Obit (2 page)

“We all will. I called her. I ordered four tickets for the opera. Now, I’m busy here and have to sign off.” Click.

†

It would be nice to say the journey to New York went smoothly, that nobody forgot a garment bag at home and had to go back, that we arrived in good time for check-in, that the airline didn’t have to delay take-off for us, that the taxi ride from LaGuardia airport into Manhattan was cheap and quick and there was no traffic jam, and that everybody was in a relaxed holiday mood when we got to our hotel near Central Park. But I can’t make any of those claims.

Maura and I began sniping at each other as soon as the “fasten seat
belts” sign lit up on our departure from Halifax, and it wasn’t about the travel snafus. When I arrived at her house on Dresden Row and went inside to help with the family’s luggage, what did I hear but her on the phone to the Latin Lothario who had kept her company over the past year. I thought he had dropped out of her life — apparently not. She was giving him her entire travel itinerary. She and the kids — no mention of old Monty — would be arriving in New York at such-and-such a time; tomorrow she was taking the kids on the train to Philadelphia, where she would be participating in a law conference in her role as Professor MacNeil; they would be back in New York early Friday evening in time for a friend’s wedding. She gave him the name and address of the hotel in Philly, but not the one in New York.

I quizzed her about this Giacomo. Was she perhaps expecting him at the hotel in Philadelphia? Or was she just hoping for a call? Did she not share my hopes that this vacation would lead to a reconciliation between us? My tone of voice was quiet, reasonable. Her approach, as always, was to treat a marital spat like a debate in her classroom at the Law School: “Collins. Do I understand you to have inferred, based on your shameful and inexcusable skulking around in my house and eavesdropping on a private phone call, that I have procured the services of someone who, according to your overheated fantasies, will fly into Philadelphia where I am sharing a room with our son and daughter, and consort with me in said hotel room without regard for even the most minimal standards of acceptable behaviour, standards so minimal that even you, on a slow night, might be able to live up to them, is that what you’re suggesting?” That sort of argument. I’ve often wondered whether lawyers should be legally prohibited from marrying each other. Anyway, we had ranged far from the original conflict by the time things went nuclear at the hotel. The kids headed downstairs to explore the building and we let ’er rip. Good thing we had reserved a suite with two bedrooms. We were going to need them.

Be that as it may, Maura and I were together in the red-carpeted lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House that Tuesday evening, waiting for Father Burke and his date. I hoped things were going better for them than they were for us. Nonetheless, I had to admit my escort was looking delectable — if hostile — in an elegant black
dress and a new hairdo. Maura MacNeil is a woman of unfashionably soft figure and sweet face, a face that belies her astringent personality. Tonight at the opera house her almond-shaped grey eyes were made up and looked enormous, her glossy brown hair was piled casually atop her head, and her generous mouth was stained to give the appearance that she had been gorging on raspberries all day. I was in my best suit and tie, wishing I were one of the stage crew so I could wear a T-shirt, hear the music, and get away from my spouse.

She looked ready to reload and start firing at me again when she raised her eyebrows and stared towards the door. I turned to follow her gaze. Brennan, dressed in a beautifully cut dinner jacket, with his black hair silvering on the sides, his dark eyes and haughty countenance, could have been the maestro for the evening. He cast an appreciative eye towards Maura and said something that escaped my hearing. He looked tense.

“Where’s your date?” I asked him.

“Meeting us here.”

“So you haven’t seen her yet?”

“No. Where are Tommy Douglas and Normie tonight?”

“Watching movies in the hotel room. I had to promise Normie, who after all is named for the opera, that if it’s really good, I’ll bring her to see it sometime during our stay. Tom’s dying to get out and see the city, but . . .”

That’s when Sandra swept in. She wore a long black skirt and a watered silk tunic in the palest of blue. A delicate necklace and earrings looked silver but were probably platinum. Her short, light brown hair was brushed back from her sculptured face. Yet even with hundreds of years of cool
WASP
breeding behind her, she looked less than serene. She and Brennan stood looking at each other, neither of them speaking.

