Man in the Shadows (3 page)

Conor savoured the performance. Macdonald did more than acknowledge the crowd; he befriended it, played to it and rose above it. Most of the so-called Fathers of Confederation ambled into the building as if going to a meeting. They were businesslike and dutiful. Macdonald swept in, clearly the leading man. Politics was his stage play. Parliament was his theatre. He loved being the star.

Conor knew you shouldn’t always believe John Macdonald, you couldn’t always trust him, but you had to admire him.

CONOR
passed by young Will Trotter standing at the entrance. He really did look like a penguin in an ill-fitting uniform. “Cheers,” he declared, as he entered the stone building. “I owe you one, Willy.”

The politicians had assembled. Fourteen members of Canada’s first cabinet, with a beaming John A. Macdonald, “The First of Equals,” standing in the forefront. Conor studied them with a critical eye. D’Arcy McGee had told him to assess a scene as if he were a newspaper reporter. Think how a Tory paper would write it up. Then imagine how the Grits would see it. Conservatives
vs. Liberals. Look at it from all perspectives. But report it as you see it.

So what did he think? Not a bad group overall, but not the best. Within Her Majesty’s first Canadian Privy Council, there were a few glaring omissions. Charles Tupper, who had fought so hard to convince Nova Scotia to enter the union, was in Halifax, waiting for different political awards. George Brown, Macdonald’s arch-rival but Confederation’s indispensable supporter, was back in Toronto, ensuring that his newspaper,
The Globe
, gave him and not Macdonald full credit. Their exclusion from cabinet didn’t bother Conor. After all, Tupper was better off chasing skirts in Nova Scotia, and Brown, the steadfast Liberal, or Grit, would never stand being in Macdonald’s shadow. Brown and Macdonald had worked together for this one great cause and were more comfortable as enemies again.

For Conor, there was a more painful omission: the Honourable Thomas D’Arcy McGee. And Conor wasn’t alone. Throughout Parliament Hill, questions were being asked. “Where’s D’Arcy?” “Where’s McGee?” “Where’s the Irishman?”

Conor eased his way to the front and settled beside a rather pompous man in an oversized beaver felt hat. A little warm for a summer’s day, Conor thought, but it was a celebration, and what’s more Canadian than a fur hat?

Conor knew where D’Arcy McGee was, and he knew why he wasn’t here. McGee had accepted a speaking engagement in Toronto, out of the limelight, away from the humiliation of watching others sworn into the cabinet. John A. Macdonald often said he was never much of carpenter but was a master cabinetmaker. A certain number of Protestants balanced by a certain number of Roman Catholics. A quota from Quebec, from Ontario, from the Maritimes. McGee and Tupper had agreed to decline posts in Canada’s first cabinet to make room for someone named Edward Kenney. Kenney was Irish, a Catholic and from Nova Scotia. Macdonald could, as he boasted,
kill three birds with one stone. It was unfair, and Macdonald knew it. No harm or insult was intended. It was … well, it was politics. But it made Conor furious. McGee spoke for Conor and other Irish-Catholic Canadians. He represented Conor’s ideals and his aspirations.

Conor O’Dea had tied much of his ambition to D’Arcy McGee’s coattails. He liked to say he was a speechwriter and parliamentary assistant, but he was really McGee’s researcher and errand boy. He transcribed McGee’s essays and letters, acted as a sounding board for some of his speeches and helped prepare his frenzied days.

“You’re not qualified for the job,” McGee had told him. “But you’ve a good Irish name, a studious nature, a youngster’s eagerness, and best of all, you won’t cost me much money.”

Like an Irish labourer, Conor thought.

“And another thing, Conor,” McGee had bellowed. “You’re almost as ambitious as I was at your age. Not as smart, certainly not as handsome. Oh hell, you’re nothing like me. Now get back to work.”

Conor was determined to make something of his life. But what exactly? He might become a businessman, and his political contacts would serve him well. He might go into politics himself. What he really wanted was to become a newspaperman, and there were few people better able to teach him than D’Arcy McGee. McGee had edited and published his own newspapers. He had written, and was now revising, his
Popular History of Ireland.
But most important, he was easily the most eloquent orator Conor had ever heard. When he spoke, he lifted an audience out of the monotony of life, he thrilled and inspired, but patience was not a word in McGee’s vast vocabulary. He was temperamental, volatile and sometimes intolerant, but he liked to lecture, and Conor was eager to learn.

