A Father Before Christmas

by Neil Boyd

  ‘There wasn’t much of a living to be made from those cobbled fields. And us with but a poor spot of land with only the grass of five cows.’

  He got round to agreeing with me at last. ‘But it was good, awful good. Everyone kneeling for the rosary on the stone kitchen floor of a night, including the chickens and the pigs. God, couldn’t those pigs pray! I tell you they put us all to shame. All the trimmings as well as the Aves. Praying to keep the devil away and for the blight never to return.’

  ‘A boy would like a life like that,’ I said for something to say.

  ‘That is so, Father Neil. I loved it, sitting outdoors in the bright middles of the days, smelling the smell of cold earth at nights. And going out about the broad fields from mornin’, naught before me, so to say, but to wander far and wide.’ He rocked back and forth. ‘Rest and silence. Everywhere gorse and heather, purple and gold. It made up for being bare and poor, or almost did.

  ‘It was lovely watching the geese ranging the stubble after harvest. And feeding the pious pigs with the cabbages … Why I was one could grow cabbages with leaves that would cover a house.’

  ‘Really.’

  His ‘Oh’ was the sighing of the wind. ‘And on the September hedges blackberries big as a Pope’s tiara, if you will believe that.’

  ‘I will,’ I said enthusiastically.

  ‘Only six to a bucket! Even in February the larks rising and falling and all the time singing, and in summer the leaves’—he gestured—‘wind-swayed.’

  He smiled at the memory of far-off things.

  ‘Know what I liked? Going to the blacksmith’s. Black all over was he like the pot-rack over our kitchen fire. The sizzle and smell from the horses’ hooves when he pressed the red hot iron on them! God, it was terrible and didn’t I love it.’

  He drew in a deep appreciative breath through his nostrils.

  ‘And I used to catch trout under the banks of the streams with my bare hands. With these’—he held them up trembling as if they belonged to someone else—‘I’m telling you. With these, long ago.’

  He drained his glass to show, perhaps, his hands had other occupations now.

  ‘Strange,’ I said, ‘even I find I remember events and people better the further off they are.’

  ‘Ah, my young Methuselah,’ he replied with gentle irony. ‘Not so strange. We have lived with them that much longer which is why we know them better. Not further off at all but nearer, the oldest friends, you see.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Anyway, Father Neil, now you know why I drink the hard stuff from time to time.’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘To take my mind off Connemara.’ There and then he downed a glass to fortify his amnesia. ‘But why am I telling you all this?’

  I was frank with him. ‘As a build-up to Fr D’s message.’

  ‘You know I’m Charles’ messenger boy?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘They’d never take me on in M.I.5.’

  I loved this old man. I decided to make it easy for him. ‘He wants to know what condition my heart is in.’

  ‘I wasn’t intending to ask but if you had wanted——’

  ‘I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Doctor.’

  ‘A rare thing in a Roman priest, Father Neil.’

  ‘My heart is broken.’

  Dr Daley took my hand fondly as if it were a glass of whiskey and looked at me with pity.

  ‘There’s a beautiful Catholic Nurse looking after me, Doctor, and—’ There was a lump in my throat.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s madly in love with one of the doctors here.’

  Dr Daley was wide-eyed. ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘She was afraid she’d shock me because he’s a non-Catholic and yet she’s still dead keen to marry him.’

  Nurse Owen popped her head round the door like a vision. Seeing the Doctor by my bedside, she apologized. ‘I’ll come back later, Father.’

  ‘Is that the colleen?’ Dr Daley asked, pointing after her. I nodded. ‘God, a girl like that could coax an ant to give up its ant hill.’

  ‘She gives me butterflies in the stomach, I can tell you.’

  He joined his hands. ‘I’ll get the pigs to pray for you, Father Neil.’

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  ‘With a face and shape like that, even at my age I’d take her and to hell with a dowry.’

  The Doctor looked at his watch, stuffed his belongings back into the bag, put on his trilby at a jaunty angle and jumped up. ‘Time for me to tilt my hat towards the tavern.’

  ‘Doctor, one thing. Please don’t tell Fr D.’

  ‘Here we go again,’ he said.

