Such Men Are Dangerous Read Online Free PDF Page A

declaring that it was for the first time in months; and then, although Simon wasn’t in the least offended, realized the excuse itself could need excusing.
    This worried her for a bit—until she saw it didn’t matter. Tonight, nothing mattered. Her sons had been picked out by God for a glorious revelation and whatever Mr Mad—, whatever Simon, might have said earlier about queer tricks of the mind, now he would recognize the truth of it, simply by listening. Soon the whole of Scunthorpe would recognize the truth of it; the whole of Humberside; the whole of England.
    She had the tea and biscuits waiting.
    Both her boys sat on the sofa: William wearing jeans and jumper, Michael in pyjamas and dressing gown. William had acne. Michael wore a brace across his teeth. Each appeared small for his age. Simon, who’d have sworn he had never seen either of them before, thought they looked intelligent.
    There was about them an air of quiet excitement. Naturally.
    “Stand up,” whispered Dawn. “Stand up and shake hands with the vicar.”
    The sofa was part of a three-piece suite whose chairs also looked towards the television—Simon asked if he might pull one round. Needlessly, but likably, William stood up again and helped him. They drank their tea and Dawn chattered about St Bernadette: recently they’d seen the film and Dawn offered this fact itself as though it might be significant, a form of preparation. She asked him vaguely about Fatima. Simon answered her questions as best he could but wondered whether he ought to be interviewing the boys individually and without their mother. Yet he didn’t want to seem like a policeman, and besides, if they were meaning to deceive him, they’d have got all the details worked out beforehand. He asked about school. They said they didn’t see themselves as being in any way unusual. They found religious education boring, apart from the occasional debate. (Yes, they’d both been confirmed; when Mr Apsbury was vicar.) In English they were thought to have strong imaginations. William was fairly interested in politics, Michael wasn’t. Simon didn’t know if he’d hoped to deduce anything of value from this line of questioning.
    “What were you talking about as you came away from school?”
    They listed a few things, none of them obviously relevant to heavenly visits.
    Of the two or three minutes prior to their encounter they could remember nothing.
    “All right. When you saw the angel what can you remember then?”
    Simon had to prompt them further.
    “Did you feel surprise? Astonishment? Fear?”
    “No,” said William. “It seemed…it sounds silly…just natural.”
    “How do you mean, natural?”
    “Like meeting somebody you knew.”
    “And liked,” added Michael.
    “I see. Well, what happened then? How did he greet you?”
    William shrugged.
    “He said hi, asked how we were, didn’t want to shake hands or anything. Knew our names. Called us Mick and Bill, the way most people do.”
    “Did he tell you his own name?”
    “No.”
    “You automatically assumed he was an angel?”
    “Not really. It was Mum who did that. To us he was only a person dressed in white.”
    “Because he didn’t have any wings, you see,” said Michael. “I thought at first it might be Jesus.”
    Dawn, who was being good about not interrupting, made a slight movement, indicative of worry.
    Michael turned towards it, briefly. “But then I changed my mind,” he said. “Because he didn’t have a beard, either.”
    “So he could almost have been just an ordinary man, you’re saying, dressed in—what—a robe? Sandals?”
    “Except there was all this brightness which shone round him,” agreed William. Simon had forgotten about the light.
    “But you didn’t need to screw your eyes up?”
    “No, I don’t think so. Did we, Mick?”
    “ I didn’t. And he hadn’t got sandals. I remember wondering about the soles of his feet: whether they’d be dirty or not. Or maybe I only thought