Such Men Are Dangerous

by Stephen Benatar

  Yet apparently to no avail, so far as concerned a healthy emotional balance. And the closer had approached the last day of November, then the more strenuously had both those disciples been striving to improve the situation—Josh especially, spurred on by the thought of his own duplicity. He couldn’t come to terms with it. If only he had paid heed to Simon’s early prognostications! If only money had never entered into it and Simon had been left to proceed along the proper channels! If only he had never made that phone call!

  But then, of course, Geraldine wouldn’t have been here to share the burden with him and he rather doubted he could have borne it long without her.

  On the other hand, though, would there even have been this ‘march’?

  However, all that was in the past; and he now made other, far less selfish phone calls. He phoned Sally Madison and was sorry he hadn’t thought of doing this earlier. She naturally agreed to travel south immediately. He phoned Elsie, the St Matthew’s church secretary. He phoned the vicar of St Lawrence’s, and then Tony, Dulcie, Alison and Paula; even Mr Dane at High Ridge (Josh suggested that perhaps he could hold a special assembly, bring all his staff and pupils down to London, not forgetting parents, families and obviously the board of governors). He phoned everyone he could think of, including job centre employees, librarians, post office staff, hospital staff, officials on the town council, his doctor and his dentist. He spoke to the personnel department at Binn’s, which was the only department store in the town; also to the manager at Presto’s, the largest supermarket. With every conversation he was proposing the hire of several charabancs—naturally at his own expense—and a mass exodus from Scunthorpe on the following morning, arriving in Westminster by midday.

  And of course he telephoned Dawn—whom in any case he was communicating with on a regular basis, his sons as well—but now with a lot more urgency than normal.

  “Dawnie, I wouldn’t say this to anyone else but Simon’s really in a bad way.”

  “Then how very blest he is, how very blest we all are, that he’s got you there to look after him.”

  “Sometimes I even begin to fear for his sanity.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Josh, dear! Don’t be so absurd!”

  “All right but just you wait until you see him.”

  “I will! And I won’t tell him what you said! Probably all he needs is a good long sleep, the same as you do, and Geraldine! We’re so grateful up here for what you’ve all been doing.”

  “Only trying to keep the show on the road!” he said.

  It was a light, even a modest comment, not in any way complacent.

  “So, then,” she continued, “we’ll leave here bright and early, shall we, and make sure we’re at the Abbey by twelve? Do you realize, Josh, that all the time we’ve lived in Scunthorpe I’ve never once been down to London? It’s Mum and Dad who’ve always made the trip. Won’t they get a surprise when we pop our heads round the door and cry out Boo!”

  “Dawnie, this isn’t about giving your mum and dad a surprise, it’s about saving Simon’s sanity, maybe his life.”

  He’d been irritated, but almost instantly felt mean to have answered like that, because he knew full well she’d place her responsibility to Simon and the Church far above any wish to cry out boo to her parents. (Not so long ago he’d have encouraged her in the latter rather than the former, welcoming a happy touch of levity amid all the psalmody and frequent quotes from scripture.)

  “On second thoughts,” he said, “eleven o’clock might be better. Then there’d be time to go into the Abbey, first, to pray.” And the walkers, too, so long as they left early enough, could very comfortably reach Westminster by then.

  “Oh, Josh…”

  For years now she had never told him that she loved him, any more than he had ever said it to her, and the tone in which she spoke his name was perhaps as close to expressing it as these days she could come.

  “And while you’re in London,” he declared, jokingly but not entirely so, “maybe we’ll buy you a smart new dress and a hat for the wedding and some really elegant new shoes—Dawnie, how would you feel about wearing high heels again?”

  While talking to her like this, he realized it was the first time he’d felt halfway optimistic about anything since…well, possibly since the start of the pilgrimage. He could even feel happy his earlier advice had been ignored and that Dawnie and Janice had refused to contemplate a wedding during his own absence. (Naturally, Simon’s absence would also have been a consideration but Josh now knew it wouldn’t have been the main one.) He even felt it was possible—if he prayed about it hard enough!—that he might eventually come to tolerate the husband.