  ‘He’s got to learn to be more trusting.’

  ‘Amen to that impossibility.’

  ‘And less devious, Doctor.’

  ‘Ah, but he’s very nimble is our Charles. Sometimes even his own shadow can’t follow him. But what about Mrs Pring?’

  ‘You can tell her,’ I said, ‘she’ll know what to do.’

  The knowledge that Nurse Owen was in love with someone else had one advantage: it made me less tense towards her.

  ‘Since you ask,’ she said to me, one afternoon, ‘my father’s a surgeon.’

  ‘Mine’s a greengrocer,’ I said, as she put a thermometer into my mouth.

  ‘My father can’t even slice a tomato without cutting his finger but he’s very good with lungs.’

  In came Mrs Pring and, behind her, Fr Duddleswell with a brown paper bag.

  ‘Were you just about to take your leave, Nurse?’ Fr Duddleswell asked pointedly.

  Nurse Owen removed the thermometer. ‘If you wish, Father.’

  ‘Take your time, my dear,’ Mrs Pring said, soothing her, ‘we’re not in the slightest hurry.’

  ‘And I say we are,’ Fr Duddleswell said.

  Mrs Pring gave him a black look. ‘Well, Nurse, tuck Father Neil in nice and comfortable before you go.’

  Nurse Owen did so, winked at me and made for the door.

  ‘You are so kind, my dear,’ Mrs Pring cooed, as she let her out.

  Fr Duddleswell whipped open his paper bag. ‘I have brought you a Bible, Father Neil.’

  I did a convincing job of dropping my jaw a few inches. ‘And I was so looking forward to seeing you enjoy my grapes, Father.’

  He dipped his hand in his pocket. ‘And a rosary for you.’ He dropped one on my ungrateful palm.

  ‘I’ve got one already.’

  ‘A second will do you no harm.’

  ‘I’ll say two Hail Marys at the same time.’

  He sniffed at the slight odour of impertinence. ‘I have also asked Mother Stephen to visit you later today.’

  ‘Don’t you want me to get better, Father?’

  Mrs Pring broke in. ‘Are you still being well looked after, Father Neil?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Too well,’ Fr Duddleswell snapped.

  ‘That young Nurse,’ Mrs Pring said coyly, ‘is so gorgeous. I’ll bet you’ll miss her when you’re discharged tomorrow. A man needs a woman’s touch.’ She eyed an outraged Fr Duddleswell. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  I was home. Mrs Pring carried my suitcase up to my study while Fr Duddleswell was garaging the car.

  ‘He gave me hell, Father Neil,’ Mrs Pring confided. ‘Called me an ignorant lump of a woman.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed while I’ve been away, then.’

  ‘He was really indignant about that young Nurse showing her ankle to whoever cared to look and wearing suggestive black stockings.’

  ‘The prude.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I called him,’ Mrs Pring said. ‘He even asked me if I saw her waving her eyelid at you.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said to him, “Fr D, I wink at you from time to time but believe you me, it doesn’t mean a thing,” and he says to me, “God, the lad is gone crazy about that Nurse. You could pick up little pins by the gleam i
n his eyes.”’

  ‘You trusted me implicitly of course, Mrs P.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I told him, “Trust Father Neil’s good sense.” Instead, he rushes into church screaming, “I’m off to pray before the Blessed Sacrament that my heart-strong curate keeps his head or else I’ll knock the damned thing off for him.”’

  I was still laughing when Fr Duddleswell stomped upstairs. ‘To your kitchen, woman,’ he ordered Mrs Pring, ‘and may you see nothing brighter than coal.’

  To me, he was all sweetness and light. ‘You’ve got to take things easy, Father Neil.’

  I replied wearily, as if I’d just spent a month down the mines, ‘You’re so kind, Father.’

  ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ He looked at me solicitously. ‘Name it, now.’

  I ran my eye over the sparsely furnished room. ‘I suppose I could do with a new armchair and a bigger bookcase and a reliable clock and——’

  ‘Anything within reason, I meant.’

  ‘What is “within reason”?’

