Father Neil's Monkeyshines Read online

  Without any qualms, I barged into her office. I didn’t bother to knock. That’ll show the bitch.

  I roundly accused her of inhumanity. Didn’t she realize the baby needed someone special to take care of him? Was it right that at this critical stage of his development Mark should be twice orphaned for the sake of some religious scruple that Jesus would not have approved of?

  All the while she sat behind her desk, looking at me like an icicle forming. Then, when I ran out of steam and was beginning to think I’d made a right fool of myself:

  “You misjudge me, Father Boyd.”

  Two months earlier, she explained, the Mother General in Rome had asked for Sister Mercy to be put in charge of a new orphanage in Manila.

  “I begged for a postponement, Father, and it was granted.”

  She held up a letter.

  “This came last week. I am told that Sister Mercy is vital to the success of our new venture. I telephoned our Mother General. She tried for a replacement but failed.”

  I was totally becalmed. Not a puff of wind in my sails.

  She took out a photograph. It showed a ward crowded with brown-skinned babies, all undernourished.

  “Sister Mercy was trained for this, Father. Our Blessed Lord is calling her to this. I wanted to delay things for Mark’s sake. But”—she gestured sadly—“God’s will.”

  I apologized, but she told me not to worry. Her vocation had fully prepared her for ignorant insults like this.

  I asked if I could borrow the photo and she agreed.

  Outside the office, I ran into Father Duddleswell. He had obviously been kept in touch.

  “Poor Sister Mercy,” I said. “It would have been better for her if she’d never seen that baby.”

  He sat me down next to him on a bench so highly polished your backside skated all over it.

  “Listen to me,” he said briskly. “Never say or suggest anything of the sort to Sister Mercy.”

  I didn’t care much for his tutorial tone. “As if I would,” I said.

  “Pain is the proof of love, is that not so? What do you want for her, a painless love? Impossible even for the Almighty. Tell her to be glad of the pain, cherish it, keep it always fresh in her. Tell her she is blessed to have a heart of flesh and not of stone. Tell her if she felt nothing, it would mean she had no love for Mark, nor for anyone else.”

  I went to the sisters’ chapel to pray. What irony, I told the Lord. Sister Mercy, true to her vocation, had guarded herself against falling in love with a man, only to lose her heart to a child?

  She had got the child to sleep when I returned. She was sitting beside the cot with her hands joined, her eyes closed. She knew who it was, but she made no attempt to look at me when I entered the room.

  “Sister, I have a photograph.”

  “I’ve seen it,” she said in a level voice. “I do understand that I must go from here. Only, Mark seems so much more real to me than anything I’ve ever known. He’s part of me. When I feel his little hand in mine …” Tears trickled down her cheek. “I never felt weak before. This will break me, I’ll never be the same.”

  “You won’t be the same, Sister, I agree. But not broken.”

  She shook her head as if to say, Yes, I will.

  “You won’t believe this, Sister, but Mark has changed you a lot already. Because that little boy loves you, you are not weaker but stronger than before. Think of him when you are looking after those hundreds of orphan children in Manila.”

  She promised to try.

  Father Duddleswell once said to me that some people spend their entire lives doing heroic deeds. Yet they persist in thinking, “If only I could do one really worthwhile thing before I die.” In that quiet curtained room, I repeated this to Sister Mercy.

  “You love Mark and he loves you.”

  She nodded.

  “You have made his earliest days very happy, Sister, and his gift to you is to make you a new person. If you died tomorrow, this sacrifice of yours is your one worthwhile thing.”

  She smiled a weak smile but, when I left, her eyes were still tightly closed.

  When Sister Mercy sailed for the Philippines, Mark was put in charge of Sister Elizabeth, a middle-aged, down-to-earth Londoner. She was efficient but not nearly as warm as Mercy had become.

  Mother Stephen warned us that if Mark’s mother was not found by the New Year, he would have to be transferred to a home with better facilities.

  I redoubled my efforts, asking questions on my parochial visits, preaching again at every Sunday mass. “It would be a tragedy,” I said, “if this little boy is put in an institution for life.”

  No one came forward.

  I had given up hope when, one evening, a plain, squarely built girl, rang the doorbell and asked for me.

  “It’s about that baby, Father.”

  I did not want to be bitten twice.

  “Which baby are you talking about?”

  “The redhead I put in your confessional. He’s mine.”

  “You are Mark’s mother?” I said dubiously.

  “I wanted him called Sydney.”

  Father Duddleswell’s skepticism had got through to me and it showed.

  “Why didn’t you say so, miss …”

  “I’m Judy, Judy Phelps. I didn’t say so because I didn’t think I had the right.”

  “Would you mind writing something down for me? Good.”

  I told her the word and she wrote cristened.

  I shot up in my chair. “Did you deliver him yourself?”

  “To the church, yes. In an apple box.”

  “I meant deliver him when he was born.”

  She bit her lip at such a silly suggestion. “No, my friend, Sal, she did the necessary. We share a flat in Elmwood Road.”

  I went to see Sal, a big myopic girl who kept her legs tucked under her on the settee while she worked her way through a box of chocolates. She didn’t offer me one. Obviously not a Catholic.

