Famine

One

He was crossing the red-asphalt yard in front of the farmhouse when he heard a car-horn blaring from the direction of the north-west gate. He shifted the saddle he was carrying to his right arm and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the dazzling scarlet glare of the setting sun. A Jeep Wagoneer was bouncing along the track towards him, stirring up a high trail of shining dust, and whoever was driving it was in enough of a panic to ignore South Burlington Farm’s strict 5 mph speed limit.

He laid the saddle down on the ground as the Jeep squealed and bucked to a stop in front of him. The door swung open and out scrambled his cereal-crop manager, Willard Noakes, as quickly as if the Jeep were about to explode. He was one of those skinny, awkward, jerky kind of people, Willard Noakes, and Season had once compared him to a Swiss army knife. ‘He seems to have so many arms and legs. He can open a door, and light a cigarette, and knock over a mug of coffee, and scratch his head, all at one time,’ she had laughed.

But there was nothing funny or awkward about the way Willard hurried across to him now. Willard’s bony, sun-leathered face was smudged with dirt and there was dust in his walrus moustache. He said: ‘Ed, you’d best come quick. And I mean quick. It’s something real serious.’

‘What’s wrong, Willard?’ Ed asked him. ‘You came down that track like Evel Knievel.’

‘I’m sorry, Ed. But it’s something you got to see.’

‘An accident? Someone hurt?’

‘Well, you could call it some kind of accident, although I’m darned if I know what sort. And if anybody’s going to get themselves hurt, it’s going to be you.’

‘Okay.’ Ed raised his arm and beckoned to one of his engineering hands, who was hunkered outside of the garage, cleaning out a fuel-oil pump. The man laid down his tools and came across the yard, wiping his hands on a rag.

‘You wanted something, Mr Hardesty?’

‘Yes, please, Ben. Take this saddle into the house for me, would you, and make sure it’s hung up right. And tell Mrs Hardesty I might be a half-hour late.’

‘Sure thing, Mr Hardesty.’

Ed climbed up into the Jeep’s passenger seat while Willard started the engine. They swung around the yard and then headed back towards the north-west gate, past the stables and the garages, and out through the white-painted fence.

The Jeep’s FM radio was playing Coward of the County, almost inaudibly. Ed reached across and switched it off.

‘You want to tell me what’s wrong?’ he asked Willard.

Willard glanced at him. They were driving along the wide dusty track that ran beside one of their finest stands of shellbark hickories, and then out across the twenty-three thousand acre expanse of South Burlington’s northern wheatfields. The sun was almost melted away now, except for one smouldering crimson crescent and the miles of ripening wheat appeared to be an odd bright pink.

‘I don’t know,’ said Willard, unhappily. ‘I think maybe you’d better see it for yourself. I don’t drink I’m competent to judge.’

‘You’re not competent? How competent do you think I am?’ demanded Ed. ‘You’ve been growing wheat for nearly forty years, and all I’ve been doing is sitting on my butt in a stuffy New York office, telling little old ladies how to salt away their surplus dollars for a rainy day.’

Willard thought about that and then shrugged. ‘All I can say is. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’ve never even heard about anything like it before. But I’m not asking you to take a look at it because I think you might know what it is. I’m sine you won’t. I’m asking you to take a look at it because it’s your farm.’

‘Is it the crops?’

Willard nodded. ‘I can’t even describe it, Ed. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I mean that. Forty years or not.’

The Jeep sped them across the flat, early-evening landscape. The sky faded gradually from a florid rose-colour to a dusky ceramic blue and a cold and creamy moon hung above the horizon. Ed sat sideways in his seat, his arm slung over the back, watching his fields revolve slowly around him.

His fields. He still couldn’t quite believe it. The idea that he actually owned all eighty-five thousand acres of South Burlington Farm – the idea that each handful of dirt he could dig his fingers into for more than ten miles was his own personal property – it all seemed like a strange waking fantasy.

South Burlington had always been his father’s, by ownership and by deed and by that special kind of title that only a lifetime of sweat and pain and sheer arrogance can earn. His father, Dan Hardesty, had been short, stocky, and pugnacious, a tough little bustling pig in Levis. He had built his farm by aggressive mechanisation, shrewd marketing, ruthless buying of agricultural real-estate, and by never sleeping for more than four hours a night.

To Ed, and to Ed’s mother, and to Ed’s older brother Michael, the old man had seemed to be immortal and indestructible and it was only when he had collapsed from a stroke in the middle of last year’s harvesting, felled in one of his own fields under a sky like boiling blue ink, that the family had come to understand at last that he wasn’t going to live for ever. Dan Hardesty, the creator of South Burlington Farm, the wealthiest, toughest man in Kingman County, Kansas, was only days away from death, and someone was going to have to take over.

Michael, as stubby and proud as his father, had been the legal and natural successor. During his teenage years, Michael had stayed on the farm, learning the modem and computerised business of growing wheat, while Ed, who was tall and wiry and thoughtful, like his maternal grandfather, gravitated away from the farm, and then the county, and eventually, the state. In the years of Kennedy and Johnson, flower-power and Vietnam, Ed had gone to Kansas University in Manhattan, Kansas, on a financial study course and then to Columbia Business College, and eventually made his way to New York, where he had been taken on by a smart new investment corporation called Blyth, Thalberg & Wong.

As a boy, Ed had always disliked the farm – maybe for no other reason than he knew it was never going to be his. The farm was all dust and heat and just like his father had been demanding of his mother, he had been equally demanding of Ed, as if he was trying to test him, and maybe break him. Whenever Ed had tried to slip out on a date with one of the girls from the neighbouring farms, or from town, his father had invariably caught him at the gate and given him some last-minute chore like folding sacks or sweeping up dust, so that if he ever made it to the girl’s house, he was always at least an hour late and perspiring, and prickly as a scarecrow with wheat chaff. One pretty and unkind young girl had nicknamed him Li’l Abner.

On the day before Dan Hardesty’s funeral, however, as the family were solemnly gathered on the farm to pay their last respects to the man who had built their lives for them, Ed’s whole existence had been turned upside down. Michael had been obliged to drive over to Wichita late in the afternoon for an urgent meeting with the bank. On the way back, just after midnight, he had tried to overtake a truck on route 54 where it crossed the South Ninnescah River, and he had failed to see another car coming towards him in the mist. The Kansas Highway Patrol had estimated the collision speed to be 125 mph, head-on.

Henry Pollock, the bald and breathy family accountant, had taken Ed aside after his father’s burial and said: ‘If you want South Burlington, son, it’s all yours. You only have to say the word.’

He remembered glancing across towards Season, who had been standing a little way away from the family crowd in her black veil and her black suit like a beautiful and elegant raven; and he remembered thinking – she knows that Pollock’s offering me the farm, and she knows that I’m going to have to say yes. Why doesn’t she come across and support me? Why doesn’t she take my arm and say it’s all right?

Well, he knew now why she hadn’t, he thought to himself, as Willard drove the Jeep across the pale reaches of ripening wheat. He sure knew now.

Willard switched on the Jeep’s headlights. ‘The worst of it’s just about a half-mile up ahead, right over there, to the left. Do you mind if I take her staight across the wheat?’

‘If you have to,’ Ed told him. His father had always gone apoplectic with fury if he found tyre-tracks across the fields, and Ed had tried to keep the same rule about respecting the crops. There was only one way to run a farm like South Burlington, and that was efficient and hard, and with no favours to anyone. He sat uncomfortably in his seat, while Willard veered off the road and drove through the tall, rustling crops.

‘I don’t make a habit of this, Ed, I can tell you,’ said Willard, as if he sensed his employer’s discomfort.

Ed didn’t answer, and for a short while there was nothing but the whining sound of the Jeep’s transmission, the pattering of wheat ears on the bodywork and the occasional tap of a moth on the windshield. Ed thought: if you could drive a car into the ocean, this is what it would be like.

Willard was leaning forward in his seat now and straining his eyes to see where he was. Eventually, a white marker stick appeared through the twilight and a flashlight was waved at them. Willard turned the Jeep in a semi-circle and stopped it. They climbed out into the warm, breezy night.

‘Hi, Mr Hardesty,’ said the man with the flashlight. ‘Glad you could make it so quick.’

‘Hi, Jack,’ said Ed. ‘Willard just caught me going into supper. What goes on here?’

Jack Marowitz was one of Ed’s senior farm managers. He was young – only twenty-eight – but he had a silo-full of honours from the Iowa State University of Science and Technology in the agricultural uses of advanced chemistry, automation and computer techniques. It was Jack’s job to make sure that what grew in the fields came out of those fields in optimum condition and was delivered to the right place at exactly the right moment Jack could plan the harvesting of ten thousand acres down to the last half-hour.

He was quiet, almost diffident, with a thick brown head of hair and Coke-bottle glasses, but Ed liked him because he didn’t rant and rave and he did his job well.

Jack held up an ear of wheat in the palm of his hand and directed his flashlight on it.

‘What do you make of this?’ he asked Ed. Ed peered at it closely, arid then poked it with his finger.

‘It’s rotten,’ he said. ‘The whole damned thing’s rotten.’

The ear of wheat was blackened and every grain inside it was dark and slimy with decay. Ed took it out of Jack’s hand and sniffed it, and he could smell a distinctly sour odour, like whisky mash.

‘It appears to me like some kind of blight,’ said Jack. ‘The only trouble is, what kind? It certainly isn’t rust, arid it sure as hell isn’t smut.’

Ed stood straight and looked around. ‘How much of the crop’s been affected?’ he asked. ‘Maybe it’s just some localised soil complaint. Maybe these seeds weren’t dressed.’

‘Well, that’s the problem,’ put in Willard. ‘And that’s why I wanted you to come take a look for yourself. It covers something like five acres at the moment, but it’s spreading.’

Ed took the flashlight from Jack and walked a little way out into the wheat. He shone the beam this way and that, quickly, and every way he shone it, he saw the same thing. The ears of wheat were drooping on their stalks and they were all dark brown with decay. The smell of sourness was carried on the breeze, and under the light of that pale and emotionless moon, silently suspended on the horizon, Ed felt as if the world had subtly changed position on its axis, as if things would never be quite the same again.

‘You never saw anything like this at Ames?’ he asked Jack, switching off the flashlight and walking back.

‘Nothing at all. And, believe me, I saw some pretty grotesque stuff.’

‘When did you spot it?’

‘Round about two this afternoon,’ Willard explained. ‘We were making out the harvesting rota, just along the track there-a-ways. I was standing on the roof of the Jeep, looking around to see how the crops were lying, what with all those winds we’ve been having and all – and I could see a dark patch from the road. At first I thought it was the shadow from a cloud. But when it didn’t move, like the other shadows did – well, then I knew there was something wrong.’

Two this afternoon?’ asked Ed. ‘It’s only eight now. How can you tell if it’s spreading?’

Jack cleared his throat. ‘At two this afternoon, it was only covering two to three acres.’

‘What do you mean? You mean it’s spread two acres in six hours? That’s crazy.’

Willard’s expression was indistinguishable in the dusk, but Ed could tell from the tone of his voice that he was embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Ed. We didn’t measure exactly, or nothing like that. But it seems like it’s going through the wheat like some kind of a slow fire.’

Ed stood silent for a while, his hand over his mouth, staring at the dark patch of decaying wheat in the middle of his field. If the blight could spread at the rate of two acres in six hours, that meant it could eat up eight acres a day at the very least. The danger was that as the circumference of the blighted area increased, so the speed at which the disease burned up his crops would increase. Willard was right. It was just like a slow fire.

‘Let’s get in the Jeep,’ Ed suggested at last. ‘Then let’s circle the affected wheat and see how much of a problem we’ve got on our hands. I want to watch this blight in action. I want to see it actually spreading.’

They climbed into the Wagoneer, and Willard started up the engine.

‘Make sure you only drive over unblighted wheat,’ Ed told him. ‘If it’s any kind of a fungus, I don’t want it spread around the farm on the tyres of your Jeep.’

Willard nodded and backed up a few feet before turning the wheel and taking the Jeep in a slow, bumpy circle around the darkened edge of the crops. Ed reached into the pocket of his red plaid shirt and took out a pack of small cigars. He stuck one between his lips without offering them around. He knew that neither Willard nor Jack smoked, although Willard had been known to make short work of a half-bottle of Old Grandad.

Jack said, ‘It must be some kind of airborne fungus. Otherwise, it couldn’t spread so damned fast. But the question is – what made it start here? And where did it come from?’

‘You haven’t had any reports of it elsewhere on the farm, have you?’ asked Ed.

‘Not so far. But I’ve been kind of incommunicado today. My walkie-talkie’s been on the fritz for a week, and I put it in for repair.’

‘I think we’d better take the chopper out at first light, and see if there’s any more of it,’ said Ed. ‘If it’s spreading as fast as you say it is, we could finish up with only half a crop, or maybe no crop at all.’

He turned around to Jack, who was sitting in the back seat. Jack gave him an uneasy grin, almost as if the blight was his fault.

‘You’ve taken samples, I suppose?’ said Ed.

Jack nodded. ‘I took about twenty or thirty while Willard was going down to the farm to get you. I’ll try to analyse some of them myself, but the rest of them can go to Dr Benson, down at the State Agricultural Laboratory.’

‘You think Benson’s capable of finding out what it is?’

‘He’s as capable as anyone. I mean, sure, he’s a little eccentric, but there’s nothing wrong with his technique. He isolated that seed fungus way before the Federal people came up with anything.’

‘All right,’ said Ed. ‘But I don’t want to have to wait for a week while he fiddles around with crackpot theories, the way we had to with that boosted fertiliser.’

‘I’ll tell him to play it straight.’

‘And sober, I hope.’

‘Sure.’

They had reached the crest of a gentle rise in the ground, and now, by the light of the moon, they were looking down on the five-mile slope that took the northern wheatfields of South Burlington as far as the Mystic River, a tributary of the South River, itself a tributary of the South Ninnescah. Ed felt the skin on the back of his neck tingle at what he saw. Across the silvery wheat, a dark corroded stain had already spread for a mile in each direction, and westwards it reached as far as he could see.

He touched Willard’s arm and whispered, ‘Stop.’ Then, when the Jeep was halted, he climbed down into the wheat and stood there silent, unmoving, like the witness to an accident which he was helpless to prevent.

Willard and Jack watched him as he knelt down and studied the ears of wheat all around him. Some were blighted, some were still clear. But even as he watched them, the clear wheat gradually began to darken, and within minutes it was as rotten as the rest. He stayed where he was for a while, and then he stood up and came back to the Jeep.

‘What do you think if we burn a circle around it?’ he asked Willard. ‘Isolate it, like a fire with a firebreak?’

‘We could try,’ said Willard. ‘Do you want to go back to the farm and round up the men?’

Jack said: ‘If the blight is airborne, which I think it is, then clearing a firebreak really isn’t going to do much good. The wind’s erratic tonight, west to north-west. It’s going to spread the fungus all over the farm before you can do anything worthwhile about it.’

Ed looked at him. ‘Have you got a better idea?’ he asked. He tried to control the sharpness in his voice, but it was difficult. His father had always taught him that it was better to do something than nothing, and he knew just what Jack would have suggested. Sitting on their backsides waiting for the laboratory report, while the whole eighty-five thousand acres turned black all around them.

‘We could try spraying,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe a dose of Twenty-four D would do it.’

‘Oh yes, and who’s going to fly a crop-duster at night? And what are we going to say to the health authorities, when they find that the fungicide levels in our grain are ten per cent higher than anybody else’s? We might just as well set fire to the whole damned farm, or let it go rot.’

‘Ed – there’s no need to lose your cool,’ said Willard, gently. ‘I’ll try anything you say. But even if we wait until morning, we’re only going to lose a fraction of the total crop. I think the best answer is to leave it alone until we have some reasonable idea of what it is.’

‘And supposing nobody can find out? Even you, Jack, or your eccentric Dr Benson?’

Willard tugged at his moustache. ‘They’re just darn well going to have to find out. That’s all. I’ve put too much of my life into South Burlington Farm to see a whole year’s wheat harvest go bad, and Jack knows that. Don’t you. Jack?’

‘We’ll isolate this blight, don’t you worry,’ said Jack. ‘I know it’s serious, but I’m going to take it back to the farm right now and spend some time on it and Kerry can run some samples over to Wichita first thing in the morning.’ Ed stared out at the acres and acres of drooping black wheat. ‘You really don’t believe that a firebreak would hold it back?’ he asked, almost as if he was speaking to himself.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Jack. ‘I just think you’d be using up energy and manpower and money for no good reason.’ Ed rubbed his eyes. ‘Okay, then,’ he said, ‘Let’s get back. I’d like to put a call in to Charlie Warburg and see if we can claim some compensation for any profits we lose. Henry Pollock ought to be told, too.’

They climbed back into the Jeep and made their way back across the fields to the track. The moon was higher now, and the light that fell across South Burlington Farm was alien and cold. Ed smoked his cigar half-way down, then stubbed it out in the ashtray. Nobody who worked on a wheat farm ever tossed a glowing butt out of the window.

As they approached the farm buildings, they could see the pattern of lighted windows in the farmhouse and the outbuildings which meant that all twenty of South Burlington’s John Deere tractors were in for refuelling and maintenance, that all the Jeeps and all the trailers were parked away for the night, and that Season Hardesty was waiting at home for her husband to come back and eat.

Willard halted the Wagoneer on the red-asphalt yard. ‘I’ll call you later,’ he told Ed. ‘Maybe ten or eleven o’clock. I’d like to know what Charlie has to say.’

‘Okay,’ said Ed, and then he turned around to Jack. ‘I want you to call, too, just as soon as you’ve made up your mind what that blight could be. Or even if you can’t decide what it is at all.’

‘I sure will,’ said Jack.

‘Whatever happens,’ said Jack, ‘I want us all here by six o’clock sharp tomorrow morning, with Dyson Kane if he can make it, and I want us to make a complete chopper tour of the whole spread.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Willard.

Ed climbed down from the Jeep and closed the door. He looked at Jack for a moment and then he said, ‘Good luck.’ Willard released the Jeep’s handbrake and drove out of the yard and Ed stood with his hands on his hips watching its red tail-lights disappear along the eastbound track. Then he walked slowly across to the house and climbed the verandah steps to the front door.

Two

Season was sitting with her feet up in the living-room, reading a copy of Vogue. The television was tuned to a special programme about Mid-Eastern oil, but the volume was turned down to a mutter. She didn’t even look up as Ed came into the room, unzipped his tan leather jacket, and sat down in the big library chair that had once been his father’s. Season always called this chair ‘the witness stand’, and she had wanted to throw it out when they first moved in; but to Ed, sitting in his father’s once-sacrosanct seat was one of those small but important parts of taking over South Burlington. It was no fun being an emperor if you didn’t have the throne that went with the job.

The living-room was decorated in soft blues – stylish, tasteful, with antique French furniture upholstered in ultramarine velvet. There were tall vases of flowers all around and a marble bust of Ralph Waldo Emerson on a slender mahogany torchère. The room was a perfect reflection of Season’s personality – cool, ordered, stylish, and discreetly expensive.

‘You’re late,’ said Season, turning over a page.

Ed unlaced his boots. ‘Didn’t Ben tell you I was going to be held up?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But the fact that I was told doesn’t alter the fact that you’re late. It was a fish souffle, and I’ve had to throw it away.’

‘You threw away my supper?’

She turned another page. ‘You don’t really care for flat fish soufflé, do you? I wish you’d told me. I would have kept it for you.’

‘Season—’ he said.

She looked up at last. She was a tall girl of thirty, with a thin oval face and alarmingly wide blue eyes. Her blonde hair was scraped back on her head and held with a tortoiseshell comb. In her silk Japanese pants suit, all pastel colours and loose pleats, she looked as if she was all wrists and ankles. She was pretty, and sharp, and Ed had loved her from only about three minutes after meeting her.

Some men found Season intimidating, both physically and conversationally. But Ed was a good four inches taller, and he had a slow dark masculine assurance about him – thick black hair, dense black eyebrows, deepset eyes of refreshing green – and the warm seriousness of whatever he said had always seemed to be able to enfold itself around her prickliest comments and render them harmless.

‘I’ve asked Dilys to make you an omelette,’ she said. ‘What about you?’

‘I don’t feel hungry any more. The act of cooking was enough to satisfy me.’

‘What about the act of throwing it all away?’

‘That satisfied me too.’

‘So I’ve come home to a satisfied wife?’

‘If you like.’

‘We’ve got a serious problem out there in the fields.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me the computers are striking for more off-time. Or is it a human problem?’

‘It’s a crop problem. There’s a kind of blight. The wheat’s rotting right in front of our eyes. So far it’s spread over fifteen or twenty acres, and it’s still spreading.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I’m not sure yet. I don’t even know what kind of a blight it is.’

‘It’s probably a curse from your father.’

‘Season – we’ve got twenty acres of rotten wheat out there and that isn’t funny.’

Season uncurled herself from the sofa, stood up and walked across to the inlaid French drinks cabinet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve drunk enough yet to be funny. Do you want one?’

‘Scotch,’ said Ed. He pulled off his boots and laid them down beside his chair. Season glanced at them as if she was expecting them to start tap-dancing on their own. She mixed herself a strong daiquiri and pineapple juice and poured out a Chivas Regal on the rocks for Ed.

‘There you are, my lord and master,’ she said, handing him his glass.

‘Sally in bed?’ asked Ed, drinking, and then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘She went up about a half-hour ago. She despaired of her father, just like I did.’

Ed let out a short, testy breath. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about the soufflé. Willard came down like a bat out of hell and wanted me to go take a look at this blight. It’s very serious. Jack’s doing some tests on it tonight and tomorrow we’re going to send some samples across to Wichita. I had to go. I didn’t have any choice.’

Season sat down again. ‘All right,’ she said, more softly. ‘Abject apology accepted. I just don’t think I’m ever going to get used to the way I went through a wedding ceremony with an actuary in New York City and wound up married to a wheat farmer in Kansas. What do they call it? Not culture shock. Maybe horticulture shock.’

‘I’m just hoping this blight doesn’t spread in a compound ratio,’ said Ed.

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Season, trying to look interested.

‘Compound growth means that the wider it spreads, the wider it spreads. It starts off by blighting two acres, then six, then ten, and so on. If it goes on like that, we won’t have a farm by the middle of next week.’

‘I hope you really don’t believe what you’re saying,’ said Season, wearily. She stirred her cocktail with her finger, and then licked it.

‘I don’t know,’ said Ed. ‘I’ve seen samples of rust, and the rot you get when you don’t dress your seeds with fungicide, but America has fewer wheat-disease problems than almost any other country in the world. What America spends on crop fungicides in any one year wouldn’t keep the town of Emporia in hotdogs. The only real problem we get is drought.’

‘Well, Farmer Hardesty, you should know,’ said Season, sipping her drink and looking at the television.

Ed stood up. ‘I guess I’ll go say good night to Sally. Do you want to tell Dilys to start my omelette?’

‘What did you say?’ asked Season, her attention momentarily distracted by a television picture of running camels.

‘I said I’m going up to say good night to Sally.’

‘Well, don’t. She’ll be asleep by now.’

He ignored her and went all the same. When he was halfway up the curving staircase, he heard her call, ‘Your seven-league boots are squealing because you left them behind.’

He paused, and said, ‘Tell them I’ll send my magic socks down to pick them up later.’

Season appeared in the doorway, holding his boots in her hand. ‘Take the goddamned things now!’ she snapped, and hurled them after him, one at a time. ‘Every time you come home you make the living-room look like a goddamned thrift store!’

The boots clumped on the stairs and then rolled back down again. Season kicked them across the hallway and then stalked back into the living-room. Ed slowly descended the staircase, collected them up, and went up to see Sally with an expression that Season had once described as his ‘Grant Wood face’.

Sally was lying curled up in her old-fashioned carved oak bed, under the early-American patchwork comforter that Season had bought for her at a fashionable store on Lexington Avenue in the eighties. She was almost asleep, but not quite, and when Ed looked in at the door, she stirred and raised her head from the pillow and smiled at him.

‘Hi, Daddy,’ she said, sleepily.

‘Hi yourself.’

‘I waited for you but you didn’t come home. Mommy threw your supper down the sink-disposal.’

‘I know,’ said Ed, sitting on the edge of the bed and running his hand through his daughter’s long blonde curls. ‘Dilys is going to fix me an omelette.’

‘You’ll have indigestion if you don’t eat regular. My teacher told me.’

‘Your teacher’s quite right. I was busy on the farm, that’s all. Some of the wheat went bad.’

Sally looked up at him. Although she was only six years old, she looked exactly like her mother. Fair-haired and leggy, with those wide blue eyes like some startled character out of a Disney cartoon. Ed leaned over her and kissed her, and she had that childish smell of soap and cookies and clean clothes.

‘I love you,’ he said, with a grin.

‘I love you, too,’ she told him.

They were silent for a moment. Then Sally said, ‘Is this a darned farm?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know. Mommy was talking on the telephone to Auntie Vee today and she kept saying “this darned farm”.’ Ed touched the tip of her nose with his finger. ‘Darned is one of those words that grown-ups use when they mean pesky.’

‘What does pesky mean?’

‘It means something that irritates you. Something that gets on your nerves.’

‘Does the farm get on Mommy’s nerves?’

‘Sure it does. It gets on my nerves sometimes. But it’s important. It’s what people call a heritage. It’s something that’s been handed down from father to son, something that belongs to one family, and stands for everything that family is. You’re a Hardesty, see, and this is the Hardesty farm. When people meet you, they think – aha, that’s the little girl who lives on the big wheat farm in Kingman County, Kansas.’

Sally thought about that and then she said, ‘Will you come with us?’

Ed frowned. ‘Will I come with you where?’

‘To Los Angeles. To visit Auntie Vee.’

‘I didn’t know you were going to Los Angeles to visit Auntie Vee.’

‘Well, Mommy said so on the telephone. She said we’d try to get away some time this week.’

Ed sat up straight. ‘Did she? Well… I guess if she said so, then you must be. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come with you, though. August is a pretty busy time on the farm.’

‘Try to come, won’t you? I want you to come.’

Ed kissed her again and then stood up. ‘Sure, I’ll try to come. Now why don’t you get yourself some sleep?’

He tucked her in tight, and then closed her door and crossed the landing to the master bedroom. Once more, Season’s taste and stylishness was all around. The rugs were rich pink and there was white-and-gold rococo furniture everywhere, chairs and commodes and side-tables all genuine eighteenth-century French. The bed was a half-tester, draped with pink velour and covered with a gold-embroidered bedspread. Ed watched himself thoughtfully in the gilt cheval mirror as he stripped off his plaid riding-shirt, his faded blue jeans, and his undershorts. Naked, he was lean and muscular, with a crucifix of black hair across his chest. Since he’d taken over South Burlington, he’d lost twenty pounds.

He was tying up his bathrobe when Season walked in. ‘Dilys is just beating your eggs now,’ she said.

He turned around. ‘That’s good. Sally’s teacher thinks I’m going to suffer from indigestion if I don’t eat regular.’

‘Is Sally still awake?’

‘Only just.’

Season went to her dressing-table and began to take off her diamond earrings. ‘You haven’t asked me how my day went yet,’ she said.

He stood behind her, so that she could see his face in the mirror. ‘I don’t have to ask. I know you were bored stiff.’

She put her earrings away, and then she started unbuttoning her silk suit. Underneath it, she was nude, except for a small pair of white backless panties. She had a skinny, fashion-model’s figure, with small wide-nippled breasts and long, lean thighs. She took the comb out of her hair and began to brush it. She left her pants suit on the floor for Dilys to pick up later.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t totally bored. The day did have its moments.’

‘Like when?’

‘A man came to steam-clean the rug in the hall. He was quite good-looking in an artisan kind of way. He told me he had eight children.’

‘Anything else?’ he asked her. His face was expressionless.

‘Mrs Lydia Hope Caldwell phoned. She wants me to join the Daughters of Kansas. She spent twenty minutes telling me what a great privilege it was and how it was hardly ever accorded to newcomers.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her I was overwhelmed, of course.’

He watched her naked body in the mirror. He wondered if it was just her nudity he found so desirable, or whether it was her nudity combined with her sharp and critical personality. He stepped closer to her and laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed the side of her forehead. She kept on brushing her hair as if he wasn’t there.

‘Then, of course, you called your sister in LA,’ he told her.

‘That’s right.’

He ran his hand down the soft curves of her back, and slipped it under the elastic of her pants, so that he was cupping the cheek of her bottom. The tips of his fingers were almost touching her vulva, but not quite.

‘You called your sister in LA and told her how sick you were of this darned farm. All these tedious acres of wheat, all these simple, honest farming folk. All these tractors and all these crop-dusters.’

‘All these down-home actuaries,’ she put in.

‘That’s right,’ he nodded. ‘And then you invited yourself to spend a few weeks in Beverly Hills, along with Sally, totally ignoring the fact that Sally has to go back to school, and that I’m going to need you this month more than I’ve ever needed you before.’

Season stood utterly still, as if she was pretending to be a statue. Their two faces were reflected side by side in the mirror, and neither face betrayed anything at all. They were playing their usual game of testing, questioning, and teasing, to see whose façade cracked first. In New York, they had played it in fun, and only occasionally. Here in Kansas, it had started to become much more than an amusement, and much more to do with the survival of their relationship.

Ed’s fingers stayed where they were.

Season said, ‘I haven’t rushed into this, you know. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.’

‘You didn’t mention it to me.’

‘Of course I mentioned it. What do you think we’ve been doing, every single night since we came here? Butting our heads together just to see how much it hurts? Ed, my darling. I’m bored with South Burlington, I’m bored with Wichita, I’m bored with the entire state of Kansas, God bless it, and I have to escape for a while.’

‘Is that it? You’re bored?’

She gently reached behind her back and took his hand away. Then she went over to the bed and sat down. There was a silver cigarette box on her bedside table and she took out a Kool and perched it at the side of her pale-lipsticked mouth as if she was Humphrey Bogart.

‘Isn’t it enough?’ she asked him. ‘I used to be a magazine editor. Now I’m like something out of an A. B. Frost drawing.’

‘Who the hell’s A. B. Frost?’ he demanded. ‘For Christ’s sake, isn’t that typical of you? You complain that you’re discontented, and when I ask you why, you say that it’s because I’ve condemned you to live like some person in some picture by some goddamned obscure artist I’ve never even heard of. A. B. Frost, for Christ’s sake.’

‘A. B. Frost was very well known,’ said Season, lighting her cigarette. ‘He travelled through Kansas and Iowa in the eighteen-nineties, sketching fanners. Good, devout. Godfearing, crop-loving farmers.’

‘You make that sound like a disease.’

She blew out smoke. ‘I don’t mean to. But this bucolic existence is just about driving me crazy. I have to get away.’

‘You knew what it was going to be like. We talked about it for long enough.’

‘Of course I knew what it was going to be like. Well, I had a fair idea. But it was what you wanted, wasn’t it? Even if I’d told you that wild mules wouldn’t have dragged me to South Burlington, you still would have found a way to get me here.’

He looked at her for a long time. The way the bedside lamp shone on her long blonde hair, and cast those curving shadows from her breasts. ‘Do you really hate it that much?’ he asked her.

She tapped ash from her cigarette and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get used to it.’

‘Do you want me to give it up?’

‘How can you give it up? You’ve signed all the papers, you’ve taken out all the loans, you’ve made yourself responsible for the lives and jobs of hundreds of people.’

‘I could sell it,’ he said.

‘Oh, sure, you could sell it. And then you’d spend the rest of your life complaining because I made you give up the only thing you ever really wanted to do. Face it, Ed, that’s been your destiny since you were born. To reap and to sow, to plough and to mow, and to be a farmer’s boy.’

He sat down next to her. She didn’t look at him, but smoked her cigarette as if she was racing to finish it.

‘It’s me, too, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s not just South Burlington.’

She still didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘These days, I find it hard to separate one from the other. It’s just like you’re always telling Sally. The Hardestys are South Burlington, and South Burlington is the Hardestys. It’s one of those homespun equations that don’t make any logical sense, or even any genetic sense, but which people believe in like E equals me squared.’

‘I love you, you know,’ he said simply.

‘You love the idea of me. I don’t know whether you actually love me. Not me, as a person. Not me, as an educated and independent person who suddenly finds herself isolated by her husband’s chosen way of life – cut off from friends and style and civilisation. I’m getting neurotic, do you know that? I have fantasies of shopping at Gimbel’s. I wake up in the night with unnatural cravings for one of Stars’ pastrami sandwiches.’

He took her hand. Her Tiffany engagement ring winked a tiny rainbow at him. ‘Listen,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘you can go to New York whenever you want. Fly tomorrow, if you feel like it.’

‘Ed,’ she said, slowly shaking her head, ‘that just isn’t the point. I want New York but I want you, too. New York on its own isn’t enough. I’m your wife, I happen to love you, but I also happen to have mental energies and psychological requirements which aren’t being fulfilled. At the moment, the two most important needs in my life are totally incompatible, and that’s the problem.’

He stared down at the shaggy pink rug. ‘I don’t know what to suggest,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to stay here and yet you don’t think it’s a good idea if I sell the place.’

‘I think if you sold the place it would gradually destroy our marriage,’ she said. ‘Not straight away, but gradually and very effectively.’

‘So going to Los Angeles for a while is going to hold it together?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s going to give me some time to think. You too.’

He said, unhappily, ‘I don’t think I feel like thinking. Not about us.’

Season leaned over and kissed him, twice, very gently and lovingly. ‘We have to,’ she said. ‘And if I were you, I’d go down to the kitchen and see if that omelette’s ready, otherwise you’re going to feel like you’re eating a window-cleaner’s leather.’

He stayed where he was for a while. He felt tired, and trapped, and he wasn’t sure which way to move. Somehow, in New York, he had found it much easier to be positive, much easier to make clear-cut decisions. But on a farm like South Burlington, clear-cut decisions weren’t called for. You needed to sniff the wind, and make guesses, and alter your guesses to suit the changing weather. Farming was a life of constant compromise, and somehow the compromises were beginning to creep into his marriage.

Maybe Season was right. Maybe if she took a short vacation in Los Angeles it would help them both. But on the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would take them even further apart. After all, once Season began to mix with those Hollywood types, all those BPs and would-be movie stars, life at South Burlington would probably seem even duller than ever.

Maybe she would begin to think of Ed as nothing more than a stolid farmer. Something out of A. B. Frost.

‘Are you going to bed now?’ he asked Season.

‘I was considering it,’ she said. ‘But I won’t if you can think of something else to do around here.’

He shook his head.

‘That’s what I told Vee,’ she remarked. ‘Farming in Kansas is nothing but fertilising, furrowing, fooling-around and fornication.’

He got up. ‘I won’t be too long,’ he said. ‘I have to call Charlie Warburg.’

‘Charlie Warburg? From the finance company?’

‘That’s right.’

She frowned as she watched him walk across the room to the door. ‘He’s in charge of losses, isn’t he?’

‘Kind of.’

‘So what you were saying about that wheat blight – you were serious about that? Is it really so bad?’

‘I don’t know yet. It could be.’

‘Ed—’ she began.

He paused by the bedroom door. She looked as if she was about to say something, but it was plain that she couldn’t find the words. She sat there, with her arms crossed over her bare breasts, and looked at him with an expression that could have meant I’m sorry, or I wish we’d never met, or anything at all. Ed waited a moment longer, and when she didn’t say anything, he closed the door and went downstairs.

Three

It was a quarter after six the next morning when the Hughes helicopter rose from the small pasture at the back of the South Burlington farmhouse and tilted its way north-westwards into the bright, snappy sky. The rotor blades flashed in the sunlight as it headed out past the hickory stand, and the flack-flack-flack of its engine was echoed by the outbuildings and the fences.

