2001 - Father Frank (11 page)

B
ack at St Thomas’s, the parishioners were becoming accustomed to their new parish priest and his rather unusual ideas. One of the first things he did was reinstitute the old Latin mass—only one a week, but it was the eleven o’clock, the most heavily attended, the one that the parish priest almost always said himself. Mass in Latin seemed somehow more spiritual, more holy, more mysteriously ritualistic. Latin put the ‘Roman’ back into Roman Catholic.

This bold step brought him instant favour with the older, more traditional members of his flock, though his reasons for taking it had nothing to do with seeking their approval. Frank could trace the recent decline in the fortunes of the Catholic Church to the day they had begun saying mass in English. Had they stuck with Latin, most people would have been unaware of the ludicrous things they were saying. Once the liturgy was spelled out to them in plain English, they could see the flaws in its veracity and logic. They would start to question it, just as he had as a small boy in Quex Road. They would stop believing, stop attending mass and, most significantly, stop putting money in the collection plate.

The sermons, of course, were in English, and these were Frank’s trump cards of which he seemed to have a never-ending deck. He was a wonderful communicator, with a knack of sensing his congregation’s mood, choosing his words accordingly and timing them brilliantly.

As a DJ, he’d had that same knack of sensing the mood on the dance-floor, choosing his tracks accordingly and timing them brilliantly. His sermons could begin anywhere—Rice Krispies, boxer shorts, Arsenal’s chances in the Champions’ League, hang-gliding, tube drivers, carpet warehouses. His audience would listen, often wondering how on earth such an unconnected subject could, in the course of a relatively short sermon, be brought round to God, yet he did it every time, with the verbal equivalent of sleight-of-hand. It was done skilfully, subtly, almost imperceptibly. Although the congregation were listening to every word, they would never spot the join. They never knew how or when it was coming, but come it always did, usually with an honest appeal to make the collection plate a little heavier. This was Frank’s greatest talent—parting people from their cash…

When he first started, he had little competition but as time went on and Sunday trading laws were relaxed, more and more places were open and ready to take his congregation’s money. Frank had to ensure that every Sunday they gave it to St Thomas’s rather than St Tesco’s.

On his first day, he had been shown the old church hall round the back. It was huge, sad, and hadn’t been used for years. The wood of the doors and window-sills had gone soft and chewy, and what paint remained was suffering from a severe form of leprosy. Inside, it was cold, damp and musty, and the air was heavy with that horrible stench that takes decades of decay to acquire.

As he strode gingerly around the hall, taking care not to fall through a loose or rotting floorboard, Frank decided to make this place the subject of his first sermon. The following Sunday, he concluded his reading from the Gospel according to Mark: “This is the word of the Lord.”

“Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ,” replied five hundred voices on automatic pilot.

Then Frank said nothing. Absolutely nothing. From his vantage-point on the altar, he surveyed the people in front of him. It was a full house, all keen to catch a glimpse of the new parish priest. They thought they were sizing him up.

They didn’t yet realise it was the other way round. Still he said nothing. Oh, the power of silence.

Then he spoke. Not commenting on the Gospel, not mentioning anything remotely biblical, spiritual or holy. He opened with three simple words: “I want money.”

Before they’d had a chance to be shocked by this, he went on, “Your money. Together we’re going to build a parish centre. Your parish centre. Your money. I would apologise for such a direct approach but there’s nothing to apologise for. I need your money. Every penny will be put to good use, and how else am I going to get it? Asking for cash is nothing new. Read St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Full of appeals, begging letters, mail-shots, whatever you want to call them. The message was simple—he wanted money, I want money, and I’m going to tell you why.”

They were already spellbound. He left a beat before continuing: “We’re lucky. Very, very lucky. Right here we have an enormous church hall. We have the land, we have the building. Structurally, I’m told, it’s sound so we’re half-way there, but inside, as you know, it’s in a terrible state. Because of…well…a lack of money, it has been left to rot, left to die. But the life of our parish centre is a life that can easily be saved. Like Lazarus, it can be brought back from the dead and its life will become our life, the communal life of this parish. When I look at the skill, when I look at the talent, the strength and the enthusiasm of the people in front of me, I realise that if we all work together, the job will be done in a matter of weeks. Our Lord created the world in six days, so I’m sure we can do up an old church hall in six weeks. Hands up any bricklayers.”

