Such Men Are Dangerous

by Stephen Benatar

  12

  Simon had also got up before three. Unable to sleep, he hadn’t been able to pray either, or not as he’d have liked. Although he’d often told his parishioners their prayers would sometimes sound laboured and dull (but that they shouldn’t feel discouraged, for God would still be pleased and listening and receptive) tonight he couldn’t draw much comfort from his own advice. The words that left his lips—or, rather, his heart, since he wasn’t speaking them aloud—struck him as wholly worthless, insincere. They were certainly a little wooden, when what he’d asked for at the start was spontaneity and joy. And wisdom. In the end he left the sofa and sat at his desk, beneath the crucifix, drew several sheets of paper towards him, picked up a Biro…and eventually began to write. Resolutely, wildly, hoping that this, too, could represent a form of prayer.

  She had known him as long as she could remember, yet she had never seen him like this. He was furious. She thought that at any moment he might strike her.

  “Who was it?” he shouted. He held a hammer; she wished he’d put it down.

  “I’ve told you. The angel said—”

  “The angel said! The angel said! Another bloody word about this angel of yours—” Then suddenly he sagged. He sank down on the stool behind him, his face covered by both hands. “Angels may have come to the prophets in ancient times,” he said, brokenly. “They don’t appear to unknown girls in Nazareth today.”

  “But this one did,” she persisted. “And he told me that my pregnancy came from God. He asked if I would bear it.”

  “And you, of course, said ‘yes’.” The moist eyes and the falsetto voice and the rugged frame were all oddly at variance. “‘I’m six weeks overdue, God, and already half married to that simpleton carpenter down the road but if I can say you were the one who put me in the club he’s bound to be impressed!’” The man’s voice became his own again; the hammer dropped out of his limp fingers; he watched it strike the sawdust. “Oh, what the hell does it matter whose child it is? Don’t you know what the punishment can be for a girl who’s betrothed to one man and gets herself pregnant by another?”

  When she didn’t answer, the savagery came back. “Well, don’t you?”

  She nodded. For the first time a tremor appeared in her voice, a reminder to him that, after all, this was only a sixteen-year-old girl and he was a man of more than twice her age. A man almost old enough to be her father.

  “Stoning?” she wavered.

  He looked away. “Yes, well,” he mumbled, “there’s no need for it to come to that. There’ll be shame for you, shame for both of us, that’s unavoidable, but we can hush the thing up as far as possible. Do your people know?”

  “No. You were the first one I wanted to tell. Oh, Joe, I felt so proud.”

  She clenched her fist to her mouth to keep back the sobbing that suddenly welled up. Then she ran from the shop and the carpenter watched her go.

  He had loved her so much. Life had seemed so perfect. Why had everything had to go wrong?

  Now the time was half-past-six. Simon put down his Biro, went and drew back the curtains, stood at the window, yawning, stretching. He looked out at the garden; realized with some surprise that he was still in his pyjamas but nonetheless opened the French window and strolled out on the grass, enjoying the damp softness beneath bare feet, enjoying the bright freshness of a new day. He felt pleased with what he’d written, although he knew he had no right to, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,” and knew, also, that on a later reading he might well feel disappointed. That often happened with his sermons. Despite the countless crossings-out and substitutions and battles against cliché (for instance, he still wasn’t happy with ‘almost old enough to be her father’, and things like ‘she clenched her fist to her mouth’, when naturally a fist would already have been clenched) and despite the passage being so relatively short, perhaps not even long enough to be regarded as a first chapter, he knew that it would still require a second draft. Possibly a third and a fourth.

  But yes, he thought, as he peed behind a rosebush (his mother would have given him hell if she had happened to be looking out!), he was actually quite pleased with it, and excited—and despite the initial sense of aggression with which he had started, virtual aggression, he was already aware that constantly throughout the day he’d be thinking about it and wanting to get back to it, and the true self-discipline which any writer was supposed to have would lie in his not allowing that writing to get in the way of everything else he ought to be getting on with.

  He said to himself the Lord’s Prayer and then went on to pray about the Heath family and the conundrum with which they were presenting him; and this time found that his words flowed and seemed far more acceptable.

  Which made him laugh. “Acceptable to whom? Who the heck do you think you are!”

  He went in then to have his bath, and was already looking forward to breakfast. It struck him that he didn’t even feel tired. On his way through the study he said his usual good morning to Ginny.

  “And, darling, sorry I was so peevish and shirty last night! Such a pain in the arse! Forgive me.”

  13

  “Joshua, Joshua,

  Sweeter than lemon squash you are…

  Yes, by gosh you are,

  Joshu-oshu-ah!”

  “Oh, do have a heart,” begged Simon.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Blame my mother. She was singing it before breakfast.”

  “Oh God!”

  “My own feeling precisely.”

  They were stretched out on their backs near the top of Beachy Head, the remnants of their picnic lunch now tidily returned to Simon’s knapsack. Below them the sea sparkled and the gulls soared.

