“Well, now, there are three possibilities,” remarked Simon, after a pause. “A, they’re having us on. B, they think their experience was genuine. And C…”
“And C, it was.” Tony, the parish youth worker, two years older than Simon, could easily have been thought the younger, on account of his willowy form.
“Exactly.”
“But why should they be having us on?” Ethel, the oldest member of the group, was in her middle eighties.
“Who knows?” Simon said. “Pure devilment? A practical joke, to test how gullible we are? A way of hitting back at their own mother if they think she’s grown too pious?” He gave a shrug. “What they’re after could be recompense for any number of joint frustrations.”
“Darling,” said Mrs Madison, “stop sounding like a professor.”
“Sorry,” he said, a little curtly and without a smile.
“What kind of frustrations?” asked Jack.
“The fact that their father’s been unemployed for four years and that there’s no money in the house. A feeling they’re lacking in status.”
“Oh, come off it! There must be hundreds of kids in Scunthorpe whose dads are unemployed.”
“There are also hundreds,” put in Tony, “who are having holidays abroad, get ridiculous amounts of pocket money, have home-computers, music-centres, TV in their bedrooms, and expect at least a fifty-pound reward for doing well in their exams. Or sometimes twice as much.”
Ethel had been turning up her hearing-aid. “Do you know something dreadful I was told today? A man down our road was out of work for five months before finally telling his wife. Out every morning at the usual time, back every evening. Drawing and drawing on his savings. At last he just broke down. Well, can you wonder?”
“Actually that’s not uncommon.” Simon bit his lip, then waited for the return of comparative quiet. “But there’s another reason the Heath boys might have wanted to make themselves noticed. You see, it could depend on whether or not they get teased at school. William suffers from a terrible case of acne; it’s really very bad. And physically, too, they’re both quite weedy.”
There came a groan from Tony. “Oh, yes, you six-footer macho types are all the same! You think broad shoulders rock the world.”
“I said weedy, not slender. Sadly, you streamlined calorie-consuming types are all the same! Secretly quite smug.”
“Hear hear to that,” said Alison.
“Anyhow, perhaps you think I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel, but what I’m trying to show is—there could be all kinds of possible motivation.”
“But, darling, you saw them,” said his mother. “Did you receive the impression they were trying to hit back at poor Dawn?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Or that they might have had some other kind of chip on their shoulders?”
“They struck me throughout as completely sincere, likable and convincing.”
Everybody looked at him in some surprise. He himself felt surprised. He really hadn’t meant, or even wanted, to acknowledge quite so much…although he wasn’t altogether sure why not. “Yet this, of course, applies to every con man since Creation.”
“Vicars themselves being particularly prone to it,” suggested Tony.
Simon gave a quick smile. “And in a way they may even have sounded a little too pat. As though at times they were almost feeding one another their lines.”
“‘Oh, Mr Gallagher,’” said Alison. “‘Yes, Mr Shean?’”
“That’s it. There was actually a point when they told me straight out they’d been careful to compare notes.”
“Either very cunning,” remarked Tony, “or very ingenuous.”
“What the hell does ingenuous mean?” asked Jack. “Listen, Simon, this isn’t meant to be disrespectful—”
“Be disrespectful as you like.”
“—but it seems to me a lot of what you’re saying sounds a bit too clever. All I know is, if two boys had the same vision, then something must have triggered it off. And I don’t think God would allow them to make fools of themselves while they were trusting in his name.”
Simon decided neither to question the word ‘vision’—after all, it was one that yesterday he’d used himself—nor the basic assumption which Jack was making, but he still said, “No, that’s too simple. You’re forgetting there are bad spirits in this world, as well as good. You’re forgetting the devil could say, ‘I’m sent by God,’ every bit as easily as I could or you could or anyone.”
