3

By late morning, Thomas O’Dea was already wincing with pain. Tension, anxiety or that old ache from lifting one pine log too many, it didn’t matter. He stood behind the bar and braced his back.

Lapierre’s was a typical Lowertown tavern. Nothing quaint about it. No pictures on the wall, just price lists, bottles and barrels. It was built for serious drinking. The dingy tavern was as dark as a jail cell, and Thomas O’Dea’s downcast expression didn’t make it much more inviting.

O’Dea took a yellowing sketch from his pocket and placed it on the bar. The crumbling drawing of his wife, Margaret, looked up at him. It was just a rough likeness drawn by Margaret’s cousin; they could never afford a daguerreotype or one of those new photographic pictures the rich were posing for. Still, like a miracle, the fading image smiled at him. The rugged lines on his face couldn’t resist the impulse; he smiled back at the innocent picture of youth. “I promised you he would get an education,” he told the picture. “I did it for you, but what has it done for me?” He was gently returning the picture to his pocket when a stranger walked into the bar, ordered a Jamesons and sat in the back.

The bar started filling up. In the daytime, most men—they were all men; no self-respecting woman would walk through those doors—drank beer with the occasional watered-down whisky chaser. Some customers would order “grunts,” or as much whisky as they could swallow in one swig. A grunt cost only pennies. The grunt drinkers were usually part of the nighttime crowd; the daytime patrons were either committed drinkers or people just too beaten down to face the day. Thomas passed a foaming beer across the counter to a rosy-cheeked regular who cheerfully raised his glass. “Will you toast the new Dominion?” he asked.

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” Thomas answered firmly.

“Ah, not a believer,” the customer chuckled. “Well, I’ll drink to anything.” And he did, with a hearty gulp.

Across the smoky public house, the man in the back listened attentively. Thomas O’Dea was the first name on the list the colonel had given him. A “potential supporter,” it read. “Not confirmed, but worth pursuing.” He rubbed his fingers along his new black moustache and scrutinized this Irish bartender. He looked intelligent enough and he was obviously strong willed. Already, through various sources, he had learned that O’Dea had worked as a lumberjack up the Ottawa Valley for more than a decade, until a runaway log almost killed him. Since then, he’d tended bar here at Lapierre’s. It was backbreaking work in the lumber camps. Irish work. It could make any man bitter. He had also learned that O’Dea’s wife was dead and he still mourned her. He must find out more about her. That might be a way to get at him. The real mystery was the son. He apparently worked for D’Arcy McGee. That bastard McGee! His son might have the will of his father, but he must have the heart of a traitor.

“Stand easy,” the customer at the bar persisted. “All that’s happening is the Canadas are joining up with some other British colonies. It could be the start of something grand. More land. More people. The more the merrier, I say.”

Thomas O’Dea looked the man straight in the eye. “Well, I don’t say so, sir, and I’m sure you won’t mind if I don’t share your enthusiasm.”

The man in the back raised an eyebrow. Thomas O’Dea was a man of conviction. Barmen usually just agreed with their customers. Keep them talking and they will keep buying beer. After all, conversation was cheap; the liquid costs the money. This man valued his beliefs. Interesting. Useful to know.

The customer banged his empty beer mug on the bar. “I think I’ll be off to Parliament Hill to catch the end of the party.” He paid his money and tipped his hat to Thomas, who was busy drying mugs. As the door closed, Thomas O’Dea muttered to himself, “My son is up there.”

The man in the shadows heard him and was curious. His son was up there. There was a complication here, so he should be leery. But maybe, just maybe, that complication could help him. Yes, there could be potential with this Thomas O’Dea.

“Would you like a drink over there?” Thomas shouted across the room. The customer waved his right hand, indicating no, while his left hand covered his face as if he were checking something in his eye. And he left. He knew Thomas O’Dea had barely seen his face. He would never remember the first time they had met. He also knew they would meet again.

THE dignitaries had moved into the Parliament Buildings’ Privy Council Chamber, their wives staying back with the select observers. Each cabinet appointee in turn swore his oath of office. Conor noticed Governor General Viscount Monck whispering something to John Macdonald. Monck’s long beard covered his mouth, and Conor couldn’t tell what he was saying, but it certainly got Macdonald’s attention. The prime minister smiled broadly, then almost gasped in horror.

McGee’s instructions came back to him: “If you want to know what’s going on, don’t just observe what’s happening; think about it and mull it over in your mind.” Conor knew something was certainly going on here.

