Bless Me, Father

by Neil Boyd

  When I asked for an explanation of the unusual events, Fred feigned surprise. As far as he was concerned there was nothing to explain. A matter of a weak heart, a faulty aeroplane engine and a crowd of idiots too superstitious to help a drunk home because of what might happen to him—and so it did. After that, ‘The Pig And Whistle’ did rather well. There were newspaper articles, the B.B.C. did a television feature. Orders for the model chairs came from as far afield as Japan, Tibet, and places Fred had never heard of.

  I tentatively put it to Fred that he was trading on people’s credulity.

  ‘Course I am,’ he agreed. ‘It’s up to religious experts like you and your chief to get rid of credulity, isn’t it? And you don’t seem to be having much success, if my wife is anything to go by.’

  His mercenary and cocky attitude so roused me I responded with what he took to be a trial of strength. ‘Mr Bowlby, have you ever sat on it?’

  ‘No.’ He saw me chuckle drily. ‘Not what you’re thinking, Father. Cross my heart, that Chair doesn’t scare me. But if I did sit on it, I’d have to admit it to my customers, wouldn’t I? And I’d be living proof my Doomsday Chair is a dud. Bad for pounds, shillings and pints.’

  I nodded, only half convinced.

  ‘I challenged your Fr Duddleswell to sit on it. Offered him a hundred quid.’ I started at that and he noticed. ‘Oh, he didn’t tell you that, then? But he was too superstitious.’

  Once more I was obliged to defend Fr Duddleswell’s honour.

  ‘Okay,’ said Fred. ‘Tell him, I repeat my offer. A hundred quid. Any old time. More, if he sits on it—and survives—I’ll sit on it myself.’ This tickled his fancy. ‘Safest bet I ever made,’ he laughed.

  It was getting to me that I had bitten off more than I could chew. I glanced at my watch. ‘I’ll have to be going.’

  ‘Before you vanish, Fr Boyd.’

  I turned back. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Care to try it out yourself?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stuttered, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Have I said something clever?’ he leered. ‘You’re not superstitious, you said. Besides, I bet old Duddleswell would bury you for free.’

  I was still searching desperately for some slender theological reason for not availing myself of his hospitality when Mrs Bowlby’s voice pierced the silence.

  ‘Fred! What are you up to? You’re not trying to get our nice Fr Boyd to sit on that dreadful thing. You’re not to, do you hear? Not to.’ She stamped her foot and fled from the bar in tears.

  ‘Catholics!’ Fred said, winking at me. ‘My offer’s still on.’ He gestured to the Chair. ‘Be my guest.’

  I returned to the presbytery too shaken to continue my rounds. Why was I so scared to sit on an innocuous cane chair? What was I scared of? As a Christian and a priest I shouldn’t be afraid of martyrdom, but what possible danger was involved in the case of The Doomsday Chair? Perhaps it was my duty to go straight back and sit on it. Perhaps it wasn’t.

  Fr Duddleswell was in his study. ‘You visited “The Pig And Whistle”, you say, Father Neil? You saw it, then?’

  I nodded casually. ‘A load of codswallop,’ I said. ‘Didn’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘In my parish,’ Fr Duddleswell snorted. ‘Under this’—he tapped the offended organ—‘very nose. Eileen, Fred’s wife, has not had a decent night’s sleep in months for worry.’

  As nonchalantly as I could, I volunteered the news that Fred Bowlby had offered to let me sit on the Chair.

  ‘He what?’ exploded Fr Duddleswell. ‘Were I not a man of God I would give him a thick lip.’ He clenched his right fist in front of his face to show the instrument he would do it with.

  ‘I think St Peter feels the same way about him, Father.’

  ‘Well, did you, Father Neil?’ I answered his look of concern with a shy shake of the head. After a moment, he asked, ‘As a point of interest, why didn’t you?’

  I cleared my throat and pointed to my chest. ‘I forgot to pin on my St Christopher medal this morning.’

  Instead of splitting his sides with laughter, Fr Duddleswell slowly raised and lowered his large head. ‘Very wise of you, Father Neil. Very wise.’

  I was so embarrassed I gave him a piece of information I had resolved to keep to myself. ‘He repeated the challenge he made to you, Father.’

