The Father Pat Stories Page 10

  He took Janet into the vestry at the back of the church, and there, amid his vestments, he made a critical phone call from the wall phone, which was more of an intercom to let him know when the choir was about to come up the aisle. The phone rang at least five agonizing times before Ron at the hardware store picked it up. Yes, he had told the police about the woman. Did he realize it was Janet Locke, the late John Locke’s wife, and that she would be in big trouble if he identified her?

  “You can take my word for it,” Father Pat said, wondering what would be left of his word after this episode. “Janet had no intention of hurting the PM or anyone. But it looks bad. I have things under control and Janet is with me. I don’t like to ask you to lie — but her future’s at stake.”

  Yes, Ron agreed that the greater good would be served if he did not recognize her. He’d forget about it. He remembered poor Mr. Locke. “What a shame. A real shame. He was a customer — a real handyman. I remember. Didn’t know he’d passed on. Yep, a real shame”

  A pillar of the community, Father Pat thought as he hung up.

  Then, with a silent prayer for forgiveness, Father Pat told Janet his plan. He would forget about the rifle and what he knew. Ron would forget it was she who had bought the shells.

  Now they’d have to explain why they had fled when the police appeared at her cabin back on the 18th. Had she any reason to be fearful of men coming up the drive? After all they weren’t in uniform. To her they could have been anyone. She said she was four months late on her car payments and she had been worried about repossession. She could have mistaken the police for men from the collection agency or whatever. Perfect.

  “Janet, I’m really pushing my limits to get you out of this,” Father Pat finally had a chance to be priestly. “You have to promise me that you’ll get out of that awful cabin, move into town and see me or someone who can help you regularly. You’ve got to start your life over.”

  She nodded, her head drooping with fatigue.

  “Now, let’s face the music,” he said, taking her arm.

  Inspector Love was waiting in the parking lot, drumming his fingers on the shiny blue roof of the RCMP Chevrolet as they came out. The two burly plainclothes officers from the 18th were there beside their car, looking a bit disheveled. Father Pat went over as casually as he could and started his well-rehearsed account. To his amazement, Love and his colleague from Ottawa seemed to accept the story as it unfolded in the back of the cruiser. Janet went off to the hardware store with the inspector to verify that it was not she who had bought the shells, and Father Pat said another prayer. Another soul saved, he thought.

  Then, walking over to the rectory, he felt his mood blacken as he cursed how his own intense dislike of Mulgrew had led him into this moral fiasco.

  He did not call Deirdre or Terry.

  THE NEXT DAY the sun smiled on the well-orchestrated visit. Guests were lined up to be frisked after walking through a metal detector. Very presidential. The street was closed and a line of scruffy kids watched from behind the ribbon, waiting for the motorcade to arrive.

  Father Pat was already installed, as per the minute-by-minute schedule beside Monsignor Callucci on the platform. There were three cameras on a roped-off platform. From his vantage point Father Pat could see the tall figure of Deirdre in trim jeans and a bulky pink sweater mingling with other reporters in the pen behind the camera platform. He walked over to the roped-off area and called her just as a man in a suit talking into a radio in his sleeve came over to warn him that the PM was only a couple of minutes away.

  Deirdre came over and taking Father Pat by the shoulder leaned into his ear across the barricade.

  “Apparently they have a suspect. They won’t tell us. It’s a local resident. They are sticking by their story that it was serious. Why didn’t you call last night? Was it the Locke kid?” She was obviously anxious.

  “Deirdre, I just can’t tell you,” he said under his breath. “I’m sorry. The whole thing … I behaved recklessly. You’ll have to let me get my head around it… and my conscience.”

  “Hey, Father, please, back on the platform. The motorcade is just about here.” It was the young man with the radio. He had to break away from Deirdre. He could feel her intense gaze as he crossed back to the platform.

  “MY DEAR FRIENDS. It is truly a privilege to be in Ridgewoods today.” The PM launched today’s verbal flight getting the name of the community wrong. Pat tried not to be too disgusted. “And to honour the great achievement of Omega Electronics in winning the Prime Minister’s medal for export performance.”

  There was a scuffle behind the media pen. A couple of kids had sneaked in and were being taken out by the collar by a brace of young aides with radios. The cameras turned away from the PM and he paused, scowling. “As you all know this happy occasion has not been without a darker side …”

  I cannot believe this, Father Pat thought, trying to stifle his distaste and remorse at the same time.

  “It brings home to me and my dear wife just how much the world has changed, how the troubles of this terrible recession and the increasing crime and violence in our society can impinge on even such a happy community as Ridgewoods.”

  “I won’t dwell on the threat to my life that darkened this day. But I can tell you that thanks to the diligence of the RCMP, there is a suspect in custody. We can all be thankful.”

  And with that, he started an applause that was cautiously picked up by a few of the astounded spectators. Father Pat caught Gayle, the switchboard operator, looking puzzled among the other plant employees who were arranged picturesquely to the side of the platform.

