J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

Then, leaving the room, they met Mr Pint, all salt and sweat, coming in from the back porch. He came among them as one from years at sea, scornful of soft living, suspicious of the womenfolk and young stay-at-home males.

The women followed Mr Pint, and Father Fabre followed the women, into the dining room.

“You’re a sight,” said Velma.

“Your good blue shirt,” said Mrs Mathers. She went down the hall after Mr Pint.

“We’re going to eat in a minute,” Velma said to Father Fabre. “You want to wash or anything?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “I never wash.”

He had tried to be funny, but Velma seemed ready to be-lieve him.

Mrs Mathers, looking upset, entered the dining room.

“Should I take off her plate?” Velma asked.

“Leave it on in case she does come,” Mrs Mathers said.

“Father, you know Grace.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Grace Halloran. She’s in the Society.”

“Of course.” Of course he knew Grace, a maiden lady. He saw her almost daily, a shadow moving around the sanctuary, dusting the altar rail and filling vases with flowers — paid for by herself, the pastor said. Her brother was a big builder of highways. She wasn’t the kind to use her means and position, however, to fraternize with the clergy. “Maybe she’s just late,” he said, rather hoping she wouldn’t make it. The present company was difficult enough to assimilate.

Mr Pint appeared among them again, now wearing a white shirt. Had he brought an extra? Or had Mrs Mathers given him one which had belonged to her late husband? Father Fabre decided it would be unwise to ask.

They sat down to eat. It was like dining in a convent, with Velma in the role of the nun assigned to him, plying him with food. “Pickles?” He took one and passed the dish to Mr Pint.

“He can’t eat ’em,” Velma said.

“That’s too bad,” said Father Fabre.

Mrs Mathers, brooding, said, “I can’t understand Grace, though heaven knows she can be difficult sometimes.”

“If she’d only come,” said Velma.

“Yes,” said Father Fabre.

“Vel had to work last Sunday and didn’t get a chance to meet her,” said Mrs Mathers.

“That’s too bad,” said Father Fabre.

“Grace was my best friend,” Mrs Mathers said. “In the Society, I mean.”

Father Fabre frowned. Was?

“I was dying to meet her,” said Velma, looking at Father Fabre.

“Very nice person,” he said.

“I just can’t understand it,” declared Mrs Mathers, without conviction. Then: “It’s no surprise to me! You soon find out who your friends are!”

Father Fabre applied his fingers to the fried chicken. “Well,” he said, “she doesn’t know what she’s missing.” Grace’s plate, however, seemed to reject the statement. “Did she know I was coming?”

“Oh, indeed, she did, Father! That’s what makes me so blamed mad!”

Velma went to answer the telephone. “Yoo-hoo! It’s for you-hoo!” she called.

“She means you,” Mrs Mathers said to Father Fabre, who wondered how she could have known.

He went to the bedroom, where Mrs Mathers, never knowing when she’d be called for special duty, had her telephone. When he said “Hello” there was a click and then nothing. “Funny,” he said, returning to the table. “Nobody there.”

“Vel,” Mrs Mathers asked, “was that Grace?”

“She didn’t say, Mildred. Wouldn’t she say who she was if she was Grace?”

“It was Grace,” said Mrs Mathers quietly. She looked unwell.

There was a rattle of silverware. “Eat your dinner, Mildred,” said Mr Pint, and she did.

After dinner, they retired to the living room. Soon, with Mrs Mathers and Mr Pint yawning on the sofa, Velma said, “I met some Catholic priests that were married, once.” She had taken the chair near Father Fabre’s. They were using the same ash tray.

“Were they Greek or Russian?”

She seemed to think he was joking. “They were with their wives, two of them — I mean they were two couples — but they said the ones that weren’t married could have dates with girls if they wanted to.”

He nodded. “It’s only been observed among us since the eleventh century — celibacy.” Velma looked doubtful. “It may be overrated,” he added, smiling.

“I never tried it,” Velma said.

“Yes, well… in some parts of the world, even now, there are married Catholic priests.”

“That’s what these were,” Velma said.

“Maybe they were Old Catholics,” he said.

“No, they weren’t, not at all.”

He looked across the room at the couple on the sofa. Mr Pint appeared to be asleep, but Mrs Mathers was trying to fight it with a Good Housekeeping . “That’s a sect,” he said, getting back to Velma. “They go by that name. Old Catholics.”

“I wouldn’t say they were that,” she said.

He was ready to drop it.

“I met them in Chicago,” she said.

“I understand Old Catholics are strong there,” he said. “Comparatively.”

There was a lull during which Velma loaded her cigarette case and Father Fabre surveyed the room — the bookcase with no books in it, only plants and bric-a-brac, and the overstuffed furniture rising like bread beneath the slipcovers, which rivaled nature in the tropics for color and variety of growing things, and the upright piano with the mandolin and two photographs on top: one would be the late Mr Mathers and somewhere in the other, a group picture of graduating nurses, would be the girl he had married, now stout, being now what she had always been becoming. Mrs Mathers was openly napping now. The room was filled with breathing, hers and Mr Pint’s in unison, and the sun fell upon them all and upon the trembling ferns.

“Mildred says you can’t have dates.”

Father Fabre looked Velma right in the eye. “That’s right.” He’d drifted long enough. He’d left the conversation up to her from the beginning, and where had it got him? “I take it you’re not a Catholic.”

“Oh, no,” she said, “but I see all your movies.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I liked The Miracle of the Bells the best. But they’re all swell.”

He felt himself drifting again.

“I enjoyed reading The Cardinal ,” she said.

So had he. He wondered if a start could be made there.

Mrs Mathers, whom he’d thought asleep, said, “Why don’t you tell Father what you told me, Vel?”

“Mildred!” cried Velma.

Father Fabre blushed, thinking Velma must have remarked favorably on his appearance.

“About the church of your choice,” said Mrs Mathers.

“Oh, that. I told Mildred The Miracle of the Bells made me want to be a Catholic.”

Mr Pint came to and mumbled something.

Father Fabre decided to face up to him. “Do you like to go to the movies, Mr Pint?”

“No, sir.” Mr Pint was not looking Father Fabre in the eye, but it was as though he didn’t think it necessary — yet.

“Why, Dad,” Mrs Mathers said, “you took me last Sunday night.”

“Not to those kind, I didn’t. Whyn’t you let me finish? By Dad, I ain’t so old I can’t remember what I did a week back.”

“Who said anybody was old?” Velma asked.

“Stop showin’ off,” Mr Pint said. “I heard who said it.”

Mrs Mathers clucked sadly, too wise to defend herself.

Mr Pint blinked at her. “You made me go,” he said.

Mrs Mathers saw her chance. “Ho, ho,” she laughed. “I’d just like to see anybody make you do anything!”

“You can say that again! Tell him about your office, Dad,” Velma said, but Mr Pint would not.

From the women, however, Father Fabre learned that Mr Pint had asked “them”—his employers, presumably — to build him an office of glass so that he could sit in it, out of the dirt and noise, and keep an eye on the men who worked under him.