“You look brilliant this evening, Sandra,” Maura prompted, in an accent roughly approximating Burke’s. Then, higher in pitch: “You’re a handsome devil yourself, Brennan. Isn’t it marvellous to see each other again?”

Brennan reached out, took Sandra’s hand and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “’Tis indeed grand to see you,” he said lightly. “It’s too bad you didn’t have time for dinner beforehand. Perhaps after.”

“Perhaps so.”

She offered him a fleeting smile and came over to embrace me. In spite of the fact that our friendship had been formed in the stressful months before Brennan’s trial, Sandra and I had shared some laughs, and I had heard tales from her past with Brennan, before his thunderbolt call to the priesthood. I had even scribbled a little twelve-bar blues on the subject.

Sandra turned to Maura, whom she had met briefly in Halifax, and the two women greeted each other warmly.

I essayed a bit of conversation. “Who will you be betting on tonight, Brennan? The Celts or the Romans? After all you have a foot in both camps.”

“I’ll go for whichever side acquits itself best in the vocal department. It will be hard to beat the first
Norma
I heard, though. Thirty-five years ago. Maria Callas in 1956. At the old Met, downtown. It got off to a slow start; I don’t know if it was the heat or Callas’s nerves. But by Act II it was magical. Sixteen curtain calls.”

“You were a little young though, Brennan, to appreciate the story of a Celtic priestess who breaks her holy oath and gives way to her passion for a Roman proconsul,” Sandra put in.

If it was a dig, he didn’t let on but said evenly: “At sixteen I understood the passion, if not the priestliness.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s time to face the music.” Maura headed in first, followed by Brennan and Sandra. I got the aisle seat. We were in Row A near the back of the auditorium. Five levels of balconies rose above us. We sat, eyes front, until the chandeliers were raised, the massive gold curtain rose and the great drama began. The soprano, a young woman of Greek nationality, had been inevitably and unfairly compared to Callas. But once I got used to the cooler vocal tone and less dramatic persona, I found myself immersed in 50
BC
Gaul. The magnificent aria “Casta Diva” comes in Act I, scene i, when the Druid high priestess invokes the moon and prays for peace. Let some of it descend on us:

Casta Diva, che inargenti
queste sacre antiche piante
a noi volgi il bel sembiante
senza nube e senza vel . . .

O chaste Goddess, who silver
these sacred ancient plants,
turn thy beautiful semblance on us
unclouded and unveiled . . .

At intermission, conversation was muted. Brennan did not look like a man whose homecoming had lived up to his expectations. He was determined to speak of other things. Apparently his first
Norma
, with his parents and sister Molly, was memorable in more ways than one.

New York City, 1956

Here we are in the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House. The four of us: Da and Mam, Molly and me. I took a bit of slagging from the lads about coming out for the opera. Feck ’em! There’s more to music than the tin whistle. What’s this now? Who’s this woman who’s launched herself at Da, roaring and screeching at him? The brogue on her — she sounds like something right off the boat from Cobh. The woman looks even older than Mam; what did he do, get her up the pole? She doesn’t look it. I’ve seen more meat on Good Friday than I’m seeing on her.

“I knew I could find you here, Declan Burke! I heard about you gettin’ the tickets. All fine and good for those that can carry on and go to the opera. You won’t see my family here — the family you destroyed! How can you sleep at night, Mr. Burke? How can you show your face at Mass on Sunday?” Ah, here come the ushers to take her away. What’s that she’s giving to Mam? A big envelope of sorts. “Let her read what you’ve done. And may you roast for all eternity in the fires of hell!” Jazes! There, they’ve got her out of here. What was she on about?

Mam is standing there, all speech forsaken. Da’s going for the envelope. Mam won’t let go of it. Oh, the look she’s giving him. His face doesn’t have a drop of colour left in it. Is he going to be sick right here in the lobby of the Met? Mam has the envelope in her bag. Oul Dec will be lucky if she doesn’t stuff it down his throat. Time to go and hear Maria; she’ll have to hit some high Cs to top this.

“Well?” Maura asked. “Who was she? What was going on?”

“I have no idea. Neither of them would ever speak of it. Next day
I rooted around trying to find the envelope. Couldn’t lay my hands on it. Neither could Molly.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister named Molly,” Maura said.