Dyson Kane was at the controls. He was South Burlington’s most experienced flyer – a small, lightweight, white-haired man as sprightly as a jockey, with a pinched face and eyes that could have punched holes in leather. Dyson had smoked a huge briar pipe, with a bowl as big as a coffee-cup, but three years ago his doctor had warned him of lung-cancer, and now he sucked butterscotch Life Savers as if his life depended on them, and it probably did.

Ed sat next to Dyson in the front seat, and behind them sat Willard and Jack. From the dark smudges under his eyes, it didn’t look as if Jack had slept too well.

‘Keep following the track,’ Ed told Dyson. ‘I’ll tell you when to turn off.’

‘Sure thing, Ed,’ said Dyson. ‘You’re the boss.’

Ed turned around to Jack and said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any more ideas since you called me last night?’ Jack shook his head. ‘I tested for everything. It sure isn’t rust, and it isn’t smut, and it’s no kind of mildew that I’ve heard of. But I’m keeping an open mind. We’ve had some pretty humid weather lately and mildew thrives in humid conditions.’

‘Is it worth spraying for mildew?’ asked Ed.

‘I suppose we could try dusting with sulphur, although I’ve never known sulphur do much for really serious cases.’

‘Any other options?’

‘Well, there’s a compound called Bayleton, but that’s not registered for use in the United States and we’d have to seek emergency exemption to dust with that. The same goes for that British stuff from ICI, Vigil.’

‘Would either of those do any good, even if we were allowed to use them?’

‘I don’t know. Until we get an exact analysis of what we’re up against, we’re only guessing. Kerry’s taken the samples over to Wichita, but there’s no telling how long they’re going to take to decide what it is.’

Willard said, ‘I can’t believe it’s mildew. Mildew looks kind of greyish-green, you know and it usually breaks out before the grain forms. It affects the leaves so that photosynthesis can’t occur properly. But I can’t believe it’s that. We haven’t had an outbreak of mildew on South Burlington for fifteen, maybe sixteen years.’

Dyson Kane suddenly said, ‘Jee-sus! Take a look at that!’ He angled the helicopter away from the track without waiting for Ed’s instructions, and took it out across the same stretch of field that Ed and Willard had visited the previous evening. Below them, Ed could make out the tracks of their Jeep through the wheat – but instead of the tracks running around the edge of the dark and blighted crops, they had now been overtaken by the darkness and swallowed up. Everywhere around, like a company of sad, arthritic widows, the rotting stalks hung their heads in the morning wind.

‘It’s spread,’ whispered Jack. ‘Fifty or sixty acres at least. Maybe more.’

Dyson took them low over the field, so that their down draught left a flurrying trail in the wheat. They were flying at sixty or seventy knots, but as Ed peered through the purple-tinted plexiglass ahead of them, it seemed as if the ocean of crops had been stained by the blight as far as he could see, and as far as they could fly. He opened the air-vent, and the cockpit of the helicopter was filled with the warm, sour stench of decaying wheat.

Willard said, ‘This disease sure knows how to eat up a crop, and that’s no mistake.’

Ed told Dyson, ‘Higher. Take her up higher. I want to see how far this stretches.’

The helicopter climbed into the shining sky. Ed slipped on his aviator sunglasses, and looked around in all directions. The dark stain on the wheat now spread all the way southwards from the north-western trail to the banks of the Mystic, in an irregular shape that roughly resembled the state of Idaho. Jack’s estimate of fifty or sixty acres was conservative. From up here, Ed would have guessed a hundred.

‘We’ve got ourselves a real bad one here, Ed,’ said Willard. ‘I think we’re going to have to dust, and dust quick.’

‘Even before we know what it is?’ asked Ed. ‘We could end up doing more damage with crop-protection compounds than the blight’s doing on its own.’

‘We could end up with eighty-five thousand acres of rot,’ retorted Willard.

Take it south,’ Ed told Dyson. ‘Let’s make a circuit round the whole farm, and see if there’s any more of this stuff.’

‘You bet,’ said Dyson, and the helicopter turned away from the blight-stained areas of wheat and beat its way noisily over the Mystic River and out across the silvery-golden stretches of South Burlington’s south-western acres.

‘What did Charlie Warburg have to say for himself?’ asked Jack, taking out a stick of gum.

‘He was pretty inconclusive,’ Ed replied. ‘He admits that all the loans we took out for equipment and farm facilities are covered by insurance, but he isn’t certain if an unknown blight is going to go down very well with the underwriters.’

‘It isn’t going down very well with me, either,’ said Willard, caustically.

Ed said, ‘The whole crop’s protected, of course, under the Federal Crop Insurance Programme. That’s as long as we can convince them that this blight is officially a peril of nature, like a drought, or a hailstorm. But all they can do under the law is compensate us for the cost of putting in the crop. They can’t pay us for any profits we might have made.’

Dyson looked out across the farm. ‘Looks like your first year at South Burlington won’t be too happy, then. All work and no profit.’

Ed nodded. ‘It could be worse than that. If we can’t isolate this blight, and find out how to lick it, then I daren’t plant again next year.’

Willard leaned forward in his seat. ‘With respect, Ed, have you tried to think what your Daddy might have done, under the same circumstances?’

‘I’m not my daddy, Willard.’

‘No, I know you’re not. I don’t expect you to be. But your daddy was never averse to calling on his friends, whenever he needed a helping hand, just like his friends were never averse to calling on him.’

‘You’re trying to tell me something, aren’t you?’ said Ed, raising his voice above the roaring of the helicopter’s motor.

‘I’m trying to suggest something,’ said Willard. ‘I’m trying to suggest that when we get down, you might put in a call to Senator Shearson Jones.’

‘Shearson Jones? That old twister?’

Willard shrugged. ‘He may be a twister, but he’s got himself some pretty powerful friends in the Department of Agriculture. What’s more, when your daddy died, he still owed your daddy for two notable favours, one of which was covering up for him over that wheat-dumping scandal in seventy-eight.’

‘Why should Shearson Jones still think he owes this family anything now that Dad’s dead?’

Willard grinned. ‘Because this family still remembers, that’s why. And as long as there’s just one Hardesty around who knows what the upright and honest Senator Jones tried to do with a hundred and forty-two thousand tons of best Kansas grain, then the upright and honest Senator Jones is going to continue to smile whenever a Hardesty asks him to.’

‘That sounds like blackmail to me,’ said Ed.

Willard grinned. ‘You might call it blackmail in New York City. Here in Kansas we call it mutual assistance.’

‘Hm,’ said Ed.

‘You don’t believe me?’ asked Willard. ‘You call him when you get back, and see if I’m not speaking the truth. You ask Senator Jones if the Department of Agriculture maybe can’t find some extra compensation for the victims of new and unusual crop diseases.’

‘Willard,’ said Ed, ‘you should have been a politician, not a farmer.’

‘Being a farmer and being a politician are one and the same kind of talent,’ said Willard. ‘Everything you do, you do by careful planting, and careful fertilisation, and watching and waiting – so that when the right moment arrives, you can go shhhklukk! and the ripe ears of wheat fall straight in your hand.’

Jack suddenly frowned. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘Look – up ahead there. Just over to the right.’

Ed turned in his seat. Far in the distance, maybe three miles away, he thought he could make out a shadow on the wheat. A brown, irregular stain that covered five or six acres at least.

‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Willard. ‘There’s more of it.’ The helicopter banked in a wide circle around the field, and approached the stain from the south-west. There was no question about it. The blight had spread here, too – almost five miles to the south of the first outbreak. Ed told Dyson to hover by the edge of the dark area while he took a long look at it. Dust and wheat flew up all around them, but Ed could see for himself that the blight was creeping from one stalk to another, from one acre to the next, and that only quick and decisive action was going to save South Burlington from the most disastrous crop in its entire history. That was if any action could save it at all.

‘Okay,’ Ed told Dyson at last. ‘Let’s go check the eastern acres.’

It took them until two o’clock in the afternoon to make a thorough airborne check of the whole farm. By the time Dyson brought the helicopter back into the pasture behind the farmhouse, they had counted seven major areas of blight, and three smaller outbreaks.

The helicopter settled on the grass and the rotor blades whistled slower and slower. Ed opened the door and climbed out, followed by Jack and Willard.

‘Well,’ said Jack, cleaning his glasses on his shirt-tail. ‘What are we going to do now?’

Ed said, ‘I don’t know. Nothing, right now. First of all I want to hear what Dr Benson’s got to say.’

‘And then you’ll call the senator?’ asked Willard.

Ed glanced at him. Willard was brushing his moustache with his fingers and looking exaggeratedly innocent.

‘I may,’ Ed told him. ‘Just to make his acquaintance.’

‘Okay,’ said Willard. ‘I’ll make the call to Dr Benson, if you like, and see if he has any ideas yet. I can reach you at the house?’

‘Yes. I should be there for most of the afternoon.’

Ed walked across the pasture, vaulted the split-rail fence, and made his way around to the front of the house. It was a neat, well-proportioned house, with white carved balconies and shuttered dormer windows and a shingle roof that sloped all the way down to the roof of the front verandah. It didn’t look like the kind of house that Dan Hardesty would have chosen for himself, but only recently Ed had discovered that it wasn’t. An early partner of his father’s called Ted Zacharias had constructed it, and sold it to his father along with twenty thousand acres of arable land. Ed hadn’t been surprised by the discovery: his father had always been a man of business, not of taste.

As Ed crossed the yard, he saw the grey Cadillac Seville parked in front of the steps, and the buff-uniformed chauffeur leaning against it smoking a cigarette. His mother was here. He rubbed the muscles at the back of his neck as he walked through the verandah and opened the gentian-blue front door. His mother always gave him a feeling of suppressed tension, and it sometimes took Season an hour of gentle talk and a massage to calm him down after the old lady had gone.

Mrs Ursula Hardesty was another reason he had left home.

She was standing in the hallway as he came in, primping her hair. She was tall, bony as a clothes-horse and wearing a light green Yves St Laurent dress that was at least twenty years too young for her. Her eyes were as pale and watery as Little Neck clams, and her neck was withered and white, although it was sparklingly decorated with three strands of diamonds and pearls. She gave him a lopsided smile, and raised her arms like someone signalling to a passing ship.

‘Edward. My dear. I thought I’d surprise you.’

‘Hello, Mother.’

He embraced her as circumspectly as he knew how. Curling his arm around her waist and yet not quite touching her; kissing her cheek from a fraction of an inch away.

‘You’re looking peaky, dear,’ she said. ‘Are you still taking that tonic wine I brought you?’

‘When I remember. I’ve just had a bad night, that’s all.’ Mrs Hardesty glanced towards the living-room, where Ed could see Season’s arm on the back of the settee, holding a smoking cigarette.

‘I hope you’re not having any trouble,’ she said, her voice as brittle as fractured porcelain.

‘You mean you hope I’m not having too many arguments with Season? Is that it?’

Mrs Hardesty looked pained. ‘I’ve never had anything against her, Edward, but I can’t say that she’s really cut out to be the mistress of a wheat-farming empire, can you? I mean – fashion and style are all very well,, but has she bought herself any galoshes yet?’

‘Mother,’ Ed told her, ‘I’m not having you start all that again. Season’s settling in pretty well, all things considered. It’s a big change to come to Kansas from New York City. A big shock to the system. Season’s going to have to be given time to get used to it.’

‘Well…’ said Mrs Hardesty, disapprovingly, turning her mouth down at the corners.

‘Well nothing, Mother,’ Ed retorted. ‘And as to when she’s going to buy herself any galoshes… she’ll do it when Gucci bring out some galoshes with red-and-green bands round the top.’

‘It’s your loss,’ Mrs Hardesty said. ‘If you want to carry the whole burden of South Burlington yourself… it’s really up to you. I can’t influence you.’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Ed. ‘Now come and have a cocktail before I start getting mad at you. I’ve got enough problems on the farm without getting mad at my mother.’

‘No serious problems, I hope?’ said Mrs Hardesty, as they walked through into the living-room.

‘Moderately serious. Some sort of crop disease. We’re not sure what it is yet.’

Mrs Hardesty frowned. ‘Is it bad? You’re almost ready for harvesting.’

Ed walked around the back of the sofa, clasped Season’s hand, and bent over to kiss her. She was dressed in tight dark blue velvet pants and a cream-coloured silk blouse. Her hair was freshly washed and shining, and she had let it hang loose to her shoulders.

‘How is it?’ she asked.

Ed shrugged. ‘Hard to tell yet. But it’s still spreading. We saw patches of it all over.’

‘Did Dr Benson call yet?’

‘Willard’s trying to get in touch with him now.’

Mrs Hardesty sat down in the velvet-covered armchair by the fireplace, facing the library chair which had once been her husband’s. She sat stiff and erect, raising her head like an inquiring eagle. ‘You’ve sent samples across to Dr Benson?’ she asked. ‘Your father always thought that Dr Benson was a quack.’

‘Perhaps he is,’ said Ed. ‘But he’s our first line of assistance. Jack’s been trying to isolate the blight all night, and he can’t make out what it is.’

‘I could give you Professor Kornbluth’s number,’ said Mrs Hardesty. ‘He did some wonderful work for us on seed dressings.’

‘That’s very kind of you. Mother, but Professor Kornbluth is an expert on the protection of germinating crops, and that’s it. This is a blight of the whole ripened ear.’

‘Has it spread very far?’ asked his mother.

‘Two, maybe two hundred and fifty acres.’

‘Two hundred and fifty acres? And you’re leaving it to Dr Benson? My dear, you can’t do that!’

‘What else do you suggest I do?’

‘Go over his head. Your father would have done. Go straight to the Department of Agriculture.’

Ed sat down in his father’s chair, and crossed his legs in a deliberate effort to show that he was relaxed. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘Dr Benson is the Kansas state expert on crop protection. Whatever father thought about him, and however erratic he might seem to be—’

‘Alcoholic, more like,’ sniffed Mrs Hardesty.

‘All right, alcoholic. Erratic. Whatever. But he’s still the man I have to do business with, week in and week out, and if I go over his head now there’s never going to be any chance of my getting a favour out of him in the future. I know what he’s like. I’m not dumb. But I told Willard to kick his keister if he dragged his feet, and I think he’ll be able to help us.’

Mrs Hardesty suddenly and unexpectedly turned to Season. ‘What do you think, my dear?’ she demanded.

Season shrugged. ‘I don’t think anything. I don’t think I’ve ever met Dr Benson. Whatever Ed decides to do is fine by me.’

Mrs Hardesty rose to her feet. ‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ she said, in a frivolously sarcastic tone. ‘“Whatever Ed decides to do is fine by me.” Have you ever heard any wheat-farmer’s wife come out with such a positive and helpful contribution? Do you know something, my dear, when I was mistress of this farm, I used to spend all my waking hours finding out about crops and how to grow them. I was as much an expert on wheat as Ed’s father was. I could talk about planting and harvesting with the best of them, and I could take a tractor to pieces with my own bare hands. This region is lousy with sidewalk farmers, who commute to their farms from Wichita and Kansas City, and lousy with suitcase farmers, who spend most of their time in Chicago and Los Angeles, and only fly in for the sowing and the harvesting. Well, Dan Hardesty wasn’t one of them, and neither was I. We lived on our land and we took care of our crops and we produced more grain on these eighty-five thousand acres than most farms that were twice our size. We did it together, Dan and I, and that’s why I can hardly believe my ears when I hear you saying that you don’t care about it.’

‘I didn’t say that I don’t care about it,’ put in Season. ‘I simply said that I respect Ed’s judgement.’

‘Come on, Mother,’ said Ed. ‘We all know what you and Daddy did to build up South Burlington. It’s part of the family’s history. But can’t you just leave it alone?’

‘I see,’ said Mrs Hardesty. ‘You’re prepared to talk about your father and I as ancient history – a bedtime story for Sally, maybe – but you’re not prepared to take my advice?’

‘Mother, this is my farm now.’

Mrs Hardesty looked out of the window across the sunlit yard. Her hands were clasped together in controlled anguish. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know it is. And I also remember what it cost this family for you to have it.’

Season turned around. That, Ursula, is a grossly unfair remark,’ she said, coldly. ‘Ed was just as hurt as you were by what happened to his father and what happened to Michael. Good God, you’re talking as if he killed diem with his own bare hands.’

Mrs Hardesty stared at her. ‘My only regret,’ she said, ‘is not that Edward took over the farm when his father and his older brother both died. My only regret is that he should have brought to South Burlington a wife who treats the farm and everything that it means to this family with such obvious contempt.’

Season was about to say something caustic in return, but she held herself back. Instead, she reached over to the low gilded coffee-table and opened the cigarette-box.

‘I’d really appreciate it if you sat down and made yourself comfortable,’ she told Mrs Hardesty. ‘I hate to see anyone feeling ill-at-ease in my home, no matter who it is.’ Mrs Hardesty looked to her son, but Ed simply said, ‘Sit down, Mother. I’ll fix you a cocktail.’

‘You will stay for some supper, won’t you?’ asked Season. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay the night?’

The telephone over on the French bureau started to ring. Ed said, ‘Excuse me,’ and went across to pick it up. It was Willard, calling from the office on the far side of the yard.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything,’ he said. ‘I saw the old lady’s car outside.’

‘Just the usual,’ said Ed. ‘Did you get hold of Benson?’

‘I sure did. And I hope you’re sitting down.’

‘Has he found out what it is?’

‘He has some ideas. But it turns out that we’re not the only farm that’s been hit. He’s had samples in this morning from as far away as Great Bend and Concordia. Seems like the whole state’s been affected.’

‘The whole state? You’re kidding.’

‘I wish I was,’ said Willard. ‘But I called Arthur Kalken over at the Hutchinson place just to check, and he told me their whole south valley is nothing but two thousand acres of blight. He’s had it for two, three days now.’

There hasn’t been anything about it on the news.’

‘Well, the state agricultural people have been trying to keep it quiet until they know what it is. They don’t want buyers boycotting Kansas wheat just because they’re afraid it might be contaminated or something. And also, the thing’s only just hit. Most of the farmers were like us – they thought they were the only ones who’d got it.’

Ed ran his hand through his hair. ‘What’s going to happen? Did Benson have any ideas?’

‘He’s still trying to isolate it. He’s sent some samples to the federal laboratories, too. But meanwhile, George Pulaski’s arranging an emergency meeting for all die state’s wheat farmers – probably in Kansas City and probably on Thursday morning.’

‘Okay,’ said Ed. ‘Did Benson give you any ideas about interim control? Sulphur spraying, anything of that kind?’

‘He said to leave it alone. It’s not rust, and it’s not powdery mildew, and it could react adversely if you dust it.’

Ed put the phone down. Season was watching hin intently, and she said, ‘You’ve got your Aristotle Contemplating The Bust Of Homer face on again. What’s wrong?’

‘Willard talked to Dr Benson. It seems like South Burlington isn’t the only farm with the blight. The whole state’s affected.’

‘And I suppose Benson still doesn’t know what it is?’ asked Mrs Hardesty.

‘No, Mother, he doesn’t,’ said Ed. ‘But it seems like he’s taken your advice, and sent the problem over his own head. He’s asked the federal laboratories to look at it, too.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hardesty, ‘it won’t be the first time the wheat crop’s failed in Kansas. For some of those part-timers, it’s a regular occurrence.’

‘The whole wheat crop, throughout the whole state?’ asked Ed. ‘South Burlington’s wheat crop, too?’

‘The crop’s insured, isn’t it?’ Mrs Hardesty asked. ‘And at least your father isn’t around to see it fail. He would have tanned your hide.’

‘Mrs Hardesty, the blight isn’t Ed’s fault,’ said Season. Mrs Hardesty lifted her head, more like an eagle than ever. ‘Poor farmers always blame everything except their own lack of talent. Drought, floods, hail, mildew – they’re all an excuse.’

‘Mother,’ said Ed, ‘you’re going to make me mad in a minute.’

The telephone rang again. It was Willard. ‘Dr Benson called me,’ he said. ‘Told me to watch the two-thirty news on television. Seems like the state agricultural department has just put out a statement.’

Ed pointed to the television, and twisted his hand to indicate to Season that she should switch it on. Then he asked Willard, ‘Any more news about the analysis?’

‘Not a thing. Looks like it’s one of those diseases that’s going to baffle modern science for years to come.’

‘I’ll keep in touch,’ said Ed, and put the phone down again.

The news was just beginning. After a lead report about fighting in Iran, the anchorman said, ‘Trouble of a different kind here at home. Reports from the wheat-growing states of Kansas and North Dakota tell of a rapidly-spreading and so-far unidentified crop blight. Apparently the blight is attacking ripe ears of wheat and causing them to rot right on their stalks, and hundreds of acres of crops have already been destroyed. Local and federal agricultural experts are working around the clock to isolate the cause of the blight – so far without success. George Pulaski, chief of the agricultural department for the state of Kansas, the country’s number one wheat producer, says that he’s confident the blight will be brought under control before the damage ruins more than a nominal percentage of the year’s crop. But, he warned, many farmers may face substantial losses, if not bankruptcy.’

That was all. Ed walked over and switched the television off. ‘I think I could use a drink,’ he said, quietly.

‘Thank God your father isn’t here,’ said Mrs Hardesty. ‘Thank you, God,’ said Season, and Mrs Hardesty gave her a frosty stare.

Four

That evening, after supper, he went upstairs to his small library and placed a call to Senator Shearson Jones in Washington. The telephone rang for a long time before anyone answered, and then an irritated voice said, ‘Senator Jones’s residence.’

‘I’d like to speak to the senator, please.’

‘The senator isn’t here. He’s in Tobago, on vacation.’

‘He spoke in the Senate yesterday afternoon, on soybean subsidies.’

‘So?’

‘Well, either he has an incredible talent for throwing his voice, or else he’s still in Washington. You tell him it’s Ed Hardesty, son of Dan Hardesty, and you can also tell him one hundred and forty-two thousand tons.’

‘That’s the message? One hundred forty-two thousand tons?’

‘That’s the message.’

There was a lengthy pause, during which Ed could faintly hear someone laughing. Then there was a series of clicks, and the phone was put through to Senator Jones.

‘Jones here.’ The voice was thick, and slurred with tiredness or drink.

‘Senator Jones, you don’t know me, but you knew my father.’

‘That’s right. What’s this cockamamie message about one hundred and forty-two thousand tons?’

‘I’m not a blackmailer. Senator Jones. That was just a way of getting you on to the phone.’

‘All right, you got me. What do you want?’

‘You’ve heard about this wheat blight in Kansas?’

‘Sure. Something about it. But it doesn’t look too disastrous from where I’m sitting.’

‘You’re sitting in Washington, DC, Senator Jones. I’m sitting right in the middle of eighty-five thousand acres that are very rapidly turning black.’

‘Well? You’re insured under the Federal Crop Programme, aren’t you? Why don’t you go talk to that nice Mr Deal?’

‘I shall,’ said Ed. ‘But you know as well as I do that the Federal Insurance Programme only covers the cost of re-planting.’

‘Name me an insurance policy that covers anything else,’ demanded Senator Jones. ‘You could be Cartier-Bresson, and every photograph you ever took could make you ten thousand dollars, but if the laboratory fogs one of your films, what can you claim? The price of the film, that’s all. And it’s the same with crops.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ said Ed. ‘But since this blight is so damaging, and so completely unknown, I was wondering if there might be a possibility of further aid from the Department of Agriculture.’

‘No,’ said Senator Jones.

‘Is that a refusal to help, or an admission that you don’t have the clout to help?’

‘That’s a refusal to help. What’s the matter with you farmers? You get deficiency payments, you get guaranteed floor prices, you get nationwide federal insurance. What more do you want? You want me to come out there and harvest your crop for you? You want me to ride a tractor?’

‘Senator Jones, the way this blight is spreading, there isn’t going be any crop.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to grin and bear it. I’m sorry, Mr Hardesty, but farming’s tough, and there’s nothing that you or I can do about it.’

Ed drew a breath. ‘Listen, Senator Jones, my daddy may have been a tough and wily old turkey, and he may have built up one of the most successful wheat farms in south Kansas, but he was heavily overstretched on his spending. When I took over this farm, it was right on the verge of financial collapse. Sure – we were harvesting a regular, high-quality crop, and we had all the latest techniques. But we were overmanned, and we’d relied too much on credit, and too much on favours, and the simple fact was that we had a super-efficient farm that wasn’t quite super-efficient enough to meet its interest payments.’

‘I hope you realise you’re breaking my heart,’ said Senator Jones.

‘I hope you realise I was lying when I said I wasn’t a blackmailer.’

Senator Jones sniffed. ‘This doesn’t sound like a Hardesty talking. Your daddy was one of those men who always stood on his own two feet. He’d expect a favour from his friends, sure. But he never crawled for anything.’

‘I’m not crawling, Senator Jones. I’m asking. My daddy did you a favour, and now I want you to do him a favour in return. Because if this farm goes bankrupt, which it surely will if we don’t get more than a federal insurance payment, then my daddy’s name is going to be dragged all over the Kansas papers like dirt.’

‘Hunh,’ said Senator Jones.

‘You can “hunh” all you like,’ said Ed. ‘I know you’re thinking that I don’t sound like my daddy, but the reason for that is that I’m not my daddy. He was a farmer, but I’m a businessman, and the way this farm was falling to pieces when I took over, that’s probably just as well. My daddy was very good at what he did, but when it came to the financial jiggery-pokery, he relied too much on people like you. He didn’t know a floor price from a floor mop.’

‘Mr Hardesty,’ said Senator Jones, with exaggerated patience, ‘I have to tell you that I’m very sorry for you, and that I’d really like to help. But the truth of the matter is, I’m very busy right now on this soybean problem in Iowa, and I really can’t see that I’m going to be able to spend the time on one single disgruntled wheat farmer from Kansas.’

‘All right,’ said Ed. ‘If that’s the way you feel, I’m going straight to the papers with the facts on the wheat-dumping scandal.’

‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ snarled Senator Jones. ‘Nancy Drew? Don’t come at me with that going-to-the-papers shit.’

‘You think it’s shit?’ asked Ed, although he was trembling with the tension of what he was doing. ‘You read it in print in the Washington Post, and then tell me it’s shit.’ There was silence. Fifteen seconds, thirty seconds of utter silence. Then Senator Jones said, ‘This is a state-wide problem, right? As I understand it.’

‘Kansas and North Dakota. That’s what I heard on the news.’

‘Well – if it’s a state-wide problem – I may be able to pressure for federal emergency aid. I may be able to arrange a special financial allocation to help farmers wiped out by the blight.’

‘That sounds more like it.’

‘I can’t promise anything, and I think we ought to meet. I’ll have to get my assistant to do some digging on the background, too. You have to understand that I’m coming into this cold.’

‘So am I,’ said Ed. ‘I only found the first traces of blight yesterday evening.’

‘All right,’ said Senator Jones. ‘Is there any chance you can get down to Fall River at the week-end? I have a cabin there, by the lake.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Then let me call you tomorrow, or maybe Thursday, and I’ll be more in the picture by then.’

‘Good,’ said Ed.’

‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Senator Jones, ‘you certainly inherited one of your father’s most important qualities.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Oh, yes. You can bluster like hell. Now, give me your number so that I can call you back.’

At last, Ed put the phone down. On the scribble pad beside him, he saw that he’d written the word ‘Compensation’ in elaborate, illuminated letters, and sketched a picture of an ear of wheat.

He sat back in his creaking sheriff’s chair, and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. Then he looked around him at the leather-bound books on the bookshelves – The Farmer’s Frontier, by Gilbert White, The Great Plains, by Walter Prescott Webb – and at the pipe-rack his father had left and at the bronze statue of plough horses from the early days of dry farming. Stacked on the corner of his desk were the accounts books for the past five years at South Burlington, and as Ed had come to learn since he moved into the farmhouse last fall, these books told the whole story of his father’s greatest successes and his greatest failures.

He heard a slight noise at the door, and he swivelled around in his chair. His mother was standing there, in her white bathrobe, her hair done up in curlers.

‘Mother,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’

‘I heard you talking,’ she said. ‘I came along to say good night.’

‘All right,’ he said, nodding. ‘Good night, then.’

She remained where she was, her face shadowed by the half-open door. ‘Was that true, what you said to Senator Jones?’ she asked him.

‘Was what true?’

‘You know what I mean, Edward. Was the farm really on the edge of ruin?’

He stood up, and ripped the doodles off his notepad. ‘Sometimes you have to say things just to put pressure on people,’ he said. ‘Whatever happened, it’s all past, and Daddy’s dead, and that’s all you have to worry about.’

‘But I want to know.’

He turned around and looked at her. ‘You didn’t know when Daddy was alive. He kept it all hidden from you. Why should you want to know now?’

‘Because he was my husband. Because I want to understand some of the problems he had to face.’

Ed picked up one of the accounts books, and flicked through it. ‘You can look if you want to. You may not understand what it all means, if you don’t have any training in reading accounts. Henry Pollock will tell you what went on, because Henry was Daddy’s right-hand man. But what it all amounts to is over-spending, under-capitalisation, arbitrary investment and near-sighted financial planning.’ Ursula Hardesty slowly shook her head. ‘I don’t understand it. He was such a good farmer.’

‘Oh, yes. No doubt about it. His irrigation system is still one of the finest in the country. Y ou know what people said about him – he could grow wheat on a parking lot. But he relied too much on his personality, and on scratching people’s backs, and having his own back scratched in return. The day he died, the financial future of this farm was hanging by a thread. That’s why the bank needed to talk to Michael the night before his funeral.’

‘Are you trying to say that your father killed his own son?’

‘Mother, don’t talk nonsense. Michael died because of a terrible and tragic accident.’

‘But that’s what you’re saying isn’t it?’ his mother insisted. ‘If the farm had been financially stable, Michael wouldn’t have had to drive into Wichita. If your father hadn’t over-spent and mis-managed the farm, Michael could still be alive.’

‘Mother, for God’s sake, you can’t talk like that.’

The old woman stood up straight. ‘This is my house. I can talk how I like.’

There was a pause, and then a quiet, firm voice said, ‘No, Ursula. This isn’t your house. Not any more. And if you want to be welcome in it, you’re going to have to keep a check on those irrational outbursts of yours.’

Season was standing at the far end of the corridor, by the door of the master bedroom, in a long lacey negligee. Mrs Hardesty touched her forehead with her fingertips as if she felt a sudden twinge of headache, and then abruptly turned and walked back to her bedroom, without a word. Season stayed where she was, waiting for Ed to say something.

‘I’m going into Wichita tomorrow to see Dr Benson,’ Ed said. ‘If I’m going to press for extra compensation, I think I’m going to have to get myself all the technical information I can lay my hands on.’

‘Of course,’ said Season. There was an odd, slightly challenging note in the way she said it.

‘Do you want to come with me?’ he asked her. ‘You could do some shopping at the civic centre.’

‘It depends what time you go,’ she said. ‘I’m catching an eleven o’clock flight to Los Angeles from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport’

‘Season?’ he said, quite urgently; but she had already gone back into the bedroom, and closed the door.

‘Season?’ he repeated, knowing that she couldn’t hear him.

Five

Senator Jones walked back into his lavish Moroccan-style living-room, with its multi-coloured mosaic tiles and its North African draperies and its elaborate brass-topped tables and stood silent for a moment, lighting up a cigar.

‘Well?’ asked the red-headed girl in the silky emerald-green wrap, stretching herself out on the ottoman sofa.

‘Well what?’ said Senator Jones, as he pup-pup-pupped his Havana into life.

‘Well, who is it who’s so burningly fascinating that you’re prepared to break off right in the middle of courting your favourite newspaper lady? Usually, my darling, you’re not even prepared to answer the phone for the President.’

‘The President’s a Democrat,’ growled Senator Jones. ‘Apart from being an uninteresting asshole.’

‘And was this a Republican? An interesting asshole?’

‘If I told you who it was, and why he’d called me, you’d rush back to the office and print it,’ said Senator Jones.

‘It’s as scandalous as all that?’

‘It’s no more scandalous than anything else that happens in American politics. Tell me one worthwhile political achievement since seventeen seventy-six that hasn’t been scandalous. It was scandal that made this nation great.’

Senator Jones lowered his bulky body into a large carved-oak armchair, upholstered in a zig-zag fabric that resembled camel blankets. He crossed his legs by tugging at his left ankle with his right hand and he puffed at his cigar for a while reflectively. He had always been a big man. There were photographs upstairs in his study which showed him as a linebacker for the Washburn University football team. A serious, solid young man with thick lips and eyebrows that looked as if they had been drawn across his face with a black felt-tip pen. He had remained reasonably athletic while he worked in his father’s law firm in Topeka; but when he entered politics, in the Eisenhower landslide of 1956, as one of the state’s youngest-ever representatives, he quickly learned to enjoy the fruits of political success, as well as the steaks and the lobsters and the truffles and the fine vintage wines. By the time Ike’s term was over, Shearson Jones weighed over 250 pounds, and Washington wags were calling him ‘Shearson Jones, Incorporated.’ Time magazine printed a famous picture of him sitting in a committee meeting with his belly protruding so much that they captioned it ‘Kansas Representative and Friend.’

He may have been overweight, but he stayed light on his feet, both physically and politically. The hours he spent over dinner weren’t wasted, because he chose his dinner-partners carefully, and by the time Kennedy was elected he was known as one of the toughest and most knowledgeable negotiators in Congress. His main power base was the Department of Agriculture, where he formed intricate and lasting alliances with the most influential members of the bureaucracy, the faceless officials who really decided what went on. He ran for senator in 1964, and during the Johnson years he built up several enduring friendships with the heavyweight Southern Democrats who controlled the Agriculture Committee. In 1971, he was the prime mover behind a small but forceful group of senators who blocked attempts to abolish or adjust the parity ratio – the ratio between income and expenditure which was supposed to show how well America’s farmers were faring. The parity ratio usually showed the farmers were doing badly, and that they urgently needed federal support, so that by 1973 the government was handing them more than 2.5 billion dollars a year.

What the parity ratio didn’t show was that most larger farmers were actually doing very well, and that many of those larger farmers were paying Shearson Jones hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain their subsidies. By 1973 – when the federal farm programme was eventually changed under the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act – the senator from Kansas was worth well over seven million dollars.

He was said to have made another million out of illegal sales of rice to the North Vietnamese, but an exhaustive investigation in the Washington Post failed to come up with any concrete evidence. Shearson Jones had raised his fist in the Senate and asked God to strike him dead instantly if he had ever been guilty of illegal trafficking in grain or rice.

Today, Shearson Jones was big, balding and buoyant – a huge and ebullient man at the peak of his career. He had occasionally been mentioned as vice-presidential material, although The New York Times had ruled out the possibility of his ever making the White House. ‘Too fat in an age of austerity,’ they had remarked, dismissively.

The red-haired girl said, ‘What are you going to do now? Kiss me? Kick me out? Or are you going to sit there and seek oral gratification from that cigar for the rest of the night?’

‘I’m thinking,’ said Shearson.

‘Oh, you’re thinking. In the middle of our romantic courtship, you have to think?’

He ignored her. ‘Make me another drink,’ he said. ‘I want to make one more phone call.’

She got up from the ottoman, walked over, and kissed him on his bald forehead. There were pinpricks of sweat on his brow, and he still smelled of garlic from lunchtime. He glanced up at her and gave an appreciative ‘hmmph,’ but then he was used to the attentions of pretty young women. He was very rich, and very powerful, and apart from that the sheer bodily size of him exerted some sort of grotesque attraction over the unlikeliest girls. One of his mistresses had ecstatically described his love-making as ‘something between riding on Moby Dick in a rough sea, and bouncing on a huge feather bed.’

