A New Song (40 page)

A gull started up from a tidal pool and circled above him, crying. He realized, then, that he was running, running for the way it felt to his bones, his beating heart. He heard the sand churning away from his feet,
chuff, chuff, chuff,
and realized he was the only soul on the beach.

All this vast world, all this great ocean, all this infinite sky, he thought—and Morris Love imprisoned behind a wall in a body he hated.

But, thought Father Tim, hadn’t he, too, lived in a prison of his own for years on end, alternately fearing and despising and secretly rebuking his father? As a believer, his freedom in Christ had been severely handicapped for wont of letting go of the old bondage; of the old Adamic bitterness he’d unwittingly nurtured. Chances are, Morris Love’s father had been much like Matthew Kavanagh—disappointed and indignant, betrayed by the issue from his own flesh.

And who was praying for Morris Love? Who remembered him at all, except in island legend? Instead of a living, breathing, feeling soul, he’d become apocryphal in the minds of everyone but a housekeeper, an organ tuner, and a retired clergyman who, but for the grace of the living God, would himself be a soul under the Enemy’s lock and key.

And another thing—if Morris Love so renounced God, why did he play so much of His music?

He wondered why he hadn’t been praying for Morris Love. How could he continue shirking a mission that had, literally, been dumped in his own backyard?

He muttered aloud as he ran, panting and huffing in a chill breeze coming off the water. That was precisely why he was feeling aggravated with himself: God had found him out for a shirker.

 

He looked up from the kitchen sink where he was washing tomatoes. His wife, on an errand to pick the last of the basil from the herb bed, suddenly hooted, threw her basket into the air, and began hopping on one foot.

“Ow! Ow! Rats, darn! Hoo! Hoo!
Ha!
”

His wife was a veritable rain dancer, complete with tribal language. What in the world . . . ?

“Timothy! Timothy!
Help!
Oh, ow, ow,
ugh
!”

“Cynthia?” He flew out the back door.
Please, God, not a snake or a terrible cut from broken glass. . . .

“Yellow jackets!” she shouted, still hopping.

“Here,” he said, taking her arm, “I’ll help you in.”

“I can’t put my foot down, Timothy, it’s dreadful, it’s excruciating, I can’t walk!”

“Climb on, then,” he said, bending his knees. She threw her arms around his neck and clambered onto his back and he hauled her to the kitchen and thumped her in the window seat like a sack of onions.

“Let’s have a look,” he said, squatting down. “Aha, two stings, and right between the toes.”

“Do something, Timothy, you can’t
imagine
how it hurts!” His wife was not a complainer, he knew she meant business.

“Tobacco!” he said. He’d heard that tobacco draws the sting out. He’d seen a cigar butt just the other day. Where was it? “I’ll be back!”

Exactly where Otis had thrown it into the bushes when he came by last Tuesday. . . .

He shredded the short stub and mixed it into a paste with water. “Here!” he said, rushing to present it in one of his grandmother’s soup bowls. “Put your foot in this.”

She did as she was told, shutting her eyes and grimacing. “Ugh! My toes feel exactly like they’re being amputated with a handsaw by a doctor in the wilds of Montana, sometime around 1864.”

“Really, now.” His wife could go a tad over the top.

“It’s true, Timothy, that’s
exactly
the way it feels.”

Jonathan, fully awake from a nap, was pounding him on the back as he squatted by the soup bowl. “You stop!” he shouted. “You stop makin’ her cry!”

Truth be told, he was a mite weary of surrogate parenting.

“Look,” said his stricken wife, “my toes are swelling up and turning red. How hideous.”

“Give it time,” he said of his home remedy. “I’ll get you a couple of aspirin, then I’ll call Marion and see what she recommends.”

She drew her breath in sharply and winced. “Have you ever been stung?”

“Not once,” he said. “Not a single time.”

Even in her suffering, his wife was able to summon an imperious look. “What kind of American boyhood could you possibly have
had
, Timothy?”

