Father Under Fire

by Neil Boyd

  I rounded on him in a temper, ‘I hope you tell this in confession.’

  ‘I’ve already been, Father,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll charge this up to your dad,’ I said.

  ‘I ain’t got a dad, Father.’

  That and the temporary lull in the chaos sobered me up. I returned to my box and continued where I had left off.

  ‘Where were we, son?’

  ‘You was saying, Father, that I’ve got to be kind and charitable to everyone.’

  Before I had finished with this little fellow, the noise in church was once again at a deafening pitch.

  As he went out, the lad said to the morning’s last penitent, ‘Your turn, big-head.’

  ‘I’ll blacken your bleedin’ eye for you,’ the other lad returned.

  ‘You and who else? When you come out of that box, come round the corner and I’ll pin your ears to your ugly fat head.’

  The last penitent knelt down and, in a pious voice, asked for my blessing which, as Christ’s representative, I was obliged to give.

  ‘I called my best friend a big-head, Father.’

  ‘I know. I just heard you.’

  ‘That wasn’t my best friend, Father. That was Jimmy Kane, my second best friend.’

  This lad specialized in problems of personal hygiene. ‘My dad keeps telling me off for wiping my nose.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘On my sleeve, Father. What grown-ups don’t understand is my nose likes being wiped on my sleeve.’

  I was almost at the end of my tether. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I don’t like washing my hands, Father. I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t have so many fingers sticking on.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I broke some eggs but that was God’s fault. If He made ’em in tins like baked beans it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘I put my tongue out at teacher when she wasn’t looking. Fifty-three times, Father.’

  I was very interested. The boy could count and was brave, besides.

  ‘Once I was caught, Father. Miss Gregson saw me.’

  ‘Bad luck,’ I said involuntarily.

  A tennis ball thudded against the glass top of my box. I gave the lad his penance and absolution and rushed out into the side aisle.

  ‘Who did it?’ I cried.

  Damien stepped forward with the ball in his hand. I snatched it from him and threw it towards the exit.

  ‘Get out, you rascals, all of you.’

  Only when they had scrambled did I see Fr Duddleswell framed in the doorway of the sacristy.

  ‘Problems, Father Neil?’ he said.

  ‘How were the little ones today, Father Neil?’ Mrs Pring asked.

  I had just returned from instructing Miss Gregson’s class on Holy Communion.

  ‘Not so bad, Mrs P. One little fellow wanted to know if the church burned down would I risk my life getting the hosts out of the tabernacle.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  I grinned. ‘If the fire brigade were standing by.’

  ‘I hope he doesn’t set the church alight to test you out.’

  ‘Then there were the usual questions about fasting before Communion. One said if he could put his breakfast on top of the host why not underneath.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered that myself.’

  ‘Another said, what’s so special about the tongue that it can touch the host when the teeth can’t.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mrs Pring said, ‘that was my Helen’s problem. When she made her first Communion, she accidentally bit the host. She was heartbroken because she thought she’d hurt Jesus.’

  I smiled at a child’s way of thinking until I saw how upset Mrs Pring was.

  ‘After that, Father Neil, Helen wouldn’t go to Communion again for a whole year. Even Father D couldn’t persuade her. She was afraid it would happen again.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘It’s not uncommon that sort of thing,’ Mrs Pring said. ‘There’s a lad in this parish who won’t clean his teeth on a Sunday morning in case he swallows toothpaste and breaks his fast. His mum told me.’

  ‘Molly Jenkins is a problem,’ I said.

  ‘The little girl who’s lost her daddy?’

  I nodded. Her mother had written me a note to say that she only had a part-time job and she couldn’t really afford a white dress for her daughter.

  Mrs Pring’s reaction was, ‘I’ve still got my Helen’s first Communion dress. I’ll pop round and see Mrs Jenkins. Maybe she’ll let me alter it for Molly. After all, we’re both widows, aren’t we?’

  Mrs Jenkins was delighted. When, a couple of days later, Molly came for a fitting, she looked very pretty in her long, white dress. I led her into Fr Duddleswell’s study and his eyes lit up. He noticed at once that Molly was wearing his beloved ‘niece’s’ dress.

