All These Lonely People

by Gervase Phinn

  The priest laughed. ‘Not railway stations.

  They tell the story of Jesus’s journey to the cross. They remind us of His suffering.’

  They stared for a moment at one of the tablets. Silently the priest repeated a prayer:

  ‘O Jesus, who for the love of me

  Didst bear the cross to Calvary,

  In thy sweet mercy grant to me

  To suffer and to die with thee.’

  ‘They killed Him, didn’t they?’ the boy said after a while.

  ‘Yes, they killed Him,’ said the priest. He pointed to one of the painted tablets on the wall. ‘They mocked Him, laughed at Him, whipped Him, wrapped an old piece of purple rag around Him and called Him “King of the Jews”. They challenged Him to show them that He was in fact the Son of God and had all this power. Had He wanted, He could have turned them into dust beneath His sandals.’

  ‘And He let them do it to Him?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because He came into the world to help and heal people, not to hurt them.’

  ‘I’d have hurt them if they’d have done it to me,’ said the boy.

  ‘I guess many of us would have,’ the priest told him, ‘but Jesus didn’t.’

  ‘Why did they kill Him if all He did was want to help them?’

  Father McKenzie thought for a moment. ‘They killed Him,’ he said, ‘because they hated Him. They were jealous of His power, thought He had hidden motives and maybe they were a little frightened of Him too. Does that make sense?’

  The boy cocked his head to one side. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is there anything else you want to ask, Matthew?’

  ‘Hadn’t He got any friends?’

  ‘He had, but they deserted Him when He needed them most. His best friend Peter said he didn’t know Him three times when he was asked.’

  ‘Some friends,’ said the boy.

  ‘They were frightened.’

  ‘I haven’t got any friends,’ he said.

  ‘No friends?’ asked the priest.

  ‘No.’ The boy pointed to the wall. ‘Then these soldiers nailed Him to that cross?’

  ‘They did, but before that they forced a crown of sharp thorns on to His head and called him “King of the Jews”.’

  ‘The bastards,’ said the child.

  ‘Yes, I suppose they were,’ agreed the priest, biting his lip to hide his smile, ‘but that’s not quite how I would put it.’

  Miss Evans emerged though a side door. She pulled a face when she saw the boy.

  ‘It’s that old biddy,’ whispered the boy.

  ‘Matthew,’ said Father McKenzie, ‘that’s not very nice.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t like me, and she has a mouth all screwed up as tight as a duck’s arse.’

  The priest shook his head. ‘Matthew, if I let you come into the church you mustn’t speak like that. It’s very rude.’

  ‘Father McKenzie, there you are,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I wondered where you had got to. Your lunch is ready.’

  ‘I was just telling young Matthew here,’ said the priest, ‘about the stations of the cross.’ He didn’t really need to explain himself to her, but felt somehow he had to.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, ought he not to be getting home?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ agreed the priest. ‘Off you go, Matthew.’

  ‘Can I come again, then?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The housekeeper shook her head.

  Chapter Five

  Lunch was one of Miss Evans’s special dishes – hotpot. Father McKenzie felt sick as he saw the food being spooned on to his plate: grey lumps of meat, slices of blue‐edged potato, overcooked carrots, pale onions, and all swimming in a greasy lake.

  ‘I’m not too hungry, actually, Miss Evans,’ he said, pushing the plate aside.

  ‘Not hungry!’ she cried. ‘You’re not ill, are you, Father?’

  Perhaps this was the time to tell her, he thought, but he decided to wait. He would let the bishop know first. ‘No, no, I’m fine, just a little tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.’

  ‘You didn’t touch the fish I cooked yesterday,’ she told him.

  The very thought of the half‐cooked square of haddock in the sticky white sauce, sprinkled with sprigs of limp parsley and served with lumpy potatoes and bullet‐hard peas, brought a sour taste to his mouth.

  ‘You don’t look well, Father,’ said the housekeeper. ‘You’ve been overdoing it.’

