2001 - Father Frank (21 page)

Two more records, Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’, and ‘The Last Waltz’ by Engelbert Humperdinck, then five hundred people staggered home.

Frank was busy mopping up, locking up and clearing away, so Sarah felt it was time to make an exit. “Er, I’ll be off, then. It’s been a wonderful evening. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Not at all,” said Frank. “Thanks for coming.”

This time, Sarah had driven over and couldn’t pretend otherwise. Frank would have loved to provide another cab ride home but could not leave Eddie and Pat to do all the clearing up while he disappeared to Fulham. So that was it. They’d run out of legitimate excuses to meet up. They wouldn’t be seeing each other again. No reason to now, was there?

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Mike
,

As promised, I inveigled my way in to St Thomas’s Parish Centre last night. It was very busy because, as you know, Sunday has always been a big Irish night out. It’s a members-only club and every Irish person in the area seems to be a member. They are an unswervingly loyal clientele. They all know one another, drinks are cheap and all profits go to charity so there is a very warm community spirit there
.

I’m afraid this whole package is something with which, in my view, Slattery’s can never compete
.

There are plenty of other people in the area for whom you could cater with perhaps one of the other brands in your theme-pub portfolio but it looked to me like the Irish vote is already sewn up
.

I’m happy to meet up to discuss this further. Give me a call
.

Regards
,

Sarah
.

§

Mike Babcock just stared at his laptop. Then he stood up and paced around. He sat down again, put on the headset and jaw-line mouthpiece, an essential accoutrement of the busy executive, then punched out one of the thirty-six two-digit quick-dial numbers stored in his telephone’s memory.

His tone was grave, urgent, almost as though he was starring in a particularly tense episode of
ER
. “Sarah, hi. Mike. Listen, got your e·mail, thanks. Need to sit down. Can you get over here? I’m in meetings till about one thirty. Can you make, say, one thirty-five?”

“Sure, Mike, one thirty-five.”

“Good, see you then.
Ciao
.”

“
Ciao
,” said Sarah, hung up and burst out laughing.

At 1.33, she was at Mike’s office on a characterless business park just off the M4. He kept her waiting. He always did. Page forty-seven, probably, in some awful American management textbook: ‘How To Get Ahead In Your Career’: always keep people waiting for a few minutes; it will serve as a reminder of just who is in control of this situation. That was fine by Sarah. The less time she had to spend in a
person-to-person interface
with Mike Babcock the better.

At 2.03, the receptionist called over, “Ms Marshall, Mr Babcock will see you now. You know the way, don’t you?”

Sarah and her visitor’s badge made their way to the sixth floor, where Mike and his over-firm handshake were there to greet her. “Sarah, hi, thanks for coming. Sorry to keep you waiting. Monthly divisional sales meeting. Overran, as per usual.”

Oh, the pressures of being a captain of industry.

“Anyway, cut to the chase. Got your e·mail, very interesting. Very grateful for what you’ve brought to the party but for me there were only two really crucial words.”

“Which were?”

“Cheap drinks,” Mike crowed triumphantly, as though he’d just found a cure for prostate cancer.

“Cheap drinks?”

“Cheap drinks.” He repeated the words to confirm his position as an incisive marketing genius. “Basically, at the end of the day, all that stuff about community spirit is bullshit. In the final analysis, all these people care about, all anybody cares about, is the bottom line. We’ve got to hit these people where it hurts and we’ve got the financial clout to do it. We’ve got to make our drinks cheaper than theirs. Go the extra mile, do whatever it takes to bury them.”

Sarah was disgusted. “I’m sorry, Mike, but I don’t agree. This place is the centre of these people’s lives. It’s not about money. This is a battle you can’t win and, to be honest, it’s a battle you shouldn’t want to win.”

She might as well have pulled out a big red handkerchief and waved it at the nearest bull.

“Sarah,” he fumed, “it’s pretty clear to me that you don’t understand. Mike Babcock is a winner. Mike Babcock is not accustomed to coming second.”

Sarah had a witty riposte on the tip of her tongue but wisely decided to keep it there.

“We carry out a lot of detailed research before deciding on a site for each Slattery’s unit. Our knowledge base is phenomenal and Wealdstone scored very, very highly. This is one of our flagship units. It has to succeed. If it is seen to fail, then the knock-on effect could be catastrophic.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” said Sarah, “but wouldn’t it make more sense to reopen it in a different guise and target different people, who aren’t so well catered for already?”