He was sure that Macdonald would be enraged by Lord Monck’s attire. He was dressed in an everyday business suit, while the members of Parliament were resplendent in full ceremonial garb. The governor general seemed to be treating Confederation as just another working day. But Macdonald was reacting to something else. It was something Monck had said. Conor watched carefully as the prime minister left Monck’s side. Macdonald turned to the crowd—the actor to his audience—and smiled at each familiar face. When his eyes met Conor’s, he looked astonished and slyly winked. Yes, something was happening, and Conor was determined to find out what.

“Don’t just watch events,” McGee would say. “Wonder. Brood. Get out of the margins and into the page. Be curious. Never lose your curiosity.”

“Someday that curiosity will get you into trouble,” his father had told him.

It’s funny, Conor thought, how D’Arcy McGee and his father gave him such contrary advice.

CONOR had met John Macdonald many times. There were few better places to find Macdonald and D’Arcy McGee on a cold winter evening—or any evening of the year, for that matter—than in the public houses and taverns around Ottawa. The Russell House, Macdonald’s favourite haunt, was stately and sophisticated. Lapierre’s, on Sussex Street, was shabby, simple and loud, more to McGee’s taste. Occasionally, when Macdonald wanted to prove that he too was a man of the people, he would join McGee under the flickering gas lights of Lapierre’s. The two men mingled with voters and held court surrounded by the sights and sounds—and smells—of Ottawa’s people.

That’s where Conor first met the politicians.

While his father tended bar at Lapierre’s, Conor earned extra money in the back, washing dishes and cleaning up. The former cook’s assistant was handy in a kitchen. To his father’s horror, Conor would sometimes sneak into the front to hear McGee and Macdonald spin their countless yarns. He was in a boyish trance as they exchanged quips and each tried to outdo the other’s last joke. As the hour got late, the conversation became spicier. Macdonald would beg McGee to sing the song McGee wrote, though it hardly took prodding for McGee to quote himself:

I drank till quite mellow

Then like a brave fellow

Began for to bellow

And shouted for more.

His voice would build until he screamed “shouted for more.” Then Macdonald would join in:

But my host held his stick up

Which soon cured my hiccup

As no cash could I pick up

To pay off the score.

To the applause of the room, Macdonald would roar, “You’ve got to quit drinking, McGee. This government can’t afford two drunkards.” Then he would wink. The same mischievous wink as today.

Macdonald fascinated Conor. Cartoonists made fun of his bulbous nose, but Conor felt his eyes defined him. He used them to express his many moods. His eyes could be playful, pleading, melancholy or full of cheer. Macdonald was a careful man, his actions were almost always well planned and rehearsed, but the glint in his eye was spontaneous.

“His eyes are shifty, it’s as simple as that,” Thomas growled one night after Conor had actually been invited to sit down at the same table as Macdonald and McGee. “Shifty and untrustworthy. Stay away from him.”

To Thomas O’Dea, everything was simple: Macdonald was a Protestant, and that made him an oppressor. Protestants controlled the best jobs in Ontario and kept the Catholics down—especially Irish Catholics. “‘Romanists,’ they call us. ‘Papists.’ And don’t think they say it with any affection.” Thomas had spent too many hours working for low wages and Protestant bosses to ever forget. Or forgive. D’Arcy McGee’s sins were different, but no less enraging. To Thomas, McGee was the most damnable of creatures: a turncoat. McGee may have stayed true to his Catholic faith, but he had criticized Irish freedom fighters, so he had turned against his own people.

Catholic traitor and Protestant oppressor—that was how Thomas O’Dea summed up two lives. At times, Conor wondered what his father thought of him, but he dared not ask.

A voice came out of nowhere. “What are you doing here?” Conor had been daydreaming. A firm tap on his shoulder brought him back to reality. He was not in McGee’s messy office, or in Lapierre’s dingy bar; he was in the Privy Council Chamber on Canada’s first day of business.

“I said, what are you doing here, young man?” It was that man under the beaver hat. His voice was stern and authoritative. Before Conor could respond, John Macdonald himself stepped forward. “Don’t worry, Ambassador; this young gentleman is here representing a great Canadian.”

And again, that wink.

Conor looked at Macdonald, as he so often did, in sheer amazement. How did he know his purpose here? How was he able to come to his defence at the precise moment of need? Still, he had better watch his step. Ambassadors can be a touchy breed, and he was, after all, nothing more than a lowly assistant without an invitation to the event.

The prime minister whispered in his ear, “You seem to have a knack for getting a front-row seat on history.” And he added wryly, “Tell D’Arcy we miss him.”

“I will, Mr. Macdonald,” Conor answered respectfully.