He always enjoyed that moment when he could gaze out to his congregation and, as it were, take its pulse. Did it appear eager? Resigned? Grumpy?

Every Sunday, he discovered a different climate of affections, a brand-new meshing of personalities and spiritual longings, all of which assisted in the feeling that what he did was never the same old thing.

There was his buddy, Stanley Harmon, on vacation from the Baptists and seeing what the Anglicans were up to. Stanley would supply St. John’s on the twenty-seventh while Father Tim married Pauline and Buck in Mitford.

His wife was beaming at him from the second row of the gospel side, where she sat with Sam and Marion . . .

. . . and there were the Duncans, with their children lined up like so many goslings. Once a month, according to family tradition, the whole lot skipped Sunday School and joined in the service. One, two, three, four hair bows bobbed on dark curls, as the two boys busily colored pew bulletins.

He was dropping his eyes to the opening hymn when he glanced to the rear of the church and saw a face as coldly immobile as if it were carved in stone.

His heart pounded as his gaze locked briefly with Jeffrey Tolson’s, in whose countenance he saw anger and arrogance and, yes, defiance.

 

“ ‘Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors . . .’ ”

Because he had long ago committed these words to memory, he wasn’t looking at the prayer book, but at his congregation. He noted that some swiveled in their pews and glared at the man in the back row.

“ ‘. . . and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith, and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.’ ”

The parishioners sank to their knees as one, producing a corporate sound of rushing water. Jeffrey Tolson stood and looked for a moment toward the altar, then turned and walked quickly from the nave.

He dreaded his time in the churchyard today, as people poured out into the sunshine. Oliver Hughes withheld his hand, muttering, “. . . to let him come back in here, ransackin’ th’ church, takin’ th’ women out one by one like a fox in a henhouse . . .”

“. . . carryin’ ’em off to his den!” said Millie Hughes, stomping away in disgust.

Marion Fieldwalker gave him a wordless hug. Sam murmured, “My goodness gracious,” and laid his hand on his priest’s shoulder.

Otis stopped and looked him in the eye, saying only, “We want you to fix this.”

Jean Ballenger shook his hand, as usual, but said nothing. Her mouth, which was set in a distinct grimace, said it all.

His wife, who was walking with a temporary limp, came to him and slipped her hand in his.

 

There were more eloquent ways to express it, but his grandmother’s way covered it sufficiently:

When it rains, it pours.

They were leaving for Mitford in a matter of days, and in the meantime, he must find and talk with Jeffrey Tolson, speak with Stanley Harmon and inform him of the circumstances, and confirm Father Jack as the celebrant when Stanley preached. He also needed to oversee loose ends for the Fall Fair on November ninth, and meet with the indomitable Busy Fingers group who were going hammer and tong to complete nearly a thousand dollars’ worth of items for the fair, including aprons, embroidered pillowcases, oven mitts, and an ambitious needlepoint of the Last Supper. Most important, he must get up to Dorchester, with the Eucharist for the captain and his visit with Ella.

Possibly the Dorchester trip could wait, but no, his heart exhorted him otherwise. The old captain had waited long enough—no more excuses, this must be done. And how was he to find Jeffrey Tolson, who, some said, was living on the island, but was as elusive as a trout in a pool?

Worse, what would his parishioners think about their priest vanishing to Mitford in the face of a highly disturbing situation?

He dreaded still more a final thing he must do. Before baring his concerns, however, he imagined their conversation. Perhaps he’d bring it up as they lay in bed.

“Cynthia,” he might say.

“Yes?”

“You’re growing . . . attached to Jonathan.” A simple observation, not a criticism.

“Really? Am I?”

“Yes.”

He’d considered the whole issue very carefully and knew it wasn’t jealousy. It was fear, fear for her feelings, which ran as deep as the ledges of the continental shelf.

“What is your point, exactly?”

“I see how much you care for him. And you know he’ll be going home soon.”

“Well, yes, Timothy. Of course. Is there some reason I shouldn’t care for him?”

