A Father Before Christmas

by Neil Boyd

  When I had heard Dr Spinks out, I expressed myself sceptical of such superstitions but he was adamant. When in the Navy, he told me, he had come across someone in sick bay who was stoned out of his mind because a witchdoctor had put a spell on him. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘two perfectly healthy patients of mine who’d been cursed actually ended up in Davy Jones’s locker.’ I had no idea of the effect of fear on people brought up in the bush.

  ‘Now, Mr Bwani, Father. He’s convinced that this witch-doctor has poisoned his blood. It’s beginning to boil. When it has boiled long enough, he’s going to die.’ I continued sitting there listening to this nonsense because Dr Spinks gave me no choice. ‘Unfortunately, Fr Boyd, when Bwani was admitted, the nurse took his blood pressure. Normal routine, you understand. But it was the worst thing she could have done in the circumstances. He felt the blood build up in his arm and, as he put it, he heard it bubbling.’

  The Doctor moved away, confident no one could be a sceptic after that. ‘Since then,’ he said, ‘Bwani hasn’t stirred from his bed. He won’t talk or touch his grub and he can’t sleep. He’s lost nearly twenty pounds in two weeks.’

  ‘I’d like to help,’ I said, preparing to make a quick getaway.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let him down.’

  I did not like his hectoring tone. ‘I’ll say the rosary for him.’

  ‘That’s not enough.’

  I promised to get Fr Duddleswell to pray for him.

  Dr Spinks impressed on me that I was required to help Bwani back to health, not pray for his conversion or cast devils out of him with the sign of the cross. But now that I was on my feet, I was less daunted. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor,’ I said, mindful of Matron’s warning. ‘I’m here to save souls not lives. That’s your job.’

  Dr Spinks went red in the face. Talk about a Good Samaritan. Talk about that good guy Duddleswell rushing into burning buildings. ‘Think he felt guilty,’ he threw at me, ‘because he wasn’t a fireman?’ Talk about this crazy religion lark that stops you saving someone’s life when only you can do it.

  I challenged him to prove that only I was able to help Mr Bwani.

  ‘Father,’ he said, ‘you must have seen those eyes following you up and down the ward. He looks on you as a white witch-doctor.’

  I repudiated such a ridiculous title.

  ‘I didn’t say you are one,’ he explained, ‘only that he thinks you are. As far as he’s concerned, you’re the only one who might be powerful enough to break the spell he’s under.’

  The whole matter, I felt, was now moving along humanistic lines.

  ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I don’t doubt that prayer works wonders in the long run but we’re short of time. Bwani could be in the morgue in a couple of weeks.’ His manner became menacing. ‘You and I have got to use medicine.’

  ‘No,’ I said with alarm.

  ‘Unorthodox medicine.’

  ‘Doctor, I don’t like unorthodox anything.’

  In a final burst of exasperation, he asked, ‘Father, are you going to help me or aren’t you?’

  I refused to be brow beaten. ‘May be,’ I said.

  Seeing he was making no headway, he invited me to the staff canteen. We bought ourselves coffee and joined Nurse Owen who was sitting alone drinking tea. If this was part of a prearranged plan I had no objections. After all, she was a Catholic.

  Nurse Owen confirmed Dr Spinks’ story. She felt personally responsible because she was the one who had taken Mr Bwani’s blood pressure when the trouble began. ‘I could think of no more fitting role for a priest, Father,’ she said, her eyelids fluttering attractively. ‘Jesus was a priest, wasn’t he? and He went all over Palestine healing the sick.’

  Jesus Himself might have had second thoughts with someone like Miss Bottomly around. ‘That’s true,’ I agreed.

  Dr Spinks saw the opportunity to open out his plan. In every ward, next to the Sister’s office, there was an amenity room usually reserved for the more serious cases. Bwani could be placed in there for observation. All I had to do was don my brightest Mass vestments and utter incantations over him. When I requested further elaboration, he mentioned incense, burnt feathers, chickens’ blood and foreign-sounding formulas. It had to look authentic. He couldn’t guarantee this would work but certainly nothing else would.

  I had had a belly-full. I thanked him for the coffee and took my leave. I made one promise: I would mention the matter to Fr Duddleswell. That was safe enough. I already knew his sensible views on superstitious and ungodly practices.

  Fr Duddleswell heard me out with intense amusement. I was relieved to hear him deride Dr Spinks’ proposals. I said, ‘If Mr Bwani’s going to die, Father, we’ll have to accept it as God’s will.’

