I always arrived first, “promptly at 3:45,” as McHugh instructed me. He arrived promptly at 3:50. On McHugh’s instructions, I entered the Basilica by one of the rear doors that opened onto a large, circular stone vestibule rung round with Roman arches, each arch leading to a windowless door, each door numbered.
Our study room, number six of six, seemed to be a conference room. There was a long, wide, gleaming wooden table with chairs on either side but none at the head or the end. The walls were lined with shelves containing ancient-looking leather-bound books, their titles inscribed in Latin on their spines, books that I fancied contained, volume by volume, the Ultimate Catechism, the Summa Cum Laude of catechisms, millions, perhaps billions of ever-proliferating questions and answers that gave rise to other questions and answers ad infinitum, the whole thing not omitting a single footnote of Church doctrine or the most scrupulously fine of fine distinctions.
There were many holy pictures on the walls above the books. The one above the door by which I entered was a photograph of the Archbishop. Above the door at the opposite end of the room, by which McHugh entered, was a photograph of the Pope. Encircling the room were other photographs or portraits of other popes and Newfoundland archbishops, almost all of them in profile, as if to face the viewer directly would have been profane. Like the doors, the room was windowless, lit solely by lamps, for there were no overhead lights. The room always gave me the impression that, outside, it would have been dark no matter what the time of day or year, so dark, so “late” that I ought to have been home hours ago.
McHugh and I sat at the centre of the table on opposite sides. Every chair had a corresponding large glass ashtray, green notebook and gleaming silver pen. I always half expected the balance of a catechism committee, a delegation of Church sages hand-picked by Uncle Paddy, to pour into the room and occupy the empty chairs.
McHugh quizzed me each afternoon from a catechism that he held in his hands, never leaning it on the table, as if he believed that, even from that distance, I would be able to read the answers.
He always brought with him four versions of the catechism, the smallest a mere paperback chapbook for seven-year-olds, the next biggest a slim hardbound copy of my catechism. And two larger catechisms, the one with fourteen hundred questions and answers, and the fourth, which was an annotated version of it that was exclusively for the use of teachers. He never consulted the other three books, but the four of them sometimes lay side by side on the table like a symbol of the duration of a lifetime, from boyhood to adolescence to young manhood to middle and old age.
McHugh announced that he was the Catechist, the person whose responsibility it was before God to instruct and prepare me for baptism, penance and Communion by the use of the catechism. I was the Catechumen, the person being instructed and prepared. Catechist and Catechumen, we sat face to face each day like devil’s advocate and would-be saint, doing battle in the manner prescribed by the Church.
We began each day this way:
“What is the full name of this book?”
“The full name of the book is the Baltimore Catechism.”
“What am I?”
“You are the Catechist.”
“What are you?”
“I am the Catechumen.”
“Let us begin.”
And so we began: “We cannot fully understand how the three Divine Persons are one and the same God because this is a mystery. What is a mystery, Percy?”
“A mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand.”
“What gender is the Holy Ghost?”
“He is without gender.”
“Then why do you refer to the Holy Ghost as ‘he’?”
“I’m sorry, Brother. The Holy Ghost is without gender.”
“Why are there no images of God the Father in Catholic churches?”
“There are none because He has never shown Himself to us.”
“Does the corruption of our nature remain in us after original sin has been forgiven?”
“It does. It remains in us until we enter into Heaven, throughout our lives and our time in Purgatory.”
“What should be done with bad and immodest books and newspapers?”
“Bad and immodest books and newspapers should be destroyed.”
What are the six reasons for Holy Communion?
What are the five qualities of proper prayer?
What is the difference between the particular judgment and the general judgment?
What are the seven sayings of Jesus on the Cross?
What are the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost?
Every now and then he lowered the catechism, closed it on the desk and placed his hands on it, one on top of the other. This was a signal that we were taking a break of sorts—that is, that he was now about to ask questions of a different kind, questions mostly having to do with 44 Bonaventure and its occupants, which he asked in the same imperious, challenging tone as the catechism questions. He stood beneath and looked up at the round white clock on the wall as he spoke, as if the clock, whose second hand was the only moving thing in the room, somehow helped him find the right words, words by which to pose me the “extra” questions that would be, like the words of the questions and answers of the catechism, and the words of the Bible, the exact, right words, without the faintest hint of an inappropriate nuance or connotation, infallible questions in search of infallible answers.
After staring at the clock for several minutes, he would move on to a portrait of one of the popes, a photograph of one of the archbishops, and so on. In this manner he would make his way completely around the room, as if he were performing the Stations of the Cross, sometimes seeming to examine the walls themselves in the hope of being instructed by them as to what questions he should put to me.
