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Authors: Paul Burke,Prefers to remain anonymous

2001 - Father Frank (19 page)

BOOK: 2001 - Father Frank
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Way down in the depths of a coma, Danny was now clinging to life by one hand. Somehow he had to make it two and then, with the odds stacked heavily against him, try to heave his enormous bulk back up on to the edge of the cliff.

Chapter 23

A
couple of weeks later, when Frank dropped into the church, he saw a twelve-year-old boy kneeling there alone. It was Sean Power, praying desperately for his father’s recovery. When he saw Frank, he turned round with a start, seemingly ashamed of what he was doing. Frank raised his hand gently.

“No, no, Sean, you carry on. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

The boy gazed up at him, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed. “It’s okay, Father, I wasn’t praying.”

“Just thinking, were you? Great place to gather your thoughts, focus your mind, especially when there’s no one around. I’ll leave you to it.”

“No, Father, there’s something I want to tell you, something that’s been bugging me ever since my dad had his accident.”

“Oh, right,” said Frank, with a warm smile. “Well, fire away then. That’s what I’m here for.”

Sean fidgeted awkwardly, made a couple of false starts then blurted out, “It’s about the altar servers, Father.”

Frank knew what was coming but gently encouraged the boy to explain. “Oh, I see. You want to tell me about your reasons for being one? Well, of course I know you serve mass to help me, Father Lynam and Father Conlon.”

“Yes.”

“Thing is, that’s all very well, Sean, but it’s the weddings, isn’t it? The weddings and the funerals.”

Sean nodded.

“The extra pocket money you make from doing weddings and funerals.”

Sean stared at the floor and gave another guilty nod.

“Well,” said Frank, with a quiet chuckle, “I was exactly the same when I was a boy.”

Sean couldn’t believe this and his eyes widened.

“Oh, yeah,” Frank went on. “Weddings and funerals—Ch-ching! Weddings were all right but they always took place on a Saturday when there were other things to do. But funerals? Always during the week. A morning off school and a ride in a Daimler to Kensal Green cemetery. And then—I know it won’t seem much to you now, but 50
p
or even a pound. Remember, this would have been around nineteen seventy-one or ‘seventy-two. Funerals—I loved ‘em.”

Sean couldn’t speak but Frank continued, “I bet you take an almost unhealthy interest in the sick list, don’t you? Those poor, sick people for whom the congregation’s prayers are asked? Don’t worry, all altar servers do. I remember when I was an altar boy, once somebody had clocked up six weeks on the list, I started rubbing my hands together, working out what I was going to spend my 50
p
on.”

“Are you angry, Father?”

“Of course I’m not angry. A lot of people have to make their living from the misfortunes of others. Dentists, undertakers, plumbers, priests…”

There was an awkward pause.

“Oh, yeah, we can get a much bigger tip for doing a funeral than you do,” said Frank, smiling, before letting his expression become a little more solemn. “Trouble is,” he intoned, “you tend forget that the person whose death you’re so looking forward to is somebody’s wife, somebody’s husband…”

“Somebody’s dad,” said Sean, starting to cry.

“Exactly,” said Frank. “And now, because your dad is top of the list, you feel guilty.”

“Yeah, and I bet the other altar servers are looking forward to doing his funeral, just so they can earn a fiver.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’re not,” said Frank, who was sure that they were. “Most of them are your friends. They don’t want to see your dad die any more than you do. And shall I tell you something?”

“What?”

“I don’t think he is going to die. I don’t think Heaven’s in need of replastering just yet.”

It would have been a trite thing to say to a boy whose father was dying, but Frank had just returned from his Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital visiting afternoon. And for once he’d enjoyed it.

Danny Power was off the critical list.

Chapter 24

O
ne evening, while Danny was still very much on the critical list, his quiet discussion with Philip Nowell, the consultant surgeon, had been interrupted. “Oh, good evening,” said a spotty youth with a weak smile, ironed jeans and a pair of Marks & Spencer’s trainers. “I wonder if you’d like a record played on tonight’s
Colin Liddell Show
.”

