Bless Me Again, Father Read online

  ‘Then, my dear friend of ages past, I suggest you take the pledge with that one exception. Like Father Mathew himself.’

  ‘I use the stuff, Donal. I do not abuse it.’

  ‘Them,’ the Doctor said, draining his glass, ‘is precisely my sentiments.’

  The pledge-taking ceremony was held behind closed doors. After the rest of the congregation had left, the teetotallers were invited up to the front pews.

  Was it my imagination or was there a strong smell of drink in the air? Some perhaps had come to church after a final fling. I’m certain that two of the men there were under the influence. I even saw one chap take a swig to keep his courage up.

  Fr Duddleswell himself outlined the conditions of the pledge: To abstain from alcoholic drink, to recite twice daily the Offering prayers and to wear the Sacred Heart pioneer badge on the lapel.

  The aim, he said, was not to condemn alcohol but to make reparation for indulgence in it, including one’s own. Also to atone in some small way for all the ills that the abuse of alcohol brings, including motor accidents, marital infidelity, broken homes, beaten wives, as well as theft and embezzlement which are directly traceable to the desire for drink.

  It was a moving appeal, even if it did seem to me that you might as well take the pledge not to marry because a lot of people commit adultery. Or is that why the Church demands that priests be celibate?

  I nudged Dr Daley who was standing at the back of the church with me. ‘Are you next, Doctor, to make the Heroic Offering?’

  To my surprise, he said, ‘Who knows, Father Neil? Who knows?’

  Fr McCabe led the small group in prayer to the Sacred Heart: ‘To make reparation to Thee for the sins of intemperance, and for the conversion of excessive drinkers, I will abstain for life from all intoxicating drinks.’

  In the semi-dark, I felt the good Doctor shudder involuntarily.

  Finally, Fr Duddleswell gathered up the spoils of war. Hip-flasks, medicine bottles, Tizer bottles—some of them still containing the now-forbidden liquors.

  Having dismissed the new converts with a blessing, he put the bottles in the sacristy and locked the church. His last words to the missioner that night were:

  ‘Father, a hundred thousand thanks for the inestimable good you have done the parish of St Jude’s.’

  Next morning, Fr McCabe failed to appear for the early Mass. I knocked on his door, to be answered by a groan.

  I went in to find out what was wrong. One step, one sniff, was enough. The poor chap was blotto.

  I raced downstairs to take his place at the altar. The drink, as I guessed, had disappeared from the sacristy.

  ‘’Twas my fault entirely,’ Fr Duddleswell admitted, when Fr McCabe had sobered up enough to be sent home in a taxi. ‘I never thought your man himself might have a drink problem.’

  It was very wrong of me but that was the first time Fr McCabe had evoked in me any fellow feeling.

  When, after Benediction, Dr Daley heard the news of the missioner’s ignominious departure he looked quite shaken.

  ‘Must make amends,’ he muttered.

  In a cheerful mood, I said, ‘Are you ready to take the pledge?’

  ‘If you twist my arm.’

  I went over to him, took his non-drinking arm and pretended to do just that.

  ‘All right,’ he said, downing his empty glass. ‘I will.’

  ‘When?’ Fr Duddleswell asked, expecting the answer to be that abstinence from alcohol, like dying itself, should be left to the very last moment.

  ‘Right now, Charles.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Fr Duddleswell said, looking scared. ‘Have you lost your marbles?’

  Dr Daley’s only reply was to grab a crucifix from the desk and fall on his knees.

  ‘Will you give up the darling drink, Donal, just because of one sick, sodden priest? Why, even Moses himself got stocious once.’

  ‘Moses,’ the Doctor said, ‘was not a priest consecrated in the likeness of our Blessed Saviour.’

  ‘True,’ Fr Duddleswell had to admit.

  ‘For yourself, Charles.’ Dr Daley handed over his hipflask.

  Fr Duddleswell took it with trembling hands. ‘You would not care to anoint your throat with the holy oil for the last time.’

  ‘Are you trying to tempt a life-long totterer away from the straight and narrow?’

  ‘Not at all, not at all.’ There was no conviction in the voice, hence the need for repetition. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘When I was dipped in the lake the other day the water didn’t taste quite so bad as I remembered.’

