by Neil Boyd
I looked down the church at him. ‘My dear brother in Christ,’ I began in as muffled a manner as I could manage.
‘Get on with you, lad.’
‘My text is: “Father Noah hogged the wine and became drunk and lay naked in his tent”.’ The church’s emptiness made my voice echo and re-echo. The indistinctness of my contribution was beyond question.
Fr Duddleswell was scratching his head. ‘’Tis right what you say, Father Neil.’
I cupped my hand to my ear. ‘What did you say, Father?’
He beckoned me to leave the pulpit. When I joined him, he was muttering, ‘It sounds as mixed up as a woman’s motives or an Irish stew, and no mistake.’ He enlisted my help once more. ‘Now, into me box and confess your sins.’ Seeing my unwillingness, he said, ‘I promise to keep whatever you confess under the seal.’ As I entered, he called after me, ‘And do not forget to admit you gobbled up all those strawberries when there are millions starving in India.’
I knelt down and fairly bellowed in my clearest accents, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’ Since he didn’t tell me to stop, I shouted on, ‘It’s twenty years since my last confession. I stole the sweet rations of the children in the orphanage. I didn’t wash my feet last month. I committed adultery.’
Fr Duddleswell gave a sharp tap on the box.
Lingering lovingly on each loud syllable, I cried, ‘Did you hear my A-DUL-TER-Y?’
Another tap and a crisp command. ‘That is enough, Father Neil. ’Tis quite enough, d’you hear me speak to you?’
I emerged from the confessional with a sense of a job well done. The smile vanished immediately from my face when I saw who was kneeling piously in the rear bench.
Fr Duddleswell said, ‘Miss Flanagan. Miss Flanagan.’ And this time, I thought it polite to add, ‘Miss Flanagan. Miss Flanagan,’ on my own account.
In a soft voice, Fr Duddleswell said, ‘Your sins are a deal more entertaining than your sermons.’
One of the ladies stood up. In a loud stage-whisper: ‘Would you mind hearing our confessions, Fr Duddleswell?’
‘Delighted, Miss Flanagan, delighted.’ To me, he said, ‘God forgive me for being such a hypocrite. Into the house with you. Cannot have you hovering in the vicinity of me confessional. These two old dears may have been handing round more elderberry wine.’
He entered his box and turned about to face me. ‘If I am not out by supper time, fetch me me nose-bag here.’
He gave the gentle whinny of a horse and slammed the top half of his box.
Back in the presbytery, I told Mrs Pring about my ears. Immediately she came to my room armed with a spirit lamp, a spoon and a bottle of olive oil.
She sat me down and draped a towel round my neck. ‘I’ll spoon-feed your ears with olive oil to loosen the wax that’s blocking them,’ she said.
As she went about her work, I apologized for letting her down. I admitted mentioning her name in connection with Mr Bottesford and Mrs Conroy. She shrugged it off as of no consequence. Fr D had to learn somehow.
‘You did actually hear what Mrs Conroy said in confession, Mrs P?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘Mrs Davis, my friend who’s an assistant in Woolworth’s, she heard.’
I was shaken to discover that what I had relayed to Fr Duddleswell in good faith was only an unsubstantiated rumour. When I told Mrs Pring that only a few minutes earlier we had seen the butcher and the undertaker having a friendly pint together she uttered a dire warning about what she would do to ‘that hussy Mrs Davis’ next time they met. I agreed it would be kind to put the record right.
‘I went to Fr D for confession,’ said Mrs Pring dreamily. ‘Only once.’
‘So did I,’ I said. ‘But that was brave of you, Mrs P.’
‘Not really. I told him exactly what I thought of him. That’s the only time he’s ever forgiven me.’ She broke off. ‘Hold your head to one side, please.’ I obliged. ‘Don’t forget your convert is coming for her first instruction this afternoon.’
‘What’s she like?’
Mrs Rollings, she explained, was married to the baker. Wilf was a cradle-Catholic and they had twin boys aged eight. As to Mrs Rollings herself, Mrs Pring suggested, ‘Fr D’s handed her over to you because he considers her unteachable. And for once in his life, he may be right.’