He had known Della McIntosh for just four days. He had seen her before, of course, because she was the Washington bureau chief for the Kansas City Herald-Examiner, and whenever he held a press conference or handed out prizes or opened his mouth in the Senate, Della McIntosh would have to be there. She had even interviewed his wife Margaret once, for a piece that had run under the headline ‘Living With The Stomach Of The Senate.’

But four days ago, Margaret had been fortuitously out of town, visiting her diabetic sister in San Diego. And when Shearson and Della had found themselves together on the balcony of Senator Karl Leiderman’s elegant Georgetown house, both taking an oxygen break during a seven o’clock cocktail crush, it had been animal attraction at first sight, with nothing to hold it back.

Della was petite – snub-nosed, green-eyed, with vivid red hair in a shaggy Farrah bob. Although she was small, her breasts were enormous – Playboy playmate size – and Shearson had taken one look at her and felt an almost irresistible urge to dig his podgy fingers into them. Della had been wearing a low-cut cocktail dress in electric blue, with a small sapphire cross dangling in her cleavage, and Shearson had walked across the balcony in his huge black tuxedo and loomed over her like Mount Baldy on a dark night.

‘That cross,’ he had rumbled, ‘is resting in the most desirable spot in the whole of the District of Columbia.’

They had left the cocktail party separately. There was no way in which Shearson could ever slip out from anywhere unnoticed. They had met up an hour later at Le Faisan Restaurant, where he had treated her to dinner, and to the unparalleled spectacle of an average Shearson Jones repast. He had steadily eaten his way through turtle soup, fresh trout, roasted quails, rack of lamb, boeuf en croûte, salad, cheese, and a heaped plateful of profiteroles, smothered with hot chocolate and cream.

They had toasted each other wordlessly in Hospices de Beaune.

Now, over by the African-style cocktail cabinet – stained oak topped by minarets and pierced with mirrors – Della mixed them two vodka tonics. Shearson opened a brass-inlaid box and took out a telephone.

‘Are you sure you can trust me?’ asked Della, squeezing the limes.

Shearson punched out a number. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure at all. But if I see one single word of this in the Kansas City Herald-Examiner, I’ll have the whole damned paper closed down.’

‘You and whose army?’

‘Me and Mr Wendeil Oliver, the chairman of Western States Communications, who happens to control a majority shareholding in your newspaper, and who comes around here for dinner twice a month.’

She glanced at him. He plainly wasn’t joking at all. She said, ‘Oh,’ and brought him his drink. Then she sat on the edge of the ottoman, her wrap slightly parted to reveal her breasts, while he puffed and popped away at his cigar and waited for his number to ring.

‘Alan?’ he said, at last.

A wary voice said, ‘Who is this?’

‘Alan, this is Shearson. That’s right. Well, I know it’s kind of a strange time to be calling you, Alan, but as it happens something pretty interesting has come up.’

‘What do you mean by “interesting”?’ asked the voice. It was a rich voice, fruity, with a strong Georgia accent.

Shearson pulled a face. ‘All kinds of interesting, Alan. Politically interesting – the kind of thing that would show a fellow up in a favourable light when it came to election time – and financially interesting, too. In fact, the very best kind of interesting.’

‘Go on.’

‘You’ve heard about this crop blight they’ve been experiencing in Kansas and North Dakota? The wheat disease?’

‘Sure. It was on the news tonight. I’ve already asked Wilkins to get together a dossier on it’

Shearson nodded. ‘That’s good. You’ve told the media what you’re doing, have you? Good. Because from what I hear, this blight’s pretty serious. Hundreds of acres gone to rot, and nothing the farmers can do about it.’

‘Spreading all the time, too,’ put in Alan. ‘So far they’re projecting the worst wheat harvest for ten years, even if they can bring it under control by mid-week.’

‘Well, that’s what I hear, too,’ said Shearson. ‘Not that it’s really going to hit our grain reserves too badly. We’ve got more damned grain stored up than we know what to do with – especially after we stopped selling it to the Soviets. And if you ask me, it won’t do the farmers much harm, either. It’s about time Mother Nature slapped them down a bit, and gave them a genuine reason to be grateful for all those subsidies we give them.’

Alan said cautiously, ‘I still don’t quite get your drift, Shearson.’

The drift is this,’ Shearson explained, with a smug smile. ‘This blight is spectacular, and damaging, and right now it’s newsworthy. That means that the situation’s just getting ripe for some strong emotional rhetoric. You know what I mean. How the honest farmers risk their whole livelihood just to fill the nation’s bread-basket; how this strange and terrifying blight is going to drive countless small farmers to the wall; how they’re going to need more than their usual guaranteed floor prices to stay in business.’

‘I’m not sure you’re making sense,’ said Alan.

‘Oh, I’m making sense all right,’ said Shearson. ‘Because out of all this stirring talk, we’re going to propose a special emergency rescue fund – maybe call it the Blight Crisis Appeal. We’ll swing a vote in the House for some modest starting donation from the federal government – say ten million dollars – and then we’ll ask private industry to donate as well. As an acknowledgement, we’ll take out whole page advertisements in Fortune, with headings like ‘The grateful farmers of Kansas thank the following for their donations…’ All good heartwarming commercial stuff. The public will like it, the government will like it, industry will like it, and even farmers will like it.’

‘I’ll buy that,’ Alan said. ‘But where’s your angle?’ Shearson grunted in amusement. ‘You’re being slow tonight, Alan. The angle is that you and I will administer the fund, and that we’ll have total and legal control over the distribution of the money. Naturally, we’ll have to be paid a modest salary by the fund for the work we put in, and then we’ll have expenses to cover, and it might even be necessary for the fund to purchase extensive tracts of farmland for research purposes. You’ve always fancied a nice stud farm for your retirement, haven’t you, Alan? Well, you could have that, and serve the American people, too.’

There was a long silence on the other end of the telephone. Then Alan said, ‘Legal? You sure?’

‘I’ll have Joe Dasgupta set up the framework. He may cost a little more, but he’ll make it watertight.’

‘What if the laboratories find out what’s causing the blight, and what if they manage to arrest it before it does too much damage? What happens then?’

‘Alan, my friend, you’re being naïve. The federal agricultural research laboratories are under our jurisdiction.’

‘You mean – even if they do find out what it is – we don’t have to accept their findings?’

That’s right. We can keep this blight going just as long as we need to. Apart from our own laboratories, the only other people working on any kind of analysis are the local yokels in Wichita, and you know how limited their facilities are. They couldn’t analyse a cow flop.’

‘Well,’ said Alan, thoughtfully, ‘it seems like you’ve thought of all the possible wrinkles. What are you going to do now?’

‘I have a farmer,’ said Shearson. ‘One representative farmer, whose crop is turning as black as Sammy Davis Junior all around him. I used to know his father, before his father passed on, and so there’s a good old-time friendship story for the newspapers in that. This farmer’s going to be my mouthpiece for all the struggling crop growers of Kansas and North Dakota. He’s articulate, and he’s out for extra compensation on top of his crop insurance, and with the right handling he could be very appealing. I haven’t met him yet, but provided he doesn’t look like Quasimodo, I don’t think we’re going to have any problems at all.’

There was a longer silence. Eventually, Alan said, ‘All right, Shearson. I’ll leave the ball with you. But don’t forget to keep me in touch. I don’t want you using my authority for deals you conveniently forgot to tell me about.’

‘Alan,’ said Shearson, warmly, ‘would I ever do a thing like that?’

‘Yes,’ replied Alan, and put the phone down.

Della sat watching Shearson with a mixture of amusement and respect. ‘You amaze me,’ she said, as Shearson picked up his cocktail and took a long swallow.

‘I amaze you? Why? I’m only doing my job.

‘Your job is to set up personal slush funds disguised as emergency appeals for stricken farmers?’

Shearson shook his head. ‘My job is to make the people who elected me happy. That’s why they voted for me. With this Blight Crisis fund, the agricultural aid supporters in Congress will get to feel happy, the private industries who donate money and have their names published in the papers will get to feel happy, the farmers will get to feel happy, and the public will get to feel happy.’

Della stood up and walked across the Arabian rug. The loosely-tied belt around her silky wrap came undone, and Shearson glimpsed her small see-through nylon panties. He raised his eyes to her and saw that she was smiling.

‘We mustn’t forget you,’ she said. ‘You will get to feel happiest of all.’

‘You don’t begrudge me a little satisfaction out of life? A little financial compensation for all the selfless effort I put into this nation’s affairs?’

‘You still amaze me,’ she said. ‘To take a situation like this wheat blight, and twist it around into a profit-making venture with only a couple of phone calls and a few minutes’ thought – well, that’s what I call genius. Black genius, perhaps. But genius all the same.’

He watched her closely, and then he held out his fat-fingered hand for her. She stepped a few inches closer, and he grasped her wrap.

‘I still don’t know if I can trust you or not,’ he told her, in a thick voice that had all the warning rumbles of an earth tremor. ‘I still don’t know if I should have let you overhear what I was saying.’

‘I don’t even know who you were talking to.’

He grunted. ‘Don’t give me that. It was Alan Hedges, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and you realised that as soon as I started talking.’

‘All right,’ she smiled, ‘I did.’

The question is,’ he said, ‘are you going to rush into print with this tasty little morsel of scandal, or are you going to accept my offer?’

‘Offer?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side. Shearson was tugging harder at her wrap now, and her right shoulder was bare. She didn’t make any attempt to resist him. Her skin was pale and freckled in the subdued light from the pierced-brass Moroccan lamp.

‘Come on, Della, you’re an intelligent woman,’ said Shearson. ‘I’m going to need someone to oversee this little fund-raising operation for me. A manager.’

‘Don’t you have anyone in the Department of Agriculture to do your managing for you?’

He shook his head. ‘They’re all too busy digging knives into each other’s backs and trying to outsmart me. I need an outsider. Someone new, and bright, and fresh, and personable. Someone like you.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I know that you’re twenty-seven years old, born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, daughter of a horse-breeder and his wife. I know that you studied at Oklahoma College of Liberal Arts at Chickasha, and then found yourself a job in Oklahoma City as a copy girl for the Oklahoma News-Messenger. I know that you married a printer called George McIntosh when you were just twenty-one, and that you bore him a daughter. I know that your daughter died of meningitis when she was two, and that not long after, you and George split up. You went to Kansas City, and found a job on the Kansas City Herald-Examiner – and George – do you know what happened to George?’

‘No,’ said Della, white-faced. ‘I haven’t heard from George in two or three years.’

‘Well, that’s not surprising,’ said Shearson. ‘George died in a very nasty multiple road accident on the Indian Nation Turnpike, a couple of miles outside of McAlester, just about a year ago.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Della. ‘You’ve only been dating me for four days. And, my God, nobody told me that George was dead. I didn’t even get a letter from his mother.’

Shearson shrugged, but didn’t release his tight grip on her wrap. ‘I know because I have to know. I’m an influential man, Della, and influential men are at permanent risk from chisellers and con artists and sweet-talking whores with big tits. You – you’re different. You talk sharp and you don’t let me get away with treating you like dirt. I like you a lot. And that’s why my friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigation were only too glad to fill in a little background for me.’

Della looked down at his fist, gripping her wrap possessively.

‘You want me to give up the newspaper?’ she asked him. He nodded.

‘How much would it pay? I mean – running an emergency fund isn’t a career, is it? What would I do when it was all over?’

‘You wouldn’t have to do anything. A fund of this kind can raise up to three hundred million dollars. Maybe more. You and me and Alan Hedges – we’d all be working for a percentage. In rough figures, you may come out with a million and a bit.’

‘A million and a bit? A million dollars?’

‘You heard me. That’s the offer. But if you don’t take it, I don’t want a single word about this Blight Crisis Appeal turning up in the Kansas City Herald-Examiner, or any other newspaper for that matter. This is offered to you in confidence, because I like you, and because I think I can trust you.’

Della stood silent. Shearson watched her for a while, the sweat shining on his forehead, and then he heaved himself out of his chair, and stood over her.

‘You know why I like you?’ he growled. ‘You’re a smart bitch. A real smart bitch. Even now, you’re playing smart. Even though I know damned well what you’re going to say.’

He seized her emerald-green wrap in both hands, and pulled it right down over her shoulders, baring her breasts. They were big and white and heavy, with soft pale nipples, and Shearson looked down at them with the theatrical pleasure of a stage pirate who has just prised open a casket of gold.

‘You’re smart,’ he said, ‘and you’re damned sexy.’

He gripped her breasts in both hands, digging his fingers in deep. She raised her head, and closed her eyes, and he leaned forward and kissed her neck, and then bit it, until he was leaving bruises all over her skin. His fingertips worked at her nipples, tugging them and rolling them around the ball of his thumb, until the pink areolas crinkled, and the nipples tightened and stood up.

He was breathing hard now, from exertion; but he peeled off his dark businessman’s vest, loosened his cufflinks, and took off his shirt. Underneath, his body was huge, with sloping breasts that were almost as big as Della’s, and a belly that swung with its own ponderous weight. He leaned forward, panting, and took down his pants, and then his undershorts.

Della said, ‘Now? You want to do it now?’

He kicked aside his discarded clothes with his feet. He was naked now – a vast bulky Buddha – pale and hairy and imposing. He stood with his thighs apart, his fists on his hips, and the erection that rose from between his legs was dark crimson and challengingly thick. Unlike many fat men, whose sexual functions declined as their weight increased, Shearson Jones had kept up a greedy interest in women, and the size of his penis was renowned amongst more than a few Washington hostesses whose husbands occasionally found themselves posted abroad on State Department business.

Mrs Gene Bolsover had called it ‘the only pole I’d salute whether they ran a flag up it or not.’

Shearson took hold of Della’s arm, and pulled her towards him. Her wrap was hanging around her waist now, and he tugged it right off, so that she, too, was naked, except for her panties. He kissed her mouth, and pressed her close to his big pillowy belly, and squeezed her breasts until they hurt.

‘You’re a bitch, you see,’ he panted. His face was laced with shining sweat. ‘You’re a bitch who has to be taught to be appreciative.’

She had seen him in this mood before, but never so fiercely. He had never actually hurt her before, despite his bulk, but now it seemed as if he was going to try to force her to do whatever he wanted, both in bed and at work. She arched her back to get away from his thick-lipped kisses, but he wrapped his arms around her in a massive, spine-cracking bear-hug from which she just couldn’t break herself free. Apart from being huge, Shearson was also overwhelmingly strong.

‘I’m offering you everything a woman could want,’ he whispered, close to her ear. It was a harsh, uncompromising whisper that frightened her. ‘Everything you ever desired. Money, fur coats, pleasure, popularity. You can’t tell me that you’re going to say no.’

‘Shearson—’ she said, but he gripped her even tighter. Her lumbar vertebrae felt as if they were being compressed in a vice.

‘Come on, Della, you can’t say no! A million dollars, maybe more than a million dollars, and me, too!’

‘Shearson – I can’t—’ she gasped. ‘Shearson – I can’t – breathe properly—’

Shearson suddenly released her, and raised his arms, like a boxer showing the referee that he’s broken completely free from a clinch. His eyes were giving nothing away at all. They were bland and bulbous and they didn’t even blink. He backed away, his thighs wobbling, his hands still raised.

‘Well, then, Della,’ he said, softly, ‘you can do whatever you choose. But if you decide you want to stay with that newspaper of yours, you’d better get yourself dressed and leave this house right now, and there’s something else you’d better consider, too. You’d better consider my friendly association with Mr Wendell Oliver, and how that might adversely affect your career. What’s more, you’d better think about all those confidences to which you’ve accidentally become a party, and how dangerous those kind of confidences can be. Why, I’ve known people with information like that get themselves into all kinds of trouble.’ In the dim Moroccan room there was no sound at all, save for Shearson’s laboured breathing. Then, the senator reached out behind him for the ottoman, and sat down on it, still breathing heavily, and still watching Della with those intense, vacant eyes of his.

‘If you decide you want to take up a new career in my employment, of course, your whole life’s going to be different,’ he said. There was no expression on his face at all. ‘You’re going to discover a whole new world of diamonds, and mink, and Cadillacs. That part of life which my good friend Alan Hedges calls “The Gravy”.’

He lay back, his belly spreading wide, his thighs crowding underneath its fleshy overlap like the carcasses of two white whales being towed along by a factory ship. But between them, his erection rose as strong as ever, and his balls were as tight as a fist.

‘Are you coming?’ he asked her.

She stayed where she was while an unseen clock ticked away another minute in her life. A brass-and-ebony clock which had ticked away the lives of unknown Moroccans in Tangier, and which Shearson had brought back with him from North Africa on one of his regular antique-plundering trips.

During this minute, she didn’t look pretty, even though her hair was shining bright red, and the shadows which fell across her nearly-naked body were soft and flattering. But then she approached the ottoman, and looked down at Shearson’s massive body, and smiled. The smile of a sensual woman, possibly – even the smile of a hooker. But she knew what she had to do and the smile went with it.

While Shearson lay on his back, she climbed on to him, straddling his thighs first, and then leaning forward, so that his erection was touching her stomach. She held it in her small fist, her small fist with the thin gold rings on every finger, and she slowly rubbed it up and down, until the head swelled purple and glossy, and the slit in it began to gape the same way that Shearson’s mouth was gaping.

‘Good girl,’ breathed Shearson. ‘Good girl.’

She lifted herself up a little, and from where he was lying Shearson could see the gingery pattern of pubic hair through the transparent nylon of her panties. But then she reached down between her legs, and pulled the nylon aside, exposing the glistening pink flesh of her vulva. And with an easy, rhythmic motion like a rider settling herself in a saddle, she couched the head of Shearson’s erection between her open lips, and sat down on him, quickly and easily, and right up to the hilt. He let out an odd chuffing sound, like the air brakes on a large truck.

‘You big pig,’ Della told him, with that same hooker’s smile. ‘You great gross hog of a man.’

Shearson didn’t make love like other men: he was too fat for that. Instead, he expected his lovers to gallop on top of him, while he responded with a kind of wallowing undulation. But he was big enough to go very deep, and to stretch his women to their utmost, and while his body may not have been agile, he had hands that could twist and squeeze, or could just as arousingly touch and tickle and tease. While Della moved up and down on him, sliding up and down with ever-increasing excitement and tension, he gripped the round soft cheeks of her bottom and parted them like a diner breaking a soft bread-roll, and then sent his middle finger on a dark and erotic exploration of the doughy interior. Della, in spite of herself, in spite of everything she felt, found herself pushing her hips harder and deeper on to Shearson’s cushioned thighs, and it was only on the very brink of orgasm that she had a vivid and uncompromising insight into what she was actually doing, and that she saw Shearson’s fatness for what it was.

Then – it was too late. Her body was already quaking; her breasts were already shuddering; and Shearson was ejaculating inside her in measured, laconic spurts of sperm.

She climbed off him too quickly. He sensed her distaste. But he stayed where he was on the ottoman and watched her with dispassion as she stepped across the room and picked up her wrap. She found it easier to face him once she had covered herself up, although he had left her with a slimy reminder of his appetites which was sliding down her thigh.

‘Well,’ he said, easing himself up into a sitting position. ‘I suppose that means yes. What you did, I mean. I suppose that amounts to acceptance.’

She nodded, her head jerking like a marionette. ‘Yes,’ she said, in her briskest liberated-female-reporter manner. ‘Yes, it does. I’ll send in my resignation to the Kansas City Herald-Examiner as soon as your fund raising committee is ready to roll.’

‘You’re a sensible girl,’ he said. ‘Will you pass me my undershorts? And my cigar?’

She carried over his drooping white undershorts with as much grace as she could manage; and his cigar, pinched between finger and thumb like some kind of unpleasant dropping. He lit it again, and puffed up some figured clouds of pungent blue smoke.

‘This isn’t an easy world, Della,’ he said, as if he was trying to excuse himself for what he had just forced her to do. ‘We all have to go out and get what we want, as rough and as tough as we have to. It’s the only way.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’ll excuse me if I go to the bathroom.’ Shearson sat on the ottoman for a minute or two after she’d gone, and then heaved himself up and laboriously stepped into his undershorts. He was mopping the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief when, in complete silence, his Puerto Rican manservant Billy appeared at the door. Billy was a small man, slender and nervous and narrow-chested, with a face as oval and white as a blanched almond.

‘Peter Kaiser on the telephone for you, sir.’

Peter Kaiser was his personal assistant. Shearson waved his hand dismissively. ‘Tell him to call back in the morning. What time is it, Billy?’

‘Eleven, sir. He says it’s very urgent, sir.’

Shearson took his cigar out of his mouth and frowned at the smouldering tip. For some reason, this one wasn’t burning right. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But this is the last call tonight. You understand that? Mrs McIntosh and I have a great deal of important business to discuss.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Billy, without a single hint of insolence. Shearson waddled over to his armchair, sat down, and picked up the telephone.

‘Peter?’ he said. ‘What the hell’s so damned urgent you have to call me at this hour? I have guests.’

‘I know. Senator. Billy told me.’

‘All right,’ said Shearson, in a patronising tone. ‘You can cut out the little-league superiority. All I want to know is why you’re calling.’

‘It’s to do with this blight. Senator. You know the wheat problems they’ve been having in Kansas?’

‘I do have a passing acquaintance with the problem,’ said Shearson. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve just been discussing a Blight Crisis Appeal with Alan Hedges. I was going to fill you in tomorrow.’

‘Well, the fact is. Senator, it’s worse,’ said Peter. Shearson sniffed. ‘Worse? What do you mean by worse? Worse than what?’

‘Worse than it was before. Much worse. I’ve had two urgent and confidentials from Dick Turnbull in the past three hours. The wheat blight is spreading like crazy. Dick estimates five hundred thousand acres already. And now we’ve got nine major farmers in Iowa reporting a similar kind of blight on their com and soybean crops.’

‘Are you serious?’ asked Shearson. ‘Com and soybean too?’

‘All the reports have been authenticated,’ said Peter. ‘There are six or seven more which haven’t been checked back yet, including two reports of fruit and vegetable blight in California.’

Shearson rubbed his jowls thoughtfully. ‘What about the media?’ he asked. ‘Any trouble from them yet?’

‘Not too much, although the Wall Street Journal’s been pestering me for most of the evening. That may give us a little time – maybe until the morning – but we won’t be able to hold it back for very much longer. It seems like every darned crop in the whole darned country’s going rotten.’

Shearson said, ‘Listen, Peter – I want you to keep a tight rein on what the media get to hear about. Right at the moment, I don’t want a panic. I’m trying to set up this appeal fund to help farmers whose crops have been destroyed by the blight, and if everybody starts running about like blue-assed baboons, then it’s going to spoil the whole presentation. The minute the public themselves start to feel threatened by what’s happening, they’ll lose all interest in giving aid to the farmers.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Peter, dubiously. ‘But what am I going to tell the press if they put it to me point-blank?’

‘Tell them there’s a crop blight crisis. Tell them it’s serious. But tell them we have whole teams of experts working on a solution, and we expect to be dusting with proven antidotes within the week. If they want figures, tell them we don’t anticipate anything worse than an eight per cent cereal crop shortfall.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘Supposing they go take a look for themselves?’

‘Use your head,’ retorted Shearson. ‘All press and television people are up against deadlines. You think they’re going to be able to take a look at the whole of Kansas before tomorrow morning’s editions? They’ll take one or two stock shots and leave it at that.’

‘All right, Senator, if you say so,’ said Peter. ‘Do you want me to keep you in touch throughout the night?’

‘Tonight, I’m busy,’ Shearson growled. ‘Call me at seven tomorrow morning. Oh – and there’s one thing you can do. Get in touch with the agricultural research laboratories and see how they’re progressing with their analysis.’

‘Okay, Senator. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Della appeared at the living-room door, with her hair brushed and her make-up restored. There was a faint stiffness about her smile, but Shearson was too pleased to notice it. ‘You wait till you hear what’s happened,’ he grinned. ‘It seems like every damned farmer in the whole middle West is getting hit by this blight. So if we play our cards right, if we can keep the public’s personal anxiety way down low and their sympathy way up high, we might be in for more than we originally bargained for.’

Della said, ‘Good,’ in an abstracted voice, and then walked over to the cocktail cabinet, where she poured herself three fingers of scotch, straight-up, and drank it back without blinking.

Six

It was a dry, hot, windy morning. The sky over southern Kansas was already the odd mauvish colour of burned notepaper. Ed drove Season and Sally along Highway 54 into Wichita with the air-conditioning in his Caprice stationwagon right down to freeze. Every time he glanced in his rear-view mirror he could see the three Gucci suitcases packed in the back, with the tags that read LAX.

Season was wearing a smart camel-coloured suit, and her hair was tied back with a scarf. Sally had brought along her favourite dolly, a floppy and unsavoury rag creature with bright pink hair. Its name was Merry, for reasons that Ed and Season had never quite managed to understand.

They didn’t talk much. There wasn’t very much to say. He had tried this morning to ask her not to go, as they lay – side by side in their soft curtained bed; but she had kissed him, and said that it was necessary for her own survival. He had made love to her, more doggedly than passionately, and afterwards she had lain there amongst the rose-patterned sheets and smiled at him gently, but still without changing her mind. He knew she had to go, too. She needed to remind herself that Kingman County wasn’t the whole world, and that South Burlington wasn’t the sum of her life and her intelligence.

All he had said to her over breakfast was, ‘You’ll come back, won’t you, when you’ve made up your mind?’

Sally had looked up from her bowl of Grape Nuts, puzzled. Season had touched her lips with her fingertip to tell Ed that he shouldn’t say any more. But a few minutes later, she had said, gently, ‘You know I will.’

The early sun had shone through the window across the breakfast table, and with Dilys bustling at the stove in her gingham apron, the kitchen had taken on all the appearance of one of those happy 1950s television series, the ones where hearty neighbours kept popping in through a swing door, and everybody ate heaps of bacon and sausage-links and wheatcakes, and never suffered anything worse than an occasional misunderstanding.

‘I’ll call you when we get there,’ said Season, as they approached Wichita Airport. A DC10 was making its approach over on their right and it flashed silver in the morning light before it sank towards the runway. The going-away smell of airplane fuel penetrated the car’s air-conditioning, and Ed suddenly felt very lonesome and even frightened, as if he would never see Season again. Not to hold anyway, and not to love.

He turned right into the airport, and drove them up to the terminal building. ‘I didn’t buy you anything to take with you,’ he said. ‘Do you want a book, a magazine, something like that?’

Season shook her head. ‘I believe I’ll have quite enough thinking to do. And Sally’s never flown over the Grand Canyon before. We’ll keep busy.’

He turned to her, and placed his hand over hers. ‘Well,’ he said hoarsely, ‘there’s one thing I’d like you to take with you.’

She looked at him, but didn’t say anything. He lowered his head, because somehow that made it easier to hold back his emotion. ‘I’d like you to take my love with you,’ he said, wishing the words didn’t sound so much like a Valentine card. ‘And I’d like you to take my best wishes for everything that you do. I love you, Season, and there ain’t two ways about it.’

She kissed him, and her lips were very warm, and she smelled of Joy. ‘I love you, too, Ed. Really dearly I do. And I’m going to miss you badly. But I know that when I get back, I’m going to have my head straightened out and everything’s going to be fine.’

‘Why don’t you come. Daddy?’ asked Sally. ‘You could take me swimming and everything, and Auntie Vee says we’ll go to the ocean.’

Ed turned in his seat and took her hand. ‘I’ve got to harvest all of our wheat, honey, or we won’t have any food to eat for the next year. But maybe I’ll be able to come next time.’

‘I love you. Daddy,’ said Sally. ‘And Merry loves you, too.’

Ed kissed her. ‘I love you, honey.’

He got out of the car. The day was roastingly hot, even though it was only ten o’clock, and the sun rippled off the sidewalk in corrugated waves. He opened the back of the stationwagon, and hefted out their cases. A sky-cap with a bright red face and prickly hair was waiting to collect them.

‘Los Angeles?’ the skycap asked.

Ed nodded. Then he went around to open the car doors for Season and Sally.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I won’t wait. I have an appointment with Dr Benson at the agricultural laboratory.’

Season held him close. ‘Goodbye, Ed,’ she said, and she was crying. She took hold of Sally’s hand and the two of them walked quickly across the sidewalk and into the reflecting doors of the terminal. Ed stood watching them go, and then he slowly took out his handkerchief and rubbed the sweat from the back of his neck, and maybe some of the tension, too. He climbed back into his car and started the motor.

For a moment, he closed his eyes.

He hadn’t said much to Season this morning about the wheat blight. It was a little worse, he’d admitted, but he was sure they could get it under control. What he hadn’t told her was that Willard had come knocking at the kitchen door at six-thirty in the morning, while Ed had been sitting at the table drinking his first cup of coffee of the day and reading the papers, and that Willard had already been out with Dyson Kane on a circular helicopter tour of the whole spread.

Willard had calculated that almost an eighth of their total wheat acreage had been blighted during the night, and that the disease was spreading even faster than before. If they didn’t find some way of curbing it by Monday or Tuesday, they were going to lose everything.

Ed had shown Willard the news story in the Kansas City Herald-Examiner. Considering how widespread the blight had been, and how many major Kansas farms had been hit, the coverage had seemed almost offhand. It had rated only a second lead on page three, and ‘Our Agricultural Desk’ had simply reported that ‘several Kansas wheat farmers have noticed an unidentified blight on their late crops’, while ‘Our Washington Bureau’ had remarked with distinct unconcern that ‘federal researchers are busy analysing the blight and working on new methods for bringing it under prompt control.’

In fact, Ed had been so disturbed by the paucity of the news story that he had already called Walter Klugman, who owned the neighbouring Penalosa Farm, and checked if his crops were just as seriously affected.

‘Oh, you bet,’ Walter had said. ‘If anything, mine’s worse than yours. I’ve got thirty per cent of my wheat crop turned rotten, and if the state don’t come up with something soon. I’m going to burn the whole damned spread.’

Even when Ed and Willard had turned on the television for the early-morning news, the stories about the wheat blight had been dismissive and superficial. ‘Not a good year for the wheat farmers of Kansas and North Dakota,’ ABC had reported. ‘They’re bothered by a mystery disease which is turning hundreds of acres of harvest-ready crops into black, stinking decay. But federal scientists are said to have the problem in hand, and there’s also news that Kansas Senator Shearson Jones, known for years as the “Farmers’ Friend”, is planning on setting up an appeal fund to help those farmers who might face financial hardship because of the blight.’

Willard, helping himself to a cup of coffee, had shaken his head and whistled. ‘Financial hardship? The way things are going, we’re all going to be wiped out.’

As he drove over the Wichita Valley Flood Control gully, and along Douglas Avenue to the civic centre, Ed tuned into the news on his car radio. But there was nothing at all about the blight – just some long-winded story about a teacher from Wellington who was trying to bring back compulsory prayers. ‘We’ve been without God for nigh on thirty years,’ she was saying. ‘It’s time we turned our faces back in his direction.’

Ed parked the stationwagon in the civic centre parking lot, and took his brown-tinted sunglasses out of the glove-box. Then he walked across the wide, glaring pedestrian precinct, until he reached the shiny office building which announced itself as the Kansas State Agricultural Laboratory – not only with a plaque of brushed stainless-steel, but with a bronze statue of a smiling family growing out of a giant ear of wheat.

Inside, it was cold, echoing, and smelled of polish. A girl receptionist with bright red lipstick and a Titian-tinted beehive hairstyle directed Ed to the ninth floor. He stood in the elevator next to a man in a white lab-coat who was carrying a cardboard box marked ‘Infected Rodents’ and humming Peace In The Valley. There were times when he agreed with Season about Kansas. If you came from New York, or any city larger than Cleveland, you could quite readily believe that the Kansas state mentality was solid cereal from ear to ear.

He walked along the ninth-floor corridor until he reached a half-open office door marked Dr Nils Benson, Head of Disease Control. He knocked.

Dr Benson was standing by the window, peering at a 35mm colour slide. He shouted, ‘Come in!’ very loudly, and then swung around on his heels to see who his visitor was. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘It’s Mr Hardesty, isn’t it? Mr Hardesty of South Burlington Farm.’

‘You came around at Christmas when I was having that seedling problem,’ said Ed. ‘How are you doing?’

Dr Benson shook his hand. He was a tall, sixtyish man with a marked stoop of the shoulders – mainly brought on by his chronic shortsightedness and his habit of attacking anything that interested him like a Greater Prairie Chicken. He wore large round eyeglasses, and his hair was fraying and white, but whenever he took his glasses off, he looked strangely boyish and young. It was common knowledge in Wichita that Dr Benson had lost his homely but vigorous wife to an interstate truck driver, and that for years he had suffered an alcoholic problem. Some of his unkinder colleagues called him ‘Booze Benson’.

‘Sit down,’ said Dr Benson, lifting a heap of Scientific Americans off his desk, hesitating a moment, and then dropping them on to the floor. The floor was already littered with stacks of alphabetical files, graph paper, magazines, books, and empty Kentucky Chicken boxes. On the walls there were federal information posters on the comparative effects of various fertilising agents.

‘You mind if I smoke?’ asked Ed, taking out one of his small cigars.

‘Why should I? Everybody’s entitled to kill themselves whichever way they want. I’ve got some early results for you, incidentally. We did some chemical and ultra-violet tests on those samples your fellow brought in, and it looks like we might be having some success.’

‘You know what it is?’

‘Well, not exactly. But we know what it isn’t.’

‘I see,’ said Ed. ‘And what isn’t it?’

‘Sit down,’ repeated Dr Benson. ‘Make yourself comfortable, at least.’

Ed, awkwardly, sat on the edge of a small bentwood chair that was already piled with newspaper cuttings and tom-open letters. Dr Benson picked up pieces of paper and flung them systematically into the air as if he were performing some arcane manufacturing process.

‘It isn’t powdery mildew,’ he said. ‘Nor any from of powdery mildew of any kind whatsoever. Erysithe graminis, that’s the technical name for it. And it’s not that. Which is quite a pity.’

‘Why is it a pity?’ asked Ed. ‘I thought you would have been relieved.’

‘Oh, no, I’m not relieved at all. If it had been powdery mildew, even in its worst form, we might have been able to spray for it. I’m not saying we could have done very much good, but it would have been better than nothing at all. As you know, federal regulations only give us the option of using sulphur, but I’m sure a little bit of political finagling could have given us an emergency exemption to use Vigil or something like that.’

Ed nodded. ‘My crops manager mentioned Vigil. Do you think it’s still worth trying to get a clearance to use it?’

Dr Benson stopped flinging paper, stared at Ed for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘Not worth it. Wouldn’t do any good at all. The tests we’ve done so far indicate some runaway kind of virus infection – not at all simple and not at all ordinary. In fact, if I didn’t think that it was completely impossible, I would hazard the opinion that it was a cultured virus, specially developed for the purpose of destroying cereal crops.’

Ed frowned as he lit his cigar. ‘What do you mean – “specially developed”?’

‘Genetically engineered,’ said Dr Benson. ‘Created by human intention in a virus laboratory, for the specific task of destroying our crops.’

‘That can’t make sense,’ said Ed. ‘How the hell would anybody be able to spread a virus all over Kansas and North Dakota without being noticed?’

Dr Benson took off his eyeglasses, and attempted to wipe them on a crumpled piece of notepaper. ‘My thoughts exactly. Kansas covers something like ninety-two thousand square miles. Nobody could go around to every wheat farm in the state with enough virus-carrying compound to cause this kind of damage within the space of a week or so, not by car. And if they tried to overfly all those farms in an airplane – well, they’d have to fly very low, and somebody would have noticed them.’

Ed moved the letters off his seat, laid them on the floor, and then sat back. ‘You’re presupposing that anybody would have a motive for destroying our crops.’

Dr Benson pulled a face. ‘Of course. But don’t you think the Soviet Union would be likely? “You held your wheat back from us, now we’re going to make sure that you can’t have it either.” Maybe I’m talking baloney. I don’t know. I’m not what people call a political animal.’

