The Son of a Certain Woman by Wayne Johnston Page A

six,” he said, putting his index finger under my chin and raising my face, which he examined at length, his eyes moving slowly about as if he was memorizing my every feature. My heart thumped and I felt myself deeply flushing from head to toe, stained and unstained parts alike. My arms at my sides, I was barely able to resist turning my face away. I suspected that I had last been as closely scrutinized by a doctor as an infant. I felt that my self-consciousness was for the first time being entirely discounted, as if Brother McHugh had a purpose for thus examining me that overrode any considerations of embarrassment or privacy. He might well have
been
a doctor who was judging how well the face on which he had recently operated was healing, staring at me as if he had just removed a set of bandages. “Hmm,” he said, lowering his hand but looking me straight in the eye. His eyes were blue, as blue as the sky on a cold winter’s day. “Little Percy, Little Percy. It’s not all that bad, is it, Vice-Principal MacDougal, not as bad as His Grace thinks it is and Little Percy and his mother
like
to think it is. And his hands and his feet, they don’t seem so oversized to me. Lobster-coloured hands. Not the worst fate in the world.”
    “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