2001 - Father Frank (15 page)

“Tosser?” she suggested, and blushed.

“Well,” said Frank, affecting a priestly manner, “not the man of your dreams anyway.”

“Yes?”

“Well, I’ll keep my mobile on. You’ve got the number, and if I’m still in the vicinity, I’ll swing by and help you escape.”

“It’s a deal,” she said, with the biggest, sexiest smile Frank had ever seen. This time it was a twenty-pound note that she dropped into the box. Frank thanked her and she thanked him and, having dropped her at Domestic Departures, he headed back towards the M4.

Sarah waved and watched him go. Then she waited, and waited a bit more. Then, once she was sure that he was safely out of sight, she hailed another cab to take her straight back to Fulham.

F
rank had an aversion to hospitals—not just hospitals but clinics, doctors’ surgeries, dentists, osteopaths, anything remotely medical. He was in good health but contact with these places reminded him that he might not always be. This was not ideal for the new chaplain of Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, but he couldn’t help it. He’d tried to adopt a more positive outlook, telling himself that hospitals were wonderful places where the sick were healed, new lives began and old ones were rebuilt. He had nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for the selfless souls who worked there. None of this made a blind bit of difference. The moment he went through the main entrance, and that uniquely unpleasant hospital smell reached his nostrils, he was wreathed in a fuggy depression.

The simple fact was that people were only there because of either illness or injury and, marvellous though it was that they often made a full recovery, wouldn’t it have been far better if they had never needed to go to hospital in the first place? And what about those for whom the ending wasn’t so happy? People cut down in the prime of life, children desperately ill with leukaemia. Such thoughts always brought his latent doubts about God’s existence rushing to the front of his mind. Doubts that crystallised into one tiny but perennially unanswerable question: Why?

Devout Catholic patients, submerged in the depression that illness can bring, asked that question of their chaplain. “Why?” Why does God allow these things to happen? Illness causes nothing but misery and anguish, stress and pain. It is to the benefit of nobody. Give any person an imaginary genie with the power to grant three wishes and number one is nearly always to abolish illness. So why God who allegedly has this power refuses to exercise it is something about which a lot of patients or their loved ones become angry and cynical.

Sometimes they viewed Frank as God’s representative at Queen Elizabeth’s and almost blamed him for it. He had no reply to their whys. For years he’d been asking the same question. Generations of theology students had pondered, pontificated, appraised and discussed it too, but were no nearer to an answer.

In his capacity as priest or chaplain, Frank generally preferred death to illness. With death, you could make it all up. Comes to us all, blah, blah, blah. Going to a better place, blah, blah. End to their suffering, blah, blah, blah. With illness, none of these arguments stood up. He felt it had no good side and there was no justification for it.

As a child, Frank had developed his own little theory to explain things: an all-purpose answer applicable to practically everything. Since time began, he’d decided, there had been a metaphysical tug-of-war between God and the Devil. All good things—love, happiness, the majestic beauty of nature—could be attributed to God. All bad things—war, famine, Manchester United winning the treble—could be attributed to Satan. Moreover, the personalities of every one of us were microcosms of this. Inside each of us tiny tugs-of-war go on between these two superpowers to determine which course of action we take and, in the final analysis, who wins custody of our souls. A crass, puerile, over-simplistic explanation, of course, lacking any analytical thought, but Frank had yet to hear a better one.

On a more quotidian level, he was saddened that Queen Elizabeth’s, like most NHS hospitals, was pitifully under-resourced. And on this particular Wednesday, to make matters worse, he was confronted by the thing that irritated him more than any other aspect of his hospital chaplaincy: Colin Liddell.

Colin was ‘programme director’ of QEFM—the hospital radio station. He was a small, bespectacled creature in his mid-forties, who managed to be both skinny and fat, with thin, sloping shoulders that pointed down to an unappealing little pot belly and bulbous bottom. He lived nearby in a small terraced house with Mrs Liddell. Mrs Liddell, of course, was his mother.

