2001 - Father Frank (27 page)

“When he came here at the beginning of the year, I handed him the helm of a happy and harmonious parish, but a parish, I will be the first to admit, that had ‘room for improvement’. His commitment, his imagination, his drive and his energy brought about improvements beyond our wildest dreams. He was behind the fabulous restoration of this church and the dramatic transformation of our old church hall into the magnificent parish centre it is now. This place is now the hub of our community and has been the venue for so many memorable evenings, which have generated thousands of pounds for charitable causes all over the world.”

He paused for effect. He had seen this rhetorical trick work often enough for Frank. Now it was working for him.

“Now, in the last few days you may have heard a number of stories about what he did and what has subsequently happened to him. Let me tell you what actually happened. Over the last few months, Father Dempsey became friendly with a girl called Sarah Marshall. No vows were broken. There is nothing that forbids a priest to have friendships with women. They were enjoying a drink together at a bar in the West End of London when they were spotted, and Father Dempsey was reported to Cardinal Hayes.

“Now, you may believe that this is not the sort of conduct we should expect of our parish priest. You may believe that perhaps this friendship had become a little too close. You may indeed be right, but I would ask you not to judge Father Dempsey too harshly. Technically no sin was committed. But even if you do not approve of what he did, please try to balance it against the extraordinary amount of good work he has done, the wonderful way he has helped and cared for others.

“I have, of course, spoken at length to Father Dempsey about what happened and he explained that recently he has been having great difficulty with his vow of celibacy. Now, a lot of people are under a misapprehension about the word ‘celibacy’. Celibacy isn’t simply the abstention from sexual intercourse. To be celibate originally meant just being unmarried. Father Dempsey had a problem with this part of his vow. He had a problem with not being married. He often preached about the sanctity of marriage, and I know many of you here have enjoyed the benefit of his counselling and have felt your marriages go from strength to strength because of it. I suppose it’s understandable for a man to want to practise what he’s preached.”

Another pause. Much longer this time for a truly dramatic effect. And just before the sharper members of the congregation realised what was about to happen, Father Lynam made the announcement.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness Francis John Dempsey finally break his vow of celibacy…”

F
rank had left the Cardinal’s office not knowing how he felt. He knew how he was supposed to feel: wretched, ashamed, depressed, his life’s work brought to a sudden and ignominious halt. That was surely how he was going to feel at any minute. He was just dazed, shocked, numbed. It was delayed reaction. Any moment now, the pain and shame would kick in, and he would sob and howl like a wounded animal.

He waited. Then he waited a bit longer, but he simply didn’t feel that way. He even put on his Misery Tape to try to get the tear ducts going. Gilbert O’Sullivan’s ‘Alone Again Naturally’, Kevin Johnson’s ‘Rock’n’Roll, I Gave You All The Best Years Of My Life’, Brian Protheroe’s ‘Pinball’. Nothing. No effect at all.

He started to feel guilty about not feeling guilty.

Surely God would turn up now, to castigate him perhaps, remind him that those vows were unbreakable and threaten him with eternal damnation. It would be quite nice if he turned up to say thank you, pat him on the back, wish him all the best, present him with a metaphysical carriage clock. But no. Father Dempsey was waiting in vain.

Even before his conversation with Cardinal Hayes, Frank knew that he loved Sarah far more than he could ever love his job. It was no contest. The Cardinal had been right: Frank had subconsciously wanted to be caught, and when he was, it was a blessed relief. He could easily have squirmed and apologised his way out but he had chosen not to.

But what if she didn’t feel the same way? What if it had been a bit of a giggle for her but no more than that? After all, they’d had nothing more than the equivalent of a quick snog at the office party. People don’t generally alter their whole lives on the basis of that. And could he bear to put that sort of pressure on her? It might be flattering to tell a woman that you’re giving up a lifetime’s vocation because of her, but unless she adores you and cannot contemplate living her life without you, this might not be what she wants to hear.

Oh, God.

No point asking him for guidance, thought Frank. Even if He does exist, He’s probably got the right hump with me now.

