by Neil Boyd
From a distance, the wedding guests, seventy or eighty of them sounded normal enough but as I passed through the main door, a hush descended. My loneliness at that moment was only matched by the loneliness I felt when I walked into the church to hear my first confessions and found the place deserted.
I went to the top table, past the uncut wedding cake, and took the groom’s hand. It was cold.
‘Mr. Faber,’ I said for all to hear, ‘I am so sorry for the delay. Father Duddleswell was in a mishap. In fact, a rather nasty accident.’
There was a sympathetic murmur from the Catholics present.
‘Nothing serious,’ I said, and wished I hadn’t because sympathy immediately waned.
Mrs. Faber, the groom’s mother, a waspish looking woman with butterfly-shaped glasses dangling from a cord, said bitchily, ‘What a pity.’
‘As soon as he’s fixed up, he’s coming round to apologize in person.’
‘That is frightfully nice of him,’ Mrs. Faber said.
‘The least he could do,’ I replied weakly.
Wanda French, the bride-to-be, plump, thirty-two years old, called out, ‘Father Boyd, will you have a glass of wine?’
‘Pour the Father a glass of wine,’ the groom said.
I thanked them and secretly blessed Wanda for breaking the ice. Some of the guests even smiled at me in welcome.
The bride’s mother, fat, red-eyed and unbelievably sad in her finery, stood up next to me. ‘It was a cold meal, Father.’
‘That’s a relief,’ I said.
Mrs. French, her handkerchief pressed to her nose, said, ‘It was meant to be hot, Father.’
‘Never mind, Mum,’ Wanda said, ‘what laughs we’ll have in years to come.’
Dr. Daley rose to his feet amid cries of ‘Shush,’ ‘The Doctor wants to speak.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘this is one wedding none of us will forget in a hurry.’
Mrs. Faber seconded that.
The Doctor scratched his head. ‘I remember the day I brought the beautiful Wanda into the world.’
‘Ah,’ everybody cried, except Mrs. Faber.
‘Three weeks overdue.’ Smiles all round. ‘Even then, y’see, the darlin’ girl was learning to be late for important occasions.’ He raised his hands as if he were a priest about to say Dominus Vobiscum. ‘It was hands of mine, ladies and gentlemen, that helped Wanda edge into the light of day. Hands of mine that first held her. And now that her dear father has passed away, it’ll be hands of mine—albeit a little shaky—that’ll give her today into the safe keeping of her intended. So’—he picked up his glass—‘I give you a toast.’ The guests stood and raised their glasses. ‘To the future Bride and Groom.’
The toast was followed by warm applause which petered out as Fr. Duddleswell walked in.
To my surprise, he hadn’t washed the motor oil off his hands and face or changed his rain-soaked suit. The only difference I could see was that his left arm was in a sling.
‘Forgive me all,’ he said in a sort of whimper. ‘I have been in an accident.’
A murmur of sympathy on all sides. Wanda said, ‘Poor Father Duddleswell,’. and Richard, ‘Yes, poor fellow.’
Fr. Duddleswell winced but did his best not to. ‘A motor accident.’
Mrs. French was very upset. ‘Oh dear,’ she cried, her hanky to her eyes.
Everyone was on his side by now, with the usual exception. What a performer, I thought.
Forgetting to mention that at the time his car was stationary and he was watching a soccer match, he said, ‘The tyre of me car, you follow? Cut to ribbons.’ He touched his wounded arm and gritted his teeth bravely. ‘And the car behind gave me quite a hammering. I am so sorry.’
‘Don’t worry, Father,’ Wanda implored.
He assured them that as soon as he was cleaned up the wedding would go ahead, whatever the cost to himself.
‘Will six o’clock be soon enough for you?’
‘Lovely, Father,’ Wanda said.
‘And after,’ Fr. Duddleswell said expansively, ‘everyone is invited to the presbytery for champagne, provided by St. Jude’s. The bride and groom can cut the cake in me study.’
When he had finished his speech, Richard, nudged by Wanda, called for ‘Three cheers for Father Duddleswell.’ After which, the rogue withdrew to great applause, his left arm tucked into his side, his right hand waving gallantly.
