Father Under Fire

by Neil Boyd

  ‘I shall tell the Mother Superior,’ Father Abe said, turning to me, ‘that I am a good friend of Father Duddleswell.’

  ‘You’d do better,’ I replied, ‘if you told her you are his worst enemy.’

  ‘Mother Superior,’ Father Abe said, greeting the giant-sized Mother Stephen in the polished parlour, ‘I am the worst enemy of the parish priest in these parts.’

  ‘Be seated, Father Cody,’ Mother Stephen ordered sweetly, smelling an ally. When we had obeyed: ‘What can I do for you?’

  Father Abe took out a crumpled piece of paper. ‘The Superior at the Priests’ Home where I’m living at present, she gave me this. A prescription for a dose of spirits to keep my rheumatics in check.’

  ‘And Father Duddleswell refuses to comply with Mother’s command,’ Mother Stephen said shrilly.

  ‘I am afraid that is the case, Mother.’

  A minute or so later, Mother Stephen returned with a silver tray on which was a glass of rum.

  Outside, where the taxi was waiting to take us home, Father Abe patted me on the back. ‘Thanks for the tip, laddy. But for you, that visit would have been a waste of time. Like castrating a curate.’

  ‘A good job you had that note from the nun, Father.’

  ‘Wasn’t it, just.’

  His tone made me suspicious. ‘It was genuine, I suppose.’

  ‘Indeed. Though I have to admit, it was older than the watch I gave the cabby.’

  At the presbytery, Fr Duddleswell was summoned from his study to settle up with the taxi driver. I heard him muttering, ‘Jasus, this fist of mine is going to give Father Abe an early night.’

  Father Abe was once more comfortably settled in my study when Fr Duddleswell burst in. ‘Listen here,’ he began.

  ‘Rum, little Charlie. Sitio, y’hear? I’m head-to-toe thirsty. I’ll not tell you again.’

  ‘The Bishop is coming to dinner.’

  ‘Sponger O’Reilly,’ Father Abe groaned. ‘You’re joking me. You really are a stinkpot.’

  Fr Duddleswell beamed at the compliment.

  ‘Little Charlie, may you melt off the earth like the snow off the ditch.’

  ‘He got to hear of your visit, Father Abe, and like yourself issued himself an invitation.’

  ‘I’ll say the penitential psalms in readiness. Now leave us, if you’d be so kind.’

  Obediently, Fr Duddleswell went away.

  ‘Why “Sponger”?’ I asked, sensing that Father Abe knew the Bishop better than was good for him.

  ‘I had him as my curate before little Charlie came. The minute after he walked in the door I said to my housekeeper, ‘Mary dear, that one is a real sod. One day he’ll be a bishop.’

  ‘Prophetic,’ I said.

  ‘He hasn’t changed over the years. Still crying out to be the centre of attention like a baby’s bottom.’

  I was intrigued by this unexpected light cast on my father in God. ‘What was the matter with him?’ I asked.

  ‘A queer article altogether and very solitary. As far as Sponger’s concerned, one’s company and two’s a blessed nuisance.’

  ‘Was he bright?’

  ‘Not a splink of sense in him.’ He gave a snoring sigh. ‘A head thick as a Russian novel.’

  ‘What were his special vices, then?’

  ‘Vices? He had none. Neither had he any virtues. In fact, to give him a character reference I had only to tear a blank page out of a book.’

  When I reacted to that, Father Abe continued, ‘A middle of the roader was Sponger.’

  ‘Very safe.’

  ‘Not at all. Very dangerous like any feller who drives straight down the cats-eyes, so to speak. Another thing, now I come to think of it, he never lost his temper.’ He winked at me confidentially. ‘Never trust a feller who doesn’t lose his temper. It means he’s as full of himself as a ripe moon.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sponger was always muttering to himself darkly like he was saying Mass, but no fireworks, know what I mean?’

  Having lived for several months with Fr Duddleswell I knew exactly what he meant.

  ‘Did the Bishop have a sense of humour, Father?’

  Father Abe reacted as if I had tickled him under both arms. ‘D’you know I once told him the old yarn about three hermits retiring to Connaught for prayer and meditation. After a year, the first says, “’Tis very peaceful here.” A year later, the second says, “’Tis that.” A year later still, the third of them says, “I’m going. You two talk too much.”’

  I roared again which pleased Father Abe.