Mike shook his head and gave a patronising sigh. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. No branch of Slattery’s can
ever
be seen to fail, basically because the whole brand would be seen to fail with it. This is war, so I’ve formulated a strategy to see them off once and for all. Now, we don’t need to worry too much about Friday and Saturday nights but we’re losing out heavily on Sundays so, starting in a fortnight’s time, it’s free drinks all night on Sundays.”

Sarah’s reaction was instant and frank. “You’re mad.”

Mike took this as a great compliment. “That’s what they said to Isaac Newton, that’s what they said to Christopher Columbus.”

Sarah couldn’t help herself. “No, Mike,” she explained, “I don’t mean mad in a commercial sense because, as you say, you do have the financial clout to do this. When I say mad, I mean you must be mad to want to win this badly, to close down a little parish centre that gives all its profits to charity. It’s so—so unsporting.”

Mike shifted his tone to one of worldly-wise calm and experience. “Sarah,” he explained, “in the dog-eat-dog world of business, sportsmanship does not figure on the radar. Basically, if they want to play with the grown-ups, they’re going to have to suffer the consequences. Free drinks on Sundays, Sarah. That’s the way we’re going to do it. Beers and soft drinks, obviously, not spirits—my MD would never wear that. Now, we’ll need a tactical ad campaign pretty pronto, tell the world what we’re up to. Trust me, Sarah, I know what I’m doing.”

“T
his is St Thomas’s Church, Wealdstone. If you’d like to leave a message for Father Lynam, Father Conlon or Father Dempsey, please do so after the tone.”

“Father Dempsey, it’s Sarah. Er, sorry to bother you but I need to speak to you quite urgently. I’ll try you on your mobile.”

When his mobile rang Frank was in the cab, ferrying a fascinated film producer between Hoxton and Soho.

“Father Dempsey, it’s Sarah.”

His heart leaped. The relationship had moved a few millimetres forward. It was now ‘Hi, it’s Sarah’ instead of ‘Hi, it’s Sarah Marshall’. The next stage was ‘Hi, it’s me.’ He’d love her to drop ‘Father Dempsey’ in favour of ‘Frank’, and could only dream of moving up to that exquisite level where lovers don’t need to call each other anything. “What a surprise,” he said, nearly mounting the pavement.

“Look, I’ve left a message for you at the presbytery. I need to talk to you about Slattery’s.”

“Oh, right.”

“Where are you?”

“Holborn. POB, that’s passenger on board, on my way to Soho.”

“Oh, that’s handy. Can we meet up?”

Is the Pope a Catholic? “Yeah. I’ll give you a ring in about ten minutes when I’m free.”

Ten minutes later, Frank turned into Golden Square and Sarah jumped into the cab. It was a bright afternoon and he headed north towards Regent’s Park. He left the cab on a rank on the Inner Circle and together they strolled into Queen Mary’s Gardens and sat on a bench. For Frank, this was almost a date. He’d only ever seen her either in his cab or at the parish centre. Sitting in the sun in Regent’s Park, he felt delightfully uncloistered—almost part of the human race.

“Slattery’s are out to bury you,” she said baldly.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really,” she said. “They’ve been losing money hand over fist since you opened that parish centre and they’re not happy at all.”

“So what are they going to do about it?”

“Well, in a fortnight’s time, they’re launching ‘Sunday Best’, which is free drinks on Sunday nights.”

Frank let out a long, slow whistle through his teeth. “Free drinks?” he said. For a split second, he seemed almost concerned.

“Well, beers and soft drinks. Not spirits.”

“Dear me. They really are serious, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are. And the thing is, Slattery’s is part of a huge multinational corporation. They’ve got an awful lot of money on their side.”

“And we’ve got God on ours.”

This was the first time that Sarah had ever heard him say anything remotely religious. So, under that streetwise façade, he was just another naive cleric, expecting to be able to pray his way out of this one. The candles of passion she felt for him were suddenly being snuffed out. Nonetheless, she tried not to be too disrespectful. “God?”

“Yes, God.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t mean that the Almighty is going to come down and smite Slattery’s from the face of the earth. Let’s just say that at times like this you can use God to your advantage.” He looked up at the sky and grinned.