There was a difficult silence. Ed respected Dr Benson’s scientific talents, but he wasn’t at all sure about some of his wilder theories of political conspiracy. Last year, when Ed had asked him to evaluate a new boosted wheat fertiliser for him, Dr Benson had suggested that the compound was deliberately designed to weaken the growing crops in such a way that yet another of the same company’s strengthening agents would be needed. He saw a dark and elaborate plot behind everything.

Ed said, ‘All right – let’s leave aside any idea that this virus might have been spread deliberately – and let’s think about how serious it is.’

Dr Benson opened one of his desk drawers, and then slammed it shut again. Perhaps, a long time ago, that drawer had contained a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s very serious indeed. It’s a highly sophisticated, highly selective, highly virulent aerobic virus. It could have developed naturally, the same way that Chinese influenza develops naturally, or it could have been sprayed on your crops in some technically calculated way which released it when the weather conditions developed into what they are at the moment.’

‘Dr Benson—’ said Ed. ‘I’m not really interested in how the virus arrived on my farm. What I’m really interested in is how to get rid of it.’

‘That’s the whole point,’ said Dr Benson. ‘Although I may be proved wrong – and I hope to God that I am – there is no way of combating this virus until we find out whether it’s natural or manufactured – and who manufactured it. I find this terribly difficult to explain to anyone without a basic understanding of DNA and genetic structure – but these days it’s quite possible to develop viruses that are so complex and malignant that almost nothing can be done to destroy them.’

Ed ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. ‘And you think it’s the Russians?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘What did they do – drop it by satellite?’

Dr Benson shook his head violently. ‘No, no, they couldn’t have done that. If they released a virus from a satellite in orbit, the whole global atmosphere would wind up polluted, and every crop on Earth would die. And if they tried to send the virus to Earth in directional capsules, they would be spotted at once. I do read my news magazines, you know.’

‘So what did they do? Hang around at Lubeck’s Seed-Dressing Factory, and squirt a bit in every bag?’

Dr Benson held up his hands. ‘They might have done. Who knows? I’m only trying to make an educated guess.’

‘Well – let’s put it this way,’ said Ed, ‘if anybody ever tried to overfly South Burlington Farm and dump anything on my crops, I’d sure as hell get to know about it. I know there are miles of wheatland in Kansas where somebody could do it unnoticed. But right now we’re talking about farms that are well-kept and supervised. They’re just as badly hit as any place else.’

Dr Benson nodded. ‘You’re right, of course, and if this virus has been spread on purpose, then I just don’t know how. But I think you ought to know that in my opinion, based on the broad tests that I’ve been able to make so far, the virus is unstoppable. At least for this year’s harvest.’ Ed looked at him carefully. ‘You’re trying to tell me that I can’t do anything about it? That it’s going to wipe out my whole crop?’

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘But you’ve sent samples to the federal agricultural research laboratory – surely they’ve got people there who can isolate it?’

Dr Benson smiled. ‘I wish they did. I only sent the samples there out of scientific protocol. They don’t have anyone there who knows as much about wheat as I do. If you want expertise, you should never go to the federal people. You should come here, or to the State Experimental Farm at Garden City. They’re doing some more tests for me, I might add – longer term stuff. Give them ten years, and they might discover what it is.’

Ed said, ‘I hope you know what you’re saying, Dr Benson. If I lose this crop, then the chances are that I’m going to lose the farm altogether. I had to borrow thousands of dollars this year. I had to work my butt off, until my marriage went to pieces. I had to get up at five in the morning and stay on my feet all day until ten at night.’

‘Farming’s a risky business,’ said Dr Benson. ‘It always has been, and it always will be.’

‘That’s my family farm!’ Ed told him, and his voice was quivering. ‘My daddy created that spread out of nothing! My daddy died for that farm, and I gave up everything outside of Kingman County! My career, my wife, my daughter – everything!’

Dr Benson said, ‘I’m sorry. I really am. But it doesn’t look as if you’re going to be the only one. I’ve had samples in from all over, and they all tell the same story. What’s more. I’ve been talking on the telephone to some of my friends in Des Moines, Iowa, and Corvallis, Oregon, and worst of all in Modesto, California.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Ed. ‘What are you talking about?’

Dr Benson opened and closed his desk drawer again. ‘The blight is appearing on all kinds of crops in all kinds of regions. Not just on wheat in the plains states. But on apples and pears and broccoli and peas and tomatoes and you name it. Every region is concerned about it, but so far it doesn’t appear to have spread widely enough for anyone in the Federal Department of Agriculture to have twigged on to what’s happening. So the grape growers lose a few table grapes. So the tomato growers lose a few bushels of tomatoes. Every farmer has his problems, and farming’s an industry with plenty of natural wastage.

‘But,’ said Dr Benson, walking across to the window and staring out at the shadowed courtyard below him, ‘all my conversations yesterday afternoon and early this morning with research staff in six states – just to ask for ideas to begin with, just to seek opinions – all my conversations seem to have led me to one very uncomfortable conclusion. Which is why I started wondering about a Soviet conspiracy. The one very uncomfortable conclusion is that all these crop disorders are caused by manifestations of the same basic virus. Maybe a slightly different version for celery. Maybe a specially high-powered one for potatoes. But all the same fundamental malignancy – all causing the same kind of effect. Blackness and decay and a rot that spreads like a forest fire.’

Ed could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘You mean, all of these states are suffering the same sort of problem – and nobody’s taken an overview? Nobody’s realised that it’s the same thing?’

‘Why should they? It’s all happened in the space of a few days. Maybe a week or two at the most. And you have to remember that most state agricultural departments work in a very bureaucratic way. They have no reason to operate otherwise. It takes a long dime for one farmer’s complaint about a few blighted nectarines to filter its way through the office structure and then the research structure and finally arrive on some responsible officer’s desk, so that he can connect it with another farmer’s complaint about blighted celery. That’s if he ever connects it at all.’

Dr Benson turned around, and the light from the window made a crescent of reflected whiteness in his glasses. ‘You also have to remember that many of our agricultural research people aren’t exactly – well, to put it quite charitably – they aren’t exactly hotshots. The fellow I talked to in Modesto had examined twenty-eight samples of blighted fruit and vegetables, and he wasn’t even considering the possibility of a virus.’

‘Supposing he was right and you’re wrong?’ asked Ed. Dr Benson smiled. ‘I don’t think there’s any chance of that, Mr Hardesty. I may have my problems and I may have my reputation, but I’m the best damned agricultural scientist in the Middle West’

Ed rubbed his eyes. There was nicotine on his fingers, and it stung. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asked. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Dr Benson, ‘but the first priority is to hand over all this information to the Department of Agriculture in Washington. Then – if we’re lucky, and they don’t shilly-shally too long – we might see some concerted action to find a preventive.’

‘More bureaucracy?’ asked Ed.

There’s nothing else that we can do, is there? I don’t have the facilities here to deal with a nationwide virus. And if you project the effect of this blight to its ultimate conclusion – well, it’s terrifying. We could survive the loss of one year’s wheat. We could survive the loss of one year’s corn. But everything? Fruit and vegetables and grain? We’d end up with a nation-wide famine.’

Ed reached into the pocket of his shirt. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘It so happens that my father was a close buddy of Senator Shearson Jones. In fact, I was talking to Jones on the telephone last night, trying to work out if I could get some extra compensation for the damage at South Burlington. I have some clout there – not much, but maybe enough to have him pull out some of the bureaucratic stops.’

‘Shearson Jones, huh?’ asked Dr Benson, with a grimace. ‘Not exactly my favourite representative of the people.’

‘Nor mine. But I think we’re going to have to pull whatever strings we have to hand, don’t you?’

‘I had a hell of an argument with Shearson Jones once,’ said Dr Benson, reflectively. ‘Have you ever been to his house out at Fall River? It’s an incredible place. Overlooks the lake. A friend of mine in the agricultural department told me it cost him one and a half million dollars.’

Dr Benson slowly shook his head at the memory. ‘There was a party out there for everybody in the state agricultural department who had helped him push through his special wheat prices programme. I was invited, too, because I did some background research. Well, I was drinking pretty heavily in those days, and when I saw Shearson Jones I just had to tell him what I thought of people who ran the farming economy from behind a desk, and got fat on the proceeds. I nearly lost my job. I certainly lost any chance of promotion. You don’t breathe whisky fumes over Senator Shearson Jones and tell him he’s an office-bound profiteer and get away with it. No, sir.’

Ed stood up. ‘I think I’ll call him all the same. If you’re right about this virus—’

‘Oh, I’m right about it. I wish I wasn’t. And you go ahead and call him. I don’t suppose he remembers one boozed-up Kansas has-been from five years ago.’

‘Can I reach you here?’ asked Ed.

Dr Benson checked his watch. ‘Sure. I have to drive out to Garden City late this afternoon, but you can catch me here until four.’

‘I’ll call you,’ said Ed.

He left the laboratory and stepped out into the hot mid-morning sunshine again. He paused by the statue to put on his sunglasses, and for a moment he stood looking at the smiling family who were sprouting out of the giant ear of wheat. Then he walked across the plaza to the parking-lot, and his shadow followed him like a nagging doubt that wouldn’t be shaken off.

Seven

In the cold air-conditioned offices on Independence Avenue which Senator Jones’s fifteen-strong staff probably knew better than their own houses and apartments, Peter Kaiser was completing the complicated groundwork for the Blight Crisis Appeal, and completing it fast. Throughout the windowless, fluorescent-lit warren of partitions, telephones were ringing and typewriters were nattering and girls were hurrying backwards and forwards with messages and memos and files.

Peter Kaiser was tall, black-haired, and good-looking if you liked men who wore permanent-press suits and striped ties and grinned a lot. His friends said he resembled George Hamilton. He had been a promising junior in the early days of the first Nixon administration, and it showed. He still believed that Nixon could make a comeback. Pierre Trudeau had, Mrs Indira Gandhi had – why not the most competent and misunderstood president of all time?

On Independence Avenue, Peter was known as ‘The Machine’. He was never inspired, and rarely original, but once Shearson Jones had set him a task, he went through it like something inhuman. Nobody ever saw him eat in the office, although he grudgingly permitted the rest of the staff to send out for Big Macs and shakes when they had to work through their lunch-hour; and Karen Fortunoff, one of the prettier and wittier secretaries, said she had once seen him take a covert swig from her can of typewriter oil.

The only sign of real life which Peter ever exhibited was when he touched the girls’ bottoms – always slyly, and always quasi-accidentally, so they were never absolutely sure if he meant it or not. He dated one or two of the girls occasionally, but his affairs rarely lasted. One girl had complained that he was ‘all boxed roses, Frank Sinatra mood music, and fumbles under the table.’

These days, Peter lived with his sixty-two-year-old mother in a stuffy, high-ceilinged apartment in the old Wellington Hotel. Or rather he slept there: like most of his staff, he spent most of his waking hours in the office, particularly when there was a panic project on, like the Blight Crisis Appeal.

During the morning, Peter had called Joe Dasgupta, the brilliant and expensive Indian constitutional lawyer, and Joe Dasgupta was already working on a legal structure for the fund and considering how it should be registered. Peter had also called Fred Newman, the chairman of the Kansas Wheat Growers’ Association, at his home in Palm Springs. So far, Fred Newman’s own farm had suffered little damage, and he agreed with Peter Kaiser that the financial interests of Kansas farmers would best be served by ‘soft-pedalling the blight, media-wise’. He also accepted Peter Kaiser’s invitation to act as expert adviser to the Blight Crisis Appeal, in return for ‘necessary expenses’. Shearson Jones had recognised the importance of having Fred Newman attached to the fund from the beginning, since most of the suitcase farmers who owned land in Kansas were strong Newman supporters.

Fred Newman had always argued that ‘Just because a man doesn’t actually dig the soil with his own bare hands, that doesn’t mean his heart isn’t in farming,’ and that sentiment had won him the votes of almost every wheat grower who preferred to spend fifty weeks of every year in New York or Los Angeles – in fact, anywhere except out in tedious Kansas, amongst all that tiresome wheat.

While Peter Kaiser had been making those calls, his staff of eleven girls had been canvassing major industries all over the country – particularly those industries connected with farming, farm machinery, fertilisers, and food transportation. By lunchtime, they had rustled up pledges of more than five million dollars in contributions, and by mid-afternoon, after CBS and ABC news had both run stories on the Kansas wheat blight, with serial footage of the blackened crops, they had jumped to eight million dollars, all tax deductible.

In the Senate itself, Shearson Jones spent the morning smoking a large domestic cigar and gathering support for his emergency aid bill among Republicans and Democrats alike. He ate a heavy lunch with Wallace Terry of the Washington Post, and told him that he was leaning heavily on anyone who owed him a favour, and a few people who didn’t, ‘simply to rescue those poor beleagured farmers in Kansas.’

Shearson drew so much attention to his own state during the course of the afternoon that hardly any comment was passed by the media on those scattered reports coming in from Iowa and Oregon and Washington and California that outbreaks of blight were appearing everywhere. At the Department of Agriculture, the press officer was still talking about the crisis as ‘the Kansas wheat problem’ and sidetracking any press questions about similar blights in other states as ‘alarmist’ and ‘quite usual for the time of year.’

Two of Shearson Jones’s best speech-writers were working on a draft TV statement which the senator hoped to make to the press during the evening. Peter Kaiser had seen the first outlines, and he was particularly taken by a phrase which talked about ‘those earnest, honest, caring farmers who are still living the kind of American life that Saturday Evening Post used to celebrate on its covers.’

At three-thirty, Joe Dasgupta called back. Peter Kaiser was sitting in his chilly, beige-carpeted office, dictating a memo on how contributions should be followed up, accounted for, and banked. He waved his hand to Karen Fortunoff to leave him for five minutes while he talked.

‘Okay, Joe,’ he said, once Karen had left. ‘How’s it shaping up?’

‘So far, it’s fine,’ said Joe Dasgupta, in his distinctive Delhi accent. ‘I’ve advised Shearson to set up the Blight Crisis Appeal as a private foundation, with someone entirely nondescript as manager, and himself as president.’

‘You didn’t think we should try to form it as a federal corporation under an Act of Congress? It would’ve seemed like it was a whole lot more respectable.’

‘Well – that was the choice,’ explained Joe Dasgupta. ‘Respectability or practicality. As a private foundation, you can still persuade Congress to vote you money, yet you won’t have them breathing down your neck so hard. Also, you’ll have more room to manoeuvre with the IRS.’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ nodded Peter Kaiser. ‘How soon can we start collecting money? We have close on nine million dollars pledged so far.’

‘I’ll have the papers sent around to your office. All I need now is a couple of notarised signatures from Shearson and Alan Hedges, and you’re in the Blight Crisis business.’

‘You’ve done an incredible job, Joe,’ said Peter Kaiser. ‘Remind me to take you out to dinner real soon.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Joe Dasgupta told him, with polite disdain. ‘I’ll just send my invoice around with the papers.’

Peter Kaiser put down the phone, and pressed his desk buzzer for Karen to come back in. Karen Fortunoff was a petite, dark-eyed brunette, whose smart cream suit didn’t conceal a trim figure. She had come to Washington two years ago from Duluth, intoxicated with ambition and heady ideas about working in Congress. She had left behind her two bewildered suburban parents who still kept her room made up for her, with all her dolls and her Raggedy Andy books, and who still called her ‘Baby’ on the phone. She had worked as a secretary for a magazine printing company for a while, but then she had met a girl at a party who had helped with the catering at some of Shearson Jones’s fund-raising picnics. ‘Now, Shearson Jones is power,’ the girl had said. ‘Pure, naked, disgusting, unadulterated power.’ Karen had liked the sound of that. After all, power was the very magnet which had first drawn her to Washington. She had called Peter Kaiser the next morning.

‘Where were we?’ asked Peter, as Karen sat down with her steno pad and crossed her legs.

‘We’d gotten as far as Banking Procedures (ii),’ she said.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter. ‘Banking Procedures (ii). How to pay in corporate cheques, and the clearance of charitable funds.’

Karen said, ‘Don’t you ever take a break?’

Peter’s hands were clasped in front of his mouth, his elbows propped on his desk. He looked up at her, his eyes refocusing slowly, as if he were tired, or drugged.

‘A break?’ he asked, as if he didn’t know what the word meant.

‘Yes. Don’t you ever relax?’

‘Karen,’ he said, ‘we’re on Banking Procedures (ii). If you want to talk about relaxation, you’ll have to do it in your own time.’

‘You’re not that much of a machine, surely.’

‘I’m busy. I have fifty-five other things to do before we close down for the night. That’s all. It’s nothing to do with being a machine.’

‘Don’t you even drink coffee?’

Peter sat back in his revolving leather armchair, but his fingers still tensely gripped the edge of his desk.

‘Karen,’ he said, ‘are we going to finish this dictation or not?’

‘I only asked you a question out of human consideration,’ she told him. ‘You work with people, you want to know what they’re like, what makes them tick. Well, I do, anyway.’

‘What makes me tick is irrelevant to Banking Procedures (ii). It is also none of your business.’

‘All right. I didn’t mean to be offensive. I simply said that—’

Peter pressed the buzzer on his desk. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Fran Kelly, Karen’s own assistant, stepped in.

‘Mr Kaiser?’

‘Bring a steno pad and a sharp pencil. We have two hours of dictation to do.’

Karen sat up straight. ‘What goes on here? Just because I asked you a simple personal question—’

Peter stared at her, hard. ‘I’ll tell you what goes on here,’ he said, in a level voice. ‘What goes on here is work. Not talk. Not personal consideration. Not fraternisation. But work.’

Karen, pale-faced, stood up. ‘Work, huh? I suppose feeling my fanny by the water-cooler is work?’

‘Just leave my office,’ said Peter. ‘Type up whatever notes you’ve made so far, and make sure I get them before five.’

‘You’re not going to fire me?’

‘Why should I? When you’re not interrupting me with ridiculous questions, you’re good at your job. And besides, I don’t particularly want all the time-wasting hassle of sorting out your compensation.’

Karen slowly shook her head. ‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you’re real. I just can’t believe that you’re an actual human being.’

‘I assure you I am. Now, are you going to go type those notes before I change my mind about firing you?’

Karen was going to say something else, something spiteful and absurd and angry. But she managed to check herself and take a deep breath instead. She didn’t want to lose this job, not really; and a small, sane voice inside her said that Peter Kaiser was too thick-skinned to care about insults. He’d only enjoy the spectacle of her making her a fool of herself.

She closed her steno pad, smiled shakily at Fran, and said, ‘It’s all yours.’

‘And man the telephone,’ put in Peter, as she left the office. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed for the next two hours.’ Karen nodded, with mock-graciousness, and closed the door.

Back in her own office, a small windowless cubicle along the hall, decorated with nothing more than two postcards from Mount Shasta, Karen put down her pad, and leaned against the wall. She shouldn’t have let Peter shake her up like that. He was only a political office-boy, after all, and a cold-blooded s.o.b. to boot. But she could never get used to his abruptness, and his total lack of feeling. As one of her friends had remarked, you didn’t really object to Peter Kaiser fondling your backside in the corridor, because it was no more interesting than accidentally walking into the handle of an electric floor-polisher.

I could quit, she thought. I could tear up his goddamned banking procedures and stalk out. But that was why women failed in business. They took it too personally. Karen wanted to make it up the tree to those creaking branches where the heavyweights like Shearson Jones were perched, and walking out on Peter Kaiser wasn’t going to help her do it.

Just say after me: One day, Peter Kaiser, I’m going to fix your wagon. Then take seven deep breaths. Then sit down, take the cover off your self-correcting IBM and start typing up his fucking notes.

She had inserted the paper and aligned it and was all ready to start, when the phone rang. She picked it up and said smoothly: ‘Peter Kaiser’s office. Who’s calling?’

There was a ringing noise on the line, as if the call was coming from a long way off, then a voice said, ‘Is Senator Jones there? I’m calling long-distance.’

‘Senator Jones is at his office in the Senate right now. Peter Kaiser is his personal assistant. He’s here.’

‘My name’s Ed Hardesty, from Wichita, Kansas,’ said the voice. ‘I spoke with Senator Jones last night about the wheat blight.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well – I have some more information on the blight. Some really important scientific stuff. Do you think you could give me the Senator’s number?’

‘I could have him call you back. What did you say your name was?’

‘Hardesty. Ed Hardesty. Senator Jones used to be a friend of my father. Tell him it’s Dan Hardesty’s son.’ Karen could hardly hear Mm. ‘Do you have a message for Mm?’ she said, loudly.

‘The message is that the wheat blight is probably a virus of some kind… and that it’s attacking crops all over the country… the same kind of virus…’

‘Wait a moment,’ said Karen, ‘I just broke the point on my pencil. Now, what did you say about a virus?’

‘It’s the blight,’ repeated Ed. ‘The blight is spreading all over the country. Not just on wheat, but on com, and soybeans, and everything. The agricultural laboratory here in Wichita has already made tests… Dr Benson says the whole nation’s food supply could be at risk…’

‘Dr Benson? How do you spell that? Like Benson in Soap?’

That’s right. Like Benson in Soap. Now, do you think you could please pass that message on to Senator Jones, and have him call me? It’s very urgent.’

‘Okay,’ said Karen. ‘I’ll try.’

There was a fizzing sound, and then the call was cut off. Karen said ‘hello?’ a couple of times, but there was no answer, and she put the phone down. She glanced at the scribbled notes she’d made, and then she typed a message for Peter Kaiser.

‘Mr Ed Hardesty called from Wichita, Kansas, at three forty-five p.m.… he said that the wheat blight was probably a virus… and that it’s spreading all over the country on com, soybeans, everything. Dr Benson in Wichita has made tests, and says whole nation at risk.’

It was only when she had finished typing it that she realised the implications of what she had just written. She tugged the notepaper out of the IBM and re-read it. That was what the man had said, wasn’t it? ‘The blight is spreading all over the country. Dr Benson says the whole nation’s food supply could be at risk…’

The way Karen had heard the blight story on the news, it was nothing more than a minor seasonal problem affecting a few farms in the depths of Kansas. And who on earth ever worried about what went on in Kansas? But now, this Ed Hardesty had called to say that everything was blighted. Not just wheat, but everything. Karen suddenly felt unreal, and cold, and she read the memo over again, and couldn’t stop herself from shivering.

She was still looking at it when she heard a slight movement at her doorway. She looked around, and there was Peter Kaiser, leaning against the door-jamb, watching her. His face was expressionless, but the way he was standing, with one hand on his hip, somehow told her that he was more relaxed than usual.

‘I’m, er – I’m just starting your typing now,’ she said, looking away.

‘That’s all right,’ he told her. ‘I’ve come to tell you that

I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry? Why should you be?’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re Peter Kaiser, nicknamed “The Machine”, and you’re the most efficient administrative executive in the whole of the Republican party organisation, bar none, and any stupid chit of a secretary who wastes your precious time by asking fatuous questions about coffee and time off – well, she hardly deserves an apology, does she?’

Peter smiled. ‘I like you,’ he said. ‘You’re spunky.’

She turned and looked at him. ‘The last time anybody said that to me, I was seven years old, and I’d just come last in the egg-and-spoon race at school, and managed not to cry.’

‘You’ve changed since then,’ Peter said.

‘In some ways. I still don’t cry.’

‘All right,’ he grinned, ‘I’ll allow you that. Will you come out to dinner this evening?’

‘Where are we going? The nearest Exxon station?’

‘I don’t understand.’

She shrugged. ‘The way you’ve been acting, I thought you only fed on gasoline.’

‘Karen,’ said Peter, ‘I am a human person. I do have feelings. If you cut me, do I not bleed?’

‘I don’t know. You might ooze a little grease.’

He laughed. It was an odd laugh, strangely high-pitched. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to say I’m sorry, and I’m sorry. So will you still let me take you out to dinner?’

Karen thought for a moment. One voice said: no. tell him to go screw himself, or even his mother. But the other voice said: if Peter Kaiser likes you, he’ll introduce you to Senator Jones, and if Senator Jones likes you… the sky’s the limit. Or at least the dome of the Capitol’s the limit. It’s what you came to Washington for. You political groupie, you.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Invitation accepted. What time do we eat?’

‘Nine, nine-thirty. That’s not too late for you, is it?’

‘I should have just about digested my Big Mac by then. By the way, here’s a message for the senator, when you talk to him next.’

Peter took the memo and quickly looked it over. Then he read it again, more slowly, and frowned.

‘Three forty-five?’ he asked. ‘Just a couple of minutes ago?’

That’s right.’

‘And is this all he said? Nothing else?’

‘That’s all,’ shrugged Karen. ‘The blight is some kind of a virus, and it’s spreading. Kind of creepy, isn’t it?’

Peter forced another grin. ‘Just one of those crackpot messages you always get when this kind of thing happens. I won’t be surprised if we get more in the next few days. Viruses… death-rays from Mars… punishments from Heaven… you’ll get used to it.’

‘It frightened me, as a matter of fact,’ said Karen. ‘The man sounded so sane.’

They always do,’ Peter assured her. ‘Now – do you think you can put me through to Senator Jones?’

‘Whatever you want. Particularly since you’re buying dinner. And particularly since I seem to have escaped two hours of solid dictation.’

‘Okay,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll take it in my office. And – well, I’ll see you later.’

Karen picked up the phone and dialled through to Senator Jones’s office. It was almost a minute before anybody answered, and then she heard Della McIntosh’s voice, slightly out of breath. ‘Yes? Senator Jones’s office?’

‘Mrs McIntosh? I have Peter Kaiser for the senator. I think it’s pretty urgent.’

‘Hold on,’ said Della, and Karen heard her put the phone down on the table. In the background, she picked up the distinctive rumble of Senator Jones saying, ‘What does that frosty-faced asshole want now? Right in the middle of—’ Then Senator Jones, louder and closer, said, ‘Yes? Is this Peter?’

‘I’ll put you through. Senator,’ said Karen, and she connected him to Peter; but at the same time she held her hand tightly over the mouthpiece of her own phone, and listened in.

‘Peter?’ growled Senator Jones. ‘I hope you realise you’ve called me at a goddamned awkward time.’

‘I’m sorry. Senator, but I’ve had an urgent message from Ed Hardesty, in Kansas. I thought you’d want to hear it straight away.’

‘Hardesty? That blackmailing son-of-a-bitch? His daddy’s whelp, that’s all he is. What the hell has he got to say that justifies your interrupting my personal rest-period?’

Peter Kaiser took a long, steadying breath. ‘He says he’s had some results from the research people in Wichita. They seem to believe that this blight is caused by some kind of virus, although they don’t seem to have put a name to it yet. The worst thing is, though, that they’ve definitely connected the virus with those corn and soybean blights in Iowa. In fact, all those reports on fruit and vegetable diseases that Dick Turnbull’s sent us over the past couple of days… it seems like they’ve tied up the virus with those blights, too.’

Senator Jones said, ‘Virus? What are they talking about?’

‘I don’t know specifically. Senator,’ Peter told him. ‘But Hardesty did say that someone called Dr Benson had made tests and reckoned that the whole of the nation’s food supply was at risk.’

‘Benson? I remember Benson. A goddamned drunk. He came to Fall River once and spewed all over my Cherokee rug. I thought they’d kicked his ass right out of Kansas after that.’

‘It seems like they didn’t,’ said Peter, patiently. ‘And if he’s right, we could be in big trouble with the Blight Crisis Appeal. Benson only has to tell the press that the entire country’s crops are going down the sink and nobody’s going to feel like allocating anything to two dozen Kansas farmers.’

‘How are the federal analysts doing?’ asked Senator Jones.

‘I haven’t called them yet. But I checked with Professor Protter this morning, and he said their progress was strictly limited.’

‘In other words, they haven’t gotten anywhere at all. That’s typical, isn’t it? One alcoholic quack in the middle of Kansas can analyse a disease, but a whole team of agricultural supermen in Washington can’t work out the difference between wheat and birdseed. Get on to Protter again, and tell him to work faster, or I’ll kick his ass from here to next week.’

‘Yes, Senator.’

Senator Jones cleared his throat, and sniffed. Then he said, ‘There are two things you have to do, Peter. You’re right about the Blight Crisis Appeal. We have to get as much of that money into our bank account as we can, before people start to panic. How are you doing so far?’

‘Nine million dollars promised, as of three o’clock. If I really hustle, I guess I can get hold of most of it by the weekend. Say seventy per cent. We’d have to arrange for special clearance on the cheques, of course.’

‘Just lay your hands on as much as you can,’ grunted Shearson. ‘It may only be a fraction of what we originally planned to raise, but it’ll do. The second thing you have to do is put maximum pressure on Professor Protter. Maximum, do you hear? It’s Protter’s job to come up with an antidote, and real fast.’

‘But if we find an antidote, and announce it publicly, won’t that slacken off contributions?’

Shearson sniffed. ‘It’s a question of picking the right moment. The right political moment, the right scientific moment, the right psychological moment. We may find an antidote tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we have to announce we’ve found it tomorrow. What we do is, we hold it back while the contributions are still rolling in, and we only announce it when the blight has become so critical that contributions are falling off in any case. The media are going to bust the blight situation wide open sooner or later. They’re bound to. But it’s then that we say we’ve discovered the answer to everybody’s problems, and pick up all the political credit for saving the day. Some people call it brinkmanship. I call it the Lone Ranger syndrome. Don’t shoot that silver bullet until you really have to.’

‘Supposing Protter draws a blank?’ asked Peter. ‘I mean – supposing we can’t stop it, and the crops really do get wiped out?’

‘Well, there’s another little job for you. Call Frank Edison, and check the nation’s food storage situation. Government stocks, private silos, military supplies – anything and everything. Then talk to some of the top supermarket people, and work out an estimate of how long their shelf supplies would be likely to last under crisis conditions.’

Peter jotted down a few notes. ‘You want a picture of the worst that could possibly happen?’

‘That’s right,’ said Senator Jones. ‘But don’t go scaring anybody. If they want to know why you’re asking, just tell them it’s for a federal contingency plan, in case of freakishly bad weather.’

Peter said, ‘Isn’t anyone else getting reports of this blight? I would have thought the president would have wanted a brief by now.’

‘Oh, that’s already been done,’ said the senator. ‘I sent him a personal memorandum this morning, telling him that, yes, we had problems with a new and unexpected blight in Kansas and North Dakota, but that all of our top agricultural scientists were working on it, and they were only hours away from cracking the problem wide open. I admitted there were outbreaks of blight in Iowa and Oregon and parts of Washington, but I told him that considering the humidity, they weren’t unexpected, and we didn’t anticipate a serious shortfall in output.’

‘So you’re not getting any flak from the White House?’

‘Not yet. It’ll come, but not yet.’

‘Don’t you think you ought to do something about Dr Benson? I mean – he could be talking to the newspapers now.’

‘I’ve been considering that,’ said Senator Jones. ‘I think I might send Della over to Wichita to have a quiet word with him. Tell him how important it is for scientists not to scuttle around panicking everybody. I was going over to Fall River at the week-end in any case – I can send her on ahead.’

‘And Hardesty? What about him? If he doesn’t get any response from you, he’s likely to blow the whistle.’

‘Hardesty is a professional pain in the ass,’ breathed the senator. ‘But I still want to have him as my Kansas Farmer figurehead. He’ll be good copy. The young, dedicated, second-generation wheat farmer. And if he’s been as hard hit by this blight as he says he has, he’s going to be glad of a few extra dollars. Maybe I’ll get Della to talk to him, too. She’s good at sizing people up.’

Peter was tempted to answer, ‘You can say that again, Senator,’ but he held his tongue. ‘Do you want me to call him back?’ he asked Shearson.

‘Yes, do that. Do that right away. I made a mistake once, years ago, in some political scandal you won’t even remember. I took care of all the big people but I forgot about the little people. And if you’re not careful, it’s the little people who can put you under.’

Peter wrote down two more fines of notes, and then he said, ‘Okay, Senator. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Maybe we can meet up later and I’ll put you in the picture on the food supplies.’

‘Good,’ said Shearson. ‘And for Christ’s sake keep this as quiet as you can. Until those donations have cleared the bank, we’re still running on the skyline. You understand me?’

Peter glanced at the anti-bug light beside his telephone. ‘Yes, Senator,’ he said, crisply.

Peter put down the phone, and as he did so, Karen FortunofF put her phone down, too. Within a few seconds, there was a buzz from Peter’s office, and a fight flashed on her handset.

‘Yes, Mr Kaiser?’

‘Ah, Karen. Get me my mother on the phone, will you?’

‘Now, Mr Kaiser?’

‘Now, Karen. That’s if you don’t mind.’

Karen dialled the Wellington Hotel, and waited while the dialling-tone warbled. Then she heard Peter’s mother say, ‘Mrs Kaiser’s suite. Who’s calling?’

‘It’s your son for you, Mrs Kaiser. Hold on, please.’

She put the call through to Peter’s desk, but again she clamped her hand over the mouthpiece and listened in.

‘Mother?’ she heard Peter asking.

‘What’s the matter, dear? I have Mrs Kroger here for tea.’

‘Mother, this is very important. I want you to listen, and I want you to do exactly as I tell you.’

‘Peter, dear, what on earth’s the matter? You sound quite peculiar.’

‘Listen, Mother, I sound quite peculiar because it could be that something quite peculiar is just about to happen. I’ve got wind that we could be suffering some very severe food shortages over the coming winter.’

Mrs Kaiser sounded perplexed. ‘Food shortages? What do you mean? I haven’t heard anything about food shortages. I don’t eat much anyway. I’m on a diet.’

‘Mother, I know all about your diet. But you still have to eat something. And the way these shortages are shaping up, it looks like there may be hardly anything to eat at all, except canned stuff, and frozen stuff, and maybe meat.’

‘Peter – are you sure?’

‘I wouldn’t be calling you if I wasn’t sure. Now, listen, will you, and stop asking questions. I want you to call Mr Parker at the general store in Connecticut – yes, that Mr Parker – and I want you to ask him how much he wants for all of the foodstuffs in his store. Yes, Mother, all of them. Canned foods, dried foods, flour, TV dinners, everything. The whole damned stock, except for the toys and the corn dollies and the cigarettes. Right. Then I want him to drive the whole lot up to the house at Litchfield and get the key from Mrs Lodge and store everything in the cellar. Tell him to buy a couple of new deep-freezers if he needs to. Just make sure the whole contents of that general store are tucked away in our house, that’s all.’

There was a long silence. Then Peter’s mother said, ‘Are you feeling all right, dear? You’re sure you’re not running a temperature?’

‘Mother!’ snapped Peter. ‘Will you just do what I tell you to do? It could be a matter of life or death! Your life or death!’

‘Peter, I hardly think—’

‘What you hardly think and what’s actually happening are two different things, Mother. Sixty per cent of the wheat crop in Kansas has been wiped out by disease in two days. A third of the corn and soybean crops in Iowa are going down with the same blight. We’ve got tomatoes rotting in Florida, grapes rotting in California, broccoli dying in Oregon, potatoes going mouldy in Idaho… this whole damned country’s been hit by the biggest crop failure ever.’

‘Well, dear, I’ve heard about the wheat. That was on the news today. But nobody’s said anything about tomatoes, or broccoli. I’m not particularly fond of broccoli, in any case.’

‘Mother—’ said Peter, in a bottled-up voice.

‘Oh, very well dear. I’ll call Mr Parker. I’m sure he’s going to think that I’m quite mad. Shall I tell him to make sure to stock up again, because of the shortages?’

‘Don’t tell anybody anything. The whole reason I want you to call Mr Parker is because he doesn’t know I work for Senator Jones. It’s important we don’t start a panic, otherwise everybody’s going to start stock-piling food and the shortage is going to be even worse.’

‘I see, dear. All right. Can I tell Mrs Kroger?’

