Bless Me Again, Father

by Neil Boyd

  Fr Duddleswell gestured to the flowers. ‘Has someone died, Mother?’

  ‘Your curate very nearly did, Fr Duddleswell.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was you, Mother,’ I said inanely.

  ‘Really?’ A ghost of a smile played about her lips. ‘I am sure that Fr Duddleswell’s buttons are not quite as tasty as my apple pie.’

  ‘No,’ I said, not wishing to be impertinent. ‘Not quite, Mother.’

  The Superior cast an eye around the disordered room. ‘I am sorry to interrupt your picnic.’

  ‘You have done me a favour, Mother,’ I said.

  ‘I have come to say that Mrs Rollings and I had a wonderful first instruction.’

  That sounded ominous. ‘Good, Mother,’ I said.

  ‘Exciting and really wonderful,’ Mrs Rollings said. She was an unsubtle person.

  The Superior pointed to my convert as if she were one of nature’s prodigies.

  ‘In my humble opinion, she is so clever in her probing questions, she really needs a priest to answer them.’

  ‘Me, Mother?’ I tried not to sound too wretched.

  ‘Who better?’

  The Superior said it as if this more than settled all past scores between us. She handed the bouquet to Fr Duddleswell. ‘For our Lady’s altar.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said, enthusiastically. ‘The flowers, I mean.’

  The Superior made the grand exit with everyone, myself included, bowing her out. Afterwards, I said:

  ‘What d’you make of that? Even Mother Stephen can’t cope with Mrs Rollings.’

  Fr Duddleswell nodded knowingly. ‘Women never get on with each other, you know. They’d much rather be ordered around by a man.’ He made a token sign of the cross over the food which was getting cold. ‘Eat your eggs, lad, before it hatches.’

  I sliced the top off my egg. ‘I must say, Father, you do very nice cornflakes in the morning.’

  ‘And me bag of potato chips at supper.’ He touched his lips in the best Italian fashion. ‘Incomparable.’

  I was wary of my egg. He caught me sniffing it.

  ‘Yes, Father Neil?’

  ‘I have found the solution to the oldest philosophical question of all.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ I turned up my nose. ‘It’s the egg. This one.’

  ‘What is wrong with it?’

  I sniffed it again. It was worse than smelling-salts. ‘It’s off.’

  ‘Ridiculous. Give it here.’

  I parted with it most willingly. When the egg was within a foot of his nose he banged it down on the desk and covered it with his biretta.

  ‘Mind it doesn’t blow a hole in your hat, Father.’

  He gingerly examined his own egg. ‘Mine is all right.’ A long-distance reconnaissance. ‘I think.’

  Indicating my bread, sliced up into portions, I said, ‘May I dip my soldiers into your egg?’

  ‘’Tis not hygienic.’

  ‘Father,’ I said gloomily, ‘when will Mrs P be back?’

  ‘In three or four days.’ He was still not sure his egg was edible or not. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘We can’t do without her.’

  He looked at me severely. ‘We can manage, I tell you.’ He pushed his egg away to a safe distance. ‘That egg.’

  ‘Want me to fetch my hat?’

  ‘And your coat.’

  ‘Why, Father?’

  ‘Because we are going out to lunch.’ He banged his paunch. ‘Before we starve to death.’

  A few days later, I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and there she was. I knew at once that it wasn’t Mrs Pring’s cooking or her work in the house that I had missed most but herself.

  ‘It’s been terrible without you,’ I said, giving her a hug.

  ‘Not what the little ogre of the house said.’

  ‘You know he’s very fond of you. But too shy to show it.’

  ‘Too proud, you mean.’

  Billy Buzzle had got wind of the homecoming. He appeared through the back door, clutching an ornate vase for Mrs Pring.

  ‘It’s like another birthday,’ she said, doing her best to check her emotion.

  Fr Duddleswell came in, followed by Helen.

  ‘Mr Buzzle,’ he said, glaring at our neighbour. ‘Are you wanting herself to darn more of your socks?’

  ‘Haven’t had the last lot back yet.’

  ‘Ready by tomorrow, Billy,’ Mrs Pring said.

