Unholy Dying

by Robert Barnard

  • • •

  Mary Leary collected the West Yorkshire Chronicle from the front doormat and skimmed through the stories on the front page. Normally she saved it for the evening to read during the boring bits on the television. She happened, though, to be waiting for her washing machine to finish its current cycle, and when she decided that the front-page lead was of no interest to her (for though she had married into a sporty family she had no interest in sports herself, and certainly not in footballers’ drunken brawls), she opened to pages 2 and 3.

  The word “priest” hit her at once. She had been fearing, expecting, waiting for the story to break. Always a strong admirer of Father Pardoe, she had known in her heart that if the story became a public matter the situation would change. St. Catherine’s congregation would polarize, Father Pardoe’s private business would become matters of comment and the subject of ribaldry: everything would be cheapened, vulgarized.

  She removed the bed linen from the washing machine and put in the shirts and the sports gear. She went about her business for the rest of the afternoon with a heavy heart. St. Catherine’s had been the second center of her life—not taking up as much time as her family, but coming to be almost as vital as an emotional center. Because she clung to what she knew—something her husband had always counted on—the prospect of change always filled her with dread. The advent of Father Greenshaw in Pardoe’s place had confirmed all her fears. Now it seemed inevitable that even if Pardoe was cleared, which she still believed passionately would be the outcome of the inquiry, people would feel that a “fresh start” was needed, both for himself and for his old parish. She wanted nothing to do with fresh starts. She wanted to continue clinging to what she had always clung to. And part of that process meant not facing up to matters that remained dervishes, menacing but remote, shrieking unmentionable truths in the back of her mind.

  She had tried to put from her mind the words she had overheard two Sundays ago while coming out of St. Catherine’s. But she had not done so completely, and her fears for Father Pardoe were somehow mixed up with fear that, as the scandal snowballed, it would involve her husband, and hence herself and her family.

  • • •

  The phone rang in Simon Norris’s glassed-in back office around half past two, and he slipped in there, where he could keep an eye on his customers, to answer it. It was his wife, as it often was. She was terribly lacking in confidence, Simon was glad to say.

  “Simon? The story’s in the papers today.”

  “Is it? What does it say about us?”

  “Well, not a lot. I’d like you to read it.”

  “I’ll slip out and get a copy.”

  “No need to do that. Waste of money.”

  “I’d like to have an extra copy to send to Aunt Becky.”

  Aunt Becky was Leonard’s godmother, the source of an expected legacy for the boy when she “passed on,” as the Norrises always put it. She was very independent-minded, though—“willful” was how Simon described her privately to his wife—and hence they made great efforts to keep in touch with her. She was currently away on some kind of retreat at Walsingham, though from her twice-weekly telephone reports it was a retreat as fraught and incident-packed as Napoleon’s from Moscow. Aunt Becky was like that—peace was inimical to her.

  “That’s a good idea. She’ll be proud. . . . I think.”

  Simon Norris waited until the shop was empty—they were unusually busy for a Monday—then slipped two doors down to the newsstand. He took the paper back to his office, opened it at page 3, then read the report in the intervals of customers, who took up shirts then put them down again, or felt along the line of sports jackets to test the cloth. Norris could get quite tetchy with nonserious buyers.

  On the whole he was satisfied with the report. By and large he thought Cosmo Horrocks had done a good job. He sniggered over the phrase “Julie Norris’s lifestyle” because he was pretty sure that if she had been living it up in luxury he would have heard of it. He liked the juxtapositioning of the committee of investigation with the information that Julie was again pregnant. He read the views of himself and his wife and felt satisfied that they had been correctly reported, even if he thought they could have been given more extended coverage. Aunt Becky would be interested, he thought. Aunt Becky had been persuaded to take the same view of Julie that they had, especially since she got pregnant. He sat thinking it over for a minute or two, then got back to his wife.

  “No problem,” he said. “I thought it was a good report.”

