It did not take long to spot her family. They were near the front. He could see the back of her parents’ heads and Stan Maitland’s thick white hair. And closest to the aisle, Emily herself, her dark hair, long and straight. The shoulders of her cardigan.
The service commenced with a choral procession. The choirs wore red and white gowns and came down the aisles. Their voices rose: Through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled …
The choirs passed by at his elbow, adult child adult child. A fat man in his gown went past and behind him was Louise Casey. Pete could hear her soft soprano. She saw him seeing her, then she passed by. He watched her go. He saw Emily’s face turn to smile at her sister, but she did not turn enough to see Pete at the back.
The minister came behind the choirs. He sang in a warbling baritone, not quite in tune. The choirs moved into their lofts and the minister took the pulpit. He spread his arms and said: Welcome all, on this holiest of nights. This was the night when the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks were visited by an angel who said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news …
The minister led them through some readings and prayers, calling on the Lord to remember the sick and the poor. Christmas is so joyous, he said, for so many. And so hard for so many others. The congregation sang some of the old carols: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “The First Noel.”
Pete stood and held a battered red hymnal at his waist. He sang perhaps every fifth word, hummed through the rest. Instead of a sermon, there was a re-enactment of the nativity. Children in the costumes of barnyard animals, in brown housecoats with shepherd’s crooks, in wire-frame angel’s wings. A young couple also in brown housecoats, with dun-coloured scarves over their heads, came down the aisle. They carried a sleeping baby. When they approached the altar, a child playing the part of the innkeeper turned them to the side. The child boldly waved his finger. The young couple went among the animal costumes and crouched down awkwardly. Joseph’s forehead was shining beneath the scarf. They were visited by the shepherds, pantomiming their wonder. They were visited by three children in purple bathrobes and plastic crowns, the Magi, bearing gift-wrapped boxes to lay before the baby. The baby woke and started to bawl. His mother smiled nervously.
— Behold the King of Kings, said the minister.
The couple took their crying baby out of the sanctuary and the costumed children went to rejoin their families in the pews. Pete thought about Galilee Tabernacle, what would be going on there. They had a Christmas Eve service as well, and usually also re-enacted the nativity. Pete himself had been in the re-enactment a few times when he was younger. One Christmas, when he was ten or eleven, he’d played the Angel of the Lord, speaking to the shepherds. He was vaguely amused by the memory. This time last year, he’d been sitting with his mother and grandmother and his little brothers while Barry led the worship. What had he been thinking about? Maybe he’d been stealing glances at Sheila Adams, as he was stealing glances at Emily now. Without question, he’d known himself to be just as much an outsider there as he did here.
Next in the United Church service was a candlelight communion. The lights in the sanctuary were dimmed, and then Emily was going up to the front. She took a seat on the bench of the baby grand. She started to play slowly, “O Holy Night.” She moved slightly as she worked the keys, her shoulders and her head sliding forward and back, her feet moving on the pedals. The notes were bold and strong. As the music built there was movement up at the front. Church ushers moved into the aisles, passing out white candles. Following the ushers came the minister. He was carrying a lit candle and was using it to pass the flame along to the candles of the congregants closest to the aisle, who in turn would pass the flame to their neighbours. Small points of light fanned out through the choir loft and through the sanctuary. Behind the minister came two more ushers carrying the collection plate. All the while the piano melody climbed. The lead usher came to Pete and offered a slender unlit candle.
— Peace be with you, said the usher.
Instead of taking the candle, Pete stood up and looked once more to the front. Then he turned from the usher and went back down the aisle to the doors.
He was about to go down to the street when someone said his name.
Stan Maitland was sitting on a deacon’s bench against the entryway wall. Pete hadn’t noticed the old man leaving the sanctuary.
— Mr. Maitland.
— You’re not going to stay to the end of the service?
— Well, I could ask you the same thing.
Stan sat back against the wall and smiled. He said: We’re both a couple of truants. I slipped out five minutes ago.
— It was warm in there, said Pete. A lot of people.
— I started out Catholic, said Stan. I was an altar boy. If I think hard I believe I can still say the rosary in Latin and French both. But my wife, before she was my wife, when I first took a shine to her, this was her church. She taught Sunday School and she played piano for the choir. Thirty years she played. They named a room after her …
— Emily talked about her a few times. Said she learned to play from her grandmother.
— Yes, that’s true. Her grandma knew she had it right from the beginning.
— You missed hearing her tonight.
— It was too hot in there for an old bastard like me. If you want to know, Pete, a good many Christmases I used to work. A lot of Christmas Eves. I always thought it was a funny night to work, a funny kind of night for people to get up to this or that.
Pete put his hand on the newel post at the top of the banister. He wanted the relief of the cold outside.
— Well, Mr. Maitland-
— One time on Christmas Eve we got a call to a car accident. This would of been 1960 or so. So I drove out there with Dick Shannon. This young fellow, he’d robbed a liquor store in another town. He’d made it all the way up here before he wrapped his car around a telephone pole.
— Was he okay?
— He shouldn’t of been, but he was. He was thrown out of the car and into the snow and that had to be what saved him. He was pretty drunk when we got out there. He was sitting on the snowbank on the other side of the road. Just sitting there, having himself a Christmas Eve snort of Scotch. Watching.
— Watching what?
— Well, it was snowing that night, same as it is tonight. And this boy had a trunk full of stolen liquor. When he crashed the car, the liquor caught on fire, and then the upholstery in the car caught on fire, and then just about the whole car itself. When me and Dick got out there, strange as it might seem to you, I thought that was one of the prettiest things I ever saw. All that fire in the middle of the dark and the snowfall.
Pete looked down at his boots.
— I should get back to work.
— Careful driving.
— See you around, Mr. Maitland.
Lee was sitting at the bar in the Corner Pocket. He was on his third beer. A cigarette was perched on an ashtray before him.
Events were moving quickly. He’d spent much of the past two days in the storeroom at the roadhouse, where he’d been brought in on certain aspects of the plan. Gilmore had not been specific, but he’d let on he’d done other bank-jobs before, in the Maritimes, mostly in Quebec. He’d come to believe that daytime stickups ran too much risk. An overnight job was how to go. Patience was his watchword. Lee had the sense that Gilmore had been laying low for a time. He also sensed that Gilmore wasn’t even the man’s real name, but what did that matter. Work was work.
Gilmore was the overall planner. Maurice was to take care of the internal alarm system, and provide heavy lifting when it was needed. What heavy lifting consisted of was not explained to Lee, but they’d told him again they did not foresee any trouble. Maurice was spending all of the twenty-fourth doing surveillance on the intended location. Speedy was to put his welding skills to the vault. They would go through the wall. Speedy was proud of this. He’d said with an oxygen lance he could cut through anything and, perhaps unconsciously, he’d touched the scar on his face.