“But, Simon, what would be the point?” This was Mr Burgess, one of the bank managers in the town: serious and balding yet with an air of being ten years younger than he was—he was now approaching forty—that confounded the stereotype. “All this message says, fundamentally, is ‘Love thy neighbour.’ What sort of satisfaction would the devil get from that?”
“Well, for one thing, George, he’d most certainly enjoy the idea of decency being mocked. Which is what would happen here. For every person who believed that a bona fide angel had given us a warning, there’d be a thousand others who would jeer not only at the angel but at the whole idea of Christianity—and at the airy-fairy notions of idealists everywhere who seek to change the world. Only they wouldn’t say idealists, they’d say do-gooders. So, you see, it could all be a vast undermining ploy the devil has in mind. Satan, don’t forget, is first and foremost a saboteur.”
“Then it seems we don’t stand any sort of chance?”
“If an angel has come to us from God we stand every sort of chance!”
“But how do we know?”
“We pray about it. Here, tonight, as a group. We test the spirit.”
“You mean, we’ll ask for a sign? Then what’s to tell us that this, too, won’t be coming from Satan?”
“Not asking for a sign. Asking for direction. And when one prays to God it can’t ever be the devil who answers.”
“Why not?”
“Because God wouldn’t allow it. We talk about a father loving and caring. What sort of a father would it be who—?”
Now it was Jack who pounced. “There you are, then! What did I say? About God not allowing two trusting lads to be made fools of in his name?”
“No, you’re wrong!” Simon wasn’t the type who either through weakness or good nature let an opponent mistakenly believe he might have scored a point. “As far as I can make out, just before this happened they weren’t in any kind of contact with God. ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’ God assuredly wouldn’t send you a wolf in answer to prayer. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty all ready to leap out if you strike them as someone worth sticking their fangs into.”
“Okay, then.” Jack gave a lengthy sigh and Dulcie patted his knee reassuringly. “In that case, what are we waiting for? Let’s get him to help us sort out the sheep from the ruddy wolves without wasting any more of his time.”
“May I ask you something?” Mr Guthrie, a short, sandy-haired and slightly timid young man who worked in the haberdashery department at Binn’s, stared at Simon through thick-lensed spectacles. He and George Burgess were the only two in the room who wore suits.
“What is it, Alan?”
“Well, ‘naiveté’. Do you know if it’s spelt right?”
Simon grinned. “Yes, I think it is. Why?”
“It struck me as a little odd, that’s all. I mean, if those two boys were pulling our legs or anything or if anybody were pulling theirs. I’m just not sure it’s a word which…well, which fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds would ever use. And the whole style of that message—what I mean is, we haven’t talked about it yet, have we? Not at all. Do you see what I’m trying to say?”
“Yes, I do. Thank you. That’s a good point.”
7
When, the following afternoon, Simon went back to see the Heaths it was the boys’ father who opened the door. “Sorry you’ve been brought out twice on such a wild-goose c
hase,” said Josh Heath, with a smile. “You’ll note I didn’t say fool’s errand?”
He looked younger than his wife. Or at least his style was more youthful. T-shirt, jeans. sneakers. Also, he wasn’t a tall man but he was lean and muscular. Simon, who wore a sweater under his denim jacket, knew the T-shirt was intended to make this clear.
“Fool’s errand? Yes, I’m grateful for that. What a tan you’ve still got!”
They went into the sitting room. Dawn called the boys from their bedroom, explaining to Simon that even on Fridays they got straight down to their homework. She then offered to put the kettle on.
“We would ask you to stay for a meal…,” she told him.
But Simon said he had an appointment to keep and that anyway he’d just been given a cup of tea. Instantly relaxing (not needing to go into the kitchen and miss possible disclosures) she sat on one of the arms of the sofa and this time it was Michael who, without being asked, pulled round a matching chair.
“Well, then?” Dawn inquired, in a voice that sounded strained. “Have you decided?”
“Yes. I believe these two have been quite amazingly blest.”
“You mean…?” she said. “You mean…?”
