Blood on a Saint (39 page)

He was given directions and he headed for the room. A couple of people greeted him as he flew past them. He was unable to form words to respond. When he found the room he saw Maura MacNeil and Tommy Douglas standing just inside the doorway. Tommy had his arm around his mother.

Monty was lying in the bed, eyes closed, face scraped and bruised, his arm in a cast. Lying partly on top of him, his little arms curled around Monty’s neck, was Dominic. His eyes too were closed.

Brennan looked to Maura and Tommy. Maura’s eyes were swollen and red. Tommy looked as if he were barely holding it together.

“What happened?” Brennan tried to keep the panic out of his voice.

“He . . .” Maura started to speak, but was unable to get the words out.

“Tom?”

“Dominic ran out in front of an eighteen-wheeler. He got caught up underneath it.”

Brennan looked at the child.

“Dominic’s okay. Dad kept him from falling off, or getting caught in the — ” Tommy, too, was unable to continue.

Brennan turned to the bed, reached out, and made a sign of the cross on the top of Dominic’s head, and then on Monty’s forehead. He began to pray.
“De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine . . .”

When he finished the prayer, he turned back to Tom. “How did Monty keep Dominic from falling?”

“He went under the truck.”

“It hit both of them?”

“No.” Tommy cleared his throat. “Dad went under it on purpose. He jumped onto the side and climbed under while it was moving. To save Dominic. People saw it from the sidewalk. They said it was incredible. They didn’t know how he managed to hang on himself and keep hold of Dominic. It was as if he . . . Dad probably knew going into it he might get killed. But he wanted to try to save the baby.”

Nobody spoke for several long minutes. Then they were joined by someone new.

A big man in work clothes entered the room. It was clear to Brennan that nobody recognized him.

“I’m Al Hunt,” he said quietly. “I’m the driver. I didn’t know they were under there. I swear to God. I am so sorry. I didn’t know. I had my radio on loud. I told the police everything.”

Tommy looked at him. “It wasn’t your fault. We heard all about it. The baby just ran out. We know that.”

The truck driver looked at the two people in the bed and said, “He could have been killed. People were calling him a hero. But he was having none of it. He just said, ‘He’s my son.’”

Maura looked at the man. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Is he . . .” the driver started to ask.

“The doctor is on his way. He’ll be here in a minute.”

Everyone stood awkwardly at the bedside, in the hope of deliverance.

A doctor arrived with papers in his hand, and smiled at the group. “He’s going to be all right, folks. Broken arm, serious friction burn to his leg. We’re sending him to plastics to do a graft. A few scrapes and bruises. He’s sedated, that’s all. No head injury. He’s going to be sore for a while, but you’ll have him back in one piece.” He reached over and ruffled Dominic’s black hair. “Looks as if this little fella doesn’t want to go anywhere.”

“He won’t leave him,” Maura replied. “We tried to pry him away. He won’t leave him.”

†

Brennan said a Mass for Monty and his son, and returned to the hospital the next morning, accompanied by Michael O’Flaherty. Monty was lying as he had been the day before, eyes closed and bruises even more prominent. Michael took his uninjured hand and held it while saying a quiet prayer over him.

Monty’s eyes opened, and he stared at his visitors. Recognition dawned a few seconds later.

“Fathers.”

“How are you feeling, my lad?” asked Michael.

The patient tried to shrug, and winced with pain.

“Some things you can’t shrug off, young man. Like what you did to save little Dominic.”

“Is he really all right?” Monty asked. It was the first time Brennan had ever seen Monty look fearful. “I’m afraid maybe they’re not telling me everything.”

Brennan said, “He’s A-one, really, Monty. Herself tells me he’s in perfect health. He had nightmares last night. Well, you can imagine. But physically, he’s fine. And they say you yourself will be back amongst us soon.”

“Did they check his hearing? The noise under there . . .”

“Everything is fine. That’s not your drinking arm, is it?”

“Would I put my drinking arm at risk, Burke?”

“Of course not. Please disregard what I said.”

“I’ll let it go. This time.”

“You two,” said O’Flaherty. “What a pair. Is there anything that would make you lose your cool?”

“It would have to be something serious, Mike. Eh, Brennan? Nothing serious ever happens to us clowns.”

