Father Under Fire Page 7

  ‘Indeed, Seamus.’ Father Kavanagh always sided theologically with Canon Mahoney. ‘God has to thin out the old turnips to let the young ones grow.’

  The mention of old turnips caused Fr Duddleswell to ask, ‘And how is the Bishop, Seamus?’

  ‘Very well at the moment. But while there’s death there’s hope.’

  ‘Vive la mort, as we used to say in the Navy,’ Father Kavanagh said.

  Fr Duddleswell noticed I had come in and was standing quietly by the door. ‘Did you see Harry Carlin safely in, lad?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  Fr Duddleswell turned to Dr Daley. ‘I was instructing Father Neil only recently on the subject of corpses.’

  ‘Saying what, Charles?’

  ‘I was telling him, Donal, how the nails and hair go on growing in a corpse which proves something is still alive in there that’s worth anointing.’

  ‘Rhubarb,’ Dr Daley said.

  ‘It is so,’ Canon Mahoney, the theologian insisted. ‘That is why we anoint the dead, just in case. Unless the maggots have got ’em of course.’

  ‘Then,’ Dr Daley challenged, ‘you’d better get out the holy oils and anoint each other this very second.’

  ‘Why so?’ the clergy demanded to know.

  ‘Because death is going on inside you all the time. In fact, death starts at birth.’

  ‘Will you unriddle that for us, Donal?’ Fr Duddleswell said.

  ‘It’s a medical fact, Charles. Red blood cells, for instance, only last from two to three months at most. They die at the rate of a thousand per second. Brain cells are the same.’

  Father Kavanagh scratched his woolly head. ‘God forgive me, and I was blaming it on the drink.’

  Dr Daley rubbed his hands together and little scales of skin showered off them.

  ‘Jasus,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘your old paws are suffering from the dandruff.’

  ‘Did you, know, Charles, a man has a hundred million million cells in the tissues of his body? They are dying and being reborn all the time. The nails and hair which you cite as going on living in a corpse are the very parts of us which are made up of dead cells even in living people. The blood doesn’t reach ’em, you see.’ The Doctor showered the flakes of his skin on Fr Duddleswell’s sleeve. ‘So, bury that for me, if you’d be so kind, and see it gets to Heaven.’

  Realizing that the great debate was likely to last till the early hours, I wished them all good night and read for a couple of hours before retiring to bed.

  I slept in till 10.30 and was in church before eleven. There was a sizable congregation present because Mr Comerford had been a popular figure in the district. Among the mourners, I picked out the Mayor, a couple of other Councillors, Dr Daley, and Mother Stephen with three other sisters from our convent.

  The Mass was over and Fr Duddleswell was reciting the Absolution. He circled the catafalque, sprinkling the coffin with holy water and incensing it. After that, he withdrew to the sacristy to prepare for the three-mile journey to the cemetery.

  Bottesford led his men up the centre aisle. They removed the drape from the coffin and bore it with dignity to the hearse.

  I knelt for a few moments in sleepy prayer. When I came to myself, the church was empty.

  I was thinking that the Co-op would have to give an outstanding performance to improve on Bottesford’s when I chanced to look across to Harry’s coffin in front of the Sacred Heart altar. It wasn’t there. But there was a draped coffin in front of Our Lady’s altar where, the previous night, we had deposited the body of Mr Comerford.

  No, I told myself. Even Bottesford can’t be so damn stupid as to provide Fr Duddleswell and the first group of mourners with the wrong corpse. It’s not possible.

  But this was St Jude’s …

  I sprinted across the church, pulled the purple drape off the remaining coffin and read the name on the lid.

  ‘Hell,’ I shouted.

  A storm was raging inside my head. Brain cells must have been dying in clouds. What was I to do? I could hardly let Harry Carlin be mourned and interred by the Comerfords, even supposing that no one but I noticed, which was most unlikely. I had to contact Fr Duddleswell.

  I contemplated ringing the cemetery but that would only add to the embarrassment. Besides, I didn’t know the number. I decided to get on my bike and hope I reached the grave before the burial.

  I had travelled two miles when, to my joy, I caught sight of the funeral cortège at the traffic lights. I believe I would have overtaken it had not my bicycle chain snapped. There was nothing for it but to abandon the bike and run the last stretch.

