by Neil Boyd
There was a loud rap on the bathroom door and Fr Duddleswell called out, ‘Is there something wrong, Father Neil?’
‘No,’ I returned. ‘Why do you ask? I’m only having a bath.’
My racing mind told me he couldn’t possibly have seen ‘the grave’ so soon especially as it was raining and dark. Perhaps the neighbour, Mr Buzzle, had informed him there was a suspicious character digging at the end of his garden or Mrs Pring had noticed her Hoover was gone. Must be important for him to interrupt my bath.
‘That is all right, then,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘’Tis only that Mrs Pring said you have not eaten the supper she left you. We were asking ourselves if you were unwell, like.’
‘Never felt better, Father,’ I lied brazenly. ‘I had an enormous lunch and I thought I’d leave myself with a snack before I turn in.’
I heard Fr Duddleswell walk away mumbling to himself:
A tenor, all singers above
(This doesn’t admit of a question)
Should keep himself quiet,
Attend to his diet
And carefully nurse his digestion.
I sighed so heavily with relief the water rose and fell in the bath. Then his footsteps approached again.
Hell, what now? I thought.
‘By the way, Father Neil. Did that foreign priest turn up for Mass this morning?’
I thought swiftly and made a couple of ‘monumental’ reservations.
‘He came, Father, but he didn’t celebrate Mass this morning, after all.’
I was right not to call that evening charade a Mass.
‘Highly delighted, so I am. You never can tell what antics those Dominicans are likely to get up to.’
It wasn’t until the next day that Mrs Pring reported that her Hoover was missing. Fr Duddleswell had just said, ‘Father Neil, I repent me of what I said yesterday. About the Dominicans. Must not judge the whole crew by one of two mutineers.’
His U-turn on the question of clemency failed to impress me.
Then in came Mrs Pring. ‘Strange,’ she said, as she was plying us with coffee and toast. ‘I’ve searched even the mice holes for my new Hoover and not a sign of it. I do believe someone’s pinched it.’
‘Poppycock,’ said Fr Duddleswell, ‘how could anyone have pinched it?’
‘The latch wasn’t on the side-door yesterday. P’raps a beggar looked through my kitchen window …’
‘The latch should have been on, Mrs Pring. ’Tis your business to see that ’tis on.’ Turning to me: ‘You did not notice, I suppose, any shady-looking characters hanging around the house yesterday.’
‘No one,’ I replied, sad that Mrs Pring was being blamed for my misdeeds. ‘It can’t have walked far.’
She said, ‘There’s thieves around here as could steal the milk out of your tea.’
Fr Duddleswell had a more amusing hypothesis. ‘I should not be at all surprised, Father Neil, if that Dominican had something to do with it.’
‘Very likely,’ I said.
Later that morning, while Fr Duddleswell was out on his rounds, Mrs Pring told me, ‘That Dominican is on the line again.’ My big chance. I thought, I’m really going to give him hell.
Before I could unburden myself of bile, Father Hugo apologized for having to leave in one unholy rush to keep up with his schedule. He had meant to say sorry for leaving the parlour in such a frightful mess.
‘I should think so,’ I said, gathering myself for a prodigious outburst.
‘The lads hadn’t eaten for hours and they insisted on finishing their sandwiches before they started up again.’
‘Sandwiches,’ I gasped, ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but what else could there be?’
I didn’t elaborate. Instead, I put the phone down in a daze.
IX In the Swim
‘’Tis complaints-time, Father Neil.’
Fr Duddleswell had invited me to his study and settled me in comfortably before giving me this information.
‘Complaints-time, Father?’
‘Indeed. You have been several weeks with us at St Jude’s now, and have you any complaints?’
‘About you, Father?’
‘Well, I was thinking more … Complaints about anything. Meself included, I suppose.’
I was brief and to the point. ‘No, Father.’
‘That is nice of you,’ he said smiling, as if he was surprised at me giving him a clean bill of health. ‘Of course, if at any time in the future you find anything even slightly complainable in me behaviour you will be sure to …’
‘Tell you.’
‘I would be gratified. How about Mrs Pring, like?’
‘She hasn’t complained about you either, Father.’
