Free Such Men Are Dangerous by Stephen Benatar Page B

ought to be getting the very most out of every fleeting minute, hour and day.
    He turned his bedside lamp on and thought about, as a first step, going to make them both that cup of tea.
    Dawn lay her head back on the pillow and looked towards the ceiling. “The wondrous thing is,” she said—and the note of reproach had entirely disappeared—“that I could sleep. I mean, after I’d just witnessed…”
    Perhaps, then, it wasn’t mere placidity. “It must be the sleep of the innocent,” he told her, gently.
    She turned her face towards him.
    “Oh, Josh, I don’t see how you can fly in the teeth of all the evidence like you do. I really don’t. It’s like when we watched that programme on the Turin Shroud. Only more so. Are you going to spend the whole of your life just running?”
    “Probably.”
    He got out of bed and started pulling his clothes on.
    “Right now,” he said, “I’m going to spend it, at any rate, just walking. Building up to it, you see, in easy stages. Whatever you may think about my present showing I’ve not yet reached the top of my bent.”
    “Oh, but that’s silly. Where can you go at this time?”
    Nowhere. He would have liked to walk to London, before his energy wore off. He got as far as Ashby—two miles? Here he finally acknowledged the uselessness of it all; turned round; feet dragging. He encountered scarcely anyone: a cyclist; an old man in too large an overcoat shuffling along in gym shoes; a very occasional car. The wind had acquired an extra edge. As a last gesture of hopelessness coupled with defiance, he deviated from the road home, trudged recklessly across hilly, hillocky, pitch black common land—“I couldn’t give a fuck, not a fuck, whether I stand or fall!”—found himself, ironically, outside St Matthew’s Vicarage and shuddered violently several times, while continuing to cry out loud at intervals, “I couldn’t give a fuck, not a single fuck!” (He wished that precious, posing, pontificating hypocrite might have heard—and, indeed, if the study hadn’t been at the back of the house, Josh would have seen its light shining through the thin curtains.) On the last stages of his journey home he began to see some daylight. Incredibly, he was relieved to get back into the snugness of his bed. “You stubborn man,” murmured Dawn. “I’m glad you’re back…” Her hand reached out for him. This didn’t often happen. Almost against his will he responded.

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