On seeing Colin rattling his bright yellow fundraising can, Frank was half tempted to wrench it from his grasp and pocket the contents. He’d be doing the world a favour. Hospital radio was an appalling waste of time and money. It was a most peculiar ‘charity’ since, given the total lack of interest shown in it by patients, it would seem that its only beneficiaries were its presenters’ egos. Presenters like Colin, who, Frank was sure, were unlikely to have rip-roaring social lives so hospital radio had been drafted in to compensate. Colin and his colleagues had somehow convinced themselves that what they were doing was worth while, yet would you find them heaving geriatrics in and out of bed or working in a shelter for the homeless, providing help where it was really needed? The limit of their charitable capacity was saying “Yes indeedy,” and playing Leo Sayer records to people who weren’t even listening.

That was the point—no one was listening. No one wanted an expensive radio station at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital. In Frank’s short time there, he’d heard nothing but complaints about it. If patients wanted to listen to music, they tuned in to the BBC or one of the commercial stations. More likely, they slotted a tape into a Walkman. Nobody wanted to hear the inane Colin Liddell trilling his sad little catchphrase “Cooey, it’s QEFM.”

Colin had once read that Noel Edmonds began his career on hospital radio and ever since had harboured dreams of his own Crinkley Bottom. But for every Noel there are a thousand no ones, and hospital radio is where you’ll find them.

Frank was a millisecond too late in avoiding Colin’s eye.

“Father Dempsey,” he called, displaying a most unattractive toothy grin.

Oh, Christ. “Colin,” said Frank, fixing a false smile to his face. “How are you?”

“Mustn’t grumble, I suppose.” He then introduced a sickening expression of grave sincerity. “Not when I think of the people in here. There’s always someone worse off than you. Isn’t that right, Father?”

Frank swore silently that if Colin trotted out, “There but for the grace of God…” he would nut him. Mercifully he didn’t. “There certainly is, Colin. Donations going all right?”

“Not bad, Father, not bad at all. We’ve actually done very well lately. Just refitted the studio. Why don’t you pop down and have a look.”

“That’d be great, Colin, I’d love to,” Frank heard himself say.

The toothy grin made a repellent reappearance. “Well, I’m going to knock off here about four. Got a very busy show to prepare. Say about four fifteen?”

Oh, what the hell? If he didn’t agree to it now, Colin would never let him off the hook. Might as well get it over with. “Fine. Four fifteen then.”

Frank spent the next couple of hours chatting with patients. Nothing too heavy, no theological finger-pointing, ordinary people recovering from routine operations. Just after four he made his way down to the QEFM studio and couldn’t believe what he saw. A beautifully appointed air-conditioned studio that would have been the envy of the BBC. Three professional CD players, two Technics turntables. Twin cassette decks, a new mini-disc player, even digital editing equipment.

He was horrified. Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital was crying out for kidney machines and laser scanners. Wards were under constant threat of closure, waiting lists for serious operations were growing longer and longer. Under these circumstances, the sight of such sophisticated studio equipment for talent-free amateur ‘broadcasters’ to pretend they were on national radio seemed nothing short of obscene.

Colin’s toothy grin had become a permanent fixture as he guided his guest around his little fiefdom. “If you’ll excuse me, Father,” he concluded, with a glance at his watch, “got to sort out my running order. Martin, my producer, won’t be in this evening. Got to drive the show myself.”

Running order? Producer? While Frank’s mind swam with the insanity of it all, an idea was just beginning to form.

N
othing could ruin Sarah’s good mood. The nine thirty meeting with Mike Babcock had been particularly fruitful. His decision to take an idea then ‘run it up the flagpole and see who salutes’ scored triple points in Buzzword Bingo because nobody says that in real life.

This had been followed by a trip to Staines for a meeting with the Supershine shampoo clients. A new brief for some TV commercials. Sarah needn’t have bothered turning up: she had known exactly what they were going to say, exactly what they were going to ask for. “It’s all about women being in control,” explained one of the nondescript faces across the table.

Women’s Liberation comes to Staines. Well, whoop dee-do!

“Yes,” the face continued. “Women in control of their destiny. Smart women…”

Sarah, having heard this breathtakingly banal strategy about a thousand times before, for everything from mobile phones to sanitary towels, decided to chime in and finish the sentence. “…who know where they’re going, know what they want from life.”

The face was impressed. “Exactly, Sarah. In fact, you’re a prime example of our target market.”

How dare you? “Well,” she said, mock-coy, “I do use Supershine every day.”

This was true but only because boxes of it were lying around in her office. She had taken home the frequent-use formula, which, she had to concede, was the cleverest product ever invented. It was just the regular Supershine watered down, but it was just as expensive. Not only that but being ‘frequent use’, the instructions told you to use lots of it. Brilliant. Another way shampoo manufacturers made a fortune was by the addition of one simple word on their bottles: “Repeat.”