  Billy squeezed her arm affectionately. ‘Thanks, love. Marvellous having you back.’

  ‘Thanks for the vase.’

  With Billy gone, Helen decided it was time for her to get back to her children. Fr Duddleswell showed her to the door.

  ‘Do you know, Mrs P,’ I said, ‘if Billy comes in like this often enough, Father D will think he’s courting you.’

  Mrs Pring laughed incredulously. ‘My Ted has always been enough for me.’

  ‘I know that. You know that. But from a certain point of view, you and Billy do look fairly close.’

  ‘Go on’, Mrs Pring said. ‘Pulling my leg. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’

  ‘The O’Hallorans have not paid their monthly dues.’

  Fr Duddleswell and I were poring over the accounts book in his study like a couple of recording angels.

  ‘Mrs Pring’s in tip-top form since she came back, Father.’

  ‘Is that so?’ His index finger tapped the name of another defaulter. ‘Neither have the O’Regans.’

  ‘Radiant, in fact.’

  Fr Duddleswell threw down his pencil. ‘Look, lad. Are you trying to tell me something?’

  ‘I was wondering if you’re going to lose her for good, that’s all.’

  ‘For good is right,’ he said, recovering his pencil. ‘Who to?’

  ‘Our esteemed neighbour.’

  ‘Is that one on the look out for a housekeeper?’

  He had to wait for my reply. ‘Maybe something more.’

  ‘A wife?’ His smile made me think of a trapeze artist giving his first performance. ‘What are you, lad, a matchmaker looking over the local talent?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘If so,’ he said, gritting his teeth for a second, ‘I have never heard of them.’

  ‘Won’t you be sorry to see her go?’

  ‘Neither glad nor sorry like a dog at his father’s wake.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, off-hand. I put my nose back in the ledger. The Penns are in arrears.’

  He mused aloud. ‘The idea is too absurd, like a lawyer dying without making a will.’ I pretended not to hear. ‘Billy is not a Catholic. What could she possibly see in a heathen Bookie?’

  I contented myself with muttering, ‘Cupid. Cupid.’

  ‘Absurd,’ he repeated, to stifle his growing sense of insecurity. ‘He’s as old as a field.’

  ‘I know he’s no Valentino—’

  ‘He is not even a rival to Mickey Mouse.’

  ‘But,’ I insisted on finishing, ‘he may be wanting nothing more than someone to …’

  ‘To?’

  ‘Well, to darn his socks.’

  ‘It seems herself does that behind me back already.’

  ‘That’s how romances start, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mrs Pring,’ he fumed, ‘has been darning my socks for over twenty years and I have not felt the least twinge of romance.’

  ‘Goodness,’ I said loudly, as if it were an important discovery, ‘the Rogers family haven’t paid their dues.’

  ‘Who bloody well cares?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said distantly, ‘that’s the trouble, I suppose.’

  He was on the run. ‘What is?’

  ‘You don’t make a fuss of her.’

  ‘In what way, pray?’

  ‘A bunch of flowers now and again.’

  He snorted belligerently. ‘She would have more
airs and graces than she has now.’

  There was a knock on the door and Mrs Pring arrived, as if on cue.

  ‘Father D, do you think I could have the evening off?’

  ‘There is no whist drive, is there?’

  ‘No.’

  He sniffed suspiciously. ‘The old sheep wants to get out and see the world, is that it?’

  ‘Mr Buzzle’s asked me out to his night club.’

  The vein in Fr Duddleswell’s temple jumped in and out. ‘Cannot you mend his socks here? At home?’

  ‘He’s asked me out to dinner.’

  ‘Has he? Well, er—Provided you are home by eleven.’

  Mrs Pring stood there, defiant. ‘I’m a housekeeper, not a chained-up curate.’

  He spiked himself with his thumb. ‘Muggins here has to wait up for you.’

  ‘I am old enough to look after myself.’

  ‘You are many times old enough to look after yourself but I have to do the locking up.’

  ‘I’ll be back,’ Mrs Pring said, turning to go, ‘when I’m back.’

  I looked at Fr Duddleswell, wide-eyed. ‘It’s beginning to look—’

  ‘Ridiculous. The woman has been with me for—’

  ‘Twety tedious years,’ we said in chorus.

