Father Under Fire Read online

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ I said.

  Fr Duddleswell spent Easter Sunday in bed. He was reluctant to leave me in charge of the parish and Father Abe in charge of me. The pain in his back left him no alternative.

  Father Abe gave little trouble at the two Masses he celebrated. First, he told the congregation that Fr Duddleswell was hunched up in bed like a cat and asked prayers for his recovery. Next, he preached a beautiful sermon on the Resurrection of Christ.

  That would have been fine had he been content to leave matters there. But the date was March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. He added a homily on the rosary which concluded with the words:

  ‘When Jesus was a lad, my dear people, you mustn’t think he wasted his days playing childish games. Indeed, not. He spent all his free hours in chapel on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament, saying His rosary.’

  I had arranged two baptisms for that afternoon. Don and Jane Martin wanted me to christen their latest. They were naming him Neil in my honour since I had managed to be in on his birth and had comforted the mother. The other child to be baptized was Mary Jane, the daughter of the Martins’ friends who came from Weymouth.

  At the last moment, Father Abe pleaded with me to let him officiate.

  ‘It may be my last chance, laddy,’ he said.

  I was disappointed not to christen my name-sake but how could I refuse the request? I explained the situation to the Martins and they agreed to let Father Abe have his way.

  I watched him like a hawk throughout the ceremony. I told myself: ‘I’m going to make damn sure he pours the water at the same time as he says the words.’

  In this respect, Father Abe was faultless. Only, as he was baptizing baby Neil, he said, ‘Maria Joanna, ego te baptizo …’ and the Martin boy was named Mary Jane. There was so much bawling at the time and Father Abe spoke the Latin words so fast no one seemed to notice. That’s why I decided not to intervene. After all, I told myself, a mistake about gender hardly invalidates a couple of christenings.

  At the reception afterwards, Jane Martin whispered to me:

  ‘The boys think Father Cody is their great-grandfather.’

  I knew that Francis and Danny, aged nearly four and nearly three, loved their Uncle Billy, as they called him, and were heartbroken at his death. They seemed to look on Father Abe as Uncle Billy come back again. He responded to them marvellously.

  ‘Did you come down from a cloud?’ Francis asked him.

  ‘God love you, I did,’ Father Abe said. ‘I’ve spent most of my life, pet, up in a cloud.’

  Francis gazed at the thick smoke from Father Abe’s cigar. ‘Do you make your own clouds, then?’

  ‘All the time.’

  Danny said, ‘I’ve got a bad cough, Uncle Billy.’ And he demonstrated for our benefit.

  ‘You’re a lucky feller,’ Father Abe said chestily, ‘I’ve only got a good cough.’

  Francis pointed at his brother. ‘Danny’s got a rash all over him since you seen him last.’

  ‘I wonder if he caught something,’ Father Abe said.

  ‘P’obably,’ Danny speculated, ‘I might have catched fire.’

  Jane chipped in quietly to tell Father Abe, ‘Danny’s not really himself today.’

  Francis overheard and said, with a worried expression on his face, ‘But he looks like him, Mummy.’

  Francis whispered loudly in Father Abe’s ear. ‘Uncle Billy, you know those railway lions we had for Christmas.’

  ‘Of course, I do,’ Father Abe replied.

  ‘Well, Danny broked them. He shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t he?’

  Danny said, ‘You drawn all down Daddy’s wall.’

  ‘And up,’ Francis said proudly.

  ‘In we house,’ Danny came back, ‘Francis talks nonstoppily.’

  Jane told Danny to eat his food like a good boy but he wouldn’t.

  ‘He can’t be a General,’ Francis said self-righteously, ‘if he doesn’t eat his sandwich, can he, Uncle Billy?’

  ‘He’ll eat it for me, won’t you, Danny?’ Father Abe said. At which the two boys had a race to see who could polish off his jam sandwich first.

  After swallowing the last mouthful, Francis said, ‘I ate it quicklier. I’m first. I’m first.’

  Danny began to sob until Father Abe put in, ‘Danny is the first to be second, aren’t you, pet?’

  Danny brightened up and took a bow.