  “Oh, good. I just couldn’t be sure.”

  “Makes it pretty clear what kind of a girl our Julie is.”

  “It does.”

  “I liked the description of this place. ‘Smart.’ I liked that.”

  “Yes. Can’t do any harm, can it?”

  More customers came into the shop, so Simon Norris rang off. As the afternoon wore on the number of people who came in was remarkable. His impression, though, confirmed by the till after closing time, was that few spent anything. Takings were at the lower end of the acceptable for a Monday. From time to time, and increasingly, he got the impression that some of the shoppers were looking at the clothes as a cover for taking a quick peek at him. It dawned on him very gradually that his customers had read the paper and were coming to take a look at the most easily accessible player in Shipley’s little scandal. He was becoming something of a local celebrity. It didn’t displease him. In fact, when he was alone in the shop at the end of the day he decided it was something he really rather enjoyed.

  Simon Norris was decidedly nearsighted, and he had not noticed that most of the glances directed at him ranged from the incredulous to the hostile.

  • • •

  Terry Beale was out on an assignment at Elland Road when, in the late afternoon, Cosmo rang the office of the Bishop of Leeds, so there was no chance of an extended linger by the coffee machine. It was in any case a ploy that he realized was wearing thin.

  Cosmo was in high good humor. He had had a man outside Mrs. Knowsley’s Pudsey home when Jenny Snell arrived, and he had been informed of it. So the Bradford Telegraph and Argus was interested in the story. Probably, then, so as to be different, they were giving Pardoe’s side of the story. Great. It kept the whole thing on the boil. The Globe was already interested, and was pressuring him for more on the sex angle, and more on the financial angle too. Sex and money played well, whether separately or together. The Globe’s interest provided Cosmo with an opportunity of the kind he relished: of going in where he knew he was not wanted.

  “Bishop O’Hare’s office.”

  “Good afternoon,” said Cosmo genially. “I hope it’s not too late for you.”

  “Too late?”

  “In the working day. This is the West Yorkshire Chronicle here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now don’t be like that. I’m on your side.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to speak to someone about the Father Riley Fund.”

  “So you are the man who . . . has the story in the paper today?”

  “Yes. Cosmo Horrocks at your service. Now what I want to know—”

  “The Bishop was most displeased.”

  “I didn’t expect him to be over the moon.”

  “Then please don’t pretend you are ‘on our side’ as you call it.”

  “Now, to business: I believe the fund is for Shipley charities, left by a former priest at St. Catherine’s Church, is that right?”

  “I really can’t comment.”

  “So, within reason, Father Pardoe was perfectly within his rights to siphon some of this money in the direction of an unmarried mother living in poverty, surely?”

  “As I say, I—”

  “And was the Bishop involved in some changes to the running of the fund and the use it was put to? I have heard a whisper that might be the case.”

  “This is purely a matter for the Church.”

  “Oh, is it? Is
it? If a legacy is left for a certain purpose and that purpose is changed, then legal questions arise, don’t you think? And apart from the legal aspect, there’s the perfectly legitimate public interest as well, particularly in the Shipley area. Has the money been left idle, stacking up interest? That’s not what charitable funds should be used for. Has it been diverted to other causes, in which case on whose authority? What has happened to the money? Has it simply evaporated? If it has, isn’t it time the police were called in?”

  Cosmo was enjoying himself. This was what he was best at: spreading the scope of the story wider, and in the process frightening someone or other, in this case a secretary who was used to having her word accepted as the Bishop’s law. When after a pause the woman spoke, she sounded unnerved.

  “I think I shall have to talk to someone. Do you mind holding the line?”

  “For as long as you like, darling,” said Cosmo.

  He tucked the receiver between his shoulder and his neck and lounged back in his desk chair. He took from his pocket a pack of his foul cigars, found it was empty, crushed it and hurled it at the rubbish bin. His geniality undented, he lounged back still farther and put his feet up on the desk. Carol Barr, on a genuine trip to the coffee machine, thought she had never seen anything more repulsive than Cosmo in a good mood. It was the undertone of threat that was disgusting.