McGee was teaching him the language of power; Macdonald was showing him the ways of leadership. Soon he would need someone
to help him fill his bank account. But not today. Today was a day of grandeur. It was …
portentous.
And, he thought, I wonder if I’m pronouncing it right?

Conor had invited himself to the ceremony on Parliament Hill because he wanted to see history being made, because he didn’t want to miss anything that might help fill his appetite for knowledge, but also because he wanted to honour his boss. He was there in the name of the greatest Irish-Catholic Canadian of the day: Thomas D’Arcy McGee. And no one was going to stop him.

Let people call him an upstart; he didn’t care. Let them think he was reaching beyond his grasp; his day would come. He smiled at the stuffy man in the fur hat. He didn’t smile back, but Conor didn’t expect him to.

B
y late morning, Thomas O’Dea was already wincing with pain. Tension, anxiety or that old ache from lifting one pine log too many, it didn’t matter. He stood behind the bar and braced his back.

Lapierre’s was a typical Lowertown tavern. Nothing quaint about it. No pictures on the wall, just price lists, bottles and barrels. It was built for serious drinking. The dingy tavern was as dark as a jail cell, and Thomas O’Dea’s downcast expression didn’t make it much more inviting.

O’Dea took a yellowing sketch from his pocket and placed it on the bar. The crumbling drawing of his wife, Margaret, looked up at him. It was just a rough likeness drawn by Margaret’s cousin; they could never afford a daguerreotype or one of those new photographic pictures the rich were posing for. Still, like a miracle, the fading image smiled at him. The rugged lines on his face couldn’t resist the impulse; he smiled back at the innocent picture of youth. “I promised you he would get an education,” he told the picture. “I did it for you, but what has it done for me?” He was gently returning the picture to his pocket when a stranger walked into the bar, ordered a Jamesons and sat in the back.

The bar started filling up. In the daytime, most men—they were all men; no self-respecting woman would walk through those doors—drank beer with the occasional watered-down whisky chaser. Some customers would order “grunts,” or as much whisky as they could swallow in one swig. A grunt cost only pennies. The grunt drinkers were usually part of the nighttime crowd; the daytime patrons were either committed drinkers or people just too beaten down to face the day. Thomas passed a foaming beer across the counter to a rosy-cheeked regular who cheerfully raised his glass. “Will you toast the new Dominion?” he asked.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” Thomas answered firmly.

“Ah, not a believer,” the customer chuckled. “Well, I’ll drink to anything.” And he did, with a hearty gulp.

Across the smoky public house, the man in the back listened attentively. Thomas O’Dea was the first name on the list the colonel had given him. A “potential supporter,” it read. “Not confirmed, but worth pursuing.” He rubbed his fingers along his new black moustache and scrutinized this Irish bartender. He looked intelligent enough and he was obviously strong willed. Already, through various sources, he had learned that O’Dea had worked as a lumberjack up the Ottawa Valley for more than a decade, until a runaway log almost killed him. Since then, he’d tended bar here at Lapierre’s. It was backbreaking work in the lumber camps. Irish work. It could make any man bitter. He had also learned that O’Dea’s wife was dead and he still mourned her. He must find out more about her. That might be a way to get at him. The real mystery was the son. He apparently worked for D’Arcy McGee.
That bastard McGee!
His son might have the will of his father, but he must have the heart of a traitor.

“Stand easy,” the customer at the bar persisted. “All that’s happening is the Canadas are joining up with some other British
colonies. It could be the start of something grand. More land. More people. The more the merrier, I say.”

Thomas O’Dea looked the man straight in the eye. “Well, I don’t say so, sir, and I’m sure you won’t mind if I don’t share your enthusiasm.”

The man in the back raised an eyebrow. Thomas O’Dea was a man of conviction. Barmen usually just agreed with their customers. Keep them talking and they will keep buying beer. After all, conversation was cheap; the liquid costs the money. This man valued his beliefs. Interesting. Useful to know.

The customer banged his empty beer mug on the bar. “I think I’ll be off to Parliament Hill to catch the end of the party.” He paid his money and tipped his hat to Thomas, who was busy drying mugs. As the door closed, Thomas O’Dea muttered to himself, “My son is up there.”

