Bless Me, Father

by Neil Boyd

  ‘There is nothing the matter with you, Charles, that a holy death cannot cure.’

  ‘Is me pulse all right?’ I was surprised to see that Dr Daley did not bother to look at his watch while taking his pulse.

  ‘Oh,’ the Doctor said, ‘I was but holding your hand for old time’s sake. But, yes, your pulse is very normal for one in your appalling condition.’ He took the thermometer from Fr Duddleswell’s mouth. ‘Um. Tut,’ and a deep sucking in of air. ‘It makes the saddest reading since the sinking of the Titanic.’

  ‘Have I a temperature, Donal?’

  ‘Let me put it thus, Charles. If you breathed your last this very second and were fortunate enough to squeeze into Purgatory, you wouldn’t notice the difference.’ He touched the cigarette in his mouth. ‘Your thermometer is even hotter than mine. Now, tell me what happened and all?’

  ‘Everything was prospering with us,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘till a cloud burst.’

  ‘Myself,’ Dr Daley said, ‘I will never look at the rain. Filthy stuff.’

  ‘A deluge. There has not been the like since the days of Noah and his ark.’

  ‘Tut-tut.’

  ‘Without the slightest warning there came over this crow-black cloud and bit the wick off the sun.’

  ‘Tut-tut, tut-tut, tut-tut, tut.’

  ‘How was I to know the Almighty God was emptying out the bathwater of all the saints over our Bazaar? And the wind.’

  Dr Daley tutted that in sympathy, too.

  ‘I swear to you, Donal, the only thing left standing for a mile around was a solitary coconut.’

  ‘You must be in the Almighty’s black books, Charles.’

  ‘He is certainly in mine for this queerness of me head, Donal. Still,’ he muttered mysteriously, ‘six hundred pounds. The good God has not entirely emigrated from the parish.’

  ‘You haven’t a sup of whiskey hid away in your hot water bottle, I suppose.’

  ‘I have not. You have had a drop taken already on the way, too. I could smell it on you with a peg on me nose.’

  Dr Daley slumped down on a chair beside the bed. ‘You are uncommon severe with me, Charles, you know that? Have you forgotten our Lord’s own sensible words, “There is but one thing necessary, one thing.”’

  ‘He was not talking about the liquor.’

  ‘Oh, no?’ Dr Daley said challengingly. ‘Did our Blessed Lord choose wine or water for the Holy Mass?’

  ‘Wine.’

  ‘And did He or did He not turn water into wine?’

  ‘That He did.’

  ‘And can you tell me one instance in the Holy Book where He turned wine into water?’

  ‘I am not able.’

  ‘There,’ he exclaimed in triumph, ‘doesn’t that show the way our Blessed Saviour’s mind was working? Had He changed wine into water, now, which of us would believe He was the Son of God?’

  Without removing his cigarette, the Doctor performed the remarkable feat of blowing a superb smoke ring. It hovered before ascending slowly like a shaky symbol of eternity.

  Suspecting their theological argument was likely to last for some time, I excused myself and went down to lunch.

  Dr Daley came in to the dining room at the coffee stage.

  ‘How is he?’ Mrs Pring asked, trying to mask her concern.

  ‘He got a rough handling from the water,’ said Dr Daley, ‘and that stuff has no medicinal properties as I’ve noticed. It’s gastric ’flu.’

  ‘Poor Father D,’ said Mrs Pring. ‘He did look pale. As if he’d just caught sight of himself in the mirror.’

  ‘A face white as Connemara stone,’ confirmed Dr Daley. ‘When I left him he was bankrupt of argument and not excessively well. Coughing like a cow with a turnip down its throat and he has turned political.’

  ‘Pardon,’ I said, not knowing what he meant by the expression.

  ‘He will have a seat in the cabinet for a day or two but then he will be in health. The good Lord Himself has not sharp enough teeth to bite the thread of him altogether.’

  Mrs Pring said, ‘May he live and feign for ever and ever.’

  ‘He will,’ Dr Daley said, ‘provided you are diligent with him and keep him in bed in between his diplomatic journeys to and fro. He’s got a temperature of 103 and delirium non tremens. Keeps muttering something about £600.

