John Moss - Grave doubts

“Why would Mary Joseph do that? Eliminate the priests?” asked Pope. “I would think she had everything to lose.”

“Because she could,” said Miranda. “It’s as simple as that. It was within her power. The three Marys — Mary Joseph, Marie Celeste, and the Virgin Mary — had seized control of the Church, at least in this small outpost of St. Peter’s ponderous empire.”

“The provincial coroner’s report described their passing as ‘Death by Misadventure.’ That struck me as an understatement,” said Alexander Pope.

“It simply means no one was prepared to lay charges,” said Morgan.

Alexander continued his story. “The priests were posthumously reviled, and the rumour was officially sanctioned that they had taken their own lives under the influence of Satan. Church authorities lost no time in seizing control of the renegade outpost. They plastered over the walls, cleaned out anything smacking of idolatry, and declared the people’s saint a fraud, a disgrace, a blasphemy to contemplate.”

“But people went on believing, didn’t they, even to the present day?” said Miranda. “Sister Mary Joseph was cast out, and when nothing else quelled the devotion of Marie Celeste’s followers, the Church of the Immaculate Conception was declared never to have existed, and its bond with its congregants was annulled like a bad marriage.”

“Exactly. The Blue Nun disappeared, but eventually she was found in Toronto, doing good works in a small mission off Jarvis Street for the benefit of prostitutes and battered women.”

“You two tell a good story,” said Morgan. “I wonder how much came from the tellers and how much from the tale.”

“Observe,” responded Alexander Pope with a sweep of his arm to take in the lustrous frescoes revealing the life of Saint Marie Celeste.

“Yes,” said Miranda. “Nothing is in doubt but ourselves!”

“I’ve heard of her,” said Rachel Naismith as they drove west on Dupont, then turned up Spadina. “There’s Catherine Tekakwitha in Quebec and Marie Celeste in Ontario. I didn’t grow up Catholic, but almost everybody who wasn’t black in our neighbourhood did. Black people were Baptist, white people were Catholic. That was the order of the world, neatly divided. You’d hear stories about the Huron saint and that girl from Georgian Bay — the Beausoleil Virgin. I don’t think, from what I heard, either were virgins, except in the spiritual sense. Inviolate innocents. That’s plural for ‘innocent,’ with a ‘t.’ Not innocence with a ‘c.’ Innocence is a renewable commodity for Catholics. I think I always envied them that.”

“Inviolate innocence. Sounds very floral and colourful. And instead you became a cop,” said Miranda.

“I did,” she responded with a gleeful lilt in her voice. “I lost interest in innocence ’bout the same time I discovered boys.”

“Boys?” Miranda queried, trying not to sound overly inquisitive.

“I like boys, girl! I always have.”

Miranda had no idea whether Rachel also liked girls. Since they had spent the night together, they accepted the affection between them as a feature of their relationship, which neither was prepared to risk losing. Their intimacy was open, and perhaps it was the openness that kept it from seeming overtly sexual. They were comfortable with each other. Ironically, Miranda thought, in the same way she was comfortable with Morgan. Except Morgan was more complex. Or she was more complex with Morgan. And sometimes she and Morgan were uncomfortable.

“I certainly do like Alexander Pope; don’t we both?” said Rachel. “Now, he is a boy you could play with.”

Miranda gave a throaty laugh. “I cannot think of another man who has so completely left the boy in his wake. He’s one of those people who seems to have been born an adult. He speaks to the world from a position of imperious knowledge.”

“He does not. He’s warm and kind and… and lots of other good things.”

“Agreed, he’s a virtual saint, but he’s not snips and snails and puppy-dog tails.”

“You can’t knock him for confidence, Miranda. He’s one of the best in the world at the things he does.”

“I’m not knocking him. I like him as much as you do. More — I know him better. I’m just saying I can’t picture him as a child.”

“He would have been shorter.”

“And a poet?”

“A precocious poet, writing in couplets.”

“And a garden designer. A tiny, perfect little person penning The Rape of the Lock when others his age were keeping their prurience stealthy.”

“Did you ever read that?” Rachel asked. “ The Rape of the Lock?”

“I did.”

“Much ado about nothing. I skipped most of the classes.”

“That’s the point, Rachel. It was supposed to be much ado about nothing.”

“Exposing a lost saint to the world. Come on, it’s a little more exciting than squawking rape over a locket of hair.”

“Rape is a measure of loss. Belinda’s innocence is violated.”

“Well, I’d appreciate our Alexander no better. He’s a poet, but with real things, not words.”

“Nothing’s more real than words,” said Miranda. She suspected she actually believed that was true.

“He has a poetic sensibility,” said Rachel, confidently.

“He has,” Miranda agreed. “It’s like apostolic succession. His great-sire’s genes confer upon our present Pope the poetic authority whereby he imbues moribund ruins with life.”

“Did you say ‘whereby’? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say ‘whereby’ in a conversation. What about ‘notwithstanding’?”

“I’ve been hanging around Morgan.”

“He does talk like that, doesn’t he?”

“Sometimes,” said Miranda, immediately feeling as if she had betrayed him. “He reads a lot. He has an eccentric memory. Sometimes he remembers whole paragraphs from some esoteric journal or website, and sometimes he can’t remember what day it is. That makes him interesting. He’s infinitely unpredictable.”

“So, why aren’t you two together?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What about you and me and Alexander Pope. We’d make a good threesome.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You have a raunchy mind, Miranda. I was talking about friendship. We make good company, just the three of us.”

Miranda suspected Rachel’s statement was somehow a judgment of Morgan. She felt uneasy talking about Morgan to Rachel. But she was also wary talking about her to him. Friends could be like that, she thought; your friendships could be mutually exclusive. That was the nice thing about their relationship with Alexander: the three of them created a nice ambiance. Nothing intense, just an aura of comfort. Nothing enduring.

As they drove under the lee of Casa Loma, that extravagant anachronism dedicated to a wealthy dreamer’s long-suffering wife, Miranda glanced over at her friend. There was something wonderfully direct about Rachel, she thought. Driving through the gates of Wychwood Park, a ravine enclave of cultural entrepreneurs and tasteful Edwardian houses, she revised her judgment. By the time the car pulled up in front of the house where her ward, Jill Bray, lived with the housekeeper, who had virtually raised her from an infant, Miranda decided the secret to Rachel lay in her taking life as it comes. Rachel did not simplify the complexity of the world; she simply refused to resolve the ambiguities.

Jill was sitting on the verandah steps with a friend. “Hi, Rachel,” she called. “Hi, Mandy.”

“My name is Miranda. I don’t have nicknames, I’m not the type.” She leaned over and kissed Jill on the cheek. “Hello, Justine.”