The first “extra” question he ever asked was, “What are your mother’s middle names?” I didn’t know. He frowned as if he believed I was lying. He wrote something in his notebook. “Her second name is Anne,” he said. “She is named after Saint Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She herself may not know whom she is named after or why. Her confirmation name is Elizabeth who was the mother of John the Baptist. When I told His Grace her confirmation name, he seemed to take it as further proof that you were born on the feast day of John the Baptist for a purpose. I told him it might merely be a coincidence but he has his mind made up.”
Sometimes he walked about the room as he asked his extra questions, the catechism clasped behind his back. He said I was not to follow him with my eyes or turn in my chair but was simply to face straight ahead as if he were still sitting at the table. Over a period of such days, he interspersed seemingly insignificant questions about the middle and third names of Pops, Medina and Jim Joyce. A couple of times I asked him why he was asking extra questions, but he ignored me.
Soon, he began to randomly alternate the two kinds of questions, no longer getting up to walk around but still not lowering the catechism, as if even the answers to the extra questions were written in the book. One day, “What are the Seven Chief Spiritual Works of Mercy?” was followed by “Who would you say is your mother’s best friend?” I responded Catechumen fashion to the second question, repeating the question in my answer. “I would say that my mother’s best friend is Medina Joyce.”
“It’s disrespectful to the catechism and therefore to the Church to answer my questions like that,” McHugh said.
“I’m sorry, Brother.”
“And who is Medina Joyce’s best friend?”
“My mother, Brother.”
“Who would you say was Medina Joyce’s second-best friend?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Vice-Principal MacDougal?”
“Maybe.”
“You and I know that they are far from friends.”
“I guess they don’t like each other all that much.”
“How did your mother meet Medina Joyce?”
“I don’t know.”
“She
met her before she met your father?”
“I think so.”
“So your mother met your father through Medina?”
“I think so.”
“Your mother and Medina, the two Miss Joyces, remained friends in spite of what your father, Medina’s brother, did?”
“Yes. Medina is nice.”
“And yet she seems to have no other friends. Does she?”
“I think she does. At St. Clare’s, where she works.”
“But when she isn’t working, she spends most of her time at your mother’s house. Vice-Principal MacDougal told me so. How many hours a week would you say she spends at your mother’s house?”
“I’m not sure. She doesn’t like it where she lives, but that’s all she can afford. She only gets twenty hours of work a week. My mother gives her money sometimes.”
“She gives Medina money that Mr. MacDougal gives her?”
“Sometimes. I don’t know how much.”
“Do you think she could afford a better place to live if she did not spend so much money on alcohol and cigarettes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Smoking and drinking are unseemly habits for a woman. Mr. MacDougal tells me that your mother drinks and smokes a lot. Is that true?”
“She doesn’t drink as much as him, but he doesn’t smoke. Except a pipe sometimes.”
“So you like Miss Medina Joyce? Your aunt by blood. Your common-law aunt.”
“Yes.”
“Why does she spend so much time at your mother’s house?”
“They like to play cards.”
“Cards, yes. Another bad habit. Well, I expect you’ll see much less of her after Vice-Principal MacDougal marries your mother. Is that right?”
“I suppose so.”
“I will see to it that Vice-Principal MacDougal will not be so foolish as to tolerate the frequent presence in his house of an ignoramus who exploits and despises him.”
The part of the catechizing that concerned Medina spanned two days. On the second day, McHugh brought with him to the Basilica, along with the usual four books, a small cardboard box from which he removed a pair of black binoculars. He placed them on the table in front of me.
“Do you know what those are?” he said. I nodded. “I like to look at the city through them from the window of my room. Have you ever looked through a pair of binoculars?”
“No.”
“Give it a try.”
I picked them up. They were much heavier than they looked, thick and made of metal. I raised them to my eyes. Everything looked blurred until McHugh adjusted a little wheel on the top. The room came into focus, everything eerily enlarged. I was able to read the writing beneath the portrait of the Pope. McHugh snatched the binoculars away from me and again laid them on the table.
“One night, it must have been a year ago, I couldn’t sleep. I got up and looked out the window as I often do. And I happened to see, to faintly make out, someone standing in the little patch of woods behind your house. It was winter. The trees were bare. A cold night. I couldn’t make out who it was until I looked through these binoculars. It was your aunt, Miss Joyce. She was simply standing there among the trees, her hands in the pockets of her yellow coat, staring at your house. She stood there for perhaps ten minutes. Then she went inside and the last of the lights in the house went off. I realized that she’d been waiting for something, a signal of some kind perhaps. Why was she out there on such a night? What was she waiting for?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve since seen her come and go from the house at all hours of the night. Sometimes she waits outside. Sometimes she goes inside the moment she arrives. She always approaches the house from the back, in the dark, like some sort of thief.”
“She’s not a thief. She has trouble sleeping where she lives. It’s noisy. When it’s really bad, she comes over to our house and sleeps on the chesterfield.”
“But why would she wait outside like that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe she’s making sure that we’re all the way asleep so that she doesn’t wake us up when she comes in.”
