Father in a Fix

by Neil Boyd

  Fr. Duddleswell penitently bowed his head.

  ‘You did of course offer to pay compensation.’

  Fr. Duddleswell bit his lip. ‘He never asked me, Your Honour.’

  Ominously, the Judge scribbled again in his notebook.

  Banks said, ‘It did not occur to you that in the plaintiff’s mind the damage you are alleged to have done and the damage his pig is alleged to have done cancelled each other out?’

  ‘I never thought for—’

  ‘How much would it cost to replace a window pane these days?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Five pounds?’

  ‘I suppose it could.’

  ‘I heard Flitch mutter, ‘Banks is magnificent. I wasn’t expecting anything like this.’

  ‘The plaintiff,’ Banks went on, ‘magnanimously, as is his nature, decided not to proceed with an action for damages to property. It was only when his heart was broken by the abduction and subsequent death by neglect of his lovable pet pig that he was forced to resort to the due processes of law.’

  Banks paused to run his long fingers over his non-existent eyebrows. ‘My client did not think at any time to take the law into his own hands by breaking three of your windows to compensate for the one of his that you broke.’

  The Judge intervened to do Flitch’s work for him.

  ‘Would counsel be so good as to move away from the window.’

  Banks bowed low in acquiescence. He passed to certain technical considerations of Billy’s pen. He established it was of a height and standard approved by the Ministry of Agriculture.

  I was no longer listening. I was too incensed at the injustice of the court’s proceedings. Even I, a legal innocent, knew Banks should never have been allowed to get away with saying that Porgy died through Fr. Duddleswell’s neglect. The Judge himself should have intervened when Flitch remained on his backside.

  What was our counsel expecting to be paid for? After a promising start, he had let the case drift away from Fr. Duddleswell. Flitch seemed to acknowledge as much by almost applauding every new point Banks made at Fr. Duddleswell’s expense.

  When Banks had finished and my parish priest, in a terrible sweat, was allowed to leave the stand, Flitch had the audacity to whisper to Josiah Tippet, ‘Superb handling by Banks. It’s all sewn up, I’m afraid.’

  That ‘I’m afraid’ was said without the least note of regret. I was disgusted.

  My fury abated only when old Jed Summers was called.

  Banks tried to make Jed, as Fr. Duddleswell’s agent, own up to neglect. Perhaps the children of the farm had tormented the pig.

  ‘That ain’t partly right,’ Jed said.

  ‘You mean,’ Mr. Banks asked, ‘I am not right at all?’

  ‘That’s every partly right,’ Jed said. ‘I don’t keer none what you open about owd Jed but the childern ain’t to blame. The little owd uns stroke Porgy with their little paddies, tha’s all. I’d have given ’em a tongue-pie if they’d misbehaved theirselves.’

  ‘You would have scolded them?’

  ‘Tha’s right, Your Honour. No, Porgy didn’t have marks of the measles or the jaundice. I treacled up the pen—’

  ‘Treacled?’ the Judge enquired, interested for the first time.

  ‘Polished it up. He were a bit peaky that mornin’ and he went rusty like leaves seared by frost. But no blame of me, Your Honour. I ain’t no never-sweat. Nor am I that clumsy I’d hurt a kindful thing like Porgy were.’

  Banks, to his credit, let him get down from the stand. Even he was unwilling to insinuate that Porgy had died from neglect at the hands of one as kindful as old Jed Summers.

  The time came for the Judge to sum up. It was plain to everyone, I thought, that Billy had won. Fr. Duddleswell’s only hope was that the Judge really had been asleep most of the time and missed the vital evidence.

  ‘There are many unusual features in this case,’ the Judge began, when all the lights went out.

  The usher, in the pitch dark, said, ‘It must be a power-cut, Your Honour.’

  ‘Get a lamp,’ the Judge commanded.

  There was a lot of commotion, matches and lighters were lit, and there was the sound of knees knocking into benches before the usher’s voice proclaimed, ‘No lamps to be found, Your Honour, nor candles, either.’

  ‘We endure five years of war,’ the Judge said caustically, ‘and there is not a solitary candle in His Majesty’s County Court! Am I expected to read my notes by the light of the stars?’

  He brought his fist down on his desk. ‘Case adjourned until tomorrow morning at ten thirty.’

