Father Under Fire

by Neil Boyd

  ‘But isn’t that stealing?’ I demanded.

  ‘Not at all, Father Neil. I have often told the good people from the pulpit here that to take what is absolutely necessary for existence is not stealing, especially when you take from someone or some institution that can afford it.’

  Fr Duddleswell saw the baffled look on my face.

  ‘Listen, lad, Hugh realizes he is entitled to that money. Five shillings for his rent and five shillings for his beer and baccy.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he ask, Father?’

  ‘Would you, lad? You surely do not want me to embarrass the poor old chap? Besides, he has contributed to the collection for years.’

  ‘I suppose he knows you know.’

  ‘Of course. He would not do it otherwise.’

  ‘And he never takes more than ten shillings?’

  ‘Never. He is completely trustworthy is Hugh.’

  On reflection, I realized once again that however circuitous Fr Duddleswell’s way of thinking it was invariably kind.

  This is why when I caught him out in an act of blatant unkindness it was all the harder to bear. He said to me casually at breakfast one morning:

  ‘I have suggested to Mr Wilkins that he resign.’

  Mr Tommy Wilkins was the Headmaster of St Jude’s secondary school, a man of outstanding dedication.

  ‘He has been under a lot of strain lately, Father Neil.’

  I had noticed that Mr Wilkins had been looking jaded. ‘A nervous breakdown?’ I asked.

  ‘He is on the point of it, at any rate.’

  ‘Too much work.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Can’t you arrange for him to have a few week’s sick-leave, Father? You could easily persuade Dr Daley to give him a certificate.’

  ‘’Tis for his own good, Father Neil.’

  I didn’t like the way Fr Duddleswell presumed he always knew what was best for everyone. ‘Whatever’s the matter with him,’ I said, ‘sacking him is bound to make him worse.’

  ‘Who said anything about sacking him?’

  ‘Call it what you like,’ I said, ‘as the strong man among the school governors, you can do more or less what you please.’

  He resented my biting tone. ‘I have not consulted the governors about this and I insist I am not sacking Tommy Wilkins. Merely suggesting to him that it is best for himself and the school if he goes of his own volition.’

  I knew Mr Wilkins’s altruism. The slightest hint that the school would benefit from another Head would automatically induce him to resign. I said no more, simply bit savagely into my toast to show what I thought about Fr Duddleswell’s autocratic behaviour. He, in turn, spoke words to me in Irish which I felt privileged not to be able to understand.

  A few days after that disagreement, Mr Wilkins committed suicide.

  The Coroner’s verdict was that he had taken his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed.

  Fr Duddleswell admitted in open court that he had suggested to Mr Wilkins that he resign. He claimed not to have put any undue pressure on him. But had he known how near the edge Mr Wilkins was he might not have acted so hastily.

  He went out of his way to praise Mr Wilkins for his professional integrity, his irreproachable family life and his dedication over eight years as Head of the school.

  Afterwards, I heard Mrs Wilkins, accompanied by her three teenage daughters, thanking Fr Duddleswell for his immense kindness to her husband and family.

  Fr Duddleswell patted Mrs Wilkins on the arm. ‘Your husband was a grand man, Sheila. He worked himself to death for others. I will see he has a plaque erected in his memory.’

  Inwardly, I was fuming. He should have been confessing, if not his guilt, at least his astounding folly. Instead, he was lapping up praise from the widow whose husband he was instrumental in sending to an early grave.

  I had the same ill feelings towards him on the day of the funeral. He had prevailed on the Bishop to allow Mr Wilkins to have a full Catholic burial because his mind was disturbed when he committed suicide. The Mayor attended as did the school governors and a number of the older pupils. Pictures were taken by the local press. Once more, Mrs Wilkins and her daughters were profuse in their gratitude to Fr Duddleswell. I was not. Not a single word of regret or sorrow for his part in the tragedy escaped his lips. He seemed not to grasp the irony of their thankfulness.

  He noticed my sullenness at lunch that day but said nothing except to deliver himself of a few words of Irish again. I brushed them aside.

  When I broached the subject with Mrs Pring she put me off with, ‘In matters like this, Father D is usually right.’