  ‘I think I’ve a touch of the flu that’s going round,’ the priest told her.

  ‘You can pick up all sorts in that confessional box,’ she said, removing the plate. ‘It must be a hotbed of germs in there.’

  ‘It was rather stuffy,’ agreed the priest.

  ‘I see that Mrs Wilson was at confession again. How you put up with her I don’t know, Father. She’s got every illness under the sun, that woman. She stopped me in the porch when I was cleaning out the font and went on and on about her medical problems. I said to her, I said, “Mrs Wilson, you should get down on your knees and thank God you’re still on your feet.” Some people never stop complaining.’

  Father McKenzie smiled. ‘Well, I guess she’s very lonely. The world is full of lonely people, Miss Evans. One wonders where they all come from.’

  ‘I see that Miss Rigby was there as usual,’ the housekeeper said. ‘She’s so holy, that woman, she bites the altar rails. She looks terrible ill though, doesn’t she, poor woman? As my mother would say, she has the smell of clay on her. She’s not long for this world, that’s for sure.’

  Another lonely person, thought the priest.

  ‘She gets more and more odd, in that old coat and knitted hat like a tea cosy and those big brown boots and clutching that plastic carrier bag. Come rain or shine, winter or summer, she’s always dressed the same and always with that plastic bag. Last week, after that wedding, she was outside the church picking up the rice, grain by grain. I mean, whatever does she want with little bits of rice? She must be living in a dream.’

  The priest sighed but said nothing.

  ‘I didn’t see any sign of Mrs Hardy,’ said the housekeeper.

  ‘No, she wasn’t at confession,’ said the priest. ‘I must telephone her and see how her husband is. Poor man looked so ill when I saw him last week.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ said the housekeeper. ‘I saw her in the post office yesterday collecting his pension. I asked after him, of course, thinking that that would be the last pension she’d be collecting, what with him being at death’s door. I thought it wouldn’t be long before she’d be in touch with you to arrange the funeral and, blow me down, she said he’s up and about. Would you believe it?’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said the priest.

  ‘Your visit must have put the very fear of God into him,’ said the housekeeper, ‘because after you’d gone, he was out of bed howling healthy and raring to go, asking for two fried eggs, three rashers of bacon and a black pudding. On Saturday he was down at the “Golden Ball” drinking ale with the best of them. As like as not he’ll be running the London marathon next week, as large as life and twice as natural.’

  ‘I’m very pleased,’ said the priest, rising from the table. ‘Well, I have a sermon to prepare for tomorrow.’ I also have a letter to compose to the bishop, he thought to himself. The housekeeper remained by the door, holding the plate. ‘Is there something else, Miss Evans?’

  ‘About that boy,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That grubby little boy who was in the church.’

  ‘I know who you mean,’ said the priest. ‘His name is Matthew. What about him?’

  ‘Well, I’ve seen him hanging about in the church before.’

  ‘He likes to come here,’ the priest told her.

  ‘Far be it from me to interfere, Father McKenzie, but if I was you, I wouldn’t encourage him. No good will come of it.’

  ‘He�
�s just a child, Miss Evans,’ said the priest, ‘only a child. I feel rather sorry for him. He’s a lonely little boy and has a poor home life it seems.’

  ‘Well, if you ask me, I reckon he’s up to no good, wandering around the empty church. One of these days you’ll find the brass candlesticks missing from your altar, your walls covered in graffiti and the holy water in the porch font smelling like a sewer again. You mark my words.’

  ‘I think at heart he’s a good lad,’ said the priest, ‘and he’s a clever little boy, quite a chatty child. He has a lot about him. Looking at him, I don’t suppose he gets much attention at home.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she hummed, with that well‐fancy‐that sort of smile. ‘I really don’t think you should be letting him come into the church, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘As I said, he seems to like it here,’ the priest told her. ‘It’s quiet and calming and he’s interested in the things around him.’