What might he say, then? That he thought it best for her to start letting go, to prepare herself in some way he couldn’t fully suggest or understand? Though Jonathan had come to them only weeks ago, his wife had bonded with the boy as if he were her own. But then, hadn’t he grown to love Dooley in the very same way? He remembered his dark fears that someone would snatch the boy from him. . . .

In the end, he decided to say nothing at all. Jonathan would be going home, and that would be the end of it.

He was relieved, terribly relieved, that he hadn’t brought it up; that he would even think of doing such a thing seemed strange and insensitive.

 

“Banana bread!” crowed his wife, dumping a panful onto the counter.

“My mommy, my mommy, she makes bread,” said Jonathan, nodding in the affirmative.

“One loaf for us, one loaf for the neighbors,” she announced. “But wait, I forgot—we don’t know the neighbors.”

It was true. A couple of times, they’d waved to the people in the gray house, who seemed to come and go randomly, and the family next door hadn’t shown up for the summer at all; one of the shutters on the side facing Dove Cottage had banged in the wind for a month.

Neighbors, he mused. It was an odd thought, one that made his brain feel like it had eaten a pickle.

He heard the music as he stepped off the porch into the backyard.

No idea what it might be. But one thing was certain: it was strong stuff. . . .

He listened intently as he trotted to his good deed. The steady advance of the brooding pedal tones appeared to form the basis of a harmonic progress that he found strangely disturbing. Above this, an elusive melody wove its way through a scattering of high-pitched notes that evoked images of birds agitated by an impending storm.

The effect, he thought as he heaved himself up and over the wall, was confused, almost disjointed, yet the music seemed to produce an essential unity. . . .

Clutching the bread in a Ziploc bag, he stood at the foot of the window from which his neighbor usually conducted his audiences, and listened as the music moved toward its climax.

He might be one crazy preacher, but he didn’t think so. In fact, he’d come over the wall as if it were the most natural way in the world to go visiting. He was feeling pretty upbeat about his impetuous mission—after all, this was his neighbor for whom he was now praying, and besides, who could refuse a loaf of bread still warm from the oven?

When the music ended, he shouted, “Well done! Well done, Mr. Love!”

Floorboards creaked in the room above. “Father Kavanagh . . .”

“One and the same!”

“Your dog isn’t here,” snapped Morris Love.

“Yes, and what a relief! I brought you some banana bread. My wife baked it, it’s still warm from the oven, I think you’ll like it.”

Silence.

If his neighbor didn’t go for the bread, he’d just eat the whole thing on the way home.

“She said to tell you it’s a token of our appreciation for your music.”

Silence.

“What was that piece, anyway? It was very interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.” He was a regular chatterbox.

Silence.

He began to as feel as irritable as a child. He’d come over here with a smile on his face and bread in his hand, and what did he get for his trouble? Exactly what he should have expected.

“Mr. Love, for Pete’s sake, what shall I do with your
bread
?”

“Leave it in the chair,” said Morris Love.

“Do what?”

“Leave it in the chair!” he roared.

He considered this for a moment, then determinedly walked over and sat down. He was tired of darting away from his irate neighbor like a hare before the hound. Wasn’t the trip over worth a moment of small talk, of mere civility? He’d give it a quick go, then he’d be gone.

“Mr. Love, I couldn’t help but notice the sign,
Nouvelle Chanson
. How did the house come by that name?”

“My grandmother gave the house its name. She sang with the Met, and counted Rose Bampton and Lily Pons among her friends. Melchior was my grandfather’s close acquaintance.”

“Aha.”

“When my grandparents built this house in 1947 as a summer home, she hoped for a new beginning for their marriage—a new song, if you will.” Morris Love’s manner was impatient, though decidedly less hostile. “But it didn’t work that way.”

Father Tim waited a moment. “How
did
it work?”

“My grandparents could only live the old song.”

“The old song . . .”

“Little acts of unspoken violence, Father, and bitter hatred towards one another.”

Morris Love was actually talking with him. He realized he’d been holding his breath, and released it carefully. “Who taught you to play the organ?”