2001 - Father Frank (17 page)

Sarah just enjoyed talking to him and being with him. She found herself clinging to the vain hope that this perilously attractive man wasn’t a priest at all. She didn’t want to know about his pastoral duties, never wanted to see him up on the altar, blessing the bread and wine, reading the Gospel, delivering the sermon. If she ever saw that, she knew her hopes would be dashed, her heart broken, and she’d become prey once again to the JJs of this world. She was desperately trying to engineer another chance to see him. She couldn’t invent another business trip to Edinburgh and, anyway, she didn’t want him as a chauffeur: she no longer wanted to talk to the back of his head. She wanted to gaze longingly into those piercing blue eyes.

She thought that perhaps they could go to see a film together since he said he had no one to go with and, at the moment, neither did she. They could be platonic ‘picture pals’. However, as she was about to suggest this, he began to tell her how, before taking his vows, he’d always gone to the pictures with girls he didn’t like because he didn’t have to talk to them.

“What about girls you did like?”

“Well, if you really like someone and just love being with them, it doesn’t matter where you go, does it?”

“Even a cab ride from Blackheath to Fulham?” she ventured boldly, making his heart beat so loudly that he took the precaution of turning up the music.

“Yeah,” came the dry-throated reply.

As they whizzed over Putney Bridge, and across the Thames for the thirteenth and final time, Sarah hadn’t worked out how she’d be able to see him again. She got out and stuffed three ten-pound notes into the box. Frank smiled and nodded gratefully.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” she said.

“No, thank
you
,” said Frank. “I really enjoyed that. Much better than sitting at home watching a video.”

There was a couple of seconds’ pause, during which Sarah tried and failed to think of an excuse for another secret rendezvous. She needn’t have worried. The excuse would soon come from a most unlikely source.

“S
hit, Shit! Shit! Where is it? What the fuck have I done with it?” Sarah, in a state of blind panic, had emptied the contents of her bag and purse all over the kitchen table: a bottle of Clarins spray, a little pot of kiwi fruit lip balm, a hairbrush, receipts from taxis, shops and restaurants, an appointment card from Toni & Guy, a state-of-the-art matt black Palm Pilot, which she still had no idea how to use, and six pounds fifty’s worth of Sainsbury’s Reward Card vouchers. She would have happily swapped all of these, plus her cash, keys and credit cards, for the bit of paper she was looking for: the tiny scrap on which she’d scribbled Father Frank Dempsey’s mobile number. She’d tried several different configurations of numbers but had only succeeded in contacting an assortment of electricians and drug dealers.

Her mind was colonised by taxis and priests. She found herself scrutinising every black cab she saw just in case the driver was wearing a dog-collar. She even took a secret trip to Willesden one night, looking for St Thomas’s Church, and was alarmed to discover that there was no such place.

So he wasn’t a priest after all. She didn’t know whether to be horrified that he was some sort of weirdo priest-impersonator or delighted because, in that case, he wouldn’t have taken a vow of celibacy. She began to wonder whether he’d been a ghost or a figment of her imagination. She’d asked most of her friends—casually, of course—whether they had ever been picked up by a cab driver who was also a priest. Most stared at her as if she was either demented or experiencing some sort of flashback from dropping too many Es in the summer of ‘88.

Perhaps he
was
a ghost, perhaps she could syndicate her story about riding in the Phantom Taxi of Old London Town to the
National Enquirer
.

Oh, where was he? What had happened to him? Why wasn’t there a Directory Enquiries for mobiles?

She emerged one afternoon from a two-hour meeting with the faceless and interchangeable Supershine clients and realised she couldn’t remember a single thing about it. All she knew was that ‘protect and nourish’, ‘healthy shine’ and ‘women in control’ would have featured heavily.

She found it difficult to concentrate on anything—work, Graham and Helen’s frankly alarming plans to move out to Chislehurst, the plotlines of
Brookie
and
East Enders
.

Her reverie was suddenly disturbed by the shrill ring of the phone on her desk. “Sarah? Mike Babcock. Bit of a crisis. Need to sit down.”

What had happened? Wife left him? Fallen two rungs down the company squash ladder? Carport collapsed on the Vauxhall Vectra? What?

“Mike, hi. What’s the problem?”

“Well, don’t know if you remember but about six months ago we opened a big Slattery’s unit in Wealdstone.”