  ‘Sponger didn’t see the joke at all. Every time I’ve met him since he’s still scratching his poll trying to work it out.’ Father Abe bowed his head in mock repentance. ‘I shouldn’t be talking like this at all. He’s not so bad really, Sponger. Maybe I’m just agin the government as usual.’

  I seized a golden opportunity before it faded. ‘What was Father Duddleswell like as a curate?’

  At mention of the name, Father Abe took a long drag of his cigar. The end of it shone orange like the sun behind a cloud. ‘Little Charlie, you’re asking about? Fitted in right away like paste in the tube.’ He reflected further. ‘A close wee feller, mind.’

  ‘Tight as a cabbage.’

  ‘You have him. He never wanted his hat to know what was in his head, as the saying is.’

  ‘He’s very mysterious,’ I granted him.

  ‘You’ve noticed. Never any different. His nose in every dark hole and corner like a plumber.’

  ‘Hardworking?’

  Father Abe nodded merrily. ‘A good pair of shoulders on him. They could carry more than the handlebars of an Irish bike.’

  ‘A lot of vices?’

  ‘That is so, but isn’t he riddled with virtues, besides?’

  I nodded agreement.

  ‘Kindness comes easy to him like money from America.’

  ‘He loses his temper sometimes,’ I said ruefully.

  ‘Oh,’ Father Abe replied, his eyes wide open, ‘he gets boiling mad with you, doesn’t he? And yet he wouldn’t do you a button of harm.’ The old priest gestured roundly with his cigar. ‘Many a time he called me all the blackguards, ruffians, whores and bastards – without any evil intent, mind. He must have learned the language at school because it wasn’t taught him in the seminary.’

  ‘Was he good with money, Father?’

  ‘He collected the stuff in heaps and basketfuls. Not that he’d spend a penny on himself. He used to buy St Vincent de Paul suits.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘All his clothes looked as if they were worn out before he got ’em.’

  ‘A good appetite?’

  ‘A regular bagman. Could eat the labels off the jars. And couldn’t he pray?’

  ‘With devotion, you mean?’

  ‘Fast, laddy, fast. He has this magic speed on him like Father Tim. He could fit in a Hail Mary between two ticks of the clock. I reckon if a cloud burst and beads of rain raced down the window pane, little Charlie could say an Ave on every one.’

  ‘You got on well with him,’ I said.

  Father Abe positively glowed. ‘Who wouldn’t? Outwardly, mind, we were hardly loving as two doves on a ridge pole. But we were much to one another and will always be. Many another curate had I before and since but it was always little Charlie I kept in the centre of my palm.’

  ‘Father Abe.’

  Father Abe eyed the treasured intruder angrily. ‘You are a tough gristle of beef and no mistake.’

  ‘Would you like a cup o’ tay?’

  ‘Holy God, may the grass grow in front of your door. First, a glass of rum, you scabby feller.’

  When little Charlie had retired, defeated, Father Abe said, ‘Isn’t he a darling considerate chap?’

  I nodded, unclear whether this was irony or not.

  ‘I reckon, laddy, he’s worried in case I spill the beans about him.’

  ‘Is that it, Father?’

  ‘The truth is’
– he gestured with his cigar for me to put my ear nearer his lips – ‘little Charlie is not Irish at all.’

  I blinked. ‘You could have fooled me.’

  Father Abe shook his head mischievously. ‘When he first came to me fresh from the English College in Rome – English College, would you believe it? – he had an English accent. Dear God, it was something terrible.’

  ‘Like mine,’ I said, grinning.

  He thumped his breast as if he wanted to knock a hole in it. ‘I forgot entirely there is a British agent in the house. But it’s true, laddy, I have to agree with you there. Anyway, in spite of his darling parents hailing from Cork, when little Charlie comes to me it’s Pentecost in reverse. He speaks the same language as myself but I have the father and mother of a job following any damn word he says.’

  ‘“Holy God, little Charlie,” I said, “if you spoke a foreign language like Italian I could learn it.”’

  ‘So you are responsible for the way he talks, Father.’

  Father Abe shrugged non-committally. ‘Little Charlie is only stage-Irish.’

  ‘Aren’t all Irishmen?’ I said.

  Father Abe choked on his cigar till his face was red and his eyes watered. When he had recovered, he agreed there was something in my point of view.