The candles were being relit.

That day Frank really did have to attend a diocesan meeting in Westminster so, much as he wanted to stay in Regent’s Park all afternoon with a picnic, go off and see a film, grab a late bite to eat and go home with Sarah to Fulham, it was out of the question.

As he dropped her back at Golden Square, he had one last question: “Two weeks on Sunday, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I’ll phone you two weeks on Monday and we’ll discuss what happened.”

What happened? Did he know in advance what was going to happen? What was he going to do? Use God to his advantage? How? He’d just unwittingly made himself more attractive and mysterious than ever.

Two weeks on Monday? Sarah wondered how on earth she was going to wait that long. Those two weeks were going to feel like two years.

“S
o who is he, then?” said Nessie, between mouthfuls of Marks & Spencer’s double chocolate cheesecake.

Sarah tried, rather unsuccessfully, to look puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“Who is he?” Nessie repeated. “This bloke.”

“What bloke?” asked Sarah.

“Oh, come on, don’t go all Miss Innocent on me. The left side of your neck’s going red.”

Shit! Sure-fire sign. Sarah was a terrible liar. Not a consummate, habitual liar, a genuinely incompetent one, always let down by the reddening of one side of her neck. Once this happened, there was no point in prolonging the pretence.

“Well, nothing’s happened.”

“Yet,” said Nessie, shovelling in another bit of cheesecake. “Do you want some of this?”

“Yeah, save me a bit.”

“Look, you know I can’t do that. Have as much as you want now but don’t ask me to save you any.”

“Anyway,” said Sarah, quite relieved to be able to tell someone, “nothing’s happened—he’s completely unsuitable.”

“
Plus ça change
,” said Nessie, with a laugh. “Is he married?”

“No.”

“Going out with someone?”

“No.”

“Is he gay?”

“Wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Is he over sixty?”

“No.”

“Under sixteen?”

“No.”

“Then how, pray, is he unsuitable?”

“Well,” said Sarah, taking a deep breath, “funny you should use the word ‘pray’.”

“Why?”

“Well, because he’s a—a—a Roman Catholic priest.”

There was an involuntary splutter of chocolate cheesecake all over the sofa. “A what?”

“A Catholic priest.”

“So he’s taken a vow of celibacy?”

Sarah nodded.

“And you’ve fallen in love with him?”

Sarah nodded again. Now she was biting her bottom lip, which alerted Nessie to the fact that she was about to cry. Oh dear, best proceed with caution.

“Are you sure,” she began, taking the most obvious route, “that you’re not attracted to him simply because he’s unattainable?”

Sarah sighed. “I wish that were the case but no. It goes a lot deeper than that.”

This had Nessie worried. Sarah wasn’t daft and she wasn’t a lovestruck teenager. She was nearly thirty and had had more than her share of boyfriends. She could identify the feelings and emotions of friendship, intrigue, infatuation and good old·fashioned lust. She knew what it was like to fall in love, to fall out of love, to be heartbroken, to be disappointed. She was intelligent and mature enough to know whether her feelings were for real. And from where Nessie was sitting, picking up the crumbs of her cheesecake, the answer seemed to be yes. “Well, come on, tell Auntie Nessie, how did you get yourself involved with a Catholic priest? Was it up at that wedding in Wilmslow?”

Sarah started from the beginning and poured out every detail. It was as if a plug had been pulled out, and there was no stemming the deluge of intimate revelations. Nessie was the ideal sounding-board. A kind, understanding, Bohemian opera singer, with a vast experience of the opposite sex gleaned from extensive field research.

Over the years, they’d had dozens of these EBMs, or Emergency Bloke Meetings, often stretching until three or four in the morning and fuelled by chocolate, cigarettes and bottles of red wine. This time was different. As Sarah recounted the little meetings, the cab rides, the feast of St Petronella, Nessie listened, leaving that second piece of chocolate cheesecake, ignored and untouched on her plate.

“…and you know me, Nessie,” said Sarah, bringing the tale to a close, “I don’t have a particular type. I’ve been out with tall blokes, short blokes, fat blokes, thin blokes, rich, poor, dark, fair—it doesn’t matter. If they press the right buttons, that’s it for me, there’s nothing I can do.”