  Fr Duddleswell began to unscrew the top of the hip-flask. ‘You would have no objection if I had a swig meself?’

  ‘I would not, Charles. But not from my flagon, if you please.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because it’s empty, Charles.’

  Fr Duddleswell turned to me. ‘You administer the pledge, lad.’

  My turn to panic as I went to the sacristy to fetch a cotta, stole, ritual and lighted candle.

  If Dr Daley went through with it, would he ever be the same again? Drink had been an enduring habit with him. It was his protest, even as a boy, against the foreign oppression of his people. What sort of a Dr Daley would he be from now on? Perhaps no longer the warm, vibrant, convivial human being I had come to know and love.

  I did not want my dear Dr Daley to be like a Puritan, an Arab, a Methodist. Not without a last attempt to dissuade him.

  ‘Doctor,’ I said, on entering the study, ‘I don’t think you ought to rush into this.’

  ‘But I’ve been thinking about it for fifty years and more.’

  ‘You have,’ I said weakly. ‘You know you won’t be able to drink beer, ale, cider, wine, spirits. No alcohol at all. Not even in tea.’ It was like reading him his rights in reverse.

  ‘Doesn’t the Church give a Plenary Indulgence to teetotallers at the hour of death so I escape the pangs of Purgatory?’

  I couldn’t deny it.

  ‘Is it fitting for me to march up to the glorious Gates with my hands joined piously round a whiskey bottle?’

  ‘You could take a temporary pledge. Why not for three months to see how you get on? Or on Fridays when you go without meat?’

  He would not budge. ‘This vow is unto death, Father Neil.’

  The mention of death reminded me of his wife and how he said he could never take a drink without thinking of her.

  A last despairing lunge. ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said gently. ‘What I am about to do would please Maureen most of all. Even now I can see her smiling down on me.’

  I put on my vestments and opened the ritual.

  ‘Not that formula, Father Neil.’

  I looked down on Dr Daley’s red face—‘sunburnt by drink’, as he used to say—hoping that he had been pulling my leg, after all. But no.

  He was drawing a piece of paper out of his inside pocket. ‘I want to imitate the great Father Theobald Mathew himself.’

  Fr Duddleswell and I glanced at each other.

  ‘I prefer to use the exact prayer he used when he, the head of the temperance movement, took the pledge all those years ago.’ He looked up at me. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I promise,’ he began, in a quavery voice.

  ‘Do you not think, Donal,’ Fr Duddleswell cut in, perhaps playing for time, ‘you should remove the fag from your mouth?’

  The Doctor nodded piously. He placed the cigarette, still alight, in front of him and began again.

  ‘I promise—’

  ‘Put it out, Donal, before it burns a bloody big hole in me carpet.’

  The Doctor did so. ‘I promise to abstain from all intoxicating liquors.’

  Was that a tear I saw in the corner of Fr Duddleswell’s eye as he lifted a shield-shaped pioneer badge off his desk in readiness?

  ‘Except,’ the Doctor said, still reading Fr Mathew’s prayer, ‘when used med
icinally and by order of a medical man.’

  ‘“Physician, heal thyself,”’ Fr Duddleswell roared, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘Are you ready for a drink now, Donal?’

  Dr Daley rose from the floor, jaws agape like a carp to the bait. ‘I am,’ he said.

  3 Out of the Blue

  Rabbit for lunch and not entirely to the chief resident’s satisfaction.

  ‘This takes some strong eating,’ Fr Duddleswell complained, his round jaw working overtime.

  ‘That rabbit took five shillings out of my housekeeping,’ Mrs Pring retorted. ‘It’s one and tenpence a pound, I’d have you know.’ She turned to me. ‘How’s yours, Father Neil?’

  ‘Tough as old boots.’ Fr Duddleswell, not for the first time, answered for me.

  ‘Become a ventriloquist, have you?’ Mrs Pring said, looking my way. ‘I could have sworn only your dummy moved his lips.’

  Fr Duddleswell gingerly picked a bone from his teeth before saying, ‘Herself has a salty tongue. When she opens her mouth ’tis as good as being at the sea-side.’

  ‘If that one’s ever lucky enough to get to purgatory,’ was Mrs Pring’s parting shot, ‘the first thing he’ll do is insist on a cold shower.’