“Wet hair, apply shampoo, work in, rinse off and…REPEAT.” Hey presto! Profits doubled overnight.

Without having listened to another word uttered by the phalanx of faceless haircare marketers, Sarah drove back up the A30 knowing precisely what they wanted.

The commercial would begin with a gorgeous intelligent career woman in her mid-twenties washing her hair in the shower. There would be microscopic close-ups of hair follicles allegedly being ‘nourished and protected’. Then the same girl, shoulder-padded and power-dressed, would be strolling confidently but femininely down a busy city street, her hair bouncing as though there were something wrong with her neck muscles and eliciting admiring glances from handsome men.

The Supershine people would do their best to ensure that the commercial was so mindless and bland that anyone would understand it. Therefore they would need to make only one ad and dub it in an assortment of languages, then inflict it on people all over the world. Despite vain protestations of creative integrity, the people from Staines were primarily concerned with doing everything as cheaply as possible. Sarah’s name would be associated with this dross. It was what she did for a living. Still, not even this depressing thought could dampen her mood.

Just after four o’clock, she rang Helen. “Hi, it’s me,” she said. “Still on for tonight, then?”

Helen could practically feel her friend’s smile down the line and found her unusual enthusiasm rather hard to fathom.

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant. What time?”

“Oh, I dunno—seven thirty for eight?”

“Okay. Now did you say fifty-two Blackheath Drive?”

“Yeah. Flat B. Are you driving?”

“Well, hardly. I do intend to have a drink.”

“Get a cab. No, second thoughts, traffic’s a nightmare. Just hop on the train at Charing Cross. You can always get a cab home.”

“Brilliant idea.”

Now Helen really was suspicious. Since when was getting a cab home a ‘brilliant idea’? Oh, God, I hope she’s not pissed. I bet she’s been out on one of those client lunches of hers. “JJ’s really looking forward to meeting you.”

This almost burst the bubble of Sarah’s excitement but the thought of the cab ride home had just about kept it intact. “Is he? Well, I’m looking forward to tonight too,” she gushed, not technically lying. “Seven thirty for eight, then.”

“Right. See you later, bye.”

Helen hung up with a bewildered smile. What was the matter with Sarah? She was normally quite aloof, almost cynical. Why was she so excited about meeting a friend of Graham’s? And then she thought, perhaps a little defensively, Well, why the hell shouldn’t she be?

‘C
oming Home, Baby’ by Mel Torme—great track. Frank pulled out the original single from ‘63—black London label. A lot of top fifties and sixties American artists signed to smaller labels in the States were released in the UK on London. Frank had dozens of old London singles—Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Drifters, Roy Orbison, and this cracker by Mel Torme. Good, but the title was too obvious, too contrived.

The mood had to be absolutely right. Relaxed late-night-drive-home music. Pastoral duties were suspended for the afternoon: Father Dempsey had a tape to make.

Frank had been a bespoke tape-maker since he first had a Harry Moss radio-cassette player fitted in his old Escort van. He had made dozens, all hand-compiled from old singles: rock’n’roll, Motown, funk, punk, rap, summer tracks, Christmas tracks, slow tracks to help ease the pain of heavy traffic, but this particular musical sub-section was something he’d never tried to assemble before, something he was unlikely to find in HMV or Virgin: ‘Now That’s What I Call Music That Hits The Right Note When Giving A Lift Home To A Girl You Fancy Like Mad Even Though You’re Not Supposed To Because You’re A Catholic Priest’.

At last, he’d found his opening track, on the early yellow Epic label from ‘73, The Isley Brothers’ ‘Highways Of My Life’. Perfect—slow, soulful without being sexy. He could hardly close the cab door and hit her with Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’ or Billy Paul’s ‘Let’s Make A Baby’. Having found the first track, Frank could always ‘hear’ the second and it was another yellow Epic one from the same era, ‘Family Affair’—Sly and the Family Stone. Oh, he was in a groove now. This led to ‘The Ghetto’ by Donny Hathaway, William De Vaughan’s ‘Be Thankful For What You’ve Got’, James Brown’s ‘The Boss’ and Clarence Carter’s rather apposite ‘I Was In The Neighbourhood’.