Mercy Among the Children (36 page)

“Why, you are hurt,” Leo said. He jumped up in a spry way and took her hand, which was large for a woman’s. “Look — let me get something for you, girl —”

He pressed his hand against the small of her back and led her into the living room.

“Really, I’m fine,” she said.

“Fine — nonsense altogether.” He left, and she was alone to gaze about the room. He came back with cotton balls and iodine and kneeled before her. She let him take her leg in his hands and wash her cut, and she stared at the top of his white
head, cropped close, with reddish wrinkled skin on the back of his neck, and his hair unkempt; not like a man with
so
much money. And when he stood she was suddenly surprised at how poorly fitted and unnatural looking his false teeth were. His life was in the woods, and though he might have thousands tucked away, he still called mathematics figures and men with education eggheads.

He took a seat beside her. He smelled of spruce gum and earth, of moments cast against the ice and snow that should never be a cause of disrespect. But now children thought him an old man and of no importance at all. They did not even care about the Second World War, let alone think it important that he exercised extreme courage in it.

“So, Miss Pit, how is your mom?”

“Please — call me Cynthia — she is okay —” And then her voice changed. “But Trenton’s death took a lot out of her.”

He was smiling when she said this, and his smile faded, first on the side of his face nearest her.

“That was terrible,” he said, “but they get theirs back, you see, those people who cause those things, they never get away. They might think they get away for three or four years, and then suddenly new information comes forward, and the little boy is avenged — and new charges will be laid by Christmas or soon after!”

This startled her, and frightened her as well. He raised his finger and pointed to the ceiling as if it was in God’s hands and he alone understood this. Then he glared down at the carpet and looked up suddenly.

He told her that he needed her advice about who might help look after his daughter.

“Oh my, what’s wrong?” Cynthia asked, with feigned concern that she could not disguise, and he could not help but detect though he pretended he did not.

“She is an invalid more than ever,” he said. “She is depressed too, and has no friends. She used to have a monkey when she was a girl — but he died. Rudy wouldn’t allow her none.” He paused, his brow furrowed.

“A monkey — ?”

“No — friends — wouldn’t allow her no friends.”

“Oh yes,” Cynthia said.

“She has a wheelchair — but it’s very hard for her where the hallways are carpeted. And I’ve gotten her a hospital bed but it’s still out in the garage. Rudy is completely useless — I don’t know if you know him?”

“Rudy? Oh yes.” Cynthia expressed a slight smile of disapproval that Leo welcomed. It seemed to make her feigned concern for Gladys more acceptable.

“And how is your little girl?” he said, eyeing her quickly.

“Teresa — she’s okay — in fact, I was going to bring her today but thought against it — I’ll bring her over some day maybe to see you.”

“She was named after Mother Teresa, I bet,” Leo said.

“Oh yes,” Cynthia said, although this was the first she had heard of it.

He nodded. Then they were both silent. He felt attracted to her, and she let him be. She crossed her legs suddenly to look at her cut, which allowed him a slight view of her panties, and then she looked up at him with large brown eyes.

“I can do it any time,” she said, without changing her position.

“Pardon me?”

“I could help your daughter —” she said, rubbing the scrape with her fingers. Her nails were painted purple. “I’ve taken a course in homecare because of Trenton. It was a while ago, and I don’t have references — but I can help her in and out of the bath, take her for walks, cook a meal — you know, that kind of thing.”

“That kind of thing,” was said softly and coyly, as if it was a coded message or soft trap, and she looked again at the scrape.

Then she put her knee down and pressed her legs together shyly.

There was another long pause, and Leo McVicer scrutinized her. Then he smiled, once again showing the poor fit of his false teeth.

“Of course — that would be good —”

When she got up to leave he walked behind her. He suddenly felt the same man he was years ago, when he had walked into a dispute at his sawmill and taken a peavey out of the hand of the man who had promised to crush his skull.

But Cynthia had also gone through a metamorphosis. Suddenly she was not the Cynthia who had talked to Rudy that morning, but was concerned and tolerant of others, was not envious of Gladys’s money but was her compatriot, who wished to help and protect her. When Cynthia turned at the door Leo was very close to her and her breasts pressed against him.

“Oh!” she said.

He laughed uncertainly and grabbed her shoulders to keep his balance.

“You come tomorrow afternoon and we will work out the money — and, well —”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be here at three o’clock.”

She left the house along the walkway and disappeared, while he went outside and straightened gunnysacks over the newly planted pear trees. They never grew here, but nonetheless were planted every few years on a whim. He watched her walking away, saw her lilting sway, and his heart leapt in old fire and joy.

At this time Leo was sixty-five years of age, and reflecting on his life. After Cynthia left, Leo dressed and went to a Knights of Columbus meeting with his son-in-law.

In Rudy’s pocket were the plans for the marina; in his mind was his sales pitch to his father-in-law. If he did not get this marina, he would be destitute.

In Rudy’s soul was an unquenchable fear that he would as always be refused the money. In his heart was his hope that this marina would rekindle Cynthia’s interest in him, if only to keep her from betraying him.

So, driving along the reserve with its small incomplete houses, and children sitting out on porches in the last hour of the day, the rays of sun falling on patches and slanted roofs, on shingles shining and dull, on empty dog tins, and the green grass at the back of the house, cool in the evening air, Rudy waited his moment.

Bellanger saw all of this, saw it all, and kept going over in his mind what he would say to Leo and when he would say it.

When we get to Carl Francis’s house, he would tell himself. But the Francis house would be passed by; the porch, the dark second-storey window, the small speedboat with its fancy red flag.