Just before six, there were sounds of merriment in the street. Looking through the dining room window, I saw the guests making their way on foot to the church in the spirit of a carnival.
Wanda and Richard were carrying the cake themselves and a photographer from The Kenworthy Gazette was taking pictures. He had been at the local soccer match where the ‘message’ had been relayed over the loudspeaker.
Fr. Duddleswell and I, having been judged by Mrs. Pring to be as spruce as magpies, went into church where the ceremony passed without further incident.
Fr. Duddleswell, his arm still in a sling, preached a sermon, some of which was new to me.
‘Me dear people, being somewhat wounded, I do not intend keeping you for long. A brief comment on St. Paul’s words which I have just read you: “Husbands love your wives and wives obey your husbands in all things.”
‘Some people today foolishly want to drop the word “obey” from the marriage service. Marriage is a matter of equality, they say. Life today is “democratic”.’ He sniffed. ‘Let me just say this: Almighty God does not agree with ’em. Neither do I.
‘God made the world and there is not much equality and democracy there that I can see. Yet which of us complains that the weed does not smell as fragrant as the rose or the worm look as regal as the lion or a sparrow sing as delightfully as the nightingale?
‘No democracy even in our bodies. One side is always stronger than the other. And even on the same hand, me little finger would be well-advised not to get into a scrap with me thumb.’
The preacher looked around him challengingly. ‘God did not build the family as a democracy, me dear Brethren. Let women, therefore, be subject to the stronger partners, their husbands. And let husbands respect their wives and treat them fairly. Which means above all not discarding them by the legal fiction called divorce.
‘Not that bride and groom here are thinking of divorcing each other on a day like this. But ’tis as well to set out the long-term rules of the game clearly and fairly from the start.
‘And now, Wanda and Richard,’ he said, smiling paternally, ‘may God bless you and keep you and turn His face of pity towards you. May He always bless you.’
A change to a drier tone as he gestured to the close relatives to follow him and the bridal couple. ‘If you would like to come to the sacristy, we will hold the civil ceremony there out of sight of our Blessed Lord in the tabernacle.’
After the photographs, the guests came clamouring into the house. Fred Bowlby, landlord of The Pig and Whistle, had sent glasses and a crate of champagne.
The chief guests gathered in Fr. Duddleswell’s study. ‘Father Neil,’ he whispered, ‘since I am supposed to be wounded, I am wanting you to open the bottles.’
Gingerly, I started to nudge the cork off the first of them. Thirty seconds later there was a whoosh and the cork went across the room like a comet trailing clouds of champagne. The immediate bystanders, including bride and groom, were soaked as it pursued its path of devastation.
It brought down the Pope’s picture dropped on to the clock which fell in turn on a tray of glasses smashing everything. Finally, the cork ricocheted off the ceiling and the metal cap landed in the eye of the groom’s mother. Fortunately or unfortunately—opinion was divided—it had almost run out of steam by then. The lady was profoundly hurt but not in the least injured.
‘Father Neil, are you not a menace with the bottles this day?’ Fr. Duddleswell groaned. ‘Take the bloody things and open them in the garden. And be careful with the stars, will you not? I do not want you giving th
em a black eye.’
Later that evening, Dr. Daley and we two priests sat chatting cosily with the remnants of drink and wedding cake all round us.
Fr. Duddleswell was trying to phone when Dr. Daley said, ‘God, that was a powerful marriage address you gave us this evening, Charles.’
‘You liked it, Donal?’
‘So full of good sense. They’ll never make you a Bishop.’
‘Shush, Donal, ’tis the florist.’ Fr. Duddleswell had got his connection. ‘Jim, Father Duddleswell here. Sorry to bother you at this late hour but could you possibly get some flowers to a couple of friends of mine?… Tomorrow morning, first thing? That will be fine. Richard and Wanda Faber at—’
Dr. Daley helped him out. ‘Hotel Excelsior, Bayswater,’
‘Hotel Excelsior, Bayswater. Three pounds worth, Jim … A message? Oh, just put, “Heartfelt Regrets, Father Duddleswell”. They will understand. A hundred thousand thanks.’
