Such Men Are Dangerous (32 page)

He eventually explained why. In part.

“A vow is a vow and I’ve made an unbreakable one.”

“One needn’t ask to whom,” commented Josh.

“Yes, directly to God of course, but indirectly to the world itself. A vow that will show how very much we
care
! Somebody has to show his appreciation of God’s message. Somebody has to show the lengths he’ll go to, to express his acceptance of its truth. It’s really now or never and there’s got to be
some
effective way in which to make the government give us its full attention.”

“We ought to make contact with the women of Greenham Common!” declared Geraldine. This wasn’t wholly in response to Simon’s last remark but was certainly an offshoot.

“The women of Greenham Common ought to make contact with
us
!”

“Yes. True.”

“There’s absolutely no alternative. It’s utterly crucial we renounce Trident! Then with all those billions saved we have to get rid of disease and starvation in the Third World; eliminate poverty over here. That’ll be a start. Obviously, we shan’t get Utopia in the first week.”

If Margaret Thatcher stayed in charge, reflected Josh, we shouldn’t get it in the first decade—or century.

Simon guessed what he was thinking.

“If, in the face of everything we do, the government remains obdurate (although I can hardly believe it will: despite all outside differences and discontents it
is
made up of well-intentioned people, many of them religious) then the way forward will clearly be to work on basic popular opinion. We’re a democracy, remember. And what’s more, unless angels have indeed appeared in other countries, Britain will patently have been chosen to lead the field.” Simon smiled, a little twistedly. “That is an honour, you understand.”

Josh returned the smile. “Arrogant, I know, but other visitations…well, I’m sure we’d be aware of them in the same way that Gabriel’s visit to
Scunthorpe
—so one hears—has been reported all across the globe.”

“In that case, leading the field will plainly mean leading the world. Leading through example.”

Neither Josh nor Geraldine could help remembering that old and well-known argument: that if Britain relinquished her nuclear deterrents, and even managed to get America and theWest to follow suit, where would that then leave them if countries like Russia, say, or Iran or Iraq, decided to retain (or in some cases
develop
) their own weapons of war.

But they had long since realized something. Simon was intractable in matters such as this. He had the idealist’s viewpoint, the fanatic’s viewpoint, and such viewpoints were invariably and inevitably simplistic. Blinkered.

Yet they also realized that they themselves had now come to share this viewpoint—even if the renunciations in question should prove flagrantly unilateral. How extraordinary was that!

“Anyway, this vow of yours?” asked Josh. “What does it entail?”

“That, I can’t go into.”

“I suppose you’re not thinking you might kill yourself, as a way to point a moral?” Though the question was put playfully it proceeded from a serious foundation. “‘Vicar in Angel Controversy Leaves Poignant Suicide Note…to Show How Very Much He Cared’?”

“Stop it, you’re breaking my heart,” said Simon.

“I’m relieved to hear you say so!”

“All I can tell you is this. I’ve given my word. And it’s a promise there’s to be no going back on. Well, I mean, apart from one—now rather unlikely—eventuality.”

“Which is?”

“That when we present ourselves in Downing Street on November 30
^th
it has to be with five hundred sympathizers. At the very least.”

“Five hundred?”

“Yes.”

“Specifics laid down by God or offered by yourself?”

Again Josh was speaking playfully but over the days that followed he and Geraldine conferred increasingly about the true meaning of Simon’s words.
Could
it be an intent to kill himself which he’d implied? At moments when they felt rested they managed to shrug off such an idea, almost to laugh at it, but when they felt tired they couldn’t see what else he could have had in mind. And Simon’s condition seemed unstable enough to warrant such concern. Perhaps he’d always been a zealot. But now the zealotry was undisguised and unmistakable, He had become a different person.

Therefore the two of them, Geraldine and Josh, each immensely grateful to have the backup of the other, made it their mission to be vigilant—especially when they went into a chemist’s for their TCP or soap or plasters, or into corner stores and supermarkets, anywhere, indeed, that might sell aspirin or the like.

But frequently he had a headache. (Frequently they all had.) How could they deny him Paracetemol?

“Whatever he says, we need another miracle. Are you listening, Lord?” Josh could now use such words without a trace of mockery. Humour, yes. Mockery, no. “And would it honestly require a miracle to raise just five hundred supporters? Isn’t there a company called Rent-a-Crowd? Haven’t I read that film studios sometimes use it?”

Geraldine wasn’t sure. She’d imagined, maybe wrongly, that even humble extras had to belong to Equity.

But anyhow, as November 30
^th
approached, they were now only forty, thirty, twenty miles from London. Twelve! Ten! Surely people could be persuaded to walk a mere ten miles?

Bribed, even—Josh still had money. And a distance that short could easily be covered in a morning: with everyone home again that very afternoon: nobody’s job at risk! And apart from the thought of bringing good to the world there’d be company and exercise—something to talk about for weeks—maybe a picture in the papers! Altruism
and
adventure. Any bribes considered, said Josh, should be coming in the opposite direction.

Five hundred supporters?

Five hundred was
nothing
!

But what in God’s name was the matter with everyone? By November 29
^th
Josh was going into pubs on his own, into shops and cafes on his own—Geraldine was doing the same—as well as continuing to knock on doors on his own. Geraldine and he would usually canvass opposite sides of the street, these days more and more often leaving Simon to himself, to his prayers and meditation. By now they were offering an inducement of twenty pounds to almost anyone they met. Yet nobody at this point was taking either of them very seriously.

And whenever Simon had indeed been coaxed into being a little less ‘shut down’ as Geraldine had termed it (although certainly not to him) and into resuming his interaction with strangers, Josh kept suggesting he should please get his hair cut as he himself had done (by Geraldine) - or, at the very least,
washed
—and that he should also begin to shave again; but he couldn’t suggest he put some weight back on or get rid of that frequently rather scary look in his eye. Simon had developed into what Josh had started to think of as a John-the-Baptist figure, gaunt and staring and unkempt, even to the extent that his two disciples sometimes did their best to keep him in the background, telling him to take time off, rest and recoup his strength. Or at any rate his equilibrium…although, again, they didn’t call it that.

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;