  Not all parents were as sensible as Mrs Jenkins.

  I dropped them a line about the Feast, asking them to be sure to give the children a good meal the night before. Children were not used to the long fast and I didn’t want them to faint in church in the morning.

  Mrs Kane, Jimmy’s mother, a non-Catholic, was very aggressive. She regarded my note as a personal insult and a slur on her concern for her darling’s welfare.

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me how to feed my Jimmy,’ she said angrily, her hair standing up on her head like a cos lettuce. ‘Nor did I like the idea of my Jimmy having to tell you his sins when he hasn’t got any.’

  Mrs Kane then proceeded to shed light on Jimmy’s sanctity which no one in my acquaintance had ever suspected.

  ‘Where in the name of God is Ronan’s baptism certificate?’

  ‘It should have arrived by now, Father.’

  ‘That’s what comes of leaving you in charge of preparations for Corpus Christi, Father Neil.’

  Ronan Carrol had been born and baptized in Columbus, Ohio, towards the end of the war. Miss Gregson told me she had received a letter from the American parish priest saying he would send me the certificate directly. It hadn’t come.

  This was the Thursday before the great day. Next morning, I was at the door when the postman made his delivery. Seeing my worried expression, he said:

  ‘Expecting something important, Father?’

  I told him I was hoping for a letter from America.

  ‘None from the U.S. today, I’m afraid.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Funny, but I delivered a letter from there to Mr Buzzle only yesterday.’

  ‘A long white letter with a seal on?’ I was clutching at straws.

  ‘Come to think of it, it was.’

  I popped round to Billy’s place, hoping against hope that my letter had been wrongly addressed. Billy didn’t answer the bell. Mrs Pring told me he was on a week’s holiday in Torquay.

  ‘Well, Mrs P, if that letter does contain Ronan’s baptism certificate, it’s too bad. The poor lad won’t be able to receive first Communion with the rest now.’

  Mrs Pring must have mentioned it to Fr Duddleswell because in a few minutes he was in my room, flapping.

  ‘We will have to get that letter, lad.’

  ‘Do you know Billy’s phone number in Torquay?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Break in, Father Neil.’

  ‘I don’t mind seeing if he left a downstairs window open,’ I said.

  I tried them all without success. I noticed, though, that Billy’s upstairs bathroom window was slightly ajar.

  Fr Duddleswell said, ‘I’ve no objection to you getting in that way, lad, provided you wait till ’tis dark.’

  I reminded him that this wasn’t my idea.

  ‘Look at the shape of me, Father Neil. Are you wanting me to break my neck?’

  For answer I didn’t answer.

  When dusk fell, I propped our ladder against the side of Billy’s house. A gale was blowing.

  ‘Dear God,’ Fr Duddleswell exclaimed, ho
lding on to the ladder for dear life, ‘that wind will be shaking the barley tonight.’

  I climbed up and squeezed through the bathroom window. I managed to find my way by torchlight to the front door when I heard the ominous sound of a police siren.

  I thumbed rapidly through the pile of letters on the floor. Near the top was an official-looking letter with a U.S. stamp on it, addressed to ‘The Incumbent, 10 Chindell Road.’ I stuffed it in my pocket and beat it.

  ‘Hurry, lad, hurry.’

  I hurried so much I twisted my ankle on the last rung of the ladder. Forced to abandon the ladder, we clambered over the fence as fast as we could, only a few seconds before a policeman appeared in Billy’s back garden flashing a torch.

  Five minutes later, our front door bell rang. I hobbled downstairs to answer it. There stood two policemen. I was getting to know every copper in the district.

  ‘Evening, sir.’

  I smiled at the spokesman. ‘How do you do?’

  The senior policeman explained that he and his colleague were responding to an emergency call. Someone had broken in to Number 10. ‘You didn’t see anything suspicious, sir?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like someone breaking in.’

  ‘No, Officer.’

  ‘Would you care to come with us, sir?’

