Rafferty had just returned from the funeral of a man whose widow and family were part of the congregation. Though he knew the late Mr.X reasonably well, he was not a 'church-goer'. The first part of the funeral service had been held in a local funeral parlour and then he and the mourners had gone on the longish drive to a crematorium for the disposal of Mr.X's earthly remains. Both parts of the service were well attended, and had gone as well as such occasions can be expected to.
However, hardly had Rafferty set foot back home in the rectory than the phone rang. It was Fr. C. from across town. "Rafferty, have you just taken a funeral for a Mr. X ? "Yes, I have" says Rafferty. "As a matter of fact I've only just walked in the door. Did you know Mr. X?" "Well, not exactly", says Fr.C, "but his wife has just been here with me. She came to see me about, let's call it a matter of conscience. She's just left, & I thought I should talk to you about it. With her permission of course. In fact, she asked me to tell you her story."
It takes Rafferty only a moment to realise something is amiss. Something ominous. Hadn't X's wife been at the funeral? Hadn't he just seen Mrs. X safely back inside her home ten minutes ago, only a short stroll from the rectory, and several kilometres from Fr.C? Fr.C eventually has mercy and responds to the silence at Rafferty's end of the phone. "Are you sitting down, Father?" The silence at Rafferty's end is still as thick as the head on the Guinness now sitting, untouched, in front of him. "Let me tell you about it" says Fr.C.
"An hour or so ago, this woman rang to ask if she could see me urgently. She needed to talk to a priest, she said. I said she could come straight away if she liked, and she did. She doesn't live far away. This is what she told me: Just before WW2, she married a man named X, and they moved to live not far from here, over on this side of town. When war broke out, Mr. X enlisted in the army, and sailed away to fight with his unit in the Middle East. He didn't come back. She never saw him again. But neither did she ever have any indication from the army that he'd been killed, or wounded, or taken prisoner, anything like that. Mr. X just vanished. Didn't come back. There was no divorce, no nothing. The woman was left in limbo, and she's stayed that way ever since. Then, first thing this morning she happens to read a funeral notice in the paper for a man of the same name as X. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she drives over to your patch for the service and sees and hears enough to be sure that the Mr. X whose funeral you were taking was really her long lost husband. She thinks about this over and over on the way home, then she rings me. She's not a member of the congregation here, but I am the closest priest. She tells me the whole story. She doesn't want to do anything about it, or cause anyone any trouble, but she needed to know, and she needed to tell someone."
There is still silence at Rafferty's end. Eventually he stammers to Fr.C, "You mean I had both wives at the service?" "Well, you had his legal wife, and another woman who presumably believed she was his wife!" Knowing his Mrs. X, Rafferty is quite sure of that! Fr.C, older, and wiser, and gently chuckling at Rafferty's amazement and discomfort, tells him, "Don't worry about it. There doesn't seem to be anything to be done. She's certainly not planning to make trouble for your Mrs. X or embarrass her or her family. She's not planning to challenge X's will, or anything like that. But next time anyone tries to tell you "Priests don't know how the other half live", you tell them from me, "Sometimes we've got a damned good idea!"
When Fr. C had hung up, Rafferty downed his Guinness much faster than he would usually have done, went into the church, and Don Camillo-like, says to God, "Well, Lord, What do you think of that?" He wasn't sure whether he really heard a low chuckle, or was it just, "Drink your Guinness a bit more slowly next time!"