  “Then, after we’ve all got up off our knees,” he added, with a smile, “we’ll go to have some lunch somewhere. Before presenting the petitions.”

  “To Mrs Thatcher?”

  “You mean, go there for our lunch?”

  She laughed. “No, you silly. For presenting the petitions.”

  “Indeed to Mrs Thatcher—whom else?”

  She now spoke half-jokingly. “I ought to get a hairdo, then, to make way for that posh new hat!” For she really did wonder whether Sandra could possibly fit her in that afternoon without an appointment. “Will you be coming back on the coach with us, dear—you and Simon?”

  “Yes, on one of the coaches: the one you and the boys are in! Can’t see why not! Grief, it will be good to be home again.”

  “Good for us, too. We’ve missed you, Josh.”

  Again, he thought, it didn’t need to be the actual words.

  Not on either side. “And I’ve missed you, Dawnie. Things haven’t always been that good between us, have they? But now we can make a brand new start. Yes?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow’s going to be a new beginning, for all of us.” She sounded both happy and confident. “Five hundred, you say? Well, only at breakfast I did the puzzle in the magazine.” She meant the crossword Paula devised every month for the parish magazine. “And one of the answers was this. Five thousand. Five thousand, Josh! So don’t you think that’s just like God sending us a little message? Telling us not to worry? That everything’s going to work out?”

  “Oh, everything will undoubtedly work out,” agreed Josh. He didn’t add, Although not necessarily in the way we should like it to. But the phrase itself was still a positive one, implying an ultimately right solution, and he used it sincerely, with full awareness of its implication.

  43

  The following day: November 30. They were now on the very last leg of their journey; and word to this effect had clearly got around. People were keen to be in at the kill. It augured well. For the final ten miles or so Simon, Josh and Geraldine had thirteen others marching alongside. It was a long time since they’d been joined by such a number. “A baker’s dozen,” said Josh. “Well, doesn’t that tell us that the yeast is rising! My prophecy? By this afternoon it’s going to overflow the bowl.”

  There was only one coach from Scunthorpe. Thirty-seven travellers in all, including the driver. But added to the sixteen who’d been on foot the total was already over fifty and would barely need to be multiplied by ten. And good heavens, exclaimed Dawn, all the many hundreds she’d seen here practically fighting each other for space! She meant: seen here during the ultimate stage of their journey, in Baker Street and around Marble Arch and along Park Lane. In London—Geraldine agreed, immediately catching on—in London, not just Westminster. What about Trafalgar Square, the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill? Add the worshippers at St Paul’s to the worshippers in the Abbey (and Cathedral, too), add the shoppers in Oxford Street to the shoppers at the Army & Navy, add the rail passengers at Waterloo to those at Victoria;

  Not to forgot the cavernous, bustling coach station only half a mile up the road? And so on and so forth. All right, that whole prodigious catch might take a little longer to land than anyone had allowed for, but what was so special, what was so sacrosanct, about November 30th? The Scunthorpe contingent would doubtl
ess be able to sleep in the coach while everybody else, if necessary, could look for modest accomodation funded by the common purse. And, in all honesty, the first day of December would actually make a better date. Dawn reminded everyone that December was the month in which our Saviour had been born and nobody, not even Josh, who in times gone by would certainly have come up with some fairly crushing response, did anything but nod in acquiescence. (Simon, at that time, was praying in the Abbey.)

  And Geraldine added that, after all, at the beginning there’d been plenty of publicity; now all that people needed was to have their memories jogged and their curiosity refreshed. For now that the time had finally arrived, who wouldn’t be interested to see the effect on Mrs Thatcher of all those petitions about to be handed in? What’s more, there’d be a host of TV cameras in Downing Street. All right again, she would have supplied the media with the wrong date, but in matters of this kind the media wouldn’t quibble (too much) over a delay of twenty-four hours. She ended on an infectiously positive note. It was all so utterly feasible, she said.