  ‘If I think of anything I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Kindness,’ I said, ‘isn’t the word for it, Father.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, rubbing his hands as if he wanted to start a fire, ‘but ’tis a sweet relief to have you back in the stable.’ He watched my reaction closely. ‘Are you glad to be back?’

  ‘Yes.’ He showed relief. ‘And no.’

  ‘Well,’ he jumped in, ‘I am arranging for you to get away for a month’s rest.’

  ‘But, Father, there’s something I have to stay here for.’

  ‘You are going, anyway. I have written the good sisters at St Leonards on Sea. The fresh air will make a new curate of you which cannot but be an improvement.’

  Mrs Pring came in quietly. ‘Your appointment, Father Neil.’

  Fr Duddleswell scrambled to his feet. ‘Woman, how can he have an appointment? He is just after coming out of hospital.’

  ‘Nurse Owen,’ announced Mrs Pring.

  I stood up. ‘Please, come in, Nurse.’

  ‘Go in, my dear,’ Mrs Pring said, ‘and make yourself at home.’

  ‘See you at lunch,’ Fr Duddleswell said morosely. ‘We’ll … shall we …’ He made one further attempt to open his mouth before deciding to save it for later.

  At lunch, Mrs Pring had cleared away the first course and was placing a jam tart and custard on the table.

  ‘Right, woman,’ Fr Duddleswell said, as if he had waited long enough to clear the air. ‘Back to your sink and your suds.’

  Mrs Pring went out, saying, ‘He’s got so many airs, one of these days he’s going to take off.’

  ‘Did you want to say something to me, Father?’

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, handing me my dessert, ‘there was something.’

  ‘Yes? I’d be glad to help in any way I can.’

  ‘That pretty Nurse who came to see you.’

  ‘Nurse Owen? Pretty? I suppose she is.’ I took my jam tart. ‘How clever of you to notice.’

  ‘Father Neil, there is a matter I have never admitted to another living soul.’

  ‘Years ago you were jailed for drunken driving.’

  He shook his head. ‘Worse. Much worse. When I was twenty-four years old——’.

  ‘That’s my age.’

  ‘A pure coincidence. But I had to go into hospital to have my appendix out.’

  ‘That is a coincidence, Father.’

  ‘And I met a pretty nurse.’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘A very painful thing.’

  ‘Having an appendix out is no joke.’

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘the nurse was the cause of the pain.’

  ‘Did she take it out, Father?’

  ‘Father Neil, what I am struggling to say is, I kind of fell head over heels.’

  ‘Did she find it equally painful, Father?’

  ‘I don’t think she ever knew. But the years have passed and there are no scars now.’

  ‘Not even from your appendix?’

  It was a wicked question and I knew it. I sensed that Fr Duddleswell, for all his deviousness, was displaying heroism beyond the normal call of duty in opening his heart to me. I was even moved. Why, then, did I put that question? Perhaps because deep in my heart I knew his fears were better founded than I cared to admit.

  ‘I chose to be faithful to God and to me vocation, Father Neil,’ he was saying. A tear glistened in each eye. ‘But no regrets. Not one.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I murmured.

  He said bluntly, ‘Are you or are you not fond of Nurse Owen?’

  How could I deny that? ‘Everyone falls in love with their Nurse, Father, as you discovered when you were my age.’

  ‘Tell me, lad.’

  I put down my fork and spoon. ‘There is nothing at all between us, Father.’

  His gasp of relief was transformed into one of exasperation. ‘Then why in the name of God was she here?’

  ‘She’s marrying a non-Catholic and she wants me to instruct him before the wedding.’

  After a pause to reassess the situation, he muttered, ‘Of course, you realize I trusted you implicitly all along.’

  I pretended to be shocked at his badly hidden assumption. ‘Father, you didn’t think for one moment that——’

  Mrs Pring burst in with the tea pot. ‘Have you told him, Father Neil?’

  ‘She knows,’ Fr Duddleswell exploded. ‘D’you mean to say you’ve been stretching me leg, Father Neil?’

  ‘Believe me,’ I whispered loudly behind my hand, ‘I won’t breathe a word about when you were my age.’

  Mrs Pring put down the tea pot and wisely left us alone.

  ‘To be honest with you, Father Neil, story-tellin’ is an old Irish past-time. I do not want to shock you, but y’see, I still have my appendix.’