‘Father,’ I said, when he had replaced the receiver, ‘did you have to put on that sling?’
‘Sorry?’ He was genuinely puzzled.
‘Why didn’t you give the young couple the truth straight?’
‘Look, lad,’ he said, ‘you are still green as a bloody leprechaun. Truth, y’see, is like a ladder. Unless you give it a generous, charitable slant, you will fall thud on your bum. Did you not know that? Besides,’ he added, ‘look what happened once before when I told the whole truth and nothing but.’
‘It was noble.’
‘The noblest disaster ever seen in the County Court.’
I had to say it. ‘Father, don’t you think you may be letting yourself off rather lightly?’
He was amazed. ‘I did not play-act to save me own face, Father Neil.’
‘No?’
‘Not at all. Do you not realize, me strong sinful inclination was to rush into that banquet, fall on me benders and say, “I am a heel and a skunk. I have ruined the happiest day of this young couple’s life through me crass stupidity.” I would have felt much better after that but what of them?’
‘What about them?’
‘That delightful group of people would have gone into church to celebrate the sacrament of holy matrimony in the most un-Christian frame of mind.’
‘As it was,’ Dr. Daley said, ‘we went in joyful and forgiving.’
‘You agree with him, Doctor?’ I asked.
Wide-eyed for effect, he pointed to his glass of whiskey. ‘Do you want me to lose my oldest and dearest friend?’
Fr. Duddleswell said, ‘I do not doubt, lad, that your way is the noblest and the best. Except it makes the world an impossible place to live in.’
‘Everyone has his own way, Father Neil,’ Dr. Daley said, ‘and our Charles has a hundred ways.’ He stood up and, indicating that the bottle had given its last, said, ‘Well, there’s nothing to keep me here.’ He placed the empty bottle in my hand. ‘Be sure to give it a good Christian burial, Father Neil.’
At the door, he ran into Mrs. Pring and wished her good night.
‘I’m just off to Bedford,’ she said to us.
‘Wait, Mrs. P,’ I called out, ‘what did you think of Father Duddleswell wearing a sling?’
She looked at me solemnly. ‘Even God can’t get by without a little help from His friends.’
‘’Tis important, y’see,’ Fr. Duddleswell said, ‘that you do not leave the laity with the right impression, like.’
I waved his interruption aside to concentrate on a woman’s point of view. ‘So you agree with him, too, Mrs. P?’
‘Of course I do, Father Neil. It was my idea.’ She left and I heard her laughing outside the door.
‘It’s a conspiracy,’ I said, grinning.
‘I tell you, Father Neil, if and when I come to die, I will remember the doings of this day.’
‘That’s two of us.’
‘Do not sigh like that, lad. After many crooked windings, you must admit things turned out well for everyone.’
‘Apart from the groom’s mother.’
Fr. Duddleswell took out a gold fountain pen. ‘See this, lad. I borrowed it from her to fill in the register.’
‘And forgot to give it back.’
How we laughed.
‘When you struck her in the eye with that cork, Father Neil, she nearly went up on her hind legs to you.’
‘She didn’t exactly take to you, either. I heard her say to Richard, “I knew we should have hired a Jesuit.”’
Through tears of mirth, he managed to say, ‘Beside that one, Mrs. Pring herself seems like St. Bernadette or The Little Flower.’
‘No wonder Richard’s father divorced her.’
He tried to look serious. ‘A heinous sin, mind.’ But hilarity overcame him. ‘Which if I were God I would not find it hard to forgive.’
‘Just before she left,’ I roared, ‘just before she left, she said, “We came for a three o’clock wedding and it takes longer than Gone With The Wind.”’
We both shook uncontrollably until Fr. Duddleswell suddenly froze and his face turned white as an altar bread.
‘Father? Something wrong?’ I thought perhaps he had forgotten to lock away the marriage registers or lost the fee paid up by the best man.
Fr. Duddleswell was already across to his bookcase, flipping through a volume. After a few seconds, he closed it and slumped down again in his chair. ‘Father Neil, I have miserable intelligence for you.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said pleasantly, draining a glass of leftover champagne.