‘Don’t tell anybody. I’ll call you later.’

Peter banged the phone down. Karen, biting her lip, replaced her own receiver. She could scarcely believe that any of what she had heard was real. Surely, in a country like the United States, with all those newspapers and television stations, somebody would have realised what was happening and warned the public? Surely one man like Senator Jones couldn’t suppress the news so easily? Yet it seemed as if nobody really cared – as if reporters and politicians and government experts were all quite happy to take whatever they were told as the gospel truth, provided it was couched in reasonable-sounding language. Even the president had accepted Shearson Jones’s waffle about ‘cracking the problem wide open’, and ‘not anticipating a serious shortfall.’

Karen’s telephone light flashed again. She picked up the receiver and said, ‘Yes?’

‘Karen – can you try to get me Mr Ed Hardesty, at South Burlington Farm, near Wichita?’

‘Yes, Mr Kaiser. I won’t be a moment. I have one other call to make first.’

‘Okay, Karen. But don’t make it too long.’

‘No, Mr Kaiser.’

Karen pushed a button to get herself an outside line, and listened to the dialling tone for a moment. Then she punched out a number with a 218 code. The phone was answered almost immediately.

‘Mom?’ she said. ‘It’s Karen. Yes, it really is. I know. But, please. Mom, I’ve got something terribly important to tell you.’

Eight

As the sun set over South Burlington Farm, Ed and Willard and Dyson Kane stood waist-high amongst the blackened wheat, smoking in silence and watching the smoke drift diagonally across the decaying reaches of the south-eastern fields. Usually, smoking was totally forbidden in the crops, but now it didn’t matter any more, and they had lit up in the same way that Hitler’s staffhad all lit up, once the Führer was dead and the Third Reich was over for ever.

The Hughes helicopter rested a few yards away on a slight slope, white and clean and shining amidst all the oily and stinking devastation in the fields around it. A flock of birds wheeled and turned overhead.

Ed was tired and unshaven, dressed in jeans and a red plaid cowboy shirt. Beside him, Willard stood with his arms folded, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, but his whole posture betraying how defeated he felt.

‘I just never saw anything like it,’ he said, after a while. ‘We didn’t even get the chance to try to fight back.’

Ed turned towards Dyson. ‘How much of the crop do you think we’ve lost up to now?’ he asked him. ‘Sixty, seventy per cent?’

‘Hard to tell exactly,’ said Dyson. ‘But I’d say near on eighty. There won’t be anything worth saving by the weekend.’

‘Did you have any luck with Senator Jones?’ asked Willard.

‘I had a bad connection. He’s supposed to be calling me back. To tell you the truth, I feel pretty embarrassed about using that wheat-dumping scandal against him.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ said Willard. ‘He’d use it against you, if you were in his place, and he were in yours. The way I see it, this farm is pretty damned important to you, and if you want to keep it going, then you’re going to have to play the same dirty tricks as everybody else.’

Dyson Kane hunkered down, and picked one of the rotten ears of wheat. The smell in the wind was sour and unpleasant, but by now they’d grown almost used to it.

‘You know something?’ Dyson said. ‘These crops don’t rustle any more. It doesn’t even sound like summer. In summer, that’s all you ever hear, usually, out in the fields. That rustling sound, of ripe wheat.’

‘Dr Benson thinks it’s a Soviet conspiracy,’ said Ed. ‘He reckons the Communists found a way to poison our wheat when we weren’t looking.’

Willard shook his head. ‘I don’t think poor old Dr Benson has ever been quite the same since he dried out. He used to see giant ladybugs, when he had the DTs. Now, he thinks everybody’s plotting to overthrow Kansas.’

‘There’s no way that anybody could have spoiled this kind of acreage without spraying,’ said Dyson. ‘And if you’re going to spray poison, or something of that kind, you have to do it real low. Nobody could have flown over this farm without my knowing about it. Not that low.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Ed. ‘I think Dr Benson’s probably right when he says it’s some kind of a virus, but it looks natural to me. I just hope he finds some way of curing it.’

‘You’re going to burn these fields?’ asked Willard.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’re going to have to. It looks like a pretty smoky finish to the summer. I’m sorry.’

Ed nodded. ‘I’ll talk to the senator one more time, just to make sure that nobody wants to look the crop over before they start paying out compensation. Then I guess we’ll set it all alight.’

The radio-telephone in the helicopter bleeped. Dyson walked over to it and picked it up.

‘Yes. Yes, he’s here. Ed, it’s for you. Somebody from Senator Jones’s office.’

Ed took the receiver, covered one ear with his hand to cut out the sound of the breeze, and said, ‘Ed Hardesty speaking.’

‘Mr Hardesty? Hi, my name’s Peter Kaiser. May I call you Ed? It seems from what the senator’s been telling me that we could all be working together quite soon.’

‘Did you get my message about the virus?’ asked Ed. ‘Sure. We told Senator Jones straight away. The only trouble is, Ed, that we’ve been doing some pretty thorough tests on the wheat right here in Washington, at the Department of Agriculture’s own laboratories, and we’re not at all sure the cause is a virus at all.’

‘Are you close to finding out what it is?’

‘Oh, yes. Right on the brink. But we don’t want to give out any public releases on the blight until we have a more definitive idea. If we said it was a virus, you see, it could cause unnecessary panic; and we might find that farmers were destroying their crops without any real justification. It’s one of those situations we have to handle with kid gloves, if you know what I mean.’

‘Dr Benson is convinced it’s a virus,’ said Ed. ‘What’s more, he thinks all these other blights are caused by different versions of the same basic infection.’

‘We-e-ell,’ said Peter Kaiser, ‘without being unfair. Dr Benson has pretty limited facilities over at Wichita, compared with what we have here, and he isn’t exactly renowned for his personal stability. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a talented man. But the last thing we need in a serious situation like this is for anybody to jump to conclusions.’ Ed said, ‘Okay. I get your point. Did Senator Jones get very far with his ideas for federal compensation?’

‘Haven’t you been watching the television news today?’

‘Only once. I’ve been tied up here at the farm for most of the afternoon.’

‘In that case,’ said Peter, ‘I’m happy to be the first to tell you that we’ve already set up a Kansas Wheat Farmers’ Blight Crisis Appeal, legal and official and ready to roll in the money. We have full backing from some really heavyweight people in the Senate, including the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and the whole structure’s been arranged by one of Washington’s top lawyers.’

Ed looked towards Willard and pulled an impressed face. ‘I didn’t know Shearson Jones could work so fast,’ he told Peter.

Peter gave a synthetic chuckle. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘outward appearances can be deceptive. He’s overweight, sure. But I can tell you one thing. When any single person in Kansas of any political persuasion is threatened by fire, or drought, or crime, or you name it, Shearson Jones can be pretty damned nimble on his feet. He’s a caring man, Mr Hardesty, whatever people say about him. WTiy, here at the office, behind his back, they call him the Fat Samaritan.’ Ed frowned. ‘Is he going to be able to persuade Congress to vote the fund any money?’

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ said Peter. ‘But meanwhile we’ve been taking pledges from industry. So far today we’ve chalked up nearly three million dollars, and we’re sure we’ll get more.’

‘Well, I’m amazed,’ said Ed. ‘And pleased, too. I thought politicians were all foot-dragging and red tape.’

‘Not Shearson Jones,’ Peter told him. ‘And I want to assure you of something else, too. As soon as the first donations to the Blight Crisis Appeal have cleared the bank, they’ll be paid straight out. No waiting, and no arguments. All you’ll have to do is satisfy the appeal board that your farm meets the legal requirements for compensation – which I’m quite sure that yours does – and you’ll be eligible for your share of the three million.’

‘I’m gratified to hear it,’ said Ed.

‘I’m gratified you’re gratified,’ Peter told him. ‘You see, Senator Jones believes that we’ll be able to collect a lot more money for the appeal if we have a figurehead – one person who represents the whole plight of every unfortunate farmer. Somebody who can talk on television about what’s happened in Kansas, and how difficult life can be on a wheat farm. Somebody who represents the best in American farming. A young man, struggling against the weather, and fluctuating prices, just to keep up the traditions that made this country what it is today.’

‘Are you reading that from a script or making that up as you go along?’ asked Ed.

‘Come on, Ed, don’t be cynical,’ said Peter. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

‘Well, I guess so. And I also guess that you want me to be your figurehead.’

‘Why not? This extra compensation was your idea to start with. Why not take it the whole way, and identify yourself publicly with what you believe?’

Ed ran his hand through his hair. ‘Let me think about it, will you? I’ve got your number.’

‘I’ll let you do more than think about it,’ said Peter. ‘Shearson Jones has arranged for his personal representative to fly to Wichita tomorrrow to meet you. She’s going to talk to Dr Benson first, to find out what he’s discovered, in case he might have turned up anything helpful. Then she can come out to South Burlington and talk to you.’

‘She?’ asked Ed.

‘Mrs Della McIntosh,’ Peter explained. ‘Right up until Monday, she was Washington correspondent for the Kansas City Herald-Examiner. But when she saw how strongly Shearson felt about the blight, and what he was going to do for the wheat farmers, she quit her job on the spot and offered to help. Shearson Jones has that kind of effect on people.’

‘I see,’ said Ed, uncertainly. ‘All right – I’ll expect her.’

‘Shearson himself will be down at Fall River by Sunday. I guess he’ll want to meet you. Meanwhile – good luck with the crop.’

‘The crop?’ asked Ed. ‘There isn’t any crop left.’

‘Well, I know,’ said Peter, slightly flustered. ‘What I meant was, good luck with the insurance, and the compensation, and whatever you need good luck with. I’ll talk to you later.’

Ed put the radio-telephone down, and stood thoughtfully beside the helicopter for a few moments. Willard said, ‘Who was that? Is anything wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ed. ‘I’ve had experience of loan sharks, arid phoney accountants, and speculators. But I’m out of my depth when it comes to politicians. They talk a whole lot of bullshit – or at least you think it’s bullshit. It’s only when you think about it for a long time afterwards that you realise the calculated importance of every single damned rubbishy word they spoke.’

‘Shearson Jones?’

‘His sycophantic sidekick. But at least he had some reasonable news. Shearson’s set up a special compensation fund, and it looks like we may be able to save South Burlington.’

Willard couldn’t help grinning. ‘Well, that’s something to celebrate. You want to come back to my place and sink a couple of beers?’

Ed looked around the black, rot-flattened crops. The sun had almost gone now, and the silence over the wide plains of Kansas was enormous. Ed remembered walking out into the fields when he was a boy, on a dark and windless night, and believing that he was the only person left in the whole world. People from Kansas know what you mean when you describe that feeling; only a city-dweller will go ‘huh?’

Ed said, ‘Yes. I think we ought to celebrate.’

‘Is your mother still staying with you?’ asked Willard, as they climbed back into the helicopter.

‘Just for a couple of days. She thought she ought to take over the house now that Season’s gone.’

‘She’s a strong woman, your mother.’

Ed clipped up his lap-belt. ‘We’re all strong, here on South Burlington. But it didn’t protect us from this, did it?’

‘We’ll get through it. You wait and see.’

Dyson Kane started up the motor. The helicopter warmed up for a while, and then tipped up into the air. They flew at low level across the ocean of stained wheat, until they circled at last around the small tree-bordered house where Willard lived. Dyson put the helicopter down beside Willard’s Ford pick-up and switched off. They climbed out into the darkness, and ducked under the whistling rotors.

Willard was a widower. His wife Nanette had worked in the kitchens at South Burlington Farm when Ed was a boy; but at the age of forty-five she had contracted cancer of the face, and died. Willard had kept his house pretty much the same through the years that followed, and if anyone had walked into it without realising Nanette had been gone since 1961, they would have thought that she was about to come singing down the stairs at any minute. Willard wasn’t morbid about her, just very gentle with her memory. Beside the oak sofa, on a small table, her knitting still lay where she had left it the day she died. It wasn’t sacrosanct. Willard didn’t mind if anybody picked it up and looked at it. But it was something she had been doing on the day he left her, and that’s why he kept it there.

Ed and Dyson sat down in the living-room while Willard went into the kitchen to find the beer. Dyson called out to Willard, ‘Mind if I switch on the television? Maybe we’ll catch the news.’

‘Sure,’ said Willard, from the kitchen, popping the tops on cans of Coors. Dyson leaned forward in his armchair and pressed the switch on the big old walnut-veneer set. The picture flickered sideways for a while, and then they saw Magilla Gorilla grinning out of his pet-store window.

‘News is after this,’ said Willard, coming back in with the beer. ‘Does anybody like pretzels?’

‘I’m only the world’s greatest pretzel-addict,’ said Dyson. ‘I took three cures at St Joseph’s Hospital before they finally gave up and let me eat as many as I wanted.’ Ed glanced around the room. It was four or five months since he’d been in here, but it hadn’t changed. The cheap ornaments still stood on the mantelpiece over the fire, and on the walls hung the framed portrait of Nanette, and the painting of Mount Sunflower, the highest peak in Kansas, at sunrise. There was also an aerial photograph of South Burlington Farm, in colour, with the ballpen inscription, ‘To Willard. With thanks for everything you’ve ever done here. Ursula Hardesty.’

Ed sipped his beer. He agreed with his mother, in a way. It was better that his father hadn’t seen South Burlington reduced to this rotten waste of collapsing crops. He wished only that his father had left him with enough capital not to have to go begging to people like Shearson Jones. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Shearson Jones would one day expect an equal favour in return.

‘I thought we were supposed to be celebrating,’ said Willard. ‘Here’s to the blight compensation fund, and everybody who donates to it.’

Ed smiled, and raised his tankard. ‘Here’s to South Burlington,’ he said. They drank, and then Willard opened a box and passed round his King Edward cigars.

‘Quiet now,’ said Dyson. ‘Here’s the news.’

The lead story was about renewed tension in the Middle East. Then there was a lengthy report about severe flooding in Colorado. After that, a film report of the president’s visit to a new sanitarium in upstate New York. Ed and Willard and Dyson glanced at each other and waited for what they thought was the most devastating news of the hour.

Eventually, it came. A wheat-ear symbol was superimposed on the screen behind news reporter John Magonick, with the headline ‘Kansas Wheat Crisis.’

‘This looks like being a disastrous year for wheat farmers in the Middle West. A mysterious blight has stricken crops in most parts of Kansas and North Dakota, in some cases ruining fifty to sixty per cent of a farm’s entire harvest. Fortunately, grain stocks are very high after last year’s excellent weather, and President Carter’s embargo on selling US wheat to the Russians has also helped to keep the silos topped up. So – Department of Agriculture experts are saying today that there is no immediate cause for public concern.

‘In Washington, Kansas Senator Shearson Jones has acted promptly in setting up an appeal fund for farmers who lose their wheat crops because of the blight, and has already been pledged three million dollars by agriculture-related industries. He hopes that Congress will vote his fund anything up to ten million dollars because of the “vicious, unprecedented, and unusual nature of the blight.”’

There was a lengthy interview with Shearson Jones, looking like a fat white Moby Dick in the glare of the mobile television lights, and he spoke with jowl-trembling sincerity about the ‘plain hard-working men who defy storm, drought, and disease to feed this nation of ours.’ Afterwards, John Magonick said, ‘Other states have reported an unusually high incidence of crop failure this year. In California, whole vineyards of table grapes are rotting on the vine, and lettuces, according to the California Growers’ Association, are looking very browned off. In northern states, too, it seems as if corn and soybean crops are suffering, and in Wisconsin some dairy farmers are complaining of rancid grass. The Department of Agriculture puts the blame on this year’s humid conditions, but doesn’t expect the country’s nationwide food production totals to fall very much below eight per cent on last year’s figure.

‘In Canada, some wheat growers are suffering the same blight as our unfortunate Kansas farmers, and Parliament in Quebec will be discussing possible emergency measures tomorrow.’

Ed stood up and switched the television off.

‘Did you hear that?’ he said.

‘Couldn’t fail to,’ said Willard.

‘But did you hear the way it was all made to sound so goddamned reassuring? That was what bothered me when Shearson’s assistant called me – what was his name – Peter Kaiser. Everything’s fine. Everything’s under control. Your crops have all been blighted in the space of forty-eight hours, we still don’t have a goddamned clue why, but sit back and relax. Now they’re talking about crop blights in California and Canada, and nobody seems to be worried. I mean, for Christ’s sake, California produces a third of the vegetables for the entire country. And what are we going to do for wheat if Canada’s harvest gets wiped out, too?’

‘They said that grain reserves were pretty high.’

‘Sure, but how long do they think they’re going to last? I don’t know how many loaves of bread and hamburger buns get eaten in the United States in the space of a single day, but just think about it. There was something else that bothered me, too. Rancid grass in Wisconsin. What happens if dairy products get hit? And meat production?’

‘Come on, Ed, you’re letting this whole thing get you worked up,’ said Dyson. ‘If there was any real reason to panic, they would have said so on the news. There must be thousands of millions of tons of canned foods in the country to keep us going through a bad year, in any case, and what about all the frozen stuff?’

‘And what about next year?’ demanded Ed. ‘What happens if our crops get hit again?’

‘You heard what they said on the news. They’ve got the federal research laboratories working on it. They’re bound to come up with something.’

‘Well, I sure hope so.’

Ed didn’t stay long at Willard’s house. He was feeling too anxious and unsettled to sit down and have a drink with the boys. What’s more, he hadn’t yet heard from Season and Sally, and he wanted to go back to the farmhouse and wait for them to call. He finished his beer, said good night to Willard and Dyson, and walked back along the winding track that led to the main farmyard.

His mother was standing on the front verandah in a long white evening-dress with a high collar and batwing sleeves. She was holding on to the rail, and looking up at the full Kansas moon.

‘Hello, Mother,’ he said, as he mounted the steps.

She turned around, and nodded. ‘Nearly harvest time,’ she said. ‘Or it should have been, at least.’

‘I heard some news from Washington today,’ Ed told her. ‘It seems like we may be getting some extra compensation, on top of our usual crop insurance. We may be able to keep the farm going after all.’

‘Well, that is good news,’ said his mother. ‘I was just thinking how sad it would be to see South Burlington die.’ He stood beside her, a few feet away. Her diamond necklace was sparkling in the moonlight, and he could smell her perfume, mingled with the wind-borne sourness of decaying wheat.

‘Have you heard from Season?’ he asked her.

She shook her head.

‘Well, I’m going upstairs to have a bath and dress for dinner. Do you want a drink before I go?’

‘No, thank you,’ said his mother. Then, hesitantly, ‘Edward?’

‘Yes, Mother?’

‘You’re better without her, you know. South Burlington is better without her.’

Ed stared at her for a long time. Then he said, ‘I love her. Mother. If I didn’t think it would make matters worse. I’d quite happily sell this farm tomorrow, and everything on it, and go join her in California.’

‘I’m glad your father can’t hear you say that.’

‘Daddy’s dead. Mother. Don’t keep waving his shroud at me. Now, if you’ll pardon me for fifteen minutes, I could use a shave and a hot bath.’

Ursula Hardesty turned away, and struck a deliberately hurt and melodramatic pose by the verandah rail. Ed paused for a moment, wondering if he ought to say he was sorry, but then he opened the screen door and went inside. This was his house now, his farm, his marriage. Whatever charades his mother wanted to play under the harvest moon, well, let her do it. Charades were a luxury that few people were going to be able to afford for very much longer.

Nine

Half-way up Topanga Canyon, Carl Snowman turned the Mercury stationwagon into the steep and curving driveway, past the mailbox that carried a Los Angeles Times flag, and through the leafy gardens that eventually took them up to the house. He parked the stationwagon at an angle, and jammed on the brake tight, so that it wouldn’t ran back downhill.

‘We’ve finished the extension now, you know,’ he told Season, switching off the engine, and opening his door. The key alarm buzzed plaintively in the warm evening air. ‘The playroom, the spare bedroom, everything. Sally can have a whale of a time.’

He opened the door for Season, and helped her out. Sally was in the back, covered by a rug, fast asleep after the flight. They had been delayed for three hours at Albuquerque, because of a refuelling problem and by the time they had reached Los Angeles, Season had been feeling distinctly frayed. Standing in the terminal at Albuquerque, staring out through the tinted windows at the sun-rippled concrete and the gleaming aeroplanes, she had been tempted to book a flight straight back to Wichita, and return to Ed.

It was only her urgent need to be herself, as well as Mrs Edward Hardesty, that had kept her away from the American Airlines desk. I have to give myself a try, she had told herself. If I don’t try, then I’ll never find out.

At the top of the cedarwood steps, the door of the house opened, and Season’s sister Vee appeared in the lighted doorway. She was two years younger than Season, but their friends invariably thought she was older. Her hair was bleached Beverly Hills white, and she had a deep California tan. Apart from that, she wore the smocks and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans of a determinedly casual movie director’s wife. Her hoop earrings swung as she kissed Season on both cheeks.

‘You’re so late! I expected you hours ago! I was beginning to think something awful had happened! Poor old Carl had to call the airline five times to make sure you weren’t scattered all over the Grand Canyon!’

‘It was something to do with the fuel,’ said Season. ‘I got to see rather more of Albuquerque air terminal than I really wanted to.’

‘Well, don’t you worry,’ fussed Vee. ‘You can rest up tonight, and sleep as long as you want tomorrow. I have your favourite dinner for you, and a bottle of champagne on ice, and you can take your shoes off and relax. Oh – and will you take a look at Sally! Hasn’t she grown?’

Carl was just lifting Sally out of the back of the stationwagon. He carried her across to the wooden steps in a careful and fatherly way – which wasn’t surprising when you knew that he had four children of his own by a previous marriage, the youngest of whom was ten. He was a stocky, well-preserved forty-five-year-old, with cropped white hair and a square Polish-looking face. He made sensitive and not very successful movies about young kids dropping out from school – Pursuit of Happiness-type pictures.

Sally stood in the hallway rubbing her eyes as Carl went to carry up the cases. Season said, ‘Don’t worry, honey – we’ll soon get you to bed. Would you like some milk and cookies?’

The inside of the Snowman house was built in natural, fragrant-smelling wood, with Navajo scatter rugs on the floor, and even an authentic cigar-store Indian presiding over the dining-area. The furniture was a self-conscious mixture of Italian stainless-steel and carved Mexican-Spanish, in red and gold. Already set out on the table, lit by trefoil candle-holders, were plates of salad and guacamole and taco chips.

‘We’re eating Mexican?’ asked Season. ‘That’s wonderful. I haven’t eaten Mexican in centuries. All we ever eat in Kansas is beef, and more beef, and for a change we have beef.’

‘You’re sure Sally doesn’t want to join us for dinner?’

‘No, no—’ said Season. ‘She’s tired. I’ll take her straight to bed. I’d like to wash up myself.’

‘Oh, before you go up – you must meet Granger. Granger – come and say hello to my favourite and only sister!’

From a corner of the living-area, carrying a large crystal tumbler of scotch, a lithe, blond-haired man appeared, wearing a black turtle-neck sweater, black trousers, and black shoes. He had a lean, ascetic face, with a hawkish nose. His eyes were very pale, as if the pupils had been bleached like a pair of blue jeans, from indigo to almost no colour at all. Around his neck was a massive silver crucifix, on which was impaled the body of Christ, in eighteen carat gold.

‘This is Granger Hughes,’ said Vee. ‘Granger, this is my dearly-beloved sister. Season Hardesty.’

Granger took Season’s hand, bowed, and kissed it. ‘I’m charmed,’ he said. ‘Coleridge wrote that “all seasons shall be sweet to thee,” and how right he was.’

‘Well, he’s dead now,’ said Season, slightly embarrassed. ‘True,’ said Granger, ‘but I’m pleased to see that you’re keeping his sentiments alive. You’re a very pretty woman.’

‘Thank you,’ Season told him. She wasn’t used to compliments, and she knew that he had made her blush. Out in Kansas, the nearest she had ever received to a compliment was that she was ‘sassy’. She glanced towards Vee for some moral support, but Vee was simply grinning her toothy California grin and taking Granger’s suavity for granted.

‘Are you a priest, or something?’ Season asked Granger. ‘You seem to have all the necessary accoutrements.’

‘I’m a priest of sorts,’ said Granger, with a cryptic smile. Vee said, ‘He’s more than a priest. Season. He’s a spiritual leader. Carl and I met him through Dr Schauman – that’s our analyst. We went to a wine-and-cheese party at Bobby Wanderelli’s – you know Bobby Wanderelli who plays the cousin in The Fortune Saga on television? I mean, it’s a terrible show but he’s a wonderful person. You’d have to be wonderful to play that part for three series and stay sane! Anyway, Granger was there and Dr Schauman introduced us. He said he felt that both of our lives could do with some of Granger’s religious solidity. Granger’s very literal in his interpretation of the scriptures, you know. He believes that all the miracles that Christ performed actually happened – you know, like raising Lazarus and walking on water – and he thinks we can all achieve the same kind of miracles if we give ourselves to Christ.’

Season was watching Granger the whole time that Vee was talking. He had a slight smile on his face, but his eyes were giving away nothing. When Vee had finished. Season nodded as if to say, well, Mr Hughes, very impressive.

‘I call my group “The Church of the Practical Miracle”,’ said Granger.

‘And you really believe you can work miracles, the way Christ did?’

‘You sound cynical,’ said Granger. ‘You don’t believe in what the Bible tells us about Jesus?’

‘Maybe I’m just tired,’ said Season. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but I’ve just flown here from Kansas, with a three-hour stopover in New Mexico. I don’t think anybody would feel like performing miracles after that, or even witnessing one. You’ll excuse me.’

‘Wait,’ said Granger, and the sharp way in which he said it made Season pause. ‘Wait,’ he said again, in a gentler voice.

Season looked at him. ‘Mr Hughes – Granger – I really want to go take a shower.’

He stepped closer. His eyes stared into hers unfalteringly. She could smell the cologne he was wearing. It was dry, like Kansas grass. Vetiver, probably, or Monsieur Worth. Somehow it seemed rather odd for a self-styled spiritual leader to be wearing Monsieur Worth.

‘You’re feeling tense, aren’t you?’ he asked her. ‘Your mind feels wound up like a clockspring, and you’re exhausted.’

She looked at Vee again, but Vee was enjoying every minute.

Granger raised his hands. They were long-fingered, with professionally-manicured nails. He wore no rings at all, nor bracelets.

‘Allow me to touch your forehead,’ he said. ‘I promise you that you will feel better.’

Season hesitated, but Vee said, ‘Go on. Season, he’s marvellous. You’ll feel so much better.’

Season suddenly realised that she was reacting like an uptight Wichita farmer’s wife. Don’t you go tampering with them things you don’t understand the nature of, young man. She smiled, and relaxed, and said, ‘All right I’m willing to try anything once. Provided it’s moral, of course.’

‘Of course,’ said Granger, warmly. He extended his fingers, and with the cool tips of them, touched Season’s forehead just above her eyebrows. ‘Do you want to close your eyes?’ he asked her. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘Close them,’ prompted Vee. ‘You’ll be amazed what you see. You know, like the visions you get in back of your eyelids.’

‘Now,’ said Granger, ‘I want you to feel the power that is flowing through my hands in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the power of healing, the power of forgiveness, the power of purity. All those feelings which were troubling you, all those uncertainties, they will all resolve themselves. Jesus hears your troubles, and knows of your indecision and he understands. He will help you.’

Strangely, Season began to feel soothed. She could imagine some kind of gentle warmth radiating from Granger’s fingertips, and smoothing out the knots and crumples that the day had made in her mind. She wasn’t sure about Jesus, but the reassurance that someone understood how uncertain she felt, and how anxious about her marriage – that reassurance in itself was enough to calm her.

Granger murmured, ‘You’re a very lovely, magnetic person, Season. You have an aura about you which makes you both attractive and sympathetic. I don’t think in my whole time in the service of Our Lord that I’ve ever come across anyone with whom I felt so close so quickly.’

Season opened her eyes. Granger was staring at her through the cage of his upraised fingers. The pupils in those washed-out irises of his were contracted almost to pinpoints.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked her, lowering his hands.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Better, I think.’

‘Isn’t he marvellous?’ enthused Vee.

‘Well, I certainly feel less harassed,’ agreed Season, brushing back her blonde hair with her hand. ‘Are you staying to dinner. Granger?’

Granger shook his head. ‘I regret not. I have a meeting tonight. Even a church has to be run like a business these days. I have to fill out Form One-o-two-three for the IRS with my accountants.’

‘Didn’t Jesus throw the money-changers out of the temple?’ asked Season.

‘He certainly did,’ agreed Granger. ‘And one day, I hope I can do the same. That’ll be a miracle worth praying for.’

They saw Granger to the door. Carl had already taken Sally upstairs to her bedroom in the extension, and they could hear her giggling and screaming as Carl chased her across the landing with a Cookie Monster glove-puppet Granger stepped out on to the elevated wooden porch, and looked out over the warm twinkling Los Angeles night.

‘Thank you for your hospitality, Vee,’ he said. ‘And thank you for introducing me to Season. You take good care of her while she’s here. She’s a very special person.’

‘It was good to meet you,’ said Season. Granger took her hand, and gave it a quick, affectionate squeeze.

They both stood by the railing as Granger walked around to the car port at the side of the house. A few moments later, he reappeared in a glossy black Eldorado, booped the horn a couple of times, and drove off down to the road. They watched his tail-lights disappear through the leaves.

‘Well,’ said Vee. ‘What do you think of our spiritual leader? Quite miraculous, isn’t he?’

‘He’s good-looking. Maybe a little theatrical.’

‘Theatrical? Well, he may be theatrical by Kansas standards, but by Hollywood standards he’s positively normal. You ought to see the guru that Marjorie Newman goes to see. Hairy, and yukky, and not too particular about the condition of his loincloth, either. I think Granger’s a doll. If I wasn’t so much in love with Carl, I think I might be tempted to test his spirituality for weak spots.’

They went inside, and the screen door banged behind them. ‘You must come and see the extension,’ said Vee. ‘First we had fires, then we had a mudslide, but somehow we managed to survive long enough to finish it off. Thank God we don’t have any more disasters on the slate.’

‘I ought to call Ed and tell him we’ve arrived safely,’ said Season. ‘Is there a phone in my room?’

‘Oh, sure. Listen – let’s go upstairs and I’ll show you around. Then you can come down and have something to eat. Mind you – the way prices have been shooting up around here, we’re lucky to have half a tomato to nibble on.’

‘There’s been some kind of trouble with the vegetable crop here, hasn’t there?’ asked Season. ‘Some tomato grower was talking to me on the plane. And trying to make a pass, I might add. At least until Sally came walking along the aisle, calling me “mommy”.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s anything as bad as that wheat blight you’ve had in Kansas,’ said Vee, leading Season up a curving wooden staircase to an oak-panelled passageway. ‘But you have to do your marketing pretty early in the day if you want fresh lettuce and celery. By mid-morning, most of the stuff’s gone. Still – they say it’s just a “temporary shortfall”.’

‘You should have seen the farm,’ Season said. ‘The wheat was all black and drooping for miles. Poor Ed was absolutely heartbroken.’

‘I expect Ursula was, too.’

Season raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Don’t talk to me about Ursula. She’s like one of those terrible women in an Edgar Allen Poe story. She’d have me beheaded if she thought it would help South Burlington Farm.’

‘This is your room,’ Vee told her opening the door of a wide, airy, studio with a sloping dormer roof and a polished wooden floor. ‘You wait till you wake up in the morning. There’s a beautiful view of the canyon. Your shower’s through there, and your telephone’s right over on the desk.’

‘Vee, it’s beautiful,’ said Season. ‘I just know that we’re going to feel right at home here.’

Vee held her arm. ‘You’re okay, aren’t you? I mean, Ed didn’t take it too bad?’

Season lowered her eyes. ‘He didn’t want me to go, if that’s what you mean. He was more upset than he was saying. But he knows I have to get away from Kansas, even if it’s only for a week.’

‘What about your marriage?’

‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to see how I feel. Ed doesn’t want to give up the farm and I don’t want him to give it up, either. If I took South Burlington away from him, just for my own selfish reasons, it would be like castrating him. He’s a farmer, Vee, and when I married him I never even realised. But whether I can face up to going back to Kansas or not…’

Vee ran her hand through her sister’s blonde hair. ‘It’s that bad, huh?’

Season nodded. ‘It’s wheat and it’s sky and that’s all.’ Vee kissed her. ‘You wash up, get yourself ready. Carl will take care of Sally. And listen. Season, whatever happens, just remember we love you.’

Season’s eyes filled up with tears. She held her hand over her mouth and the tears slid down her cheeks and clung on her fingers like diamonds. ‘I’m sorry, Vee,’ she said. ‘I’m tired, that’s all.’

‘Sure,’ said Vee, hugging her. ‘I’ll see you in a while.’

Ten

Della McIntosh walked through the terminal at Wichita Mid-Continental Airport at two thirty the following afternoon, dressed in a white cotton skirt and a midnight-blue T-shirt that had more than one of the good old Kansas boys on the baggage-collection carousels taking long and considered looks.

Her red hair was fresh-washed and shining, her sunglasses were propped up in her hair, and if this had been any place in the world except the depths of the American Mid-West, she would have been taken for a very high-quality whore.

Ed was waiting for her outside, standing by his Caprice stationwagon, smoking a small cigar. When she came through the doors and hesitated, looking this way and that for somebody to help her, he stepped forward, tipped his hat, and said in an exaggerated drawl, ‘Mrs McIntosh? Mrs McIntosh from Washington?’

She blinked at him, grinned, and then offered her hand. ‘You must be Mr Hardesty. Well, how do you do? You’re a lot smarter than I thought you were going to be. I expected somebody with chaff in their hair.’

‘Oh, no, ma’am,’ said Ed, taking her suitcase. ‘Having chaff in your hair is illegal in Kansas these days. You can serve three-to-five for actually looking like a hick.’

‘Senator Jones was right,’ said Della. ‘He said you’d make a good figurehead for our Blight Crisis Appeal, and I believe you will. Mind you, I haven’t really heard you speak yet.’

‘As long as I don’t have to come out with all that sincere young farmer bit that Peter Kaiser was trying to lay on me, I don’t mind what I do,’ said Ed. He ushered Della around the car and opened the passenger door for her. She said, ‘Thank you,’ as she sat down, and he couldn’t help noticing the way her skirt rode up over her long legs, and the full curves of her breasts. He closed the door, walked around the front of the car, and climbed in next to her.

‘I told Dr Benson you were coming,’ said Ed, as he pulled out into the airport traffic. ‘He was out at Garden City last night, at the state experimental farm. Apparently they’ve been making some interesting progress on breaking down the blight.’

‘Really?’ said Della. ‘You told him I wanted to meet up with him as soon as possible?’

‘He says tomorrow evening. He has to go to Hays, too. That’s where the agricultural experimental station is located. He doubts if he’s going to be able to get back to Wichita until seven or eight.’

‘He won’t talk to the press before then?’ asked Della. She pulled down the sun-visor in front of her, and inspected her face in the mirror.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Ed. ‘Is it important?’

‘Senator Jones thinks it’s important,’ Della told him, fussing with her hair. ‘He doesn’t want anybody to panic about this blight’

‘Oh, no?’

Della glanced at him. The blight’s serious, but it’s not that serious. Senator Jones believes the most important priority is for Kansas farmers to get their compensation. If there’s a panic, it won’t help to bring in the contributions. That’s all.’

‘I see,’ said Ed.

‘I hope you do,’ Della told him. ‘Particularly since your whole livelihood depends on it.’

‘You’re trying to tell me what my livelihood depends on? If I gave up farming, I could quite easily go back to being an actuary.’

‘An actuary? Are you serious?’

‘Never more so. You used to be a newspaper reporter, didn’t you?’

‘I was until two days ago.’

