A Father Before Christmas

by Neil Boyd

  ‘Is that more or less than a plenary Indulgence, Father?’ I confessed I had no idea.

  She proceeded to read for my benefit how Spaniards at fivepence a person used to pay £200,000 a year to qualify for Indulgences and how the first plenary was given by the Pope to pious Crusaders for slaughtering the Turks.

  I asked caustically if the author of the scurrilous article quoted any sources. ‘Yes, Father,’ she said, and mentioned A History Of The Church by a famous Jesuit historian.

  I let her ramble on, hoping she would not notice my own Papal Indulgence resplendent in its frame on the wall above her head. It entitled me to a plenary Indulgence at the moment of death provided I was in a state of grace, prayed for the Pope’s intention and uttered the holy name of Jesus. Dying is bound to be a busy time.

  ‘By wearing a scapular of the Immaculate Conception,’ Mrs Rollings continued, ‘a Catholic can obtain 433 plenary Indulgences and lots of partial ones.’

  I could not let that pass. ‘Authorities, please,’ I demanded. She stumbled over the name, ‘Alphonsus … and something that looks like “liquorice”.’

  ‘Liguori?’ I said and spelt it.

  ‘That’s right, Father.’

  St Alphonsus is a doctor of the Church but I did not tell her that. I made a resolution not to intervene again.

  ‘The Pope in a Jubilee year grants not merely a plenary but a most plenary Indulgence.’ She paused and lifted her eyes from the page. ‘Why should Catholics need more than a plenary, Father?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘And if,’ she reasoned, ‘you can earn, say, a million days of Indulgences every twenty-four hours just by saying prayers, that’s not very fair on the early Christians, is it?’

  I felt it was not for a curate to settle issues of that magnitude.

  ‘After all, Father, the early Christians had to scourge themselves for months on end for their pardon, and Christians today only have to recite the rosary.’

  I only dimly heard her after that. Her theme was the folly of Catholics believing that souls, which are spritual, can burn in Purgatory, and the pluck of Martin Luther, and Pope Leo X rebuilding St Peter’s in Rome on the proceeds of the sale of Indulgences.

  Did I have to be condemned to death and reprieved like Fr Duddleswell before I could learn to love everyone?

  At supper, I chanced to say I had been talking to Mrs Rollings about Indulgences. Fr Duddleswell congratulated me on preparing for November and asked if I had told her the story of Sixtus IV’s visit to the Franciscan nuns at Foligno in 1476.

  ‘No, Father Neil? Well, now, perhaps you did not realize yourself how the Pope gave the good sisters a plenary Indulgence for the coming Feast of the Virgin. But the Holy Ghost moved him to give them something special.’ I was expecting the Pope to grant the nuns a most plenary Indulgence. ‘Pope Sixtus said, “Sisters, I give you full immunity from your guilt and your punishment every time you go to confession.”’

  ‘Fantastic,’ I said.

  Fr Duddleswell smiled. ‘The Cardinals present had the same reaction, Father Neil. “Every time, Holy Father?” they gasped. His Holiness put his old hand to his heart and said, “Yes, I give these lovely sisters everything I have, like.” And what then, Father Neil? The Cardinals all went down on their knees pleading, “Us as well, Holy Father, us as well.” “All right”, said His Holiness, “you as well”.’ Fr Duddleswell’s eyes were glistening. ‘Such a tender tale,’ he said. ‘I love it, indeed I do.’

  I repeated one or two of the details Mrs Rollings had read from The Watchtower. Before I could quote the references Fr Duddleswell had drawn in a deep breath and exhaled it to dismiss the Church’s accusers in a single satisfying word: ‘Bigots!’

  Halloween and the Feast of All Saints did nothing to lift his spirits. No more joyful songs from his gramophone. Even at Mass on All Saints Day he preached about another sparrow that rubbed its beak upon a mountain top. Every thousand years another bird of the same family followed suit. ‘And when eventually, me dear people, that mighty heap was levelled to the ground, the first moment of eternity had scarcely begun.’

  On November 2nd, the Feast of All Souls, he revived. Up at the crack of dawn, he popped in and out of church, praying for the departed. He celebrated each of his three Requiem Masses on the trot with lugubrious glee, pausing only to point out to his congregations that if they recited six Paters, Aves and Glorias and prayed for the Holy Father’s intention ‘a holy soul will obtain a plenary Indulgence and be freed forthwith from the pangs of Purgatory.’