  ‘He’s only little,’ Francis said disparagingly.

  ’I’m growing up,’ Danny insisted. ‘I’ve got a big toe.’

  When Father Abe saw him beginning to remove his shoe to exhibit it he assured him he had no doubts on that score. ‘How old are you, Danny?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m nearly size three.’

  ‘You are very big for size three.’

  ‘Can I tell a story?’ Danny said.

  I left Father Abe in order to talk to the Martins and their friends. In half an hour the latter left and it was time for Neil to have a sleep. Father Abe was called on to bless the new Christian.

  He took the child in his arms and held Neil’s soft little hand in his. At that moment, a white butterfly appeared, where from I did not know, and settled on the pink, shell-like knuckles of Neil’s hand.

  ‘An angel dressed up,’ Father Abe said, as the butterfly’s wings came together like hands in prayer. ‘God’s grace on you, baby Neil, and may you never sin.’

  Everyone, knowing the mischievousness of Francis and Danny, laughed politely. Don Martin nudged me.

  ‘If he never sins, Father, he’ll be a very special baby.’

  ‘He does have the right name for it,’ I whispered back.

  ‘I’ll pray for this child,’ Father Abe promised, ‘every day till I die.’

  That evening, Father Abe blackmailed me again, this time into letting him officiate at Benediction.

  ‘Who knows, laddy, this may be my last fling.’

  After I had put the Sacred Host in the monstrance, Father Abe incensed it with a wild, shuddering swing. Afterwards, when I examined the thurible, the incense coals were not there. I was sure I had put them in before the ceremony began.

  Father Abe was already giving out the rosary. ‘The first glorious mystery, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  The mystery didn’t end. Hail Mary followed Hail Mary. Instead of ten, he must have got through twenty.

  I tried to get his attention but failed. It was like flagging down a train.

  Thirty Hail Marys. The congregation, including several nuns, which had been buzzing away steadily became more and more discordant.

  I told an altar boy to put out a few candles, hoping this would make Father Abe realize that something was wrong.

  He must have said about sixty Hail Marys when I called out, ‘Glory be to the Father,’ and brought to an end the longest rosary in the church’s history.

  Surely I wasn’t the only one present who could smell burning. When I sneaked a look at the congregation I couldn’t deny the fact that smoke was emerging from the folds of Mother Stephen’s habit as she knelt, eyes-closed, in the front pew.

  I rose and tiptoed up to her.

  ‘Mother,’ I said, touching the shoulder of this formidable being.

  She awoke from her meditation with a start. ‘Father?’

  ‘I’m afraid, Mother,’ I said, ‘you’re on fire.’

  I led her into the sacristy where together we located the missing incense coals and extinguished them with holy water.

  By this time, Father Abe had ascended the pulpit. Somehow he had acquired the envelopes in which the faithful had placed their Easter offering to the priests of the parish. Mercifully, I had removed the money but he had his own idea of what to do with the envelopes.

  ‘The priests of St Jude’s, my dear people, of which I am not one, would like to thank you heartily for your generous Easter offering.’ And he proceeded to read out names and the sizes of contributions. This was ‘cursing from the altar
’ with a vengeance.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Brown and family, ten pounds – I beg their pardon, ten shillings. Mr Shillington, eight pounds.’ Father Abe looked around him. ‘Thank you, Mr Shillington, for your appreciation of what the clergy do for you, day and night, throughout the year.’

  I knew for a fact there was no one called Shillington in the parish. Father Abe had made him up to shame any ungenerous contributors.

  I signalled to Mrs Perkins, the organist, to strike up a hymn to drown him out and she obliged.

  Afterwards, I took Father Abe to task. ‘Have you never read about the widow’s mite?’ I asked.

  ‘You must learn to take the world easy, laddy,’ he said. ‘I bet you there were lots of widow’s mites in that Easter collection from folk who are not widows.’

  He blew out the smoke from his cigar with the satisfaction of a man who felt his job was well done.

  On Tuesday evening, I dropped in to church to say my rosary. Father Abe was there, hunched up in the front bench, lost in prayer. Or so I thought.