  On Wednesday morning, Fr Duddleswell rose, celebrated a private Mass and afterwards joined me in the dining room wearing one of his most sheepish smiles. On his side plate was an enormous pile of letters.

  ‘There’s another two bundles in your study,’ Mrs Pring told him.

  Fr Duddleswell, in between mouthfuls of toast, was slitting open the envelopes with a butter knife and giving me a running commentary on ‘this unexampled generosity of our good people.’

  ‘Here is a note from an old-age pensioner, Mrs Wright, and her postal order for two pounds ten shillings. What d’you think of that, Father Neil?’ he asked as his spectacles steamed up from emotion. ‘And here is a letter from Colonel Sir John Tophall wishing me a speedy recovery and promising me a cheque for a pound.’

  While not unappreciative of this beneficence, I couldn’t help reflecting that the other two ‘bundles’ in his study would have to reach the ceiling if we were to reach our target. He must have seen through me, for he whispered:

  ‘Father Neil, will we ever make a true Christian of you?’

  I put my nose in a cup of coffee to prevent myself becoming ironical again.

  He turned his attention to Mrs Pring. ‘Herself is being considerably quiet.’

  ‘She is pleased to have you in the way again, Father.’

  ‘Not at all. Her silence is but a ruse for drawing attention to herself.’ Mrs Pring smiled as if to say, I was right after all. ‘There, y’see, the cow’s tail is on the swing.’

  ‘There’s no fun in being miserable, is there?’ said Mrs Pring. ‘Did you know, Father D, you won the bottle of whiskey in the raffle?’

  ‘Faith rewarded,’ he commented. ‘But that is the first time I have ever won a thing in a raffle.’

  ‘And the last,’ she said. ‘You bought the only ticket.’

  ‘With my money,’ I said. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I will give you your sixpence back, Father Neil.’

  ‘No need. Dr Daley gave me a sixpence and walked off with the bottle.’

  At that moment, Fr Duddleswell came across a big envelope that caused him to release an exultant cry:

  ‘That’s the bit of charity I have been waiting for.’

  He slit the letter open and admired the contents for a moment before holding up a cheque. It was from the Moonlight Insurance Company to the tune of £600. My eyes had never before settled on such a valuable piece of paper.

  ‘You mean,’ I gasped, ‘you insured the Bazzar against a downpour?’

  ‘I do the same every year, Father Neil. In fact, because of me excellent record, the premium this year was only £10.’

  ‘Cheaper than a marquee, you mean?’

  ‘Mind you, Father Neil, we only received £600 because the Bazaar was completely washed out.’

  ‘Rain, O Blessed Virgin, rain.’

  ‘The Holy Mother can always be relied on, can she not?’

  ‘You talk about faith,’ said Mrs Pring shrilly, realizing he had outwitted her. ‘You’re an old fraud, you are.’ And she stamped out.

  Fr Duddleswell looked at me and shrugged in astonishment.

  ‘Father,’ I put it to him, ‘how can you talk about faith in God when you fall back on an insurance company?’

  ‘It is faith, Father Neil,’ he insisted. ‘God answered me prayers exactly, did He not?’

  The truth came to me in a flash. ‘You mean you prayed for rain?’

  ‘Surely. For a deluge. Why do you reckon it happened so?’

  ‘Even though you pleaded with the congregation to pray for fine weather?’

  ‘Perfect weather,’ he corrected me. ‘And it w
as. Look.’ He held up the cheque again.

  ‘But, Father, you led the people in prayer, even the orphans and widows.’

  He rested his head on his hand. ‘When we pray, Father Neil, we do not all have to pray for the same thing, surely. We must leave the Lord a choice, like. And He decided in me favour. Which is very fitting, seeing I am in charge here.’

  Mrs Pring knocked and announced a visitor. Billy Buzzle.

  ‘Are you improved, Fr O’Duddleswell?’

  ‘No, Mr McBuzzle,’ said Fr Duddleswell, finding from somewhere a husky voice not in evidence before. ‘Suddenly very much worse. I am soon off again to me fever-hut.’

  I told Mr Buzzle we had managed to reach our target without him, after all.

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ he said. ‘What did it rain on your Bazaar, then, pennies from heaven?’