  Desperation meant that time-wise I didn’t do badly, especially considering I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for twelve hours and I was impeded by my cassock. But I was close to being sick and nearly half dead myself when I came up to the mourners grouped with bowed heads at the graveside.

  I had no breath left in me to explain. I pushed people aside roughly with oily hands and dragged myself to Fr Duddleswell’s side where I looked down on him pleadingly.

  It was the point in the ceremony where the coffin was due to be lowered. The very moment when the mistake would easily have been detected and rectified. Had I not distracted everybody by my sudden, crazed appearance.

  ‘Father Neil, have your wits gone wandering in the next parish?’

  I knelt down at Fr Duddleswell’s feet, my chest heaving, and clung to his knees like a drowning man. I still hadn’t enough puff to utter a single word.

  It occurred to him that I might have something important on my mind.

  ‘Has Mrs Pring been run over?’ I shook my head. ‘The church burned down?’ A constant preoccupation of his. I shook my head again.

  He was satisfied that whatever was worrying me it did not warrant this intrusion. He looked irritably at his watch and his voice was scythe-edged. ‘D’you not realize, Father Neil, you are due to bury Harry Carlin in half an hour?’

  I nodded vigorously but otherwise didn’t stir.

  ‘This funeral is my business,’ he hissed, ‘so would you kindly take your head out of it?’

  With his jaw he indicated to Bottesford that his men should start to lower the coffin.

  I squeezed Fr Duddleswell’s legs so frenziedly that he fell over backwards on the soft mound of earth. The first piece of luck that day. His cotta was covered with mud but he could so easily have fallen forward into the grave. The prayer, ‘While we mourn our beloved brother here, we know we are most certainly soon to follow him,’ would have been immediately fulfilled.

  Dr Daley stepped forward from among the mourners. Gently but firmly he took my arm, convinced that I was demented.

  ‘Poor Father Neil,’ he purred, ‘with that white face on you, you’d frighten a ghost to death.’

  I was aware of a host of pitying eyes. Even the pallbearers, having pulled up the ropes, glanced curiously in my direction before withdrawing.

  I pointed downwards so dramatically that Fr Duddleswell was forced to follow the direction of my finger. He read: Harold Carlin 1911–1951 R.I.P.

  It wasn’t easy explaining to the first set of mourners that a slight error had been made.

  ‘That’s okay by me,’ George Comerford said charitably when I had finished.

  ‘If you would like to take yourselves back to the church,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘we will put matters right first chance we get.’

  Not that it was as simple to get the coffin out of the grave as to get it in.

  It had settled comfortably in the mud and early attempts to get the rope under it failed. One of Bottesford’s men jumped into the grave but his weight only made the coffin sink down deeper. Someone went off to fetch a pulley and a gravedigger appeared with a hose ready to wash down the coffin when it resurfaced.

  Fr Duddleswell glowered at me as if he was reserving his prime comments for later. ‘Look, lad, will you get off your ass and cart and hasten back to church to take charge.’

  I pointed
out that I had no means of transport. Since, by now, the mourners had left, Bottesford offered to give me a lift in the hearse.

  ‘I won’t be more than ten minutes,’ he said to Fr Duddleswell. ‘I’ll be back for the cosin.’

  Along the road, I saw my bicycle. A couple of schoolboys were wheeling it away. If I let them, goodbye to the second bike within a year. I ordered Bottesford to stop.

  As we screeched to a halt, I jumped out and grabbed the bike, without explanation, from the kids. Bottesford opened up for me and the kids gaped as I settled the bike sideways on the place where the coffin usually rested. To make it less obtrusive, I spread a few wreaths over it.

  We had travelled another mile at a furious pace – too fast even for pedestrians to take their hats off – when we were flagged down by a police patrol car.

  ‘Do you know what speed you were travelling at?’ the policeman asked Bottesford.

  ‘Sorry, Officer.’ As Bottesford was saying it, he was taking out his driving license and slipping a £5 note inside.

  I snatched it out of his hand before the policeman realized an attempt was being made to bribe him.

  ‘You were doing fifty-five miles an hour in a built-up area, sir.’