  Fr Duddleswell clasped his hands together as if in prayer and closed his eyes. He came out of his trance to say determinedly:

  ‘The elastic of me patience has just snapped. I am resolved to put a stop to Fred Bowlby’s caper one and for all. ’Tis me duty as parish priest, you follow?’ I pursed my lips in encouragement. ‘Very soon, Father Neil, I will have that proud turkey cock going down on his benders and kissing me feet.’

  Breakfast time, a few days later. I asked Mrs Pring why she wasn’t serving bacon and egg, the usual Saturday morning fare.

  ‘No point in frying up for one,’ she replied. ‘I don’t eat it and his Unholiness has been off his food for a whole week.’

  Just then, Fr Duddleswell entered, grunted, said his grace and sank down in his chair. He looked very tired, I thought, as though he had spent the whole night praying. Three tufts of cotton wool on his face covered the spots where his razor had slipped.

  If he had prayed a lot, it hadn’t done anything for his mood. ‘Where to God,’ he asked, ‘is me blessèd bacon and egg?’

  ‘Ran out of eggs,’ said Mrs Pring.

  ‘Ran out of eggs,’ he said. ‘Any one would think she lays the perishing things.’

  As Mrs Pring left, clucking like a hen, he followed her with the words, ‘That woman is about as useful as a bicycle without wheels.’

  Then he turned his attention to what was on offer. He sipped his coffee. ‘Stone cold! What sort of a breakfast is this, then, dead coffee and’—pointing to the toast—‘cremated bread?’ He sighed deeply and composed himself. ‘Me humble apologies, Father Neil. This morning I’m feeling miserable as sin.’

  ‘Not sleep well, Father?’

  ‘Had some difficulty slippin’ over the border, that’s all.’

  I grunted in sympathy.

  Suddenly he put his cup down with a crash and looked at me solemnly. ‘Keep after supper free this evening, lad.’ I nodded. ‘Prepare tomorrow’s sermon early.’

  I waited for further enlightenment.

  ‘I have thought and prayed for a whole week now. ’Tis about time I rooted out this wretched superstition of The Doomsday Chair.’ He crammed his mouth with toast. Then, dramatically: ‘Even if it kills me.’

  During evening confessions, my mind kept returning to The Doomsday Chair and wondering what Fr Duddleswell was up to. After an unusually quiet and strained meal he told me to get ready for the road.

  I stepped out of my cassock, put on my jacket and coat and went to join him in his study. The door was open. I found him kneeling on his prie-dieu, which faced the wall, gazing at a crucifix.

  ‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘not my will but Thine be done. But do not let it hurt, Lord, do not let it …’

  Glimpsing me over his shoulder, he coughed and rose. I apologized for interrupting his devotions. ‘I was just putting in a good word for meself,’ he said. As I held out his jacket for him, he was saying, ‘I am expecting your full support, Father Neil.’

  ‘“The Pig And Whistle”, Father?’

  ‘Aye. You are no yellow-belly.’ I smiled at the thought. ‘You are not one of those priests who are all words and have no faith at all.’ Another wan smile. ‘You do want to come, of course?’

  I was afraid. I desperately wanted to say ‘No’, but I hadn’t the courage to be a coward. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Friend of me inmost heart,’ he said with relief. ‘I knew I had only to drop the slightest hint and you would follow me to the death.’

  It was almost eight o’clock. The High Street, after a heavy day’s trading, was carpeted with refuse: cardboard, orange peel, empty c
igarette cartons. News vendors were still calling out, ‘Star, News and Standard, paper-late’, and red buses were charging angrily up and down like armour-plated cavalry.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Fr Duddleswell pushed open the pub door. There were not too many patrons in at the time. A pianist was dreamily playing ‘Galway Bay’.

  Fr Duddleswell nudged me. ‘’Tis a most beautiful hymn, Father Neil, but beseech the organist to rest his fingers awhile till I’m done.’ Fortunately, the pianist stopped of his own accord.

  Gradually word went round the pub that they had company. Even the hardened pub-crawlers must have sensed that something unusual was in the air if two parsons were breathing it; and the chatter and clinking of glasses abated until only Fred’s voice was audible.

  The landlord was standing, arms akimbo, facing The Doomsday Chair and explaining its history to a man who was wearing a kind of stetson.

  ‘Straight up,’ Fred insisted. ‘The Governor of California wrote me only last week to ask if he could borrow it. To execute criminals, I believe.’

  ‘Gee is that so?’

  ‘Cheaper in the long run than electricity.’

  ‘Guess it is.’