  ‘God’s will, Father Neil?’ he smiled. ‘God’s will? Let me tell you this, lad. If the will of God were done on earth as ’tis in Heaven ’twould lead to an impossible state of affairs.’

  ‘Let’s rely on faith,’ I said.

  ‘Unfortunately for you, Father Neil, the Church teaches that faith is useless without good works.’

  He was opposed to the Doctor’s plan because he did not approve of voodoo and black magic, yet might there not be another less objectionable path to the same end? He left me in Limbo for twenty-four hours while he pondered. Then:

  ‘Father Neil, you said you believe in the story of St Kevin. Is there any reason why you should not heal this coloured gentleman with a perfectly straightforward miracle?’

  I rubbed my ears. ‘Pardon, Father.’

  He sensed rebellion. ‘You do the rowing, Father Neil, and leave the steering to me, d’you hear?’

  I thought Fr Duddleswell’s plan scarcely less bizarre than the Doctor’s. Someone seeming to be seriously injured is to be planted in the amenity room alongside Mr Bwani. The nurse calls me in to cure him—not too difficult, seeing there is nothing wrong with him in the first place. Mr Bwani is so impressed, he is prepared to consider a cure in his own case.

  I had a terrible vision of Miss Bottomly discovering my misdeeds. ‘But, Father, remember the Matron,’ I said apprehensively, ‘I assume …’

  He cut across me. ‘Father Neil, you would be well advised to leave assumptions to the Blessed Virgin. Let me do the worrying, will you not? Was I not already several years a priest when you were still smoking your dummy?’

  Certain aspects of his plan still puzzled me. ‘What kind of serious injury did you have in mind?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not a compound fracture—say, a leg broken in a couple of places? The leg will look very fine when ’tis splinted and wrapped.’

  I protested that I was not going to lie by claiming a man’s leg was broken if it wasn’t.

  Fr Duddleswell put on his offended air. ‘I was suggesting no more, Father Neil, than that you should say the patient’s leg bends congenitally in two places.’ And seeing me still puzzled, ‘At the knee and ankle, you follow?’ I followed though I had no wish to. ‘You simply enter the room, sprinkle your patient who has a … bent leg with holy water …’

  ‘Holy water, Father?’

  ‘Secular water, if you prefer, straight from the pump, and Miracolo! much to Mr Bwani’s astonishment, his partner in misfortune takes up his bed and walks.’

  ‘Who does, Father?’

  ‘Your patient.’

  ‘But who is my patient?’

  ‘Ah, me brave little fledgling, me fireside soldier, this is your miracle, is it not? You can surely find some discreet parishioner to assist you in this charitable enterprise?

  ‘Anyone I like?’

  ‘Mr Bwani is in the men’s ward, so ’twould be wiser, I reckon, not to choose a woman. Tell him, a quick change into pyjamas and he will soon be restored to health, you can guarantee that.’

  Fr Duddleswell asked for a few days grace to ‘cogitate me plan further, like’. In the meantime, I was to set about finding a candidate for a Lourdes-like miracle.

  It was becoming clear to me
that things were going to have to get worse before they got even worse.

  ‘Hello, Archie. Glad to find you at home.’

  ‘’Ello, Father.’ Archie, my ex-crook friend, was pleased to see me. ‘Come up the apples and pears.’ As we ascended the stairs past the fat landlady who had let me in, Archie said, ‘Got another job for me, then, ’ave yer, Father?’

  I told him there was no one better qualified for what I had in mind.

  Archie shared a dingy, second-floor flat with the retired accountant Peregrine Worsley. Peregrine was seated comfortably, his shirt sleeves rolled up, reading The Sporting Life. He carefully folded his paper, removed his bi-focals and rose to greet me. ‘Delighted, sir, to make your acquaintance.’ I reminded him that we had met only a few weeks before when, for reasons of his own, he had told me of Archie’s criminal record. He said, ‘Ah, yes, sir, but I meant informally, out of hours, for a tête à têle.’

  Now I knew Peregrine himself was not the irreproachable citizen I had once taken him for, I liked him a lot.

  ‘A pint of pig’s ear, Father?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Not for me, thank you.’ I explained at length the purpose of my visit.

  ‘What a set up,’ whistled Peregrine at the end of it.