‘Then she must have worn her tongue threadbare an’ all. No, Father Neil, I was meaning, have you noticed anything strange about her?’
I reflected for a moment to show I was trying. ‘Not really.’
‘Come, come, Father Neil, have you been blindfolding your ears altogether? You must have remarked her speech-defect.’
I had to confess I hadn’t.
‘Surely?’ he said, with the twinkle that characterized him when he spoke of Mrs Pring. ‘She cannot stop. She has a tongue on her the size of Southend Pier. Many a time have I beseeched her to take up the bagpipes so I can get a few inches of peace and quiet around here.’
‘She works very hard, Father,’ I said weakly in Mrs Pring’s defence.
‘She has a strong snout on her for digging, I grant, but after twenty years of her I realize that however hard you scrub a crow ’twill never turn into a dove.’
I could hardly say I had realized that before I even thought of it.
‘Well,’ he went on, ‘I cannot tempt you or twist your arm into a complaint? No? A pity since …’
I anticipated him. Biting my nail, I asked, ‘You have a complaint against me?’
‘Do not bite your thumbnail, lad,’ he said hurriedly, ‘you may need it for the boiled potatoes, as me father used to say. No, ’tis not so much a complaint against you as against your preaching. D’you know the words of the famous song about Fr O’Flynn,
Powerfullest preacher, and
Tinderest teacher, and
Kindliest creature in ould Donegal.
‘No, Father.’
‘I have just told them you. Now what is wrong with your preaching.’
I hazarded a guess. ‘Everything?’
‘You could put it like that,’ he said, bowing once or twice. ‘Why, tell me, do you read your sermon?’
I explained the obvious: nerves, inexperience, fear of forgetting what I want to say.
‘The trouble is, Father Neil, when the good people see you reading in the pulpit, they think ’tis a pastoral letter from Bishop O’Reilly and promptly fall into a dead faint in the pews.’
I agreed that my sermons did seem to have that sort of effect.
‘Another thing,’ he said, laying it on with a trowel, ‘you mumble.’ Involuntarily, I gave him a demonstration of my talent then and there. ‘You should open your mouth.’ He showed me—and it was like the opening of a farmyard gate. ‘Wide, Father Neil, so the congregation can see the darns on the inside of your socks.’
I started chewing imaginary gum to show willing.
‘And, remember, Father Neil, should they snore you in the face, give ’em hell. Like the old Irish preacher, ‘The lions will roar at yez, the serpents will hiss at yez, the owls will hoot as yez, and the hyenas will laugh you to scorn.’ ’Tis such a wonderful consoling doctrine,’ he murmured, ‘’twould awaken the dead from the long sleep. Finally,’—I had been thinking that, like hell, this would never end—‘why do you preach so short?’
I explained, reasonably it seemed to me, that I stopped when I had nothing more to say.
He was a mixture of the amused and amazed. ‘You do not need to have something to say to go on preaching, Father Neil. That is the art of it, surely. Besides, if you
run out of words, take a dictionary with you into the pulpit.’
‘Is three minutes too short, Father?’ In the seminary, we were told that was the attention-span of most congregations today.’
‘Not only too short,’ he said, despising modern theorizing, ‘’tis terribly dangerous. The good people who come in late, which is the most of them, will miss Mass altogether. And worse, they will miss the collection.’
The prospect of losing two or three pounds sterling every time I preached the word of God had staggered him.
He asked me what I intended preaching about next Sunday. I told him.
‘Jesus walking on the water? Beautiful theme. Make it plain to the doubters below you, mind, that He was not using water skis, a surf board or a raft. Nor was He treading water or merely walking in the shallows.’ He paused to offer an apology. ‘But you would have said that anyway, I am thinking.’
‘I’m not sure, Father.’
‘’Twas a great miracle to prove our Blessed Lord was God and gravitation had no pull over him, you follow? The rest of us mortals have to swim like St Peter. When he tried to walk on water, did he not sink like a rock?’ He laughed at that. ‘Our Lord’s own pun, you recognize? “Peter”, “Rock”.’ I nodded. ‘Why did he not swim, now?’
‘Jesus? Perhaps he couldn’t.’