The man in the shadows heard him and was curious.
His son was up there.
There was a complication here, so he should be leery. But maybe, just maybe, that complication could help him. Yes, there could be potential with this Thomas O’Dea.

“Would you like a drink over there?” Thomas shouted across the room. The customer waved his right hand, indicating no, while his left hand covered his face as if he were checking something in his eye. And he left. He knew Thomas O’Dea had barely seen his face. He would never remember the first time they had met. He also knew they would meet again.

THE
dignitaries had moved into the Parliament Buildings’ Privy Council Chamber, their wives staying back with the select observers. Each cabinet appointee in turn swore his oath of office. Conor noticed Governor General Viscount Monck whispering something to John Macdonald. Monck’s long beard covered his mouth, and Conor
couldn’t tell what he was saying, but it certainly got Macdonald’s attention. The prime minister smiled broadly, then almost gasped in horror.

McGee’s instructions came back to him: “If you want to know what’s going on, don’t just observe what’s happening; think about it and mull it over in your mind.” Conor knew something was certainly going on here.

He was sure that Macdonald would be enraged by Lord Monck’s attire. He was dressed in an everyday business suit, while the members of Parliament were resplendent in full ceremonial garb. The governor general seemed to be treating Confederation as just another working day. But Macdonald was reacting to something else. It was something Monck had said. Conor watched carefully as the prime minister left Monck’s side. Macdonald turned to the crowd—the actor to his audience—and smiled at each familiar face. When his eyes met Conor’s, he looked astonished and slyly winked. Yes, something was happening, and Conor was determined to find out what.

“Don’t just watch events,” McGee would say. “Wonder. Brood. Get out of the margins and into the page. Be curious. Never lose your curiosity.”

“Someday that curiosity will get you into trouble,” his father had told him.

It’s funny, Conor thought, how D’Arcy McGee and his father gave him such contrary advice.

CONOR
had met John Macdonald many times. There were few better places to find Macdonald and D’Arcy McGee on a cold winter evening—or any evening of the year, for that matter—than in the public houses and taverns around Ottawa. The Russell House, Macdonald’s favourite haunt, was stately and sophisticated. Lapierre’s,
on Sussex Street, was shabby, simple and loud, more to McGee’s taste. Occasionally, when Macdonald wanted to prove that he too was a man of the people, he would join McGee under the flickering gas lights of Lapierre’s. The two men mingled with voters and held court surrounded by the sights and sounds—and smells—of Ottawa’s people.

That’s where Conor first met the politicians.

While his father tended bar at Lapierre’s, Conor earned extra money in the back, washing dishes and cleaning up. The former cook’s assistant was handy in a kitchen. To his father’s horror, Conor would sometimes sneak into the front to hear McGee and Macdonald spin their countless yarns. He was in a boyish trance as they exchanged quips and each tried to outdo the other’s last joke. As the hour got late, the conversation became spicier. Macdonald would beg McGee to sing the song McGee wrote, though it hardly took prodding for McGee to quote himself:

His voice would build until he screamed “shouted for more.” Then Macdonald would join in:

To the applause of the room, Macdonald would roar, “You’ve got to quit drinking, McGee. This government can’t afford two drunkards.”
Then he would wink. The same mischievous wink as today.

Macdonald fascinated Conor. Cartoonists made fun of his bulbous nose, but Conor felt his eyes defined him. He used them to express his many moods. His eyes could be playful, pleading, melancholy or full of cheer. Macdonald was a careful man, his actions were almost always well planned and rehearsed, but the glint in his eye was spontaneous.

“His eyes are shifty, it’s as simple as that,” Thomas growled one night after Conor had actually been invited to sit down at the same table as Macdonald and McGee. “Shifty and untrustworthy. Stay away from him.”

To Thomas O’Dea, everything was simple: Macdonald was a Protestant, and that made him an oppressor. Protestants controlled the best jobs in Ontario and kept the Catholics down—especially Irish Catholics. “‘Romanists,’ they call us. ‘Papists.’ And don’t think they say it with any affection.” Thomas had spent too many hours working for low wages and Protestant bosses to ever forget. Or forgive. D’Arcy McGee’s sins were different, but no less enraging. To Thomas, McGee was the most damnable of creatures: a turncoat. McGee may have stayed true to his Catholic faith, but he had criticized Irish freedom fighters, so he had turned against his own people.