  ‘Believe me, Officer,’ I said, shaking, ‘I wouldn’t steal anything belonging to Billy Buzzle. He’s my friend. I like his dog. There’s no need to take me to the Station.’

  ‘We were wanting you to come round to the back, that’s all.’

  I agreed to go with them.

  ‘Is this your ladder, sir?’

  I pretended to have initial difficulties seeing it. ‘Good heavens,’ I said, at length, ‘no doubt about it. We keep it in our garden shed.’

  ‘Have you used it recently?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘Only this evening.’

  ‘Well, sir, it was used a few minutes ago in an attempted burglary.’

  ‘Extraordinary.’

  The policemen left a few minutes later, not knowing quite what to make of it.

  When the coast was clear, Fr Duddleswell came out of hiding. ‘Well done, lad. Now where is the letter?’

  I handed it over. He ripped it open and out dropped a cheque for $500.

  ‘Gambling debts, Father Neil.’

  ‘Poor Ronan.’

  I was pleased to hear Fr Duddleswell say, ‘Leave him to me, lad. I will handle this.’

  I was in the school at 8.45 on the Sunday morning overseeing final preparations. There was a carnival atmosphere. Children scrubbed as clean as nuns. Mothers putting the finishing touches to the girls’ white dresses and the boys’ blouses.

  Marisa, a Neapolitan girl, was decked out in bright angel’s wings that opened and closed when she pulled the strings. The wings had small, Christmas tree lights sewn on them and her mother was telling Marisa to switch them on just before receiving Communion. I pretended not to notice because I didn’t want any argument with that swarthy, muscular mama.

  Some older children were carrying jam jars filled with poppy leaves, rose leaves, lilac and laburnum blossom. The flowers were to be strewn in the procession to the church.

  ‘Very nice,’ I said to one of the boys.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘we nicked ’em from the park, Father.’

  Miss Gregson brought Molly Jenkins to see me in her white dress, accompanied by her mother who was in tears.

  ‘Molly, Father,’ Miss Gregson said brusquely, ‘cannot go to Holy Communion.’

  ‘Why not, Miss Gregson?’

  Molly said, ‘I put a sweet in my mouth before I went to sleep last night, Father, and when I woke up it was still there.’

  ‘A boiled sweet?’ I asked. Molly nodded. ‘What a terrible pity.’

  I knew from my seminary training that to eat anything nutritional broke the fast. The only apparent exception was swallowing things like wasps and bluebottles which wasn’t the same as eating them. Also, chewing bits of wood or swallowing liquid parafin, the latter being judged by moralists to go right through the digestive system without nourishing it at all. Fortunately for me, Fr Duddleswell was close by and again took it on himself to sort things out.

  I found the sacristy full of processional banners, woven with mottoes like Panis Angelicas and O Bread Of Heaven. The servers were scrambling around trying to find cassocks and cottas to fit them and arguing about who would carry the torches and lanterns. In the mêlé, the cotta of one of the boys caught fire. Luckily I noticed it and was able to tear it off him before he did a Joan of Arc.

  The ceremony itself was flawless and full of quiet joy. My own peace of mind was disturbed by the thought that Molly and Ronan were unable to receive.

  Fr Duddleswell was beaming, especially when he preached to the first communicants and gave them our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist for the first time. Including Molly and Ronan. It would have melted the stoniest hearts to see ‘the little saints in all their finery,’ as Fr Duddleswell called them. No one left the church before Mass ended. Not even the dozen or so Irishmen who regularly knelt on one knee at the back as if they were under starter’s orders, only waiting for the last blessing so they could sprint away.

  When it was all over, Fr Duddleswell was heard boasting that not even the Italians at Sutri near Rome, with their festival of ‘A Carpet of Flowers’, ever put on a show like ours.

  ‘Mrs Pring,’ Fr Duddleswell said, ‘for your performance today I will award you an ear.’ And he gestured as if he were about to sever one of mine.

  Mrs Pring had brought us in our nightly cup of cocoa. Because of all the celebrations it was much later than usual.

  ‘Why, Father D?’

  ‘Little Molly looked a treat in Helen’s first Communion dress, so she did.’