  My Masses followed, and after breakfast we spent the morning freeing the dead, toties quoties, a soul a visit, so to speak. One gulp of fresh air at the church door was sufficient to mark off one visit from another. Owing to the speed with which Fr Duddleswell prayed, by my reckoning he helped two dozen more holy souls than I to freedom. Perhaps mine, I consoled myself, had been the greater sinners.

  We were visiting with the Blessed Sacrament again after lunch when we spotted a shifty looking character in a brown mackintosh reading the notices pinned to the church door.

  ‘Take a close look at Pinky Weston,’ Fr Duddleswell whispered. ‘A regular dung-heap of villainy. That one would take your heart or liver on loan and not return it.’

  In the presbytery, he told me I had just seen my first Rapper. Someone who raps on doors to find out if the tenants have anything of value they are prepared to part with. Rappers are often ignoramuses which is why they mostly work in cahoots with antique dealers.

  ‘I see,’ I said, though it was only through a glass darkly.

  Rappers, he told me, peep through windows hoping to find a bargain. They team up with window cleaners, interior decorators, meter readers, with anyone in fact who will give them a nod and a wink when they come across something that looks like an antique. It might be furniture, silver, pottery or glass.

  Pinky Weston had a special reason for reading the notices at the back of our church. A Requiem Mass alerts him to look up the deceased’s address in the Electoral Register. He visits the house before the corpse is cold, hoping a destitute widow will part with an item of value for a pittance if only to pay for the funeral.

  Fr Duddleswell reported the rumour that when Pinky’s offer on, say, a piece of pottery is refused, he sometimes fingers it and cracks it.

  My surprise provoked Fr Duddleswell to say, ‘He cracks it expertly, apologizes for the little “accident”, and out of the kindness of his heart repeats his original offer. Most times the owner says he can have it now and good riddance. Pinky takes it to his dealer who fixes it so you cannot see the join. Well, what d’you say to that, Father Neil?’

  ‘It’s wrong, Father.’

  ‘God’s holy Mother, lad, ’tis bloody facinorous, so ’tis.’

  ‘Very wrong,’ I said heatedly.

  ‘When he dies, even the maggots will give him a miss.’

  I expected to be sent back into church to release a few more holy souls but the sight of Pinky Weston had turned his attention to other matters. He invited me, instead, to accompany him by underground train to the antique market in Portobello Road.

  Above the roar and rattle of the train he told me how their family house in Bath, and later the one in Portobello Road, had been of great beauty. ‘Full of it,’ he repeated with a yell. ‘Can you hear me? Can you …’

  I nodded like an anxious duck.

  I enjoyed the chatter and bustle of the cosmopolitan crowd in Portobello Road. Pigeons, like dun-coloured Holy Ghosts, pecked away at scraps on the pavement. Chestnuts were being roasted on braziers. With Bonfire Night only three days off, children stood beside stuffed scarecrows piping out, ‘Penny for the Guy’. We sifted through bric-a-brac on the stalls and flattened our noses against shop windows.

  He taught me about Hepplewhite armchairs, when the Sheraton period was, and once he called out, ‘Look, Father Neil, a genuine Queen Anne chest of drawers dating from 1705.’ I, who couldn’t tell whether a woman was twenty-f
ive or thirty-five, was terribly impressed.

  We were passing a shop pasted with notices UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT when a middle-aged couple emerged. The lady wore a bright, flowered dress and butterfly-winged glasses. She tossed her blue-rinsed head derisively at the remains of a chair in the window and called to her husband who had a camera round his neck, ‘Chuck, what a goddam load of junk.’

  ‘Ten pounds for that thing,’ said Chuck, tugging on his camera strap.

  ‘What’s that in dollars, honey?’

  ‘A helluva lot,’ grunted Chuck. ‘Back home in New York, the garbage collectors would charge to take it away.’

  Fr Duddleswell seized my arm and dragged me after him. Twenty yards further on, he released me and said, ‘Did you hear that, Father Neil?’

  ‘Americans,’ I began, ‘coming over here and …’

  ‘Shut your mouth. I mean, Father Neil, listen to what I am telling you. That “thing” is a bloody Chippendale.’ I was about to say the chair was without a seat when I remembered that the Venus de Milo didn’t have any arms and nobody seemed to mind.