  ‘If he sold your soul to the devil,’ I retorted, ‘you’d find some reason for excusing him.’

  She smiled wryly. ‘I suppose I would, Father Neil. I suppose I would.’

  This takes the biscuit, I thought. He’s got the whole damn parish in his pocket.

  At the evening meal, he brought the subject up. ‘I did me best for him, Father Neil,’ he said somewhat shyly.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t do your worst.’

  ‘Discipline in the school was beginning to break down and exam results last year were on the decline and –’

  I butted in. ‘He’s dead, Father. Don’t you understand Mr Wilkins whom you pressurized to resign is dead?’

  He munched on for a few moments before: ‘Why do you not accept what I say?’

  ‘You suggested he should resign.’

  ‘I did and nothing more.’

  ‘Was anything more needed for a man as dedicated as Mr Wilkins?’

  ‘He realized I was right. He said so.’

  I nearly choked on my food. ‘How can you go on insisting you were right? I repeat. Mr Wilkins is dead and he has a widow to prove it.’

  Fr Duddleswell looked at me, a mixture of sorrow and kindness, and lapsed into Irish again.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ I said. ‘Don’t treat me like a child.’

  ‘If they gave degrees for ignorance, Father Neil,’ he snapped, ‘a cockeyed curate like yourself would have first class honours.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’

  ‘If Mrs Wilkins does not blame me, why should you?’

  ‘Because,’ I replied, ‘she is a better Christian than I am.’

  He pushed his chair back, rose and stalked out, muttering, ‘The best hurler on the field is always the feller on the fence.’

  I called out after him, ‘He can at least see better when a foul has been committed.’

  He turned back to glare at me, opened his mouth, closed it without speaking and left me to finish supper on my own.

  I took the phone call. It was from the Vicar General requesting Fr Duddleswell to come and see him as a matter of urgency.

  While Fr Duddleswell went to Bishop’s House, I visited Mrs Wilkins. I went to offer my sympathy but also, I have to admit it, out of curiosity. Why did Mrs Wilkins bear no animosity towards the man who was instrumental in her husband’s death?

  She had received through the post that morning a plan of the proposed plaque to her husband’s memory. She was very moved by what Fr Duddleswell had arranged. Not wishing to stir up any rancour in her mind, I sat sipping tea while she expanded on her husband’s virtues and her good fortune in having Fr Duddleswell as parish priest. I left her even more amazed than before at her generosity and simple Christian faith.

  Fr Duddleswell did not return for lunch. At tea time, he came in and said, ‘After seeing the V.G., I went on to visit Father Abe. He sends his love.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  He put on his most impish smile, repeated his oft-quoted Irish phrase and closed the door on himself before I could object.

  The next day was my day off. I decided to visit Father Abe for myself and tell him of my growing unrest at St Jude’s.

  The old priest was sitting in his cassock with a blanket round his shoulders.

  ‘Come in and kindly welcome, laddy,’ he said.

  �
�I’m sorry if I woke you, Father.’

  ‘Not at all. It was only a fox’s sleep I was having. I can’t seem to keep my head up these days. The flower’s getting too big for the stem, I suppose.’

  ‘Do the nuns look after you well, Father?’

  He nodded appreciatively. ‘I am better watched than a dead man’s possessions, laddy.’ When I laughed, he said, ‘Sometimes I think that nuns is the best thing the Catholic Church ever thought of.’

  I handed over a packet of cigars which Don Martin had asked me to give him. The old priest’s eyes gleamed.

  ‘Will you be sure and thank him kindly for me, now? I only have cigarettes left.’ He took out a cigar and sniffed the end of it like a connoisseur. ‘I cannot get used to smoking nicotine straws, laddy. White tunnels of filth, I call ’em. Oh, it’s distressing watching the glow and smoke of them racing towards your nose like an express train with every little puff.’

  He lit up and instantaneously the room was filled with the aroma of cigar.

  ‘Now, tell me, laddy, what’s on your mind?’

  I pretended nothing was.

  ‘Holy-God,’ he whistled, ‘will you stop acting as if you wanted to buy my pig and come to the point. It’s little Charlie, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Out with it, what has the little divil been up to?’