‘Peter Kaiser said that Senator Jones had won you over to the cause of helping us Kansas farmers by the sheer emotion of his appeal. Is that right?’

Della shrugged. ‘You could call it sheer emotion.’

Ed brought the wagon to a halt at a red light. ‘What else could you call it?’ he asked her.

‘Influence,’ she said. ‘Senator Jones is a very influential man.’

‘Is he really serious about helping us? I mean – is this Blight Crisis Appeal genuine?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s genuine, all right.’

They headed out on Route 54 westwards, into Kingman County. The highway was almost deserted except for occasional trucks.

Ed said, ‘You come from Kansas?’

‘Oklahoma originally. I’m a one hundred per cent natural Okie.’

‘How come you got yourself mixed up with a man like Shearson Jones?’

She smiled. ‘Nobody gets themselves mixed up with Shearson Jones. If Shearson Jones wants to have you around, then he’ll have you around. If he doesn’t, you could no more get to see him than the Pope. Even the president doesn’t get to talk to Shearson Jones whenever he wants to.’

‘Sounds like a biggie.’

‘Oh, yes,’ grinned Della. ‘He’s a biggie, all right.’

The telephone rang in Peter Kaiser’s office. Without taking his eyes off the reports he was reading, Peter picked it up and said, ‘Yes?’

Karen’s voice told him, ‘It’s Professor Protter for you, from the Federal Laboratories.’

‘About time too,’ said Peter. ‘Put him through, will you?’

‘Yes, Mr Kaiser,’ said Karen, in a tone that only slightly reproved him for what had happened last night. She didn’t want to make him feel too bad after all. But his clumsy attempt at seduction couldn’t go completely without comment. He could easily have driven her back to her apartment, and tried to make a play for her there, instead of trying to scramble on top of her in the car. She had stopped petting in pull-offs when she was sixteen, and she had told him so.

She listened in to the telephone as Professor Protter said, ‘Peter? I’ve got some preliminary results for you.’

That’s excellent,’ said Peter. ‘What kept you?’

‘Nothing kept us,’ Professor Protter retorted, testily. ‘We’ve had a staff of ten people working on the samples all night. I don’t think you quite understand what’s involved in these tests.’

‘I understand that Senator Jones asked for the results urgently.’

‘Well, that’s all very fine. But Senator Jones doesn’t know one end of an electron microscope from the other.’

‘He does know who pays your salary. Professor. He also knows who used to pay your daughter’s salary. Now, what about these results?’

‘They’re not definite, by any means. Only conjecture, based on the broad outlines of what we’ve been able to discover so far.’

‘In other words, you’re not prepared to stand by what you say?’

‘In other words, Peter, they’re the best that scrupulous and conscientious scientists can do when they’re put under pressure by a politician whose motives are mainly financial.’

Peter Kaiser sighed. ‘All right, Professor. You can spare me the puritanical rhetoric. What have you managed to conjecture so far?’

‘The samples we were sent by Dr Benson in Kansas have almost certainly been affected by a species of crop virus. The virus has been isolated under the electron microscope, and although we’re not sure exactly what it is, or where it comes from, there isn’t any doubt that it’s extremely active and extremely dangerous to cereal crops. It can spread as quickly as the most virulent of human diseases, and we’re surprised that it didn’t sweep through the wheatfields in Kansas more quickly.’

‘You don’t know how it originated? Whether it was natural or not?’ asked Peter.

Professor Protter hummed for a moment in uncertainty. ‘I’d hate to commit myself,’ he said, ‘but several of the wheat samples from Kansas had traces of some thin gelatinous substance on them – partly decomposed. Professor Gulaski has been running several tests on it, and he thinks it could be some kind of base material in which the virus was carried, and sprayed on to the crops. He’s only guessing, of course, but one of his experiments indicates that the substance slowly breaks down under the influence of ultra-violet light.’

‘What are you trying to suggest?’ asked Peter. ‘This virus was sprayed on to the crops on purpose?’

‘That’s a remote possibility, yes,’ Professor Protter told him. ‘Depending on how slowly the base substance was designed to deteriorate, it could have been sprayed sometime during the spring, when the first shoots of the wheat were coming up. Whoever did it could have easily prepared the gelatinous base according to the average number of hours of sunlight expected in Kansas, so that when the wheat was ripe, the virus broke out. It wouldn’t even have been necessary to spray every farm at the same time to have the virus break out simultaneously. All they had to do was alter the composition of the gelatine to break down more quickly, or more slowly, or whatever they wanted. Anyone with a reasonably expert knowledge of virology and the preparation of photographic emulsions could have done it.’

Peter sat back in his seat. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? You know what you’re saying?’

‘I fully understand all the implications of everything I’ve suggested,’ said Professor Protter. ‘But I must repeat that so far it’s only guesswork – and by my usual standards, pretty wild guesswork. We may still find that this gelatinous material is completely unconnected with the virus.’

‘What about the samples from Iowa? The corn, and the soybeans? And all that stuff they were supposed to be sending you from California?’

Professor Protter paused for a moment, while he consulted his notes. ‘We haven’t run tests on everything yet. We just haven’t had the time. But we’ve examined some grapes from Bakersfield, California, and there isn’t any question at all that they’ve been attacked by a similar species of virus.’

Peter was silent. It seemed as if Dr Benson’s first guess at the cause of the blight had been correct. It was a virus – and even more frighteningly, it had been spread deliberately.

Professor Protter said, ‘It wouldn’t have needed much spraying to start the virus off, you know. Just a couple of acres out of each farm. Once the virus gets going, it’s almost unstoppable. We reckon it can ruin an acre of prime wheat in two to three hours.’

‘All right,’ said Peter, distractedly. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done. You’ll complete those tests on the rest of that California crop, won’t you? And you’ll remember that you’re bound to complete secrecy by federal law?’

‘I won’t forget,’ said Professor Protter, sourly. ‘Although how you’re going to keep the lid on a nationwide blight for very much longer, I don’t have any idea. I’ve already had die newspapers and the television stations calling me here.’

‘We don’t want panic,’ Peter told him. ‘If people start to panic, they’re going to rush around to their local supermarkets and empty the shelves in an hour. Once the president knows what’s going on, he’ll probably want to issue rationing instructions.’

There was a silence, and then Professor Protter said, ‘The president doesn’t know?’

‘Of course the president knows. He’s aware of the blight, and he’s aware that it’s spreading, but he gets all his information from the Depar’I’ment of Agriculture, and so far we’ve tried to keep the blight in perspective.’

‘In perspective?’ asked Professor Protter. ‘Don’t you know what’s going on out there? We may have lost fifteen per cent of our annual crops already!’

‘Professor Protter,’ said Peter, tersely, ‘you’re paid to find out what causes crop diseases, and to suggest antidotes – not to indulge yourself in wild political speculation.’

‘Sometimes a job goes beyond what you’re paid to do,’ retorted Professor Protter.

‘And sometimes a job can disappear under your feet,’ snapped Peter. ‘Shearson wants the wraps on this blight until he’s ready to instruct the president himself, and if you try to blow it before then, you’re going to find yourself cultivating your own backyard for a living.’

‘I’ll call you later,’ said Professor Protter, and banged the phone down.

Peter sat at his desk for a while, pulling at the skin of his face in suppressed tension. Then he jabbed the button for Karen’s phone.

‘Karen? What’s the latest on the fund?’

‘I don’t know exactly, Mr Kaiser. Do you want me to find out?’

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t wanted you to.’

‘I’ll check it right away. Oh – and by the way – The New York Times agricultural correspondent is holding on extension four.’

‘Tell him I’m out.’

‘This is the seventh time he’s called today, Mr Kaiser. He’s beginning to think you’ve got something to hide.’ Peter frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing, Mr Kaiser. They were his words.’

‘All right. Put him through. Oh, and Karen—’

‘Yes, Mr Kaiser?’

‘Last night—’

‘Don’t even mention it, Mr Kaiser.’

‘But I wanted to show you how sorry I was for my clumsiness. I got carried away, I guess. It’s the strain of this blight crisis business. I thought maybe I could make up for it.’

‘I don’t know how, Mr Kaiser,’ said Karen.

‘You can stop calling me “Mr Kaiser” for beginners. My name’s Peter. And for seconds, why don’t you come to Kansas with me over the week-end to meet Senator Jones?

He’s spending the week-end at Fall River, and we’re bound to have a terrific time. When Senator Jones entertains, he really entertains.’

Karen hesitated. Then she said, ‘I’ll think about it. Okay? And don’t blame yourself for last night. Everybody makes faux pas once in a while.’

Peter grimaced. ‘All right, Karen,’ he said. ‘If you want to come, just book yourself a seat. I want to leave by nine o’clock Friday night. And don’t forget to rent a car from Wichita to take us to Fall River.’

‘Very good, Mr Kaiser. I’m just putting The New York Times through now.’

It was Bill Brinsky, a hoarse-voiced veteran reporter whom Peter had run up against more than once. Bill Brinsky’s thirst for Chivas Regal was legendary, but as Peter had once discovered to his cost, it didn’t matter how many whiskies you bought him, and how sozzled he appeared to be, he always sat down to his typewriter with a clear head and a very sharp way of setting out the truth.

‘Bill,’ said Peter, with a high note of false jollity. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m doing a lot of waiting and a lot of running around, Peter,’ said Bill, in a harsh, barely courteous tone. ‘I’ve been trying to get the facts on this blight of yours, and I’m beginning to feel like a Cherokee Indian riding round and around a circle of wagons. I know there are scalps in there, Peter, but I can’t get at them.’

‘Have you talked to the press office at the Department?’

‘Oh, sure. Yesterday, and this morning, and early this afternoon. It’s always the same story. “Yes, Mr Brinsky, there is a serious blight. Yes, Mr Brinsky, it is still spreading. Yes, Mr Brinsky, there have been outbreaks in other states apart from Kansas. No, Mr Brinsky, we do have the whole situation completely under control. And, no, Mr Brinsky, we don’t expect a national shortfall of more than ten per cent.”’

That sounds fair enough to me,’ said Peter. ‘They’re the facts as we know them.’

They’re not facts,’ growled Bill. ‘They’re Department of Agriculture bullshit. I’ve been calling stringers in Oregon and Washington and North Dakota and Wisconsin and California and all over. Sure, we’ve got ourselves a serious wheat blight in Kansas. But what about the sweet potato crop in North Carolina? What about the oranges and the tomatoes in Florida? What about the sugar-cane in the Mississippi delta, and the Louisiana rice? What about the grasses, too? Alfalfa, and timothy, and lespedeza?’

‘Bill—’ interrupted Peter, ‘before you give me a whole agricultural geography of the United States – let me tell you one thing. Every year, every single year, every crop in America suffers from losses through drought or blight or insect activity. A couple of years ago, we had an unusually high number of typhoons and storms. Orange groves in Florida lost thirteen point five per cent of their anticipated output. Wheat farms in North Dakota fell short by nearly twenty per cent. Far more than we’re talking about today! But, all of a sudden, just because we have this very serious grain blight in Kansas, you and every other agricultural correspondent who’s out looking for some page one limelight – all of a sudden, you look around and try to read a scare story into something that happens every single year!’

Bill Brinsky was silent for a second or two. Then he said, ‘How much has Senator Jones’s Blight Crisis Appeal Fund raised so far?’

‘Three million, maybe a little more.’

‘Only three million? I heard nearer ten.’

‘Well, you know how people like to exaggerate.’

‘I heard something else, too. I heard Senator Walsh from California was thinking of raising a similar fund for vegetable growers in his state and that Representative Yorty was planning on a compensation programme for soybean farmers in Iowa. I also heard that Senator Jones reminded both of those gentlemen that they owed him a favour for the help he gave them during that big commodity scam on the San Francisco stock market. And the result of that reminder was that Walsh and Yorty both agreed to delay launching their funds until Senator Jones’s Blight Crisis Appeal reached pledges of twenty million dollars, with at least fifteen million dollars cleared through the bank.’

‘You hear fairy tales,’ said Peter, flatly.

‘I do? Well, maybe I do. But what if I were to print those fairy tales exactly like fairy tales? “Once upon a time, there was a magic kingdom which was stricken down by a terrible blight… all of its crops died away on the branch… but the wicked viziers who ruled that land decided to make a whole heap of gold out of the disaster… they pretended that only three poor farmers had been stricken by the blight… and they asked everybody in the land to donate gold to these poor farmers… with every intention of keeping the gold for themselves.’”

‘You print anything like that and we’ll sue you to death,’ said Peter, in a totally cold voice.

‘Are you going to try to stop me?’

‘Listen to me. Bill, you don’t have any substantive evidence and you know it, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking fairy tales. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you give me your word that you’ll hold back on all this innuendo you’ve heard – if you give me your word that you won’t print any of it – then I’ll guarantee you an exclusive copy of the federal laboratory report on the virus as soon as I get it. That’ll be Monday morning, at the latest.’

‘Virus?’ asked Bill Brinsky. ‘Did you say “virus”?’

Peter bit his tongue.

‘Nobody said anything about a virus to me,’ said Bill. ‘Has somebody told you something I don’t know?’

‘All right. Bill,’ said Peter. ‘The federal laboratory has run some preliminary tests, and conjectured – only conjectured – that the Kansas wheat blight is a virus. You can print that if you like.’

‘What about die other crop failures? Are they caused by a virus too?’

‘Bill, the other crop failures are nothing more than natural wastage. I keep telling you.’

‘All right,’ said Bill, less aggressively, pleased with the tidbit of information that Peter had accidentally let slip. ‘But don’t forget that lab report on Monday, okay? I’ll hold you to that’

‘You’ll have it,’ Peter told him. ‘You know how straight we play the game here.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ said Bill.

By four o’clock that afternoon, the news media were beginning to smell a bigger story. Whatever reassurances the Department of Agriculture had been giving them over the past two days, it was inevitable that small-town reporters were going to visit the blighted farms all across Iowa and Nebraska and Kansas, and see the crops for themselves. From all over, they began to file human-interest stories about farmers who had been digging and tilling and ploughing for twenty years or more, only to lose everything they owned to the wildfire spread of the blight.

On the early evening news, there were pictures of blackened spinach crops, decaying com, rotting oranges, and wilting lettuce. Later editions of The New York Post were running a front page which proclaimed: BLIGHT KOs CROPS – A LEAN YEAR AHEAD?

At six, the president called Alan Hedges, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, into the Oval Office. Alan Hedges was a slow-speaking, white-haired, dignified old man from Alabama; while the president was short, clipped, and energetic, a liberal Democrat from New Hampshire.

The sun was falling across the White House lawns outside the Oval Office windows as Alan Hedges settled himself fastidiously into the studded leather chair facing the president’s desk. The president stood with his hands clenched behind his back, staring out at the evening sky.

‘Alan,’ said the president at last, without turning around, ‘I feel that you’ve been less than direct with me.’

‘Oh?’ asked Alan Hedges. He lifted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles out of the breast pocket of his dark-grey suit, and wound them around his large red ears.

‘The latest briefing that Shearson sent me about the wheat blight in Kansas suggested that the blight was restricted to the Mid-West, and that any outbreaks of blight in other areas were purely seasonal and usual. From what the newspapers and the television channels are now saying, it appears that you and Shearson have somewhat underestimated the extent of the blight Wouldn’t you say that was true?’

‘Well, Mr President…’ Alan Hedges began.

The president tinned around. His iron-grey hair was cropped very short, and his face was as rugged as a boxer’s. ‘From what the newspapers and television channels are now saying, it appears that you and Shearson have been deliberately playing this whole thing down. Wouldn’t you say that was true?’

Alan Hedges let a long sigh fall to the floor like a tired spaniel. ‘Mr President, sir,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t become any of us to over-react to the reality of a situation simply because the media see their chance to sell more newspapers or gain more viewers. Let me tell you something about agriculture. It’s an up-and-down business. These days, we’re used to having it up all the time. After the Second War, modem techniques improved farming beyond all imagination. Did you know that in nineteen forty-six this country couldn’t expect more than twenty-six bushels of corn per acre? These days with hardier strains of crop and better techniques, we’re getting ninety-seven bushels an acre, and more. And that’s with only six man-hours, instead of one-hundred and eight. Did you know that in nineteen forty-six, the average US farm worker fed only eleven people with his efforts, but that nowadays he can feed fifty-two?’

‘I know the agricultural capacity of my own country. Senator Hedges,’ said the president, frostily. ‘I just want to know how serious this blight situation actually is.’

‘I’m trying to explain, sir,’ said Hedges. ‘What I’m saying is that by nineteen eighty expectations, we’re going to suffer a loss of yield. But by nineteen seventy-two expectations, we’re still going to do phenomenally well.’

‘This isn’t nineteen seventy-two,’ snapped the president. ‘No, sir, it isn’t. But our food supply commitment isn’t so much greater today that we can’t cope with it. If you want, I have all the figures here. You can see for yourself that everything is under control. Unpleasant, yes, and very unfortunate for many farmers. But under control.’

The president made no move to take the buff-coloured folder that Hedges offered him. After a few moments, Alan Hedges placed it carefully on the edge of the president’s desk.

Hedges said, ‘I’d very much appreciate it, Mr President, if you could make a statement tonight or tomorrow morning that places the whole blight question into its proper perspective. Otherwise we’re going to have the newspapers full of scare stories, and we’re going to find that all the reserves of food which ought to be carefully held back to keep the situation under control for next year – well, you know what people are like – they’re going to panic and those reserves are going to dwindle away in front of our eyes. We wouldn’t want to have a famine on our hands, would we?’

The president stood silently beside his desk for a long while. Then he said, ‘Are you sure of what you’re saying, Alan? You don’t have any ulterior motives for playing this blight down?’

Alan Hedges blinked at him. ‘Ulterior motives, Mr President?’

The president gave a quick, humourless smile. ‘I want the Department of Agriculture to keep an hour-by-hour check on this blight, Senator. I want daily reports on any new outbreaks, and I want constantly updated estimates of this year’s agricultural production. I’m also going to direct a special team to give me an assessment of the nation’s grain and frozen food reserves, as well as canned and dried products. You know that Canada’s suffering the same blight, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ve already had reports from their agricultural people in Winnipeg.’

‘Good. Make sure that any research materials are pooled, and that we keep a close eye on what they’re doing.’

‘Very good, Mr President. Will that be all?’

‘Not quite, Alan. One of the reasons I called you in here alone was because this spectre of food shortages raises a very delicate issue. But I want to tell you that if any hint of what I have to say to you now were to leak out of this office, the consequences would be grave in the extreme.’

Alan Hedges said nothing, but took off his spectacles and sat upright in his chair, listening.

‘It’s part of a president’s duty to act with unnatural foresight,’ said the president. ‘Now, from what you’ve told me this afternoon, it seems as if there won’t be any severe problems with food shortages during the coming months, provided everybody keeps his head. I’m going to commandeer a few minutes of television time tonight to do what you’ve suggested, and explain to the public at large that we don’t have anything to worry ourselves about, at least for the time being. But there’s one thing else I want you to do, and I want you to do it in complete secrecy.

‘If things go wrong, and we do find ourselves drastically low on food, I want to make sure that the administrative centre of this country is well stocked with supplies. I want you to arrange for enough canned and dried foods to be shipped into Washington during the next two weeks to keep the senior executive staff of our major departments at a nutritional subsistence level for six months. Do it discreetly, by a variety of different methods of transport – train, airplane, ship, truck. And if anybody asks you what the supplies are for – just tell them they’re for federal quality control tests. Something like that.’

‘Am I going to see an Executive Order?’ asked Alan Hedges, softly.

The president looked at him without any expression on his face at all. ‘Take it as an Executive Understanding. The same way Hoover took Roosevelt’s wire-tap instructions.’

‘You think I’m deliberately underestimating this blight?’ Alan Hedges wanted to know.

The President inclined his head in a gesture that could have meant anything at all. I believe you, I don’t believe you, what does it matter anyway?

‘Let me put it this way, Alan,’ he said. ‘If this nation is going to be threatened by severe shortages, it’s going to need a vigorous, active, and healthy government. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.’

‘Very well, Mr President,’ said Alan Hughes, getting up from his chair. ‘If that’s the way the management of this theatre wants it, that’s the way it’s going to be.’ Out at South Burlington, Ed had been giving Della McIntosh a tour of the blighted crops. It was almost dark as they drove back to the farmhouse, and the headlights of the Jeep jounced and flickered across the devastated fields.

‘Have you noticed something?’ said Ed, pointing to the beams of the headlights. ‘No moths.’

Della looked at him. ‘Do you think the virus might have killed them, too?’

‘It’s possible. Maybe they just don’t like dank, decaying wheatlands.’

The lights were shining in the house with deceptive normality as they parked outside on the red asphalt yard and stepped down from the Jeep. Della untied the scarf from her red hair, and said, ‘I guess I’d better be getting back to Wichita. What’s the time?’

‘Eight-thirty. But you don’t have to go all the way back into the city. You could stay here.’

‘I have a room booked at the Mount Vernon Inn.’

‘So what? I’ll call and tell them you couldn’t make it. It’s a hell of a boring drive back into Wichita at this time of night.’

‘Well…’ said Della. ‘I’m supposed to be preparing an objective assessment of your suitability as a figurehead for Shearson’s fund.’

‘What’s non-objective about staying for dinner and sleeping overnight? Dilys is a great hand at fresh pecan pie.’ Della laughed. ‘In that case, you have utterly persuaded me. Pecan pie is my third greatest weakness.’

They walked across to the farmhouse, and stepped up on to the verandah. ‘I don’t suppose I dare to ask what your first two greatest weaknesses are,’ smiled Ed.

She paused, her red hair wild and curly in the light of the verandah lamp, her big breasts emphasised by the slanting shadows. She was just the opposite of Season in so many ways – direct, relaxed, and noticeably at home in rural surroundings. Ed had noticed the way she had run an appreciative hand over a hand-made saddle that had been lying in the back of the Jeep.

‘My second greatest weakness is the country,’ she said. ‘You see that moon up there? That big harvest moon? That’s a real Kansas and Oklahoma moon. You don’t see anything like that in Washington, or New York City.’ They were just about to go inside when Jack Marowitz drove up in his yellow Pinto, climbed out, and slammed the door.

‘Ed?’ he asked. ‘You got a moment?’

‘Sure, Jack. Della – this is Jack Marowitz, my technical genius. Jack, this is Mrs Della McIntosh. She’s working with Senator Jones on the Blight Crisis Fund.’

‘Pleased to know you,’ said Jack, shaking Della by the hand. ‘Listen, Ed – can you give a minute of your time? No offence meant, Mrs McIntosh – but alone?’

‘No offence taken,’ said Della. ‘Maybe I’ll just go right along inside and introduce myself to your mother.’

‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Ed. ‘I won’t keep you long.’ Della went inside, and the screen door banged behind her. Then Ed said, ‘What’s the problem, Jack? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘It’s a theory,’ said Jack. ‘That’s all it is. But somehow it seems to make a whole lot of sense.’

‘Go on.’

‘Have you been into Willard’s house lately?’

‘Sure. I was there last night. We had a drink together, Willard and me and Dyson Kane.’

‘Okay – then you can remember what’s on the wall.’

Ed frowned. ‘What’s on the wall? What do you mean – wallpaper?’

‘No, no. Pictures. Think of what pictures he’s got on his wall.’

‘I don’t know… he’s got a picture of Nanette… and that oil painting of Mount Sunflower… I can’t think of anything else.’

‘An aerial view of South Burlington, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Yes, that’s over the fireplace.’

‘Well – who took that aerial picture?’

‘I don’t know. It was taken earlier this year, wasn’t it? I think I was away in New York, clearing up some business. I remember Mom mentioning it to me… she was real pleased with it… but that’s all.’

Jack was very intense and excited. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘that aerial photograph was taken by a company called Your Spread From The Sky, Inc. They operated out of the airfield at Salina for about a year, touring Kansas and taking aerial pictures of people’s farms and houses.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Ed.

‘Their name’s printed on the bottom of the photograph. Your Spread From The Sky, Inc., Salina, Kansas. I talked to Willard about it, and he said that what they did was fly over your spread in a light plane – bright red, it was, with something like Aerial Photographs written on the side of it in white. They took a whole lot of colour pictures, and then sent you a sheet of proofs in the mail. If you wanted to buy a blow-up picture of your farm, you sent them back fifteen dollars, and they printed it up for you.’

‘So? I’ve heard of that kind of thing before.’

‘Sure you have. It’s very common, very ordinary. It’s so common and ordinary that nobody’s going to take any notice of it. But it’s the only way I can think of that somebody could overfly this farm at a very low altitude and spray the kind of virus that Dr Benson seems to believe this is.’

Ed stared at him. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘you’ve got your head in the right place. You’re damn right that’s the only way that anybody could do it. All the time I’ve been trying to think of surreptitious ways somebody could have poisoned the crops – night spraying, or flying the stuff in on kites – and all the time they did it right out in the open. Or could have done, anyway. You’re sure they’re not legitimate?’

‘I called their number at Salina. The operator told me they were gone. Then I called the agency in charge of leasing hangars, and they said that Your Spread From The Sky, Inc. had operated out of Salina for three months and then moved out. All rent paid up to date, everything cleaned up, and no forwarding address. They had a telephone number in Chicopee, Massachusetts, but when I called it this afternoon, it turned out to be the College of Our Lady of the Elms.’

‘Have you told anyone else about this? Dr Benson?’

‘Not yet, Ed. I wanted to talk to you first. And I didn’t like to make too much of a song and dance about it, in case I turned out to be wrong. I did call Walter Klugman, though, at Penalosa; and John Cafferty, out at Ninnescah Creek; and they’ve both had aerial pictures taken by the same people. All straight, all efficient, everybody got their photographs and everybody was satisfied. Whoever set it up was a real professional.’

Ed rubbed his chin. He had shaved in a hurry that morning, and it was rough with stubble. ‘Keep this to yourself for the moment. Jack,’ he said. ‘But do me a favour and call the Wheat Growers’ Association in North Dakota tomorrow. See if they’ll give you the names and telephone numbers of a couple of farmers up there, and check whether they’ve had aerial photographs taken or not. And you could do the same for a couple of corn and soybean farmers in Iowa while you’re at it.’

‘You’re not going to try playing detective?’ asked Jack. ‘I mean – once we’re fairly certain, I think we ought to turn this all over to the Department of Agriculture, don’t you?’

‘In time,’ nodded Ed. ‘But right at this moment. I’m just finding out one or two things about the Department of Agriculture, and I think I’d like to wait a while before we blithely hand them everything we know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure. But I can’t quite make up my mind what Senator Shearson Jones is up to. I can’t believe he’s organising this appeal fund for our benefit alone. Not just a few Kansas farmers with the seats out of their pants. And why has he played down this blight so much to the media? I can look out there tomorrow, when the sun comes up, and see nothing but ten miles of blackened fields. It’s the same all over Kansas, and it’s probably just as bad everywhere else. How come nobody seems to be excited? How come Shearson Jones can talk about a shortfall as low as eight per cent? The wheat harvest’s dead, Jack, in the space of a few days, and in my book that’s one hundred per cent shortfall. That’s disaster.’

Jack nodded towards the house. ‘You think this Mrs McIntosh is going to tell you anything?’

‘I don’t know. She’s an Oklahoma lady, so maybe she might.’

‘Good luck,’ said Jack, tipping his hat in semi-serious respect. ‘From the looks of her, I think you may need it.’

Eleven

Over dinner, Ursula Hardesty warmed to Della McIntosh very quickly. Ursula had been a farmer’s wife, after all, and she liked plain speaking and she liked to talk about the land. She even found that she and Della had friends in common – remote friends, the Shaughnessys of Kansas City – but friends all the same.

Ursula wore a powder-blue dress with silver stitching – a dress about which Season had always said, ‘It’s terrific taste if you’re planning on taking a time machine back to nineteen fifty-eight.’ Della had taken her suitcase up to the wide back-bedroom which overlooked the meadow where they usually landed the helicopter, and she had changed into a simple low-cut dress of bottle-green satin. She had bought the dress especially for this week-end, to impress Shearson.

Perhaps Ursula wasn’t aware of Della’s shining red hair and her big, firm breasts. Perhaps she wasn’t aware of the way Della’s lips glistened moistly in the candlelight, and the way that she spoke to Edward in such a careful, modulated voice. But Ed doubted it. He knew that his mother liked Della a lot. She was a country girl, for all her involvement in Washington; and South Burlington Farm, in Ursula’s opinion, badly lacked the attention of a country girl.

At nine-thirty, Ursula declared her intention of going to bed. She was going to return to her house in Independence in the morning, and ‘leave Edward in peace.’ Ed had never seen her retire so early, or in such good humour. He kissed her evasively, and said, ‘Good night, Mother,’ and she smiled at him as she left the room.

‘You want a brandy?’ he asked Della, as he led her into the living-room. ‘It’s quite a civilised label. I didn’t distil it myself.’

‘I’d love one,’ she said, and watched him as he went to the drinks cabinet to pour it. ‘This is a very attractive house, you know. Dignified but friendly.’

‘Well, that’s us Hardestys all over,’ smiled Ed, handing Della her drink. He sat down beside her on the sofa.

‘Shearson Jones seems to be very taken with you,’ said Della. ‘He thinks you’ll make an excellent figurehead for this Blight Crisis Appeal.’

‘He does? And what do you think?’

‘I think he’s right. Now I’ve seen you, I can vouch for his intuition. He was a little worried you might look like Quasimodo, but since you clearly don’t – well, I think you’re just the man.’

‘What are his plans?’ asked Ed, sipping brandy, and looking at Della over the shining rim of his glass.

‘He wants you to make a live TV broadcast from Fall River on Saturday afternoon. As far as I know they’ve written the script already. It won’t be anything ridiculous or schmaltzy. All they’ll ask you to say is that you’re a young Kansas wheat farmer, that you’ve dedicated your life to cultivating your farm, and that through no fault of your own you’ve now found yourself flat busted. That’s it.’ Ed sat back. ‘That sounds simple enough. Is it going to be networked?’

‘Coast-to-coast, as far as we know.’

Ed nodded. ‘That sounds okay.’

There was a silence, and then he said: ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing with a character like Shearson Jones anyway? He’s a major-league heavy, isn’t he? And not just politically, either. From what I’ve seen of him on television, he’s not exactly the world’s skinniest man. How come you’re working for someone like that?’

‘I wasn’t, until Wednesday.’

‘But why? I don’t know much about him, but from what I’ve heard he’s pretty hard to g. t near. The only way I got through to him in the first place was because my daddy helped him with some wheat-dumping deal. I don’t understand why you’re hanging around a man like that.’

Della shrugged. ‘It’s the power, I guess. The influence. It’s very intoxicating.’

‘Even more intoxicating than good country air?’

She looked up at him. ‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want it to mean.’

‘You’re a married man, aren’t you?’ she reminded him. ‘A married man with a young daughter of six.’

‘You want to talk about families?’

Della held her glass of brandy up to the light. An amber reflection curved across her cheek. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not particularly.’

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes and then Ed said, ‘What does Shearson Jones want out of this fund? Can you tell me that?’

‘Prestige,’ said Della. ‘Votes. It’s all very good for the public image.’

‘Is that why he’s working so hard to suppress the truth about this blight? How serious it is, and how wide it’s spread?’

Della blushed. ‘I wasn’t aware he’d done anything like that.’

‘Wouldn’t you, if you were in his position? Let’s face it, the moment the public realises how many crops have been destroyed, they’re not going to worry about Ed Hardesty and Walter Klugman and all the other poor jugheads of Kingman County, are they? They’re going to start worrying about themselves.’

Della said, ‘I think this blight’s spread much faster than Shearson expected it to. He thought he’d have two or three clear weeks at least. Now it looks like a matter of days. But he’s collected something like eleven million dollars already, and if you do well on the television on Saturday – well, that could jump to twenty or thirty million.’

Ed set down his glass. ‘He’s got eleven million already?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Ed.

Della leaned over towards him. ‘Don’t think too badly of Shearson, Ed. He’s all kinds of things, but he’s also a very professional and dedicated politician.’

Ed found himself looking into Della’s eyes, very closely. ‘You’re an interesting woman,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they bred them as interesting as you in Oklahoma.’

‘We’re not all hayseeds,’ she said. ‘And my mother was Miss Oklahoma City, nineteen fifty-one.’

‘You’re aiming higher than that, huh?’

‘I could be.’

They had known what was going to happen from the moment Ed had invited her to stay over. All through dinner their conversation had been leading inevitably to this one moment. Ursula had helped it to happen, too, by her active approval of everything that Della had said and done. She had smiled at Della with a toothy expression that could only be interpreted one way: wouldn’t I have loved to have you as a daughter-in-law?

Ed said, ‘You must be tired.’

‘Not too tired,’ said Della, throatily.

Ed stood up, walked across to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself another brandy. ‘Like you said,’ he told her, ‘I’m a married man with a young daughter of six.’

‘I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Della said.

He turned, and looked at her, and then gave her a wry smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I know you’re not. But you must have guessed where my marriage is at, right now. And at times like this, I guess everybody’s looking for a little reassurance, and a little consolation, and maybe a little excitement, too.’

‘You think I’m exciting? Miss Kansas City Herald-Examiner, as was? Shearson Jones’s private messenger lady?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What about your mother?’

‘She takes enough sleeping-pills to knock out a rhinoceros. Apart from that, she likes you.’

‘She likes me that much?’

He walked back to the sofa, and stood close beside her. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked her, quietly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t.’

Ed leaned forward and kissed Della on the forehead, just below the line of her bright coppery hair. It started off as a chaste kiss; as a kiss of friendly affection and nothing more. But she put her arm around his neck, so that he couldn’t break away from her, and she raised her lips to him, very soft and very moist and very willing. He hesitated for a moment, and then he kissed her again, and this time it was a long, searching, devouring kiss, a kiss that meant I want you, however wrong it might be. A kiss of lust, and shared frustrations, and sheer excitement at making love to someone new.

‘Let’s take a bath,’ whispered Della. ‘I’ve been flying, and taking a look around your farm and I’ve been looking forward to a bath all afternoon.’

‘All right,’ said Ed. ‘A bath it is.’

They went upstairs together, Ed leading Della by the hand up the galleried staircase, until they came to the rococo bedroom. Della said, ‘Quite a place,’ as Ed showed her through to the bathroom.

‘Season designed it. She visited the Palace of Versailles once, on a trip to France, and I think it made a lasting impression.’

They went into the bathroom. The tub itself was midnight blue, and the wallpaper was an Osborne & Little design from England, blue peacocks strutting across a white background, like a Rorschach print of stately elegance. Ed ran the faucets, and sifted Swiss herb salts into the water. Della stood before the mirror, tidying her hair.

‘I’m surprised you took this farm on,’ said Della.

‘Oh?’ asked Ed. ‘Why?’

She turned away from the mirror. ‘You seem to like classy living as much as the next man. You’re not dumb. So why maroon yourself out here in Kansas, away from civilisation, and theatres, and anything that’s anything?’

Ed unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Land, and growing things, they’re as much a part of what makes this country worth living in as theatre and smart restaurants. And, in any case, I guess every actuary’s a dumb hick at heart.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘Well, I hope you’re not too dumb and hickish to unzipper my gown for me.’

She turned around, lifted her hair up from the nape of her neck, and presented her back to him. He stood right behind her, watching both of their faces in the bathroom mirror. The steam from the hot water was already misting the edges of the glass so that it looked like an old and romantic photograph.

Ed tugged the zipper right down the curved small of her back. Then he gently slipped the straps off her shoulders, and pulled down the front of her gown, baring her breasts. In the mirror, he could see how large and rounded they were, and how wide her pink areolas spread. He watched his hand reach around her, and clasp her left breast as if it were a heavy, ripe fruit.