  “Hello. Yes, I’m still here. ‘What a pity,’ I hear you think. . . . Ah, the Bishop will see me, will he? I think that’s very wise of His Holiness. The sooner the better, I’d say. Can’t make it before Thursday? Getting all the facts straight, I suppose. Well, in that case, Thursday it must be. Thanks for all your help, my darling, and I’ll see you then.”

  Having ensured that his reception at the Bishop’s office, should he ever get there, would be as frosty as an antiquated Deepfreeze, Cosmo put the phone down, and sat for some minutes in a state of blissful self-satisfaction.

  • • •

  Julie Norris found that she was out of milk and had to make a trip to the little parade of shops just off the estate. It was late afternoon, and she noticed nothing on the way there. However, as she dawdled along the little row of halfhearted enterprises she got the idea that people were looking at her. She picked up her milk at the newsstand instead of going farther along to the corner shop, and from the counter as she handed over money she picked up the Chronicle as well. It was the first time in her life she had bought it. When she got out into the street again she scanned the front page then opened the paper. Immediately her worst fears were confirmed. She saw the picture and the headline and knew that disaster had struck both Christopher and herself.

  She felt a great wave of depression for his sake, but she decided to save the details to read at home, and tucked the paper in behind Gary in his stroller. It was as she was setting off back home that a man passing her looked into her face to confirm a suspicion, then shouted after her: “You got yourself a good write-up today, love. I’ve often wondered what it takes for a middle-aged man to pull a gorgeous chick like you. Now I know.”

  He was a man whom Julie had caught leering at her before. The combination of her youth and her baby had made all too many assume that she was an easy lay. She looked straight ahead and walked on. She had not gone far when she knew for certain that people were looking at her. One woman—one of the legion of old-before-their-time working-class women—genially pointed to the bulge in her belly and shouted: “Goin’ to be born with a dog collar on, is he?”

  Because the woman was good-humored and potentially friendly, Julie didn’t ignore her.

  “They got it wrong. He’s not the father.”

  “They gen’rally do get it wrong in t’ papers,” the woman agreed. “They just want a good headline.”

  “He’s just a friend, the best one I’ve had.”

  “I’ve had times just like you when I needed a friend. Lucky you to have a good one.”

  “Not so bloody lucky for him,” said Julie.

  And as she trudged home, that was the overwhelming feeling she had. If it wasn’t for her, Christopher wouldn’t be in this mess. If it hadn’t been for his kindly impulses, his instinct to provide not just material help but support as well, none of the gossip would have started. If it weren’t for me, Julie said over and over to herself. Me and that loathsome Cosmo Horrocks.

  • • •

  “Cassie?” said Samantha Horrocks. She spoke low, though her mother was out in the garden pulling up weeds, and her sister was upstairs doing her homework.

  “Samantha! Any problems?”

  “Not really. I just thought I’d tell you that the Mean Monster’s story about the priest has broken in the paper today.”

  “Oh, really? All sorts of salacious innuendos, I suppose.”

  “You bet. I thought I’d tell you so you can see the sort of thing he writes. Innuendos are the Mean Monster’s stock-in-trade.”

  “Still, if you’re a priest you ask for it, in a way.”

  “You’re assuming it’s all true. Knowing the M.M., the likelihood is that it’s all a product of his imagination.”

  “Probably. Though it didn’t start with him, did it?”

  “No. But I’d give the poor man the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I suppose so. I’d want it if the horrible man got his claws into me.”

  “Except—” Samantha changed her mind suddenly. “Except he’ll be so busy with this story for the next few weeks I can’t see him giving you a thought.”

