The Latchkey Kid (17 page)

While most of his congregation were dancing at the Edwardian Ball, the Reverend Bruce Mackay of Tollemarche United Church was preparing his Sunday sermon. He sat before his desk in his shabby basement den, trying to concentrate on a safe, comfortable theme, while his two sons practised drumming on a tin tray in the kitchen overhead. Above them again, he could hear his wife running the bath water for his younger daughter’s nightly scrub. She shouted to the eldest of his children, Mary, aged fourteen, to come and help her put the younger ones to bed.

The noise was excruciating, his bald head throbbed, and the platitudes which usually flowed so easily from him refused to come. He was always very careful, in preparing his sermons, to wrap up well, in fulsome and flattering phrases, any unpleasant home truths which he wished to bring to the attention of his overfed, overdressed congregation. He had an uneasy feeling that a minister who was too unpleasantly honest could find his flock behaving uncommonly like wolves, and it might be difficult to get another pulpit if he wanted to move. It was, therefore, important to find subjects to talk about with which the congregation was in some degree of sympathy; but how one could do this with such a thundering racket overhead, he did not know.

He went to the basement stairs and called to the boys to be a little quieter.

There were moans of protest that they were never allowed to do anything they wanted to do; and this blatant untruth tried his spirits sorely.

“Just for a little while, boys,” he wheedled, holding down his temper with an effort. “You could do your drumming later on.”

“Aw right,” came the sulky response.

He returned to the neat wooden desk, which he had made himself, and settled down to try again. Within a minute the silence
was broken by irregular, sharp thuds in the kitchen, accompanied by excited shrieks. The plumbing groaned and gurgled as the bath water was emptied down the drain, and Mrs. Mackay’s voice reached crescendo.

He leaned his head on his bony, capable hands. He could feel his temper rising, and he wished that for once, just once, he could stand up and preach hell and damnation to the filled pews of his fashionable church.

Most of the time he was able to control his inward rage, but he felt now that if there was not some quiet in the house soon, it would explode. All the suppressed bitterness at insufficient money, poor housing and an unruly family would spill out, and it would continue to erupt in ever lessening bursts for several days, until he was left exhausted, abject in his repentance, to pray for forgiveness from both God and tear-stained wife.

The bumps and bangs increased and were accompanied by shouts and screams; a fight had evidently broken out between the boys.

A new sound added itself to the general pandemonium, the sound of hysterical weeping, cries of denial and the outraged voice of his wife. Two sets of heavy feet could be heard clomping down the basement stairs. Mary, pushed by her infuriated mother, stumbled into the room. Her fat face was red, her glasses awry, and her drab, brown hair hung in rats’ tails to her shoulders. Her well-formed bosom heaved with her sobs under a pullover which she had long since grown out of.

Mrs. Mackay’s plain, unpainted face was livid. She still wore a damp apron over her crumpled cotton slacks, and her hands were scarlet from immersion in bath water.

The minister looked up crossly at this sudden invasion; his headache was so bad that he could hardly see who had arrived. “Whatever is the matter?” he asked.

Mary turned and made a dash for the stairs, only to be caught by the arm by her mother and be swung back to face her father again. She began to shout defiantly at her mother through her tears.

“You’ve no right to take it from me. Janice lent it to me – it’s her book – and I can read it if I want to.”

“What
is
this all about?” He held his voice down by sheer effort of will, but he still sounded testy. “I’m trying to write my sermon.”

Mrs. Mackay looked at her husband beseechingly. She was obviously in deep distress, though trying to keep calm. With shaking hands, she drew from her apron pocket a battered copy of
The Cheaper Sex,
and flourished it close to his face.

He took it from her and adjusted his glasses on his nose so that he could read the title. Mary stood paralyzed with fright. Upstairs, the boys ceased their fighting and crept down to see what was happening. Their smaller sister was already seated calmly on the middle step, surveying with cold interest the distraught Mary.

“The Cheaper Sex,”
he read in a deceptively quiet voice. Then, reproachfully, he added: “Mary, this is not the kind of book you should be reading.”

