A Father Before Christmas

by Neil Boyd

  Archie said, ‘I’m goin’ to call in a real doctor.’

  ‘A specialist, you mean?’

  ‘A real doctor,’ repeated Archie.

  ‘Well, so long, old chappie,’ drawled Peregrine. ‘See you in a few months time if not before.’

  He came into the office and whispered in my ear that in his considered opinion his faultless performance entitled him to a tenner. When I refused, he went off in a huff. A few seconds later, a hand appeared round the door and stayed there palm upwards until I had put a fiver in it. It closed, turned over and waved goodbye with a wag of the index finger.

  I heard Archie ask, ‘Been in ’ere long, then, ’ave yer, mate?’ No audible response from Mr Bwani. Suddenly Archie burst out, ‘Goo-er, me bleedin’ leg. Just like that nut-case of a doctor to tie the bandages too tight. I’m losing all the circulation in me blood. “’Ell, said the Duchess.”’ Then more calmly: ‘What’s yer name, mate?’

  Mr Bwani, perhaps out of compassion for the state of Archie’s blood, must have mentioned his name. ‘Bwani,’ cried Archie. ‘You’re not Irish, I s’ppose. A joke, mate, no offence. Dunno about you but ever since I was a kid I’ve ’ad the mockers on me, grasp me meaning?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Nurse,’ shouted Archie, ‘I want my priest, do you ’ear?’ Then more softly: ‘Bwani boy, I’ve got a priest that’ll shift me out of ’ere quicker’n you can say Man Friday. No ’arm meant, mate.’

  ‘Yessir? Really, sir?’ Mr Bwani was becoming garrulous.

  When Archie went on to say I work miracles every morning before breakfast, it distressed me that, after a promising start, he should resort to telling lies.

  ‘Yeah,’ went on Archie. ‘In church ’e conversations with Gawd and brings ’Im down to earth on a little stone. You b’lieve that, Bwani boy?’ Archie was keeping strictly within the bounds of truth, after all.

  ‘Nurse,’ bawled Archie again, ‘get me Fr Boyd.’

  I took a deep breath and prepared to play the star role. Fr Duddleswell restrained me. ‘No hurry,’ he said. ‘Give them another thirty minutes together. We do not want to break up a beautiful friendship, like.’

  The interval was filled with Archie’s virtual monologue in praise of his priest, punctuated by screams for the same to be sent to him at once. Finally, Nurse Owen led me in.

  ‘Thank Gawd you’ve come, Father,’ cried Archie.

  Mr Bwani, his face glum as a pickled walnut, was half raised up on his pillow. That seemed a good omen but, on orders from Fr Duddleswell, I took no notice of him. ‘What’s up, Archie?’ I asked.

  ‘Me leg at the moment, Father,’ he said, pointing. ‘It’s been broke and me life’s got the mulligrubs. You are Gawd’s man, Father, so please ’elp me.’

  I bade Archie put his trust in me, drew out my Roman Ritual and started reciting Latin prayers. I went through the baptismal ceremony and the blessing of a pregnant woman, followed by the thanksgiving for a safe delivery.

  ‘Nurse,’ I said, ‘hand me the water.’ I sprinkled Archie with it. Some spattered Mr Bwani who promptly dived under the sheet. I was relieved to see him reappear immediately. At all costs, he mustn’t miss the next bit of the show.

  ‘Nurse,’ I ordered, ‘remove this man’s bandages. He is healed.’

  I saw amazement in Mr Bwani’s eyes. He lifted himself up to get a clearer view of Archie’s hairy leg.

  ‘Me smeller and snitch,’ said Archie touching his nose, ‘tells me I’m as good as new. Just the odd scar where the fractures was.’

  ‘Stand up, Archie Lee,’ I commanded.

  He stood up, shakily because the bandages really had interfered with his circulation. It added conviction. ‘I can walk again, Father,’ Archie proclaimed ecstatically. He knelt down to kiss my feet. ‘’Ow can I ever thank yer enough, Father?’

  I acted the real cad. ‘By keeping the commandments, Archie, and by attending Mass on Sundays and Holy days. Will you promise me that, Archie?’

  ‘Tell you what, Father,’ said Archie, taken aback. ‘I’ll give it a lot of thought. ’Ow much do I owe you?’

  ‘I never charge for miracles, Mr Lee,’ I said.

  The three of us left the amenity room. I judged it best not to speak to Mr Bwani. The first move would have to come from him.