  Fr Duddleswell asked, ‘How is your good dog Judas, Mr Buzzle?’

  ‘Pontius.’

  ‘Indeed, Pontius.’

  ‘Not a drop of rain dampened this road,’ said Billy. ‘You know you were blankety-blank lucky.’

  ‘Mr Buzzle, would you be gracious and come back another time when I am recovered?’

  ‘If you like,’ Billy said. ‘But I brought you this.’

  From his inside pocket he fished out a big buff envelope and dropped it on the table in front of Fr Duddleswell. Then he left.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  Fr Duddleswell poked it suspiciously with his knife. ‘An envelope?’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  Mrs Pring said, ‘What do Bookies usually put in envelopes? That’s his winnings.’

  Fr Duddleswell slit open the envelope and tipped the contents on to the table. Once more, my previous financial standards of comparison were overturned. There, spread out before me, were more fivers than I had ever seen.

  ‘How much, Father, six hundred?’

  ‘And thirty. I get me stake money back as well, you follow?’

  ‘You laid out thirty on a downpour?’

  ‘I was desperate to show Billy there is no ill will between us.’

  ‘There probably is now.’

  ‘Not at all. Could you not see his respect for me has rocketed skyhigh?’

  ‘Thirty pounds,’ I whistled.

  ‘It seemed good odds at 20–1.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘Mind you, Billy thought he had me over a barrel. Remember it had not rained for nearly four weeks.’

  I tried to absorb this new piece of information. ‘So altogether you’ve made a profit of twelve hundred.’

  ‘More,’ he said reluctantly. ‘There are all these contributions of the faithful to be added to that.’

  ‘Faith-ful?’

  He missed my point, I suppose, for he went on, ‘The good people will be so pleased we reached our target after all their efforts and prayers. Had we failed, it might have weakened their trust in the Almighty no end.’

  I dropped irony and told him straight what I thought of his subterfuges and Mrs Pring said ‘Hypocrite’.

  It had some effect. ‘Of course, while God likes help when helping people, gambling is a heinous sin.’ And he thumped his breast. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.’

  ‘And these, Father, are the wages of sin.’

  ‘Father Neil, I will not try to hide from you the fact that your parish priest for all his saintly exterior is a terrible sinner. I will undeniably end up in hell like the chappie in The Mikado who cheated at billiards.’

  ‘How was he punished?’

  ‘Oh, he was condemned to a fiercely guarded dungeon,’—here he began to recite while making the appropriate gestures over the table cloth:

  And there he plays extravagant matches

  In fitless finger stalls

  On a cloth untrue

  With a twisted cue

  And elliptical billiard-balls.

  ‘D’you know, Father Neil,’ he said, with a twinkle of unrepentance in his big blue eyes, ‘sometimes I ask meself if I have any faith at all.’

  V The New Assistant

  ‘Tony Marlowe’s the name, Father.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Marlowe.’

  ‘This is my wife, Rena, and our two girls. Mary’s eight and Joanna’s five.’

  It was early Friday evening. I had been standing alone, smiling inanely at no one in particular, at the back of Tipton Hall. We hired it out once a week for family get-togethers. I was wanting to be sociable and it came as a relief to have a friendly group come up and speak to me.

  ‘You’re our parishioners, I take it, Tony?’

  ‘Been here all my life. Rena’s the foreigner. From Glasgow. The girls have picked up the accent. You’d hear it if only their tongues weren’t tied in knots.’

  The girls, clinging to their mother, twisted their legs and giggled.

  Tony said, ‘Why don’t you pop in and see us some time, Father?’

  ‘Yes, and join us for a cup of tea,’ said Rena in a strong Glaswegian accent. ‘We’d be pleased to see you at any time.’

  ‘I’d like to do that. Where do you live?’

  ‘Our flat’s over our shop, the grocer’s shop on the corner of Calvert Street.’

  ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘And how’s trade?’

  ‘Too busy at the moment, Father,’ Tony replied. ‘My chief assistant has just gone down with an attack of chronic bronchitis and I can’t get a replacement for love nor money. The job’s tough, and if that weren’t enough, nobody wants to work Saturday afternoons any more.’

  I remembered that chance conversation when, after the midday Mass on the Sunday following, a broad, squat, venomous-looking character appeared, cap in hand, in the sacristy.