‘Do not speak heresy in me presence, Father Neil, even in fun. In any case, I was referring to St Peter. Even I have been known to do the hundred yards when pressed.’
‘Thank you very much for all your help,’ I said, straight-faced.
‘Think nothing of it, Father Neil. I like to give encouragement when I can. Oh, and by the way, we have Councillor Albert Appleby coming to tay this afternoon.’
Mrs Pring had already told me that Mr Appleby, a Catholic, was the Mayor-designate of the Borough of Kenworthy.
‘Great honour for the parish,’ I said.
‘Indeed, ’tis so. I have only one or two little bumps to iron out with him.’
I volunteered to absent myself from tea if he preferred to talk to the Councillor privately.
‘Not at all, Father Neil,’ he said. ‘You will have to deal with Mayors yourself some day, so you might as well have a lesson in the best way to go about it.’
At a quarter to four the front door bell rang. Mrs Pring answered it and I heard her knock on Fr Duddleswell’s study.
‘’Ello, Farver.’
I was struck immediately by the cockney voice which did not match what I had assumed was a Yorkshire name.
‘Hello, Bert, welcome and heartiest congratulations.’
The words of the two men tailed off as they went into a huddle before tea. When Mrs Pring rang, I was already stationed in the dining room, waiting. For five more minutes, muffled voices could be heard coming from Fr Duddleswell’s study.
‘What’s he like?’ I asked Mrs Pring.
‘Impossible creature,’ she retorted.
‘Why was he elected Mayor, then?’
‘Oh,’ she chuckled, ‘I thought you meant Fr D. Mr Appleby’s lovely. Been on the Council for years and helped hundreds of folks. Brave, too.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, twice mentioned in despatches in the First World War. Fr D won’t blow him over easy with his breath.’ The thought pleased her. ‘Mind you, Fr D’s proud as a fallen angel that St Jude’s is providing the Mayor after all these years.’
She then gave me an outline of the week of celebrations before the swearing in of the Mayor. There was to be an athletics meeting, a ping-pong tournament, finals of the area darts tournament and musical evenings in the park. The climax was to come on the following Saturday with a lunchtime carnival, a swimming gala in the afternoon and a big entertainment with prize-giving in the Town Hall at seven in the evening.
Just then Fr Duddleswell led in the Mayor-elect, grey-suited, medium height, with white crew-cut hair. He looked about fifty-five.
I was introduced and felt the firm grip of the Mayor-elect before the three of us sat down to a bright assortment of bread and jam and iced cream cakes. Mrs Pring began to pour.
‘Look at all those mounds of edibles,’ said Mr Appleby. ‘She could have fed all Ireland during the famine, could Mrs Pring.’ He and she were clearly old cronies.
‘Small wonder, Bert,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘She has sixteen ration books including one for a cat that died and another for a dog named Rufus that never lived.’
‘Don’t praise me in his presence, Councillor,’ advised Mrs Pring. ‘Not unless you want to do him an injury.’
‘In this house, Bert,’ Fr Duddleswell said lightly, ‘I see to it as a good Christian should that no broody hen is allowed to crow.’
‘A kind word from him,’ said Mrs Pring in the same vein, ‘would have to break a tooth.’
The parish priest leaned over the table. ‘Be careful of the charitable woman’s sponge cake, Bert. Have a bite of that and you will disprove an old English proverb.’
‘Which one, Farver?’
‘That you cannot take it with you when you go.’
We all laughed at that but it seemed to me that beneath the tranquil exterior, a tension was building up.
‘You have done us real proud, you know that, Bert,’ said Fr Duddleswell. ‘Our first Catholic Mayor.’
‘Elect, Farver. Mayor-elect.’
Fr Duddleswell ignored the qualification. ‘All the more glory for St Jude’s, Bert, because everyone knows your family are staunch Catholics. Roman Catholics first and foremost.’
As the mayor-elect bit into a slice of bread and jam so as not to have to reply, I sensed that was the first shot in a fierce campaign.
‘And what might your duties consist of, Bert?’
‘Opening garden-fêtes, bazaars, dances, schools, etcetera. A regular bottle-opener, you might say.’