  Archie got dressed and I paid him his fiver. As he was leaving, he said, ‘We’re a smashing team, Father. Any time you wanner work another miracle, send for Archie.’

  I gave him my word and watched him amble off with his precious pair of one-legged pyjamas tucked under his arm.

  Nurse Owen returned to the amenity room to remake Archie’s bed. I distinctly heard Mr Bwani say, ‘Nurse, I want to see heem.’

  ‘Who, Mr Bwani?’

  ‘The prist. May I see heem? Pliz, Nurse.’

  Fr Duddleswell rubbed his hands. ‘It takes me to do it,’ he said, ‘but do not be too anxious to perform your magical operations, Father Neil. Let us go home to lunch, and at 3 o’clock this afternoon he should be nice and ripe for a cure.’

  ‘Now let us rehearse the miracle,’ said Fr Duddleswell.

  Dr Spinks put a syringe in my hand.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I asked uneasily.

  I saw a vengeful gleam in the Doctor’s eye. ‘For drawing out blood, old boy.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Father Neil,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘I have taken the trouble to work out the entire strategy of this miracle, the least you can do is to perform it.’

  ‘Whose blood, Father?’

  ‘Mr Bwani’s, of course,’ said Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘Thank heavens for that.’

  ‘And yours,’ he added.

  ‘Thank the other place,’ I said. ‘Not on your life.’

  ‘Look here, Father Neil,’ Fr Duddleswell exploded. ‘Will you stop moaning like a seal and hurry yourself. Cannot you see you have to obtain Mr Bwani’s total confidence?’

  I quietened down. ‘What am I expected to do, Father?’

  ‘We simply need a sample of your blood.’

  Trying to make the best of a bad job, I said, ‘All right, Doctor, you take a sample.’ I thrust the syringe on him. ‘A small sample.’

  Fr Duddleswell grabbed the syringe and put it back in my hand. ‘Father Neil, ’tis vital that you draw out some of your own blood in Mr Bwani’s presence, d’you hear?’

  ‘Never, never and, once more for the stone deaf, never!’

  Fr Duddleswell looked at me sweetly. ‘Father Neil, did not Jesus shed His blood for you?’

  ‘No, Father,’ I corrected him, ‘other people shed it for Him.’

  Fr Duddleswell was in no mood for splitting hairs. ‘Get on with it,’ he said sourly. ‘Anyone would think I was asking you to take out your appendix.’

  ‘All right, Father.’

  ‘’Tis not all right,’ he sighed. ‘I put the lad in charge of the hospital and now he will not do any least blessed thing I tell him.’

  Nurse Owen tied a piece of rubber tubing round my upper arm; she rubbed the crook of my arm with a small disinfecting pad and said, ‘Choose the biggest vein, Father.’

  I asked if I could sit down. Nurse Owen brought me a chair and patted my shoulder. It gave me the strength I needed. She put a glass to my lips and I drank a few drops before raising the top of the syringe with my thumb.

  ‘Is that enough, Nurse?’ I asked.

  Nurse Owen whispered, ‘It’s still empty, Father. Just a fraction.’

  ‘A bit more,’ urged the prodigal Dr Spinks, ‘you’ve lots to spare.’ I drew out a full half inch and he was satisfied.

  I extracted the needle. Nurse Owen swabbed the tiny puncture and wiped my brow with a cool, damp cloth. ‘You’re so brave, Father,’ she said, and it seemed then all worthwhile.

  Dr Spinks poured the remains of my glass into the saucer and added my blood to it, tinting the water. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘action stations.’

  Fr Duddleswell gripped my arm for luck. �
�Attaboy, Father Neil, go and get him. And do not forget to do exactly as the Nurse tells you.’

  I accompanied Nurse Owen to the amenity room. ‘Now, Mr Bwani, I believe you wanted to see me.’

  He indicated that he would like to whisper in my ear. He said, ‘Mr Prist, sir, my witch-doctor curse me and I go dying.’

  I nodded gravely. ‘I believe you, Mr Bwani.’

  His face lit up with joy at having found at last a healer who did not ridicule his plight as so much jungle nonsense. ‘Mr Prist, I want you pliz to uncurse me. My blood, she boil. Terrible hot already, Mr Prist, sir.’

  ‘Powerful curse, Mr Bwani. Power-ful.’

  ‘Yessir, yes-sir.’