  ‘Make me an offer, go on,’ said Fred. ‘Nothing less than half a million. Pounds, naturally.’

  Fr Duddlesewell and I threaded through the silent throng to the bar behind which Mrs Bowlby and a well-built platinum blonde were operating. Fr Duddleswell picked up one of the model chairs from the counter.

  ‘That’ll be five shillings, please, sir,’ said the blonde innocently.

  My parish priest withered her with a glance, grabbed a chair and walked to where Fred Bowlby was standing, frowning now, beside the American tourist. There he set the chair down, stood on it rather shakily and turned, white-faced and trembling, towards the crowd. He clapped his hands, unnecessarily, for silence.

  ‘Me dear Brethr …’ He corrected himself. ‘Gentlemen … and ladies. Ladies and gentlemen. Your attention, please.’

  At this, Paddy, one of our more notable parishioners, stepped forward, none too steady on his feet. He wore a three-piece suit and a trilby so far back on his head it looked as if it was trying to escape. Each time he said ‘Father’ he touched his forelock.

  ‘Can I buy ye a drink, Father?’

  ‘Not now, Paddy,’ said Fr Duddleswell. Then a thought struck him. ‘And why have I not seen you at Mass these last few Sundays?’

  ‘You didn’t notice me because probably I was praying with my eyes closed, Father.’

  Fr Duddleswell straightened himself and addressed the crowd. ‘Now, why should I, a Catholic priest, dare cross the sacred threshold of “The Pig And Whistle”?’

  Paddy craned his neck. ‘Father, what’re ye doin’ here for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘’Tis because,’ called out Fr Duddleswell, ‘I am concerned for the pagan practice being perpetrated in this pub. He who sows the wind’—here Paddy burped loudly on cue—‘shall reap the whirlwind.’

  ‘I’ll be communicating tomorrow for sure, Father,’ said Paddy.

  Fred Bowlby attempted to intervene with ‘Couldn’t we talk this over, Father, in the backroom?’

  ‘I refer of course, ladies and gentlemen, to The Doomsday Chair, so-called. In lieu of anyone better qualified, ’tis up to me, the Lord’s unworthy servant, to undertake this task meself.’

  Fred tried again. ‘Fr Duddleswell …’

  ‘The very same,’ said Fr Duddleswell mischievously, as if he had just been formally introduced to Fred’s customers.

  ‘Father, Father,’ said Paddy, twice touching his forelock. ‘Keep away from that Chair, else tomorrow you’ll be saying a Requiem Mass for the repose of your own soul.’

  Fr Duddleswell lifted his voice again. ‘Fred Bowlby has generously offered me one hundred pounds if I dare sit on this miserable Chair.’

  ‘I’m upping the offer,’ Fred proclaimed out of the blue. ‘Two hundred pounds.’ That really impressed his regulars. ‘Provided,’ he added, ‘that you don’t sit on it.’

  When the murmurs of the crowd subsided, Paddy was heard to mutter, ‘That’d buy me enough of the hard stuff to retire on,’ and Fr Duddleswell announced gleefully, ‘Fred is afraid, y’see, that I will prove the curse of this Chair is but a confidence trick and ’twill ruin his trade.’

  ‘Never!’ cried Fred. ‘I don’t want you to die, that’s all.’

  ‘I am about to sit on it, all the same. This very hour. And at the same hour each evening till one week from now.’

  I had called out ‘Hear, hear,’ before I realized how silly it sounded.

  ‘At the end of the week,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘I will claim the Chair for me very own. Agreed, Fred Bowlby?’

  Fred said that if Fr Duddleswell were alive in a week’s time the Chair wouldn’t be any good to him, so he didn’t care who owned it.

  Just then, the clock struck eight and Fr Duddleswell stepped down from his temporary pulpit. The patrons of the pub, having retreated to a safe distance, could all see him as he—rather dramatically for my taste—made a huge, wind-sweeping sign of the cross and hovered over the Chair before dropping down into it.

  There were a few loud sighs, a slight shuffling of feet but no other sound until Fr Duddleswell, in his lordliest sanctuary manner, called out:

  ‘A drink, Eileen, if you would be so kind.’

  ‘What’ll it be, Father?’ Mrs Bowlby’s hoarse voice returned.

  ‘What have you got?’

  A few sniggers greeted this innocent query but for the most part the customers were aware of being in the presence of greatness.

  Mrs Bowlby said, ‘Will a pint of dark ale do, Father?’