‘Any idea why she wants to become a Catholic?’
‘Strictly between you and me, Father Neil?’ I nodded. She bowed her head conspiratorially. ‘I think she wants to become Pope.’
A last scalding of my ear with olive oil, a plug of cotton wool and she was done just as Fr Duddleswell appeared.
He eyed her with disfavour. ‘If ’tisn’t Saint Joan of Arc herself with her heavenly voices. Our very own furtive fly on the confessional wall.’
‘I only tried to help.’
‘Woman,’ he said, ‘if you milked a cow ’twould come out curdled.’
‘I said,’ repeated Mrs Pring, ‘I was only trying …’
‘Indeed,’ broke in Fr Duddleswell, ‘you are very trying, but I am not here to discuss the secrets of the confessional with the likes of you.’ And he started shooing her out.
Mrs Pring pouted, picked up her equipment and exited with a sigh.
When I apologized for having spoken too hastily, he replied:
‘Not at all. I heard every wicked thing you uttered in the blackness. Tell me, now.’
I had already done some research and drew a pamphlet out of my pocket which he snatched from me.
‘There’s a firm near Westminster Abbey,’ I said, ‘which sells neck mikes that work off a battery. They’re light and you only need one. You can wear it all through Mass, whether you’re at the altar, in the pulpit or moving along the altar rails distributing Communion.’
‘The price?’
‘A hundred pounds,’ I said, adding quickly, ‘but the congregation will hear your appeals to pay for it.’
‘I will think on it. And the confessionals, like?’
‘Sixty pounds.’
‘Each?’
I nodded. ‘Sound-proof and installed in a week.’
‘Sixty pounds each,’ he mused.
I could see he was impressed by the relative modesty of the outlay. ‘Not much is it, Father, to safeguard the seal of confession?’
‘Mind you,’ he appeared to say, ‘we will have to make stringent economies to pay for them. No more living riotously like the Prodigal Son on Nelly’s strawberries.’
What with my plugged ears, once we got off the topic of mikes and confessionals I found difficulty in understanding him I gathered it was something to do with strawberries. Recalling his stress on economy at The Clinton Hotel I said innocently, ‘Nelly’s strawberries? Without cream, Father.’
I saw his shocked look and lip-read him saying, ‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘What did you mean, Father?’ What could he have seen in such a harmless remark?
‘I meant strawberries, Father Neil.’
‘And I meant cream.’
‘You did?’
‘I did.’
‘Then there is no quarrel between us.’
If there had been I would not have known what it was about.
He held the pamphlet up. ‘I will keep this and peruse it at me leisure. And remember, Mrs Rollings is visiting you this afternoon. She is a very good woman and that really is her only fault. Since she is your very first convert, I will be on hand, this once, to offer you me … condolences.’
Mrs Rollings, eager, inquisitive, highly-strung, perched on the edge of her chair as she made ready to interrogate me.
I explained to her the difference between mortal and venial sin; how mortal sins like murder and rape ruptured communion with God whereas venial sins like white lies or stealing sixpence diminished friendship with God but didn’t demolish it altogether. Next, I told her that in this sacrament the penitent is obliged to tell the priest all his mortal sins, their number and species.’
‘What’s that mean?’ she asked in a quavering voice.
I explained that the penitent has to say exactly what sort of mortal sin he’s committed—murder, abortion, large-scale theft—and how many times he’s committed it.
‘Catholics have to keep a strict count of things like that?’
‘Pardon?’ I said, taking the cotton wool out of one ear.
‘A strict count?’
‘Yes.’ And I put the plug back in.
‘If a murderer or a raper or a crook confess their sins, are they forgiven?’ I nodded. ‘And if they die they go to heaven?’
I was pleased to tell her that God is very merciful.
‘May be,’ came back Mrs Rollings, ‘but Heaven don’t sound very safe for children. Catholics have to confess regular, I suppose, because of all those rules to break. Sunday Mass, no meat on Fridays, etcetera. They must find mortal sins easier than normal people.’
I made no comment on that.
‘Tell me about yourself, Father.’
‘Myself?’ I repeated, slightly panicky.
‘Yes, do you go to confession?’
