2001 - Father Frank (22 page)

“And,” said Nessie gently, “this priest pressed them harder than anyone else you’ve ever met.”

Sarah looked up, nodded silently and burst into tears.

Nessie cradled her friend’s head in her arms. It was always fairly easy to dispense advice on another person’s love life from the comfortable position of detached concern, but as Sarah kept saying, this was different. For once Nessie was fresh out of good advice. She didn’t know what to suggest. She felt so sorry for Sarah she almost wanted to cry too.

Sarah’s state of mind was not helped by her work. She’d always loathed working on Slattery’s, detested her dealings with Mike Babcock. The novelty of Buzzword Bingo could no longer compensate. Worst of all, she was now being asked to produce ads to promote Slattery’s Sunday Best. Dreadful, crass press ads saying things like ‘Slattery’s Has Become A Real Free House’ and ‘Drinks Are On The House’, with an awful picture of a group of Irishmen drinking Guinness on the roof of a pub. Ha bloody ha.

The radio commercials were even worse, featuring the obligatory diddly-dee music and a ‘versatile’ voiceover affecting an unconvincing Dublin accent—all designed to destroy the good work of the man she adored.

She went to Peter Clay, her boss, and resigned, citing ‘creative differences’ between herself and her client. She explained her objections to Mike Babcock’s plans to ‘bury’ St Thomas’s Parish Centre, omitting to mention her friendship with the parish priest.

Peter could see her point but was in a difficult position. The agency made a colossal amount of money not just from Slattery’s but from the other pieces of business in the Unibrew portfolio. To upset the client at this crucial stage might be disastrous. On the other hand, he knew that Sarah was right and admired her integrity. After all, a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something and Sarah was willing to let it cost her her job. Replacing such a brilliant and intuitive account director would be almost impossible.

“I hear what you’re saying but…” he began. This is one of those phrases like ‘I love her dearly but…’ or ‘
I’m not a racist
but…’, which is invariably followed by a statement to the contrary.

“I hear what you’re saying but can’t you just stay on the account for a couple more weeks? Just until this ‘Sunday Best’ promotion is over? Then I’ll put you on something else—more responsibility, a bit more money as well.”

“Peter,” she protested, “you’re not listening. The Sunday Best promotion is the reason I’m leaving.”

Peter had been listening but had thought it was worth a try. “Sarah,” he said, “we don’t want to lose you, but if you feel that strongly, take a couple of weeks’ extra holiday from tomorrow. Fully paid, of course. Just phone in sick. Don’t tell a soul. Well, not here, anyway. Come back when this Sunday Best thing is up and running, by which time I’ll have sorted out something else for you to work on.”

“With more responsibility?” she enquired, not that she particularly wanted it.

“Of course.” He was delighted not to be losing his star account director.

“And er…?” she ventured.

“Yes, of course, more money,” he confirmed.

Peter Clay was accustomed to people in his department threatening to resign and trying all sorts of levering tricks to secure a pay rise. He seldom gave in, but Sarah was different: he knew that she didn’t want the extra responsibility or even the pay rise. Which, of course, was why he gave it to her. “Just one more thing,” he said. “What are we going to say is wrong with you?”

“Just say girly problems,” said Sarah. “No one ever wants further details. Least of all Mike Babcock.”

She closed Peter’s door behind her and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A pay rise, the promise of never having to work on Slattery’s again, and two weeks’ extra holiday. Two weeks without even the monotony of work to take her mind off her forbidden friend? It was going to drive her insane.

Still, two weeks away from Mike Babcock had to be good news. What was she going to do? A fortnight in the sun somewhere cheap and cheerful? But who with? Nessie was touring with
Tosca
and wouldn’t be back for another month. Helen wouldn’t want to go anywhere without Graham. Anyway, they’d be putting their money into a joint account to save up for a dishwasher. No, she’d stay in London and do all the things she never had time to do. Catch up on her reading. Those unread copies of Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky could come down from the bookshelf. Or those unwatched tapes of
Blind Date
and
East Enders
could come down from the video shelf. She could go to the gym outside the busy early-morning and early-evening times and enjoy the luxury of not having to queue for a shower. She could try some recipes from that Nigel Slater cookbook Nessie had given her three years ago. No fun on your own, though, is it? Nothing really is. Except shopping. She’d go shopping. She wasn’t a shopaholic but she enjoyed buying things. You went to work, you got money, you bought things. That was the circle of life. As her mother always said, “Darling, you can either have money or you can have stuff. Frankly, I’d rather have stuff.”