  “Added to which,” said Ginny, “I don’t even think that lemon squash is sweet, particularly. I hope that doesn’t sound too crushing.”

  “It sounds moronic. Of course lemon squash is sweet.”

  “No, I find it sharp.”

  “Refreshing. Tangy.”

  “Sharp.”

  “I grant you, it isn’t cloying. But how can you say it isn’t sweet? Even if at your first swallow, perhaps—”

  “I do wish you had some small talk. Why will you only speak of the big imponderables?”

  “Life’s too short for trivialities.”

  She smiled but didn’t answer. She continued chewing on her blade of grass.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “my own mother also liked that memories-of-the-music-hall bit; she thought it was the best thing in the show. But I can’t help feeling that ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’ didn’t exactly hit the right note when offered as a humble tribute to Messrs Armstrong and Aldrin; not even when backed up by ‘Moon River’ and ‘Shine on, Harvest Moon’.”

  “Our humble and very sincere tribute. Don’t forget that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “The trouble is, you’re a perfectionist. You cavil. At least it was topical.”

  “But think how you’d have cringed if they’d actually been with us: Armstrong and Aldrin.”

  “I wish I could have been with them. Last week. Up there.”

  He expressed surprise.

  “Don’t you, then?” She rolled over and looked at him, her head propped on her hand, the blade of grass now held between her thumb and forefinger.

  “I’d have been petrified.”

  “Yes, of course, everybody would. But I mean, apart from that? The sheer enormity of the thing! Something to leave you awestruck and gasping for ever!”

  “Well, I agree with that, naturally. It’d be interesting to know the long-term effects it’ll have on those two fellows. But I still wouldn’t have chosen to be up there with them. I’m not a brave man.”

  She looked disappointed although she totally ignored that last, short sentence. “I suppose you’ll tell me next you don’t even think it was a good idea?”

  “It’s progress,” he said. “It’s a tribute to the ingenuity
of the human race. It’s even a very sincere tribute.” He paused. “And it’s partly that selfsame ingenuity which makes me so certain there’s a God. The potential for such brilliance could never have been purely accidental.”

  “But?” she prompted, after a moment, again ignoring the latter part of what he’d said.

  “But the world’s priorities are wrong. Prestige. Power. That’s what it’s all about, not simply the advancement of science. Yet even in the States there are thousands—millions—still living on the breadline.”

  She surprised him again: by the readiness with which she acquiesced. He felt pleased by it, as well; not because he had persuaded her of anything but because in fact he hadn’t. It indicated, he thought, that fundamentally they would agree on most things.

  It was as if she knew what he was thinking. “I hope you realize that I’m not just a yes-girl. I take a hard line on lemon squash.”

  “Oh, I do realize. But what became of your eternal gasps?”

  “For the time being…yes, I concede they’re a luxury.”

  “Then I must ask you again in another, say, twenty years.”

  She rolled over once more and squinted up at the sun; it shimmered between her eyelids. Of course, it was silly to take an unconsidered remark of that sort seriously, but even so it instantly reinforced the feeling of wellbeing she’d had since the previous night, inside the theatre.

  “Anyway, I think we’ve established by now that you don’t want to be an astronaut. So what does that leave?”

  “I don’t know. I feel that the right thing’s going to present itself quite soon.” Not books, he said, for although they still lived above his father’s bookshop, the business itself had now been sold. Not teaching; he didn’t think he had any vocation for that. He listed a number of careers that he felt the right thing definitely wasn’t. “Does it strike you,” he said, “I must be rather negative?”

  The question had been meant rhetorically but Ginny answered it. “No. I can truthfully say it doesn’t strike me at all in that way.”

  He himself moved onto his side and reached over and brushed his knuckles against the back of her hand. She turned the hand round and took hold of his fingers, stroking them. They smiled at one another but neither referred to the contact. Ginny merely said, easily, “Has there never been anything that’s really appealed to you?”

  “Well, let me think. I shouldn’t have minded being a doctor. Except that I’m squeamish. I shouldn’t have minded being a dentist. Except that I don’t fancy spending the bulk of my life potholing in people’s mouths. And besides, could I ever bring myself to give them an injection? Only on the understanding I could always look the other way.”

  “No, be serious, though.”

  “I think I am being, more or less. I sometimes wonder about politics. The idea of being able to influence things for the better, maybe even make big improvements in people’s lives…I find that quite exciting, I really do.” He smiled. “Clearly I’m an egotist.”

  “You know what I can see you as?”

  “Mm?”

  “A vicar.”

  He pulled his hand away. The dreamy quality had gone.

  “No, you can’t! Of course you can’t! What makes you say that?”

  She sat up quickly.

  “Simon, what’s the matter? I don’t know why I said it. It wasn’t a very serious suggestion. You seem…”

  “What?” He asked it sharply.