  Were my eyes deceiving me or was he, like Mother Stephen before him, about to go up in flames. Then it dawned on me what was happening. He was diving like a duck from time to time into the depths of his confessional cloak, having a puff of his cigar, and coming up for air. I prayed no parishioner would see him.

  After a few minutes, he jumped up, genuflected piously and left. My watch showed it was opening time at ‘The Pig and Whistle’.

  In the last three days, Father Abe had cut quite a figure at the local. Fr Duddleswell was so worried he had made me draw up a rota of ‘watchers’ from the parish to keep an eye on him during opening hours.

  One of the watchers was Tim Fogarty who had nine children, ‘a quiverful of arrows’, as Fr Duddleswell termed it. Tim had been at the Pig and Whistle the night before when Father Abe had tried his hand at darts. Tim must have stuck very close to his charge because he received a dart in his thigh.

  I said to Tim, ‘Could have been worse, I suppose.’ Tim, a family man, thought hard before saying, ‘I see what you mean, Father.’ But I hadn’t meant anything.

  I didn’t begrudge Father Abe his evenings’ entertainment. In any case, he was so obviously a larger than life ‘character’, his escapades were easily forgiven by the locals.

  I finished my rosary and walked towards the sacristy, intending to get the keys to lock up the church for the night. The sacristy door was barred from the inside. Father Abe must have pulled the bolt across before racing off to the pub.

  I wasn’t worried. I could still let myself out through the main door of the church, reaching the sacristy by way of the house. Except that the church door was also locked.

  Dotty Father Abe must have taken it on himself to close the shop up so as not to scandalize any of the faithful who might otherwise see him at his devotions. He had used the rusty old iron key in the sacristy to lock the outer door and replaced it without me knowing.

  I was in a real fix. Mrs Pring had taken the day off to visit her daughter. Fr Duddleswell was in bed with lumbago. No one, least of all Father Abe, would notice my absence. I might have to spend the night in church like one of the knights of old. I wasn’t going to stand for it. I was famished and the church was chilly.

  I banged furiously on the church door for five minutes without result. I contemplated throwing something through a window, a candlestick, perhaps. In the end, I settled for tolling the bell. I unhitched the rope and gave a huge pull, then another. As yet, no sign of assistance. I tolled the bell for another couple of minutes, ending with one mighty tug. In the instant, I found my arms being almost torn out of their sockets as I was catapulted into space.

  It appeared that the bell’s metal brake in the belfry had snapped. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to let go the rope. If I hadn’t, I would have soared thirty feet up the tower and smashed my skull either on the way up or the way down. As it was, I had a very painful fall from about twelve feet.

  I landed on the small of my back and was stunned for several seconds. I was brought to my senses by the sound of people chattering, banging on the church door and ineffectually turning the handle.

  I heard Billy Buzzle call out, ‘Anybody home?’

  I told him through the door what the problem was.

  ‘No trouble, Father,’ he said, ‘the fire brigade’s arrived.’

  Fr Duddleswell told me subsequently that he was awakened from a drug-induced sleep by a steel-helmeted fireman who climbed through his window and demanded a key.

  ‘Jasus, Father Neil, I thought I was finished and Michael the Archangel had come to take me home in the queerest of uniforms.’

  When I related the full story he sent me off post-haste to the pub to fetch the old chap home.

  In spite of the ache in my back, I raised a good speed on my bicycle. In the general panic, however, I had forgotten that my own brake blocks had worn thin and badly needed replacing. I reached the pub, only to find I couldn’t pull up in time. My front wheel hit the kerb, buckled and over the top I went.

  When I came to, a sympathetic crowd had gathered and Father Abe was standing over me, his right hand raised, bestowing on me absolution for my sins.

  As the week went by, Fr Duddleswell made better progress than I did myself. Hot baths, he had discovered, were the best remedy for his complaint, and the sound of him singing Gilbert and Sullivan rang around the house.

  ‘All will be well,’ he chanted in the words of an English mystic, ‘and all manner of things will be well.’

  That was before Father Abe collapsed at the foot of the stairs. Fr Duddleswell helped me carry him to his bed and in the process suffered a recurrence of his lumbago.