Wealdstone! WEALDSTONE! That was it! Wealdstone, not Willesden! Mike Babcock, I love you! Having soared ecstatically into the air, Sarah floated serenely down again. “Yeah. I remember.”

“Well, bottom line is, takings have collapsed and, basically, we’re going to have to move the goalposts, formulate a whole new gameplan.”

“Why? What’s happened? How come takings are down?”

“Well, basically we chose Wealdstone because it scored heavily in our research data. Bit of a dump, full of Paddies—perfect strategic fit. So we bought up a couple of shops, knocked them through, opened up and we were coining it in. Now, suddenly, we’ve got competition.”

“Competition?”

“Yeah, from the Catholic church of all places. They’ve converted their old church hall and the place is packed every night. Knock-on effect being that Slattery’s is now deserted. No customer loyalty. It all started with this new priest who’s come in. Bit of a lad, apparently. Drives a taxi.”

Yes! Yes! I wasn’t making it up! He does exist!

Mike had worked with Sarah for a long time and was intimidated by her laid-back intelligence, the way she could instantly grasp and solve problems about his business without ever appearing to try or care. She didn’t seem to share his evangelical zeal for expanding the all-conquering Slattery’s chain so he was surprised at her response.

“Oh, that’s terrible, Mike. There must be something we can do. Are you free later on? Say about five? I’ll come down and we’ll work something out.”

“Sarah,” he said, with deep sincerity, “you’re a star. I’ll see you at five.
Ciao
.”

By five o’clock, Mike was fired up, pacing around his office. Heaven help the fat estate agent he was playing squash with tonight. “Sarah, hi,” he said, voice louder, handshake firmer than ever. “You’ll take some coffee?”

“A glass of still water will be fine.”

“They’ve got a fucking cheek, haven’t they?” he began, almost hyperventilating.

“Who?”

“Those priests, vicars, whatever they are. Meddling in the licensed trade. They should stick to God-bothering or whatever it is they do.”

Sarah had always regarded Mike as a crass, ignorant little man but now he was plumbing new depths.

“Still, if they want to play hardball, we’ll let them have it. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. And let me tell you one thing, Sarah.”

“What’s that, Mike?”

“Nobody fucks with Mike Babcock.”

“Least of all Mrs Babcock,” is what Sarah was tempted to say, but stopped herself.

“Anyway,” he went on, warming to his pathetic little theme, “the way I look at it, marketing strategy is like military strategy. I learned that from Trevor Soper, my old divisional sales chief in Peterborough. That man was a legend. Focus, focus, focus. That was his mantra. So, at the end of the day, we’re going to have to go the extra mile on this one.”

“I see,” said Sarah, trying not to laugh.

“Now, Wealdstone represents a crucial part of our core business activity. We’ve got to stay results-driven and that means being proactive not reactive. We’ve got to bury this new church hall, parish centre, whatever they call it.”

“Is it really that important, Mike?” asked Sarah gently. “Slattery’s is an enormous chain. As you say, you’re gaining representation in every town in the South East. Can’t you let this one go?”

Closing his eyes dramatically, Mike gave a slow, condescending chuckle. “Oh, Sarah, Sarah. With the greatest respect, at the end of the day you don’t operate at the sharp end. At Slattery’s we’re quality-driven, customer-focused, and if what we’re doing ain’t cutting it out there in the big wide world, it’s me who’s going to take the rap. I’m at the coalface, Sarah, where there’s no such thing as a no-blame situation. I need to think outside the box, get inside the people’s mindsets and, basically, come out on top. At Slattery’s, we’re not accustomed to having sand kicked in our faces.”

“Well, I’ve got a plan,” Sarah said. “A rearguard action.”

“Rearguard action,” nodded Mike. “Like it, like it.”

“I know Wealdstone pretty well,” she lied, never having been there. “I’ve got some friends over that way. What I could do is try to get into this parish centre, see what makes it tick, then look at Slattery’s, compare the two from the consumer’s viewpoint and work out our gameplan from there.”

Mike was delighted, “Brilliant, Sarah. You’ll really do that?”

“For sure.” She knew he wouldn’t realise he was being mocked.

He ruffled her Supershined locks. “Hey, we’ll make a marketeer out of you yet.” It was the highest compliment he could have bestowed on any human being. He pressed yet another business card into the palm of her hand. This one bore not one but two e·mail addresses. He locked his eyes on to hers and gave her his most serious expression, strictly reserved for urgent marketing crises. “Call at any time, day or night. Leave me a message and I can always get back to you. Just keep me in the loop, yeah? Now, if you’ll excuse me, big meeting with the sales team.”