‘They are not married.’
He wasn’t joking. ‘How …? What …?’
‘The rules for registrars. According to the Marriage Act of 1949, marriages can only be lawfully celebrated between eight in the morning and six in the evening.’
‘And the civil ceremony started over fifteen minutes late.’
‘Dear sweet Jesus. In all the hurry-burry, it escaped me mind altogether.’
I joined him in silent sympathy.
‘They are married in the eyes of the Church, Father Neil, but not in the eyes of the State. That is the fat and thin of it, the this and that of it.’
‘If God is happy,’ I said, with a feeble attempt to console him, ‘why worry about Caesar?’
‘Dear sweet Jesus,’ he groaned. ‘I am all abroad and no mistake.’ He held his head tightly in his hands as if to stop the contents splashing out. ‘Richard Faber is a Protestant. If ever he should want to rid himself of Wanda he will not even have to divorce her.’
‘His lawyers will just have to prove they were never married according to law in the first place?’
‘Wanda’s children will be disinherited and I—’
‘The Tower for you, Father.’ A remark not well received.
‘Dear sweet Jesus, what have I done? What have I done?’
‘More to the point, what’re you going to do?’
He looked at me pathetically. ‘What hour is it? Eleven? I can hardly ring them and tell them to stop what they are doing immediately, can I?’
‘Especially as they might be fast asleep,’ I said, taking an optimistic line. ‘Any way, why do anything if they’re married in the eyes of the Church?’
He nodded, ‘I will leave badly alone for tonight. ’Tis not till four tomorrow afternoon they are catching their plane to Las Palmas.’
He thought long and hard. Then those words again:
‘Now, Father Neil, this is what I am wanting you to do.’
Next morning, I celebrated the first two Sunday Masses. After a hurried breakfast, I took a taxi to the Excelsior Hotel.
The middle-aged receptionist ran his finger down the list. ‘Faber, yes. Here they are, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Checked in last night. Room 101.’ He glanced up in surprise. ‘That’s the bridal suite.’
‘Well, they are supposed to be married.’
The receptionist smoothed his brush moustache. ‘Are you a relative, sir? Brother or something?’
‘Father,’ I said, ‘Oh,
I see what you mean. Um, not exactly.’
‘Are they expecting you?’
I put on a pleasant smile. ‘It’s a kind of surprise visit.’ An inspiration. ‘I’m their spiritual adviser and there’s something they’ve got to know.’
The clerk shrugged, dialled the number and handed me the phone. There was no reply for some time. This was, after all, the morning after some night before.
Eventually Richard’s voice came on the line. ‘Yes?’
‘Mr. Faber,’ I said, completely embarrassed, ‘I’m glad I found you in.’
‘I didn’t ask for a call.’
‘This is Father Boyd.’
‘Who?’
‘Father Boyd. We met yesterday at St. Jude’s.’
‘I remember.’ He said to Wanda. ‘It’s Father Boyd.’
‘I was wondering if I might come up and see you.’
‘Come up? Where from?’
‘Downstairs. I’m at reception.’
‘Can’t it wait? Until we’ve had breakfast, for instance.’
I turned my back on the receptionist. ‘It’s rather, er, a delicate matter.’
‘Delicate?’
‘And urgent.’
Richard sounded alarmed. ‘Has someone died?’
‘I don’t think so. That’s not why I’m here, anyway.’ I really wasn’t any good on the phone.
I heard Wanda say, ‘Somebody’s been in an accident?’ to which Richard replied, ‘It’s nothing serious, darling.’ He made sure. ‘It’s not serious, is it, Father Boyd?’
‘Nothing that can’t be put right.’
‘Very well.’ His deep sigh made the bed creak. ‘I presume you can give us a few minutes to put some clothes on.’
I allowed them a full fifteen minutes for decorum’s sake, then climbed the stairs.
Outside Room 101 were Richard’s shoes, a copy of the Sunday Express, a silver horseshoe and a wreath. I thought for one mad moment that someone had died until I saw the tag on it. ‘Heartfelt Regrets. Father Duddleswell.’
I removed the card and put the wreath in a fire-bucket.