  ‘After I was finished with little Charlie he was as green as a thrice-dyed Irishman and mad keen to extend the Shamrock Empire. Why, the silly little feller wouldn’t even eat Danish bacon after what the Danes did to Brian Boru.’

  ‘Sponger,’ Father Abe said to the Bishop, ‘how is every cartload of you?’

  ‘Very well thank you, Father Abe.’

  ‘Holy God, wouldn’t the moon look pale next to you in all your finery.’

  The Bishop, having just stepped out of his limousine, was embarrassed at this public revelation of his nickname. ‘Father Abe,’ he said, doing his best to smile, ‘how are you with the years?’

  ‘Fine and strong, Sponger. I can still sling an insult that would kill Goliath.’

  ‘I’m sure you can, Father Abe.’

  Fr Duddleswell stepped in hurriedly to stop the rot. ‘A twin-handed welcome to you, me Lord.’

  He led the Bishop from the hall into his study where I was waiting. I alone knelt to kiss the Bishop’s ring. I was in favour at the time. He gave me a benign look.

  When we were settled, the Bishop handed Father Abe two small parcels. The old priest opened them and found they contained a box of Havanas and a half-bottle of rum.

  ‘Holy Mary, Sponger,’ Father Abe exclaimed, ‘here’s me saying that when you die yours will be the only moist eye in the place and all the time you’re a saint of God.’

  ‘You’re too kind, Father Abe,’ the Bishop replied modestly.

  ‘I never thought,’ Father Abe mused, ‘to have a bishop for my bottle man. If I had a handful of palms I’d strew them under your purple feet.’ He pointed in a different mood at Fr Duddleswell. ‘Squeezing a drink out of that one, now, is tougher than getting a Cardinal to ride a bicycle.’

  ‘Go on,’ Fr Duddleswell said, straining for a scrap, ‘kick that leg in, I have another.’

  Mrs Pring brought in the sherry. When she knelt to kiss the Bishop’s ring, Father Abe said mockingly, ‘I’m surprised at you, my Lord. Aren’t you afraid that sort of thing’ll give the ladies bad thoughts?’

  After the Bishop had spoken a kind word to Mrs Pring, she went to put the finishing touches to the meal and I poured the sherries.

  ‘A fine woman, your housekeeper,’ the Bishop commented to Fr Duddleswell.

  ‘Except, me Lord, she takes size twelve in tongues.’ A familiar spark appeared in the blue eyes behind his glasses. ‘You know, me Lord, how St Philip Neri levitated in prayer and had to hold on to the Papal chamberlain’s whiskers to keep himself down.’

  ‘I do, indeed, Father.’

  ‘Well, that woman can lift me off the ground just by a blast of her mouth.’

  ‘D’you two remember,’ Father Abe said, ‘my housekeeper, Mary?’

  The Bishop and Fr Duddleswell signalled how could anyone forget that harridan. And the conversation switched to a certain Mary Turner who had them all persecuted and full to the chin with insults.

  Fr Duddleswell had promised the company a fine leg of beef and prevailed on the Bishop, who fancied himself with the knife, to carve, when Mrs Pring knocked and beckoned me from the doorway to follow her.

  She looked half-crazed. ‘It’s gone, Father Neil.’

  ‘What’s gone?’

  ‘The joint.’

  ‘The joint? Where?’

  ‘I opened the window to let the smoke out of the kitchen, went to put the veg in the dining room –’

  ‘Pontius?’ I said hoarsely. ‘Impossible. How could a dog run off with a steaming joint?’

  I rushed into the garden and leaned over the fence. There was the answer. Billy Buzzle’s black labrador had picked up the joint of prime beef by the string surrounding it and was dragging it carefully through the dirt.

  I threw a stone at Pontius, taking care not to hit him, and returned to tell Mrs Pring the bad news.

  ‘There’s nothing else for it,’ I said, and gave her orders what to do.

  On rejoining the company I tried to whisper in Fr Duddleswell’s ear but he silenced me. Father Abe was busy telling the story of three hermits who went to Connaught for the sake of peace and solitude.

  No wonder the Bishop doesn’t laugh, I thought. The poor bloke’s probably heard it a hundred times before.

  When we entered the dining room, choice vegetables were steaming in their china dishes. After grace, Fr Duddleswell reminded the Bishop of his promise to carve.

  ‘This is Lent, my Lord,’ I said, preparing the ground. ‘Holy Week, in fact.’

