The Potting Shed

by Graham Greene

  JAMES: An accident?

  MRS. CALLIFER: You slipped and fell. You were unconscious when Potter found you. And afterwards—it made you strange.

  JAMES: Mad?

  MRS. CALLIFER: Not exactly mad. You didn’t get on with your father. Family life wasn’t good for you.

  JAMES: Is that all?

  MRS. CALLIFER: All except Potter’s fairy stories.

  JAMES: Then I want the fairy stories.

  MRS. POTTER: They weren’t fairy stories, Mrs. Callifer. Potter was no liar. Your husband knew that. That’s why he sent him away.

  MRS. CALLIFER: He was too old for the work. My husband gave him a good pension.

  MRS. POTTER: Oh, it was a good pension, but his heart was in his garden, and it killed him.

  MRS. CALLIFER: He spread stories.

  MRS. POTTER: It was the truth.

  MRS. CALLIFER: How could it be?

  MRS. POTTER: It’s not the first time. There was Lazarus. They buried him.

  ANNE: Who was Lazarus?

  MRS. CALLIFER: Someone in a book.

  MRS. POTTER (angrily): A book you Callifers aren’t allowed to read. All right. I’ll tell you how it was, Master James. It was dinnertime. Potter was late. Near two o’clock. I knew something was wrong as soon as he came in. He had a coffin face. It was bad for Potter because he found you first.

  JAMES: He found me?

  MRS. POTTER: He lifted you down, poor boy.

  JAMES: Lifted me— (He sits down at the desk.)

  MRS. POTTER: You were hanging there, sir. You’d used a cord from the playroom. He cut you down.

  JAMES: Was I—

  MRS. POTTER: There wasn’t any life in you, sir.

  MRS. CALLIFER: No! (She makes a motion of protest.)

  MRS. POTTER: Forgive me, ma’am, but it’s what Potter said.

  JAMES: (as though it were a real question, and he half expects the answer to be no): But I am here? This is my room.

  MRS. POTTER: Potter did all he could. He was a great swimmer once, sir, and he knew all about artificial respirationing. It wasn’t any use, he said. Your heart was stopped. He was always a truthful man.

  JAMES: Last week I cut my hand. It bled.

  MRS. POTTER: Potter left the door open, and he looked up and saw your uncle was there. “Master James has killed himself,” Potter said. You were stretched out there on the ground and you had no more breath, Potter said, than a dead fish.

  MRS. CALLIFER: James, it was all a mistake. You don’t take this seriously, James?

  JAMES: What’s your story, Mother? You’ve kept it dark a long while.

  MRS. CALLIFER: There was no story to tell. We didn’t want you to remember how foolish you’d been. You were in a coma from shock. When the doctor came he revived you.

  MRS. POTTER: Not the doctor. Potter left you with your uncle, Master James.

  MRS. CALLIFER: Potter did better than he knew. Perhaps he did save your life.

  MRS. POTTER: Potter never thought that. He was beyond human aid, Potter said.

  JAMES: Mother, where’s my uncle now? (Pause.) You may as well tell me.

  MRS. CALLIFER: Even if I knew where he was I wouldn’t tell you. What use could he be to you in the state you’d find him in?

  JAMES: Mother, you can’t hush him up. There are directories where one can find a priest’s address.

  ANNE (coming forward): I’ll find it for you. (They all turn and look at her.) It will be a lot easier than finding Mrs. Potter.

  JAMES: No! Leave this to me.

  CURTAIN

  Act Two

  SCENE TWO

  Evening. The sitting room in Father Callifer’s presbytery in an East Anglian town. There is something in its homelessness that reminds us of James Callifer’s lodgings in Nottingham. Only instead of pictures by Marcus Stone there are a hideous Sacred Heart, a dreary print of a Mother and Child belonging to Raphael’s most sugary period. There is a crucifix on the dresser, instead of a biscuit-box. One feels that all has been inherited from another priest. They are part of a second-hand uniform. There are two doors, one opening on another part of the house, the other into a little drab hall.

  There are the remains of an evening meal on a tray on the table in the sitting room. A bottle of cheap altar wine is all but finished.