  Mrs Pring blushed and left for bed in a happier frame of mind than for many a long day.

  ‘As for yourself, lad, you look puzzled.’

  I decided to come clean. ‘You broke all the rules in letting those two children receive today.’

  ‘I did and I will probably fry for it.’ He beat his breast three times like a drum. ‘But you knew, surely, that I was going to do it.’

  ‘Yes. And I’m pleased you did. Even though I wouldn’t have had the courage for it.’

  ‘Courage?’ he said, laughing. ‘What did our Blessed Lord say about the Sabbath observations?’

  ‘That the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath?’

  ‘Indeed. The same is true of the sacrament of sacraments which contains the Lord of the Sabbath, does it not?’

  ‘I agree, Father, but what about the Church’s laws?’

  ‘They are to be kept.’ He smiled broadly. ‘With the utmost vigour when you can and provided it doesn’t harm the little ones. After all, lad, when the apostles received Holy Communion at the Last Supper, were they baptized?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Neither do I, but does it worry you, lad?’

  ‘Not in the least.’

  ‘And were the apostles fasting before their first Communion?’

  I shook my head. ‘I still don’t know what the canonists would think about this.’

  ‘D’you know, Father Neil, me dear old father, God give him peace, had a little maxim. It has meant more to me over the years than all the wise talk I ever heard from moralists or canon lawyers’. “The man who deals but bare justice is just as bad as an unjust man.”’

  I made him repeat it and, after pondering a while, said, ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Of course not, Father Neil. ’Tis something better. ’Tis a wee saying that encourages a man to strive for something more than justice. Magnanimity.’

  I had another sip of cocoa. ‘Sorry for my jibe about the enormous acorn, Father.’

  He waved the apology aside as if it were long ago forgiven and forgotten.

  ‘You’re about as old-fashioned as next week,’ I said.

 
; ‘Kind of you to say so, Father Neil.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now down that cocoa before it strikes midnight,’ he said sternly. ‘Else you will not be able to celebrate holy Mass tomorrow morning.’

  TWELVE

  Goodbye to St Jude’s

  Hugh Drummond was a thief. Why was Fr Duddleswell refusing to admit it?

  Twice I had caught Hugh with his hand in the Sunday collection. He pretended he was putting in his own contribution whereas I was sure he was helping himself.

  ‘Hugh stealing from the till, Father Neil? Never. He is as honest as yourself.’

  I took measures to find out which of us was right. With a nail, I scratched a mark on a half-crown and asked Don Martin to put it in the Sunday Collection for me. After that Mass, the coin was still there. I tried again the following week. When I came to count the money, my half-crown was missing.

  The same trick the following week gave the same result. This was proof enough for me and should be enough even for the blindly loyal Fr Duddleswell. I didn’t want to accuse Hugh Drummond of stealing but God alone knew how much he must have pilfered over the years. Still I hesitated. Why? Firstly, because I liked Hugh. He was a gentle, affable old fellow in his mid-sixties. Not an enemy in the world, as far as I could tell. And he had taken up the collection at St Jude’s for as long as anyone could remember.

  The second reason for holding back was Fr Duddleswell himself. In the past few months, he and I had not seen eye to eye on a number of issues. Many a time he had brought his fire-power to bear on me and I had fired back. I did not want to risk falling out with him further.

  It was only after considerable thought and prayer that I ventured to say:

  ‘Father, I’m very sorry to have to tell you but I have proof that Hugh is a thief.’

  He regarded me with tolerant amusement. ‘I have known Hugh for twelve years, lad, and I tell you he is not.’

  I laid my reasons on the line. After which, he said enigmatically:

  ‘You mustn’t think that Hugh is a thief just because he helps himself to a few bob.’

  His explanation, as I had come to expect, was not of the usual sort. For the last three years, he told me, Hugh’s wife had been a patient in a distant mental home. Her departure coincided with Hugh’s retirement. His twice-weekly visits to his wife cost him £2 and he couldn’t afford it. Hence, he helped himself to four half-crowns from the collection each week.