Free The Children of Men by P. D. James Page A

twilight, a seductively peaceful scene, cunningly shot and lit.
    I said: “I’m not attracted to gregarious death. Suicide should be like sex, a private activity. If we want to kill ourselves, the means are always at hand, so why not do it comfortably in one’s own bed? I would prefer to make my quietus with a bare bodkin.”
    Jasper said: “Oh, I don’t know, there are people who like to make an occasion of these rites of passage. It’s happening in one form or another all over the world. I suppose there’s comfort in numbers, in ceremony. And their survivors get this pension from the State. Not exactly a pittance either, is it? No, I think I can see the attraction. Hilda was talking about it the other day.”
    I thought that unlikely. I could imagine what the Hilda I had known would have thought of such a public exhibition of sacrifice and emotion. She had been a formidable academic in her day, cleverer, people said, than her husband, her sharp tongue venomous in his defence. After her marriage she taught and published less, talent and personality diminished by the appalling subservience of love.
    Before leaving, I said: “It looks as if you could do with extra help. Why not apply for a couple of Sojourners? Surely you’d qualify.”
    He dismissed the idea. “I don’t think I want strangers here, particularly not Sojourners. I don’t trust those people. It’s asking to get murdered under my own roof. And most of them don’t know what a day’s work means. They’re better used mending the roads, cleaning the sewersand collecting the rubbish, jobs where they can be kept under supervision.”
    I said: “The domestic workers are very carefully selected.”
    “Perhaps, but I don’t want them.”
    I managed to get away without making any promises. On the drive back to Oxford I pondered how to frustrate Jasper’s determination. He was, after all, used to getting his own way. It looks as if the thirty-year-old bill for benefits received, the special coaching, the expensive dinners, the theatre and opera tickets, is belatedly being presented. But the thought of sharing St. John Street, of the violation of privacy, of my increasing responsibility for a difficult old man, repels me. I owe Jasper a great deal, but I don’t owe him that.
    Driving into the city, I saw a queue about a hundred yards long outside the Examination Schools. It was an orderly, well-dressed crowd, old and middle-aged, but with more women than men. They stood waiting quietly and patiently with that air of complicity, controlled anticipation and lack of anxiety which characterizes a queue where everyone has a ticket, entry is assured and there is a sanguine expectation that the entertainment will be worth the wait. For a moment I was puzzled, then remembered: Rosie McClure, the evangelist, is in town. I should have realized at once; the advertisements have been prominent enough. Rosie is the latest and most successful of the television performers who sell salvation and do very well out of a commodity which is always in demand and which costs them nothing to supply. For the first two years after Omega we had Roaring Roger and his sidekick, Soapy Sam, and Roger still has a following for his weekly TV slot. He was—still is—a natural and powerful orator, a huge man, white-bearded, consciously moulding himself on the popular idea of an Old Testament prophet, pouring out his comminations in a powerful voice curiously given increased authority by its trace of a Northern Ireland accent. His message is simple if unoriginal: Man’s infertility is God’s punishment for his disobedience, his sinfulness. Only repentance can appease the Almighty’s rightful displeasure, and repentance is best demonstrated by a generous contribution towards Roaring Roger’s campaign expenses. He himself never touts for cash; that remains the job of Soapy Sam. They were initially an extraordinarily effective pair and their large house on Kingston Hill is the solid