  ‘Dr Daley told me.’

  ‘Donal is in on it, too?’

  I confirmed the broad scope of the conspiracy.

  ‘Father Neil,’ he continued gently, ‘what I said concerning yourself was only talk and not meant. In me heart’s core there was no mistrust.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Put it down to an old man’s fondness. I’ve been in a tank of misery over you for days.’

  My turn to be humbled. ‘I’m very sorry, Father.’

  ‘If I lost you, lad, wouldn’t I be like an odd shoe?’

  ‘Nice of you to say so, Father.’

  ‘Shall we shake on it?’

  ‘Glad to.’

  My elbow was already on the table. I stretched out my hand. He took it and, with his own elbow on the table, levered it backwards. So acute was the pain in my abdomen, I had to stand to prevent the wound opening again. In the style of a Western bar-room wrestle, he tugged me backwards until my fist was pressed against the table cloth.

  ‘What was that for, Father?’

  ‘So that in future, Father Neil, you remember that I am sheriff of St Jude’s.’

  At nose-length, we smiled broadly at each other.

  X Sex Bows its Lovely Head

  During the night I could hear awful howls and screams. In a daze, I kept asking myself if it was the wind, or had a huge dog been let loose in the alley? It occurred to me that I might be responsible for the noise but that was impossible, I was in no pain.

  I was a tall tree which a lumberjack felled with a single stroke of the axe and lifted up in one hand and felled again. Each time I hit the ground my body shook and threatened to disintegrate.

  I was dreaming and in my dream I was by the sea and the racket I had heard was the wind and waves pounding the shore and there was salt spray on my face and lips and I slipped on the rocks and fell into black waters and was drowning.

  I awoke from my nightmare in a cold sweat. It was two in the morning. I was depressed.

  Depression had set in the day I left hospital. Beneath the surface gaiety
and the leg-pulling, I, a stranger to unhappiness, was forced to conclude I was unhappy.

  The nightmare was a repeat performance of the night before. It was due to a combination of low-spirits after the operation, unease and—I hardly dared formulate the word—loneliness.

  ‘I’ll bet you’ll miss that Nurse when you’re discharged tomorrow. A man needs a woman’s touch.’ Mrs Pring’s jest had rebounded off Fr Duddleswell on to me and stuck like a burr.

  When, in hospital, I had begun to feel better, there followed a few days of bewildering happiness. I was convinced Nurse Owen was giving me more of her attentions than any patient as such was entitled to.

  On her first afternoon off, when I did not see her, the hours limped by like wounded grasshoppers. I felt sorry for myself. I reflected that I had passed my life in entirely male-dominated surroundings since I was fourteen. That was when I entered the Junior Seminary. My mother and sisters apart, women had only walked on the horizon of my world. I had never taken a girl to the cinema, or been to a dance. I went to my last party at the age of twelve.

  I had no female friends of any sort. I was chaplain to the Legion of Mary. Most members were pop-eyed, middle-aged ladies with little to do but talk world without end about ‘true Marian devotion’.

  I was welcomed as a polite, anonymous stranger at many a hearth. But to no one could I allow myself the luxury of saying who I was. To them I was Melchizedek: no father or mother or brothers or sisters or antecedents. Worse, no present feelings and no future hopes.

  ‘Give me, good Lord,’ I prayed each night with Lacordaire, ‘a heart of flesh for charity and a heart of steel for chastity.’ Outside the amenity room at the K.G., I felt my life was getting steelier and lonelier each day.

  Once or twice after my operation, I asked myself if that strange flutter in my stomach when Nurse Owen held my hand was the stirrings of love. I put it out of my mind. Fr Duddleswell was bringing me Holy Communion every morning at first light and I was keen to be worthy of the Lord’s coming.

  Nurse Owen’s revelation of her forthcoming wedding was a great shock to me and to my vanity. I had been expecting from her news at once far more wonderful and more terrifying.

  I thought back to that walk in the Hospital gardens. ‘I don’t want to shock you, Father, but Jeremy … that is, Dr Spinks, has asked me to marry him. We became engaged last Saturday.’