Bless Me Again, Father Read online

  Paul said, ‘We’ll not be adopting again, Father.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘I wasn’t thinking of you adopting another baby.’

  Paul shot to his feet. ‘Is there some way of getting Peter back?’

  ‘No.’

  Paul sat down again like an empty sack.

  ‘Dr Daley just told me that Angie is going to have a baby.’

  ‘A baby?’ Angie twisted round on the bed to face me again.

  ‘After all these years?’ Paul whistled incredulously. ‘Is that why you’ve been ill, my darling?’

  ‘I think it’s obscene,’ Angie said, groping for Paul’s hand.

  ‘Peter’s parting gift to you both.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ they both asked.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I said, remembering something Fr Duddleswell said to me once. ‘Maybe you couldn’t have a child of your own because you wanted one too much. When Peter came, you …’

  They understood.

  ‘I’ll never love this one,’ Angie said. ‘Only Peter. I’ll never trust anyone or anything again. Ever.’

  ‘You did well, lad.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said to Fr Duddleswell, feeling wretched. ‘Angie hates the thought of having a baby.’

  Fr Duddleswell, just back from his day off, was adamant. ‘You made the right decision. I would have done the same.’

  Feeling guilty at that moment for having encouraged the Deakins to adopt a child, I was consoled by his support.

  ‘Life goes on, lad. In their darkest hour, you gave them their only hope for the future. Tomorrow I will offer Mass for God to put some sense into this whole sorry business.’

  ‘I’ll tell them. They’ll be grateful.’

  ‘Grief has no cure but to kill it with patience.’

  Mrs Pring was equally encouraging. ‘You wait till Angie Deakin can feel that little one kicking her ribs in from the inside.’

  Fr Duddleswell delved into his pocket and came up with a fiver. ‘Buy Angie a big bunch of roses.’

  ‘Thanks, Father. That’s enough for a month’s supply.’

  ‘Did you ever hear tell, lad, the old legend that in the Garden of Eden the roses had no thorns at first?’

  I indicated that I hadn’t.

  ‘’Twas only after Adam sinned that roses grew thorns. To show, y’see, the closeness ever afterwards in life of joys and sorrows.’

  It was not until my third visit after Peter was taken from her that Angie broke down and cried. When he came home from work, Paul said she would have cracked open if she hadn’t cried.

  On that occasion, I remember Angie saying, ‘They’ve stolen my baby, Father.’

  I shook my head in gentle disagreement. There must be no lies between us.

  ‘That girl who snatched Peter in the first place was wicked. Vile and wicked.’

  ‘No, Angie. From what I’ve heard, she was sick and unhappy.’

  ‘They should have let me keep him.’

  I made a gesture of sympathy.

  ‘We bought him his first pair of shoes a long time ago, but he never wore them.’

  Another time, Angie said, ‘He must be walking now. A few steps, I mean.’ Later still: ‘Is Peter talking now? Could it be?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, not knowing about such things.

  ‘If he were dead, Father,’ she said, choking, ‘it would be easier to accept.’

  ‘Would it?’ I said, noncommittally.

  ‘Those other people,’ the words came out with difficulty, ‘they never wrote to us. Never thanked us for looking after him. They never even wanted to know how he was in the months we had him. Don’t you think that’s strange?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘They needn’t have put their name and address on the letter,’ she added inconsequentially. ‘Only told us he’s all right.’

  ‘They didn’t do that, Angie, because they didn’t want to be cruel.’

  After a while, she said, ‘I suppose so.’

  Paul came in then. He was thinner, drawn-looking. ‘Do you know what we discovered, Father?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter at all whether a child is adopted or flesh of your flesh. It’s the love that counts.’

  I said again, ‘Nobody could ever love him more.’

  ‘We decided to tell him he was adopted,’ Paul said. ‘The first chance we had. We worked it all out. We were going to tell him, “We adopted you like we adopted each other when we got married. We chose you as we chose each other.” We thought he’d like that, understand that.’