  ‘We’re trying to get to a funeral,’ I explained.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ the policeman said, peering through the side window at my flower-strewn bicycle. ‘You were very fond of that, were you?’

  ‘I can explain, Officer,’ I said.

  ‘Save it for the magistrate,’ he said, taking out his notebook. He scratched his head, suddenly seeing the funny side. ‘First time I’ve ever stopped a ruddy hearse for speeding.’

  ‘I’ll lose my reputation,’ Bottesford said pitifully, though after today I wondered what reputation he had left.

  ‘Ah, well,’ the Officer said, grinning as he put his notebook away. ‘Don’t do it again, eh, sir? Otherwise, you might kill someone.’

  ‘Thank you, Officer, thank you,’ Bottesford gushed gratefully. And we drove at a fitting funeral pace until we reached St Jude’s.

  It was remarkable how tolerant everybody was. George Comerford’s only concern was for the poor widow whose husband had been buried before his time. But when Mrs Carlin heard what had happened, she was highly amused.

  ‘This is the first time Harry’s made me laugh in years,’ she said. ‘A second lot of burial prayers will do that one no harm.’

  Fr Duddleswell whipped through his Requiem for Mr Comerford and I followed, quicker than usual, with a second Mass for Harry Carlin. The first group of mourners stayed in the cemetery to greet the second coffin. How cheerful everyone was.

  After the committals, George insisted that everybody should accompany him to his restaurant where there was plenty of food and drink to go round.

  ‘God,’ Dr Daley cried, as he went hunting through the restaurant for the whiskey, ‘after that, I could drink the sacking out of the mattress.’

  I found an idle bottle for him. He thanked me profusely and, while pouring, muttered, ‘Mustn’t turn a treat into a chore, as the man said when he buried his wife only three feet deep.’

  Even the Deadly Rivals, Bottesford and Mr Williams, were seen drinking a jar together.

  The obvious gaiety prompted Fr Duddleswell to let me off lightly. All he said was, ‘Who would have thought that out of all mankind, God should choose Harry Carlin to rise on the first day.’

  ‘You were wrong, Charles,’ Dr Daley called out to him above the hubbub. ‘The English do know how to behave at a funeral.’

  Seeing the shining faces, Fr Duddleswell said prophetically, ‘Like a wedding, Donal, like a wedding.’

  It came as no surprise to me when, less than three months later, George brought Marjorie along and asked me to marry them.

  ‘But for you, we would never have met,’ George reminded me. ‘Besides, we are practically family already, Marjorie and me. We even use one another’s graves.’

  FOUR

  Holy Water

  There was a special glint in Fr Duddleswell’s eyes as he ascended the pulpit that Sunday morning.

  ‘Me dear people,’ he declared, ‘this year in St Jude’s there have been twelve less baptisms than last year. That means twelve less births. That means twelve less disciples for our Blessed Lord. And that means’ – he looked down challengingly on the congregation as if demanding an immediate response – ‘twelve married couples in this parish are not doing their duty of bringing new Catholics into the world.

  ‘Which is why,’ he continued, beaming, ‘it delights me to announce there has been a little miracle in the parish. And I am responsible. In a manner of speaking.

  ‘One of our number has conceived. A member of the entirely opposite sex to mine, I need hardly tell you.

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ said the preacher, who never missed a nudge and fancied himself something of a mind reader. ‘What is miraculous about a woman conceiving, especially when she has a husband healthy and willing and all? A shrewd question and no mistake.

  ‘’Tis because they tried for years. Tried hard, mind, not like some of yous who are only pretending. And still no sign of a little Catholic coming till I made the pair of ’em drink a drop of this.’

  Fr Duddleswell held up a bottle. It was shaped and coloured, blue and white, like the statue of the Virgin of Lourdes.

  ‘Lourdes water, me dear brethren, blessed by the Holy Father himself.’ The preacher leaned over his pulpit confidentially. ‘Now, if any Catholic couples here present are having any difficulties in that respect, give a ring on the presbytery door.’

  He winked confidentially and prepared to leave the pulpit when he had an after-thought. ‘No charge. But you can, of course, make a little offering if you are so minded.’