Bellanger knew Leo McVicer was at the height of his power, even though, at sixty-five, he had almost ended his years of work. His decisions, always final, came quickly and without any thought. The car progressed, as well as the silence. But suddenly Leo moved in his seat, looked over at Rudy, and said:

“Son of a bitch, a goddamn marina!”

“What?” Rudy said.

“It’s what the people up in town have almost finished — surprised you didn’t know? Amalgamation is coming and they
are going to make us into a city — so of course we must look like a city. Now we don’t have scows or boats or working people like I grew up with, and you grew up with too, Rudy — we have pretty little sailboats —”

“Where did you hear this?”

“Just heard.” Leo sniffed. “Just heard.”

He did not tell Rudy that he had known of Rudy’s plans for three years and had been quietly working to build a marina in town with a small consortium of trusted pals. That he had convinced himself that Rudy had stolen
his
idea; and that this marina, of which he owned 37 percent, and which he pretended he hated, would be opened officially next July first.

They passed the entrance to the church ground, the last place Rudy had reflected on before the old man had spoken.

FIVE

Only a few Knights made it to the meeting, and fewer stayed for mass.

Leopold’s mind was not on church. It was on a variety of things men’s minds are on when they go to church. Sports flitted to boxing, to ridicule in his youth, to the laughter he had had to endure as the son of a drunkard, to his mother’s death, to his mistakes in business that resulted in an argument with his men and the collapse of his sawmill.

Saint Augustine wrote that men always believe they can con God into serving them, asking not for direction in their lives but for gain if they do right in service of Him, and he uses
Cain’s discussions with God to prove this. Though my father and I had read Saint Augustine, and perhaps Leopold McVicer had not, Leopold was a personification of this particular wry truth on this particular dusky fall evening.

He wanted to have a relationship with Cynthia, and he wanted God to believe that he was hoping for Gladys’s well-being and thus sanction this relationship as being in the interests of his daughter. He also wanted the insurance money from his lost store and promised God a stained-glass window.

He wanted his sins forgiven, but sins he was not willing to admit to. Those sins he was not willing to admit to he wanted overlooked; they had to do with his mistress and the treatment of his three other children; and his mill, and the initial spill into the upper levels of Arron Brook.

People never knew how clever this old man really was. He had understood things for a long while now. He knew only Connie could have turned off the floodlights, only Mathew could have frightened him enough to do it; and Rudy was involved. Why? Because of the tag from the inside of Elly’s skirt that had been left on the carpet that day, and the way the vacuuming had stopped, so that the creases on the floor were different. And Rudy’s boots running down the road, which would never have been noticed, except the native boy Darcy Paul had helped Leo with his deer and had mentioned it peculiar; someone running with cowboy boots on the wrong feet. All of this had Leo suspicious, as did a speck of blood on the tile behind the carpet. He was sure there had been an attempt at an assault. It took him longer to decide Rudy was involved in the robbery, to cover his assault, and the bridge to cover up the robbery. He was still uncertain until a few months ago. But this is why he never gave Rudy the marina.

This week or the next he would tell Gladys what he had discovered, and let her decide how she wanted to proceed.
Well, actually he would tell her how to proceed. And Rudy would be gone from their lives.

He stayed on his knees and prayed. He prayed for forgiveness and grace and peace of mind. And he prayed to get back at those who had sabotaged his bridge. He did not take communion.

SIX

After mass Leo went into the vestry to speak to Father Porier about Vicka, the girl from Yugoslavia who, along with five other children, claimed she had seen the Virgin Mary.

The week before, Leo had promised to write a cheque to help cover Vicka’s visit and he now wanted to know if Porier thought Vicka was a crook or was she on the up and up.

“Oh I think so,” Porier said. “She is just a child who has had a wonderful gift and wishes to share it with the world.”

Leo looked at one of the young altar boys who was leaving the room, and then looked back at Porier. He said he would help with her visit but he would be surprised if there was a miracle. Porier asked him if he believed in miracles.

“I don’t know why God gives messages to Vicka and not to — oh, someone on T.V. like Regis and Kathie Lee — you know what I mean.”

Porier nodded, and waited as Leo lit his pipe.

“You know, Leo, what you just said reminded me of something —”

Leopold, forever suspicious, suddenly felt he was being chastised.

“I was thinking of the little albino girl — the poet — what’s her name?”

“Autumn Henderson?”

“Ah, Henderson — and how she came here with her little brother — yesterday — what’s his name?”

“The little one — Percy.”

“Ah yes — Percy — and that old dog of Trenton Pit — the little dog with the pointy ears and flat face — what’s its name?”

“Scupper Pit,” Leo said.

“Ah yes, Scupper Pit,” Father Porier said. He smiled and went into some kind of reverie, and then looked at Leo.

“Well, what did they want?” Leo asked.

“Who?”

“The children — the children — not Scupper — I don’t feel Scupper wanted much — except to follow the children — but what did the children want?”

“Well, the children. Autumn had the little girl with her too — what’s her name — the little Pit girl?”

“Mother Teresa Pit.”

“Ah yes, Mother Teresa Pit. Autumn asked for a blessing of her because of her heart. Then Percy wanted me to bless Scupper Pit. So I blessed Scupper. Percy wanted to pray at the bones of our saint for Teresa Pit and for his mother, who is sick.”

“Their mother is sick? Elly?”

“Very sick — very sick —” Porier said. “She has had numerous miscarriages, you see — and — well, with herbicides et cetera —”

Porier lowered his eyes sadly. He knew who McVicer’s three children were, where they went and who baptized them as theirs — and this knowledge gave him a certain power over McVicer.

“Percy is wonderful, and he lifted Teresa up for me to bless her. I told him that there were no saint bones in the church. And the little boy said to me, ‘But there are!’