“Not the kind of book!” cried Mrs. Mackay, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Just look at the picture on the front and then take a look at the first chapter.”

Mary said nothing, but allowed a hopeless sob to escape.

There was silence, while Mr. Mackay turned the pages. He went very white.

“Mary!” he exclaimed, and there was such genuine sorrow in that single word that Mary burst into a flood of tears again.

“I want to know about love and things, and Janice lent it to me and she’s read it and so have the other girls and why can’t I?” The final words came out in a doglike howl.

The Reverend Bruce Mackay felt like Job for a moment. He closed his eyes, remembering Janice, the daughter of the town’s leading hardware merchant, brassy and aggressive like her father. She was in Mary’s class at school, the class beauty with a diary full of dates. She patronized the plain Mary unmercifully and he was sure she would have got a satanic pleasure out of lending this book to Mary.

His wife’s voice intruded upon his thoughts.

“Be quiet, Mary,” she was saying sharply. Then to her husband she said in a tense voice: “It was actually written by somebody in Tollemarche.”

Mr. Mackay’s eyes popped open: “What?” he exclaimed, his mouth open in astonishment.

“That’s what it says on the inner flap.”

“Good gracious!”

“Well? Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

He shut the book with a sharp plop, and sighed. He was bubbling
with anger, but still his voice was calm. “I will,” he said, “leave it to me.” He looked up at the open staircase and the three interested spectators seated there. “Boys, go to bed now. Elsie, kindly take our little Donna and put her to bed, too.” He turned to Mary, and she could see the rage dancing in his eyes. “Mary, you are to stay here.”

Mrs. Mackay saw the wisdom of disposing of the younger members of the family, and in brisk tones she repeated her husband’s orders to them and herded them before her up the stairs.

Reluctantly and with many backward glances at the weeping but still defiant Mary, who continued to stand in front of her father, they went upstairs to bed. They all knew their father’s terrible temper and even Donna, who hated her overbearing sister, felt a sneaking pity for Mary.

Mr. Mackay sat down in his chair, closed his eyes and prayed aloud for spiritual guidance and for calmness of spirit. He felt he had, by holding the book, touched something defiling; and he was nauseated at the idea of his innocent Mary reading such a book. Her agonized cry that she wanted to know about love had passed him by. He did not consider how she was supposed to obtain a knowledge of sex in a household where there was no mention of its existence, where there was not even a cat to have kittens and where babies had arrived, neatly bundled up, from the hospital, with a tired and harassed mother, who had gone to fetch them.

Mary’s sobs reduced to a sniffle as he prayed, and she looked apprehensively at him over a soaked paper handkerchief.

“Amen,” said her father, and after a pause, added:, “You may sit down, Mary.”

She sat down uneasily on the only other chair in the room.

“I will take charge of this book. I shall return it to Janice’s father.”

Mary was terrified. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “he’ll kill her!”

“I doubt it,” replied her father dryly, “but she will get what she deserves.”

Mary began to worry about what she herself might be thought to deserve.

It began as a quiet talk on maintaining the decencies of life, and that included reading only good books.

“What about television?” asked Mary, now sufficiently recovered to consider laying a few red herrings.

The daily injection of murder, sadism and sex administered by his television set to his children had bothered the Reverend Bruce Mackay for years. He had discovered, however, that if he turned the set off, the children merely wandered off to the homes of their friends, and watched it there; a number of sermons on the subject had failed to produce any parents capable of turning their sets off, too. He therefore endured the presence of this servant of Mammon in his house, where occasionally he managed to insist on censoring the programs his younger children wanted to view; he had given up battling with Mary.

Mary had picked the wrong red herring. It reminded him of all his frustration at arguments lost with his ugly, rebellious daughter. He lost control of his temper, forgot he was a priest, and flew into a passion.

Mary quailed. She often baited her parents, driving them to the limits of their endurance and then retreating. But this time there seemed to be no retreat, no placating her father in any way. Her courage, already badly sapped, left her, and she sat on the wooden chair unable to move for sheer terror of her raging parent.