  The tray which Nurse Owen was carrying held a medicine glass, two saucers and a syringe. I gingerly fingered the syringe and took another sample of my blood from the identical hole. I emptied the contents on to the liquid in the first saucer and turned it red. ‘Now, Mr Bwani,’ I said, ‘it’s your turn.’

  He eagerly stretched out his arm. He did not flinch as I dug the needle in but at the sight of his own blood rising in the syringe he shuddered violently.

  ‘There,’ I said cheerfully, ‘that didn’t hurt, did it?’

  ‘Yessir,’ he said.

  I pressed out the contents on to the liquid in the second saucer. I was staggered at the way it started to froth and bubble and smoke. The smell was horrible. God, the man was really ill.

  Mr Bwani’s eyes popped, his mouth gaped like a frog’s and he fell back stiffly on his pillow. I thought he was dead and wondered how Matron would react to the news. Nurse Owen, unperturbed, raised Mr Bwani up and tried to coax him back to consciousness.

  ‘Mr Bwani,’ I said, slapping his face. At the fifth attempt, he heard me. ‘Mr Bwani, heap plenty trouble here.’

  ‘Plenny trouble,’ he managed to gasp.

  ‘Powerful medicine of black witch-doctor. Power-ful.’ He attempted to voice his agreement but no words came. ‘Me much more power-ful,’ I said, continuing to give as good an imitation of a Red Indian chief as I could. ‘Me put bigger spell still. You want?’

  He wanted, all right. Out came the Ritual and more Latin. Obeying the nurse to the letter, I sprinkled him with water and made an impressive sign of the cross over him. Then I handed him the strong sedative in the medicine glass. As he relapsed into sleep I kept up the prayers, adding more promises to complete his recovery as soon as he came round. ‘When you awake, Mr Bwani, no more hot blood. You be cured. No more curse.’ My voice helped hypnotize him. ‘Sleep, sleep, Mr Bwani.’ He slept and snored mightily.

  Dr Spinks had prepared about twenty ice-packs. We put them in the bed around Mr Bwani. Within twenty minutes his face whitened and his teeth started chattering. I was worried that he might get pneumonia or frostbite. The Doctor said this would help convince him that his blood had stopped boiling.

  As he began to come to, we took away the ice-packs and brought in another tray. When everyone else had withdrawn, I patted Mr Bwani on the cheek. ‘Awake, Mr Bwani, awake. Blood no boil no more.’

  He kept repeating something like ‘Bloody cold’. When I had interpreted it I said, ‘Yes, Mr Bwani, blood cold, very cold.’

  Soon he was restored to teeth-chattering consciousness. Once again, the trick with the syringe, his arm only. This time, his blood tinted the water without causing the slightest tremor on its surface. I wondered what had been in the medicine glass besides a sedative to bring about such a transformation.

  Mr Bwani beamed. ‘Curse fineeshed, Mr Prist. You are my father, my brother, my mother, my seester!’

  Within a few days, Mr Bwani had put on weight and was completely well. Since he was to be discharged the following Thursday I was able to visit him undisturbed by Old Barbed Wire. I made him a present of a syringe and told him that should the witch-doctor curse him again he need not worry. My blessing was permanent like an injection against polio. He would be able to prove it easily. ‘Take saucer of water and put in drop of blood. Not too much, leave some in arm, savvy?’

  Mr Bwani proclaimed, ‘You are my father, my brother, my mother, my seester.’

  These and many other relatives and friends, all gaily clad, were waiting for him in the vestibule. As soon as they saw him they broke into song. Mr Bwani made me anxious by telling the crowd that his recovery was due entirely to the white witch-doctor, at which they burst into loud applause.

  When they left, I was about to go home myself when the fat Anglican curate from St Luke’s, Mr Pinkerton, passed me puffing on a cigarette. ‘There’s a missive for you from Norah in the Chaplain’s Office,’ he said. ‘I’ll pray for you, old boy.’

  This was the first note I had received from Matron. It was headed: REF: PRINCE ALBERT WARD and contained a brief injunction to appear before her that very day at 12 o’clock.

  The next hour was spent in anguish and recriminations. The Bwani affair was bound to leak out, I was a fool not to realize that. Was it a criminal offence, I wondered, to practise medicine without qualifying as a doctor? Would Bishop O’Reilly haul me up and ask me to justify my extraordinary methods of evangelization?