  I explained his recent behaviour over Mr Wilkins’ death and how he kept swearing at me in Irish.

  ‘What did he say to you, laddy?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. It sounded like Acushla agus …’ I couldn’t continue.

  ‘Acushla agus asthore machree. Was that it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Father Abe shook his head and tut-tutted. ‘The pair of ye should be ashamed of yourselves. You must have fallen out something drastic and no mistake.’

  ‘I’m thinking of asking the Bishop to move me to another parish.’

  Father Abe was very put out by that. ‘A desperate measure, laddy, when you have to bring in Sponger.’

  ‘Things have become desperate lately, Father. I can’t see I have much choice. What’s the point of two priests ministering in a parish when they’re at one another’s throats?’

  ‘But little Charlie and myself were never any different, always squaring up to each other like a couple of tinkers at the fair of Knocknagree. And all the time, his soul was within me and mine within him.’

  I smiled ruefully. ‘Perhaps the pair of you were better able to take care of yourselves.’

  Father Abe blew a mighty stream of smoke into the air. ‘We Irish overdo everything, laddy, it’s our generous nature, y’see. Do you realize, in the days of duelling, the Irish were the only people in Europe who always blazed away at each other with two pistols?’

  I laughed. ‘Really?’

  ‘It is so. And sometimes, when the duellists’ seconds joined in, they made it a foursome, firing from all points of the compass.’

  ‘I can believe it, Father.’

  ‘We both know little Charlie has his faults but he has a big banquet hall of a heart and his charity is seamless as the blue sky.’

  I promised Father Abe I wouldn’t ask the Bishop for a move until I had thought about it longer.

  ‘I’ll come back and see you next week if I may, Father.’

  He winked at me and blew a farewell cloud in my direction. ‘Shut the door when you leave, laddy. That blasted wind would shave a gooseberry.’

  The next week brought no improvement at St Jude’s. I was seeing right through the long, white summer’s nights. Fr Duddleswell and I had lost the power of communication. I was waiting for him to admit some responsibility for Mr Wilkins’s death, he seemed to expect me to voice my support for him. The result was a stubborn, awkward silence.

  Mrs Pring sensed the atmosphere. ‘You two fallen out?’ she enquired once at breakfast.

  Neither of us could even say yes or no.

  I gathered that Fr Duddleswell had visited the V.G. again but he did not report to me what was said. That was unusual in itself. Since he came back moroser than ever I suspected he had asked the Vicar General to give him a change of curates – and been refused.

  Very well, the next step was mine. On his last visit to St Jude’s, the Bishop had said that whenever I felt like a move I had only to contact him.

  It was Tuesday. Later that afternoon, I was to visit Father Abe again. In preparation, I sat down at my desk and wrote to the Bishop asking to be transferred to another parish. I stressed that Fr Duddleswell had done his best to make me feel at home but that a change of scenery would benefit me, him and the parish.

  I ended the letter, ‘Your Lordship’s obedient servant, Neil Boyd,’ and sat in front of it for a whole hour, moping.

  How sad to have to admit failure so soon. It was coming up to my cotton anniversary, as Fr Duddleswell called it, the first anniversary of my posting to St Jude’s.

  I could hardly bear the thought of saying goodbye to the parish and the close friends I had made there: Mrs Pring, Dr Daley, Billy Buzzle – even Mother Stephen –and a host of others. Most of all it hurt me that, after so promising a start, Fr Duddleswell and I had reached the stage of not being able to talk to each other. Perhaps divorcees feel the same awful isolation.

  I was, as I thought, at my lowest ebb when the phone rang. I picked it up.

  ‘Don Martin here, Father.’

  I did my best to sound perky. ‘Yes, Don?’

  ‘It’s our Neil, Father. He’s just died.’

  I tried to speak but couldn’t. It was as if all the words until that second at my command had sunk to my feet. I wanted to lift a few of them to use but there was no strength in me.

  ‘He was sleeping after his midday feed, Father. And when we went to look, he was –’ Don sobbed openly. ‘Will you come?’