  ‘Silence,’ the usher cried. ‘Be upstanding.’

  Then there was a fearful crash as the Judge missed his step and fell off the dais.

  ‘Billy’s counsel has been dipped in the Shannon and no mistake.’

  We were at supper and Fr. Duddleswell took the same dim view of his prospects as I did. Before we left the court house, even the usually non-committal Josiah Tippett had approached Fr. Duddleswell and clasped his hands sympathetically. ‘I am very, very sorry about that, Father,’ he’d sighed.

  Holding the case over had added to our expenses because the useless Nathan Flitch, K.C. would have to attend the morning session, too.

  ‘Father,’ I said, trying to lighten his load, ‘I thought your absolute honesty in the box was a credit to the priesthood.’

  ‘Y’think so,’ he said, munching miserably away. ‘Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is the most unnatural experience of me life to date.’ He paused. ‘I feel soiled all over.’

  There was a scream from the kitchen and the sound of Mrs. Pring’s feet pounding the corridor.

  ‘Things are desperate enough already, Father Neil, without that woman causing an epidemic of earache in the neighbourhood.’

  Mrs. Pring burst in. ‘Another face at the window,’ she spluttered.

  ‘Where are You, God?’ Fr. Duddleswell roared. ‘First Porgy and now Good Clean Bess.’

  As I raced to the kitchen to investigate, he called after me, ‘No knives, now, Father Neil.’

  I found it wasn’t a pig at all. It was Billy Buzzle. He was alternately hammering on the window and pressing his face grotesquely against the pane.

  ‘He is astray of his wits,’ Fr. Duddleswell groaned. ‘He has come to break me windows, after all. What have I done to me dear old enemy by pinching his precious pig?’

  I let Billy in. He was shivering and saying, ‘It’s Bess. She’s ill. Been with her for an hour. There’s something awful the matter with her. Must be the same disease as Porgy.’

  ‘Dial 999, Father Neil,’ Fr. Duddleswell ordered, ‘while I get me lamp.’

  ‘I can’t Father,’

  ‘And why not? D’you think the health and salvation of Mr. Buzzle’s last remaining pig does not merit the trouble?’

  ‘But, Father—’

  ‘Look you here, Father Neil. I once took a party of altar boys on a trip to Brighton. On the way back, I dailled 999 to enquire where the nearest fish and chip shop was and they sent me out a police escort. Why in heaven’s name do we pay our rates and taxes?’

  I did as I was told.

  A woman’s voice answered. ‘This is Emergency Services. Please state clearly which service you require: Police, ambulance or fire-brigade.’

  ‘I’m not altogether sure,’ I stammered.

  ‘Well, sir,’ the cool female voice said, ‘what is the trouble?’

  ‘It’s a pig,’ I said.

  ‘Has this pig badly injured someone, sir?’

  ‘Not this one. It’s ill. Bess is ill.’

  ‘Is this a hoax, sir? There are fines for—’

  ‘No. Not a hoax. I’m a Roman Catholic priest.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ She seemed reassured. ‘Is this pig yours?’

  I was perfectly aware of the crazy course the conversation was taking but somehow I couldn’t stop it.

  ‘No, she belongs to a n
eighbour of ours. Come to think of it, Mr. Buzzle might need an ambulance.’

  ‘Where is this gentleman, Father? Is he lying in the road?’

  ‘No, he’s drinking tea in our kitchen.’

  ‘May I suggest, Father, you call a vet. For the pig.’

  ‘You couldn’t give me a number, I suppose.’

  She gave me two.

  I rang them both but there was no reply. You can never get a blasted vet when a pig needs one, I cursed.

  I reported back to Fr. Duddleswell just as he was about to leave for Billy’s garden, armed with a torch and shod with gumboots.

  ‘Me all, me dearest dear,’ he sighed, ‘me complete hero. Give me the bloody phone.’

  He dialled Dr. Daley’s number. ‘Donal, ’tis me, Charles. Will you mix your legs and get over here in a hurry. Yes, with your black bag. Emergency. Tell you about it when you arrive … But you already know me address.’

  Billy had circled the sty with paraffin lamps. Inside, lying on fresh straw, was Bess. She looked bloated, enormous.