New York was the place for stuff, and her brother Nick lived there. Sarah liked to tell people he was a drug-dealer, which was true—he worked in the marketing division of a huge pharmaceutical company. She could get a cheap flight to New York, stay a couple of days with Nick and his wife in Manhattan. Perhaps treat herself to a night in the Alchemy Suite at the Dylan. But that really would be no fun on her own. All she wanted to do was phone Frank. Surely he could use some help at that parish centre. She’d love to have another root through his records but, no, he’d said he’d call her in two weeks. He didn’t want to see her before then. Best to leave it. She’d heard of God-botherers, and had no desire to become a priest-pesterer.

She decided that what she needed was a few days enveloped in a good, sobering dose of normality and headed up to Wilmslow to visit her parents. They were delighted to see her. Business was booming and David was very excited about getting his first website, complete with funky graphics of claret being poured into a glass. “You know, darling,” he said to his daughter over dinner, “if you ever get bored in London, you could always come and work for me—I mean
with
me. Your advertising expertise would be invaluable. We’ve just taken delivery of loads of new wines. Would you mind tasting some? You always seem to know what’s going to go down well.”

Sarah could think of few things worse than becoming enmeshed in that parochial Cheshire lifestyle where everyone knew everyone else’s business. She loved the anonymity of London. She lived three inches from her next-door neighbours and still had no idea who they were.

It was always good to come home, though, especially with all those wines to try and so, for the next couple of hours, she became accustomed to the moist creak of yet another cork being removed from yet another bottle. She found one Chilean Chardonnay irresistibly gluggable but she tried to go easy on it. She had to retain some semblance of sobriety because if she didn’t she’d be in trouble. Her mother, who was also sampling Marshall’s finest and becoming increasingly squiffy, was bound to ask that euphemistic question: “So how are things?” Which meant, “Are you ever going to settle down and get married?”

If Sarah’s guard was washed away by a wave of Chardonnay, she might wail uncontrollably about her love for a man who was forbidden by his vows to reciprocate.

A
fter three months in hospital, Danny Power was ready to come home. It had been a slow, faltering recovery, but if ever you were looking for evidence of God working in strange and mysterious ways, this was it.

His miraculous escape from the Grim Reaper provided three separate levels of irony. First, Danny’s cycling, taken up to improve his health, had come within a hair’s breadth of killing him. Second, the huge casement of flesh that had threatened his life turned out to have saved it: he’d hit the road with such force that if he hadn’t had that extra six and a half stone of flab to cushion the impact he would have been killed instantly. And finally, during those months in hospital, he was fed a saline drip and then a revolting cabbage soup, which apparently provided all the nutrients a bed-ridden patient required. Just before discharging him they weighed him, and the hospital scales showed that he had lost six and a half stone, which was what Dr Clarke had wanted.

On a sunny Tuesday morning, Frank picked up Rose Power in the taxi and took her up to Queen Elizabeth’s to bring the (not quite so) big man home.

The following Sunday was 3 July, the feast of St Thomas, unofficial patron saint of Wealdstone, the best reason the Any Excuse Club could have for a party. It was to be a double celebration, honouring St Thomas’s feast day and Danny Power’s homecoming. In his sermon, Frank whipped up the excitement, including a veiled, almost subliminal implication that God would be taking a dim view of anyone not attending. His all-seeing eye would rest upon those guiltily guzzling the free Guinness at Slattery’s. He knew that certain members of the congregation would be tempted but also knew that the threat of Our Lord following them up to the bar would be more than enough to discourage them.

The parish centre was full to bursting that night. After hearing Brendan Shine’s ‘Catch Me If You Can, Me Name Is Dan’ played in his honour, Danny took to the stage and paid a moving tribute to his family, friends, everyone at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, and to his special friend Father Frank Dempsey, who had made St Thomas’s the best parish in the world. A tumultuous cheer greeted this and Frank, overcome, took a modest bow. That cheer was followed by an even bigger one, when Danny announced that everybody’s next drink was on him.