A few were tentatively raised.

“Plumbers?”

A few more.

Chippies, plasterers, electricians and roofers nervously revealed themselves.

“Right, any totally useless impractical people who can’t do anything at all?” Frank raised his own hand and smiled. “I’m nominating myself and Father Conlon as general labourers. Father Lynam can make the tea. We’ll have a proper community centre. Bar, dance-hall, anything you want, all suggestions welcome. But it’s going to take hard cash. So you’re going to have to dig deep and give as much as you can. Now, if you’re really strapped and can’t spare a penny, that’s fine. As the old saying goes, time is money, so give us your time. Obviously, it’s big project so we’re going to need a foreman, and I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s only one man for the job. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Danny Power…”

Danny Power, the life and soul of the parish, stood up and took a bow. The congregation had never heard a sermon like this and, fired by the rhetorical skill of their parish priest, found themselves bursting into spontaneous applause.

F
rank had first met Danny Power the day before when he was doing the rounds of prominent parishioners on whom Father Lynam had suggested he call. The door had been answered by Mrs Power, slim, blonde, and a dead ringer for Clodagh Rogers.

“Mrs Power?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Father Dempsey—the new parish priest. Just thought I’d pop round and introduce myself.”

Rose Power smiled warmly. “Ah, come in, Father. I’m just after putting the kettle on.”

It was a huge house in Harrow Weald, detached and unashamedly ostentatious. The front door was flanked by neo-Grecian pillars and in the huge, crazy-paved driveway stood a Land Rover Freelander, a Mercedes S-class and a green Transit van with POWER emblazoned on the side.

As Mrs Power ushered him in, Frank was touched by an atmosphere of happiness, fun and devil-may-care vulgarity. He followed her through to an enormous kitchen⁄diner that led out on to a huge square patio and a gigantic garden where at least a dozen children were playing, squeals of laughter pealing out from all directions.

“Blimey,” said Frank, forgetting that priests weren’t supposed to say God Blind Me, “are they all yours?”

“God, no,” she laughed, forgetting that, in front of a priest, she wasn’t supposed to take the Lord’s name in vain. “Just five of them. Mind you, this place is always full of kids. Saturday nights, I don’t know how many I’ll be cooking for.”

It was easy to see why: any child would be drawn like a magnet
chez
Power. The big garden had more attractions than Alton Towers: swings, see-saws, climbing frames, a Wendy house bigger than the average semi, a paddling-pool that could comfortably accommodate the world synchronised swimming championships. In the distance he could see a carrot-topped child bouncing dangerously high on a trampoline the size of Belgium.

As Frank’s eyes were trying to take in the sheer magnitude of the industrial-sized barbecue in the corner, he heard the flush of the downstairs loo. A huge, dark-haired, ruddy-faced man in his late forties emerged, unabashed by two unusual things: one, he wasn’t wearing any trousers, and two, he was eating a Big Mac. Danny Power, in his socks, vest and underpants, was about six foot two and, although he neither knew nor cared, well over twenty stone.

“Danny,” said his wife, “this is Father Dempsey.”

The huge Irish face broke into a friendly smile, “Ah, Father,” he said, between mouthfuls, McDonald’s special sauce running down his chin, “nice to meet you. Can I get you a beer?”

“Danny, I’ve just put the kettle on.”

With a dismissive wave of an enormous hand, Danny strode towards a gigantic American fridge, which would have been more at home in a morgue than a kitchen. As the door swung open, all you could see was beer: cans upon bottles upon cans upon bottles crammed in from top to bottom with scarcely an inch to spare. “What would you like, Father? Lager? Bitter? Guinness?”

Frank couldn’t take his eyes off the contents of that fridge. “Er…lager, please. That’d be great.”

“Stella, Carling, Heineken, 4X, Fosters, Bud, Bud Ice, Bud Lite, Beck’s, Schlitz, Rolling Rock?”

“Er, Bud. Yeah, nice cold Bud.”

“Coming up,” said Danny, with a smile, and pulled out two red and white cans and handed one to Frank, who tore open the top and drank it straight from the can. Danny nodded approvingly. This was his kind of priest. “Cheers, Father,” he said, with that big smile again. “Welcome to Wealdstone.”