Frank turned slowly and fixed him with a cold, hard stare of the sort that priests aren’t supposed to be capable. He was just about to speak when Philip Nowell, a big, normally gentle man with hands the size of shovels, took over. “Now, listen to me, you little prick,” he said, with controlled and powerful anger, “I’ve had just about enough of you and your silly little hospital-radio volunteers, all pretending to be Tony Blackburn. You’re nothing but a nuisance. Nobody wants a hospital radio station here at Queen Elizabeth’s. You do no good whatsoever. If I catch you up here again on the High Dependency Unit, I’ll have the whole station closed down. Do you understand?”

Oh, God, thought Frank, any second now, those huge hands are going to be fastened round that scrawny neck and I’m going to have to call Security.

“And anyway,” Nowell finished, “what sort of request do you think a critically ill patient wants to hear? ‘Help Me Make It Through The Fucking Night’? Now, piss off.” Beetroot with rage, he turned back to Frank. “I’m sorry, Father, but here we are trying to do our jobs. Help people, cure people. We’re desperately under-funded and sometimes the odds seem almost insuperable. These people are no help at all. Patients aren’t interested, not even the children. They’ve all got their Walkmans and Gameboys. Hospital radio is like a sick joke. Have you seen their studio?”

Frank nodded.

“Better equipped than most operating theatres,” said the seething surgeon. “If it were up to me, I’d close the bloody place down.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because it
isn’t
up to me. And John Banks, the chief administrator, can’t be seen to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there’d be an outcry.”

“Who from? Nobody listens to it anyway.”

“Oh, not from the patients, no, from the people who run it. Have you met that Colin Liddell?”

Frank nodded again.

“Pompous little man,” said Nowell. “Oh, he’d go to the local papers,
Newsroom South East
, badger people with a petition they’d sign just to get rid of him. Thing is, it doesn’t actually cost us a penny. It’s all funded by donations. People give because they like to feel they’re contributing to the local hospital but the money isn’t going where it’s needed.”

“Do you really want it closed down?” said Frank, with an expression on his face that made Nowell wonder if he was going to call on a team of heavies to go in and smash it up.

“It would make me a very happy man.”

“Leave it to me.”

The following day, Frank made an appointment to see John Banks. This was one of the advantages of wearing the collar: no matter how busy or high-powered, people felt a moral obligation to see him.

John Banks was a decent enough man but the stress of the way he earned his living was etched into the lines of his face. He was squeezed uncomfortably into a navy suit that no longer fitted him. Although probably still in his forties, he looked ten years older. Frank could imagine him raiding the hospital pharmacy for Valium, Prozac, Haliborange, anything to help him cope. He welcomed Frank into his large but sterile, featureless NHS office. “Father Dempsey,” he smiled, offering his hand, “John Banks—good to meet you at last.”

“Good to meet you too,” said Frank. “I must say, you seem to be doing a splendid job.”

Praise was sweet music to Banks’s ears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d received any. “Well, that’s very kind of you,” he said, “because, you know, hospital administration can be a pretty thankless task.”

“I’ll bet,” said Frank sympathetically, implicitly inviting him to continue. He was an old hand at hearing confessions.

“Yes, you’re forever being pulled in two directions,” Banks went on, “constantly expected to provide more resources at the sharp end while trying to stay within the budgets set by the area health authority, which, as you can imagine, are not over-generous.”

“Well, you seem to be juggling it all very well,” said Frank. “I’ve been involved with a lot of hospitals over the years and they’re not as well run as this place.”

“That’s very gratifying,” said Banks, “because it’s almost impossible to tell from the inside.”

“Well, the staff seem happy, the patients are well cared-for and some of the facilities are wonderful.”

“Facilities? Wonderful?” said Banks. What was he talking about? The facilities at Queen Elizabeth’s could hardly be described as wonderful.

“Oh, yes,” enthused Frank. “Your hospital radio station, for instance, it’s unbelievable.”

Banks’s expression darkened into a heavy frown and Frank waited for him to reach for the blood-pressure pills. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he growled. “But between you and me, Father,” he said, “I’d like to close it down.”

“Close it down?” said Frank, trying not to overdo the incredulity.