Della stretched her neck back, and kissed him. He pulled her gown right down, and she was standing in front of the mirror naked. The shape of her pale body was punctuated only by the petal-pink spots of her nipples and the gingery plume of her pubic hair.

They said nothing. There was nothing for them to say. Ed stripped off his shirt, and took down his pants. Then he sat on the edge of the tub and clasped Della around the waist, pulling her towards him, so that at last she lowered herself on his lap. As the steam from the running water gradually hazed up the bathroom mirror completely, they were able to see Della opening her thighs wide, and straddling Ed’s legs, so that the dark hard head of his penis could slide its way between the rose-coloured lips of her vulva, right up as far as his black-haired balls; but then they could make out nothing more than two blurred impressionistic figures, two different patterns reflected in a surface like breathed-on mercury.

Ed clutched Della’s soft, big breasts, resting his cheek against her back and thrusting and thrusting until he felt that it wasn’t humanly possible to thrust any deeper. Della threw her head from one side to the other, gasping and shuddering with the feeling of what Ed was doing to her. And when Ed at last ejaculated, she bent forward and said, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful,’ even though she hadn’t reached a climax herself.

Afterward, they sat in the bedroom, wrapped in huge soft yellow towels, watching each other with new awareness. Della hadn’t told him yet, but she didn’t want to sleep with him in his marital bed. The act would only have been symbolic, but it was more than she felt he was prepared to give her, and more than she was prepared to take – at least until they knew each other better.

Ed said, ‘Was I better than Shearson Jones?’

She looked at him wide-eyed. ‘How do you know I’ve ever made love to Shearson Jones?’

‘Have you?’

She smiled at him. Not too broadly. She didn’t want to antagonise him. ‘Would it matter to you if I had?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m being ridiculously jealous, the way most new lovers are.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Shearson Jones has plenty of enviable things in his life. Money, power, influence, and scores of women. But you have plenty of enviable things, too. A farm, and a beautiful wife, and a lovely daughter.’

‘What are you trying to do?’ Ed asked her. ‘Make me eat ashes for what we just did?’

‘How could I? We both wanted it and we both enjoyed it. And that’s as far as it has to go. No guilt. No recriminations. No nothing.’

‘Are you really that blasé?’ he wanted to know.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not blasé at all. If I was blasé. I’d cling on to you for all I was worth. I wouldn’t care about who you were, and what your farm meant to you. I wouldn’t care about your wife or your daughter.’

‘You don’t care now. Don’t give me that.’

‘I do care, as a matter of fact, because I think you’re somebody special. You’re a nice man. Good-looking, hard-working, and prepared to fight for what you believe in. I wanted to make love with you because I wanted to please you and I wanted to please myself. Now, it’s over.’

‘You mean we’re never going to make love again?’

‘How do I know? I thought it was up to the man to do all the chasing.’

He frowned, and rubbed the back of his hair with his towel. Then he grinned, and chuckled.

‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ he asked her.

‘What am I?’

‘You’re beautiful. That’s all. Just beautiful.’

On Friday morning, the president called a delayed news conference and informed the White House Press Corps that he had been holding ‘urgent and concerned meetings’ with the Department of Agriculture, and that he had also talked directly on the telephone with the governors of nine states, including Kansas, Iowa, Montana, Washington, California, and Florida. The damage to crops caused by various blights and diseases was ‘difficult to assess in terms of the nation’s foreseeable lunchpail’ – a phrase which he would later have cause to regret he had ever spoken, and not just for grammatical reasons, either. But most of the governors had believed that the blight situation was ‘containable’ and that food stocks were generally high enough to see them through until next year’s spring crops.

What none of the governors realised was that the blight crisis was already well beyond disaster level. Most of their state agricultural departments had sent samples of the mystifying disease to Washingon for assessment, but Washington had so far given them nothing in return except the words of Shearson Jones – that the federal researchers were ‘on the brink of solving the problem’ and that ‘the agricultural cavalry is on the way.’

By Friday, the truth was that the blight had spread so terrifyingly quickly over crops of all kinds that some kind of antidote treatment would have to be applied by the following Tuesday at the latest to save even fifty per cent of the nation’s expected food production. And despite the reassuring words of Shearson Jones – on which the state governors had based their opinion that the situation was reasonably under control – there was no chance at all that an antidote could be manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet that deadline, even if an antidote were discovered at all.

The media, too, had been lulled into thinking that the blight story was nothing more than a passing problem – like a hurricane, or a snowstorm. It was beyond the imagination of most newspaper and television editors to interpret American life as anything more than a series of transitory crises – headlines that were fresh one day and stale the next. They still hadn’t been able to grasp that the blight could irrevocably alter the whole structure of western society in the time it usually took for the average American to work up an appetite for his next meal. Shearson Jones said nothing to disabuse them, and for lunch on Friday he ate turtle soup, two roasted squab, and a peach crab lantern.

On Friday afternoon, CBS News reported in a special bulletin that the president was now ‘carefully optimistic’ about the national shortfall in food production. Senator Shearson Jones was going to Kansas for the week-end, and he would make a full broadcast about the crisis on Sunday night, when he had been able to judge the effects of the blight first-hand.

Early on Friday evening, a California wine grower went out into his blighted vineyard in the Napa Valley and blew most of his own head off with a 12-bore shotgun. His distraught wife told police that they had struggled for fifteen years to cultivate their own distinctive wines, and that this year had been ‘make or break’ year for their winery.

In Washington, the Federal Crop Insurance Programme announced that ‘very careful screening’ would have to be given to claims for blighted crops. It was possible that claims would be so heavy this year that the programme would not be able to meet all of them out of its own resources.

In Washburn, North Dakota, a farmer called his local radio station to say that the crop blight was caused by ‘bacteria from the moon rocks.’ All the moon rocks should be gathered up at once and fired back into space he insisted.

In Georgetown, shortly after six o’clock, Shearson Jones’s telephone rang, and Billy, his manservant, went to answer it.

It was Peter Kaiser. He wanted to know if Shearson was still on schedule for the nine o’clock flight from Dulles to Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. Shearson had just come out of the shower, and he was wrapped in a silk Chinese robe with an electric-blue dragon twisting its way around it. He was smoking a large cigar and he smelled of Signoricci II.

‘I’ll be there,’ he told Peter Kaiser. ‘Barring an act of God, or an unforeseeable disaster.’

‘What about a foreseeable lunchpail?’ asked Peter Kaiser.

Shearson chuckled. ‘Wasn’t that the worst speech ever? I’m surprised the TV people haven’t picked it up already. If we didn’t have this Blight Crisis Appeal going, I’d have gone right in there and torn it to shreds myself. A chicken in every pot, and a mirage in every lunchpail. How that stuffed dummy ever got to be president is beyond me.’

‘He was voted in,’ said Peter.

‘No, he wasn’t. His opponents were voted out. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about him. Tell me how the fund’s going.’

Peter paused as he shuffled through his accounts. Eventually, he said, ‘As of this afternoon, when the banks closed, we had seven million dollars already credited to the Blight Crisis account by special clearance. There were still two million dollars outstanding, and the bank doesn’t expect that money to be through until Tuesday or Wednesday.’

‘What about the Michigan Tractor contribution?’

‘That could take longer. You know what they’re like. Their board hardly ever agrees to meet in emergency session; and when they do, they’ve got five major subsidiaries to take into account. We’ll be lucky if we get their cheque for a week, maybe longer.’

‘But they’ve offered us two million.’

‘I know. Senator. That’s why they’re taking so long about it.’

‘Damn,’ breathed Shearson. ‘I don’t know how much longer we can keep this whole balloon flying. Seven million is a hell of a lot less than I was counting on. And we’re going to lose a million at least in administrative expenses and commissions.’

‘I’m sorry. Senator,’ said Peter. ‘I’m doing my very best to get the money cleared promptly. But I’ve only had three days, and it’s a miracle we’ve gotten so much already. There were twenty-eight corporations involved in raising that seven million. Most of them were already on my list of over-profitables, and they couldn’t get rid of the money fast enough. But from now on in, we’re going to have a far tougher time.’

‘To be quite frank, Peter, I don’t think there’s going to be any “from now on in”,’ breathed Shearson, puffing at his cigar. ‘I’ve done what I can to keep this blight in the right kind of perspective, but if the media don’t realise what’s going on by the middle of next week, then they’re even dumber than I always thought they were.’

‘The president seems to think it’s all under control,’ said Peter.

‘The president’s scared shitless, and he’s clinging on to any and every optimistic statement that anybody comes up with,’ retorted Shearson. ‘How can he possibly turn around to the people of the greediest nation on the face of this earth and say, “I’m sorry, folks, but you’re going to have to do without bread, or corn, or french fries, or Post Toasties”? He’d be dragged out of the White House and publicly crucified.’

‘What about Protter?’ asked Peter. ‘Has he come up with anything yet? I asked him to call you direct if he did, in case I was out.’

‘No. No word from Protter,’ said Shearson. ‘Listen – I’ll meet up with you later. Right now I have to get myself dressed. But start thinking up ways to get that two million out of Michigan Tractors before mid-week.’

‘Okay, Senator. I’ll see you at the airport.’

Shearson put the phone down, but almost immediately it rang again. Billy walked across the parquet hallway with metal-tipped heels that methodically clicked, and picked up the receiver. He listened, and nodded, and finally he said to Shearson, ‘It’s Professor Protter. He says priority.’

‘All right,’ said Shearson. ‘I’ll take it. Bring me a tankard of Dom Perignon, will you? I’m as dry as a hog.’

Professor Protter sounded strained. ‘Senator? I believe I may have some good news for you.’

‘Good news?’ asked Shearson, suspiciously.

‘That’s right. We’ve made some excellent progress on the virus. It was very fortunate. Almost an accident. But the net result is that we may be able to clear most of it up.’ Shearson sucked silently at his cigar.

‘Are you there?’ asked Professor Protter.

‘I’m here,’ said Shearson. ‘Tell me what you’ve found out.’

‘It was Dr Egan’s idea, as a matter of fact. He sent a sample around to the Pentagon’s bacteriological warfare centre, and asked if they could possibly identify it. They spent twenty-four hours going through ten different samples, and then they called us back and said there wasn’t any doubt about it.’

‘Well?’ said Shearson, impatiently.

‘It’s an artificially cultivated virus which bears a strong resemblance to one of our own viruses called Vorar D. It was originally developed as a defoliant for Vietnam, but since then it’s been taken through several different variants. It has the same effect as powdery mildew – it arrests photosynthesis in growing plants – but it also causes very rapid decay and breakdown of the cells. It’s aerobic – which means that it’s transmitted through the air – and it’s not very easy to kill.’

‘I thought you said we could clear most of it away.’

‘I did. The Pentagon already have a formula for sterilising crops that have been infected by Vorar D, and they’re pretty sure they can adapt it to clear away this particular variety. The only problem is that it’s going to take some time.’

‘I see,’ said Shearson.

There was a lengthy silence. Then Professor Protter said, ‘You don’t sound as if you’re particularly pleased.’

‘Pleased? Of course I’m pleased,’ said Shearson.

‘Then what will you do? Will you call the president, and get the authorisation for the sterilising compound to be manufactured right away? Or what?’

‘I hope you’re not trying to dictate my course of action. Professor,’ said Shearson, testily. ‘I need to see a written report on this Vorar D before I can advise the president. And what do we know about this sterilising compound? Federal restrictions are very tight on what we can spray on our crops and what we can’t. Supposing it has dangerous side-effects? Supposing it pollutes water? Supposing it can cause malformation in unborn children?’

‘It’s been thoroughly tested,’ said Professor Protter. ‘Maybe it has, but you’re talking about a variant of it. Come on. Professor, the lives and safety of millions of Americans are at stake here. You can’t treat them like guinea-pigs in one of your laboratories.’

‘Senator-it will take weeks to produce sufficient supplies of sterilising compounds and even longer to spray them over all the affected areas. If we don’t set something in motion now, we may be too late. That’s if we’re not too late already.’

Billy arrived with a half-pint silver tankard of cold champagne, which he set down beside Shearson’s telephone. Shearson snapped his fingers at him to bring him a taper for his cigar.

‘What I want you to do. Professor—’ said Shearson, puffing at his cigar again, ‘—what I want you to do is prepare me a complete file on what you’ve discovered so far. Then, when I come back from Kansas on Monday morning. I’ll call a special meeting of the Agriculture Committee, and we can discuss what action we’re going to take.’

‘But Senator—’

‘Don’t “but Senator” me, Professor. Just do what you’re told.’

‘Senator, this is one time when I’m going to say no. The situation is urgent, we have the means to do something about it. Two days could make all the difference. I’m going to go way over your head with this information, and if I still don’t get anywhere. I’m going to the press.’

‘Professor,’ rumbled Shearson, gently. ‘I very much advise you against doing that.’

‘Try and stop me,’ snapped Professor Protter, and slammed his phone down.

Shearson held his own receiver in his hand for a few seconds, staring at it thoughtfully. Then, almost inaudibly, he said to Billy, ‘Get me Peter Kaiser again.’

At eight forty-five p.m., Karen Fortunoff was still waiting by the gate at Dulles Airport for Peter Kaiser to join her. She was wearing a smart camel-coloured suit, and she had bought herself a new week-end case especially for the trip. The flight had already been called twice, and she didn’t know if she ought to board the plane, with the risk that Peter wouldn’t make it in time, and that she would have to fly to Wichita alone – or if she should wait for him to arrive, and risk missing the flight altogether.

Outside, in the darkness, the Tri-Star’s engines were already whining, and she could see the last of the service vehicles driving away. She checked her watch. Maybe she should just forget the whole thing. She didn’t particularly like Peter anyway. If she hadn’t already told her friends that she was going to spend the week-end in the million-dollar vacation home of Senator Shearson Jones, and if she hadn’t been so worried about keeping herself up-to-date on the blight crisis, she would have gone back to her apartment and resigned herself to another Saturday and Sunday doing the same old things. Reading, drawing, watching TV.

She went to the window and stared out at the aeroplane. Most of the passengers were already in their seats, and she could see the stewardess counting heads for cocktails. Reflected in the dark glass, she could see her own face, too, like a silent and inquisitive stranger.

She heard someone talking in a loud, harsh voice, and she turned around. With relief, but with apprehension, too, she saw Peter hurrying along the carpeted corridor. He had to hurry because he was trying to keep up with one of the airline’s electric carts, on which in huge and weighty splendour sat Senator Shearson Jones, in a white suit as large as a circus marquee.

Peter gave Karen a quick half-smile when he saw her, and said, ‘Hi. You made it, then?’

Karen said, ‘Yes,’ but she was more interested in the spectacle of Shearson Jones easing his bulky body from the cart and waddling sweatily towards the gate. She felt as if she were in the presence of a political and physical phenomenon; a being who defied gravity and governments, both.

She didn’t think at first that Shearson had noticed her, but as they followed him down the walkway to the aeroplane, the senator said loudly, without turning around, ‘Who’s the girl, Peter?’

‘Karen Fortunoff,’ said Peter. ‘My head girl. Very efficient.’

‘Good,’ rumbled Shearson. ‘I like to have pretty girls around me. I congratulate your taste.’

Peter took Karen’s elbow as they boarded the plane. ‘See?’ he whispered. ‘He likes you.’

Karen gave him an uneasy grin. ‘As long as he doesn’t want me, I don’t mind.’

Dr Benson yawned as he walked along the corridor to his office in the Kansas Agricultural Research building. He could hear his telephone ringing but he wasn’t going to hurry. He was too tired after driving all the way back from the experimental agricultural station near Hays, and all he wanted now was a cup of hot coffee, a bath, and six hours’ sleep.

The phone was still ringing as he pushed open the door of his untidy office and threw his dogeared briefcase into a corner. He took off his car-coat, hung it up on the back of the door, and then shuffled through the heap of papers on his desk to see if the telephone was anywhere within easy reach. He found it at last, sniffed, and picked it up.

‘Yes?’ he asked, non-committally.

‘Is that Dr Nils Benson?’ asked an intent voice.

‘Who wants him?’

‘Professor Protter, from the Federal Agricultural Research laboratory in Washington.’

‘Oh, I see. Then this is he. How do you do, Professor. I’m glad you called.’

Professor Protter sounded anxious. ‘I’m glad you answered,’ he said. ‘I was just about to hang up.’

Dr Benson lifted his eyeglasses with his left hand and pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve the pressure of tiredness. ‘I went out to the state experimental farm at Garden City, and then over to the experimental agricultural station at Hays. It’s been a pretty exhausting couple of days. I only just walked into the office.’

‘Have your state research people found anything out?’

‘Not a lot,’ said Dr Benson. ‘But they confirmed the blight is a virus of some kind – which is what I originally guessed it to be. They’re running more tests over the weekend.’

‘Listen,’ said Professor Protter, ‘they’re absolutely right when they say it’s a virus. We took it to the chemical warfare people, and they identified it almost straight away as a new strain of Vorar D.’

‘Vorar D? I read about that. So, I wasn’t so far off target after all. I told one of our farmers here that the blight was probably started deliberately.’

‘I’m not hazarding any guesses about how it was started,’ said Professor Protter. ‘That’s up to the FBI. But I am worried about the lack of concrete help I’m getting from the Agriculture Committee in general and Senator Shearson Jones in particular.’

‘You’ve told Jones about Vorar D?’

‘Of course. I told him that the Pentagon have a suitable sterilising compound, too.’

‘And he didn’t seem interested?’

‘He wanted written reports, and tests on the sterilising compound, and God knows what. There’s no question at all that he’s trying to slow this whole thing down.’

‘Can you think of any reason why he should?’

‘Only one,’ said Professor Protter. ‘He’s opened this Blight Crisis Appeal for Kansas wheat farmers, as you obviously know. So far I think it’s brought in three or four million dollars, although the news tonight said he was aiming for a target of twenty-five million dollars or more. Now – I may be unjust in thinking this – but it occurs to me that if the government announces they’ve found a way to arrest the blight, then interest in compensating the poor unfortunate farmers is going to take a downward curve. It’s the same with the way that Jones keeps telling the media that the blights in other states apart from Kansas aren’t very serious. In my opinion, he’s trying to maintain a completely distorted impression of what’s going on, simply to rake in as much contribution money as he possibly can.’

Dr Benson threw a copy of the Kansas paper off his chair, and sat down. ‘That’s a pretty heavy accusation,’ he said. ‘Do you think you can substantiate it?’

‘I’m not interested in substantiating it right now,’ said Professor Protter. ‘All I’m interested in is getting through to the president, and making sure that production starts on sterilising compounds right away.’

‘Why don’t you make an announcement to the press? That’s what I always do when I want to tug a few executive earlobes.’

‘I’m not in a position to do that,’ said Professor Protter.

‘Why not? If you’re right, what can they do to you?’

‘Senator Jones can do a lot to me, and to my family. That’s why I’m sharing this information with you. I was wondering if you could leak the story for me – get things moving. You could always say that it was your own people in Kansas who had identified the virus.’

Dr Benson cleared his throat. ‘You want me to be the fall guy?’

‘You can call your research people – have them check on the virus. I can assure you that everything I’m telling you is true. Six CW experts can’t be wrong.’

‘Well…’ said Dr Benson.

‘It’s not just important,’ Professor Protter told him. ‘It’s crucial to the survival of this whole nation. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.’

‘All right, then,’ said Dr Benson. ‘I’ll call Mike Smith at the local radio station. He’s good on handling this kind of thing.’

‘I’m sure you won’t regret it,’ said Professor Protter.

‘No, Professor, I don’t think I will,’ Dr Benson told him. ‘If I’m going to go down, I might as well go down with all guns blazing.’

Dr Benson put the phone down, and rummaged around his room for his telephone directory. He was searching for the number of the Wichita news station when there was a light rapping sound at his door. He looked up, and there was a pretty red-headed woman in a grey raincoat, with a pocketbook under her arm. She smiled at him, and said, ‘Hi. Am I disturbing you?’

‘I, er – well, no, I don’t think so,’ said Dr Benson.

The woman stepped confidently into the office. ‘I was waiting for you to come back from Hays. I saw the light go on in your office so I came up. My name’s Della McIntosh, by the way. I’m the new projects manager for Shearson Jones’s Blight Crisis Appeal.’

Dr Benson shook her hand hesitantly. ‘That’s quite a coincidence,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been talking about the Blight Crisis Appeal to a colleague of mine.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Della, perching herself on the edge of Dr Benson’s desk, and giving him more of her warmest grin. ‘Was it anybody I know?’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. You’re not an agronomist, are you?’

‘No, but I’m over the age of consent.’

Dr Benson let out a grunt of amusement. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ he asked. ‘Apart from ask your consent?’

‘I flew in from Washington yesterday,’ Della told him. ‘I spent last night looking over Mr Hardesty’s farm at South Burlington, and now I’m interested in talking to you. Have you discovered what causes the blight yet?’

‘No… not exactly. We’re still working on the theory that it might be a form of powdery mildew.’

‘I thought you believed it was a virus.’

‘Did Mr Hardesty tell you that? Oh, well, I was only generalising. It could be any one of a dozen things. It’s going to take our people at Hays and Garden City a long time to find out which.’

Della stood up. ‘We’re sending out a television statement on Sunday evening from Senator Jones’s home at Fall River. If you can spare me an hour or so, I was wondering if you could give me some scientific background. We want to make it all sound authentic.’

‘Well, er – I have a quick call to make – then maybe I can spare you a little time. Would you excuse me for just a minute or two? You could sit in my secretary’s office across the hall.’

‘Sure,’ smiled Della, and stepped out of the office, closing the door behind her. She quickly crossed the corridor to the office marked ‘Enquiries’, switched on the light, and went across to the grey steel desk. The tell-tale light on the telephone was already lit up, so she carefully lifted the receiver, and listened in.

‘—called me urgently and confidentially, and said that the Pentagon’s chemical warfare people had identified it as Vorar D – that’s right – well they used to use it for defoliation work in Vietnam – but he doesn’t want to leak the story himself – no – well, as far as I understand it, Senator Jones can put some sort of a squeeze on his family – that’s right—’

When the light blinked off again, Della quietly replaced the receiver, and tippy-toed across to the window. By the time Dr Benson came in, shrugging on his car-coat again, she appeared to be absent-mindedly staring out at the light of Wichita’s Civic Centre.

‘I thought we’d go down to the coffee shop,’ said Dr Benson. ‘I haven’t eaten in hours.’

‘Personally, I could do with a drink,’ smiled Della. ‘Is there a good cocktail bar near here?’

‘Well, I guess so – but the truth is I don’t usually—’

Della linked her arm in his. ‘Oh, come on. Surely work’s over for the day, even for you busy agricultural scientists.’ Dr Benson shrugged. ‘I guess I’m all right as long as I stick to Coke.’

‘Coke?’ asked Della, as they walked along the corridor to the elevator. ‘What kind of a scientist drinks Coke?’

Dr Benson didn’t answer, but pulled her an uncomfortable smile as they descended to the lobby. Della cuddled his arm, as if he was an affectionate old white-haired sugar-daddy, and when the security guard opened the downstairs door for them and let them out into the cool night air, he gave Dr Benson such a significant wink that Dr Benson felt like Humbert Humbert on his night off.

‘Is that the bar?’ asked Della, looking across the neon-lit plaza. ‘The Silver Star?’

‘That’s the bar,’ said Dr Benson, in a resigned voice.

The rented chauffeur-driven Lincoln Continental skirted the trees on the southern side of Fall River Lake and came out at last into a clearing. The driver had done this run before, and he turned up the driveway which led to Shearson Jones’s house without having to be directed. He stopped at the white-painted wrought-iron gates, let down his window, and said, ‘Senator Jones and party,’ into the driveside microphone. There was a pause, then a click and a hum, and the gates swung open.

Sitting in one of the jump seats, Karen couldn’t see the house very well until the chauffeur turned the Lincoln around on the gravelled front apron, applied the brake, and opened the door for her. When she climbed out, though, and stood waiting for Peter and Senator Jones in the wind that blew off the lake, she realised just how much one and a half million dollars could buy, especially out in rural Kansas.

Lake Vista – a name which one of Shearson’s mistresses had chosen – was a modernistic two-story house built out of natural stone, timber and glass. It was set in the rock overlooking the lake, with two balconies actually overhanging the dark and glittering water. But its most striking feature was the triangular timber roof which rose from the centre of the house like a stylised Indian tepee. Shearson kept at Lake Vista one of the country’s most valuable and important private collections of primitive Indian art, including a Pottawatomie painting on buffalo hide that had been valued at six million dollars.

‘Quite a place, huh?’ asked Peter, taking Karen’s arm and leading her towards the front door. ‘You wait until you see the inside.’

‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Karen. ‘It’s just like something out of the movies.’

The featureless wooden front doors of the house opened up, and two tall blue-jawed men in plaid shirts and mushroom-coloured stetson hats came out to help Senator Jones across the gravel. One of them tipped his hat to Karen and said, ‘How are you?’

‘They’re the Muldoon brothers,’ explained Peter, leading Karen up the steps and into the polished wood hallway. ‘They used to work a farm in Elk county, until they were bought out by an oil company. They’re pretty wealthy in their own right, but for some reason they’ve always attached themselves to Shearson as unpaid side-kicks. Don’t ever ask me why. You’ll have to find out for yourself.’

The inside of Shearson’s house was even more spectacular than the outside. The interior of the pointed wooden roof was lined with zig-zag galleried steps, so that a visitor could climb upwards from level to level, admiring Shearson’s Indian paintings and artifacts all the way up to the very tip of the house. Under the stressed-concrete beams which supported the ‘tepee’, there was a spacious conversation area; and off to the left, towards the lake, there was a sitting-room with Cherokee rugs and leather furniture and genuine Canadian totem poles.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Karen.

Behind her, the Muldoon brothers were almost carrying Shearson into the house. Grimacing, they supported him through the doors, across the conversation area, and into the sitting-room, so that they could deposit him at last in a sturdy studded library chair, with a view through the sliding-glass windows of the darkling lake.

‘Travel grows less and less desirable every day,’ grumbled Shearson. ‘Did Della get here yet?’

‘She called and left a message,’ said one of the Muldoon brothers. ‘She said she was talking to someone called Dr Benson at the Silver Star cocktail bar in Wichita, and that she didn’t expect to be late. Things were going just fine, she said.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Shearson. ‘Now, will one of you boys bring me a bottle of champagne, and some glasses? I think we ought to celebrate our safe arrival.’

Peter nudged Karen towards a large couch, covered in rough-brushed hide. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘The senator won’t eat you. Will you. Senator?’

Senator Jones took out a large linen handkerchief and mopped sweat from his face and his jowls. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘I’m so damned hungry I could eat anything, and she looks pretty tasty.’

It didn’t take Ed long to find them. The security guard at the agricultural research centre had seen them leave the building, and walk across the plaza towards the Silver Star bar. When he pushed his way through the Dodge City-style doors, he saw them at once. Dr Benson with his white-haired head in his hands, Della with her arm around him, and Mike Smith from the radio station, short and crewcut and stubby, standing beside them with a helpless look on his face.

Ed crossed the bar and laid both of his hands on Dr Benson’s back. ‘Dr Benson?’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Drunk,’ said Dr Benson.

Ed looked at Della with an expression like cracked ice. ‘Did you bring him in here?’ he demanded.

Della said, ‘He wanted to come. He said he felt like a drink.’

‘Goddamit, you knew he was an alcoholic!’

‘How was I supposed to know that?’ asked Della. ‘I’ve never met him before in my life. All I wanted to do was talk about the blight, and all he wanted to do was drink. Is that my fault?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ed said, bitterly.

‘He called me,’ said Mike Smith. ‘He said he had some news about the blight.’

‘Did he tell you what it was?’ asked Ed.

‘Well, he did,’ said Mike. ‘But I’m not sure what I’m supposed to believe now. I mean, the guy’s stewed. Whatever he says, it isn’t going to make a lot of sense.’

‘It’s a virush,’ said Dr Benson, rearing up from his barstool.

‘You see what I mean?’ put in Mike Smith. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’

‘It’s a virush,’ insisted Dr Benson. ‘A damned terrible virush I can’t remember the name of. Vorar D. That’sh it. Vorar D. You look it up. Vorar D.’

‘That’s what he told me on the phone,’ said Mike Smith. ‘He said that somebody called Professor Protter in Washington had called him up, and spilled the beans on the whole blight situation. The blight was caused by some virus called Vorar D, some kind of defoliant they developed for Vietnam.’

‘He’s drunk,’ said Della. ‘He’s been rambling like this ever since I met him. Earlier on, he was saying that the blight was an act of God.’

‘God?’ enquired Dr Benson, loudly. ‘Has God decided to grace us with His presence?’

Mike Smith pulled a face. ‘I can’t broadcast anything from a source as pickled as this,’ he said.

Ed kept his arm protectively around Dr Benson’s shoulders. ‘I know you can’t,’ he told Mike Smith. ‘But when I first talked to Dr Benson about this blight, he wasn’t drunk. And he did believe it was caused by a virus. Presumably somebody in Washington – Professor Protter, or whoever – presumably they’ve discovered what virus it is.’

‘I can’t send out a story on evidence like this,’ said Mike Smith, shaking his head.

‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Ed. ‘You’ve seen the crops for yourself, the condition they’re in. Are you going to ignore them, and run the same news stories as everybody else?’

‘It’s under control,’ said Mike Smith. ‘Everybody from the governor downwards tells me it’s under control.’

‘Sure it’s under control,’ said Ed, hotly. ‘It’s under so much control that I’ve just lost eighty-five thousand acres of wheat without being able to stop it, or even slow it down. Under control, crap.’

Mike Smith spread his arms apologetically. ‘I don’t see what I can do. Here’s a scientist giving me all the answers I want, and the only trouble is that the scientist is blind drunk. Sober him up, and then I’ll talk to him. But it’s more than my reputation’s worth to interview him now.’

Della said, ‘I’m afraid he’s right. You can’t believe a man in this condition, even if you want to.’

Ed lowered his eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I suppose you can’t. Dr Benson – I’m going to drive you home.’

Dr Benson shook his head. ‘One more drink. One more, and then I’ll come. Bartender – one more drink!’

Ed looked at Della with a feeling of bitterness that he could hardly control. ‘I should have known better,’ he said. ‘I should have known a whole damned sight better.’

‘Once a hayseed, always a hayseed,’ Della told him, and grinned.

Ed slammed the fiat of his hand on to the bar, and the barman looked around warily.

Twelve

She was lying on the cedarwood pooldeck in back of the house, stretched out on an airbed. A light breeze rustled in the trees, and the sunlight danced in dazzling spots on the surface of the water. She felt soothed, and relaxed, and calm. All the tensions of Kansas had eased their way out of her mind, until there was nothing inside her consciousness at all but summer heat, and fragrant wind, and peace.

She knew it would take far more than a couple of days sunbathing to replace the tensions that she had lost, but for the time being the peace was enough.

Carl and Vee had taken Sally to Universal this morning for the studio tour. Season had preferred to stay behind. She had lingered over her breakfast, drinking four cups of black coffee. Then she had undressed and sat naked on the edge of the pool, slowly kicking her legs in the water and smoking a joint. The glittering ripples had cross-hatched her imagination with bright reflections, and she had meditated for almost a half-hour, feeling one with the sun and the water and the trees.

Now, shiny with Coppertone, aromatic as a pina colada, she was lying with her eyes closed getting an all-over tan.

A little after eleven, she heard a knocking at the french doors which gave out on to the pool deck. She was almost asleep, and she stretched herself like a cat.

‘Vee?’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

There was an awkward throat-clearing noise. ‘Mrs Hardesty? Season? Am I interrupting you?’

Season reached across for her beach-wrap, and covered herself. Then she pushed her wide pink-tinted sunglasses on to the end of her slippery nose, and peered towards the house. It was too shadowy inside to see who was there.

‘Who is this?’ she said.

‘It’s me. Granger Hughes. I just stopped by to see how you were. But if it’s inconvenient—’

‘Oh, Granger. Not at all. Did Marie let you in? Come on out here, and I’ll have her fix us some drinks. It’s good to see you.’

Granger stepped out through the french doors into the sunlight. He was dressed in white today – a crisp cotton suit and white shoes. He wore aviator sunglasses, and his blond hair looked spiky, as if he had been swimming. The sun momentarily caught his huge crucifix, a flash of religious light.

‘How are you?’ said Season. ‘I won’t shake your hand. I’m smothered in suncream.’

Granger drew up one of the white wrought-iron chairs, and sat beside her. ‘I’m very well,’ he said. ‘And I’m pleased to see that you’re still here in LA.’

‘I think I’ll be staying for quite a while.’

‘You’re going to need some time, huh?’

Season nodded. ‘I’m beginning to feel better in myself. I’m beginning to understand that I didn’t actually lose my personality when I was out there in Kansas. I’m still me. But I’ve been in hiding for so many months inside of my head – well, it’s going to take me a while to coax me out again.’

Granger crossed his legs. ‘Do you think I could help? That’s what my church is all about.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never been particularly religious. I believe in God, but that’s about all.’

‘That’s all you need. We’re not one of your heavy, upright, believe-it-or-else organisations. We’re not a bunch of religious kooks, either. We’re just a group of friendly, concerned young people who believe that the power of our Lord Jesus Christ was, and is, a practical power. As practical as a garage mechanic’s wrench, or a housewife’s food blender.’

‘The Church of the Holy Cuisinart?’ asked Season, sarcastically.

Granger grinned. ‘You can make fun. A lot of people do. But the whole thing makes human sense and spiritual sense too. Our Lord has power, and nobody in the whole world can convince me that he won’t let us use that power for good. Why do you think Jesus demonstrated his miracles in public? So that the people around him would realise that they could heal people too.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Season. ‘Right now I feel like emptying my head right out, not filling it up.’

Maria came to the doors in her black dress and her white apron. Season called, ‘Maria? Could you bring us out two glasses of white wine, please? The Christian Brothers’ pinot chardonnay.’

Granger said, ‘I’m not asking you to fill your head up. Keep it as empty as you like. I just believe that I could help you come to terms with yourself again. And I know that you’d enjoy one of our meetings. Why don’t you come tomorrow? I could call by and pick you up.’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Season. ‘We have friends coming over for lunch tomorrow.’

Granger looked at her winningly. His eyes were as pale as opals. ‘It won’t take more than a couple of hours of your time. I mean that. And it could be the turning-point in your whole life. Apart from that, you’d be the most beautiful woman in the whole congregation, and I’d love to have you there.’

‘You’re flattering me again, Granger. Last time I was tired. Now I’m not.’

‘You’re still beautiful.’

Maria came flip-flapping out from the house in her plastic sandals, carrying two large glasses of freezing-cold pinot chardonnay on a tray.

‘Mr Hughes staying for lunch?’ she asked. ‘Avocado salad.’

That’s a nice idea,’ said Season. ‘Carl and Vee won’t be back from the studio tour until later. Can you spare the time?’

Granger grinned. ‘For you, I could spare the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of the month.’

Season lifted her glass. The sun sparkled on the meniscus of the wine. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, with an exaggeratedly flirtatious smile.

Morris Hunt, the governor of California, was presiding over an outdoor picnic lunch that afternoon under the shady oaks of Mrs Irwin J. Harris’s garden in Santa Barbara. There was music from a small band on the verandah, all of them dressed in red-striped blazers and 1920s skimmers, and there were more flowers on the ladies’ hats than there were in the flower-beds. Across the immaculate lawns, sprinklers left a rainbow carpet of fresh dew. The picnic cost fifty dollars a plate, in aid of spina bifida children. Nine years ago, Morris Hunt’s own child had been crippled, and finally died, from spina bifida.

A few minutes before Morris Hunt was expected to speak, a harassed-looking aide in a rumpled grey suit came hurrying across the grass and whispered in his ear. Morris Hunt frowned, and asked the aide something which nobody else could hear. The aide whispered in his ear again. Morris Hunt leaned over towards Mrs Irwin J. Harris, a strawberry-blonde lady in a huge fruit-bedecked hat, and it was clear that he was making his apologies.