“She doesn’t call first to tell your mother she’s coming, to ask if it’s all right?”
“Medina doesn’t have her own phone. There’s a phone in her boarding house, but it’s almost always broken.”
“She does have her own phone. Mr. MacDougal told me so.”
“It was broken for a while. She must have got it fixed.”
“So she just comes over and walks right in, sometimes after all of you have gone to bed and are sound asleep?”
I nodded.
“She doesn’t need a key?”
“Mom never locks the house, not even when everyone goes out.”
“It was odd, the sight of her behind your mother’s house, staring. I can’t see the back door of your house, not even with binoculars, so I don’t know if your mother let her in or she let herself in. What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think Miss Joyce somehow knows, somehow guesses when it would be best to come inside so as not to wake anyone?”
“Maybe.”
“Is she sometimes on the sofa when you wake up in the morning?”
“No. She gets up before me and helps my mother make breakfast.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I spoke to Vice-Principal MacDougal about this matter just this afternoon. He never mentioned that Miss Joyce sometimes spends the night at your mother’s house. He said he had no idea why Miss Joyce comes and goes the way that I described. He went home and asked your mother about it and came back to my office just before I left to come here. He said she told him Miss Joyce has absolute freedom of the house. She told my vice-principal that he retires early, is a heavy sleeper and always gets up late, so it’s no wonder he doesn’t know about Miss Joyce’s visits. She said Miss Joyce feels lonely where she lives, especially at night, a place where she has no family and where most people are merely passing through and so hardly even talk to one another. So she comes over to your mother’s house because it’s the closest thing to a real home that she has.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought she couldn’t sleep because it’s too noisy where she lives.”
“But now you think your mother’s right?”
I nodded.
He stared at me, smiling, chewing his gum at the front of his mouth. “Oh what a tangled web we weave,” he said.
When I got home, my mother was at the Helm but not typing. She put her finger to her lips and motioned with her eyes toward Pops’ sunroom, where he sat drinking beer. She looked frightened, and seemed on edge, drifting into episodes of self-absorption while we played Scrabble. She seemed especially nervous after Medina arrived. They smoked a pack of cigarettes between them before Pops at last left the sunroom and went to bed. The three of us sat at the kitchen table.
“I didn’t have time to warn you,” my mother whispered, reaching for my hand. “I knew if I went to the Basilica to get you for some made-up reason that McHugh would be even more suspicious. What did he say and what did you tell him? And keep your voice down.” As I recounted my session with McHugh, Medina kept shaking her head and saying “sweet Jesus” under her breath. “It’s fine,” my mother said when I was finished.
“Fine?” Medina said. “He’s been watching me for a year through his binoculars and you think everything is fine? Your story and Perse’s don’t match and you think everything is fine?”
“They almost match. It’s plausible that Perse wouldn’t have the reason for your visits quite clear in his head.” She took me in her arms and hugged me hard. “You did good, Perse. Better than I did, I think.” She let me go and turned to Medina. “McHugh doesn’t know anything, so he can’t prove anything. I keep telling you that. Let him have his suspicions. Soon enough it won’t matter what he thinks.”
“Well, you’ll be the one who’s safely married within the Chur
ch. To McHugh, I’ll still just be a Crazy Lizzie.”
“He won’t dare cause trouble for you once Pops and I are married—he won’t want to do anything that might bring to light the truth about Percy Joyce’s reformed mother and humiliate Uncle Paddy.”
“Jesus, Pen, I hope you’re right.”
Later, my mother came into my room and folded her arms on my bunk. She said she would take my place at catechism if she could and she hated the thought of my being interrogated by McHugh. She said she wasn’t sure to what degree Uncle Paddy shared McHugh’s suspicions, and she’d wondered to what degree my catechism was being directed by Uncle Paddy. “It’s only a few more days,” she said. “We’ll be home free once I’m married and you’ve been baptized. After the Big Do at the Big B, there’ll be no turning back for them. Do you think you can hang in there for a few more days?”
“I think so, Mom.”
That night, I drifted in and out of sleep, lucidly, continuously dreaming that McHugh was standing atop the long table in the Basilica, strolling its length with his hands in his pockets, his black boots clumping on the wood, while every chair at the table was occupied by a Christian Brother, all of whom were smoking, chewing gum and taking notes.
I woke once to hear voices in the hallway, my mother’s and Medina’s. Medina urgently: “I wish the three of us could just go away.” “Where? How?” my mother said. “I’m just wishing, Pen. I’m not saying we should.” I wondered if she was really wishing that I wasn’t in the picture. Maybe then the two of them could have run away. But wherever they went, they would have to live much as they did now, in some acceptable, fictional arrangement. Nevertheless, I felt that I was a major complication, a nuisance who crimped what little space they might otherwise have had.
The Son of a Certain Woman Page 34