“Close it down,” Banks confirmed. “This hospital needs every penny it can get to provide essential care for the patients. QEFM, as they call it, serves no worthwhile purpose. The volunteers are a nuisance. I mean, they’re pretty harmless but nobody listens to that station. Those people use it to further their own ambitions to become disc-jockeys on radio stations. They never will, of course, because if they were any good, they wouldn’t be on hospital radio, would they?”

“I suppose not.”

“We need the space taken up by that studio, and the money donated to keep it going could be put to much better use elsewhere.”

“Well, why can’t you close it down?”

“It would look bad politically, and not just at this level. The health authority, even the government, couldn’t be seen to do it. The newspapers would lap it up—another savage attack on the NHS, on patient care. Colin Liddell, he’s the chap who runs it, would wheel out the one patient in the last six years who actually asked for a request and listened to it. Never mind all the others who would throw a party if it closed down.”

“Oh dear,” said Frank, oozing empathy. “I see what you mean now. You’ve made me feel uneasy about all that money going to waste.”

“Oh, no, no, Father,” said Banks, backtracking and desperate not to appear uncharitable. “We’ll manage. At Queen Elizabeth’s, we always do.” He gave a weak chuckle.

“But what if,” suggested Frank, “you could come up with a plan that allowed you to close down the radio station and it reflected badly on no one, least of all you? In fact, it reflected very well on you.”

“Impossible,” said Banks, with a miserable sigh of defeat. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it. Lain awake at night thinking about it. Can’t be done.”

“No, I agree,” said Frank, trying to keep the Machiavellian mischief from his tone. “Not without the help of a clergyman.”

Chapter 25

“A
h, Colin. Good to see you.” John Banks, a week later, was warm and avuncular as he welcomed the fly in Queen Elizabeth’s ointment into his office. “You know Father Dempsey, don’t you?”

“I do indeed.” It was Frank’s turn to see the snaggle teeth. “Hello, Father.”

“Colin,” nodded Frank, with a benign clergyman’s smile.

Colin sat down, confident and smug. He had obviously been brought in for a pat on his anoraked back. To be congratulated on the splendid work he was doing at QEFM in alleviating the suffering of the sick. Deep down, however, he must have known that this wasn’t the case. He surely didn’t believe that the thousands of pounds squandered on a ridiculous, unlistened-to radio station couldn’t be better spent elsewhere. Maybe he did. Maybe he believed he’d pulled the wool over their eyes for so long that his position and that of his radio station were unassailable.

He was in for a nasty shock.

“Colin,” said Banks, with an air of resignation, “there’s no easy way of saying this.”

“Of saying what?” Colin darted out a little too quickly, almost as though he’d been expecting this moment for years.

“I’m afraid the time has come to pull the plug on QEFM.”

“You can’t do that,” Colin bristled.

John Banks was being very calm and reasonable, but Frank was wondering how long he’d be able to keep this up without either losing his temper or gloating vindictively.

“Of course we can. The administrators and trustees of this hospital have regular and lengthy consultations about its future; how best to utilise our budgets, how to provide the optimum care for our patients, and I’m afraid the question of the hospital radio station has begun to feature more and more prominently. It is felt, quite reasonably, that too few patients tune in to warrant its existence. We desperately need the space and—to be honest—the funds for proper patient care.”

Colin, like a cornered rat, was defiant. “But patients do listen to it. We get hundreds of requests.”

“Only because you have legions of volunteers out on the wards collecting them. Patients ask for a request just to be polite—often, I’m afraid, to get rid of you. They seldom tune in to hear those requests being played. Many patients and a lot of our medical staff find the volunteers a bit of a pest.”

Colin couldn’t argue with this.

“Hospitals nowadays, what with the Patients’ Charter, have to be a lot more customer-focused. So, for instance, when a doctor does his rounds he not only enquires about the patients’ medical condition, he’ll also ask how they’re finding their stay in hospital, the treatment, the facilities—that sort of thing. Lately the patients have been asked whether or not they listen to the hospital radio station and, out of five hundred and twenty-seven patients, Colin, do you know how many said yes?”

Colin shook his head.

“Three,” said Banks, with a note of triumph, barely able to keep the “So there!” out of his voice.

Colin was ready with a sanctimonious counter-argument. “But surely if we bring comfort and enjoyment to just one patient, doesn’t that make all the effort worth while?”

BOOK: 2001 - Father Frank
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