  They had their lunch; Simon had come back. The restaurant was large and it definitely became busy following its sudden influx of fifty-three (fifty-two of whom had been standing on the pavement, being addressed through the megaphone and already creating not just a major problem for pedestrians but at the same time no small degree of interest). At the last moment Josh said it might be better if they split up and spread their custom out over five or six other places but no one seemed to greet such a plan with enthusiasm—Simon appeared wholly indifferent—and by then several of the staff had gone to a lot of trouble to get all fifty-three seated; the suggestion was abandoned. Besides, what with the National Gallery and the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert, what with all the other spots where tourists congregated in their thousands, who really needed the few displaced customers from here or the few potential followers from other cafes nearby? (Even if tourists without any strict viewing schedule—and possibly uninformed up to now about what had allegedly taken place in Scunthorpe—might be interested to catch this quirky little insight into what made the British tick?) The fifty-three mostly ate pasta, followed by ice cream with chocolate sauce, then made a choice between coffee and tea. Josh footed the bill. His money was running pretty low.

  While everyone was awaiting the arrival of these hot drinks Simon got up and went to stand behind Josh’s chair, lowering his head and speaking to him softly. “I want to go to check out what it’s like in Downing Street at this time of day and to discover, if I can, when Mrs Thatcher is most likely to be around. So you won’t mind if I leave you here to keep an eye on things?”

  “No, of course not but—”

  “In fact, I don’t know why I ask. It’s you who’ve been keeping an eye on things, anyway, almost from the start—you even more than Geraldine. Don’t imagine I’ve not been aware of it or that I haven’t felt incessantly grateful. As well as astonished!”

  Josh wasn’t sure how to answer but in any case it wouldn’t have been easy to say much, not with Simon’s hands pressing down on his shoulders and, presumably, with no one else being meant to overhear.

  “Don’t forget it’s tomorrow, not today, we’re now interested in. And even if she is there this afternoon—Mrs Thatcher—I doubt if anyone will let you know whether she’s going to be present or not tomorrow.”

  “No, but I shall tell the policeman on duty there’ll be petitions to hand in and of course I’ll give my name and will confirm it’s God’s messenger I represent; so I would think that out of pure courtesy…I don’t mean towards me but towards God…” In spite of the fact he was talking quietly Simon spoke with dignity and his subdued tone suited what he had to say. “If God is doing his work, as obviously we know he is, always has and always will—that should doubtless bring Mrs Thatcher to the door whenever we need to have her there.”

  Characteristically, Josh wondered if even God doing his work could quite accomplish it if the lady weren’t willing: surely the Prime Minister was an exponent of free choice if anybody was. But he refrained from making so trivial a comment.

  “At any rate,” said Simon, “I need to be on my own for a while. It’s all been a bit noisy, this, hasn’t it?”

  “After the relative calm of the wilderness? Yes, indeed it has. We’ll meet you back at the coach, then, or look for you in the Abbey.”

  “Again, Josh, thank you. In the end there could have been nobody better to take charge.”

  The pressure on his shoulders changed to an affectionate squeeze. Momentarily Josh laid his own right hand over Simon’s. Then unhurriedly Simon moved across to the other side of the table, where Dawn and William and Michael were sitting. The pride on Dawn’s face was unmistakable. Her air of happiness, and perhaps also the different way in which her hair was styled, made her look surprisingly good—youthful, pretty. “Obviously,” Simon said, “if it hadn’t been for you three, none of us would be sitting here today.”

  He spoke to them for less than a minute. But it was enough. When he’d moved off, Dawn glanced at Josh as if to tell him life could scarcely be more wonderful.

  Simon then walked across to Geraldine and thanked her, as well, for everything she’d done and for everything she’d wanted to do.

