A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [20]
“Oh, Rachel. Come in. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
He does not ask me to sit down, so I have to remain standing while he fusses officiously with papers on his desk, not really doing anything, just applying a few paper-clips. Kept purposely waiting like this, I may soon blurt out something unpardonable, only to unbind the tension.
Once again, his hands on the desk seem to be drawing my eyes. With them he touches his wife, and holds the strap to strike a child, and –
My own stare repulses me, and yet I’m reassured by it. However unacceptable it may be, to want to brush my fingertips across the furred knuckles of someone I don’t even like, at least they’re a man’s hands.
Has he noticed my looking? That I could not endure. Quick, look at something else. The calendar on his wall says Bank Of Montreal in gold on a royal-blue background and is not so frivolous as to display any picture.
“Now then,” Willard says, glancing up. “Have you seen that boy’s mother yet, Rachel?”
“Oh. You mean – James Doherty’s mother?”
“Yes,” he says, with a slight air of impatience. “That’s the one. The boy who comes to school only when he feels like it.”
“He hasn’t missed a day, recently.”
“Have you seen her, though?”
“Well, not yet, I thought –”
And now I see, startled, that I have been putting it off. The days seem to have gone by so quickly. I can’t explain this negligence, because there is no explanation.
“It would be advisable to see her without delay, Rachel. Summer holidays are coming up, and after two months running wild, he is not likely to be improved. It would be just as well to make the situation eminently clear to the boy’s mother right now. Whatever our shortcomings here, I would not want it said that we were a slack school, would you?”
“No – of course not. I’m sorry I haven’t seen her, Willard. Honestly. I’ve been meaning to, and –”
I can hear my own voice, eagerly abject. Probably I would get down on my knees if this weren’t frowned upon. I hate all this. I hate speaking in this way. But I go on doing it.
“Well, never mind.” He cuts me short, as though bored, which he probably is. “You’ll see to it, then?”
“Yes. Certainly. I’ll send a note home with James tomorrow.”
“I would have thought,” Willard says, “that a phone call might be somewhat more reliable. More likely to reach its destination, as it were.”
I want to say – that’s not fair – you’ve no right to imply that about James – he would never do a thing like that. But why should Willard believe me? And when it comes to it, am I certain James wouldn’t? Looking now at Willard’s face, I’m certain only of what he says, as though his eyes have the reptilian gift. It is said that a person cannot be hypnotized against their will, but that can’t be true.
“I’ll phone, then.”
I want only to get away. I would agree to anything. What does it matter?
“Fine. That’s settled, then,” Willard says, and I see I’m dismissed, permitted to go, let out of school.
Calla is in the Teachers’ Room, making tea. I had a feeling she would be. She must have seen my cardigan hanging there, and known I hadn’t gone yet.
“Hi,” she says. “Like a cup of the brew that cheers but does not inebriate?”
Another of her favourite sayings. She has dozens. They get on my nerves. But I suppose they always provide her with something to say.
“Oh – thanks. I mustn’t be long, though. I have to pick up some meat before the butcher’s closes.”
“Sure,” she says, quite gently, hardly a trace of irony. “Okay.”
Only now do I see how obvious I’ve been, saying something like that, without thinking, merely out of nervousness, a warning. An unnecessary one – is that what she is trying to tell me? That I needn’t worry? That she won’t attempt? But what