Mrs Pring and I smiled at the modest witticism. Not Fr Duddleswell. ‘And attending the occasional service?’ he rejoined.
‘The odd one or two, Farver. In my official capacity, of course.’
‘Ah, Bert,’ sighed Fr Duddleswell. ‘Even Anglican services?’
‘The Church of England is the Established Church, Farver.’
‘So I am told. Established by Good Queen Bess nearly four centuries ago.’
‘Oh?’
‘In fact, she was excommunicated by his Holiness the Pope for so doing. But do go on, Bert.’
‘Mr Appleby tried to. ‘The inauguration is always ’eld …’
‘Not in St Luke’s Anglican Church?’
‘You know it always is, Farver.’
‘But, Bert, we have never had a Catholic Mayor before. We have no precedent for it, have we, now? Why should a Catholic be installed in an Anglican church with an Anglican minister presiding and prayers being said in English so God Himself cannot follow a word? ’Twould break me heart.’
Mrs Pring said, for my benefit only, ‘I’d sweep up the sawdust.’
To avoid taking sides, having consumed four slices of bread and jam, I turned my attention to the cream cakes.
Bert Appleby, as if to prove he was not a war veteran for nothing, grouped his forces for a counter-attack.
‘Did I or did I not read in The Catholic ’Erald that under canon law the Church lets Catholic bridesmaids attend Protestant weddings?’
‘Under certain circumstances,’ Fr Duddleswell conceded grudgingly. ‘But ’tis a strange wedding surely where you would be invited as a bridesmaid.’
‘The same principle, Farver, applies to Mayors acting in their official capacity.’
‘There are other conditions, too,’ said Fr Duddleswell.
‘Such as,’ continued Mr Appleby, who had done his homework, ‘that ’e don’t give interior assent to what’s going on? I know as well as the next man it’s wrong to say so much as the Our Father with non-believers.’ Getting no further response, he said, ‘In fact, I’ll be a-fingerin’ of my rosary in my pocket.’
‘Praying for the conversion of t
he Vicar?’
‘That, too,’ replied Mr Appleby, wisely riding high on the wave of sarcasm.
‘You see, Bert,’ urged Fr Duddleswell in a pastoral tone, ‘Anglicans are outside the one, true Fold and so in peril. Good people, I know that. God loves ’em for sure. But they are too much like us, you follow? Do not they have Holy Communion even, so it looks no different from the true body of Christ.’
‘But,’ argued Mr Appleby, ‘they receive their Eucharist with bread and wine like at the Last Supper. They don’t fool no one.’
‘You may not be deceived by all this, Bert, but think of the simple faithful. Do you want them to stray from the straight and narrow because of you?’
The last point appeared decisive. After a moment’s thought, Mr Appleby, disconsolate, said, ‘I’ll ’ave to make the sacrifice, won’t I?’
‘All Catholics have to make sacrifices, Bert,’ said Fr Duddleswell, softening, ‘especially professional people, the likes of you and me. After all, Catholic chemists and barbers are not allowed to sell contraceptives and that cannot be good for business, can it?’
‘I’ll ’ave to resign then since I don’t want the rest of the Councillors making fun of me.’
Fr Duddleswell only seemed to hear the second half of Mr Appleby’s remark and, to counter it, launched his final offensive. ‘Was not Jesus Christ Himself ridiculed and crucified because He was a Catholic? You cannot imagine Him attending a Protestant Church, now.’
He paused, as if the reference to resignation had just sunk in. ‘Who said anything about resigning? You have not even taken office yet.’
‘What use would I be as Mayor if I can’t do the job? I’ll just ’ave to inform the Council it’s not possible to ’ave a Catholic Mayor in this Borough.’
‘Not possible?’ gasped Fr Duddleswell.
‘Councillor Biggins will gloat, o’ course. ’E always says us Catholics ’as to jump to attention when the priest gives the order.’
Apart from the chink of crockery and my munching and gulping, no sound for fully two minutes.
Mrs Pring could stand the strain no longer. ‘Ring if you need more tea,’ she said, and left.
‘A fine woman, that,’ said Mr Appleby generously.