  Miss Connolly, Father Callifer’s housekeeper, has just let a man into the hall. He wears a raincoat over his shoulders. In the half-dark, for the only light comes from the street outside, we do not at first recognize James Callifer. Miss Connolly is a hard-faced woman of over fifty. She has known many other priests in her time and has learned only too well to distinguish between the office and the man.

  MISS CONNOLLY: For what would you be wanting the father at this hour? There’s proper times for confession. They are on the church board. Is it confession?

  JAMES: No.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Instruction? I doubt if he’s in a fit state after his supper. He’s easily tired.

  JAMES: So I’ve heard.

  MISS CONNOLLY: You shouldn’t believe all you hear. Where do you come from?

  JAMES: A long way. Just tell him—

  MISS CONNOLLY: I can’t let you have a light. The bulb’s burned out, and I haven’t a spare one in the house.

  JAMES: I don’t mind the darkness.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I promise nothing, mind. You should have come in the morning. He’s best after breakfast.

  JAMES: I won’t be here. I’m only passing through.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Then what kind of instruction are you expecting?

  JAMES: Instruction was your word.

  She goes out impatiently, shutting the door behind her, crosses the sitting room and goes out by the other door. Now we can hardly make out James at all. He sits quietly until the others return. When he hears them speaking, he approaches the door and listens. We hear their voices first on the stairs outside the sitting room, or rather Miss Connolly’s voice.

  MISS CONNOLLY (voice): And when can I find you capable? Answer me that. (Father Callifer enters, followed by Miss Connolly. He has a stubbly, worn face with bloodshot eyes: a dirty wisp of a Roman collar has been made by twisting and folding a handkerchief round the top of his shirt.) I’m waiting for an answer. (The priest goes to the mantelpiece and places his hands on it as though for support. He has his back to Miss Connolly and the audience.) They’d have written to the Bishop long before this if I’d let them. (A pause.) Don’t think they haven’t learnt what happened in your last parish and the one before that. If I hadn’t begged them time and again to give you a chance, if only for my sake—

  CALLIFER (not turning): Your sake?

  MISS CONNOLLY: I’ve been the priest’s housekeeper here for twenty years and never had a breath of scandal before. But unless you give me your solemn honest-to-God promise you’ll keep off the liquor I’ll not be preventing them any longer writing to the Bishop.

  CALLIFER: Let them write.

  MISS CONNOLLY: If they do it will be the end of you. You won’t find another bishop to take you.

  CALLIFER (swinging suddenly round): Do you think I’d mind that? Let them take away my faculties. Don’t threaten a convict with the loss of his chains.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Speak lower if you don’t want to advertise your shame to a stranger.

  CALLIFER: Go and fetch the man, whoever he is.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I’m going to have my say first. Here they want a priest with the faith in him. Don’t turn away and pretend you don’t understand.

  CALLIFER: Fetch him in, I say.

  MISS CONNOLLY: You and I have got to have this out once and for all. (With a slight softening): It’s for your sake I’m speaking.

  CALLIFER: I say the Mass every Sunday at eight-thirty and on week-days at seven for those who care to come. There aren’t many of them. What else do you want of me?

  MISS CONNOLLY: Oh, you stand at the altar all right, gabbling your way through as quickly as possible to get at your breakfast. But you don’t believe a wo
rd you are saying.

  CALLIFER: How do you know?

  MISS CONNOLLY: In a life like mine you get an ear for such things.

  CALLIFER: Yes, I suppose so.

  MISS CONNOLLY: You should have heard poor Father Murphy and the beautiful voice he had. He wouldn’t have read other men’s sermons because he had no thoughts of his own.

  CALLIFER: I can tell he never preached to you on charity.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I found your new hiding place this morning. (Callifer turns his back on her and moves away. More gently): Father, what kind of a priest are you?

  CALLIFER: A priest who does his job. I say the Mass, I hear confessions, if anyone has a stomach ache in the night, don’t I go to him? Who has ever asked for me and I haven’t come?

  MISS CONNOLLY: Miss Alexander.

  CALLIFER (slowly, with shame): Yes, you would remind me of that.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I couldn’t wake you. I had to say next day you were sick. Sick!

  CALLIFER: Miss Connolly, you’ve looked after a lot of priests. You take it as your right to speak your mind to them. And me—you expect me to serve you, all of you, every day for twenty-four hours. I mustn’t be a man. I must be a priest. And in return, after Mass you give me coffee and eggs (in all these years you’ve never learnt how to make coffee) and you make my bed. You keep my two rooms clean—or nearly. (He runs his finger along the mantelpiece.) I don’t ask you for any more than you are paid to do.