  Fr Duddleswell leaned across the table. After twelve months at St Jude’s I could read the signs.

  ‘You have a story for me, Father?’

  ‘Did you ever hear of the ill-tempered old biddy who used to live in Nazareth?’

  ‘It’s in St Mark’s Gospel, is it?’

  ‘Well, now, her husband was exceedingly kind to Jesus and Mary.’

  ‘That story,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes.’

  He was undeterred. ‘So our Lord’s Blessed Mother says to Him one day, “Is there anything we can do to help repay him?” “Like what?” says He. “Like getting his woman to keep her mouth shut.” And our Blessed Lord says, “Jesus, Mother,” says He, “I am God Almighty and I can do all things in heaven and earth. But to stop a woman’s tongue wagging, that is asking too much of Me altogether.”’

  ‘You’re right about this rabbit, really tough,’ I said, separating out a sharp bone with my fork. ‘And toothpicks are provided.’

  ‘It wasn’t caught, this one. It just lay on its back with its legs in the air and asked for the last rites.’

  ‘You did know, Father, that Billy’s up to something.’

  He put down his knife and fork. ‘Up to what?’

  ‘I have no idea. But there’s a net in his garden big enough to trap a lion.’

  That was enough for Fr Duddleswell. Apart from pigeons and friend Pontius, the dog, who were sitting tenants, Billy Buzzle had kept at various times in his yard cocks and hens, pigs and a goat. Usually to annoy his reverend neighbour, who now pushed his plate away with relief.

  ‘I will have to see into this.’

  When I caught up with him in the garden he was leaning over the fence and pointing fiercely.

  ‘What is it for, Mr Buzzle?’

  ‘Don’t you know, you ignorant Irishman, you,’ Billy said pleasantly. ‘It’s a cricket net, that’s what.’

  ‘You are too old for cricket, you moulting cockerel.’

  Billy beamed back at him. ‘Maybe so. But I’ve just been elected president of the Fairwater Cricket Club.’

  ‘I heard they need a new pavilion.’

  ‘They didn’t choose me because I’ve got plenty of say-so but because I’m a highly respected member of the community.’

  Billy explained that once the net was put up and a matting wicket laid, all the youngsters from the cricket club would be given first-class coaching in his garden.

  ‘I forbid it,’ Fr Duddleswell declared, as though he were in the pulpit.

  ‘You’re a ripe banana, you are, Father O’Duddleswell. How do you propose to stop me?’

  His best enemy had no immediate answer but I had no doubt he was already working on it.

  I knew next to nothing about cricket except that the bowler has to try and hit the stumps or have the batsman caught by a fielder before the ball hits the ground. That is why the practice sessions in the nets after school and at weekends interested me.

  Billy employed a professional coach for the lads, many of whom I knew, but he also turned his arm as a bowler from time to time.

  I really grew to like the thwack of leather on willow in the lazy lengthening evenings of late spring. Not so Fr Duddleswell. At weekends, he complained of interruptions to his siesta and he objected to Pontius being used as a retriever whenever the ball was clouted into our garden. The net had a few tears in it, it seemed.

  Fr Duddleswell used cricket as a further excuse to slang Oliver Cromwell’s people. It was a sign of British decadence. ‘What other game,’ he demanded, ‘can take five days to play and end up with neither side winning?’

  Things became dangerous when Billy bowled. He threw down what I had discovered were called full tosses and long hops. The lads really pasted them and once or twice the ball came perilously close to our upstairs windows.

  One Saturday afternoon, Fr Duddleswell poked his head out of his bedroom window to yell at Billy, when a ball was driven in his direction. He put out his hand by instinct to protect his face and, fortunately for him and the peace of our household, the ball stuck.

  ‘Give us the ball back, Pharaoh.’

  I was in the garden reciting my breviary at the time. I saw Fr Duddleswell glower down at Billy and threaten him with a real Donnybrook if he didn’t take his net down.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Billy said. ‘Gimme the ball.’

  Fr Duddleswell tossed it from one hand to the other, debating with himself whether to knock Billy down with it.

  ‘That cost ten bob,’ Billy said.