  ‘Now, hear me, Father Neil, this is what we are about to do.’

  Five minutes later, we were inside the shop admiring a statue, two and a half feet high, of the Madonna and Child.

  ‘Would you suppose,’ said Fr Duddleswell in his preaching voice, ‘that Mrs Pring would like to have this?’

  Before I could reply, a young assistant in jeans had pushed his hair out of his eyes to enquire if he could be of help.

  After some sales patter about the statue’s age, its haunting beauty, the beechwood of which it was carved, its Flemish origin, he said that for us the price was £250.

  Fr Duddleswell blinked, removed his spectacles and breathed on them carefully like the risen Jesus on the Apostles. He said, as he rubbed away the mist, that he thought the young gentleman had told him the statue was very old. A brand new one would surely be cheaper.

  ‘How much did you want to spend on this lady, Guv?’ the assistant sniffed.

  ‘About five pounds,’ answered Fr Duddleswell, ‘maybe six.’

  ‘What’s wrong with a fountain pen?’ said the assistant before retiring to an inner room where he doubtless elaborated his suggestion to a young woman in slacks who was manicuring her nails.

  We moved towards the door. Fr Duddleswell half opened it and called to the young man, ‘Could I perhaps have that old chair in the window for a fiver?’

  The assistant, without looking up, said, ‘Ninety quid.’ I was thinking the Americans had got it wrong when the lad added, ‘But since it’s opening day you can have it for nine.’

  Fr Duddleswell opened the door wider before asking me if Mrs Pring would care for that. ‘Could be,’ I said.

  ‘You would not take six, I suppose?’ asked Fr Duddleswell.

  The young man wrenched his eyes away from his girl. ‘Seven pounds ten,’ he said, ‘and that’s my final offer.’

  Grudgingly, Fr Duddleswell re-entered the shop. ‘Take a cheque?’

  ‘Cash.’ And the deal was closed. ‘Sorry I can’t wrap it,’ was the assistant’s last audible irony.

  Fr Duddleswell was in raptures. At breakneck speed, he sucked me in his wake until we reached DUDDLESWELL’S, formerly his father’s business. Fred Dobie, the proprietor, greeted us with a smile. ‘Going that way?’ he asked, pointing to the railway bridge where secondhand stuff was for sale. Then, ‘Good God, Fr Duddleswell, a Chippy.’

  Fr Duddleswell told him how he had acquired it and, after some hard bargaining, handed over the chair in exchange for fifty pounds. Cash.

  ‘Now,’ said Fr Duddleswell to me, ‘I will buy you a cup of tay.’

  In the café I insisted on paying for the teas and two doughnuts. He noticed that the chap at the counter had charged me tuppence too much and refused on principle to waive the excess fare.

  I ate and drank in silence while he tried to convince me that he had not diddled the vendor; talent in recognizing objets d’art is what the antique trade is all about. Portobello Road would close tomorrow if people did business in any other way. The chair did not even have a seat to it. Fred Dobie was likely congratulating himself this very minute on putting one over on him.

  My silence was more telling than any counter-argument. Gradually, he was reduced to disconnected phrases like, ‘Turning over a new leaf’, ‘no deviousness and no uncharity’, ‘poor young things just starting out in the trade’, and ‘on November 2nd when I should have been releasing holy souls’.

  His tea was untouched when he jumped up and marched out of the café. I followed him back to the shop. He told the startled young man what was what, wrote him out a cheque for £20 ‘to more or less split the difference’, assuring him that his signature was genuine, and left.

  The young man came running after him with the statue of the Madonna and Child. ‘I’m grateful, truly grateful,’ he said. ‘Please take this as a gift for your lady friend.’

  I was staggered at such generosity. ‘Virtue is rewarded.’ I crowed, when the young man was back inside his shop chatting up his girl.

  ‘Do not be such a bloody fool, Father Neil,’ he snarled. ‘Nobody here gives you a handful of water for nothing.’

  ‘A fake, Father?’

  He nodded. ‘At least ’twill never suffer from woodworm.’

  ‘Plaster?’

  Another nod. ‘Woolworth’s could not sell it for sixpence. Still, I reckon Mrs Pring will prefer it to a Chippendale that is as open as a navvy’s toilet.’ He handed the statue to me as if it was more than his reputation was worth to be seen in its company.