All the time Frank kept hoping that Sarah would appear to witness perhaps the finest moment of his life. He was desperate to share it with her. But never mind; he had an excuse to ring her tomorrow and boast that Slattery’s Sunday Best night hadn’t made even the tiniest dent in his profits.

§

Mike Babcock had been away on a golfing weekend in the Algarve. He’d flown out on Friday afternoon and hadn’t returned until late on Sunday night. His
Driving Rock
CD had been playing in the Vectra all the way back from Gatwick. His mobile was switched off, and when he got home, he was too tired to notice the flashing red light on his answering-machine. When he woke up, he headed straight for the gym then on to the office for eight forty-eight, Phil Collins’s
Greatest Hits
accompanying him all the way. He hadn’t tuned in to the news. If he had, he’d have heard something along the lines of: “Violence erupted at a bar in North London last night. Slattery’s in Wealdstone High Street had been offering free beer all evening as part of its so-called Sunday Best promotion and the place had become dangerously overcrowded. Trouble flared when drunken revellers couldn’t get to the bar for more drinks. A near riot broke out and the pub’s interior was destroyed. All the windows were smashed and the scene looked more like Belfast or Beirut than London. Twenty-six people, including five policemen, were injured, four of them seriously. The bar is part of a nationwide chain owned by Unibrew PLC, but their chief executive, Christopher Powell, has so far declined to comment.”

§

Powell was deathly white and quivering with rage. “So, Mike,” he seethed, “this Sunday Best promotion was all your idea. Or your ‘baby’, as you called it. Well, in terms of PR, you’ve done this company irreparable damage. That branch of Slattery’s will almost certainly now have its licence revoked. The whole chain—that’s 128 units—will be tarred with the same brush. I’ve already had to field dozens of calls from the BBC, GMTV, all the radio stations, national newspapers and Alcohol Concern. This promotion is the best thing you could have done for our competitors, who are now leaping on the bandwagon to point the finger. Free alcohol? It’s commercially stupid, socially irresponsible—and this is what you call an intelligent marketing strategy?”

“Well, basically, at the end of the day…” was all Mike could manage before Powell rounded on him again.

“There is nothing you can say that can possibly justify this. As far as I’m concerned, Mike, your position here is untenable. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got the
Daily Mail
waiting outside.” Christopher Powell swept angrily from his office and left the nation’s newest addition to the dole queue to contemplate his future.

Mike, however, had a hide like a rhino, and couldn’t see the seriousness of what he had done. Powell would calm down, this whole episode would blow over, become yesterday’s news. The Vauxhall Vectra would remain safe under the carport. Unfortunately, the zephyr became a hurricane when, later that day, the strategy behind the Sunday Best promotion came to light: to destroy the competition, which was a little Catholic social club that gave all its profits to charity. Somehow, Christopher Powell managed to keep a lid on this. If it had become public knowledge, investors, especially those from staunch Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain, would have withdrawn their backing and hundreds more Unibrew employees would have had to follow Mike Babcock to the Job Centre.

As it was, the City was less than pleased, and Christopher Powell was forced into drastic action to erase the memory of what Mike Babcock had done. Almost overnight, all Slattery’s branches were closed down and turned into equally awful institutions known as ‘Ye Olde Pig and Whistle’, whose speciality was inedible ‘Englishe Fayre’.

W
hen Sarah returned to work, there were thirty-eight messages on her voicemail, thirty-seven of which were of no interest to her. Message twenty-two was the one she’d been waiting for.

“Sarah, hello, it’s Frank Dempsey.” His tone suggested that he was just a little uneasy about calling himself Frank. “I’m…er, Father Dempsey to my parishioners and since I’ve yet to see you turn up for mass on Sunday, I don’t count you among them so it’s seems a bit daft for you to call me Father.” Roughly translated this meant, “When I find someone as sexually attractive as I find you, I really don’t want to be reminded that I am a Catholic priest who has taken a vow of celibacy. Please call me Frank so that I can at least pretend to myself that I might one day stand a chance of getting off with you.”