The Complete Roderick

games — how to read a robot’s mind, crud you wouldn’t believe, a book called The Soul of the Robot, another one Computer Worship — and all the time his faith is just winding down, winding down… That really makes me sick, you know? I want to reach out a hand and — by the way, you see his hands? I got Doc Sam to look at him, he says it’s just some local infection, clear up in a minute if he could only stop scratching — but like I said I want to reach out to him, help him, only he won’t help himself! Like yesterday I took him my rowing machine, figured if he won’t come outa the study at least he could get in a little workout, you know what happened? He went all to pieces, started moaning how it wasn’t fair, I couldn’t show him the instruments of torture until I at least asked the question! Instruments of torture! My old rowing machine!’

‘Yes, yes Father.’

That ain’t the worst end of it.’ He wrote 2, hesitated and added 3. ‘He hasn’t said Mass for two weeks, that’s what hurts. That’s what really hurts, Sister. I have to take morning Mass every day and six times on Sunday, double confessions every Saturday — when am I supposed to get down to my own darn commitments? I got no time for the team, no time for planning, firming up dates for the league play-offs, nothing! Not to mention a few business commitments, sure I could scratch them now but then next season how do we get a deal on uniforms? Same with the devotional items, how else we gonna build the new stadium?’

Sister Filomena said nothing, but he seemed to feel her silence as criticism.

‘Sure, okay I spend a lot of time on these things, yeah and a lot of time at the country club too, but Sister, it’s all an investment. It’ll pay off for the school, the kids, everybody! Only now… and all because of one rotten kid, it makes me sick.’

‘Father Warren’s sick too,’ she reminded him. ‘And I think we ought to do something about him. I think he needs hospital care.’ ‘Hospital? Oh no you don’t. I’m not having our record dragged in the mud like that, not when I’m that close to Monsignor. All we gotta do is play it cool and hang in there, this place’ll be a Deanery next Fall. Isn’t that what we all want? The Deanery of Holy Trinity? Or do we want it to be known as “Holy Trinity, yeah, where that priest went bananas”. Besides, he’s not that bad. He’s just, it’s just that kid, having that kid around. Get rid of him, and Father Warren will be—’

‘I was thinking of the scandal, Father. I suppose you know already Mrs Feeney thinks he’s a saint, and she’s not the only one, half the older women in the parish are saying he’s got the stigmata, the sacred wounds—’

‘Hey!’ Father O’Bride didn’t look at all distressed. ‘They could be right, you know? Who are we to—’

‘Father!’

‘Yeah okay but it’s worth thinking about. Now about this kid. I want him out of our hair now. Right away.’

‘Expulsion?’

‘Nope, too messy, too many explanations. Look, since he’s a smart kid, why don’t we just graduate him? Yeah? That’s it, we’ll graduate him!’

Sister Filomena cleared her throat. ‘I ought to remind you, Father, that while I respect your opinion, I am the principal of this school. We can’t just—’

‘If we don’t,’ he said, ‘we’re all washed up. You, me, the school, the good sisters, and especially Father Warren. Whole team.’

‘I see,’ she said, after a moment.

‘Great. Terrific. Now you just jog on and fill out a diploma for the kid, hand it to him when he comes in, and that’s that. Okay? I gotta coupla phone calls to make…’

XXI

‘…him being an inventor and all,’ Mr Muscatine finished. Roderick was staring out of the window. The rain outside the mourners’ car fell in sheets (as he knew it always did at funerals), probably flattening the young oats, and certainly cancelling the big game against the St Theresa Terrors. Over the hiss of tyres, the squeak of windshield wipers and the taped sounds of Sereno Benito’s Strings, it was hard to make out what the little funeral director was rambling on about. ‘No charge of course.’

Ma wasn’t listening, either. She stared out at (or past) billboards advertising Quebec beer, Finnish toilet paper and Turkish cars, and she kept humming that same aimless tune from the Bow-wow Symphony. Probably still couldn’t realize that Pa was dead. He turned to the window again. A rainbow ran with them briefly, the end of it ploughing across Howdy Doody Lake and then apparently dropping back to linger at the new Welby-Bangfield Corporation property development.

Wally Muscatine carried on. ‘My nephew Cliff knocked it together. You know, a bright boy like that gets itchy just setting around all day out there at the junkyard. Has to keep busy, see? So anyway I just thought we’d give it a little run today, see how she goes. Like to think your Pa would want Cliff to have his chance.’

Ma looked around. ‘What was that, Mr Muscatine?’

‘Oh just telling the boy here about my new set of pallbearers. Fully automatic,’ he said, winking. ‘Patent Applied For.’

‘Patent—?’

‘Hope we get some sun, though. Brought the old camera along, thought we might get a publicity shot or so. Like to help young Cliff along.’

The humming commenced again.

* * *

Ma had been acting strangely — even for Ma since the night of the raid. Roderick had expected tears for Pa, anger at the stupid million-dollar gas bill, anything but this quiet smile, this constant humming. Every now and then she’d wander into Pa’s workshop and rattle some tools, as though looking for something. At other times she seemed to think Pa was only upstairs, lying down after dinner.

‘Bless his heart, he will overeat,’ she’d said yesterday. ‘Chicken and dumplings, chicken and dumplings. Do you know, he likes them so much, I’ve cooked them three times a day for the past forty-odd years?’

‘Ma, listen.’

‘To what?’

‘To me. Listen, Pa is not upstairs lying down. He’s dead.’

‘Pshaw!’ she said, spelling out the unpronounceable word. ‘He’s no more dead than — than I don’t know who than John Keats!’

‘But he’s—’

‘Oh sure his heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains his senses as though of hemlock he had drunk, maybe, but that’s not dead. Why, every time you read John Keats he comes to life and speaks, didn’t you know that? Son, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

‘Well gee sure Ma, but…’ But it was no use arguing. He had to go along with the whole charade, pretending to wonder what new invention Pa was working on today; setting out Pa’s plate at the dinner-table (though now that Pa was there only in spirit, Roderick noticed that the old man seemed weary of chicken and dumplings, preferring instead Ma’s vegetarian diet); watching Ma go out for her solitary night-time rambles.

‘Now you stay home, just in case your Pa needs anything upstairs I won’t be long, just getting some ether I mean air.’ And off she’d go, carrying with her some memento: a pair of old earphones, a soldering iron.

The seance was even worse.

‘Now you just sit down there,’ she said, ‘by the African violets, and I’ll sit here in Pa’s chair. And for Pete’s sake, try to get into the correct frame of mind, I don’t want the astral waves all cluttered up with sceptical static’

(‘Saw ’em through the window,’ Miss Violetta Stubbs would say later. ‘Her and that black man sitting practically in the dark, holding hands and I don’t know what else!’)

But how could he get into the correct frame of mind? The whole game seemed so pathetic, with Ma asking herself questions and then kicking the table leg once for yes twice for no… and not even really acting as if she believed it herself:

‘Is there anybody there?’ she called out, adding with a chuckle, ‘said Walter de la Mare. “Mr Sludge, stop