  ‘Interested in what he can steal, I bet,’ she said.

  ‘I think you’re being a little unkind, Miss Evans,’ said the priest quietly.

  The housekeeper’s mouth closed into a tight little line. ‘Well, that may be, Father, but I was having a word with the woman behind the counter in the post office and she knows him. I was telling her about how he keeps turning up in the church. Matthew Brown’s his name. Mrs Leary says he’s a right little tearaway. Always in some sort of trouble. He’s stolen things from the post office, sweets and crisps. He lives on that big estate where all the trouble is. Mrs Wilson, who was in the post office as well, says his family is a bad lot. Father in prison, mother never in, and when she is, she brings men home. She lets him wander the streets getting up to all sorts of mischief. I mean, you can see what sort of home he’s from. He wants a good wash for a start and some of the words he comes out with would make a soldier blush.’

  ‘Suffer little children,’ said the priest quietly. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Luke, Chapter 18,’ Father McKenzie told her. ‘“Suffer little children to come unto me,” said Jesus, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to these. I tell you this, anyone who will not receive a little child will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”’

  ‘Don’t say you haven’t been warned, Father McKenzie. That’s all I’ll say,’ the housekeeper told him. ‘I’ll get your coffee.’

  Chapter Six

  Father McKenzie did not sleep much that night. He thought of the grubby little boy who found the church so interesting. He too, like little Matthew, had loved going into a church when he was a child. He liked the colours, the ornaments, the coolness, the statues and the mass, chanted in a language centuries old. It was a dimly lit little chapel, smelling of damp, old wood and incense, with the rain beating at the stained‐glass windows. He had watched the altar boys in red and white walk in front of the priest, one holding a great cross before him and the others bearing lighted candles. It had been magical.

  He remembered going to mass as a child with his parents, dressed in his Sunday best. There was a picture of him his mother kept on the sideboard, showing him smiling at the camera. He was in grey shorts, with shiny, black, tight‐fitting shoes, stockings pulled up to the knees, white shirt with the tight collar and clip‐on tie. As the people filed out at the end of mass, he would go to the plaster statue of the pale‐faced Virgin Mary in her blue robe and kneel before her. At the brass candle shrine to the side of the altar, he would buy a penny candle and make a silent wish. Let me be a priest, he would pray.

  As he lay there now in the darkness, scenes of his childhood grew around him. He could see his mother, full of life and laughter, moving around the farmhouse kitchen, speaking rapidly, stroking his head gently as she passed with a kind word. She would read to him every night, and he came to love words and swam in an ocean of language.

  He watched his mother a lot when he was small. She never knew he was looking at her as she went busily about her work. He saw her feed a stray cat and scatter bread for the birds, and learnt that it was good to be kind to other creatures. He watched her bake gingerbread men with currant buttons, and learnt that the little things in life are sometimes more important than the big things. He watched her ironing and singing to herself, saw her smiling and wanted to smile like that too.

  Sometimes he saw her cry, and learnt that things in the world did hurt but that it was all right to cry. He saw her on her knees praying, and learnt that there was a God to whom he could talk as well. He saw her sitting on the front row in the school hall when he was in the infant nativity play and heard her clap the loudest when he took his bow. He learnt then what it felt like to be proud. When she kissed him goodnight and told him how special he was, he learnt the meaning of love.

  As the priest lay there in the darkness of the room, he recalled his father. He had thick wavy black hair and shining blue eyes and a handsome face. He could picture him standing in the farmyard among the ploughs and mowing machines, watching the swallows swooping and darting above him. His father was not a man who showed any signs of affection like his mother. He might sometimes ruffle his son’s hair, put an arm around his shoulder and peck him on the cheek before he went to bed, but this stopped when his son’s age reached double figures.