  The Bishop smiled paternally. ‘I understand your scruples, Father Neil, but it’s not every day of the year we are able to celebrate with Father Abe.’ Crossing to the sideboard, he lifted the big silver dome of the meat dish and there was the piece of corned beef, fresh from its tin.

  ‘Another of your little jokes, Fr Duddleswell?’ the Bishop snapped.

  ‘I am sure I beg your pardon, me Lord.’

  The Bishop stood aside to show the disgraceful thing he had unveiled. Fr Duddleswell turned the colour of the Bishop’s buttons.

  ‘Pontius, Father,’ I said by way of explanation.

  ‘Not the damn dog,’ the Bishop exploded, ‘that nearly chewed me up when I blessed your bell!’

  ‘I will chuck a dozen Dog-Bombs at that one,’ Fr Duddleswell said grimly.

  Fortunately, Father Abe was there to take charge. ‘Holy God, boys, a donkey could carry the sense of both of yous easily. Go on like this and you’ll end up as bed-fellows to Oliver Cromwell.’

  Realizing it did not accord with a bishop’s dignity to carve corned beef I volunteered for the job. It amused me meanwhile to hear Father Abe berating his former curates who, it struck me, were vying madly for the old priest’s affections.

  ‘In ancient days,’ Father Abe sermonized, ‘the chalices were of wood and the men of gold. Now it’s golden chalices and wooden men. As St Augustine or Savanarola said.’

  First Fr Duddleswell apologized, then the Bishop. After that, it was a quiet meal of corned beef and Yorkshire pud with Father Abe directing the conversation into the safe channels of nostalgia.

  ‘How is Canon Reardon, Sponger?’

  ‘He passed on twelve months ago.’

  ‘“Fronty” Reardon passed on, never! He must have gone terrible sudden.’

  ‘He was eighty-nine,’ the Bishop reminded him.

  Father Abe looked at the Bishop and nodded. ‘But I only saw him four or five years ago and there was nothing the matter with him then.’

  ‘The years do age a man,’ the Bishop reflected wisely.

  By the end of the evening, I was convinced that Father Abe was a nice old boy, a trifle strange perhaps, but quite unlike the legends and tall stories his curates had wea
ved around him.

  That is why I broke my sacred rule: I did not prepare myself for the worst. I had only myself to blame.

  TWO

  High Jinks at St Jude’s

  The next day was Maundy Thursday. Fr Duddleswell celebrated the late Mass and, during it, showed signs of acute distress.

  Twelve Chelsea Pensioners, imported for the occasion, were seated in the sanctuary dressed, in their magnificent ceremonial red uniforms. Their shoes and socks were off and Fr Duddleswell’s role, as Christ’s representative, was to wash their feet in memory of our Lord who washed His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.

  He worked his way along the line on his knees, washing the feet, drying them, kissing them and handing each old soldier a half-crown, the Maundy money.

  Afterwards, he was unable to get up. He looked up at me, pain wrinkling his eyes. ‘I am hunkered by the lumbago, lad.’

  I hoisted him to his feet and did my best to straighten him out. He managed to finish Mass but I had to do the heavy work for him.

  ‘What’re we going to do now?’ I asked him at breakfast. The next three days were the heaviest in the priest’s calendar, what with Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday to come.

  ‘I can stay on the vertical for a few more days, Father Neil.’

  Mrs Pring told him that was a ridiculous idea. He had to go to bed at once and stay there.

  ‘Quiet, woman,’ he growled, ‘you are as talkative as an altar boy.’

  ‘And you,’ she retorted, ‘are more up the pole than Simon Stylites.’

  ‘Father Abe will lend a hand,’ I said.

  ‘Jasus,’ Fr Duddleswell exclaimed in pain and apprehension, ‘Father Abe is too old and batty to bless a rosary.’

  ‘He seems sound enough to me.’

  Fr Duddleswell hissed through clenched teeth, ‘You are wrong, Father Neil. He was not to be trusted twenty years since and now he is way beyond the use of reason.’ He stopped speaking to ward off an attack in his lumbar regions.

  ‘What about the wisdom of age?’ I said, teasing him.

  ‘Ah, core of me heart,’ he said, the sap in him rising, ‘me babe of grace, me big lump of a curate. Father Abe has bushels of wisdom but not one bloody grain of common sense to go with it.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ I promised.