  Sal confirmed that she had acted as midwife when the red-haired little fellow came into the world. I asked her confidentially, if she knew who the father was.

  “Dunno. Judy’s a close ’un. She didn’t say and I didn’t ask. That way you hear no lies, do you?”

  “Can’t you at least tell me where she used to work?”

  Father Duddleswell thought it more likely that this time the true mother had been found. He advised me to try and worm out of Judy the father’s name.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said firmly.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Daren’t, Father. He can’t do nothing. He’s got what you might call family ties.”

  “He’s married, you mean.”

  She made a face but didn’t answer point-blank.

  Before the baby was born, she had been in service. She admitted that she’d worked for a former naval officer and his wife in a fashionable district.

  “The husband wasn’t the culprit, Judy?” I was only forthright because of my concern for Mark.

  She bowed her head and turned crimson.

  “Didn’t he offer to pay maintenance?”

  “Ten bob a week, Father. But when I gave the baby up, I didn’t bother.”

  “Ten shillings,” I said. “You swear to that?”

  “The dad,” she said, crossing her heart, “offered me ten bob a week.”

  I was disgusted that Mark’s father, unquestionably a prosperous man, had been so niggardly.

  “Captain Donaldson?”

  A couple of quid had restored Sal’s memory. She told me the name and address of Judy’s last employer.

  A stylish, neat, plausible-looking man opened the door of his Georgian home in an up-market street.

  “Yes?” He looked a trifle apprehensive, but it may only have been my cler
ical collar.

  “It’s about Judy.”

  He didn’t even need to ask, Judy who?

  “I see.” He put his finger to his lips and invited me in. “My youngest daughter is upstairs. She naturally knows nothing about this.”

  He led me into an expensively decorated lounge. I was beginning to hate the guy. It was maybe due to my working-class background.

  “Sherry?”

  I was not in a drinking mood. “No, thank you.”

  I just had time to notice a happy family photograph on the mantelpiece. What hypocrisy that was.

  “Judy’s had it, then? You have come about that, I take it?”

  I didn’t like the sound of “it” and “that” as a way of referring to an innocent baby.

  The captain heaved a sigh as he poured himself a large whiskey.

  “I was very sorry about it, believe me. I warned her to be careful, I really did. But she didn’t take any precautions.”

  “Didn’t she?” My hostile tone cannot have escaped him.

  “No point in apportioning blame, is there?” and he had the temerity to wink at me and sip some more whiskey. “You’re a man of the world, Padre, you know how these things come about.”

  His cavalier attitude got my back up. I expected something better from a so-called gentleman.

  “I don’t, as a matter of fact,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Censoriousness helps no one.” He drained his glass in almost a single gulp. “We can only do our best in the circumstances.”

  “Like turning her out?”

  “Look, my dear chap, I could hardly have her stay on here, could I? Think of my position.”

  I gazed pointedly at his well-stocked drinks cabinet.

  “You might have offered her more than ten shillings a week?”

  “What? Did she say that?”

  He was on the run. He realized I knew more than he thought.

  “She swears that was all you offered her. You mean you offered her more?”

  “She’s fibbing, Padre.”

  “How much, then?”

  “A hundred pounds cash.”

  “A hundred?”

  That was a lot. I was thinking, Why wasn’t Judy straight with me?

  “I also assured her, Padre, if she needed more till she sorted herself out, she had only to come to me. Provided, of course, she didn’t upset my wife and daughters.”

  I was taken off guard. I’d expected him to be more in denial than he was.

  “Judy said you haven’t even bothered to come and see the baby.”

  “Why should I? That butcher’s lad she was walking out with—”

  He came to a deathly halt before slowly stabbing himself with his finger.

  “You don’t think that I—?”

  Like a true gentleman, without another word, he handed me my hat and escorted me to the door.

  Outside, I was shaking with a mixture of fury and embarrassment. First, I’d got the wrong mum; now, I’d accused the wrong dad. The boy’s father was not a naval captain but a butcher boy.

  I also cursed myself. One look at the captain should have convinced me he couldn’t possibly have been Mark’s dad. My only excuse was I was so angry these days, I was seeing red everywhere.

  Moments later, a curious thing happened. In the next street from where the captain lived, I found myself looking into a shop window. It was hung with carcasses.

  It was a butcher’s shop. Could it be the butcher’s shop?

  I peered in and what did I see but a larger version of Mark. A brawny young man with carrot-colored hair, small ears, and a sheep-like nose. The resemblance was uncanny. I’d have picked him out of an identity parade of thousands.

  The lad was finishing serving an elderly woman. He must have noticed me gawping at him. He can’t have liked the look of my collar, either.

  He dropped his chopper with a clang, whipped his apron off, and scuttled out the back door. I raced after him, only to see a pair of heels disappear over an eight-foot wall. In the dark, I skidded on the greasy tiles, fell over, and badly twisted my knee.

  When I returned to the shop, the owner said, “Where did you come from?”

  “Saint Jude’s,” I said, wincing.