  With each visit, I noticed that Peter’s pictures, no less in evidence, were less devoured with the eyes. His clothes had been parcelled up and, after resting in a corner for weeks, were at last sent to a children’s home. The cot, the pram, a few toys, apart from the rattle, remained.

  Once when we were alone, Angie said, ‘Do you think we will ever be allowed to see Peter?’

  I smiled forlornly. ‘It wouldn’t be good for Paul’s blood-pressure, would it?’

  I could go alone.’

  ‘Paul would be upset, jealous.’

  ‘I needn’t tell him.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be fair, would it? Besides, the parents, the other parents, might feel threatened. It wouldn’t lighten your grief but it might bring theirs back.’

  Mercifully, the story had not reached the newspapers. Angie had some crazy scheme of hiring a private detective to find out where Peter lived, who his real parents were. After all, they might die early and Peter would have nowhere to go, no one to love him.

  The most unlikely possibilities swept through her mind. I listened and pointed to her swollen belly, quoting the prayer of the Church: ‘Unto us a child is given.’

  Angie smiled. It was momentary, a mere flash. But she smiled.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better wait, Father. Until ours is born. Then they might let us see Peter again?’

  I did not react. Did not know how to.

  ‘They’ll know then we’re not a threat to them, won’t they?’

  Angie was in fantasy-land again, dreaming of the day when her child, still faceless, still unclasped, still unknown, was born.

  ‘A little girl, that’s right. Bound to be a girl, I can feel it’s a girl.’

  The Deakins and Peter’s family would become friends. Perhaps take their summer vacations together. Their little girl and Peter would become very close. Why, who knows? they might eventually fall in love. Get married. That way, the entire family would be whole again.

  ‘Time,’ Fr Duddleswell said tritely, when I told him of this, ‘heals everything. Sometimes it seems a shame that it should. But it does.’ He added, ‘Well, the scars heal, if not the wounds underneath.’

  Angie had her baby. It was a boy. They named him Peter.

  7 Things Are Not What They Seem

  ‘You are a fine banging boy, Father Neil. But’—here a fat finger poked me in the midriff—‘you are lately carrying around a fair bit of surplus meat.’

  I took out my handkerchief, twisted a corner of it into a point and brought it up to Fr Duddleswell’s face.

  He backed away. ‘What d’you think you are doing, lad?’

  ‘Don’t you want me to take that plank out of your eye first?’

  He smiled good-naturedly and flexed his shoulder muscles to show how fit he was. It looked preposterous.

  ‘I am wanting you to take more exercise.’

  This from a man who rarely walked further than to his car and back.

  ‘You already have me running round in circles,’ I said, puffing and blowing.

  ‘You are going to take up golf.’

  ‘Any particular reason, Father?’

  ‘Because out of the generosity of me heart, I have bought you something.’

  I clapped my hands. ‘A golf ball.’

  He opened his mouth and snapped it shut like a shark on its prey.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Father Neil, I have splashe
d me money around to get you a new set of golf clubs.’

  I was genuinely overwhelmed. ‘That’s wonderful,’ I managed to get out.

  He bent down by the far side of his desk and brought into view a tattered brown golf bag containing a few rusty old clubs.

  ‘Did you say a new set, Father?’

  ‘Indeed. I bought ’em only yesterday.’

  ‘I was planning to have tomorrow off with three friends.’

  ‘Priests, I hope.’

  ‘From my own year in the seminary.’

  ‘Fine,’ he purred, ‘fine. What could be better?’

  ‘But, I’m afraid, I couldn’t possibly use those.’

  He put on his injured look. ‘Too high and mighty, I suppose.’

  ‘No, Father, I am really grateful.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘They are right-handed clubs and I am—’ I held up my left hand.

  Fr Duddleswell looked first at my hand, then at the clubs before growling, ‘God help us, what a waste of five bob.’

  I was in Fr Duddleswell’s study preparing to take my leave when Mrs Pring came in to bait him.

  ‘Ah,’ she said to me, in mock sympathy, ‘the day off will do you no end of good.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he retorted, ‘’twill give him a respite from your cooking.’

  ‘You did give him money for his outing?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Five pounds?’ Mrs Pring wanted to know.

  ‘Five, um, something or other.’