  ‘Archie Lee,’ he announced, as I was taking off the green chasuble.

  I thought I’d better give him the benefit of the doubt and shook his hand A very gnarled hand it was, too, like the branch of an oak.

  ‘What can I do for you, Mr Lee?’

  As I was saying it, I felt he was mentally picking my pocket. He was in his fifties, unshaven, poorly dressed.

  ‘I need a bit of ’elp, Father.’

  ‘Well, Mr Lee …’

  ‘Archie.’

  ‘Archie. In this parish, we have a very well organized conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society. If you have any genuine needs, I’m sure …’

  ‘It’s not money I’m after, Father.’

  ‘Not money?’

  ‘Not money,’ he said.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I need a job.’

  ‘Is that so hard to find?’ I asked, as if I managed to get a new one every week. ‘What’s wrong with the Labour Exchange?’

  ‘No use, Father. Even when they get me a job, which ain’t often, I can’t seem to keep it for long.’

  ‘Been “inside” have you, Archie?’ I asked knowingly.

  Archie bowed his head. ‘You won’t tell no one will you, Father?’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘In strictest confidence, yeah?’

  ‘Word of honour, I’ll treat it,’ I said, taking a leaf out of Fr Duddleswell’s book, ‘as if it were a confessional secret.’

  Archie positively purred with pleasure. ‘This is ’ow it is, Father,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been inside many a time in me life. More inside than out, if you grasp my meaning?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But ’onest to Gawd, Father,’ Archie said, signing himself, ‘six months past, I promised meself I’d go straight and I ’ave, I really ’ave.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said, as I removed the last of my Mass vestments. I was intrigued by Archie; he was the first convicted criminal I’d ever come across. I hoped the encounter would prove beneficial to my ministry.

  ‘Been a bit of a challenge, Father, I can tell yer. When people ’ear you’ve got a record, they don’t wanner know. Grasp my meaning? And I get shot out in the snow on me … on me back, time and again.’<
br />
  ‘People split on you, do they Archie?’

  Archie pursed his lips and sighed as if the situation was often desperate. ‘I struggle on, Father, because … well, it ain’t fitting to be crooked all yer life, is it? But you wouldn’t know about that sort o’ thing, I s’pose.’

  I hastened to assure Archie that understanding was my métier.

  ‘What about ’elping me get a job, Father?’

  It was then I remembered Tony Marlowe’s words about being short-staffed in his grocery shop.

  ‘How strong are you, Archie?’

  ‘I once lifted a safe weighing near three ’undred pounds on me own.’

  ‘Did you have to do that, Archie?’ I asked, displeased at the example he had chosen to illustrate his strength.

  ‘Yeah. Yer see I couldn’t break the bloody … the thing, Father. Shall I give you a demo’? See that safe there’—he pointed to our parish safe in which we stored the chalices and the Sunday collections—‘tell me where yer want it put and I’ll oblige.’

  ‘No need, I assure you, Archie,’ I said, as I moved over to the safe, heaved it to and turned the key.

  ‘You don’t ’ave to lock up on my account, Father. I could open it with a toothbrush if I chose, but as I told yer, these days, I’m straighter’n a corpse on the end of a rope.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ I said ashamedly. ‘One more question, Archie.’

  ‘Fire away, Father.’

  ‘Do you mind working on Saturday afternoons?’

  ‘Never done it, not since I left gaol. But I’ll try anything if it’s gonna keep the wolf from the door.’

  ‘All right, Archie, I’ll see what I can do. I know a grocer who’s looking for an assistant in his store. If you’d care to come to the presbytery at three o’clock I’ll tell you if he’ll take you on.’

  ‘That’s real Christly of you,’ was Archie’s parting remark.

  After lunch I phoned Tony Marlowe and told him I had a prospective assistant for him who could start whenever he liked and who didn’t mind working on Saturday afternoons.

  ‘What’s he like, Father? Give it to me straight.’

  ‘Seems honest enough,’ I hedged.

  ‘Is he sharp at figures?’

  ‘I know he’s handled a lot of money in his time,’ I said. ‘And you can take it from me he’s as strong as a carthorse and as willing.’