  ‘What did you make of that?’ I asked Mrs Pring in the presbytery.

  ‘If you ask me,’ she said, removing her coat, ‘Father D’s off his tiny rocker.’

  I laughed. ‘How could he convince you that he can work miracles?’

  ‘Easy. If he only sipped that stuff and it turned him into something like a human being.’

  Fr Duddleswell heard as he was meant to. He had arrived, clasping his precious bottle, in the company of Dr Daley.

  ‘Her teeth, Donal,’ he broadcast cheerfully, ‘wouldn’t they do well as pokers to stir the fire?’

  He invited me to join him and the doctor in his study.

  ‘Imagine that,’ Dr Daley was muttering incredulously, ‘a woman needing holy water to conceive. That was never my dear mother’s problem, God be merciful to her.’

  I remembered what he had told me when I was in hospital. ‘There were how many of you, Doctor, seventeen?’

  He shook his hand as if he was trying to get sand off it. ‘Round about that number.’

  ‘And didn’t you say your father was a nightwatchman?’

  ‘But for that, Father Neil, God only knows how many of us there’d have been.’

  We settled down comfortably as Fr Duddleswell began his explanation. It seems that six months earlier he had returned from a pilgrimage that took in, first, Lourdes, then, Rome. The bottle of holy water he had given in the first instance to Dr Daley.

  The doctor nudged me. ‘He had this strange notion, y’see, that it might cure me of the habit.’

  ‘Did you even try it, Doctor?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I did. A wee sip. But could I keep the stuff down? I could not.’

  ‘So you kindly gave it back, Doctor?’

  ‘Don’t get the wrong idea,’ the doctor said with a twinkle, ‘I’ll certainly give up the gargle one of these fine days when I’m a bit older. Perhaps.’

  Fr Duddleswell sniffed contemptuously and lifted his wirerimmed glasses on to his forehead in disbelief. ‘A bit older, a bit older. You are not so young now that your toes can whisper in your ears.’

  ‘I will do it,’ Dr Daley insisted with a complete and endearing lack of conviction. ‘I will.’

  ‘And a bro
ody hen, Donal, will one day fly backwards over the Irish Sea.’

  Dr Daley touched the shoulder of his old buddy. ‘See if there’s a good turn in you and tilt your arm.’

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘Don’t be fish cold with me, Charles.’

  ‘You drink too much.’

  The doctor opened wide his pink, sharp-rimmed eyes, amazed. ‘On the contrary, Charles, my bitter life-long experience is I can never drink enough.’

  Fr Duddleswell, in effervescent mood, suggested he try the softer stuff. ‘Guinness, for instance.’

  ‘Oh, Charles, I have only to look at the little clerical collar of froth on top of any beer and I cannot take even a sip.’

  ‘Why, not, Doctor?’

  ‘Because it puts me in mind of his Reverence here and gives me such a nasty feeling inside I can’t begin to enjoy it.’

  ‘Donal,’ his Reverence said, already admitting defeat as he made for the cupboard, ‘you should be hanging your head in shame like a cow’s udder.’

  Dr Daley bowed and dangled his bald head to oblige.

  ‘Instead,’ Fr Duddleswell continued, ‘here is yourself emptying more glasses of whiskey than I can say Hail Marys.’ He poured out a single which Dr Daley downed in one, his cigarette still lodged in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Why drink so fast?’ Fr Duddleswell objected.

  ‘If it’s left too long it sticks to the sides, Charles.’ Refreshed, he got down to business. ‘Tell me, now, about this girl conceiving by the power of the holy water.’

  ‘You will remember your advice to Deirdre Jameson, Deirdre Flynn that was.’

  Dr Daley stroked his chin. ‘The girl that was married six or seven years without increase.’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘The girl was never a patient of mine.’

  ‘Nonetheless you advised me to tell her to go see a gynaecologist.’

  ‘Standard practice, Charles.’

  ‘For an unbeliever.’

  ‘My guess was her tubes were blocked.’ The Doctor pointed to his throat and coughed. ‘Like mine at this moment.’

  His host ignored the hint and held up, instead, his bottle of holy water. ‘Even so, Donal, why trust to medicine when you have the facilities of the faith?’