Then after a second she clapped her palms together, stood up, sat down, leant over and kissed Michael on the cheek, squeezed William’s hand. There were quick tears running down her face.
“Oh, how silly I am! I feel so happy!”
She stroked her husband on the arm.
The boys just grinned and seemed uncertain where to look. In the end they both gazed warm-cheeked at the floor.
Their father stared at Simon. “You—must—be—joking!”
“No. I promise you I’m not.”
“Oh, you mustn’t mind Josh,” said Dawn, tolerant, laughing as she wiped her eyes. “Sometimes I can’t think how we stay together!”
Simon remembered wondering, on that other occasion he had met her husband, how they had ever got together in the first place.
He still wondered it.
“But please tell us, what made you change your mind?” In her excitement she even touched him now, briefly, on the knee.
“I don’t know, Dawn. It wasn’t exactly that I changed my mind. Let’s simply say—conviction didn’t arrive at once.”
The truth was, there’d been a moment during the previous evening when sudden euphoria had spread like wildfire round the group. (Comparable to what had taken place at Pentecost?) Smilingly, he had ascribed it to a form of mass hysteria but if so it was one to which he himself had finally succumbed. He had experienced a warm feeling of love for those eleven people; and, along with it, a sense of deep tranquility. Enjoyable, of course—though he had warned himself it couldn’t last.
And had been proved wrong. Had been attempting all day to talk himself out of an attitude which he believed to be so very weakly based. It was a transference of responsibility from mind to heart and he was by no means sure he could respect it. But it had happened.
Dawn nodded, reverently.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Part of the miracle.”
“Part of the hogwash,” said her husband, agreeably.
She frowned at him and shook her head.
“Oh, but very entertaining hogwash,” he conceded. “In fact, I’m totally enthralled. So tell us, vicar. What’s the next step?”
“The next series of steps? Why, working out how best to spread the message.”
“But surely that’s more straightforward than you make it sound? Here’s what to do. You contact the Sun.”
They held each other’s gaze. “A nine days’ wonder wasn’t wholly what I had in mind.”
“I follow. You want to prolong it a little, find yourself some laid-back guy who could start outside Binn’s in the morning, with a megaphone and a soapbox and a sandwich board?”
“Well, certainly that would be one approach. Though of course when you read about the Old Testament prophets, what interesting fact always occurs to you?” (Josh looked instantly ready to reply but Simon didn’t give him the opportunity.) “That they never spoke out in the market place. They went to the king and the courtiers.”
“What a relief, then, we still have a monarchy?”
“Or an Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“Mit courtiers?”
“Certainly mit courtiers. With two, indeed, right here at home: the Bishops of Lincoln and Grimsby. Naturally, I shall go to them first.”
William said: “It’s likely to be a slow business, then?”
“You see, he told us it was urgent.” Michael sounded similarly disappointed.
“I realize that. But rest assured: this matter will receive priority. From all concerned. And just remind yourselves of something. God knows about bureaucracy. A message would be pointless, Bill, if we weren’t going to have the time in which to spread it.”
“But you’re sure he doesn’t mean us simply to go to the papers, like Dad suggested?”
“Yes. Quite sure.”
“Why would it be a nine days’ wonder?”
“Because it wouldn’t have the authority of the Church behind it. And if people begin by holding it cheap, no amount of endorsement later on is going to compensate. You wouldn’t even get endorsement later on. The Church would treat it no more seriously than anybody else.”
“So easily influenced?” bemoaned Josh.
“But why can’t you go to the Archbishop direct?”
“Because he, too, is only human. He, too, is going to need convincing. By the people closest to him, whose judgment he respects.”
“God will convince him,” said Dawn.
“Yes, but God may wish to do so through advisers,” responded Simon, every bit as firmly.
“Why?”
“Who knows? But you could just as easily ask why the angel who came to your sons didn’t go straight to the Archbishop.”
“Or straight to you,” suggested Michael.