  Next morning after breakfast, I was on the landing when I saw Fr Duddleswell creep out of his study armed with a big bunch of flowers. They looked suspiciously like the bouquet Mother Stephen had donated to the Lady altar.

  He walked tiptoe down the passageway to Mrs Pring’s kitchen. I followed him unseen.

  ‘May I come in?’ I heard him say.

  ‘If you must.’

  The door closed behind him. Unashamedly, I approached and put my ear to it. No sense in setting up a drama if you can’t see it through to the end.

  ‘Did you have a nice meal last evening, Mrs Pring?’

  ‘Lovely, thank you. And very pleasant company.’

  ‘That is fine. Fine.’

  ‘I didn’t get back till one o’clock.’ The tone was challenging.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘I waited up for you.’

  ‘I didn’t see a light on.’

  ‘Well, now, Mrs Pring, I was, er, sitting in the dark, like.’

  ‘Spying on me, I suppose.’

  ‘Not at all. I could not see a thing in the dark.’

  When is he going to give her the flowers? I thought.

  ‘Come for something?’ asked Mrs Pring, who must have noticed the bouquet, even if he were holding it behind his back.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he hedged, ‘if the kitchen, your kitchen needed decorating.’

  ‘It’ll do for a bit.’

  ‘The food was terrible while you were away.’

  ‘Not surprised.’

  ‘I boiled one egg and the hum off it nearly flattened the town.’

  Things were not moving fast enough for my liking. I walked noisily on the spot before bouncing into the kitchen.

  They both turned startled eyes in my direction as if I were a runaway horse.

  ‘Mrs P,’ I called out. Then, in a disconcerted tone; ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Do forgive me. I never meant to intrude.’

  ‘You are not intruding,’ Fr Duddleswell snapped.

  ‘If I had known,’ I said contritely, and, with exaggerated tact, withdrew.

  ‘He is a good curate, you know,’ I heard Fr Duddleswell say coolly. ‘Makes friends like a stray dog.’

  I raced, soft-footed to the front door, went out and round the side of the house to the kitchen window. It was open. I could hear the conversation even better from there.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Pring, I have a little present for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Did some lady bring them for the church?’

  ‘Mrs Pring!’ He sounded hurt but you could never tell.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that this is the first time in all these years.’

  ‘Mother Stephen did bring some flowers for our Lady’s altar.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘But that was days ago and, besides, they all wilted.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’ There was a slight rustling sound as Fr Duddleswell handed over the bouquet. They must have cost you.’

  ‘Not too much.’

  ‘I don’t mean in money,’ Mrs Pring said.

  ‘In what, then?’

  ‘In admitting all your faults.’

  ‘I did not offer you that bouquet as an apology,’ he said sharply.

  I strongly suspect that she dumped them in his arms.

  ‘In that case, you can have them back.’

  ‘I cannot do that,’ he said gently. ‘Take them, please.’

  God, I thought, he is a brave chap.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You have been with me for over twenty years.’

  ‘Is that all it is?’ she said.

  ‘Were you, er, thinking of—?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leaving.’

  ‘Where for?’

  ‘Somewhere else.’

  ‘Somewhere else?’

  ‘It was not in the back of your mind to get, er, hitched?’

  Mrs Pring was evidently startled. ‘Who to, anyone I know?’

  A pause and then a hesitant, ‘Next door.’

  The kitchen rang with Mrs Pring’s laughter. ‘Me marry Billy Buzzle? What on earth gave you that idea?’

  I could almost hear the grinding of teeth. ‘A mischievous young pup whose backside I am going to sink me boot in.’

  I thanked God I was safe in the garden.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for all you do for us.’

  ‘That’s nothing.’

  ‘I realize that,’ he said. ‘Oh, and I nearly forgot.’

  ‘Another present?’

  It wasn’t. He must have dipped in his pocket, for when, out of curiosity, I momentarily glanced in, I saw him holding up a fistful of socks.

  ‘They need darning by tomorrow.’

  Just then Billy came through our garden gate. I put my fingers to my lips, begging him not to give me away.