  I did not regret what I had done because I had saved a man’s life. I regretted terribly what I had done for less elevated motives. One thing I was clear about: I would not implicate Nurse Owen in any way.

  When I met Matron, she did not look any more severe than I had remembered her to be. ‘It’s about what happened in Prince Albert Ward, Fr Boyd.’

  ‘I think I can explain, Matron,’ I blurted out, not knowing what on earth I would say once I started.

  ‘There is nothing to explain, Fr Boyd. This letter says it all.’ She put on her pince-nez and addressed me over them as though I were a refractory audience. ‘It is from a retired Chartered Accountant.’

  Hell, I thought. So Peregrine has split on me just because I wouldn’t pay him an extra five quid. Iscariot!

  Matron read the letter. It stated in three or four tortuous sentences that Fr Boyd had proved himself a marvellous chaplain when his friend Archibald Lee had been a patient in Prince Albert Ward. He had not only helped Archibald spiritually but also financially when he was down on his luck. He begged Matron to thank Fr Boyd personally for his ministrations.

  ‘Really, Matron,’ I stammered with relief, ‘there is no need …’

  ‘Indeed there is not, Fr Boyd,’ whence she proceeded to lecture me in a booming voice on the fact that she had sternly warned me in our first encounter to restrict myself to the religious sphere.

  I have never seen a bittern but she looked like one.

  ‘What you do with your money outside these walls, Fr Boyd, is entirely your concern. But here in the Kenworthy General we leave financial matters to the Lady Almoner.’ She stressed that this was the last instance of indiscipline she would tolerate in her Junior House Chaplain. I was dismissed.

  It was Purgatory but I had been expecting Hell.

  At the presbytery, Fr Duddleswell asked if I had seen the black man safely off the premises.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now will you tell me what you put in that medicine glass?’

  ‘Only a sedative, Father Neil. But I did put hydrogen peroxide in that second saucer. I got the tip from me chemistry book.’

  ‘So there was nothing wrong with his blood, after all,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ he complained, ‘when medical science was powerless you prevented him dying by utilizing all the resources of the faith and doubtless you did not receive so much as a Mass stipend.’

  I confirmed that the miracle was free on the National Health. I did not say I was worse off to the tune of ten pounds and a new pair of pyjamas. He was himself a witness to the fact that I had shed blood for the cause.

  Fr Duddleswell screwed up his eyes. ‘Did he ask to become a Catholic, like?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Imagine that, now, Father Neil. By a miracle that makes St Kevin seem a novice, you pull him back from the edge of the grave and he remains
an infidel.’ For a few moments he pondered the inexpressible sadness of a priest’s life. ‘Bloody heavens, Father Neil,’ he exploded at last, ‘what will you have to do to make your own first convert—raise the dead?’

  VIII A Thief in the Parish

  ‘Can I have the loan of you for a little minute, Father Neil.’

  I was being summoned into the presence as Mrs Pring, glancing conspiratorially at Fr Duddleswell, was about to leave.

  ‘Now sit yourself down, lad.’ I obeyed. ‘A great waster, that woman,’ he said, pointing at the door through which Mrs Pring had made her exit. ‘If I owned a cow she would feed it nothing but milk.’

  I put on the token smile which said I didn’t believe a word of it and knew I wasn’t expected to.

  ‘She is not exactly tidy as a ball of wool, either, Father Neil. Can I get her to use a duster? I cannot. D’you realize, once I bought her a bunch of artificial flowers and in three days they died. And what do you make of her cooking?’

  ‘I like it very much.’

  ‘Jasus, you’re a saint in the making and no mistake.’ He tried to look rueful. ‘Last year, I sold three of her jellies to Smith’s the builders.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I have no idea, Father Neil. But you do not ask questions when someone is willing to pay good money. Mind you’—one of his frequent changes of tune—‘as a seamstress Mrs Pring is without equal.’ He pointed proudly to the patch on his cassock around a previously charred right pocket.

  ‘Magnificent,’ I said, surprised at this rare paean of praise for Mrs Pring.

  ‘’Tis true, indeed. Once she puts reins on a needle, she is off at a gallop.’ He stroked the patch as if it were a piece of mosaic he was pressing into place. ‘Scarce of resources in the brain-box she may be, but she could mend spiders’ webs and sow a feather back on a bird.’

  Mrs Pring, the evening before, had taken a more detached view of her accomplishments. ‘This is the last time, the very last. I’ll not patch his patches no more, not no more.’