Josh stretched himself, happily. “Of course, you can’t be wholly sure, can you, that he didn’t in fact pop in on His Grace? Remember, now: the time was about four. He might have thought he’d get a classier tea at Lambeth Palace than either here or even, with respect, at the vicarage. Or, again, couldn’t London be in the jurisdiction of some different angel? Yes, that might be the answer: the beat, let’s say, of the Islington Angel. Perhaps there’s a plethora of angels. All sorts of exciting possibilities.”
Simon laughed with genuine enjoyment; realized it would have been more tactful not to, when he glanced at Dawn. Probably only St Paul’s strict injunctions on womanhood had prevented her from interrupting, or from rebuking her husband a moment ago when he had stretched.
Josh became more serious. It might well have been from kindness.
“And after you’ve been to see the home team, what then?”
“Well, next I’ll approach those experts in the Church of England who have special knowledge of mystical experiences and/or of nuclear weapons.” He smiled. “I’d chiefly want to interest those sceptical about the first and in favour of the second. To win some of them to our side would wonderfully strengthen our position.”
“You talk as though it needed strengthening,” said Dawn. Unfairly, Simon found the woman of faith more irritating than the man without it. He said:
“I know we’re going to win through eventually. I just don’t believe it will be easy.”
“What happens,” asked William, “if in the end the Archbishop still isn’t convinced?”
“He will be,” stated Dawn.
“Yes, your mother’s right. It can’t be God’s will for him not to be.” Simon paused. “Unless, of course, he has some other purpose in mind—God, that is—at which we can’t begin to guess.”
Josh was surveying his fingernails.
“Like, you mean, keeping himself indefinitely amused? And us, as well: we lucky ones who can appreciate the comedy. Do you know something, vicar? I begin for the first time to feel a spiritual lack
in my life. This, surely, would be a God after my own heart.”
“Excuse me.” Dawn, whom even St Paul couldn’t always hold in check, stood up and left the room.
“Oh dear. Might I have spoken out of turn?” Josh gave a chastened grin. “Poor old Dawnie; she could never take being ribbed.”
“Then why do you think you can change her?”
“Why do you think I can change myself?”
“I’m not sure if I do. I don’t feel that you want to.”
“Yet supposing I did?”
“You implied just now you couldn’t.”
“But how defeatist! Especially when proceeding from a gentleman of the cloth!”
“Well, can a leopard change his spots?”
“Worse and worse! And with a friendly sort of smile, as well! You seem almost—what do you seem?—glad.”
Simon ignored this. “If you were to call on outside help, of course, then it could be altogether different. But that goes without saying.”
“Says he, having said it. What was it you had in mind? A psychiatrist?”
“No, not exactly.”
“I know it wasn’t. You were thinking of That Big Psychiatrist in the Sky.”
“Well, certainly he is that, amongst other things. Because, although I talk of change, what I really mean is liberation.” Or am I waffling, he thought.
Josh now stretched out his legs, lifting them off the ground a little; then crossed them at the ankles.
“Can you liberate people into a sense of humour?” he asked, lazily.
Simon stood up. “Yes, I believe so; if that’s something truly basic to a full life.”
“Oh, it is. Let me assure you. It is.”
“You’re the authority, are you?”
Josh laughed. “Now that was a very underhand remark.” He applied to his sons, still sitting on the sofa. “Would you two call a jibe like that quite worthy of our vicar?”
Simon had forgotten the presence of the boys and felt a little awkward at having, however indirectly, discussed their mother in front of them. Now, as he took his leave, he promised that he’d keep them posted. “And before long you’ll be able to bore everybody rigid with every detail of all this. But not yet, remember.” In the tiny hallway he called goodbye to Dawn. She came to the kitchen door, with a polite smile and a word of thanks but in a rather subdued manner. “Cheer up,” said Josh. “Your children are going to make history and I think you’ve found yourselves the perfect champion.”
Such Men Are Dangerous Page 4