“Life’s a circus. Just go to my churchyard if you don’t believe me.”

Monty brightened up. “No, no. That’s over.”

“What?” Brennan asked.

“I tried to call you. Whenever it was. We settled the claim. You don’t pay anything, and I don’t nail her with costs. All she has to do is make a public statement that she was ‘mistaken’ about the Virgin Mary, and it will all go away.”

“Well done, Monty. Thank you!”

“Good work, Collins,” Burke added. “Now what can we do for you while you’re laid up in here? Anything?”

“We’re not five minutes from the Clyde Street liquor store.”

“Ale? Lager? Whiskey?”

“A shot of Irish would ease the pain. If your own pain-free, carefree life is any indication. Wouldn’t mind some of that.”

“Fiat voluntas tua.”
Brennan turned to Michael. “Do you want to stay with him while I pop out on my errand of mercy, Monsignor?”

“Certainly, Father. You run along now.”

Brennan left the room and walked the length of the corridor, careful not to look at any of the equipment lined up along the walls. He didn’t want to know. Careful, too, not to catch a glimpse of any of the patients in the rooms. He was not a man for hospitals. He and O’Flaherty divided their tasks amicably: Father O’Flaherty visited the sick, Father Burke the imprisoned. Stone killers and armed robbers were easier on the head than bedpans, tubes, and bags of mysterious fluids being pumped into patients’ veins. Or arteries. Whatever the case.

He crossed the parking lot, walked up South Park Street, then turned right towards the venerable Clyde Street liquor store. He bought a quart of John Jameson, and retraced his steps to the Victoria General.

When he was back in Monty’s room, he picked up a glass from the bedside table, held it up to his eye, and examined it for any sign of, well, whatever might get on a glass in a hospital. Again, he didn’t want to know. But it appeared to be clean, so he poured a couple of fingers of the golden liquid and helped Monty sit up to sip it.

“Ah!” Monty sighed with pleasure. “That hits the spot. Miracle cure. No wonder you’re always the picture of health, Father Burke.”

“Father! What are you doing?”

The MacNeil.

“I’m just, em, administering this man’s medication. He has to keep his fluids up. He is in need of — ”

“He is in need of whatever the doctors say he is in need of, and I suspect that whatever it is, it’s not supposed to be combined with alcohol!”

“Sure, it won’t hurt him at all,” Monsignor O’Flaherty stated for the defence. “In fact, not a word o’ lie, a doctor actually prescribed a pint of Guinness a day for one of my parishioners in this very hospital. Vitamin G right there in the doctor’s orders!”

“Well, you two quacks are in big trouble if it’s not in the doctor’s orders for
this
patient.”

“Dada! Dada!”

Dominic had arrived, in the arms of his sister, and he began kicking and reaching out to Monty in the bed.

“He wants to see you, Daddy!” Normie said. “He’s been asking for you all morning and all last night. Can he get into the bed with you?”

“Of course he can. Hello, Dominic, you little
sneak
!”

The little fellow burst into laughter and grinned at Monty. Normie tried to lift the baby up high enough to get over the rails of the bed. Michael O’Flaherty started to help, but Brennan gave him a little shake of the head, and directed his eyes to the child’s mother. Maura leaned over, took hold of her son — their son — and gave him to Monty in his bed. Brennan saw husband and wife exchange a look. Dominic curled up on Monty’s right side and smiled.

Brennan gave Michael the eye, and the two men withdrew from the room, leaving the family together.

Chapter 20

Brennan

Kathleen Boyle-MacIvor stood on her front porch and waited while Brennan emerged from his car and walked towards her.

“Father Burke, welcome. I heard your car turn in.” She lifted her face to the elements. “Smells like snow.”

“You can tell that?”

“Oh, yes. You wait. But I don’t mean to leave you out on the stoop. Come in, come in.”

Brennan had just driven an hour and a half northeast of Halifax, to the town of New Glasgow, after getting a call from the social worker, Lena Vanherk. Lena had made contact with Ignatius Boyle’s Aunt Kathleen, and she had expressed her willingness to receive Father Burke at her little house on Highland Drive.

