And now, here I was, trapped in a situation far beyond my experience or imagination, struggling to become someone else. Was it any wonder that I made a slip-up now and then?
I had no choice but to send a note to my contact in the Witness Protection Department. They would have to create a fictitious lay readership to replace the genuine credentials that I could no longer use without revealing that my new persona was a complete fabrication. Surely adding a few spurious details from some church in Ottawa wouldn’t be a problem for people who had been able to wipe the entire fifty years of my previous existence from the face of the earth.
Three
The following Sunday, I felt a guilty pang as I sat down in a vacant pew near the front of St. Grimbald’s church. Although I had planned to sit at the back, where I would remain unnoticed, it seemed that everyone else had the same idea. I found myself walking down the single centre aisle under the unwavering gaze of dozens of pairs of curious eyes. I knew that this action broke the prime commandment of my new life: don’t get noticed. I hoped that none of the parishioners of Cormorant Harbour were connected to the Mob.
After a service that bore only a passing resemblance to what I had previously experienced at St. Thomas’ (or for that matter, at any Anglican church anywhere in Canada), I duly presented myself at the Rectory door for lunch. Before I could ring the bell, Dorothy Peasgood welcomed me in.
“Do come in, Charles.” She swung the door open wide. “Lunch is just ready, and we’re waiting for Donald. Fortunately, this isn’t a coffee morning, or we’d be waiting all day, since Donald is rather fond of home baking. If I’m not there to keep an eye on him, he’ll stay until the last crumb.”
I stepped into a dark hallway painted a bilious shade of bottle green. This didn’t surprise me, since most rectories seem to be decorated in the least appealing hues on the colour palette. However, this rectory hallway had one additional feature not often seen in ecclesiastical dwellings—a large framed poster of Elvis Presley in concert at Las Vegas.
I gestured to the print and said, “Elvis? Father Donald didn’t strike me as a rock ’n roll fan.”
Dorothy’s ruddy complexion deepened to an alarming shade of puce. “He’s not,” she said tartly, fingering the guitar brooch that she’d worn on our first meeting, now pinned to the lapel of her maroon and mustard striped blouse. “I am.” Something in her tone deterred me from pursuing the subject further. I suspected I had, quite by accident, touched on the hidden depth of a girlish heart.
I followed her into an equally dark dining room filled with a massive table and sideboard, both gleaming with numerous pieces of highly polished silver. It looked like the dining room of a large country manor house, complete with maroon velvet curtains and Turkey carpet—except for the row of Elvis commemorative plates arranged on the mantle of the brick fireplace.
The tableware told me that lunch was going to be more than just soup and sandwiches, a welcome change for me. My culinary skills only encompassed simple meals. I tended to eat lightly and avoid rich desserts, since smaller men tend to run to pot-bellies when they overindulge. However, an occasional splurge on someone else’s cooking wouldn’t hurt, I decided. Before I could inquire about the menu, Father Donald arrived, no less exuberant than he had been two hours before at the start of the service.
“Oh, shoot! You’re waiting for me! Dorothy told me not to dawdle, but once Mrs. Granger gets going, there’s no escaping from her, not that she’s not interesting, well, perhaps not interesting, but at least she has something to say, although she says it many times, well, not that often, but often enough you wish she’d come to the point, although I doubt there is a point, really, not that you have to have a point in all cases, but sometimes . . .”
“Donald!”
His words ceased. I wondered if I’d be able to master that same controlling tone. If my fate was to be a lay reader at St. Grimbald’s, I would have to learn how to deal with Father Donald’s ramblings. Here, another wave of guilt washed over me as I remembered how displeased my agent had been when I’d informed her of this new development. “Are you crazy?” she’d shouted at me in justifiable anger. I told her I thought it would create more attention if I tried to withdraw at this juncture. I’d been swept into the raging river of Peasgood enthusiasm, helpless to fight the current. I suspected that many people who’d come up against the Peasgoods felt the same way.
“Please, sit down.” Dorothy gestured to me. “Donald, say grace, and make it short.”
The delicious food kept coming in copious quantities, smothered in gravy, lavished with butter or doused in cream. I began to see the source of the Peasgoods’ girths. Although Dorothy kept a tight rein on Father Donald’s intake, she made sure that my plate remained full. I began to feel quite ill as my stomach, used to much lighter fare, bulged uncomfortably against my waistband. Dorothy and Father Donald seemed unaffected by the richness of the meal. When I bogged down in the middle of my dessert, a concoction of chocolate cake, syrup and whipped cream, Father Donald slipped the remainder onto his own plate, much to Dorothy’s disgust.
As he spooned up the last crumbs, the ear-splitting wail of an emergency siren filled the room, followed by the shrill beeps of a pager. I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and looked around wildly. Had the police come to protect me? Had I been lulled into a false sense of security by the Peasgoods’ aura of amiable guilelessness? Dim memories of movie clips of gangster shoot-outs in Italian restaurants rushed through my brain, and I dove for cover under the table.
“Oh my stars! Oh my soul!” Father Donald hunted without success through his jacket pockets. “The beeper! It’s a fire! Oh, dear!” If anything, the beeping grew more penetrating as he leapt up and began searching around the room. “Ah, here it is!” He snatched the beeper off the mantlepiece and silenced it. However, the siren continued, an ululating ear-splitting wail that hampered any further conversation.
Dorothy alone remained unaffected, continuing to eat her dessert as if nothing had happened. I crawled out from under the table, righted my chair and sat down, unable to grasp the situation, but thankful that none of the commotion seemed to be directed at me.
“Oh shoot! The keys! Where did I put the keys? Dottie, where did I decide to put them so I wouldn’t lose them? Oh my soul! I know it was somewhere easy to remember!” He dashed from room to room. I could hear drawers and cupboards being opened and shut.
Without a word, Dorothy got up, walked through to the kitchen and returned with a large bunch of keys. Father Donald raced back into the dining room showing all the signs of a complete mental meltdown. “Oh my stars! The keys! The keys!”
“Here they are, Donald.” Dorothy held up the key ring. “Right where I always keep keys. On the key rack in the kitchen.”
Father Donald grabbed the keys and galloped out the door. I heard it slam. Even though the siren continued to wail, the room felt almost peaceful after his exodus. Relief washed over me. If I hadn’t leapt to the wrong conclusions about the situation, it would have been laughable.
“Coffee?’ shouted Dorothy. “I hope you like decaf,” she bellowed, filling my cup. “We find that regular coffee is rather too much for Donald’s nerves. Cream?” She continued to speak over the continuing wail of the siren. I was surprised how quickly I was becoming accustomed to the hideous noise. “Sugar?”
I declined both and took a sip. To my horror, I detected instant decaffeinated coffee. I made a mental note to avoid coffee at the rectory in the future.
“Is there really a fire?” I asked her, trying to shout above the continuing din.
“Oh, yes. The firehall is right next door to the rectory, so it seemed a good idea to have Donald drive the engine, since he’s usually right here. It’s a volunteer brigade, so our proximity was the deciding