‘All priests go to confession every two weeks.’
‘Nuns, too?’
‘Every eight days.’
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘What do they get up to, locked in behind them high walls? More often than priests. Those nuns must have very strong urges.’
‘Even the Pope confesses regularly,’ I said in the nuns’ defence.
‘Really, she whistled. ‘But you, Father, do you prefer going to confession or hearing them?’
‘It all depends,’ I hedged.
‘On?’
I refused to be drawn. ‘It all depends.’
She had too many lines of enquiry to pursue to bother about one cul de sac. ‘If I became a Catholic, Father, would I have to confess all my sins to you?’
‘All your mortal sins.’ I added hurriedly, ‘That’s if you have committed any, of course, Mrs Rollings.’
‘Will you settle something for me, Father?’
‘If I can.’
‘The other day, I heard one of mine arguing with the other about this: if an altar boy puts poison in the priest’s wine and tells him so in confession just before Mass, has the priest got to drink that wine?’
It was an old chestnut. ‘I’ve heard of that case,’ I said.
‘What’s your answer?’
‘There are several opinions,’ I said professorially. ‘One solution is to say the priest mustn’t break the seal of confession for any purpose whatsoever.’
‘So he drinks it and dies?’
‘Yes. Another suggestion is that since the altar boy has poisoned the wine and refused to tip it away, he’s not going to confession with the right intention. He’s going not to confess his sins but simply to gloat over the terrible trouble he’s causing the priest.’
‘So?’
‘Since he’s not making a real confession, so this argument goes, the priest could either denounce the self-confessed altar boy assassin or secretly empty the wine down the drain and refill the cruet.’
‘But what do you think, Father?’
‘I think a priest should always choose to uphold the secrecy of the confessional.’
‘Then you’d drink the poisoned wine?’
‘It’d be safer,’ I said.
‘Safer?’
‘For the sacrament, I mean. Above all else, we must protect the seal of confession.’
Mrs Rollings seemed enthusiastic about the whole thing. ‘I’m very interested in this confession business.’ That pleased me until she dipped down to the personal level again. ‘Have you been a priest long?’
‘Two or three months.’
‘How old are you, then?’
Reluctantly I admitted I was getting on for twenty-four.
‘And you’re not married?’
‘Catholic priests,’ I told her, ‘aren’t allowed to marry.’ I hoped that might impress her.
‘What use are you in confession, then?’
I took out an earplug to make sure I had heard her correctly.
‘How can you say people mustn’t use birth control,’ she asked, ‘when you’re … well, you don’t practise marriage?’
There was a knock on the door and Fr Duddleswell, bleary-eyed from his siesta, appeared. He sized up the situation in an instant.
‘I thought you were free, Father Neil, but I see you are a prisoner.’
‘Come in, Father. Please come in. Mrs Rollings was just asking about contraception.’
‘’Tis forbidden.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but why?’
‘Because ’tis a grievous sin, that’s why.’
‘I see,’ said a cowed Mrs Rollings.
‘Another thing, Mrs Rollings,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘Do not use that word “why?” too often, like.’
That word was on the tip of Mrs Rollings’ tongue when she bit it off and said, ‘No, Father.’
‘“Why” is a nasty little Protestant word, you follow? Catholics, now, say, “Credo, I Believe,” to whatever the Pope says. If you want to ask “Why?” go ask the Anglican vicar to instruct you in unbelief and he will let you “Why-why-why?” to your heart’s content.’
Poor Mrs Rollings was like a flat dose of salts after that. All she could say was, ‘But you are bound to keep secret what you hear in confession?’
‘Mrs Rollings,’ replied Fr Duddleswell, softening towards her, ‘a priest has to protect the seal at all costs. Suppose you come to me in confession. Am I permitted to tell your husband who is next in line what you have revealed to me? Or may I tell Father Neil here? Indeed, I may not.’ He pursed his lips for emphasis. ‘Not even if you have confessed to squandering your whole week’s housekeeping money on a bowlful of strawberries.’
A week later, Fr Duddleswell and I were standing in church in front of a new, solid-looking confessional bearing the name FR CHARLES DUDDLESWELL. It had two lights, red and green, for engaged and free.