  MISS CONNOLLY: The people here have a right to a priest with the faith.

  CALLIFER: Faith. They want a play-actor. They want snow-white hair, high collars, clean vestments (who pays the cleaner?—not their sixpence), and they want a voice that’s never husky with the boredom of saying the same words day after day. All right. Let them write to the Bishop. Do you think I want to get up every morning at six in time to make my meditation before Mass? Meditation on what? The reason why I’m going on with this slave-labour? They give prisoners useless tasks, don’t they, digging pits and filling them up again? Like mine.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Speak low. You don’t understand what you are saying, Father.

  CALLIFER: Father! I hate the word. I had a brother who believed in nothing, and for thirty years now I have believed in nothing too. I used to pray, I used to love what you call God, and then my eyes were opened—to nothing. A father belongs to his children until they grow up and he’s free of them. But these people will never grow up. They die children and leave children behind them. I’m condemned to being a father for life.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I’ve never heard such words before out of a priest’s mouth.

  A pause.

  CALLIFER: You wouldn’t have heard them now if the bottle you found hadn’t been empty.

  MISS CONNOLLY: They say your breath smells in the confessional.

  CALLIFER: And so do theirs. Of worse things. I’d rather smell of whisky than bad teeth.

  MISS CONNOLLY: You’re full of it now.

  CALLIFER: Oh no, I’m empty. Quite empty. (The door from the hall opens and James Callifer enters.) Who are you?

  JAMES: Your nephew. If you are Father Callifer.

  CALLIFER: My nephew? (Pulling himself together): Well, well, it’s long since I’ve seen any of the family. I wouldn’t have kept you waiting if I’d known. I thought you were just—well—You should have warned me you were coming. Miss Connolly—

  MISS CONNOLLY: I can get the guest room ready right away.

  JAMES: I’m not staying. I was only passing and I thought—

  CALLIFER: The nearest town where you’ll be comfortable is Wisbech. That’s twenty miles away. You’d do much better to stay the night here.

  MISS CONNOLLY: The sheets are ready aired.

  CALLIFER (he is unused to being a host; nobody has stayed in this house for years): Have you dined? It would be no trouble, would it, Miss Connolly, you could—

  MISS CONNOLLY: There’s a couple of chops for tomorrow’s lunch. It won’t take a minute.

  CALLIFER: Where are my manners? I forgot to introduce the two of you. This is my housekeeper, Miss Connolly. My nephew, John.

  JAMES (who does not correct him): How do you do, Miss Connolly? I had food on the way. I just wanted to see you, have a word with you after all these years. Perhaps a drink.

  CALLIFER (watching Miss Connolly): Of course you must have a drink. While Miss Connolly is getting your room ready. Sit down, my dear fellow, sit down. That’s the only comfortable chair. Now, Miss Connolly, what have we in the house?

  MISS CONNOLLY (grudgingly): There’s a bit of sherry.

  CALLIFER: Not at this hour.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Maybe I can find some altar wine.

  CALLIFER: Do. And bring a jug of water.

  MISS CONNOLLY (suspiciously): What would you be wanting the water for?

  CALLIFER: To temper the wine, Miss Connolly. (Miss Connolly goes out with the supper tray.) A good woman—in her way. And how’s the bank?

  JAMES: I work on a newspaper.

  CALLIFER: Oh, I was thinking—But I haven’t kept up. Were you at your poor father’s funeral?

  JAMES: Yes, but I wasn’t invited.

  CALLIFER: Nor was I, but you—(He looks at him sharply.)

  JAMES: For the same reason. I’m James, Uncle, not John. A strange meeting, isn’t it?—the first since that potting shed.

  At this moment Miss Connolly enters with a tray. She puts it on the table.

  MISS CONNOLLY: Is there anything else you’ll be wanting?

  CALLIFER: No. You can go to bed. I’ll show my nephew up. (She leaves.) So you are James.

  JAMES: Yes.

  CALLIFER: I wish you hadn’t come.

  JAMES: Why?

  CALLIFER: We were very close once. Do you remember?

