Morte D'Urban by Powers J. F

Author:Powers, J. F. [Powers, J. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Humor, Religion, Novel
ISBN: 9781590176603
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 1962-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

• Mrs Burns, freed from the telephone, given a new lease on life.

• Johnny Chumley rehabilitated.

• People polled on new church—and pollinated.

• Parish life now a reality.

• Attendance at daily Mass up 150 percent (eight–ten people now made it).

• Mission—most successful in history of parish.

• All-around good work for the Order.

• Mrs Thwaites.

Here, until that evening, there hadn’t been much to cheer about. At the end of each week, Father Urban received an envelope with a fifty-dollar bill in it, but this, though more than it might have been—it might easily have been nothing—was probably no more than Phil had been getting. Father Urban had heard Mrs Thwaites’s confession once, and had talked over her chances in the next world, giving her all the reassurance he could—which wasn’t quite enough, he’d felt. Mrs Thwaites was pretty much as Monsignor Renton had described her, in that respect. But it now appeared that Father Urban, without knowing it, had scored somewhere along the line. Otherwise why would Mrs. Thwaites have tried him out in the role of adviser? And since this was a role he might be asked to play again, having played it well once, it probably had to be rated as the greatest of his achievements while at St Monica’s. Much good could come from it, for the Order.

It was almost ten when Father Urban arrived back at the rectory, but a young man was waiting for him. The young man was wearing a short coat made of the same material as Wilf’s long devil’s-food one, but green, and he needed a shave. He said he wasn’t a Catholic but was married to “one.” He said his children were being brought up as Catholics. He said, “What more do you want?”

It was Father Urban’s practice, in census-taking, to express regret when he discovered that children were not attending the parish school—not too much regret, though, since the parish school was overcrowded—and it was this, presumably, this regret expressed by Father Urban, and communicated to the young man by his wife, that had brought him to the rectory. “May I ask your religion, sir?” said Father Urban.

“Don’t have any,” said the young man.

“I see. Well, we don’t want to make one of that, do we?”

“How’d you like a bust in the nose?”

At that point, Johnny Chumley entered the office and went over to the file, opened a drawer, and stood looking into it.

After a moment, during which nothing happened, the young man got up and walked out.

“Thanks, Johnny,” said Father Urban. “I didn’t realize he’d been drinking.”

Johnny shut the drawer of the file. “Monsignor Renton called a while ago.”

“Oh no!” said Father Urban, thinking Monsignor Renton was asking for still more time to wear Phil down.

“No,” Johnny said. “No. The Pastor’s dead.”

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