‘There, now, Father Neil, what d’you think of her?’ I drew in my breath in the manner expected of me. ‘Inside with you and put her to the test.’
He said that or something like it. I couldn’t be sure because a combination of wax, olive oil and cotton wool had qualified me for a deaf-aid on the National Health.
I spoke some less reprehensible sins this time and considerably softer. Still he banged on the box. I just made out the word ‘Louder’. I tried to give value for money. I only stopped when he opened the door and yelled, ‘The all-clear has sounded. Lazarus, come forth.’ Plainly, he had ordered me more than once to dry up.
Outside, he said something which I made him repeat. ‘Father Neil, I am mighty glad you have mended your ways.’ I smiled and he mouthed slowly, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?’
I outlined my predicament.
‘Deaf?’
‘I couldn’t hear my own confession, Father.’
To that I think he said, ‘Saved you scandalizing yourself, at any rate.’ He mouthed again, ‘GO SEE DR DALEY AND HAVE YOUR EARS SYRINGED.’
I nodded. ‘What about buying the new mike, Father?’
He cupped his hand to his ear. ‘Pardon?’
‘The new mike, Father.’
‘SPEAK UP, LAD,’ he enunciated clearly, ‘I AM HARD OF HEARING, YOU FOLLOW?’ He relaxed to tell me, I guessed, that he had decided to purchase the new mike.
To make sure, I said, ‘Pardon, Father?’
His final remarks were unmistakable. ‘Bloody heavens, Father Neil, go see Dr Daley about those ears straight away. Talking to you is almost as ruinous as talking to Mrs Pring.’
Dr Daley, portly and bald, was as Irish as a sprig of shamrock. On his shelf, that Saturday afternoon, was a bottle of whiskey, the worse for wear, and an empty glass. A lighted cigarette was wedged in the corner of his mouth.
‘The first ear done,’ he said, as he surveyed the yellow debris floating in the small enamel bo
wl he held in his left hand. In his right was an enormous brass syringe. ‘Enough wax there to build three tall beehives in Connemara.’
He was speaking in a kind of monologue, apparently under the impression that I couldn’t hear a thing. This wasn’t so. I was only completely deaf in spasms now. Some of what he said got through to me, including:
‘You are deaf as an adder for the moment, Fr Boyd, which is why I’m going to make my confession to you.’ He gestured to the bottle. ‘A drink of poteen, Father? Of course not. Mind if I do? The drought is upon me, you see.’
He poured himself another treble and raised his glass to me. ‘Cheers, Father.’ He drained his glass, without removing his cigarette, in one gulp. He put the glass down with a crash and took up the syringe in a trembling hand.
‘Without the hard stuff, I’d be a bundle of nerves.’ At this, he launched the brass torpedo into my other ear. ‘The ears of my soul are deaf to the Almighty’s entreaties to give up the drink. Sweet Jesus, but it is impossible—keep yourself still, Father—to straighten the twist in an old stick, and that’s the truth. Charles, our revered parish priest, has sounded the fire-alarm at me often enough and raised the ladder to the burning building. But it’s no good, you see. I will surely end up with flames licking all round me and not so much as a friendly spark to light my fag with.’ He shone his torch in my ear. ‘In a minute of two, the bubbles will burst.’
Then nothing. But I had heard enough already. I was sad for old Dr Daley and his unavailing efforts after his wife died to give up the booze. I was worried about my hearing, too. The doctor had rid me of half a dozen large pellets of wax. What was the meaning of this uncanny, inner wall of silence? I wondered whether he had shot right through my eardrums and deafened me for life.
Then followed two small explosions in quick succession, one in each ear. It was as if a sound-proof door had suddenly been thrown open on to Piccadilly Circus at the rush hour.
‘They’ve popped, have they?’ roared Dr Daley.
I nodded and rubbed both ears in amazement. Every sound was considerably magnified with electrical clarity.
‘Try combing your hair,’ he suggested.
I put the comb through my hair and it made a noise like giants crawling through a field of straw.
Dr Daley proceeded to reward himself by filling his glass to the brim.