On the toilet pan, straining like a tugboat pulling a liner. Yes! Thank you, God. Father Wexford washed his hands afterwards. iPad on the dresser, set and ready for the Zoom Mass. A small congregation, Covid consequent, but the service would be reverent nevertheless.
He squeezed the door handle. No movement. Was it jammed again? He couldn’t get out! Perhaps a small prayer for the door’s release? No time. Mass imminent. Nothing for it, he’d have to do his priestly duties astride the toilet seat. What would Our Lord make of that?
Faces floated on the screen. Miss Crimington, eyes anxious. Were those white tiles behind her? Where was her large kitchen sideboard? Elderly Mrs Lewis: sitting on the edge of a bath? And could that be a shower head above Mr Pascal’s cranium? Start Mass.
‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son…’
‘Amen,’ Miss Crimington whispered. How had she locked herself in the loo? Thankfully, she had her phone in her pocket when caught short. A Zoom Mass, then telephone her neighbours for assistance.
Mr Pascal had lost all sense of time in the shower. Drying himself, he’d glanced at his lavatory laptop – a computer in each room; he was proud to be an own-up techno-nerd – when Father’s bald dome had filled the screen. Pascal had thrust a towel about his waist in the nick of time. Now here he was shivering as he attended to Mass, hoping his naked shoulders weren’t visible to the congregation.
Mrs Lewis, since having IT lessons from her daughter, swore by the internet. Cleaning her teeth in the bathroom, listening to the Sunday Archers’ omnibus: what pleasure! But then – oh horror! – she remembered the clocks had gone forwards overnight. Spitting out toothpaste, she clicked on the tablet’s Zoom icon, just in time for the start of Mass.
As the service approached the offering, Father remembered he’d left both the host and wine in the sacristy. Too late now. Implement an emergency plan, and hope broadband reception for participants was as dodgy as on his own fuzzy screen. Holding up a small white bar of soap, he said solemnly, ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body.’ His aluminium toothbrush container, minus toothbrush, was wielded next: ‘This is the cup of my blood.’
He stumbled through the rest of the service. Had he seen Mr Pascal naked? And toothpaste around Mrs Lewis’ mouth? ‘The Lord be with you.’ ‘And also with you,’ his flock replied. ‘The Mass is ended, go in peace,’ he instructed them. A difficult morning but God had brought them through. He put down the iPad, and tried the handle anew. At the same time, Miss Crimington tried hers. Both doors opened. Had God been testing their patience? Mr Pascal no longer felt cold. He was clothed. How had that happened? He’d not dressed himself. Mrs Lewis turned on the iPlayer to catch the end of the Archers. Weren’t these computers miraculous inventions!