  “Oh, any time!” she replied, swivelling round in her seat and smiling up into his face. “I hope I’m going to be given lots more opportunity!”

  He hesitated. “If only we could have met five years ago…”

  “Yes, that would have been good. But you, better than most, should realize God usually gets his timings right!”

  “Usually?”

  She laughed; she had decided to be brave. “And at present he’s saying it’s absolutely the right time for you to get rid of that beard—it really doesn’t suit you! He’s wondering whether there isn’t a barber nearby whom you can patronize before you pluck up the courage to invite me on a date.”

  He smiled but didn’t answer. It was one of those faintly ironic, rather twisted smiles that lately seemed to have been growing more habitual. But Geraldine didn’t care. Pleased with the effect of her daring, she felt that things were going to turn out as she wanted, although she knew she would have to be patient. She was only sorry that she wouldn’t be the one chiefly in charge of giving him plenty of rest, plenty of good meals, to take that haunted look out of his eyes (albeit eyes frequently ablaze) and to put some of the flesh back onto his bones. She watched as he had brief conversations with Elsie and Mrs Lorrimer, with Dulcie and Alison, then with Paula and Paula’s mother, all of whom were sitting fairly close to one another—she hadn’t met three of them and remembered the name only of Paula. (And she remembered that mainly because of the gentle laughter occasioned by her hymn sheets—how very long ago that seemed, part of a different age!—and because of the chocolate she had given Simon, to take the place of the Kendal Mintcake she had really set her heart on.) She then watched as he made his way back to the spot where he’d commenced his wanderings. At the table where Geraldine would have chosen to be if the initial confusion hadn’t somehow prevented her, there was a vacant chair beside Mrs Madison, the chair on which Simon himself had been sitting; but now, almost as if scared of having to make too much eye contact, he appeared to have grown more comfortable with standing behind the person he addressed. This final conversation was also pretty brief but ended with Simon putting his arms around his mother’s neck and kissing her on the cheek. When he left she turned her head to watch, with ill-concealed anxiety, as he walked out of the restaurant—his having nodded a thank-you to the man and woman who had chiefly served them. In addition to seeing her anxiety Josh thought he saw the sheen of tears.

  Because he had to make two stops along the way, one at a hardware store, the other at a public convenience (and the former being in a side street, he found it difficult to get directions), it took more than half an hour for Simon to reach his destination. But God was doing his work. This afternoon, Mrs Thatcher was indeed at No 1
0—in Simon’s mind it had never been relevant, that talk about tomorrow—and when eventually she was summoned by her staff she did graciously consent to come to the front door.

  Regal. Soignee. Smiling.

  Actually, at this instant, he felt extremely sorry for her…and for everybody else who’d been picked to be a witness; he fleetingly prayed for her, and for them. But it had to be done. These next minutes had to be got through. He hoped he wouldn’t scream. Naturally he prayed that he wouldn’t, that somehow it wouldn’t even be necessary, but as, with shaking hands, he finally managed to strike a match—the first two had broken—before applying it to his wet, still dripping, underwear (quantities of methylated spirit having been poured down both its back and front and onto his jumper and socks as well, but not elsewhere, since he’d had to reduce the risk of its being too easily smelt…as he struck the match before applying it, his thoughts were as much with Ginny as they were with God—for the moment the two were indivisible. In his heart, he was reaching out his hand to Ginny.

  Swimming with William

  A Play in Two Acts

  The action of the play is set during an evening in February 1985. It takes place in the sitting room of the Freemans’ house in Scunthorpe.

  Characters:

  William Freeman…middle-forties.

  Norah Freeman…similar.

  Tom Freeman…seventeen.

  Linda Freeman…nineteen.

  Trevor Lomax…twenty-one.

  Act One

  The time is about 8pm, on a Friday in February. A sitting room.

  Lamps are lit, the curtains drawn. Some five or six armchairs.

  TOM

  (Loose-leaf file on knee) Hey. You know you’re always looking for a chance to shine?