“Actually, you can soon call me John,” the prime minister said with a teasing smile. “Sir John.”

So that was it. Macdonald would be knighted. That was what Governor General Monck had told him. “Don’t just observe, damn it, interpret.” There must have been some bad news, too, or Macdonald would not have also looked aghast. “Look at the story from all angles.” Maybe Galt had not been given an equal honour? Or Cartier?

Sir John. He mouthed the words. It sounded right. Sir John A. Macdonald. He deserved it. Conor couldn’t imagine Confederation without him. He was the negotiator, the compromiser, the architect, and now he would be the administrator.

George-Étienne Cartier might be a brilliant lawyer, but he was too much of a stuffed shirt to lead a new country. George Brown had played a crucial role in forging an alliance between the Liberals and Conservatives, but he was too abrasive to ever win a national election. Charles Tupper was too much of a bully, Leonard Tilley too sanctimonious and Alexander Galt far too impatient. As for McGee, his fame stretched as far as Macdonald’s, but he was simply too bombastic, too belligerent. His fiery eloquence could stir a crowd or sting an opponent, but too often his words left a wound. McGee’s rhetoric gave Confederation its soul, but Macdonald’s skill gave it skin and bones. Of all the politicians, John Macdonald was the most adaptable, the most pragmatic and the most politically astute.

But that was Conor’s opinion. He knew Macdonald’s enemies would heartily disagree. Many thought that Macdonald degraded the political process; that he was a rogue in power and a rascal in private. Macdonald never disagreed with his detractors; he just deflected the blows. He once told George Brown, “The people would rather have me drunk than you sober.” And the polls proved him right.

There was a story Macdonald loved to tell. A year or so ago—Macdonald was always unclear about dates in his anecdotes—he led a delegation to Washington. One evening at a reception in Georgetown, he struck up conversation with a senator’s wife. “I understand you have a very smart man up there in Canada,” she said. “John A. Macdonald.”

“Yes, ma’am, we do.”

“But they say he’s a dreadful man.”

“Yes indeed, a perfect rascal.” Conor could picture Macdonald smiling wickedly as he toyed with her.

“But why do you keep such a man in power?”

“Well, you see, ma’am, Canadians just can’t seem to get along without him.”

Apparently, at that moment, the senator arrived and said to his wife, “My dear, I see you have met John Macdonald.”

The woman was aghast, but Macdonald put her at ease. “Now, don’t apologize. All you’ve been saying is perfectly true, and it’s well known at home.”

The Fathers of Confederation. It was a group of able men, but only Macdonald was essential. Conor looked into those watery eyes and proclaimed, “Congratulations, Sir John.”

LIKE a cat, he prowled the backstreets of Ottawa’s Lowertown, his hand clutching a knife concealed in one of his coat’s deep pockets. Ready and alert. In case. Always just in case. He couldn’t stomach the thought of the pointless morning festivities on Parliament Hill. It was a national holiday, but he was at work. He had to get to know this dowdy, dusty town, learn the back alleys, understand the patterns and rhythms of the place.

Children were playing lacrosse down a side street. A missed ball hurtled toward him. He stepped out of the way. Rather than pick up the ball and throw it back, he watched cautiously as one of the young boys ran past him to retrieve it.

He had a decision to make. Whom should he choose first? He felt like God. He held the power of life and death.

A tall, gangly man approached him on the street, disturbing his thoughts. The hair on the back of his neck stiffened. Quickly, he readied his knife hand. “G’day to you, sir,” the tall man said with an Irish-infused Ottawa Valley twang. The man in the grey coat looked away and said nothing. The tall man thought how rude this stranger was, especially on this happy day. How was he to know that he had killed people for lesser crimes than a simple hello?

The colonel—was he really a colonel, or did he just call himself that?—had talked of targets, and he considered the options. What would happen to Canada if Macdonald were found with a bullet in his skull? And what would happen to this fragile child they called Confederation if an Irish Catholic murdered him? What a pleasant thought. But what if McGee fell and his traitorous blood coloured the streets? That would send a clear message. Macdonald or McGee? Both scum. Both deserving to die. The self-important colonel had hired him to create confusion and anarchy. “A reign of terror,” he had said. His wish would be granted. But there was more to this than a job. He had a personal score to settle. He thought back on his childhood in Ireland and how a man’s eloquence had inspired him. He pictured his father dying in desperate, dreadful pain. A so-called martyr. He remembered his vow to his mother. And to his father’s memory. Yes, there would be revenge; sweet revenge. He knew his first target. The colonel would approve. He smiled at the prospect, wondering, was there ever any doubt?