Frank went on thinking about his dilemma. Was it such a dilemma? He could either have the woman he loved or the job he loved. Either way, he was going to be happy. Wasn’t he? Trouble was, he loved one much more than the other. He looked at his watch and realised that he’d been sitting on the south side of Westminster Bridge for nearly two hours. This was the longest he’d ever thought about anything. His gaze fell upon St Thomas’s Hospital. He still hated hospitals: they made him uncomfortably aware of his own mortality. At this very moment, he thought, somebody will be dying in there. Somebody’s life will be ending. He couldn’t let his own life end without finding out the one thing he really needed to know. He started the engine, swung the cab round towards Vauxhall Bridge and headed for Fulham.

Within twenty minutes he was outside Sarah’s flat. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and rang the buzzer. An unfamiliar voice, Nessie’s, said, “Hello?”

Oh, no, she’s moved, she’s gone, she’s emigrated. I’ll never see her again.

“Er…hello? Is Sarah there, please?”

“Who is it?”

Frank paused, not knowing quite what to say.

“Just tell her her taxi’s here.”

The buzzer sounded and, for the first time, Frank went inside.

Nessie welcomed him in. “Hi, I’m Nessie.”

“Frank.” He smiled and the two shook hands, awkwardly over-polite.

“Sarah,” Nessie called, “someone to see you.”

Sarah emerged from the kitchen, unprepared for her visitor—hair tied back in a pony-tail, old sweatshirt, tracksuit bottoms, bare feet. She was the most beautiful sight Frank had ever seen. She let out a stifled sob and the two fell once more into a passionate embrace.

Nessie tiptoed backwards. “Um…I think I’ll just go and…er…make a cup of coffee.” She paused. “At Robert’s house.”

Neither Frank nor Sarah noticed her leave. They simply held each other. Without coming apart they fell on to the sofa and held each other some more, neither saying a word.

They didn’t make love. Or perhaps they did. It depends how you define ‘making love’. If you go for the standard definition, they didn’t. If you go for the Doris Day definition, they did. In her 1964 hit ‘Move Over Darling’, Doris repeatedly implores her beau to ‘make love to me’. Bearing in mind Ms Day’s squeaky-clean image, it is unlikely that this meant ‘shag me till I’m sick’. It would have meant no more than a kiss and a cuddle. So when Frank and Sarah had finished ‘making love’, they had to talk. Heart to heart, soul to soul, cards on the table. Sarah was intuitive enough to know that this would be particularly hard for a man who had never been completely honest with anyone. Least of all himself.

“Yes?” she began. “Can I help you?”

“Help me do what?”

“You tell me.”

“I’m sure you could help me become very, very happy,” he replied, “but the question is, could I help you?”

“Oh, I know you could. But do you really want to? Just think what you’d be giving up.”

“You’re right,” he conceded. “I’d have to give up a lonely celibate life, sharing a house in Wealdstone with two priests. Personal poverty, feeling increasingly useless and outdated as more and more people realise that what I represent, theologically, at least, is…well…not to put too fine a point on it, crap.”

“Look, it isn’t quite like that and you know it. I’ve never seen a man more successful and fulfilled in his work. Those people worship you.”

“No, they don’t. They worship God. I just make it easier for them. But I’m making it harder and harder for myself. I now know I can’t go on doing this for ever. It’s been great but I’d like to pack it in now and do something else. I don’t want to be on my own any more.”

“How can you say you’re on your own with all those adoring parishioners?”

“Very easily. I think the world of them, but there’ll always be a distance between a priest and his parishioners. As there should be. I’m not close to them or intimate with them. As a priest, I can’t be intimate with anybody, and that can be very lonely. The more I think of it, the more I realise now that I only took those vows because I hadn’t met the right girl and assumed I never would.”

“And have you now?”

“I think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“I’m as sure as I’ve ever been about anything.”

“Well, that’s not saying much.”

“True.”

“And, anyway, you said you weren’t the marrying kind.”

“I wasn’t.”

“And are you now?”

Frank paused, not for dramatic effect but because he was about to answer the most important question of his life.

“Yes.”

This time, he’d got it right. He’d won the million pounds. Chris Tarrant was hugging him and the studio audience was going wild.