  Shillings, in fact.

  ‘If you knew you were dying in ten minutes’ time …’ Mrs Pring began.

  ‘I would be a very happy man,’ he said grimly.

  ‘You’d gobble down your sweet ration for the month.’

  ‘Oh, by the way, Mrs Pring. For you. ‘He handed her the bag of golf clubs. ‘I would be obliged if you sold these to the rag and bone man. Five shillings will do.’

  ‘I’ll have to pay him to take these away.’

  Fr Duddleswell shooed her out of the room with, ‘Off with you, woman. Today I have to do the work of two men.’

  He gathered up a pile of books and papers from his desk and proceeded with them to his armchair.

  I said goodbye.

  ‘Goodbye lad. Enjoy yourself within limits.’

  Cashwise, the limits were severe.

  By the time I left, he had settled in his armchair with his feet up. Already, his eyelids were beginning to droop.

  Tom Charlton, Jim O’Brien, Bob Walshe and I were sitting in The Sow And Pigs enjoying a ploughman’s lunch. A wood fire was crackling in the grate of the cosy, lowceilinged bar. Heavy rain was pecking like famished chickens at the bow windows.

  The barmaid had let us in early, seeing the weather was foul and we looked ‘a decent lot’.

  We had removed our clerical collars beforehand and were showing only open-necked white shirts under our jackets.

  Conversation centred on our six-year seminary haul. Trivial reminiscences, mainly.

  Jim recalled how, as first-year students, we had been conned into undergoing a medical examination in order to join the seminary library.

  Bob said he’d been told he had to have a black surplice for Ash Wednesday and wrote home to his mum in Dublin who made him one.

  My own sharpest memory was of us returning from a summer vacation to be served warm porridge full of white slug-like creatures that were still alive.

  That sparked off grim tales of the cockroaches that plagued the refectory, two species of them. They climbed up on tables and chairs and cleaned out the sugar bowls.

  Our rowdy laughter attracted the attention of the barmaid and a shapely girl in land-army uniform at the bar. The women’s land-army had been disbanded a few months earlier but I imagine this girl, like many others, had remained on the land.

  The two girls must have thought us a group of lads out to enjoy ourselves and swopping dirty stories.

  At our table, the subject switched to our present parish priests.

  ‘What’s life like in your parish?’ someone asked Tom Charlton.

  ‘Desperate,’ he said, frowning. ‘My P.P. would make Hitler look like Father Christmas.’

  Bob, owl-like, with his round face, pointed nose and big glasses, said, ‘Mine has to do everything the housekeeper tells him.’

  ‘Seriously,’ Tom insisted, ‘mine’s driving me to drink. He really is.’ He touched Bob on the shoulder. ‘What is it you Irish say, You can take the man out of the bog, but not the bog out of the man.’

  ‘What’s St Jude’s like?’ Jim O’Brien asked me, hoping I would raise the tone a bit.

  I explained the advantages of working in a small parish on the edge of the city. The place had retained a kind of village atmosphere.

  ‘Where everybody talks about everybody else,’ Bob hooted.

  ‘There’s no gossip at St Jude’s,’ I said.

  ‘And is this Duddleswell bloke as bonkers as they say?’ Bob asked.

  ‘He’s a bit of an Irish stew,’ I said. ‘But’—a wink—‘I know how to handle him.’

  ‘With a shotgun from what I hear,’ Jim said.

  ‘He’s the proudest man I know,’ I said. ‘And the humblest. He always makes me cough up when there’s a bill to be paid and yet he’d give his last halfpenny to the poor. An impossible chap, really, but a good Christian. And I like him a lot.’

  Jim and Bob clapped, which brought more stares from the girls at the bar. Tom rose to his feet.

  ‘After that panegyric, how about a drink, men?’

  Bob Walshe pressed him to sit down. ‘Nothing alcoholic, Tom. We can’t be responsible.’

  The others knew more about Tom than I did, obviously. I stood up and made a gesture of magnanimity.

  ‘I’ll get them.’ I took a handful of small coins out of my pocket. ‘Fr Duddleswell, bless his little socks, gave me this to enjoy myself with.’