  Samantha had rung on an impulse and without preparing herself. She could tell that Cassie was not fooled by the sudden switch; her voice was thoughtful for the rest of the call. But at least that meant she had got the message, however reluctant she had been to accept it. Samantha felt she had been rushed into something she was not ready for. And there could be no doubt that it was Cassie who was to blame.

  • • •

  When Janette Jessel, alerted by Miss Preece-Dembleby, had gone out to buy the Chronicle, she had stuffed it into her bag as if it were pornography and gone straight home to read it in the privacy of her own living room. Her first reaction was of disgust: Father Pardoe deserved better, much better, than to be subjected to the sneering innuendos one associated with the tabloid press. She wondered at the mentality of people who followed with lascivious glee the supposed frailties of priests and clergymen. Her next reaction was one of anger. Father Pardoe had been shamefully treated: his years of brilliant service as priest at St. Catherine’s had been set at nought by the very men who should have been defending him—his superiors in the Church. He had been placed in a position where people assumed his guilt and sniggered about his supposed sexual peccadillo before a word of the promised report had been read, or even written. She was aware too that Father Pardoe’s support came by and large from the women of the parish. The men, openly or covertly, took the tabloid line: of course he was having it off. They all were, weren’t they? Priests were only human, only like other men. Così fan tutti. Such a line was taken by the men because it made them feel better about themselves.

  This thought must have remained in her mind when she rang Mary Leary to talk over what the publicity meant for the parish, and particularly for the campaign to support Father Pardoe.

  “As long as there was just whispering about it around the parish, then we could be seen as making people’s feelings known to the powers that be,” she said. “But now that it’s become a big local talking point—”

  “National before very long, I wouldn’t mind betting,” said Mary.

  “Oh, Lord, let’s hope not. But that’s what I’m afraid of. As soon as that happens you wonder where we can go with our little campaign. What can it do when he’s got all the tabloids baying for his blood?”

  “Well, we can use it to demonstrate that Father Pardoe has strong local support. We’ve played that down so far, so as not to annoy the Bishop.”

  “Yes. I suppose it will last, won’t it? He will need local support more than ever now.
”

  “We’ve been very discreet, but perhaps too discreet. Now the whole thing has gone public, probably we should go public too.”

  “It will make us very unpopular with the Bishop.”

  There was a moment’s thought at the other end.

  “Do you care?”

  “No.”

  “I would have cared six months ago,” said Mary, “but I don’t now. I think the powers that be have been disgracefully unsupportive. You wouldn’t expect them to act on pure tittle-tattle.”

  “I think they’ve been running scared because of all those horrible cases in Ireland, and here. . . . Boys usually.”

  “It’s always horrible when there’s children involved, isn’t it?” said Mary. “That makes it so much more important that everyone realizes that the women are supporting him. We wouldn’t be if there was any question of . . . of that.”

  “It’s a good job we do support him, because he doesn’t get much in the way of support from the men.”

  “Not a scrap,” said Mary, her voice sharpening. “Basically they think a celibate priest is an unnatural thing.”

  “They think it’s an impossibility. They judge everyone by themselves. It makes me mad when Derek sneers and leers and tries to suggest that Father Pardoe is on his level.”

  It was as if she had opened a floodgate.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you said that. Con is exactly the same. He wants to drag everyone down to his grubby moral standards. Someone like Father Pardoe makes him uneasy, so he jumps for joy if he thinks he’s been exposed as a sham.”

  “They’re two of a kind, your husband and mine,” said Janette. “That’s probably why they’re such pals. They’re both horribly self-satisfied, aren’t they? Do you know I once heard Derek talking on the phone about one of his women, and when the person on the other end mentioned me he said I had a ‘good Catholic marriage.’ And then he laughed. They both did—you could tell.”

  “It was probably Conal on the other end. That’s exactly how he thinks. They’ve given us children—given us!—and once they’ve done that they can go off and do exactly as they please, while we have the privilege of bringing up the next generation to be exactly like them.”