The Son of a Certain Woman (11 page)

“Oh no, it’s not all that bad. Percy has grown used to his— I think— It’s just a question—”

“Be certain that every door is locked before you leave, Vice-Principal MacDougal,” McHugh said, turning away from us and walking out without closing the chem lab door behind him. He had not once addressed me directly, not with a single word, but had only spoken
of
me to Pops as if I were inanimate, insensate. He had not even asked me a single question of the sort that the few other clerics I had met had asked, simple questions that more or less instructed you how to answer them, such as “Do you like ice cream?” or “You live at 44, don’t you?”

Pops, averting his eyes, put the goggles away. I heard McHugh’s receding footsteps, then a door opening and closing.

“He’s gone into the tunnel,” Pops said. “At least, I think he has. I suppose he wasn’t following us around the whole time. I hope he didn’t hear any of those things I said about the boys. Some Rice boys come from very influential families. Lawyers, doctors, judges, politicians. How they rose to influence God only knows, because they’re as thick as their children.”

“I think we should go home,” I said. “It’s pretty dark outside. It must be late.”

Pops looked at his watch. “Christ,” he said. “Paynelope must be back by now. She’ll be worried sick. And angry.” I hurried after Pops as he turned off all the lights and checked that all the doors were locked. “She’s going to hang me,” Pops said, fidgeting wildly with the keys as he tried to lock the door to the cafeteria.

We ran hand in hand across Bonaventure in the dark, me with my model molecule in my free hand. There were lights on in the house, but there had been lights on when we left, so I wasn’t sure if my mother was home. Pops was just about to turn the doorknob when my mother yanked open the door.

“Thank God,” she gasped. “Where have you been? I’ve been going half out of my mind with worry.”

“You knew he was with me,” Pops said.

“How could I know
anything
? I come home and find the house empty, the door unlocked. I didn’t know what to think. Why didn’t you leave a goddamn note? And even if I’d been sure he was with you, Pops, what comfort would that have been? Oh, he’s with Pops, then nothing could possibly be wrong. You better have a good reason for going outside with Percy, Pops. What was the emergency? Because if there was anything less than one, you’re in big trouble.”

“I took him to see Brother Rice,” Pops said.

“Why?”

“Because he’s never been inside there in his life.”

“Neither have I and I still somehow manage to make it from one day to the next. What do you have there, Percy?”

“A model of a molecule,” I said. “Pops gave it to me when we were in the chemistry lab.”

She pulled me away from him and told me to go to my room. I did as she said but then crept back out and watched from the hallway, to which my mother’s back was turned.

“You were counting on getting back here before me and me coming home to find that the deed was done, that Percy was safe and content and eager to tell me all about his field trip to Brother Rice, and that because he’d had such a good time, I wouldn’t have the heart to spoil things for him by getting upset with you.”

“I’m sorry. I should have asked for your permission.”

“You didn’t ask because you knew you wouldn’t get it.”

“You make it sound as if I had some ulterior motive for wanting to show Percy Brother Rice. I wanted him to see where I go every day, where I work, that’s all.”

“You will never worm your way into this family. Remember that. You stay here on certain terms. Don’t try to change them. I allow you certain privileges. Don’t try to expand upon them.”

“I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t do that.”

“So what was it like, your field trip to Brother Rice?”

“We met McHugh.”

“You mean you
took
him to meet McHugh.”

“No. We were in the chem lab. McHugh just walked in.”

“
Percy!
” my mother shouted. I went out to the kitchen.

“So you met the mighty McHugh?”

I nodded.

“What was
that
like?”

“He touched my face.”

“What? How?”

When I showed her, she glared at Pops. “What did he say, Pops? Did he touch Percy’s hands too?”

“No. He just said it—the stain on Percy’s face—he said it didn’t look so bad.”

“Is that what he said, Percy?”

I nodded. “He said it didn’t look as bad as we thought it was, you and me and Uncle Paddy. He didn’t really say it to me, he said it to Pops. He didn’t really say anything to me. He called me Little Percy.”

My mother stood closer to Pops, her face about an inch from his.

“What happened, Pops?”

“It’s just as Percy says.”

“Little Percy. Whose face McHugh thinks he’s free to do with as he pleases, touch it, size it up.
Jesus
.”

“I didn’t know he’d be there,” Pops said.

“I’m sure you didn’t. Are you all right, Percy?”

I nodded. I shook my head when she asked if I’d been scared. I thought of describing how I’d felt but couldn’t find the words. I thought of the feel of McHugh’s finger on my chin.

“Holy cards and curses from Sister Mary Aggie. McHugh sizing him up as if he were a horse. What next? What did you say, Pops, when McHugh said that Percy’s face didn’t look so bad?”

“I agreed with him. I don’t think it looks that bad. I tried to tell McHugh it was a question of how Percy would be treated by the other boys—”

“You said it wasn’t that bad? Is there anything McHugh could have said that you wouldn’t have agreed with?”

“I’m sorry—”

“Have you been drinking?” my mother said.

“No,” Pops said.

“Then what’s your excuse?”

“I told you. I asked him if he’d like to see the chem lab.”