  It was a happy childhood. He was a quiet, well‐behaved boy, an only child and a bit of a loner at school. At home he helped muck out the pigs, tidy the hay in the barn, gather the eggs and feed the chickens without grumbling. Up at six, he helped feed and milk the cows. After that he washed and changed into his school clothes. Then he went down for breakfast and, with his satchel packed, he walked the two miles to the Christian Brothers’ College. Back from school at five, he ate a slice of bread and jam and then it was back to work on the farm. It was expected of him and he didn’t complain, but he was keen to get to his books, to start his homework and to read.

  When he told his parents he wanted to be a priest, there was an argument. His mother, he knew, had always hoped that he would become a priest and he could picture her face glowing with pride when he told her. His father was against it from the start and tried to ‘make him see sense’. Who would take over the farm? What about grandchildren? Did he not know what a lonely life a priest led? Then the shouting started. His father blamed the teachers up at the school, for putting silly ideas into his head. He listened quietly to his father’s angry words, watched him banging his heavy fist on the table and then storming out of the kitchen. There was a cold silence over the next few days, but he had not changed his mind. He would become a priest.

  He returned to the farm after his father’s death and found it run down and deserted, with weeds sprouting from the broken guttering and the once shining whitewashed walls now a dirty grey. The windows were broken and an overgrown arch of roses covered the door. As the darkness gathered, rooks flapped in the air like scraps of black cloth floating on the wind.

  After his training he went back to the village near to where he had grown up. The old parish priest, Father Walsh, welcomed this keen young man and gave him much of the day‐today work to do. Father McKenzie happily took it on.

  The young priest became a regular visitor to the small school in the village. The head teacher, Miss Martin, a cold woman with hooded eyes and a scowl, was not at all keen on him calling in. She had been left alone by old Father Walsh and liked a quiet life.

  ‘The children’s reading isn’t very good,’ Father McKenzie told her after spending a day in the school.

  ‘Well, no, it isn’t,’ agreed the head teacher, ‘but look where these children come from. I mean, what can you expect of them? Books are not part of their lives. The only book some of them have in the house is the big yellow one kept by the telephone.’

  ‘It’s very important for them to learn to read,’ said the young priest.

  ‘Is it?’ asked the head teacher.

  ‘Well, of course,’ the priest told her, surprised. ‘A person who cannot read is held back in life. Books are the windows on the
world.’

  ‘These are farming children,’ said the head teacher. The priest could tell by her tone of voice that she was not pleased with what he had said. ‘All they are bothered about is leaving school to work on the farm. You don’t need to be a good reader to look after pigs and cattle and sheep.’

  ‘I was born on a farm,’ said the priest. ‘I came from a farming family.’

  The head teacher frowned. ‘Well, perhaps your parents wanted something better for you and took an interest in what you did in school. The parents of these children just want them to leave school and help on the farm.’

  Father McKenzie thought of his own father, but he said nothing.

  Chapter Seven

  When he was a young priest in Ireland, Father McKenzie started to call in at the small school each week, despite the coldness of the head teacher and the two sour‐faced members of staff. They felt that he was meddling with their work. Each morning he sat with the children who struggled with their reading, listening to them and talking about the books.

  The first child who came to see him on his first visit was a small rosy‐cheeked boy with wiry blond hair and large brown eyes. He was not keen on having to come and see the priest, who was sitting waiting in the small Reading Corner. He eyed the square of carpet and the old bookshelf.

  ‘I can’t go on the carpet,’ the child told him flatly.

  ‘You can,’ said the priest.

  ‘No, I can’t. I can’t go on that carpet.’

  ‘Did someone say you couldn’t go on the carpet?’

  ‘No, but I’m not going on it!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m not!’

  ‘Is there some reason why you can’t go on the carpet?’ the priest asked.

  ‘Aye, there is.’

  ‘Well, why can’t you go on the carpet?’

  ‘Because I’ve got shit on my shoe.’

  ‘You must not say that word,’ the priest told him.

  The child stared at the priest. ‘What word?’ he asked.