Hide the drink: here's the priest

Cavan Calling: Tony, my husband, has a cousin, John Thompson, who is a priest in Liverpool.

One Sunday morning, just before we moved to Ireland, we went to Mass at his church. Like the rest of the family, John was keen to hear about our plans. He told me the local church would be a good place to get to know people.

So we were delighted when, a few weeks after moving to Blacklion, we had a visit from our parish priest, Father John O'Donnell, a lovely man who works hard for the community.

He called one Friday evening when we also had our first visitors from England, our friends Jean and John Adams. Tony went to answer the knock on the back door and, after a few minutes, I followed him to see who was there. Seeing it was the priest, I went quickly back to tell our friends.

Jean and John busied themselves in the sitting room, hiding all evidence of the champagne and wine we had drunk as we celebrated our new home. Jean, an atheist unschooled in the ways of the Church, assumed priests would not approve of alcohol.

Father John is very amiable, and we were soon all chatting away. Then I noticed that Oscar, our cat, who at any other time hides from visitors, had taken a fancy to the priest. She was behaving in the most unseemly manner, winding herself around Father John's neck. (I should perhaps explain that we do indeed have a female cat called Oscar: Tony decided that it was probably the only way, as an actor, he was ever likely to receive an Oscar.)

Father John was far too polite to mention the cat, but I was glaring at Tony, desperately trying to indicate through hopefully discreet facial contortions that he should remove Oscar. Eventually I managed to catch Tony's eye, but he misinterpreted my look and decided I must want to change the subject of conversation.

Cutting Father John off in mid-flow, Tony did change the subject - to contraception. Tony can be a complete menace at times, but this was a social gaffe spectacular even by his standards. I knew I was not alone in my toe-curling embarrassment when I glanced at John, who was staring very hard into the fire. It's amazing how fascinating the flames can be.

Oscar had by now ceased her flirting and, extremely pleased with herself, was stretched out on the hearth rug. Now it was my turn to leap in and change the subject. I asked Father John where he thought the next pope would be from. I favour Latin America, but he thought possibly Italy.

Tony, who was locked into social-suicide mode, then raised the Borgias. Father John, who was clearly not too comfortable with the topic, tried to keep the conversation to the next pope. He told us that, although the cardinals would consider all the options and make a wise choice, the Holy Spirit would also play a critical role.

At this point our atheist friend, purple with the effort of not snorting with laughter at the behaviour of Tony and Oscar, became even more desperate as she struggled with this concept.

By now we had all forgotten about the cat but, choosing her moment carefully, Oscar knocked over a bottle that Jean had cunningly hidden behind the sofa before Father John entered the room. I saw Jean and John stiffen as the three of us flicked quickly back through the memory banks, desperately trying to remember if there was anything left in the bottle. We could relax: it had been empty (of course).

Just as well: Father John would have been treated to the unedifying spectacle of three bodies diving over the back of the sofa to rescue the wine. Fortunately, the priest was again preoccupied with his pipe. It had refused to light properly for him all evening. Either that or he was much too polite to comment on our increasingly odd behaviour.

I then remembered that John was a member of a winning team on University Challenge. We had all been to the recording of the programme, at which his team of former champions had beaten the existing winners, and we were able to describe the experience without Tony managing to say anything unexpected or unwanted.

Thankfully, Father John was suitably impressed, and the evening ended with our reputations still reasonably intact.

Next Monday: dire warnings as the builders move in