  JAMES: No.

  CALLIFER: I’m glad. You won’t find me so changed then.

  JAMES: I couldn’t help listening just now—you didn’t lower your voice.

  CALLIFER: That’s honest, anyway. So we needn’t pretend. You’ll have some whisky? A reunion like this demands—(He doesn’t wait for an answer, but goes to his bookcase and draws out the first volume of the Catholic Encyclopedia and then the second. Behind it is a full bottle.) Volume 2, C. to F. I can’t offer you soda. She’d notice if I kept soda in the house. (He pours out two very large glasses and drinks deeply of his own.) Welcome to my home. Rather different from Wild Grove, isn’t it? But then your father and I followed different ways. They say you can tell a man’s character from his furnishings. (James looks around.) Yes, you can see mine standing all round you for yourself. What sort of rooms have you got, I wonder? They’ll have told you at Wild Grove that I’m over fond of this. (He raises his glass.) But I do my job. Nobody can deny I do my job. Look at the pictures, the books. I keep up appearances, don’t I? We are intelligent men, you and I. Look at that picture of the Sacred Heart. A Christmas card made out of a medical textbook. (He takes another long drink of whisky.) Does John drink?

  JAMES: A glass of wine with his meals.

  CALLIFER: A lucky man. How does it go? “They scoff at scars who never felt a wound”?

  JAMES: What’s your wound, Uncle?

  CALLIFER: My wound? Nothing serious. It’s a difficult thing, though, practising a faith, day in, day out, when you don’t believe one jot of it. Do you know that at night I still pray—to nothing, to that. (He indicates the crucifix with his glass.) I was teaching you to believe in that when your father interfered. How right he was.

  JAMES: Right?

  CALLIFER: He was a very clever man. Older and cleverer than I was. He took everything I told you and made fun of it. He made me a laughing stock before you. I had taught you about the Virgin birth and he cured you with physiology.

  JAMES: Was that why I tried to kill myself?

  CALLIFER: So you know about that, do you? He was a bit too rough. (A pause.) Fill your glass. We have to get through this bottle by twelve.

  JAMES: Why by twelve?

  CALLIFER: I have to
say Mass in the morning. I abide by the rules. It’s the least I can do.

  JAMES: For who?

  CALLIFER: For myself. (He gives an unhappy laugh.) I caught you there. You thought you had squeezed out a small drop of faith. But there isn’t one drop.

  As James is helping himself Miss Connolly enters. She has an old-fashioned kitchen alarm clock in her hand.

  MISS CONNOLLY (harshly): I’ve set the alarm for six. (She sees what they are drinking.) So that’s why you asked for the water. Where had you got that hidden?

  JAMES: I brought it.

  MISS CONNOLLY: I try so hard to keep him off the drink, and now you are sending him drunk to bed.

  JAMES: I’m sorry. I needed the drink more than he did.

  MISS CONNOLLY (her harshness gone as she looks at the old man drooping in his chair): You’ll see he goes up to bed soon, won’t you; he has to wake early. He works hard in his way. (She pauses at the door.) Do you know what he called himself just now? A convict. He said he was in prison. I’m the warder, I suppose. He hasn’t any love or gratitude in him for the years he has been looked after.

  JAMES: It’s a terrible thing to have nothing in you.

  MISS CONNOLLY: And I’d give my life for him. (She goes out.)

  CALLIFER (rousing himself): I’ve made her angry again. Where’s the point? I think I’ll go to bed if you’ll help me. What were we talking about when she came in?

  JAMES: Have you really forgotten what happened?

  CALLIFER: I’ve forgotten nothing. I don’t like to remember, that’s all. It was a terrible day for everybody. I was very angry with your father for the way he treated you. Of course he had reason, but it was a shocking thing for a boy to be brought to hang himself.

  JAMES: What happened when you found me? I wasn’t—dead, was I?

  CALLIFER: How could you have been dead? Oh, Potter thought so. And so did I, perhaps. I put a dead leaf on your lips and it didn’t move. But they have a word for that. It was a coma. Just a coma. The doctor said so.

  JAMES: Tell me what you did.

  CALLIFER: I prayed. You see, in those days I believed. I wish you hadn’t come back. I’d forgotten what you looked like. I don’t care to remember faces. When I shave, I shave without a mirror.