That, thought Sarah, was one of the most enjoyable meetings she’d ever been to. First, because Mike had revealed himself to be a truly vindictive, spiteful little shit: even if he hadn’t meant half of what he’d said about ‘burying’ St Thomas’s, it was disgraceful that he’d even thought it. It gave her the excuse not just to laugh at his cliche-driven drivel but to despise him. And now she had the opportunity to double-cross the odious little prick, derail his vicious little ‘gameplan’ by warning the parish priest of exactly what Slattery’s were planning. And the thought of re-establishing contact with that adorable priest made her almost ill with delight.

As she drove back to London, she realised that, in all the excitement, she’d forgotten to play Buzzword Bingo. Bugger! She must have let at least three full houses slip away.

T
he sound resonated from the back office right through the big empty hall. Frank was alone in the office, playing a private game called ‘Peggy Sue’. He’d been playing it on and off for about twenty years and had never once got it right. It had started when he’d seen a documentary about Buddy Holly, which revealed that the drums on ‘Peggy Sue’ were in fact cardboard boxes, tapped lightly by The Crickets’ Jerry Allison, to create that haunting, hollow sound.

So, for about the five hundredth time, Frank arranged his boxes—having first removed the bags of Walker’s Crisps. He then cued up the old black Coral copy of ‘Peggy Sue’, picked up the two thick knitting needles that served as drumsticks and began—this time was going to do it. He was doing very well, he’d reached the bit about half-way through where Buddy affects that silly girly voice, without missing a beat, when he thought he heard a couple of extra beats. Turning round, he realised that they had been apprehensive taps on the office door. He looked, stared, blinked, stared again, blue eyes as wide as they’d ever been in his life. He dropped a knitting needle to the floor.

He swallowed, absolutely speechless.

“Sorry, Father,” said the girl at the door. “Have I interrupted you? I could always come back.”

That dazzling smile, a joint venture from the gorgeous wide mouth and the heavenly brown eyes.

“No, no—not at all. Please…um…I was just—you know I wasn’t expecting anyone…er, least of all…”

“I know, I’m sorry. I should have phoned but I lost your mobile number. Thought your church was in Willesden, you know, London NW10, but…um…anyway…” A priest who drove a taxi and amused himself by drumming cardboard boxes with knitting needles. It got better and better.

“Yeah. Drumming. My secret passion,” explained Frank to his other secret passion, who then noticed the thousands of old 45
s
boxed and shelved on the other side of the room.

“My God. All those records.”

“Yeah, I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid. Go on, have a flick through, pull out anything you want. It’s all alphabetical—Abba to ZZ Top.”

While Sarah, like a kid in a toy shop, rooted through the boxes, Frank segued up his other knitting-needle classics—‘Let There Be Drums’ by Sandy Nelson and ‘Wipeout’ by The Surfaris. As he thrashed away, he wondered which tracks Sarah would select. A quick examination of musical taste was an almost foolproof guide to somebody’s character.

The omens were good. Sam and Dave’s ‘Soul Sister, Brown Sugar’, Tom Jones doing ‘Love Me Tonight’, the Valentine Brothers’ original version of ‘Money’s Too Tight To Mention’ and, eerily appropriate, ‘Temptation’ by Heaven 17. Sarah hadn’t thought about the title of this one, but as it was playing, she and Frank found it impossible to look at each other. Frank, remembering the Sheffield sound of the early eighties, mixed it seamlessly into ‘Hard Times’ by the Human League.

“Anyway,” he said, now over the shock of her arrival and relaxing back into his usual confident manner, “what a lovely surprise. I thought I’d have to loiter around the Fulham Road if I wanted to see you again. What brings you to Wealdstone?”

“Bit of a coincidence, really,” and she told him about Babcock and his gameplan.

Far from being perturbed, Frank laughed out loud. “Dear me. Is it really that important to him? Poor little man, he’s clearly ill. Come on, let me show you around.”

They sat and had a quiet drink and Frank proudly recounted the tale of the parish centre, how everyone mucked in and worked for nothing. “It’s wonderful at night. Come and see for yourself. People love being here and there’s nothing Slattery’s can ever do about that. Come over next Sunday night. That’s Sunday week. Big Irish night out, Sunday, always has been and it’s the feast of St Petronella.”