  ‘Have you been over-feeding herself, Mr. Buzzle? Giving her fizzy lemonade?’

  ‘No, Father O’Duddleswell. She’s been looking poorly ever since Porgy …’ He broke off sniffing. ‘Could be wind from those apples I gave her yesterday.’

  We speculated scientifically on the cause of Bess’ distress until Dr. Daley arrived five minutes later.

  He took one look at Bess and said, ‘Dear, dear, dear.’

  ‘Is she dying, Doctor?’ Billy asked.

  ‘It’s a straightforward case of 115 days.’

  ‘Is she dying?’ Billy repeated.

  ‘She is about to give birth.’ Dr. Daley touched his arm reassuringly. ‘A simple case of the proliferation of pig.’

  It was a clear night, no likelihood of rain. Billy, Fr. Duddleswell and I went indoors to muffle ourselves against the cold and I brought a chair for Dr. Daley who was fortunately clad already in an overcoat.

  ‘Ah, Father Neil,’ Dr. Daley said, as he sat down on the chair with a generous overlap, ‘this takes me back to the days of my childhood in Connemara. Before we moved to the wicked city, it was. I reckon I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was present at my first farrowing.’

  ‘Is there anything for us to do?’

  ‘No, Father Neil. Sit and wait. It’s a mistake even to put your hand in and help the poor sow. Risk of infection, d’you know? Let nature take her course.’

  Billy said, ‘So there’s nothing you need, Doctor?’

  Dr. Daley said there was one thing; and a couple of minutes later Billy returned with a bottle of Johnny Walker and a tumbler.

  On his second glass, Dr. Daley said, ‘I don’t inhale the stuff into my blood stream, d’you know? It goes right through me.’ He looked pityingly at Bess whose mighty form was tossing and swaying like a foam-crested sea. ‘Won’t be long before the show commences.’

  Bess moaned as if to confirm his prediction.

  After a quarter of an hour, a head appeared. Then the whole sticky piglet. At Dr. Daley’s bidding, I picked up the small creature as soon as it severed its cord, wiped some of the ooze off it with a towel and put it on the ground. On very shaky feet, it immediately walked round Bess’s hind legs, found an udder and sucked.

  ‘It’s drinking in colostrum,’ Dr. Daley explained. ‘Good for it. Like any baby, really.’

  Things were not so good for Billy. The sight of the birth, after his earlier fright that evening, had upset him. He collapsed in a heap.

  Fr. Duddleswell and I carried him into his house and up to his bedroom.

  ‘Poor Billy,’ Fr. Duddleswell kept gasping.

  He took off Billy’s outer garments and his shoes and put an extra pillow under his head.

  I left him to attend to Billy and rejoined Dr. Daley. The second piglet had just arrived.

  ‘How long is this litter likely to take, Doctor?’

  ‘No idea. Sometimes a couple of hours, sometimes all night. Usually four to six hours.’ He poured himself another. ‘All females are unpredictable, Father Neil. That is their eternal fascination.’

  He went on sipping contentedly and reminiscing, in a strange quaint tongue of the past, about his early years in Connemara.

  ‘There was many a night like this, Father Neil. By firelight under the stars, telling stories often and often to each other. Family and friends. People used to come on a Connemara visit.’

  ‘What’s that, Doctor?’

  ‘You never heard the expression? They’d come and forget to go home.’ We laughed together. ‘A hospitable people and so kind. We borrowed each other’s troubles for days on end.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said appreciatively.

  ‘This brings it all back: the light of candles and turf fires and cod-oil lamps.’ He heaved a deep, sad sigh. ‘I remember the morn my little brother was taken. Ah, do I remember. Six years old was I. Still in a petticoat with a cardigan over it and a cap on my head and me on only three pounds of potatoes a day.’

  ‘Sounds a lot to me.’