She had set out to read the book because she had hoped to learn the secrets of that dreadful sin, Sex, which everyone verbally disapproved of and in practice tolerated comfortably wherever it was exploited, be it in advertisements or on the street. She wanted facts about it and found herself denied them at every turn. Apparently gluttony, sloth, pride, envy and avarice were not nearly so serious, and, judging by her father’s present mental state, neither was anger. She now realized, as she quivered in her chair, that sex must be truly deadly; otherwise, there would never have been such a fuss.

The Reverend Bruce Mackay had now reached a stage where he could not trust himself not to strike her, so he pointed to the staircase and told her to get out and stay out. No television, he roared, no pocket money, no desserts, no treats of any kind for a month. One chapter more of the Bible was to be read every morning, and Psalm 37 was to be committed to memory and recited to him on the last day of the month.

She forced her trembling legs into action and fled up to her bedroom, which she shared with her little sister. She wept fiercely and silently until at last, still in her clothes, she slept.

Mrs. Mackay heard her husband’s voice raised in anger and
later heard Mary go up to bed. She knew better, however, than to intrude upon her husband at such a time or to interfere between him and Mary by going in to see the girl when she came upstairs. She argued, as she crawled into bed herself, exhausted from her long day’s work, that she must show a united front with her husband in their disapproval of Mary; she could not own, even to herself, that she was just too tired to care what Mary’s punishment was to be.

The book lay on top of Mr. Mackay’s sermon notes. Distastefully, with the tips of his fingers, he flicked it open. Despite his best intentions, he began to read.

Hours later, he closed the book and read the notes about the author. It was unbelievable that Tollemarche could give birth to such a book. Its brutally truthful description of life amongst young people in the town went unappreciated; it dealt with a boy’s sex life, and that was enough.

Inwardly burning, he went up to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee to calm his nerves, before he attempted to finish writing his sermon. On the kitchen counter lay the evening newspaper, and he scanned the headlines idly while he waited for the water to boil.

The story of Hank leaped out at him. He felt as if he were being crucified. The son of members of his own congregation! Only then did he realize how deeply he had hoped that the author would prove to be some atheist from the university or, perhaps, a Roman Catholic. Dumbly he turned to page twelve, where, page one informed him, there was a review of the book.

The reviewer praised the book’s honesty, clarity, tight plot and use of regional background. He hoped the author would continue to speak for the younger generations.

The minister was dumbfounded.

He slammed the newspaper to the floor, snatched up his cup of coffee and marched downstairs again to his desk. Breathing deeply and with most unchristian hatred in his heart, he tore up his sermon notes, took fresh paper and began to write.

Boyd Stych refused to be roused in time for Sunday morning church. When Olga shook him by the shoulder and told him crossly that he should show himself sometimes at church, he snapped at her and pulled the bedclothes over his head.

She put on a multicoloured striped duster and, closing her eyes as she passed her mirror so that she could not see her bleary-eyed morning appearance, she tottered into the kitchen to have breakfast alone. The moment Hank showed his face, she muttered, he would get his comeuppance from her, even if his father didn’t care enough to give it to him.

She made herself some coffee, heated and buttered two large iced buns, and settled down to read Saturday’s newspaper as she ate.

As she spread out the newspaper, she thought about the ball the previous night. She had enjoyed it until Hank came along and spoiled it. She had felt honoured to meet again Dr. and Mrs. LeClair. Dr. LeClair was the president of Boyd’s firm and normally did not stir far from his office in Montreal. He had decided, however, to venture into the wild and distant West because of the sudden upsurge in business in Tollemarche, and had extended his stay over a couple of months, except for an occasional journey by jet back to Montreal to check on his vice-presidents’ efforts to keep that end of the business going.

Mrs. Stych sighed. Mrs. LeClair sure was ladylike, so slim and elegant, with a lovely, snarly French-Canadian accent in which she had discussed her main interest in life, the care of exceptional children. Mrs. Stych was painfully aware that her Ukrainian accent sounded heavy beside it. She had done her best, however, to express her admiration for anyone who could work with such unprepossessing children. She had not, thank goodness, had to introduce Hank to her. At least he had had enough sense to stay away from their party.