“Cheers, Danny,” said Frank. “Father Lynam’s told me a lot about you.”

He had. Frank knew all about Danny. Big, crude, crass and happy, Danny Power was a plasterer by trade. As any DIY enthusiast wandering around B&Q on a Sunday morning will tell you, plastering is the one thing they could never crack. Carpentry, plumbing, electrics can be mastered with a lot of patience and step-by-step instructions but plastering? Forget it. You’ve either got ‘the touch’ or you haven’t, and Danny Power’s ‘touch’ was heaven-sent. To see him in action would be like seeing Mozart, Michelangelo or Maradona. The speed and artistry of his work had made him a fortune, most of which he had either drunk, smoked or eaten. As a natural leader and organiser, he was now a successful ‘subbie’, or sub-contractor, able to put together gangs of men to do any sort of building work. Perfect.

“Come on, Father, shall we sit in the other room?”

Frank followed his host into the sitting room which, along with everything in it, was enormous: enormous sofas, enormous mirror above an enormous fireplace, enormous home-cinema-style TV and hi-fi, enormous bar complete with optics and pineapple ice-bucket in the corner, and enormous man in enormous underpants standing behind it, serving himself a whiskey chaser. “Something a little stronger to go with that, Father? Scotch, Irish, vodka, gin?”

“No, the beer’s fine, Danny, thanks.”

Danny was the first to hear of Frank’s grand plans for the church hall. “Brilliant idea, brilliant. Sort of thing they should have done years ago. I mean, Father Lynam, he’s a good man, God love him, but this is a big parish. The poor fella’s had so much to do and he’s not getting any younger. And it’s the money. I’ve not been in there for a long time and the place was in a sorry enough state then. God knows what it’s like now.”

“Pretty bad,” said Frank ruefully. “Well, it’ll cost a fortune just for the materials.”

“Money,” Frank assured him evenly, “will not be a problem.” Danny raised an eyebrow, wondering where the sort of sum he had in mind would come from. The
Sunday Times
Rich List had never featured anyone from Wealdstone. “Well, labour won’t be a problem,” he said. “I can tell you now, Father, everyone you need will be at the eleven o’clock mass on Sunday. I could round them all up for you, but I think it’d be better coming from you. More effective, like. They’ll find it much harder to say no to a priest.”

Danny was right: Frank had the best builders in the parish volunteering their services for nothing. Everyone else in the congregation was falling over themselves to stuff fivers and tenners into the collection plates, and within a couple of weeks, Frank had dozens of men and thousands of pounds to put his plans into action. Danny was stunned by the amount of cash Frank’s single appeal had raised.

Unknown to the priest, though, there was another reason why those men, all of whom had worked for Danny at some time or other, were so keen. Their gaffer had assured them that if they didn’t turn up and work their fucking bollocks off on the parish centre for nothing, he wouldn’t be giving them any more work again.

S
arah had a terrible fear of cats. Not of cats
per se
but of actually owning one. In her mind, once a woman had a cat she was all but admitting she had given up. She had failed to find a partner, a soul-mate, someone to love and cherish her, and the cat had taken the place of a man.

These tragedies were always well disguised: many a cat-owner had told Sarah how happy and fulfilled she was, really clued-up women, most of them, usually prone to opining that ‘all men are bastards’. Not quite clued-up enough, though, to realise that the cat is the biggest bastard of all. Sly, cold, cruel and selfish, the cat embodies all the faults its owner ascribes to men. The cat gives nothing and takes everything. Sarah had watched the owner become accustomed to this bastard⁄victim relationship then attract men who treated her in exactly the same way.

Sarah may have been single, but she was still a long way from the litter tray and fairly upbeat when she met her friend Helen for lunch. Between taxi and table, she’d decided not to tell Helen about Frank. That brief journey from Golden Square had been one of the most weird and wonderful events in her life. She wasn’t quite sure how or what she felt, and until she’d worked that out, all she’d be able to tell Helen about it would be ‘djxplkqqwxrtlphbvcxzzpl’. Still, she’d booked a repeat performance from Fulham to Heathrow, after which she might be able to come up with something a little more intelligible.