  “You seen our Jim, Reverend?”

  “He had to go out for a bit,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “He didn’t say. Is Jim married?”

  “Not to my knowledge.” The boss was puzzled. “Can I help you?”

  “A leg of lamb, please.” I have no idea why I said it. Maybe because of Jim’s nose.

  “A whole leg?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Got your ration card? You don’t mind me asking.”

  I pretended to search my pockets. Mrs. Pring kept the ration books.

  “I seem to have forgotten it. Maybe you could let me have a few scraps for the dog?”

  “For the dog?”

  “Well, to be precise, the next-door neighbor’s dog.”

  He put a few smelly bones into a brown paper bag. I dumped them in the nearest dustbin and limped home. For the next week, I used a stick I borrowed from Doc Daley. He only had one and it was white. Father Duddleswell’s comment on it was not original.

  I kept quiet about my encounter with Captain Donaldson but I did tell Judy I’d run into her boyfriend, “Jim—”

  “Gallagher.” She completed the name for me, with evident relief.

  “Jim’s the one who offered you ten shillings a week?”

  She nodded. “And the odd pound of sausages.”

  “And he won’t admit to being the dad?”

  She nodded again.

  “Look,” I said, not wanting to be made a fool of a second or was it a third time? I was losing count. “You are one hundred percent sure that Jim is the dad?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  I almost said it could be Jim’s boss for all I knew.

  “I have no idea, Judy. You tell me.”

  “What funny ideas you priests get into your heads,” she said.

  I could feel myself blushing.

  “What are these family ties Jim’s got?”

  “His dad. His missus walked out on him when Jim was a baby and he don’t want Jim making the same mistake he did.”

  Late one afternoon, I called on Jim’s dad with some trepidation. He lived in a narrow, terraced house in a blind street. The front door opened directly onto the pavement and the pavement onto a busy road. The downstairs window had been smashed and repaired with a piece of cardboard.

  I had prepared an elaborate speech that I promptly forgot as soon as the door opened. Mr. Gallagher Senior was baby Mark miraculously transformed into middle age.

  The family resemblance in succeeding generations was a case study in itself. As if there is a conveyor belt in heaven turning out sandy-haired males with tiny ears and sheep’s noses.

  “I was having my nap, wasn’t I?” spoken in a rancid voice. “I don’t want no raffle tickets.”

  I instantly recognized him. He usually wore a cap and an overall with a badge on the pocket. He was our milkman. He rose at four every morning in all kinds of weather, hence the need for a siesta.

  What distinguished him from Mark was the ruddy face, the chilblained fingers, and the cold gray eyes like old sixpences.

  “No raffle tickets,” I said, holding my hands up, “honest.”

  He led me into the grubbiest kitchen I’d ever seen. Nothing had been washed in days, including a dozen empty milk bottles.

  “I know what you’re here for,” he grumbled, “and I don’t want to hear a word.”

  He sat me down next to a cage where a cream-colored ferret was glaring at me through the bars with pink eyes. Instinctively, I fingered my collar.
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  “It’s all one big lie,” Mr. Gallagher said, as if he were commenting on the state of world.

  He started to roll a cigarette. He economized on tobacco, as Father Duddleswell would’ve done if he had smoked, and bit the ends off like jagged fingernails.

  “Your son got a girl into trouble, Mr. Gallagher.”

  “That’s her story and she’ll stick to it like paint, I daresay. You can’t trust women, none of them. I don’t want my Jim made a fool of like I was. Have you thought someone else might be the dad?”

  I almost said several. In view of the baby’s looks, apart from Jim, the only other possible culprit was him.

  Leaning back too close to the cage, I felt sharp claws rip my sleeve open from shoulder to cuff.

  “I don’t know who this Jezebel is, mister, but she can’t have my Jim, see. I raised that lad and fed him and learned him. There’s him and me and that’s all I care about. Another thing.”

  “Yes?” I said apprehensively, trying to pull the slit sides of my sleeve together.

  “I’ve got rotten toothache.”

  “I know when I’m not wanted,” I said.

  He thumbed toward the door. “Saves me telling you.”

  I wasn’t usually saucy with my elders but I pointed to the cage. “That ferret. You and him should change places.”

  On my way to Judy’s place, I was thinking that Gallagher Senior was a classic case of a deserted husband nursing a grievance half as old as himself. His son was all he had in the world and all he wanted. There was precious little chance of Jim accepting Mark as his own in the circumstances.

  I was chatting to Judy when who came in but Jim. I nearly hit him with my stick.

  When he got over the shock of seeing me again, he admitted he was scared stiff of his dad.

  “I like Judy a lot, I really do, but I ain’t got nothing saved up.”

  If they married, they’d have nowhere to live. His dad had allowed no woman in the house since his mum left.

  “Jim,” I said, “wouldn’t you at least like to see your son?”

  “I didn’t bargain on no baby, did I, mister? Never did like ’em much. I prefer me mates.”

  I went home depressed. There was no future for Mark with that couple. Besides, I wanted something better for him than a father who preferred his mates and took orders from a grandfather who lived in a squalid little house in a sunless street.