  Mrs Pring and I settled both invalids comfortably, then I telephoned the doctor.

  I stayed while he examined Father Abe who was conscious but extremely pale. Dr Daley was clearly concerned at the state of his heart.

  ‘How is it, Doc?’ Father Abe managed to say.

  ‘The drums are still beating loud enough.’

  ‘I am tired,’ Father Abe said, ‘I am indeed. And a cold black wind blowing.’

  We left him to sleep and dropped in on Fr Duddleswell. I, who had witnessed so many of his moods, had never seen him so emotionally disturbed.

  ‘How is he, Donal? Has he a firm booking for the down train?’

  Dr Daley shook his head non-committally. ‘His ticker. But you knew that.’

  ‘He’s shamming like a fox, I shouldn’t wonder.’ Fr Duddleswell seemed almost angry that his beloved Father Abe was about to leave him. He made as if to get out of bed to go to him.

  Mrs Pring prevented him. ‘I told you to stay put, Father D.’

  ‘Woman, your words go over me shoulder and down me back,’ Fr Duddleswell retorted. But a further effort to move was unsuccessful. ‘I’m cemented to me bed with this bloody lumbago. I will pray that he lives. Else I will never pray again.’ He looked upwards. ‘D’you hear?’

  I spent the next couple of days sitting at their bedsides by turns. Only once did I take a walk, drawn by the end of March sunshine.

  After so many hours in the sickroom, I felt something of a convalescent myself. The world was wonderful again.

  Everywhere, in window box and garden, there were signs of Spring. Yellow in the daffodils and in the forsythia bushes whose tops were already turning green. Sticky buds on the lilac trees, magnolias ready to burst into bloom. In the borders, primroses, and on the grass a few left-over snowdrops with masses of crocuses, blue, yellow and white.

  It wasn’t a sad time. Easter never was. Swallows zoomed at almost ground level, while on a telegraph pole a blackbird, lifting his yellow beak, blew beautiful bubbles of song. The penetrating scents of a new year filled the lungs: mown grass, turned-over turf, air you could really taste and smell.

  Cherry blossom, fragile, pinky-white fluttered against the blue. As always at this season of the year, Housman’s lines took over my mind:

  Loveliest
of trees, the cherry now

  Is hung with bloom along the bough,

  And stands about the woodland ride

  Wearing white for Eastertide.

  That evening, I heard Fr Duddleswell, half-asleep, praying, ‘Lord, not my will be done necessarily, but something very like it.’

  I smiled to myself.

  Father Abe was in a kind of coma. He kept repeating what sounded like a riddle. ‘God is a circle,’ he whispered, ‘whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.’ Much later, I discovered he was quoting St Augustine.

  Also: ‘In life is marvellous homeliness, and in love is gentle courtesy, and in light is endless kindhood.’ I heard him speak those words a hundred times. By all accounts, they would stand as a summary of his own priestly career.

  Once Father Abe came to. He opened his eyes and in the light of a candle saw me sitting there, reciting my office. I don’t know how long he had been awake before I noticed him.

  He said, ‘He likes you, laddy,’ and I said, ‘Thank you, Father,’ and he said, ‘Life is so gorgeous, the mystery is we are not always deliriously happy.’

  These words fell on me like a heap of stones. Was he convinced that he had only five minutes left? I was tremendously glad I had allowed him a last sermon, a last christening, a last chance to lead the rosary, a last benediction. He had been over sixty years a priest. And because of me, he had had his ‘last fling’ before ascending to Heaven in a cloud.

  Fr Duddleswell struggled out of bed and, on Dr Daley’s advice, prepared to anoint him.

  ‘What’s this for, little Charlie?’

  ‘Just in case, Father Abe.’

  ‘You’ve said Per istam sanctam unctionem over me four times already, remember? This anointing is becoming a nasty habit.’

  ‘’Tis best to be safe, Father Abe.’

  ‘I’m too damn lazy to die, you know that, little Charlie. I can’t seem to put my mind to it.’

  When it came to hearing Father Abe’s confession, Fr Duddleswell nodded to me before hobbling out of the room. They were too close. It was not for him to hear the old man tell his sins.