  I couldn’t even say I would. I gurgled something and he interpreted it as meaning yes. He put the phone down and I heard the purring in my ear.

  I was furious. Furious with myself for my loathsome self-pity. I threw the receiver against the wall, splintering it, and went to the drawer of my cupboard to take out my most precious possession. Then I ran down the stairs three at a time.

  Mrs Pring was standing at the bottom, a tray in her hand. ‘What’s up?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘It’s baby Neil.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Died in his cot.’

  Tears sprang into her eyes. ‘Oh.’ It was long and drawn out. ‘I’ll tell Father D.’

  Having reached the bottom of the stairs in a flurry, I stood still for a few seconds as if all movement was denied me. I was afraid. What a terrible thing to have to visit a family whose baby had just died. While I stood there, fearful, vacant, wounded to the heart, there came a loud moan from Fr Duddleswell’s study. Never had I heard such a desolate sound. Jesus on His cross must have sounded like that.

  It went through where my mind should have been that Fr Duddleswell was a real father to his parish. After all these years, he could still cry in anguish over the death of a child. His grief gave me the strength to open the door and cross the road to the Martins’ house.

  I placed my grandmother’s white-beaded rosary round little Neil’s cold head. The crucifix rested on his breast. His face was slightly blue. That apart, he looked like any baby sleeping. I had promised my grandmother the day before she died that I would never part with her rosary. I knew she’d understand.

  Dr Daley had gone and I was left alone in the child’s bedroom. There was nothing for me to do. No absolution to be administered, no anointing, no final blessing. I signed the still, white form with the sign of the cross and tried to pray.

  ‘Little Neil, Lord, never knew anything but love. He didn’t know bitterness or cruelty or loneliness. He died and never knew death. For that I thank you.’

  But my heart wasn’t in it. A human being is entitled to all things human, even pain, sorrow, loneliness, his own death.

  I gave up praying. W
hat was the point?

  ‘Why? Why?’ If I had voiced the words they would have been heard from one end of the parish to the other.

  Here was the only child I had ever seen born, the child who bore my name, and he was lying dead. I had seen him before his father and mother, and held him in my arms as if he were my own. Dead. For the first time in my life I experienced anger, real anger. And it was more frightening than sex could ever be. My diaphram weighed a ton, an earthquake threatened my chest and, like Mephistopheles, I could have annihilated a world. I was angry and it made a man of me. Like Rabbi Epstein, I ranted against God for His inhumanity and it made a priest of me.

  Inside me, a part of my soul detached itself from the rest and screamed, ‘It’s not fair, God. It’s not bloody fair.’

  I knelt down, listening to the sobs of the family downstairs and the puzzled questions of the boys. Danny said, ‘Is Neil sick, daddy?’ ‘He’s gone to Heaven,’ came the reply. ‘I told you,’ Francis said, ‘we won’t be able to play with him until tomorrow.’

  A couple of times, Jane came into the bedroom, dazed, talking to herself. ‘He’s not. He can’t be.’ Then she went out, shaking her head.

  I was waiting for Fr Duddleswell to come. Why didn’t he come? He had only to cross the road. Where was he? He can’t have cared so much after all. It was outrageous.

  How long I stayed there I do not know. My knees hurt when I rose.

  I promised Don I would offer Mass for the family next morning, hugged Jane and returned to the presbytery.

  ‘Where is he, Mrs P?’ I was angry again. With myself, with the world, with him.

  Mrs Pring’s eyes and face were red from weeping. ‘He’s gone for a walk.’

  ‘Gone for a walk!’ I was staggered. Is this his priestly, fatherly devotion? I asked myself sarcastically.

  ‘You see, Father Neil,’ Mrs Pring explained, ‘I was all upset and when I told him baby Neil had just died he thought I said –’

  ‘Father Neil.’

  Mrs Pring nodded.

  It was clear to me all of a sudden. The only thing that was clear to me in the thick fog that was engulfing me. His cry of dereliction was his keening of me. He couldn’t visit the Martins yet and sympathize with them because he was relieved that it was not his Neil who had died but theirs. When he had recovered, he would cross the road and see them. Not before. It wasn’t decent before.