The Shadow Game by Steve Lewis

debate he’d been having since he was sixteen.
    â€˜And how many deaths over millennia have there been because zealots decided to force their imagined gods on others? Your church was as brutal as any, not to mention the contemptible army of kiddie fiddler priests you seem to have spawned. How can you live with that?’
    The priest lowered his eyes and Dunkley felt a stab of guilt, remembering the kindness the man had showed him.
    â€˜It’s a very fair question and I have no pat answer,’ the old man said. ‘The church is a human institution and like all ourendeavours it is flawed. At times I have despaired of it and its leadership. At times I think our slow death in the West is punishment for our many sins. Yes, the church has done great evil but it has also done great good. And my faith is a different thing. It tells me to hope, even when all seems lost.’
    â€˜Father, you are clearly a good man. Don’t you ever wonder? Don’t you ever doubt?’
    The priest looked around the room at the photos of the fathers now passed to dust.
    â€˜Of course I doubt. As Bertrand Russell said, the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubt. But as I approach death, every day I ask myself just one question: could I have lived a better life?’
    The priest shifted his gaze back to his companion, his almond eyes blazing with intelligence.
    â€˜And my answer to that is yes, of course. But with or without God, in or out of my frail and broken church, I will go to my grave knowing that I mostly did my best and tried to live a life for others. A life where hope always triumphed over despair.’
    His voice softened.
    â€˜And you, Harry Dunkley? If you do not drink your life away you have many years left. How do you intend to spend them?’
    Harry slumped in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, the colour of a day-old newspaper, the paint beginning to crack.
    â€˜I have no god to fall back on. So I have no idea what God’s will is. I only have me and just lately I’m a bit pissed off that I’vebeen letting myself down. I don’t have your luxury of a divinely ordained path.’
    â€˜Son, I like you. But you are chock full of the rote beliefs atheists have about people of faith. To put it in your language you are full of shit. I don’t pray for or expect a roadmap for my life. I have certain gifts and some strong beliefs. My strongest belief is that I have to make the most of those gifts. Harry, God’s will is what you make it.’
    The priest put his hand on Dunkley’s arm. His grip was still strong and there was a fierce urgency in the old man’s eyes.
    â€˜What will you make it?’
    Dunkley exhaled in a long slow breath before answering.
    â€˜I’ve lost faith in the institutions that run our country and the world. I used to believe that journalism was worthwhile and noble, that sunlight was the best antiseptic, that I was uncovering the truth. But I also learned to my great cost that it was an ego trip. As you say, all humans are flawed. I screwed up my marriage and now my daughter won’t talk to me.’
    Gaby, his only child. She was the one person he loved unconditionally, but she had cut him off and how could he blame her? When he was in his prime as a reporter he had all but ignored her and she had not coped well with his public fall from grace. Their last conversation had ended with her stinging retort: ‘You are a pathetic disgrace.’
    He’d tried to reach out to her, but in vain. Six months ago, she’d stopped returning his calls.
    Of all his mistakes and misdemeanours, losing Gaby hit the hardest. How he wished he could hear the gentle arpeggio of her voice extolling his day’s modest achievements.
    He wondered what she was doing now. Did she think of him at all, or was he just refuse locked away in her past?
    Dunkley took