“My older sister, Maire. Nickname Molly.”

“Well, I hope she tells the story better than you do. So you never found out who the mystery woman was — that shouldn’t get in the way of a hair-raising ending to the tale. Make it up if you have to. I’ll never bring you home to Cape Breton if you can’t do better than that!”

“Maybe the point is: men by the name of Burke don’t seem to make much of a hit with the ladies at the Metropolitan Opera.” He directed a quizzical glance at Sandra.

“This evening wasn’t my idea, Brennan.”

Brennan looked suddenly weary. “I know it wasn’t, Sandy. I know it wasn’t.”

He turned away and started towards the auditorium. Maura caught up with him and put a hand on his arm. Whatever she said to him provoked a quick, impatient shake of the head and he continued on to his seat. I put an arm around Sandra. “What’s the matter, Sandy? You’ve hardly spoken a word.”

“Monty, I just don’t know what to say to him. I don’t understand the life he’s chosen. He hasn’t asked about my life either: about my children, about my late husband, about any of our old acquaintances. It’s as if neither of us wants to acknowledge the last quarter of a century.”

“Try not to be too rough on him. He’s coming off a very bad year.”

“I know, Monty, but he’s not facing reality. Let’s go inside.”

We sat down again. Brennan trained his dark eyes on Sandra for a long, searching look, but said nothing. The curtain went up, the performance resumed, and we found ourselves once again in a world of passion and treachery, prayer and sacrifice.

After the opera we walked up Columbus Avenue to a restaurant called Da Gimignano. We were seated in a large dining room with wall frescoes that depicted the medieval towers of San Gimignano, and other scenes from Tuscany. A waiter appeared immediately to take our orders for drinks. When they arrived, Brennan downed his
whiskey and raised his glass for a refill. We all ordered dinner. Maura and I chatted quite companionably about our plans for the next few days. The other two gradually warmed to the conversation and suggested things we should do, or not do, in New York. By the time our orders arrived, the atmosphere had lightened up.

“So, Sandra, what was it like growing up with this guy?”

“Do you mean before he dedicated himself to a life of celibacy? The rationale for which is what again Brennan? Did you ever explain it?”

He raised his glass to his lips, lowered it, opened his mouth as if to speak, shut it. I could almost see the two opposing impulses warring within his soul. The Catholic apologist wanted to give a learned dissertation on the reasons for the Church’s insistence on a celibate priestly caste; the regular guy wanted to get the subject off the table, in order to salvage what little chance he still might have of getting lucky at the end of the evening.

“Let’s not get into that again,” was his reply.

“Again? I didn’t realize I was becoming tedious on the subject. After all, this is the first time I’ve mentioned it in twenty-five years. It’s only the second time I’ve laid eyes on you in all that time.” She sipped her wine, then turned to Maura. “But if I go way, way back I seem to remember there was something endearing about him. Everyone certainly noted his arrival at Mrs. Liebenthal’s Music School, which is where we met. On the Upper West Side. He had this lovely, lilting brogue — well, you can still hear a rather brusque version of it in his voice now. Black hair, black eyes, a darling smile. He sang like an angel. And I remember our first kiss. It wasn’t a success. We were around twelve at the time.”

“That’s right. She was leaving our house in a taxi and I had worked up the nerve to kiss her goodbye. But I had a fat lip from fighting with my brothers. And the whole crowd of them were lined up in the window staring at us, their eyes out on sticks.”

“He tried to kiss me but his lip was bleeding and I said: ‘Eeeuuwww, stay away from me!’” She sighed. “If only it had ended then and there.”

“You don’t mean that, now,” he prompted.

“Well?” The edge was back in her voice.

“All the good times we had. You can’t regret that.” He leaned close
and fixed her with his eyes. “Intensely good times.”

“Which made the bad times all the more intense for us both, wouldn’t you say?” She reached down for her handbag. “Excuse me a moment, would you?”

We turned our attention to the remains of our meal as she walked to the back of the restaurant. Brennan signalled for another whiskey; I decided the wiser course would be coffee; Maura opted for tea.