  To cheers and laughter from my companions, I made my way towards the bar.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The barmaid, young, big-breasted, with a string of imitation pearls rattling against the counter, greeted me cheerfully.

  ‘Hello, darling, what’s yours?’

  Moving from relaxed clerical company to the vicinity of two vivacious, painted females was like emerging from shadows into sunlight.

  ‘Very nice,’ I said, flustered. ‘Thank you for asking.’

  The land-army girl pressed her woolly green arm against me sensually. ‘Care to buy a thirsty girl a drink?’

  I examined the coins in my hand. ‘I’m not sure if I have enough.’

  ‘Thanks, love,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Mine’s a gin and tonic’

  I gulped. ‘How much does that cost, please?’

  The land-army girl gave me the cold shoulder. ‘Forget it, lover-boy. I’ll manage.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I blustered, ‘I didn’t mean to …’ I caught the barmaid’s eye. ‘Four lemonades, please.’

  ‘Pints or halves?’

  ‘How much is a pint?’

  ‘Twice the size of a half,’ the land-army girl said.

  ‘Sixpence, ducks,’ the barmaid told me. ‘Each, that is.’

  ‘Make it four pints,’ I said, expansively.

  ‘What are you,’ the land-army girl said, as the glasses were being filled, ‘petty officers, undertakers or what?’

  ‘No, Miss.’

  ‘Miss,’ the girl echoed mockingly. ‘Hear that, Rose?’

  The barmaid nodded and bared big yellow teeth. ‘What do you do for a living?’

  I could feel a red tint rising from my neck and spreading across my face.

  ‘It’s rather hard to explain.’

  ‘I bet you’ve got a girl friend in every port,’ Rose said kindly.

  ‘Girl friend,’ I said, panicking. ‘No, never.’

  ‘Two bob, handsome,’ Rose said, shoving the glasses in my direction.

  I paid up.

  ‘Keep the chang
e, shall I?’

  ‘Sorry?’ I didn’t know what she meant at first. ‘There isn’t any change, is there?’

  ‘So there isn’t,’ Rose said, gathering up the sixpences. She splashed them into the till and closed the drawer as if she were pushing a boat out.

  I picked the glasses up clumsily. As I went back to our table, the land-army girl was saying for my benefit, ‘If you ask me, that tall one’s got a screw loose.’ To which, Rose replied, ‘You think they’ve broken out of one of those places?’

  The lads were quiet on my return.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Bob asked.

  ‘That girl at the bar wanted me to buy her a gin and tonic’

  ‘Blooming sauce,’ Tom exploded. ‘On our salary of forty quid a year?’

  The rain had stopped. By early afternoon, shafts of sunshine lit up the green countryside. The air was fresh and bracing.

  Bob and Jim were leading the way up a hillside. Tom and I were dawdling behind. Tom seemed weary, heavy-hearted, and he had an angry boil on his right cheek.

  ‘He’s a lazy swine, my parish priest,’ he said. ‘It’s always, Father Charlton do this, Father Charlton do that.’

  ‘Come on, Tom,’ I said, ‘what’s really on your mind?’

  He stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead. It was as if he had been waiting for a chance to unburden himself.

  ‘We’ve been priests for only a year and I’ve had to go and fall in love.’

  I smiled ruefully. ‘I got quite fond of a nurse myself,’ I said, ‘but she was in love with someone else. Dammit.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Tom said, as we resumed our walk. ‘It’s absolute hell.’

  ‘Yes, I’m lucky,’ I said. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘It’s only after you take your vow not to marry that you realize what you’ve given up.’

  ‘Married men,’ I said, with a grin, ‘say the same after their wedding.’

  ‘They should complain.’

  ‘Anyway, Tom. Father Duddleswell assures me it gets a bit easier once you turn fifty-five.’

  ‘God!’ Tom said, smacking his head. ‘Another thirty years of night starvation.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask the Bishop for a move?’

  ‘Because the blighter might give it me.’

  Jim and Bob called out to us to hurry up. We waved in acknowledgement but continued at a snail-like pace.