  FATHER PAT HAD little to say to either Deirdre or Terry when the ceremony was finally over and the motorcade receded into the distance. He returned to the rectory on foot in a state of advanced spiritual confusion. On the village’s main street, a large Chevrolet Caprice pulled up and Inspector Love opened the door and offered Father Pat a ride the rest of the way. The priest felt it was an invitation he could not refuse.

  “Well, we got to the bottom of it,” Inspector Love sounded confident. “The Locke woman finally admitted she had made the call. But the hardware guy couldn’t be sure she was the woman who bought the shells — and she denied it. And there was no weapon in her cabin. And we looked around the property. It wasn’t malicious what she did, and she had reason to dislike the government. So we let her off with a warning.”

  “That’s a relief,” Father Pat said, as he felt the sweat start to break out on his brow.

  “I guess you thought she might be the one too, eh? Is that why you were there?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. Thought I might stop your guys giving her the third degree.” Father Pat bought the out Love was offering him.

  “Well, I don’t think that makes you an accomplice. But you did lie to me with your bullshit story about her thinking it was guys from a collection agency. Could have you up for obstructing an investigation.”

  “Don’t think that would go over to well politically. Former Liberal MP arrested trying to protect prankster. Wouldn’t look good would it, Love?” Father Pat felt he still had a slight advantage. He did know the politics of this kind of thing.

  “No. Well, it wasn’t really an option.” Love did back off. “Anyhow, we’re releasing her on her own recognizance, and I wonder if you’d agree to see her once a week?” he changed his tone.

  “Sure, sure, I talked to her about getting help. Might as well be me,” Father Pat responded flatly.

  “One more thing,” Inspector Love said as he pulled the car up in front of the rectory. His face was black against the sun his voice sounded very serious. “The best thing from the point of view of the RCMP and the PM’s detail is that nobody but you and Janet Locke know what this is all about. The other people in the community we interviewed haven’t connected us asking questions with the threat. “I told the hardware store guy that this was routine, to keep it quiet. He agreed. He’ll just say that the police looked into his
tip, he was wrong, it had nothing to do with any threat. I hope I can count on you for the same, Father. I’d hate to see the woman hurt, and there’s really no benefit for anyone in this getting out.”

  Father Pat hesitated as the full force of the moral dilemma which was now securely fastened to him hit home. “No,” he said faintly, “No, I suppose not.” What was he going to tell Deirdre, and what about Terry? And where would he even start with his wife, Brenda? And it was her birthday.

  Thanksgiving

  FATHER PAT WAS sitting alone in late autumn on the dock of Whitehaven contemplating the backlit palette of colours of the curving shoreline. He remembered an autumn morning more than thirty years ago.

  He could see the perfectly unpretentious brownish-red leaf that heralded an astonishing moment of revelation for the young would-be priest. It was a warm midweek afternoon during his first year at seminary, and Patrick Cheyne was sitting cross-legged on the grass near the chapel of the Episcopal Theological College on Brattle Street in Boston trying to absorb a tome on New Testament theology.

  The leaf intruded. It intruded on a long thought train that was leading to the seemingly inevitable destination that it always did: learning New Testament theology had nothing to do with helping people with their spiritual and other problems, which was the reason Patrick Cheyne felt compelled to go to seminary in the first place.

  He looked up from the book to concentrate his mind on this facet of his calling, this sense of mission to become a man of God that he had to keep alive, when this single leaf started its languid decent from the small maple overhead. It caught his musings somewhere between the irrelevance that centuries of scholarship had imposed on the simple teachings of a remarkable man, Jesus, and the spiritual pleasure Pat gained from solitary contemplation in nature. He’d been looking up studying the virtually leaf-bare outward fanning branches of the tree and the cool blue autumn sky that framed them.

  The single leaf then started to drift downward toward him. He found his hands almost shaking as he held the big hard cover book on his lap. The leaf dipped and dove to the right, then sideslipped slightly toward him until it was poised to softly alight, aligned right on the opened right side of the motionless book. As it settled on the page, upright and vertical to the page, the spiritually stressed young man felt an awesome shudder. The message of a divinity speaking to him came as loudly and clearly as if the leaf had miraculously unscrolled to reveal a clearly written text.

  The magical guest on his book told him clearly that he had to go on, that he had to do what was necessary to become ordained, but most important that he must never forget the simple power of beauty, of truth, of compassion. He answered in his mind: Yes, I have heard. I will share my calling. I will share everything I know. His feelings for Brenda, whom he had met and been courted by the year before and was corresponding with emotionally almost daily, were also part of this potent mix.

  And he knew that the leaf, the simple but magical pattern of life it represented and the innocent needs of humans humanly felt, was more important than all the learned teachings of generations of biblical scholars, church leaders, psychologists, social scientists, political leaders and thinkers of all sorts, in fact of all those who would pretend to organize our lives by some imposed blueprint, or logic.

  As the image faded and he was once again alone, surrounded by the familiar spread of lake, shoreline and sky that had provided continuous comfort and inner joy to him since he was a boy, he thought of the conundrum in the words of Christ in the Gospel of Thanksgiving, which he would celebrate the next Sunday.

  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and loose his own soul?