  Fr Duddleswell stuffed it in his pocket. ‘This is a very dangerous missile, Mr Buzzle. ’Tis lucky for you there wasn’t a terrible accident.’

  When the accident did happen it occurred half a mile away.

  Fr Duddleswell and I had been visiting the Fogartys and their nine children. Their house was in a road on the edge of the Fairwater Cricket Club.

  We said goodbye after a cup of tea and were no sooner outside than we heard a tremendous burst of applause, oohs and ahs, and finally a cry of ‘Watch out!’

  I had a momentary glimpse of a bright red spherical object coming at me out of the blue. Next, a crack on my head, the inside of which exploded in sparks and white light.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard the familiar voice, ‘Are you all right, Father Neil?’

  I rubbed my head, not sure.

  A fielder in white shirt and flannels appeared and picked up the ball which had ended up at my feet.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘A smashing hit, though, wa’n’t it? A six.’

  ‘Good shot,’ I said, in a daze.

  ‘The batsman can claim the ball when he clears that fence,’ the fielder said. Seeing I was stunned, he asked, ‘Sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ I was fingering the lump already rising on my head.

  ‘What d’you mean okay?’ Fr Duddleswell fumed. ‘That was no rosy apple that dropped on you, lad. Look at you. Your eyes are blanker than a hen’s. And your hands, they are trembling as if you are shaking with a long line of angels.’ He turned to the cricketer. ‘Tell your president he will be hearing from me lawyer.’

  The fielder shrugged and went back to the game.

  Fr Duddleswell rubbed his hands together. ‘What a grand piece of luck, lad.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Billy Buzzle. We have him now.’

  ‘There’s never a rainbow without rain,’ I said.

  Fr Duddleswell led me to my bedroom as though I were an invalid.

  I insisted for the twentieth time that I was all right.

  ‘You are only saying that, lad, because you are confused and incoherent.’

  Mrs Pring burst in as I was being lowered on to my bed. ‘Whatever’s the matter with poor Father Neil?’

  ‘
Billy Buzzle and his white-coated butchers,’ was the exaggerated reply, ‘have knocked him flat as a coffin.’

  ‘Billy wouldn’t hurt a fly and you know it. He respects Father Neil.’

  ‘He respects him only from the teeth out.’

  ‘Be quiet so Father Neil can tell the truth.’

  ‘That woman,’ Fr Duddleswell said as he bent towards my ear, ‘was not hiding behind the door when the good Lord gave out the tongues.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ Mrs Pring repeated.

  ‘He has a bad headache and is taking it to bed.’

  I explained briefly what had happened. Mrs Pring examined the bump.

  ‘Butter,’ she said, ‘and a cold knife. It always works.’

  ‘Dear God. Butter and a cold knife. The poor lad will soon be making clay and our home-grown physician recommends butter and a cold knife.’

  When Dr Daley arrived to deliver a more professional opinion a glass of whiskey was already awaiting him.

  ‘Glad to see you, Donal,’ Fr Duddleswell said. ‘The Recruiting Sergeant nearly came for me lovely curate.’

  Dr Daley held his glass aloft to wish me a holy death. After which: ‘What is the matter with him, Charles?’

  ‘Look at this here.’

  Dr Daley examined me with his free hand, afterwards declaring, ‘A wee bump, Charles. Now, tell me what is ailing him.’

  ‘That,’ Fr Duddleswell said, incensed, ‘is what is ailing him.’

  ‘I hadn’t realized death had him under lock and key. Pour me another.’ It was done. ‘I suggest you get Mrs Pring to treat him with butter and a cold knife.

  I repeated, for Dr Daley’s benefit, the story of my mishap. Afterwards, he said, ‘It’s a classic case of when two men fight, the one in the middle comes off worst.’

  ‘’Tis entirely Billy Buzzle’s fault, Donal.’

  ‘Ah, Charles,’ the Doctor said, reproving him gently, ‘a dog can’t scrap on his own. Besides, none knows better than yourself that even a bad penny has two sides to it.’

  ‘What about damages, Donal?’

  ‘There is none. Apart from the wee bump.’

  ‘Not damage. Damages. What would be a court’s assessment?’

  Possible legal damages rose in inverse proportion to the level of whiskey in the bottle.