  ‘Cripes, what a con man you’d ’ave made, Father,’ said Archie. I did not turn down the undeserved compliment. ‘’Course,’ went on Archie, ‘I wouldn’t dream of lyin’.’

  I said I honestly hadn’t meant it to be a lie but that if he felt it was a problem …

  Archie cut in, ‘No, ’taint no problem, Father. I did break one of me clothes pegs uncommon severe, not four years past.’

  I was relieved that the way seemed clear for us to deceive Mr Bwani without any hint of a lie.

  Archie had been making a dash from prison. He was just over a twenty-foot wall when the rope snapped ‘and so did me bleedin’ leg.’

  After begging my pardon, he went on, ‘I was laid up for six weeks with one leg in the air like a blinkin’ can-can dancer.’ Archie paused reflectively. ‘Funny thin’, Father. That’s the only ever time I got remission for good conduct.’

  Much to Archie’s disgust, Peregrine wanted to talk terms. ‘As to “the actual”, young sir, how much remuneration will we be entitled to, should we manage to pull off this daring escapade?’ I suggested a fiver. ‘For each of us?’ asked Peregrine. I nodded. ‘Done,’ concluded Peregrine, bringing down his paper on his knee like an auctioneer’s hammer.

  Archie coughed apologetically. ‘Manners,’ he said, putting his hand to his mouth. ‘Am I s’pposed to wear pyjamas for this job, Father?’

  ‘Only for a few minutes, Archie. I promise you there’ll be no embarrassment.’

  ‘’Taint that I mind taking off me round the ’ouses in public, Father. But, straight up, I’ve not ’ad a pair of pyjamas since I was a kid in Borstal.’

  Fr Duddleswell was developing his plan in ways that boded ill for my future. He came home one day bearing a number of boxes and jars with strange symbols on, and a book which he had borrowed from the Municipal Library. I was unfortunate enough to notice that it was entitled Elementary Chemistry.

  He went immediately to his bedroom and locked himself in. For three days, he spent all his spare time there. From the cracks in the door emerged thick vapours, evil odours, the sound of bubbling and the occasional bang.

  Before supper on Wednesday, Mrs Pring warned me that Fr D was sporting his antlers. He had obviously done something ‘tragic to his few head whiskers’. He must have been trying to invent a lotion either to make them grow or to dye the grey hairs.

  ‘Watch out,’ Mrs Pring said, ‘here comes winter.’

  Fr Duddleswell slipped into the dining room with his biretta pressed down on his head. Even so, the hair below it showed bright green.

  ‘Well,’ he demanded to know after we were settled, ‘what have you to say for yourself?’

  ‘Um,’ I gulped. ‘Father.’

  ‘Speak.’

  ‘Would you please pass the salt?’

  Neither Mrs Pring nor I dared to make any reference to his hair during a subdued meal. When it was over, he monopolized the bathroom till bedtime.

  Next morning, I beat Fr Duddleswell into breakfast. He came in to find me juggling with his two boiled eggs. Anything to cheer the old boy up.

  ‘What in the name of God are you doing with my eggs, Father Neil?’

  ‘Practising miracles like St Kevin, Father.’

  ‘Practise on your own egg.’

  ‘Mine is fried.’

  ‘Then,’ he growled, ‘try changing it into a fried chicken.’

  After I momentarily took my eyes off his eggs, he found himself eating fried egg, after all.

  Once pacified, he announced that he had made all the necessary arrangements with Dr Spinks on the telephone. Thursday, being Old Barbed Wire’s day off, was D-Day. He communicated ‘the further refinements of me plan’ and it would have been ungenerous of me not to admit that they were brilliant. But I had lived long enough with him to know he was right when he said that he always had more up his sleeve than his elbow.

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ I said.

  ‘You have. You can either do it willingly or unwillingly.’

  ‘Why are you reading a book on chemistry, Father?’ I enquired suspiciously.

  No answer.

  When I showed reluctance to go through with it without being party to all the facts, he reprimanded me sharply. ‘Deep is the rumble of a bull in a strange pen,’ he said inconsequentially.

  ‘Right, Father,’ I said, ‘you win. I’ll do it next week.’

  ‘Next week, lad?’ he said with scorn. ‘Next week, me bloody eye. You will be doing it the day before tomorrow.’

  We walked under a dappled sky to the Kenworthy General. I was carrying a new pair of pyjamas in a paper bag.