She was in her eighties, but her step did not falter and her handshake was firm. She was dressed in a green wool suit, with gold earrings and a chunky necklace. That day’s
Globe and Mail
rested on the arm of her chair in the living room. She smiled at him, and he got the impression she was enjoying a private joke.

“I’ve been expecting you. For months now.” He must have looked surprised, because she said, “Not you in particular. But I wondered how long it would take for someone to come around. Let me turn this off first.”

He looked at the television in the corner. NHL hockey, a Leafs game. “You’re a person of faith too I see, Mrs. MacIvor.”

“Faith, hope, and charity, Father. I dedicate all those virtues to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Someday, someday.” He laughed. “That’s a tape. The games go too late at night for me, so I record them.” She switched off the tape and the set. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“I’d love one, if it’s not too much trouble. Would you be having one yourself?”

“I would, and it’s no trouble at all. You have a seat and I’ll join you in a minute.”

He sat on a chair across from hers and looked around at a room filled with well-kept old furniture, family photos, books, and news and sports magazines. Mrs. MacIvor returned bearing a tray containing cups and saucers, ornate silver spoons, a jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Father. Now,” she said as she took her place again, “you’re wondering about Ignatius. So are a lot of other people, I gather.”

“True.”

“You’re wondering whether he spoke French at any time in his life.”

“Did he?”

“There was nobody French-speaking in our family. We lived in the north end of Halifax. My husband and I moved here to New Glasgow when he retired; he grew up nearby. But I’m a Halifax girl. We’re like you, Father. Transplanted Irish on the Boyle side and on the Whelan side. Ignatius’s mother was a Whelan. But you should know that Ignatius spent some time out of his home when he was young.”

That struck a chord. “Right. He told me he had been in the hospital as a child, but he could not recall what condition he had. Ignatius blames his drinking for his problems with memory.”

“He wasn’t in the hospital, though he may remember it that way, I don’t know,” Kathleen said. “My brother Dermot — Ignatius’s father — was troubled all his life. Troubled by drink and instability. He couldn’t hold a job. Sad, but that’s the way he was. His marriage to Doreen Whelan was turbulent, to say the least, and he finally just disappeared, leaving Doreen to cope with Ignatius and his sister, Irene. There were just the two children. Irene is dead now. Ignatius is the only one of his immediate family still alive. His mother was not a strong person. To put it bluntly, Doreen used to go on benders for weeks at a time. When she’d go on a toot, neighbours would go in and look after the children. Or they’d call family members in. There were a couple of times when Doreen was about to go off with one of her ‘companions,’ and neighbours saw her staggering down the street, towing poor Ignatius and Irene by the hand. Doreen deposited them, without asking first, with the Sisters of Charity at their convent in north end Halifax. My husband and I had five children of our own, and couldn’t take Dermot and Doreen’s children in. I wish we could have, but it was impossible. But I visited Ignatius and Irene during their stay at the convent.

“There were some French-speaking sisters there and one of them, Sister Marie-Hélène, was a great one for quoting the saints. That’s where Ignatius would have picked up a bit of French. Whatever he said last fall never made the newspapers, but I suspect it would have been some lines from Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux or Saint Francis de Sales, the good sister’s favourites among the sanctified. Ignatius would have forgotten all that in the ensuing years, especially with the drink, but everything we learn is still in us, isn’t it? Buried in the deep recesses of our brains. Suffer a head injury and you can lose your recent memories, and recover your old ones. I’ve heard of it many times. No miracle in that.”

“No.”

“How is he otherwise, do you know?”

Brennan was not about to unload on her the recent woes of Ignatius Boyle. “He seems healthy enough. He’s off the drink, he tells me.”

“Well! There’s the grace of God working in him, even if he is not exactly a miracle worker.” She picked up her teacup and smiled. “I’ve been following the story, of course. And I know I should have contacted somebody — the press, the hospital, the church, I don’t know who — but there’s a bit of mischief in me, I guess. And I said to myself, ‘Why not let poor Ignatius enjoy a bit of glory for once in his life?’”

†

The visit with Ignatius Boyle’s lovely aunt made it even more distressing to contemplate what role the poor man had had in the death of Jordyn Snider. On the drive back to Halifax in lightly falling snow, Brennan made up his mind to try yet again to question either Ignatius or Maggie Nelson. They both knew more than they were letting on, and it was time for some answers.