  ‘Is the coast clear, young ‘un?’ he whispered.

  I nodded treacherously, as I thought, and watched him enter the kitchen.

  ‘Hello, love. Them my socks?’

  Fr Duddleswell was restored to his usual cheerful self. ‘Hello, me dear old pal, Mr Buzzle. ’Tis grand seeing you again.’

  ‘You under the weather?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Stay as long as you like,’ his old enemy said. ‘Or even longer. ‘Bye now.’ And he left, probably in search of my backside.

  ‘Well, love,’ Billy said, ‘I was hoping to give you a beautiful bunch of flowers out of my garden but—’

  He came to a suddden halt, having seen what the other chap had brought.

  ‘What’s up, Billy?’

  ‘Some perisher pinched them.’

  ‘Do these look familiar?’

  ‘Very. Who gave ’em you?’

  ‘A nasty little hypocrite,’ Mrs Pring said, ‘who from now on will have to mend his own blooming socks.’

  14 The Bomb Scare

  Days of recollection for the clergy. I never enjoyed them.

  On the first Monday of each month, parish priests and curates gathered at a convent where three shillings entitled them to lunch, tea and a couple of homilies from a guest preacher.

  The parish priests in particular, many of them elderly, made me feel I was attending a meeting of moth-eaten emperors. In chapel, they spread themselves in the pews as if, used to wielding absolute authority, they needed double the space a layman needed to sit down.

  Some of them, stalwarts in their eighties, devoted, hardworking, out of touch, refused to retire. They had nothing to retire for. Fr Duddleswell said they reminded him of Neville Chamberlain who, in 1940, assured the nation it was his sacred duty to lead them to ultimate victory.

  ‘God help the nation,’ he commen
ted, ‘and God help some poor parishes with these geriatrics in charge.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you when it’s time for you to retire.’

  ‘Thank you, lad,’ he said warmly. ‘But first be sure I have switched me deaf-aid off.’

  The day of recollection began at ten thirty with Mass. Throughout, Bishop O’Reilly, who presided on the sanctuary, advertised his devotion to Our Lady by thumbing his rosary. Many of the clergy, their lips moving like sowing machines, recited their breviary for the day.

  One priest alone made an effort to join in the responses: Fr Peters, a man with a reputation for eccentricity, who sat on his own in the front bench. He was what in our diocese was something of a rarity: a pucker Englishman. He had been to Oxford, sported a monocle in the best Bertie Wooster manner, sniffed snuff with the force of a vacuum cleaner, spoke with an extremely posh accent and, above all, cared less for his appearance than a hermit in the desert.

  It was said, unkindly, that he had last bathed at the outbreak of war in 1939. As one wag put it, ‘Billy Peters is the only saint of God who will die of the odour of sanctity.’

  This particular Monday, the guest preacher was an American Jesuit, Fr Frank Strood, a native of Jersey City. I had met him when I had occasion to ask at a Jesuit House of Studies for a priest to hear my confession. He was at his ablutions. He had obliged, all the same, clad only in miniature blue underpants, with a towel draped round his shoulders to serve as a stole.

  Fr Strood’s morning talk was received as favourably as most devotional talks are received by the clergy. In other words, no open hostility. He spoke about the heart of Christ, a theme he illustrated by stories from the Gospels.

  Lunch followed. It was supposed to be eaten in silence apart from a young priest reading extracts from John’s Gospel and The Imitation of Christ. In fact, the noise was deafening.

  The clergy rarely saw each other except at the funerals of colleagues and days of recollection like this. There was a huge temptation to bring each other up to date on diocesan affairs. Close up, the clerical grapevine was a fearsome thing.

  After the meal, the Bishop left for a previous engagement at Bishop’s House which everyone interpreted as his siesta. The rest of us, after a respite for smoking and recreation, went back in a soporific mood for Fr Strood’s final talk.

  ‘Facing the Future,’ he called it. His line was that the Catholic Church, like any other institution, has to change to meet the changing times. This was news to many of us, including me. We took it for granted that the chief role of the Church was not to change when everything around her did. She was founded not to mirror the world but to make it holy. She was the Rock in the storm.