S
o that was it. They decided there and then to get married. There was no agonising, no questions, no wondering whether or not they were doing the right thing. They were both intuitive, intelligent and impulsive enough to ‘go for it’, as the unlamented Mike Babcock would have said.

Frank had no desire to invite God to his wedding—he was in favour of a quick register-office ceremony with a couple of friends as witnesses. Sarah, however, insisted that due tribute was paid to the years he’d devoted to the Church. Together they sought and were granted special dispensation by Cardinal Hayes to marry in a Catholic church—St Thomas’s, Wealdstone, naturally. They’d caught him in a mood of Christmas clemency. Sarah wanted to make her wedding the most significant and memorable moment in her life, and Frank, the consummate show-off, was more than happy to oblige.

One thing was bugging him, though. Who was the grass? Who had set this whole chain of events in motion? To whom did he owe his eternal gratitude for releasing him from his vows into the arms of the woman he loved?

It took just one call to the Hilton in Park Lane: he enquired about the nature of the function held in the rooftop suite on Friday 15 December. The Society of Certified Accountants’ Christmas dinner and dance, apparently. Pat Walsh was the only certified accountant he knew and, come to think of it, he vaguely remembered Pat mentioning that he wouldn’t be able to work his usual Friday-night shift—‘posh do up the West End’. Pat was no Judas, the man was as sound as a pound. It could only have been his po-faced wife.

With Sarah in Wilmslow, gently breaking the news to her parents that she was about to marry a penniless, unemployed ex-Roman Catholic priest, Frank walked up the drive of ‘Patanne’, and was a little perturbed to see Pat’s BMW haphazardly parked, lights on and the driver’s door still open.

He rang the doorbell. Pat answered, red in the face, his hair dishevelled, with fresh blood and scratch marks down one cheek. Speechless and rooted to the spot, he stared at Frank.

“May I come in?” asked Frank. Pat nodded, and Frank walked through to the half-wrecked sitting room where Anne Walsh stared at him too. She now believed that her husband’s attempt to murder her had been successful. Surely she had died and gone to Hell. Pat had strangled her, her precious ornaments and swirly curtains lay destroyed on the floor, and now Father Dempsey, the man she had betrayed, was standing in front of her looking very serious indeed.

Pat tried to say something, but Frank held up his hand to stop him then turned to Anne with a benevolent smile. “Anne,” he beamed, “I’ve come to thank you.”

Still believing she might be in Purgatory and that some tears of contrition might tip the balance and get her into Heaven, Anne broke down and wept. “Oh, Father,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry.”

Frank pretended to be bemused. “Why are you apologising? I’ve come to thank you,” he repeated, and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I know what you did,” he said, “and I now understand why you did it.”

Anne could do nothing but sob helplessly while Pat stared, shiny-eyed and slack-jawed, at the drama unfolding in his sitting room.

“Anne,” Frank went on, “you’re a very perceptive person, aren’t you? I’ve often watched you watching others. I’ve watched you watching me, and you were the only one sensitive enough to spot a man who, despite appearances to the contrary, was unhappy in his work. You knew something that I didn’t even know myself—that I was never cut out to be a priest. That I would be much happier leading a more conventional life. So when you saw me at the Hilton doing just that, you were good enough to tell someone who could help me. Someone who could persuade me to face up to my feelings and find the courage do something about them. And for that, I can never thank you enough.”

Anne was no longer sobbing. She was too stunned, too dumbfounded for that. She was unable to sob, unable to speak, unable to move. Her gaze was fixed on the floor.

Frank, really enjoying himself now, continued, “I want you to think back and remember how you felt when you first met Pat. On the number sixteen bus, wasn’t it?”

Anne sniffed, wiped her eyes and looked up. How did he know that?

“Pat’s told me all about it. The magic he felt when he first met you. And I’ve always really envied him. To feel that depth of love for a woman. I’d never felt it, couldn’t appreciate it until now. Now I feel truly happy, liberated. Now I understand what all the fuss is about. It’s finally happened to me and that’s all down to you. So…” He took her face between his hands and placed a big kiss on her forehead. “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”