  ‘There was nothing else, y’see. And in summer late, before the spuds were in, not even that. Anyhow, little Johnny had the whooping cough. My mother, God be gracious to her, used to feed him ferret’s milk, thinking it would do well by him. But it did not and what would? There still is nothing for the whoop once it’s caught that I know of. And on this day, my father was down by the stream washing the sheep and feeding turnips to them and Johnny coughing and wheezing in the cold kitchen. When suddenly, all in a minute, silence. I look at my mother and she at me. Johnny is in her arms, his face as blue as the summer sky of evening, you know how it is, when the sun sinks over the sea. But he is coughing no more. “That’s good, momma,” says I. “For him,” says mother. “But not for me. He’s gone, Donal, me darlin’.” “Ah,” says I, for I was not so young I didn’t know about these things. “Gone, Donal, and here am I hurted so me heart is killed.” And I look at the little one asleeping for ever in her arms, in peace, the fingereens on him stiff already as winter twigs. “Bless his little heart,” says mother, “the Almighty God only cut him a thin slice of life.” And she stretches him out on two chairs like we used put a plank over two chairs in chapel to make an altar of it. “They have taken him,” says she.’

  ‘They?’ I said.

  ‘The people,’ the Doctor explained, in a manner he had never used with me before. ‘The Others. Them as lives on the other side of the wall.’ He saw my puzzled expression. ‘The people live in the sea, Father Neil, multitudes of them. Or inside the mountains of which few know the door. You can’t take a step but one of them has to move out of your way.’

  ‘What do they do, Doctor?’

  ‘Oh, they put the touch on the folk they want, the young and the handsomest, and it’s highly dangerous to be overlooked by them.’

  The lonely night, what with the quiet throbbing of the lamps and the shaky shadows, seemed dangerous all of a sudden and ‘lived in’. I can’t explain it.

  ‘Little Johnny was taken by them.’

  ‘He was?’ I managed to get out.

  Dr. Daley nodded. ‘He was replaced by some old one of them they had no more use for, y’understand.’

  ‘Did you ever see one of them?’

  ‘Not me. But Mrs. O’Hea in our village, she saw them. She used to go away with them regular. And come back. And while she was away, she left someone just like herself behind so you couldn’t tell the difference, unless you knew.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘We knew,’ he affirmed. ‘Her man used to say to her, “Where have you been, Biddy?” “Nowhere,” says she, “I have never left you.” And Mr. O’Hea didn’t doubt she was lying. “You wouldn’t expect her to admit,” says he to us on the side, “that she’s been away, would you, now?”’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I murmured, as if the question was addressed to me.

  ‘Then there were the dead folk used to turn up at wakes and funerals. No one would menti
on it, of course. We would talk to them as if we didn’t know they were dead and they to us as if they didn’t know we were alive. Why should we mention to them the fact of their being dead, anyhow?’

  ‘Impolite, you mean.’

  ‘Indeed. If you were dead, you would not want anyone drawing attention to it, now, would you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jimmy’s father died. He was my best friend, was Jimmy Keevan. And his father, after dying beautifully, sat up on his bed to tell his wife where his money was hid in the garden.’

  ‘Are you sure he was dead, Doctor?’

  ‘Shouldn’t I know such things, being a doctor?’

  ‘You saw him sit up, then?’

  ‘I did not but they described it to me word for word. Then this nice gentleman, Mr. Keevan that was, stretched himself out again to save them the bother.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘It was. Fr. McEntee didn’t know whether he ought to anoint the man again when he heard of what happened. Jimmy often saw his father after that.’

  ‘Exactly as he remembered him?’

  ‘Not at all, Father Neil. Disguised was he so even Jimmy wouldn’t recognize him. But he did, of course.’

  ‘How did he do that?’

  ‘Wouldn’t a boy recognize his own father even though he didn’t look like him?’

  I nodded apologetically for not seeing something so obvious. ‘But what about the priests, Doctor? Didn’t they object?’

  ‘They did. They told their people not to believe in them and not to talk to them either whenever they saw them.’

  ‘So the priests didn’t believe in these things.’

  ‘Oh they did. They believed in them most of all. But they told their flocks not to believe in them so they wouldn’t deal with them and come to harm or lose a cow or sheep. Now why am I telling you this?’ He scratched his head. ‘I remember now, it’s because once I was waiting for a litter of piglets to come just like this night and Mrs. O’Hea was there watching like a star above. And before the piglets arrived she said to me, “Look you here and see this litter I have myself. Seven of them only.” I looked as far as my eyes would let me and saw nothing. That was the strange thing, I saw nothing at all where she pointed. Then our pig gave birth and had seven little ones.’