“You asked
him
? Since when do you ask
him
? I told you not to take him outdoors. Now listen to me, Pops. There is no ‘Pops and Percy,’ do you understand? Pops and Percy do not walk hand in hand across Bonaventure. They do not appear in public together,
even with me. There is Miss Joyce and Percy Joyce. People do not say ‘There go Pops and Percy.’ Miss Joyce and Percy Joyce, Penny and Percy, fine. But Pops is not in the picture. There is no Pops and Percy, there is no Pops and Penny. Do you and I go out in public? No. People do not say ‘There go Pops and Penny.’ ”

“No, they say ‘There go Percy and the two Miss Joyces.’ ”

“Leave Medina out of this. You are our boarder. Not our avuncular boarder. Not our good-with-children boarder. Not our pitches-in-to-help-when-he-can boarder. Not our almost-like-one-of-the-family boarder. Not our unexpected boon of a boarder. Not our godsend-to-the-Joyces boarder. I do not need you and Percy skipping back and forth to Brother Rice in front of everyone. You are our boarder, the Joyces’ boarder. Otherwise, you are Pops, period. And if from now on you so much as take Percy out on the steps, you will be known as the Joyces’ former boarder. The erstwhile boarder. The long-since-replaced boarder. The boarder in search of a new situation. The boarder more abruptly expelled than any other in the history of room and board. The boarder in search of a forwarding address. The boarder they call Mariah—like the wind.”

Pops tried to walk away, but she took him by the arm.

“Imagine that someone drew a picture of the two of you on a blackboard. Imagine it, and then erase yourself.”

“I just thought he’d like to see where I spend my days, where I work, where I teach, where my students sit, and what the lab equipment looks like. He said he would.”

“I told you, it doesn’t matter what he says. Percy would say yes if a cab driver he had never seen before walked into the house and asked him if he’d like a ride to Port aux Basques. Percy is
five
.”

“Do you plan to carry on all night at my expense?”

“Once more, Pops, just once more and you’ll be ideally suited to write a book. You could call it
A View Without a Room
.”

I looked at Pops and felt very sorry for him, being dressed down in front of me like that.

P
OPS
returned home from Brother Rice one afternoon a couple of weeks before my first day of school and announced that Director McHugh had told him that His Grace had decreed that Percy Joyce, Little Percy, was to be exempt from any and all forms of physical discipline or corporal punishment at school. My mother was so happy and relieved I wondered what exactly I had been exempted from, but she merely said it was something I needn’t worry myself about, now that His Grace had intervened. “He knows how it would look,” I overheard her say later to Medina. She didn’t finish the sentence, but I now know what she meant. It wouldn’t look good if the little Joyce boy were strapped, what with His Grace having preached a sermon from the Mount on my behalf, what with my overly large hands that would make such easy and conspicuous targets for a strap. It wouldn’t look good if, after having been strapped, the little Joyce boy put those hands beneath his armpits in a vain attempt to put out the
fire in them. It wouldn’t look good if, thus disposed, the little Joyce boy, eyes streaming tears, walked forlornly down Bonaventure, his big feet flapping like a pair of codfish.

The night before my first day of school, my mother and Medina drank a lot of beer. Pops kept storming out of his room to complain about the noise they were making, saying that even if they didn’t care about him, they ought to remember that they were keeping
me
awake on the night before such an important day in my life. His complaints did not deter them—not that it would have mattered to me if they had for even if the house had been silent I couldn’t have slept, what with being so wrought up with anticipation and anxiety. I joined them in the kitchen, drank Crush and watched them drinking beer and, when they abandoned their card playing, watched TV with them as they loudly made fun of a Barnum & Bailey circus programme. My mother asked Medina: Who, at some point in their life, has not longed to throttle a ventriloquist or beat some sense into someone who was forever plucking quarters from the ears of strangers? Who hasn’t prayed that some flaming sword swallower would extract from his throat a shish kebab of his vital organs? Who hasn’t pictured an acrobat emerge from a somersault with a noose of rigging ropes around his neck? Who hasn’t wished that the tuxedo-wearing, unicycle-riding balancer of twenty spinning plates would slip and go down in a clattering tangle of sticks and spokes and broken china?

My mother kissed Medina on the cheek, then kissed me on the cheek. They stopped watching TV and played “What If?” In this case, what if the Church hired cheerleaders to tell its story and promote its cause? Tight-fitting-short-sleeved-blouse-and-short-skirt-wearing cheerleaders. My mother had been a cheerleader at Holy Heart. She stood up and began doing jumping jacks. When my mother nodded at us, Medina and I clapped our hands in time to what she was chanting.

Pops came out this time to protest what my mother was saying in front of me. “He doesn’t understand a word of it, Pops,” my mother said. “We’re just having some fun, that’s all. Throwing a coming-out party for Perse. Tomorrow’s his first day of school, and the last one of life as he knows it.”

“He’s only six! Barely six! You’re biting the hand that protects your son.”

“It’s not as if we’re doing it in front of Uncle Paddy.”

“Soon Percy will be talking about His Grace like that. In front of someone who’ll tattle to McHugh.”

“Old Gloomy Gus McHugh.” She put her hand on my head. “Don’t call the Archbishop Uncle Paddy, not even in this house, okay?”

I nodded.

“We’re just letting off some steam, Pops. Feel free to leave us to it. If you must complain, phone the police and tell them your landlady is making too much noise.”