  Then he recalled with some anguish that for the young Pat Cheyne, loosing his own soul was falling into the petty politics of the seminary; it was mistaking learning for understanding. He had to struggle to forget building a career as so many of his ambitious young American colleagues were doing and to remember to follow his own personal calling.

  In a way he was lucky. Many of his fellow seminarians in those years were self-confessed draft dodgers who had sought refuge in theological school as a way of avoiding military service at the height of the Vietnam War. As a Canadian he found this disturbing. So did his friend Terry who had only lasted two years, then had left, leaving Pat Cheyne, now married to Brenda and ensconced in the “married quarters” at seminary, to muse over martinis with her in a once a week ritual he started with Terry and found hard to break.

  Many too were already jockeying with their bishops at home to become assistants at good parishes; they were writing letters and doing guest sermons during holidays at the right churches. They were talking about “vestments,” the glorious robes heavy with embroidery they could already feel on their shoulders as they lifted the host at mass. They were frequenting religious supply houses. They were choosing even more elaborate little crucifixes to wear around their necks. One tall young southerner, the pious Beau Smith, Pat’s pedantic and judgmental first-year roommate, even had a voice coach to try and get rid of his drawl. He had his eyes on a wealthy parish with a fine church and rectory in Atlanta and his Mississippi twang would never do.

  These concerns were foreign to Pat. He had come to seminary on a scholarship and had no ties to his bishop at home. At first he was perhaps fleeing something — someone, Brenda, to be exact, who had come close to actually capturing him and his soul too. She preoccupied him. But beyond this growing relationship, his thoughts seldom strayed from studying and praying.

  To Pat Cheyne the world of his colleagues seemed overburdened with the complex and worldly personality and political concerns he had come here to escape. He felt they should have been foreign to a group supposed to be chosen to teach the naive spiritual message of faith, love, redemption and atonement.

  He sometimes even felt instinctively that the churches themselves, encumbered with the complex structures of worldly institutions, might in fact get in the way of individuals finding spiritual peace or understanding the basics of human relationships. He’d experienced firsthand the church’s failings with a beautiful but disturbed young woman he was involved with in his early days at university. She had been sexually abused by a young man and sought comfort from her parish priest, only to be curtly shut out and told that if it was “spiritual counseling you need, my dear, well fine. But this is out of my league.” Father Pat had been shocked by this institutional indifference to a woman in need.

  He was also shocked, in another way, by a couple of older, so-called “mature” seminarians who had been priests in all but name, “lay” priests with no formal training who had run parishes where no ordained clergy were available. They had returned to seminary to qualify as real priests and were all too ready to share the lurid lessons of real parish work with those enjoying less experienced vocations. If he was to believe the stories of one, John Browning, most of the women in his smallish hometown in New Hampshire were trying to get under his cassock, the long black gown he favoured when on official church business.

  One evening in the bare rooms they bunked in, John happily shared with a group of younger seminarians the story of yielding to the charms of one particularly persistent married woman following a long “counseling” session, as he put it.

  “You know guys, aside from living in the best houses in town, there aren’t many perks to being a priest,” the older man said authoritatively. Then to the general amusement of the younger men, “but this gift from above or below — I’m not sure which — was one I hardly expected. I prayed hard for forgiveness that night!”

  Pat retired to his room. He did pray, concentrating on several of his favourite biblical passages and pleading silently as he envisaged himself and his colleagues. For the first time in several days he could see his situation and theirs as if he was looking down and through their unfolding reality. He heard and felt a presence. He knew he could
be different and truer to his calling than most of the people fate had thrown him together with. When he finally turned out the light and checked his clock radio, he realized that he had been praying for over an hour. He had no sense of time passing.

  The image left again, and a far older, more portly Pat Cheyne, in anything but resplendent robes, or even a cassock, but in old black loafers and an open shirt and frayed cardigan, put down the book he was reading on the dock and went up to the white frame cottage with the large screened-in verandah to cook his supper.

  The next day he drove back to Ridegwood, said his hellos to Brenda, who chirped up with her standard “You’re home already?”, and repaired to the messy study overlooking the garden. There, as if to reaffirm his ruminations of the dock, he renewed his acquaintance with his seminary diaries. His faded writing was less immediate than the images from the day before.

  In fact, the journals were not very satisfying. There was indeed a brief reference to the leaf incident. “Without that leaf, I wouldn’t be here,” he thought as he again reconstructed the afternoon in his mind. He felt sure that what had been revealed that day was still true. Thank God for that.

  The diary also contained a shocked reference to John Browning’s “indiscretion with a trusting parishioner” as the young seminarian had referred to the incident in the diary. Father Pat smiled as he thought of his innocence in those days, thinking that priests had to go out of their way to actually betray or seduce women when even in his limited experience it occasionally took great control not to yield to the amorous advances of overwrought parishioners to whom the priest could become much more than a father figure.

  On the other hand, he had once developed a severe crush on one pert young female parishioner years back, had seen her through a messy divorce with her husband and had been very tempted to be “indiscreet” himself. “One of the dirty little secrets of the profession,” Father Pat thought wryly.