Hank’s photograph stared up at her from the newspaper’s front page. She thought it made him look older than he was. Under it was a fairly accurate history of his life and the news that he had written a daring and forward-looking book, reviewed on page twelve, which was proving a best seller and would be filmed shortly. The movie rights had been sold for – Mrs. Stych gasped unbelievingly. It must be a misprint – Hank’s lousy book could not be worth that much! Even if you took a zero off the sum mentioned, it was still a lot of money – more than a down payment on a house in Vanier Heights. No wonder Hank had been acting up, she sniffed to herself. Still, money or no money, she’d soon take him down a peg.

Five minutes later, when getting up to refill her cup, she saw a note scrawled on her kitchen blackboard. It said: “Gone to Banff – back Saturday. Hank.”

Mrs. Stych nearly screamed aloud. That was the way he had always been. He could duck out of bad situations quicker than a boxer in the ring. But he need not think he could escape this time, she promised herself. She’d teach him.

She sat down again and turned to the review on page twelve. This had been written by a young professor at the university, and was full of praise. Everything that Hank had written was perfect.

This was too much for Olga Stych. It was a dirty book, and she felt like sitting down right then and writing a letter of protest to the editor. Then she remembered how nice the girls had been the previous evening; they had proved themselves very kind by not mentioning it. Perhaps it was better not to draw more attention to the matter.

While she drank her coffee and perused the professorial effusion, fifty other ladies in fifty other kitchens were also catching up on the local news by reading Saturday’s paper over their morning coffee. Many of them had attended the meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Morals, or had heard, from someone who had attended, about the terrible book which had been written by a Tollemarche student still in high school. Now, as it dawned on them that the author was Olga Stych’s son, they chuckled and smirked almost fiendishly. A few of them positively purred like cats full of mice, as they realized that at last they could get their own back on Olga Stych, the woman who had cut so many of them
out from senior offices in the many social groups, charitable and otherwise, in the town. Now, at last, they could challenge her unrivalled leadership of the aspiring coterie of Tollemarche matrons. Mrs. Frizzell, after the first shock of discovery, felt nearly ecstatic.

Into the ears of those husbands sufficiently awake to understand, they poured the shocking news, but in general all that penetrated to their alcohol-dulled brains was the fact that Olga and Boyd Stych’s boy had made a pack of money out of a dirty book.

What, the ladies inquired rhetorically of these gentlemen, had Olga and Boyd Stych been doing to allow the publication of such a book? They must be out of their minds!

A few husbands, between groans about headaches, muttered that a man who allowed his son to accept a sum that big from a film company could not be out of his mind. They just wished their boys could make money like that.

The ladies were united in expressing their horror at such sentiments. Men, they said, had no culture, they were all sex mad and all they read were girlie magazines in the cigar store.

These were old bones of contention being dug up again, and, as the men all
did
read girlie magazines in the cigar store, they all clapped their mouths shut like well-sprung screen doors.

Mrs. Stych was a few minutes late for church, owing to her detailed perusal of the newspaper, and she slipped into her usual pew near the front of the church, under cover of the first hymn. The florid female with two children, who usually shared it with the Stych family, was already seated, and she turned to stare at Olga with her mouth open as she braced herself for a top note. Mrs. Stych hastily found her place in the hymn-book and joined in the final verse.

There was a rustle of closing books, and Mrs. Stych smiled brightly at Margaret Tyrrell, the secretary of the Committee for the Preservation of Morals, who, with her husband and mother-in-law, was in the pew across the aisle. Margaret looked embarrassed and gave close attention to the arrangement of her skirt as she sat down. She did not seem to see Mrs. Stych.

Puzzled, Mrs. Stych turned her gaze upon the Reverend Bruce Mackay, who, strangely, proved to be looking straight at her. Did she imagine it or did he really mean to look so malevolent? She wondered if he disapproved of her hat, which was an expensive creation of Persian lamb and violets, to match her coat.

