty years to execute? Did his thoughts also turn to the man he had killed in Ireland, the traitor to the cause? And how would he come to terms with the fact that his own sons now knew the awful secrets he had guarded all his life?

Without another word, he turned and headed for the door.

Brennan reached out and grasped his arm. “Declan, for the love of God, explain it to us. Or to one of us. Get it off your chest.”

He spoke without raising his voice: “I have nothing to say.”

His ferocious blue eyes bored in on his eldest son: “Especially to you, my child.” The pain in Brennan’s face was that of a young boy who had been publicly slapped by a father he adored. The old man and his son stared at each other for a long time, then Declan put his hand on Brennan’s shoulder, leaned down and spoke into his ear, in a voice that was barely audible: “Because you have the power to absolve.”

He walked out. Terry and I stared down at our hands.

It was time for me to leave. Terry had offered me a lift to the airport, if I didn’t mind being early for my flight. The earlier the better.
I had to put the shooting and the murder and the Burke family’s pain behind me. I looked at Brennan, who had not moved a muscle since his father’s remark. Then he seemed to shake himself and got up from his chair.

“Give me five minutes,” was all he said as he left the room and headed upstairs. When he returned he had his suitcase in his hand. “Can you get me on a flight?” he asked Terry.

“Have you a destination in mind?”

“Halifax. But anywhere north of here will do. Let’s motor.”

Chapter 12

Now here’s to old Dublin, and here’s to her renown,
In the long generation her fame will go down,
And our children will tell how their forefathers saw
The red blaze of freedom in Erin Go Bragh.

— Peadar Kearney, “Erin Go Bragh”

April 5, 1991

The next day, Friday, I picked up Tommy Douglas and Normie at the address we used to share as a family in downtown Halifax, and brought them out to my place for the night. No objections from their mother, but I hadn’t expected any. She knew I’d been missing them, and they had been missing their dad. We arrived at my house on the Northwest Arm, the body of water branching in from the Atlantic Ocean, and bordering the west side of the Halifax peninsula. I liked it there. Not as much as I liked the old family home on Dresden Row, but thinking of that would get me nowhere.

Tom was agreeable to all the regular activities Normie enjoyed in my neighbourhood. We went for a walk in Fleming Park and climbed the Dingle Tower, played hide-and-seek around the house in the dark, made music on my old Fender guitars and keyboard, had cocoa, and watched a goofy movie.

When I tucked Normie in to bed, she looked up at me with her big hazel eyes and said: “Daddy? Is it better to have one little
red-haired girl, or four?”

I didn’t know where the mines were buried but I knew I had to tread softly. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“Well, you just have me. But some other people have four.”

“Who has four?”

“Father Burke’s sister. She was nicer to you than Mummy is. She kissed you at the wedding. She has four girls. And some boys.”

“Normie, I’d rather have you than a whole army of other redhaired girls. I’d rather have you and Tommy than any other kids in the world. If you ever wonder about that, even for a minute, you come and ask me. Or call me. Okay?”

She put her soft little arms around my neck and clung to me. I held her till she fell asleep.

I went to my room, got ready for bed, and brooded on the conversation. How could my daughter ever doubt that she was the only little girl for me? Now that we were all home again, I was sure, the strangeness and the trauma of New York would fade and she’d be back to rights in no time. But New York hadn’t yet faded for me. My mind turned once again to the shooting.