  “Like a girl I once knew who went to a convent school. Somebody told her he thought she would end as a nun. I remember her face. It was frightened.”

  “And did she?” He, too, had sat up.

  “End as a nun? Oh, I don’t suppose she will for a moment.”

  There was a silence. They watched a linnet hopping on the grass nearby.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I reacted like that. In a way, I believe, I actually was frightened. My father once told me that I ought to be a vicar. Perhaps I suddenly felt hounded.”

  “Oh, look! Isn’t he pretty?”

  But although the linnet had drawn even closer, he abruptly seemed to sense her interest and to find it threatening. He flew off.

  “Now who would believe that? Stupid bird! You go on talking in a normal tone; I whisper half a dozen words. Is it symbolic? Was he also feeling hounded?” She laughed.

  “Symbolic, nothing!” Unexpectedly, Simon jumped to his feet, took both her hands and pulled her onto hers. He put his arms about her and they stood together for at least a minute. Then he kissed her lightly and said, “Let’s walk a little.” He pulled his shirt on, slipped his arms through the straps of the knapsack. They started down the narrow path, laughing, running, swinging hands.

  “Isn’t it incredible?” he exclaimed. “Twenty-four hours ago I didn’t even know you.”

  “Eighteen,” she said. “Eighteen! What kind old fate directed you to Sea View?”

  “The kind old fate that made my father a very distant cousin of the manageress. Well, anyway, sort of, by adoption. We came here once before; when I was a child. This year…you see, my mother badly needed a rest and…and suddenly she just wanted to return. Though I myself, if I’d lost someone whom I’d loved as much as that…Your father’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  She nodded. “Oddly enough, we’re both here, Mummy and I, because he too knows someone who’s connected with this place. Daddy’s an architect. He and Mummy had their real holiday earlier in the year, in Jamaica, and since he’s all tied up at the moment—”

  Simon interrupted her. “I think that’s pathetic,” he said, “your parents swanning off to Jamaica and you only getting a fortnight at Sea View.”

  “No, it was a client who’d invited them. It couldn’t be at any other time. I was invited to go but the dates conflicted with my A levels.”

  “Well, now I think it’s even more pathetic.” Neither his mother nor father would ever have thought of leaving him if he’d had some major examination to sit. “Although I do have to admit that it’s also…”

  “What?”

  “A bit of a miracle.” It occurred to him, briefly, that somehow he meant it as more than just a figure of speech. “There was clearly a most magnificent reason for it.”

  “A point? A purpose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, don’t get cross with me, I really can’t help it. I said you ought to be a vicar!”

  “You needn’t think I’ve forgotten! So now you can go and—what?—”

  “Take a running jump? Oh, please, no! Not off Beachy Head. Let me sing you something as a penance.” She assumed permission. “‘Joshua, Joshua, sharper than lemon squash you are; yes, by gosh you are…’”

  “Whose penance?” he asked.

  14

  The first phone call of the day came before seven-thirty.

  “I hope I haven’t gone and got you out of bed, vicar, but I’d have been frantic if I’d missed you. I’ve been awake all night.”

  “Mrs Philby, isn’t it?” (Oddly, he might be better with voices than with faces—a sort of compensation. Thank you, Lord.)

  “It’s about my mother,” the woman added, in the same self-evident distress.

  “I’ll try to be with you in half an hour.”

  “Could you make it about nine? I’ve got to see to her breakfast first and get her washed and settled and not fall behindhand with the chores.”

  Mrs Philby lived in Crosby Avenue in a house with polished windows and a shiny doorstep and crisp net curtains. When he got there, shortly after nine, she’d been looking out for him. He didn’t even need to ring.

  She was a straight-backed, stringy woman in her early sixties, with a retroussé nose and grey hair stiffly set; she wore a nylon overall. At first she showed him into the lounge but then asked if he would mind coming into the kitchen, where she could get on with her work. Since she was already preparing vegetables for lunch, three potatoes and a quarter of a small cauliflower, and storing the segments in a
pudding basin filled with water, Simon couldn’t feel that she was very much behindhand with her chores.

  Mrs Philby had come home five years earlier, after her husband had died, back to the house where she’d been born and raised.

  “She’s got lung cancer,” she blurted out, and her lips trembled. She took an eye out of the potato about a centimetre round; the potato could hardly spare it. “The doctor told me yesterday. I don’t know what to do.”

  Simon looked down at the scrubbed deal table by which he sat. Ran his forefinger along one of the well-worn ridges.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not surprised you couldn’t sleep. Has…? Has your mother been told about it?”

  “That’s why I wanted your advice. Do you think she should be?”

  “Yes,” he said, slowly. “From what I know of Mrs Beecham…”

  Yet then he began to wonder. Supposing he himself were told he had only months to live? Would he really want to know? Very easy to say, I’m a religious man, I’d wish to have time to prepare myself, get the utmost out of however long I’ve got left, not fritter all my energies—very easy to say, of course, while the question remained safely academic.