  Seeing the grim look on my face, Fr Duddleswell said:

  ‘For God’s sake, lad, stop chewing inside your head and cheer yourself up. If you bring off this miracle today, you will only need one more for the Holy Father to declare you a saint.’

  In the hospital lobby we teamed up with Dr Spinks who had already introduced himself to Peregrine and Archie.

  On the stroke of ten we sneaked into Sister Dunne’s office. Nurse Owen, having seen to it that the walking patients were in the day-room, was in the amenity room fussing over Mr Bwani.

  Archie, without a blink, changed into my best pyjamas. They were several sizes too big for him but he was like a boy scout donning his first uniform. ‘Can I keep ’em after, Father?’

  ‘Sure, Archie,’ I whispered, hinting that he should keep his voice down.

  Dr Spinks asked Archie to sit on a chair and he started to cut off the left leg of the pyjamas with scissors.

  ‘Nark it, Doc,’ moaned Archie, a pearl in each eye. ‘’Ave you got to do that?’

  ‘Sorry, chum. When the bandages are removed, I want Mr Bwani to see these.’ He traced with his finger where Archie’s leg showed signs of a nasty accident. Archie acquiesced, then settled down on a trolley from the operating theatre while the Doctor splinted and bandaged his leg. ‘Pity I can’t put it in plaster,’ he grinned, ‘but this is the best I can do in the time.’

  ‘It’s only a game, Doc,’ said Archie.

  Dr Spinks was saying that on the contrary it was a matter of life and death when he saw that Archie was eyeing his colleague. Peregrine, standing aloof with his hat on and leaning on his rolled umbrella, began to phip-phip like a sparrow. He took off his bowler with a flourish and advanced with a wallet in his hand. ‘Archie’s quite right, Doctor. A child’s prank.’ Dr Spinks thrust the wallet into his back pocket without a word and went on bandaging.

  ‘Father Neil,’ muttered Fr Duddleswell, ‘I commend you for your talent in casting such an admirable pair.’

  Dr Spinks suddenly lifted his head. ‘Hell’s bells,’ he gasped. ‘I’d recognize those footsteps anywhere.’

  Nurs
e Owen, who had just come in, said, ‘Norah.’

  ‘Go, head her off, Nurse,’ Dr Spinks ordered. ‘Fr Boyd, give me a hand here. Fr Duddleswell, behind that screen.’

  Outside the Office, we could hear Matron. ‘Nurse,’ she said, ‘I have come to tell Mr Bwani to pull himself together.’

  The door of the amenity room opened and Matron addressed Mr Bwani in fearsome tones:

  ‘This will not do, you know, Mr Bwani. This is England. Witch-doctors are not allowed to practise in England. As Matron of the Kenworthy General Hospital, I command you to get up this very instant.’

  It can have had little effect for within seconds Matron was cruising into Sister’s Office.

  Her eye alighted on me like a vulture. ‘What are you doing here, Fr Boyd?’

  I patted Archie’s leg. ‘Just comforting this patient’s soul, Matron.’

  ‘That is perfectly in order, provided you leave his leg alone!’ She turned on Dr Spinks. ‘I will not have this coloured gentleman discrediting my Hospital by dying when there is nothing wrong with him.’

  To everyone’s relief, she then left.

  Fr Duddleswell reappeared, wiping his brow. ‘Thank the Lord Norah’s gone,’ he said. ‘But if Matron cannot chill Bwani’s blood, Father Neil, what chance do you have?’

  At 10.15, Nurse Owen took charge of the trolley on which Archie was lying flat out. Peregrine, once more his serene self, put his bowler hat under his arm, adjusted his spectacles and prepared to accompany the bier. He touched Nurse Owen’s shoulder, ‘No tears, please, my dear.’

  Fr Duddleswell said, ‘You stay here, Father Neil, you are not required yet.’

  Through the partition I could hear Peregrine and Archie talking in exaggerated tones as though rehearsing for a Christmas concert in Wormwood Scrubs. They were determined to earn their money.

  ‘Does it hurt, Mr Lee?’ I could just make out Nurse Owen’s gentle voice.

  ‘Doctor,’ exclaimed Peregrine, ‘has his leg been broken?’ It was melodramatic but Mr Bwani, cowering under his blanket, might appreciate it.

  Dr Spinks replied that a leg broken in two places, as was Mr Lee’s, normally takes months to heal. With that, Doctor and Nurse joined me in Sister’s office from where we heard Peregrine bidding adieu.