  ‘Make it a half.’ He didn’t drink beer normally. ‘A small half.’

  As Mrs Bowlby brought him his drink, a bulb flashed as a local press photographer—forewarned, I had no doubt—took a picture, then five more of Fr Duddleswell enthroned on The Doomsday Chair, serenely partaking of a small half of ale.

  He drained his glass in silence. As he rose he must have slipped in a puddle of beer because he landed flat on his back with a thud. Strangely, the crowd in the bar shuffled backwards like startled horses instead of forwards as was natural in view of the plight of a fellow human being. Only Paddy stood his ground, his faith sorely tried. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he said, ‘one half of ale and the holy Father is fallen over drunk. Call a priest to hear his confession.’

  With real concern I rushed to Fr Duddleswell’s assistance. ‘You all right, Father?’

  He rose to his feet and adjusted his hat. ‘’Tis only the divil doin’ his darndest.’ And he handed me the fractured remains of the model chair. Next, he put his hand inside his jacket. When he withdraw it, I saw the palm was bright red.

  ‘You’re bleeding badly, Father,’ I cried out, much to the consternation of the bystanders.

  Fr Duddleswell took my arm and whispered in my ear. ‘Get me out of here quick, Father Neil, I have broken something vital to me.’

  ‘What, Father?’

  He winked broadly. ‘Me red felt pen.’

  I supported him as he walked to the door, bidding everyone adieu. ‘Until the same time tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘A good dose of absolution, Father,’ advised Paddy, ‘and sleep it off.’

  ‘Good night to you, gentlemen and ladies.’

  Outside the pub, his first words to me were, ‘I hope to God I have not fatally bruised me spine, like, or spiked me lungs with a couple of broken ribs.’

  ‘You were superb.’

  ‘Wasn’t I, just?’ After a couple of minutes walking in silence, he slanted his head towards me and said, ‘D’you know, that was one of the greatest ordeals of me life. I really detest dark ale.’

  True to his word, Fr Duddleswell returned Sunday night and Monday. Nothing seemed to disturb his peace of mind. I had never seen such tranquillity in a man who was, in the general estimate, destined to leave us soon. I was more than pr
oud to be under the tutelage of this man of faith who could laugh in the teeth of death.

  Walking the streets with him was like striding alongside Elijah who defeated the prophets of Baal, or Christ who drove the money-changers out of the Temple, or St Paul who stopped the trafficking in idols at the temple of Diana or Ephesus, or even dear old St Patrick himself who drove all the snakes out of Ireland into England.

  Mrs Pring knew no such serenity. She blamed herself for initiating the whole horrible course of events. ‘Father Neil,’ she confided, ‘only two days and nights of this and I’m a nervous wreck. Even if Fr D survives, I won’t. Can’t you at least keep him indoors?’

  ‘Not a hope,’ I said. Nor was there. I had offered to take Communion to the sick on his beat and to do his hospital rounds for him. All these offers he sweetly refused as if he couldn’t see any reason for me to put myself out.

  I tried by many ingenious means to keep him in, in case he should be knocked down by an infidel lorry driver or assaulted by some lunatic set on notoriety. But I noticed no change at all in his demeanour or in any of his daily habits.

  To console Mrs Pring I told her I was accompanying him everywhere. ‘Not,’ I insisted, ‘that he seems to have a care in the world.’

  ‘His face is buttercupped and daisied all right,’ she said, and we both spoke in admiration of ‘the faith of the man’.

  Mrs Pring held up a large rosary. ‘I’m knitting the rosary for his Reverence three times a day.’

  Just then Fr Duddleswell came in. He immediately went across to her. ‘Me dear old friend,’ he murmured. ‘What’s this?’ he said, holding up her hand which was still holding the rosary. ‘Saying your beads. Truly wonderful. But promise me one thing, dear Mrs Pring.’

  ‘Anything, Father.’

  ‘Promise you will not pray for me.’ He smiled ever so tenderly. ‘Things are bad enough already.’

  On Wednesday evening at ‘The Pig And Whistle’, Fr Duddleswell was vested in cassock, cotta and biretta. To a piano accompaniment, he conducted the growing crowd in singing ‘Faith Of Our Fathers’.

  With the final duplication of ‘We will be true to thee till death,’ Paddy almost collapsed in tears. ‘I never thought,’ he moaned, ‘to hear such a beautiful tune in a pub.’