  In Pembroke Road, seeing a single leaf floating down from a sycamore tree, he sighed, ‘Autumn is a busy feller,’ and proceeded to recite something about angel hosts that fall ‘Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks/In Vallombrosa.’

  His continuing purpose of amendment impressed me. If only it had not brought upon him another fit of the November blues.

  On the way home it was all Ecclesiastes and Omar Khayyám. ‘Vanity of vanities’ followed by ‘Alas that Spring should vanish with the Rose’. The only interlude was when we stopped at a Games Shop in the High Street. Fr Duddleswell ordered five pounds worth of assorted fireworks to be delivered to the orphanage for Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th.

  At the presbytery door we were met by Mrs Pring. ‘I’m glad you’re back, Fr D. Someone just phoned to say Jack Dodson is sinking.’

  Fr Duddleswell snatched the statue from me, placed it in her arms and rushed to collect the holy oils. Mrs Pring called out over the Virgin’s crowned head that he should wear his overcoat against the cold, but he was already on his way. ‘Take care of the confessions for me, Father Neil, in case I should be late.’

  I did duty for him in the confessional and ate supper alone. My worries grew when curfew hour arrived and still no sign of him. At 11.15, Mrs Pring put a thermos flask in his study and retired for the night.

  At nearly midnight, Fr Duddleswell came in panting furiously. He charged past me as I stood at the foot of the stairs saying, ‘Tell you about it later.’ I could hear him unbolting the church door.

  In two minutes the bolts clanged to, and he reappeared. In his study he frantically unscrewed the top of the thermos flask and poured himself a cup of Ovaltine. He had taken one sip when the clock on his shelf chimed ‘the Mephistophelean hour’. He put his drink down disappointedly. He could drink no more if he was to celebrate Mass the next morning.

  I was concerned about him. He had not eaten or drunk a thing since lunch and not even a drop of water would pass his lips until after his second Sunday Mass at 10 o’clock.

  I apologized for having ruined his tea. ‘’Tis of no consequence, Father Neil,’ he said gallantly. ‘This afternoon, you saved me from further deviousness and uncharity. I am much obliged to you.’

  I asked about Mr Dodson. ‘He passed over at 10.30.’ My parish priest looked tired and sad. ‘“The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”
’ He rubbed his eyes beneath his spectacles. ‘I stayed to console the widow, like, on this her longest day. Ah, for her to be single-bedded after all these years. ’Tis enough to make an onion weep. No man at night to snug her and melt her with his breath.’ Then a thought cheered him up a bit. ‘Went off in style, though, did old Jack. It happened well to him. The last rites. He had it all, including the Papal Blessing. A very healthy death. Most likely he went straight home to God on angels’ wings.’

  Since Mr Dodson had obtained a plenary Indulgence from the Pope, why had Fr Duddleswell rushed into the church before All Souls’ Day was over to get him another?

  He read me. ‘’Twas to make sure, like.’

  On Monday morning at 10.00, we set off together to comfort the widow Dodson. On our walk, Fr Duddleswell expounded his views on Purgatory, the Catholics’ halfway house to Heaven.

  ‘The trouble with Protestant theologians, Father Neil, is they have no imagination. ’Tis their mistaken opinion that the bereaved like to think of their loved ones being taken immediately to Paradise.’

  My reaction must have put me among the Protestants. ‘When you lose someone you love,’ he explained, ‘you experience the overpowering need to comfort them. ’Tis hard indeed to picture the dead as blissfully content while you are still shattered and torn by the losing of them. There must be attunement betwixt living and dead, you follow? The Church’s teaching on Purgatory takes account of this.’ His view was that when the sorrows of the bereaved ease off and they leave their Purgatory then they are ready to feel that their dead have entered the joys of Heaven.

  ‘What about the plenary Indulgence for the dead?’ I asked.

  ‘The faithful believe it and they do not believe it,’ he said, which made the faithful seem as devious as himself.

  The Dodsons lived in a prefab, that single storey, factory-built house, lowered into position almost in one piece.

  Mrs Dodson, white-haired and almost worn away by time, was touched by our visit. ‘Come in, Fathers,’ she said, ‘while I make ye a cup of tea.’

  Fr Duddleswell took her right forearm, pressed it tightly and simply said, ‘Mary’.