There was an abrupt quietness amongst the congregation, and Mrs. Stych felt as if every eye was upon her. Then, to her relief, the Reverend Bruce Mackay cleared his throat preparatory to addressing the Lord, and Mrs. Stych relaxed.

She was totally unprepared for the blow when it came some three-quarters of an hour later. The minister mounted to the pulpit and put down his notes before him. He paused dramatically and then brought his fist down on the edge of the pulpit with a thwack which gave him the immediate attention of his audience. The published title of his address that morning had been “Work in the Mission Field”, so they were unprepared for such an assault on their nervous systems.

Mrs. Stych was jolted, too. This tirade had nothing to do with foreign missions, but at first she did not connect what he had to say with herself. Then his outraged comments began to penetrate. She and Boyd were being preached at in a fashion which had gone out fifty years before. They were being held responsible for the work of their son – as if anyone could be responsible for what one’s children did! They were being held up as people who had allowed their son such licence that he was now in a position to damage minds younger than his and create a society of loose-living reprobates. Parents who filled their lives with empty social events to the detriment of their children’s training were more of a menace to society than the delinquent child himself. The angry minister did not name the particular parents he had in mind for, indeed, he was saying to a whole group what he had been longing to say for years. However, not a single worshipper was in doubt about whom he spoke, and all eyes were turned again upon Olga Stych, and it seemed as if even the artificial violets on her hat were beginning to wilt under the collective glare.

Some of the eyes gleamed with satisfaction. Olga could be insufferable, and she was getting a good old-fashioned talking-to. Mrs. Frizzell, her face inscrutable, was inwardly rejoicing, and promised herself the satisfaction of cutting Olga dead as soon as they got out of church. That two of the Stych family had won prizes at the ball rankled like a festering wound.

Mrs. Stych had patronized the Reverend Bruce Mackay casually for a number of years, and had thought him a dumb, acquiescent mouse. Now it was as if the mouse had clawed her like a cougar. She could feel the colour go from her face, while the two children
in the pew sucked their sweets noisily and regarded her with cold eyes; their mother’s eyes, a quick glance told her, were equally icy.

She was too shocked to feel anger at Hank – she had for the moment forgotten that he was the instrument of her destruction. She knew only that her life was collapsing around her; the carefully built façade of importance and prestige, of money and influence, came tumbling down. All that she had striven for – to improve herself, to get away as far as she could from her father’s pig farm, to become a leader of Tollemarche society – was swept away as if by an avalanche. She could feel the animosity which flowed around her like a cold fog. The silence, except for the accusing voice from the pulpit, was profound; not a handbag clicked, not a shoe shuffled.

At the end of twenty minutes he had finished. With firm fingers he folded his notes and put them back into his pocket. As he stared out over the congregation, he knew that they were with him, and he was thankful for it. A bitter lesson had had to be taught, and he felt himself to be God’s instrument to teach it. He hoped sincerely that many of the women facing him would realize that his sermon had applied to their vapid lives, too.

He announced the final hymn, and dumbly Mrs. Stych stood up. She did not sing, however; her throat was too dry. For the first time in years, she wished passionately that Boyd had been with her to sustain her with his masculine strength. She had no hope that he would sympathize or understand what she was going through, but he might at least have felt some indignation at the clerical condemnation of his lack of parental responsibility; it would have put him on her side.

The service was soon over. Mrs. Stych sat down suddenly, fearing she was going to faint, and the florid woman and her two sticky children pushed past her to get out, without even her usual smile and “Hiya?” The minister raced round to the front door in order to be in time to shake hands with each member of his flock, and only when the great building was practically empty did Mrs. Stych rise and go out by the side door. Being a late arrival, she had had to park her car down a side street, and now she was glad of it. She crept home through snowy streets under skies as leaden as her spirits.

Not one woman, she realized with a pang, had slipped into her pew to sit with her and comfort her. Presumably this was going to be the time for paying off old scores, and Olga quailed as she realized how many old scores there were.