Inside the house, under an oil painting of the late Irwin J. Harris himself, the telephone was waiting on a polished walnut table. Morris Hunt, a dark-haired, serious-looking man of forty-five, with a striking resemblance to Douglas Fairbanks Junior, picked up the receiver and said, ‘Morris here. What’s wrong, Walter?’

It was Walter Oppenheim, the chairman of the State Agricultural Committee, calling from Sacramento. He sounded breathless and harassed.

‘Morris, I’ve got some real disturbing news. I told my staff yesterday to call on every fruit and vegetable producer of any reasonable size throughout the state, just to check how they were coping with the blight The news is, it’s very bad. The report was completed ten minutes ago, and believe me, Morris, we’re going to lose eighty per cent of our produce this year unless we can halt this blight by the end of next week. It’s spreading so damned fast! One day there’s a field of lettuce, and the next day there’s nothing but brown splotches.’

‘Walter, I don’t believe what I’m hearing,’ said Morris Hunt. ‘Yesterday everybody was full of optimism. Oh, we might lose a quarter of our produce at the very worst! What’s happened since then?’

‘Nobody foresaw it spreading so fast,’ said Walter. ‘Jesus Christ, Morris, it didn’t even begin to appear at all before Monday or Tuesday. Now it’s Saturday, and already it’s wiped out a third of our fruit and vegetable produce.’

‘Has anybody got close to analysing it yet?’

‘Well, my own people at Fresno have been working on it pretty hard, but so far they don’t have any ideas at all.’

‘Have you kept in touch with Washington?’

‘Sure, I put in a call early this morning, and I’m going to call them again now. All I get is “we think we’ve nearly cracked it, and we’ll let you know.” They’ve been saying that since Wednesday.’

Morris Hunt lowered his head. ‘You’re sure it’s going to be as serious as eighty per cent crop loss?’

‘Morris, it may be worse. We may lose everything.’

‘You know what that’s going to do to the state’s revenues, don’t you? Total bankruptcy. And that’s quite apart from the human problem we’re going to face.’

Walter said uneasily, ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I’m going to fly back to Sacramento straight away. Tell Roger to call an emergency meeting for five o’clock, and to make sure that everybody attends. No exceptions. I want an assessment of the state’s food supply situation on my desk by four. Frozen foods, dried foods, canned foods – both private and military stocks. For God’s sake, though, don’t tell the media. Nobody at all. If it gets out that we’re thinking of rationing food there’s going to be anarchy.’

‘Okay, Morris,’ said Walter. ‘Will do.’

Morris put down the phone and walked outside again. He crossed the lawn to the top table, and leaned over to Mrs Irwin J. Harris.

‘Mrs Harris,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid that some really ridiculous crisis has come up. I’m going to have to leave you straight away.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Harris. ‘You haven’t even eaten your pâté de foie!’

Morris looked down at his plate, where a fresh-cut slice of pale pâté was waiting for him, dotted with truffles.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Harris,’ he said. ‘But I think I just lost my appetite.’

Karen Fortunoff sat on the upper balcony of Lake Vista, drinking champagne, eating dry-roasted cashew nuts, and watching a portable television which one of the Muldoon brothers had silently placed on a small table for her. It was hot on the Kansas plains, almost insufferably hot; but up here by the ink-blue waters of Fall River Lake, there was a refreshingly cool wind. Karen wore a one-piece swimsuit in electric blue satin, and a loose white summer wrap which she had bought especially for the week-end.

A chubby, intent-looking man on the television was holding up a pack of indigestion tablets, and saying: ‘Acid indigestion? Over-eating? There’s only one sure way to feel better fast.’

How right you are, thought Karen. All you have to do is let the worst crop blight in America’s history run riot – just long enough to gather in as much money as you possibly can from a spurious help-the-farmers appeal fund. That’s the sure way to cut out over-eating, particularly other people’s, and that’s certainly the way to feel better fast.

She felt strangely confused emotions about Shearson Jones this afternoon. Last night, once everybody had showered and changed into formals, the staff of Lake Vista had laid on the kind of meal that Karen would have classified as a banquet, but which Shearson had simply dismissed as ‘supper.’ They had started off with soft-shelled crabs on toast, followed by chicken croquettes, lamb cutlets with tartare sauce, beef tongue in aspic, salads, fresh fruits, ices, cheeses, and liqueurs. She had watched in sheer amazement as Shearson Jones crammed his mouth with course after course, swilling his food down with mouthfuls of vintage French wines, and only a gentle kick under the table from Peter Kaiser had reminded her not to stare too intently at her host’s gastronomic enormities.

Early this morning, wandering around the house on her own, she had asked one of the Muldoon brothers, as innocently as she could, if Lake Vista was stocked with sufficient food to see them through a period of shortage. The brother had grinned and taken her on a tour of the kitchens, where two Chinese chefs were kept constantly busy while Shearson was in residence. He had taken her, too, to the cold store, where beef and lamb and venison carcasses hung in hundreds; and to the wine cellars, which had been excavated almost a hundred and fifty feet into the rock.

‘We could live here for six months without ever going to a market once,’ said the Muldoon brother. ‘Even if we had the senator here, eating his usual five meals a day.’

As Saturday wore on, though, Karen had grown increasingly restless and disappointed. Although she was impressed by the wealth and vulgarity of Shearson’s house, and by the greed of his lifestyle, she had expected him to invite at least one or two minor politicians to share his week-end in the Mid-West, or a movie star at the very worst. Instead, Shearson spent hour after hour closeted with Peter Kaiser, talking money and politics, and if anybody else was coming, there wasn’t any sign of them yet. Last night, Peter hadn’t come up to their balconied bedroom until way past three in the morning, and even though Karen had been reasonably encouraging, for the want of anybody else, he had fallen straight to sleep, and snored. He had been out of bed at six, and dressed, and his only amorous gesture had been to peck Karen on the cheek before he went downstairs to breakfast.

Now he was back in conference with Shearson, and she didn’t expect to see him until dinner. She yawned, and in technological response, the television started a re-run of The African Queen.

A voice said, ‘Hi.’

She looked around. Stepping out on to the balcony came a tall, loose-limbed man in a short-sleeved white shirt and cream slacks. His hair was thick and wiry and black, his eyebrows shaggy, and his eyes as green as pistachio ice, with mint chips. He smiled at Karen, walked to the rail, and looked out over the lake.

‘Quite a romantic view you’ve got yourself up here,’ the man said.

Karen shaded her eyes against the sun so that she could look at him. ‘It depends how romantic you’re feeling.’

The man glanced at the television. ‘You sound as if you don’t feel romantic at all.’

‘I’m potentially romantic,’ she said. ‘It’s just that, around here, romance doesn’t seem to be written into the schedule. It’s either eating, or politics, or both.’

‘That doesn’t sound too much fun,’ said the man. ‘I only just arrived here. My name’s Ed Hardesty, by the way.’

Karen held out her hand, and said, ‘Karen Fortunoff. Say – aren’t you the farmer? The one who’s supposed to be heading up the Blight Crisis Appeal?’

‘That’s right.’

Karen sat up straight. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘would you like a glass of champagne? I’ll have one of the Muldoons bring it up for you.’

‘Why not?’ said Ed. ‘I’ve got nothing on my hands but time. Della said I had to come out here this afternoon for a video test, but it looks like the TV people have gotten delayed.’

‘Well, that’s show business,’ said Karen. ‘Have you ever seen this house before? Isn’t it something else?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ed. ‘I’m kind of a traditionalist myself. My ideal home is one of those white antebellum mansions in Virginia, with the darkies singing sweet and low in the cottonfields.’

Karen frowned at him. ‘You weren’t originally a farmer, were you? I mean, you don’t talk like a farmer.’

‘I was born on a farm, right here in Kansas. But I guess I’ve spent most of my intelligent life in New York City. I only came back here to take over the farm when my father and my older brother died.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

Ed looked away. ‘It was a pretty hard knock. But at least I still own the land they gave their lives for. I guess it probably sounds sentimental to anyone else, but it’s given me the chance to build them some kind of memorial.’ Karen pressed the buzzer on the table for one of the Muldoons to come up. She scrunched up her eyes against the sunlight, and said, ‘That doesn’t sound sentimental at all. This blight must be hitting you pretty hard. Emotionally, as well as financially.’

Karen watched Ed carefully. She didn’t know him at all, and she supposed that it was quite possible he was a friend of Shearson’s, or Peter’s, or even a hired informer. But somehow he didn’t sound like it, or look like it. In the time that Karen had been working for Peter Kaiser, she had come to develop a nose for anybody who snuffled around the same political sty as Shearson Jones. They always had some of Shearson’s piggish characteristics – which Ed Hardesty plainly didn’t.

‘You know this blight’s going to turn out a whole lot worse than the news media have been giving out,’ Karen volunteered.

Ed turned away from the railing, and regarded her curiously.

‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

‘Well, the television news has been saying it’s serious. A third of the wheat crop lost already, and a quarter of the soybean crop. But I don’t think anybody realises quite how serious it really is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s been a whole lot of hushing up. Some of it’s been deliberate, some of it hasn’t. Some of it’s been well-intentioned, because the government doesn’t want anybody to panic. But the truth is that almost every crop in every state has been affected – some badly, some not so badly – and it’s going to get a whole lot worse.’

‘How much worse?’ asked Ed, stiffly. He was as suspicious of Karen as she was of him.

‘Worse to the point where there may not be any fresh cereal, fruit, vegetables, or grazing crops – none at all. Worse to the point where the United States agricultural economy for one whole year may be totally wiped out.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Ed, in a wary voice.

Karen brushed back her hair. ‘I don’t know who else to tell, except you. I thought of calling the newspapers anonymously, or CBS News or somebody. But who’s going to believe me, when the Department of Agriculture in Washington is quite freely admitting they’ve got crop problems. Sure, we’ve got crop problems, but they’re all under control. The way things are at the moment, it’s all a question of interpretation, you know? And the Department of Agriculture has been interpreting every single outbreak of blight optimistically. They haven’t been denying anything to the media. They’ve just been adjusting the truth to make it all look happy. They even shot a special public-relations film out in Nebraska yesterday, showing a smiling farmer in the middle of a whole lot of unblighted wheat.’

Ed said, ‘Surely someone’s going to start playing Deep Throat before long. Look how fast the damn thing’s spreading. It’s wiped out the whole of my farm – well, eighty per cent of it – in something like four days.’

‘I think you’re underestimating Senator Jones,’ said Karen. ‘When it comes to agriculture, he’s a very heavy number. He has the Department of Agriculture’s press office right under his thumb. It’s his personal mouthpiece. And there are plenty of newspapers and television stations – particularly out here in the Mid-West – that rely a whole lot on Shearson Jones’s sponsorship, or the sponsorship of his companies, at least.’

‘Agreed. But he can’t suppress this thing for ever.’

‘He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t even want to.’

‘Then why is he letting this happen? Why is he trying to make out that it’s only us poor unfortunate Kansas wheat farmers who are seriously hit?’

Karen said, ‘It’s this Blight Crisis Appeal, that’s all. Shearson Jones wants to scoop in as much money as he possibly can before anybody realises how catastrophic this blight is really going to be. I don’t know how much you’ve been told, but he’s already cleared nine million dollars through the appeal, and he’s trying to spin things out for just two or three more days so that he can make sure of a two-million dollar offer from Michigan Tractors.’

‘And the media are actually going along with it?’

‘Of course they are. They’ve got what they think is a story. Didn’t you see Time magazine, with all that cliffhanging stuff about the last-minute race to develop an antidote? They quoted a couple of state agricultural specialists who stepped out of line and said that Doomsday was on the way. But what’s that, compared with somebody like Shearson Jones saying that the blight is a supreme test of American agricultural technology, and that it’s going to revive the fighting spirit of the dustbowl days?’

Ed blew out his cheeks in disbelief. ‘This is just fantastic,’ she said. ‘How can one man influence a whole country so much, right on the edge of a crisis? And what does he think he’s going to get out of it? If the blight gets completely out of control, it’s going to sink the whole country’s agricultural economy for years – and how can that be worth it, even for him, and even for nine million dollars? If the whole country goes down the tubes, the money won’t be worth anything anyway.’

Karen stood up, and walked over to join Ed at the railing. She was already freckled from the day’s sunshine, and the irises of her dark brown eyes were as soft as medieval velvet.

‘I’m only guessing,’ she said. ‘But I’m Peter Kaiser’s personal secretary, and when Peter Kaiser talks to Shearson Jones on the telephone, all the calls are routed through my desk. That means my information is limited, but good. Right from the swine’s mouth, so to speak. The way I’ve pieced it together, from what I’ve heard Peter and Shearson saying, the blight’s turned out to be a whole lot worse than Shearson first expected it to be. He thought it was going to be regional. A few crops here and there, nothing disastrous. But instead of that, it’s spreading all over the country. Even the media don’t know how wide it’s spread, because Shearson’s made sure that the state agricultural people keep quiet about it. He doesn’t want to start a nationwide scramble for food, that’s the standard excuse. And you have to admit that it’s a sensible and justifiable excuse, as well as a self-serving one, so it’s hard to turn around and say he’s gotten hold of a pussycat that’s turned out to be a tiger – and he’s pretty anxious to claw in as much money as quickly as he can and then let go. That’s why he’s got you here. A last magnificent fund-raising effort before the lid blows off of the whole thing.’

‘But the damage he’s going to do to the country—’ said Ed.

Karen shook her head. ‘He believes it’s going to be minimal. Peter Kaiser and I and all the rest of the staff have been working on assessments of the country’s food reserves. Canned foods, dried foods, frozen food, military dumps, that kind of thing. There are going to be shortages, sure, and we’re all going to have to look forward to a few months without adequate supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables, until the next crops can be forced. But it’s not going to be that bad. I mean, it’s going to be bad, but nobody’s going to starve. There’s always the danger they won’t be able to find an antidote to the virus in time for next year, I suppose, but Shearson’s been leaning pretty heavily on the federal research people to come up with something.’

‘So,’ said Ed, quietly. ‘You really believe that Shearson Jones isn’t doing anything worse than flim-flamming the news media for a few days while he rakes in a few shekels? Just playing the same old game that politicians have always played – making money out of inside information?’

‘Do you know very much different?’ asked Karen, disturbed.

Ed leaned his elbows on the railing. ‘I believe I do. I’m not saying that what you’ve just been telling me isn’t right. I’m sure it is. But he’s been playing the game a whole lot closer to the edge. Or at least I think he has. You know this blight is caused by a virus?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I heard that.’

‘Well – I’ve been working alongside of Dr Benson at the Kansas Agricultural Research Centre, and Dr Benson was told last night that the federal laboratories in Washington have already found a way of killing the virus off.’

‘You’re serious?’ asked Karen. ‘They’ve actually done it? But that means Shearson’s been deliberately holding it back.’

Ed nodded. ‘The way Dr Benson heard it, Shearson Jones doesn’t want to announce that the blights are all caused by the same virus, because that would take away the special status he’s been trying to give to the wheat farmers in Kansas. Apart from that, the virus has turned out to be something very much like Vorar D, which was developed by the Pentagon for use in Vietnam, as a replacement for Agent Orange. Vorar D eats its way through plant life like you wouldn’t believe, and the media will know that. The whole thing will bust wide open.’

‘But you say they’ve got an antidote.’

‘They have the technology to develop some sort of sterilisation compound. It isn’t magic, and we’d probably still lose most of our crops. But the sooner it’s manufactured and sprayed, the better.’

‘Why didn’t the federal research people go to the media?’ asked Karen. ‘That would have sunk Shearson Jones on the spot.’

Ed shrugged. ‘Dr Benson said that Shearson had some kind of half-nelson on their top researcher. That’s why they called Dr Benson in secret, and asked him if he’d leak the news about Vorar D instead.’

‘So why didn’t he? And come to that, why didn’t you?’

‘Dr Benson tried to. But Della McIntosh wanted to get some background for the Blight Crisis Appeal, and she made the mistake of taking him into a bar. You probably don’t know Dr Benson, but he’s a reformed alcoholic. At least, he was until last night. He’d arranged to meet a radio reporter, but he was so stoned that he was incoherent. I didn’t even understand what he was talking about myself until this morning, when I went around to see him at his apartment. I don’t suppose it was Della’s fault. She just didn’t know. But the radio guy just thought he was raving.’

‘My God,’ said Karen.

Ed frowned at her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘What you’ve just told me about Dr Benson is the matter. Della McIntosh is Shearson Jones’s latest mistress. Did you know that? Well, you obviously guessed it. But she was sent here ahead of Shearson to size you up for the Blight Crisis Appeal, just to make sure you weren’t some kind of Mickey Mouse, and also to have a quiet word with Dr Benson.’

There was a long, tense silence. Ed said: ‘Are you kidding me along?’

‘Mr Hardesty – Ed – why do you think I’m here at all? Peter Kaiser is hardly the last of the red-hot lovers, and I certainly didn’t come for the fun and the games and the laughter. Do you see anybody laughing around here? I’m not. I’m worried about what’s going on, for myself and for my relatives and for America in general, and I don’t want Shearson Jones and Peter Kaiser plotting the end of the world behind my back.’

Ed said, ‘If there’s enough stored food to last the winter, and the federal laboratories have found an antidote, it’s hardly going to be the end of the world. And we can make damned sure that Senator Jones gets what’s coming to him.’

‘All right – maybe I’m exaggerating about the end of the world,’ said Karen. ‘But there’s one thing – and I probably shouldn’t be telling anybody this, but Peter Kaiser has already made his own personal arrangements to stock up with emergency food in case of a shortage, and Shearson Jones has enough eatables here to last him for a century. Worst of all, I listened in to a telephone conversation from Alan Hedges, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and I can’t be exactly sure of this, but it sounded like the president himself has ordered extra stocks of food to be shipped into Washington, in case the administration has to go short.’

Ed looked at Karen tight-lipped, and then back towards the house.

‘Isn’t that great?’ he said, hoarsely. ‘That’s how close and patriotic this nation becomes in a crisis. Oh sure – we all get to feel like buddies when the Russians invade Afghanistan, but what happens when we’re faced with a disaster at home? The politicians go on screwing the rest of us like they always do, and the powerful make plans to save their own hides while the average John and Jane Doe can go hang.’

Karen said, ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to tell the newspapers?’

Ed reached along the railing and laid his hand on top of hers. ‘I’m going to do more than that. I’m going to tell America myself. Just for today, I’m going to play along, like the poor young farmer who’s lost all his crops. But tomorrow evening. I’m going to be on live coast-to-coast television, and even if I only get ten seconds before they pull the plug on me. I’m going to use that broadcast to tell the real truth about what’s going on here, and tell it out loud.’ Karen looked at him. ‘I’m glad I talked to you,’ she said. ‘I was afraid you were one of Shearson’s people. I can trust you, can’t I?’

Ed smiled. ‘You and I, we don’t have any choice. If we don’t trust each other, just for this one day, then we won’t be able to trust anybody ever again.’

At that moment, Della stepped out on to the balcony, carrying a silver tray with an ice-bucket of Dom Perignon. She was dressed in a tiny gold satin bikini which scarcely covered her nipples, and which was drawn up revealingly tight between her legs.

‘Drinks, children?’ she smiled.

Karen glanced quickly and interrogatively at Ed to see if he thought that Della had been listening to their conversation, but Ed gave her a brief shake of the head. Della came up close, and stood between Ed and Karen, with her back to Karen and her breasts touching Ed’s shirt-front. Dramatically, she laid her hand on top of Ed’s and Karen’s hands, and said, ‘Isn’t this romantic? All for one, and one for all.’

All of his neighbours in that quiet and slightly shabby part of Washington recognised Professor Protter. He was small, and bald, and he walked in a busy, bustling way, like a wind-up clockwork toy. He always wore the flashiest of sports coats, too, with grey flannel pants that were baggy at the knees. They often wondered how a man who looked like that could have found himself such a pretty, exuberant wife, but then they didn’t know how tender and charming he could be to the ones he loved, and they didn’t know how much passion he showed her in the big brass-railed bed that dominated their pink-painted bedroom.

His wife was brunette, plump, but startlingly good-looking, particularly if you had a taste for Czech women. On Wednesdays and Fridays she gave piano lessons to the neighbourhood children, and on warm evenings, when the Protters’ windows were raised, you could sometimes hear her playing a Kempff piano concerto, with her husband accompanying her on his violin.

That Saturday afternoon, almost at the same moment that Della stepped almost naked on to the balcony of Lake Vista in Kansas, but an hour later because of the time zones. Professor Protter closed the door of the old Federal-style house behind him, and descended the five steps to the sidewalk, jingling his keys on the end of their chain. Overhead, the sky was grey and heavy, and there was a feeling of summer rain in the air. Three black children were playing football in the street.

As he walked away. Professor Protter turned for no reason at all and looked up towards the second-storey window. It was open, because of the heat, and his wife was leaning out, framed by the flowers in her window-box. She saw him, and gave him a little finger-wave, and blew a kiss.

A tall black man passing by in a crumpled linen suit said, ‘How you doing, Professor?’ and Professor Protter nodded and smiled.

He usually went out about this time on a Saturday to buy a bottle of Hungarian wine from Schwarz’s liquor store two blocks down. Then, he took the bottle home, and he and his wife would sit listening to long-playing records until it was time for an early supper. Saturday was usually goulash. Goulash and Liszt.

As he crossed the street at the end of his block, a dark-blue Cutlass abruptly started its engine, and moved out from the opposite kerb. Professor Protter didn’t give it a glance. He was thinking about Vorar D, and about Dr Benson; and he was hoping that Dr Benson would call him at home this evening.

The Cutlass U-turned, with a squeal of tyres, and nosed in beside him, keeping pace with him as he walked. It was only when he was passing the delicatessen, the one with all the fondants in the window, that he caught sight of its reflection in the glass, and turned towards it.

He saw the man’s face, in dark glasses, and he saw the shotgun. It didn’t even occur to him to take cover. He stopped in surprise, and the car stopped, and for a moment the killer and the professor faced each other in that humid afternoon a’I’mosphere, with the normal noisy life of the streets going on all around them.

‘Are you—’ Professor Protter started to say, and took a step forward. The man in the car, owing to a nervous reaction, fired. Professor Protter was hurled backwards into the delicatessen window, into the glass which smashed but hung magically suspended for a moment before slicing down on him, nearly one hundred pounds of razor-sharp plate, right into his open mouth, and severed his head from the upper jaw upwards.

The noise of the shot, whaabaammmm, and the terrible clanging of the broken glass, those didn’t seem to be audible until minutes and minutes afterwards, when the Cutlass had long since swerved away into the Saturday afternoon traffic, and the proprietor of the delicatessen had rushed forward, rushed, clutching his apron only to stop utterly still when he saw the top half of Professor Protfer’s head lying bloodily amongst his fondants, its red-smeared upper teeth looking as if they were biting into a tray of lemon creams.

‘God,’ was all he could say.

She reached up and tugged the cord that closed the bedroom drapes. The warm afternoon sunlight shone through the thin white cotton of her kaftan, and revealed her gentle curved silhouette. Lean, triangular back. Small rounded bottom. Long, lean legs.

Granger Hughes, on the far side of the room, beside the frondy potted palm, said, ‘We don’t have to do this, you know.’

‘Don’t you want to?’ she asked him. ‘Or is it against your religion?’

He smiled. ‘My religion is practical miracles,’ he said. ‘And if there was ever a practical miracle, it’s you.’

She walked across the polished wooden floor, and the kaftan flowed all around her. She approached him as quickly as a train, almost as if she wasn’t going to stop, and she had unbuttoned his shirt in a matter of seconds, four quick twists of her long-fingered hands. She pulled the shirt open, and bared his chest, with its huge silver-and-gold cross. He was very tanned, as if he had been stained in walnut-juice, the way boys disguised themselves in childhood adventure stories. His nipples were as dark as berries.

She kissed his chest, and then took one of his nipples gently between her teeth. ‘I could bite it off,’ she said. ‘Would one of your miracles glue it back on again?’

He kissed her hair. He could smell the sun and the coconut oil on it. He kissed her blonde eyelashes, her nose, her lips. Then, as if he was a sculptor unveiling his latest work, he gathered her kaftan in his hands, and lifted his arms, so that she stood in front of him naked.

‘I’m looking for myself, you know,’ she said simply. ‘I’m not necessarily looking for you.’

He said, ‘I don’t care,’ and bent his head forward so that their foreheads touched, blond hair against blonde hair, they could have been twins, erotic gemini. His hands ran down the length of her back, clasping the rounded cheeks of her bottom, and then he held her very close to him, so close that for a moment she wondered if she was going to be pressed into him completely, and become part of his body. Her friends, looking for her, would stare into his eyes, and see something that was elusively her for ever after.

She unbuckled his belt, and he stepped out of his slacks. His plain white undershorts showed the rigid outline of his penis, the cupped curve of his balls. She pulled them down, and his erection rose red into the diffuse sunlight.

‘I never imagined priests could be like this,’ she said. ‘I never even imagined men could be like this.’

‘I’m not ordained,’ he told her.

‘No,’ she whispered, as she lay back on the bed. ‘But you’re holy.’

The sheets were soft pink. She felt as if she were melting amongst them. Lying on her back, with her thighs slightly apart, and her knees slightly raised, she closed her eyes and imagined she was travelling through time and space, to a world where nothing mattered at all but rest and flowers and laughter.

The first lick of his tongue on her bare clitoris came almost as a shock. But then he licked again, and again, and gradually she opened her eyes. She couldn’t believe the sensation of it. It made her body thrill as if she was watching something terrifying and exciting and stimulating all at once, and her muscles suddenly tensed in spite of herself. She raised her head and looked down, and there was Granger’s fair head moving rhythmically between her parted thighs, his tongue lapping at the flesh of her vulva, pink tongue between pink lips.

She watched him in utter fascination as he licked her faster and faster. Sometimes he would play on her clitoris for half a minute at a time, stirring her deeper and deeper towards an orgasm. But then he would guide his tongue into her vagina, or around her urethra, playfully changing the tempo until she longed for him to return to her clitoris again and give her the deeper feelings she needed.

It was strange. It was all technique. She wondered whether it made any difference to him what woman he did it to. After all, one cunt must be very much like another. She watched him lick, and lap, and tickle her, and the more she watched the further away her feelings of excitement receded.

Three or four minutes passed. He kept on licking at her. She lay back, and stared up at the ceiling. She felt like another joint. Perhaps that was her problem. She wasn’t relaxed enough. Wasn’t spaced out enough. She idly wondered what would happen if Vee were to walk in through the door, and see Granger kneeling between her legs. Nothing, probably. She would say, ‘How was the studio?’ and Vee would say, ‘Okay. Do you want a glass of wine?’

She was just wondering how long it would be before Sally got back when Granger slapped her. Crack! Across the face – so hard that it jerked her head to one side.

She stared up at him, wide-eyed, shocked, her cheek blazing crimson and her ear throbbing with pain. He was glaring down at her fiercely, his eyes furious, and his jaws were working as if he was about to throw a fit.

‘You bitch!’ he hissed at her. ‘You high-and-mighty languorous boring bitch!’

She whimpered, and tried to roll away from under him. But he clamped his hand on her shoulder, and shoved her forcefully back on to the sheets.

‘You hit me,’ she said, and her voice was trembling. It sounded like someone else’s voice altogether. ‘For no reason at all, you hit me. You total bastard.’

‘I hit you and I’ll hit you again,’ he said. He seized her shoulders and shook her violently. ‘You think you can send your tedious mind off on some spiritual errand while the rest of your body lies around here and spends its time with me? I took you to bed, you bitch, not half of you. I took you to bed, and I want all of you!’

She shrieked, a high, off-key shriek. He slapped her again, on the other cheek, harder.

‘You dare!’ she screamed. ‘Oh, god, you dare!’

He turned her over on to her face, and twisted her arm behind her back. She could feel his heavy crucifix swinging against her shoulder. He was lean, but he was so much stronger than she was that she could scarcely move, and when his brown muscular knee wedged itself between her thighs, opening up her legs, there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

Panting, cursing under his breath, he roughly parted the lips of her vulva with his free hand. Then he leaned forward, giving her arm another savage twist to prevent her from squirming away, and pushed the head of his erection up against her.

‘Granger!’ she begged. ‘No, Granger! Not like this! No!’ He grunted once, and his thick penis forced its way up inside her. She felt the prickly curls of his pubic hair up against the bare cheeks of her bottom, and his tight balls deep between her legs.

He thrust into her relentlessly, harder and harder. Her twisted arm was agony, and he was hurting her vagina with every thrust. But he went on and on until she couldn’t resist the feeling of having him right up inside her again and again and again; and though she swore into the pillow in the filthiest language she knew, there was a moment when she could feel him approaching the edge of his climax, and when she was certain that it was going to be impossible for her to suppress an orgasm of her own.

He came. She felt him fill her. And then her face was squeezed and her fingers were clenched and her nipples were rigid with overwhelming sensation. She said: ‘Ah!’ and then ‘Aaaah!’ and then she screeched out loud and shook like a woman in some nightmare convulsion. It took whole minutes before she could be still, before her nerves stopped jumping, before she could open her eyes.

She was aware of birds singing outside in the garden. She raised herself on one elbow and looked blearily across the bedroom. Granger was standing a little way away, buttoning up his shirt. His penis, limp now, was still shining.

‘Granger?’ she questioned him, softly.

He watched her without answering.

‘Granger?’ she repeated. ‘What happened?’

He stepped into his undershorts, and found his slacks. ‘A miracle,’ he said, sharply. ‘A practical miracle. Something which you should have experienced a long, long time ago.’

Mary’s Drive-In Diner was a small green-painted building with a sun-bleached shingle roof and a hand-painted cut-out sign above the door that showed a smiling dark-haired woman holding up a plateful of amateurishly rendered sausages and beans. It was situated just off Highway 60, in La Lande, New Mexico, and it had originally been built in the 1930s to take advantage of the automobile trade that drove past on its way to see Billy the Kid’s grave.

Mary, the dark-haired woman on the sign, was still running the place, although she was grey-haired now, and her husband had long since gone to join William Bonney under the hard-packed soil of De Baca County. On the Saturday evening that Ed Hardesty was preparing to give his broadcast from Shearson Jones’s house in Kansas, and Season Hardesty was sitting at the kitchen table at Vee’s house eating an early supper with Sally, Mary was wiping over the top of her red laminate counter, opening up catering-sized cans of hot dogs, and setting out catsup bottles, salt, pepper and ashtrays, in readiness for her ‘Saturday evening rush.’

Her ‘Saturday evening rush’ might be no more hectic than a single truck driver, stopping on his way to Fort Sumner for a cold Miller and a cheeseburger. Or it could be a bewildered California family in a Winnebago Chieftain, already unnerved by the wildness of the countryside, and now trying to find their way back to Route 66 and eventual civilisation. At best, it could be six or seven airmen from Cannon AFB near Clovis, all neat and polite and hungry as hell. Mary had switched on the juke-box, and it was playing The Very Thought Of You. Outside, the sun had just gone down, and the sky was the rich dusty purple of blueberries. There was a soft breeze blowing from the south-west, from Lincoln County and the Capitan Mountains, and the air carried that distinctively Western smell of dry aromatic weeds, and history, and dust.

Shortly before nine o’clock, an ageing lime-green Cadillac pulled off the blacktop and circled around Mary’s stony front yard. It stopped, and out clambered a family of five – Mr and Mrs Donald Abbott, of Portales, New Mexico, and their three young children – all on their way back from a visit to Mrs Abbott’s mother in Santa Fé.

Mr Abbott was slight, stooping, and bespectacled. He had celebrated his forty-second birthday a week ago, and he worked for the Roosevelt County health department. At his age, he should have been a district supervisor, except that the county’s chief health executive didn’t particularly like his face. What’s more, he had held out for better medical facilities for underprivileged families at a time when it was politically embarrassing.

Mrs Abbott was plain and friendly, with a face that was as forgettable as a single bagel in a bagel bakery. Their children – Duane, ten; Norman, eight; and Betsy, six – were no more memorable than little bagels. A police officer later described them as ‘Mr and Mrs Average, and Average Kids.’ But it was better, in a way, that they were. Fewer people would have been shocked if it had been a Spanish family, or a black family, or a family of Mescalero Apaches.

Mr Abbott opened the screen door of Mary’s Diner and held it back while his family trooped in. Mary said, ‘How are you, folks?’ and came around the counter in her blue checkered apron, carrying the dog-eared menus that her six-foot nephew Stephen had Xeroxed for her at his used-car office in Las Vegas. The Abbotts sat a corner table, and ordered hotdogs all round, with onion rings.

While they were eating, Mr Abbott told Mary that they were hoping to take the children to Los Angeles later in the year, so that they could see the ocean and Disneyland. Mary told them that her late husband, Morton, had lived in New Mexico all of his life, and had never once seen the ocean. He had seen John Slaughter once, in 1919, when he was a small boy, but that was all.

Mr and Mrs Abbott drank two more cups of coffee, while the children played Osmond songs on the juke-box. At a quarter to ten, the family left, and Mary stood at the diner door to watch them drive off towards Clovis. Then she went back inside to clean up.

Shortly after dawn on Sunday morning, a trumpet-player who had been entertaining the previous evening at a party at the air base came across the lime-green Cadillac parked beside the road about a mile and a half east of Floyd. He would have driven past it in his Volkswagen without stopping, except that he badly needed a first cigarette, and his car had no lighter. He could see that the Cadillac was occupied, so he pulled in just in front of it, and walked back. It was a cold morning, and the windows of the Cadillac were partially misted up.

The trumpet-player knocked on the driver’s window. There was no response so he knocked louder. They were probably all asleep. He shivered in the morning air and chafed his hands together.

It was only when he knocked a third time that he realised something had to be wrong. Twice, he shouted, ‘Hey in there! Hey, open the door!’ but there was no answer. He could vaguely make out a man and a woman and three children, but they were all lolling back in their seats as if they were dead.

Frightened, the trumpet-player ran back to his own car and took out a tyre-iron from under the seat. He took it to the Cadillac’s door, and tried to prise it open, but the lock was too strong for him. He stood panting beside the car, unsure what to do, and he was still there when an air force truck came past. He flagged it down, and it crunched to a halt a little way down the road.

‘There’s something wrong!’ he shouted out. ‘It looks like they’re dead in there! I can’t open the door!’

A tall young airman in a peaked cap and fatigues jumped down from the truck and walked over to take a look for himself. Then, without a word, he loosened a shovel from the truck’s side panel, swung it back, and smashed the Cadillac’s side window.

The children in the back appeared to be dead. They were curled up like fumigated baby mice, their eyes closed, and their faces white. The broken glass lay on them like splinters of ice. In the front, the driver was alive, but barely conscious. His wife was face-down on the seat.

‘Doctor…’ whispered the driver. ‘For God’s sake… doctor…’

The young airman loped back to his truck, and unclipped his radio microphone. The trumpet-player heard him saying, ‘… whole family, that’s right… no, I can’t see what’s wrong with them… just about a mile or two outside of Floyd… you know the road?’

A white-painted fighter-bomber thundered above them as it came in from a dawn exercise. The trumpet-player shielded his eyes against the sun, and then turned away, his hands on his hips in a gesture of helpless resignation. The driver of the Cadillac had closed his eyes now, and was lying back breathing harshly through his mouth. The trumpet-player didn’t know whether he ought to take the man’s spectacles off or not.

The young airman came back and said, ‘They’re sending an ambulance from the base. They said not to touch them, in case they have something contagious.’

The trumpet-player nodded. He was glad he had decided against taking off the spectacles. ‘The kids, too,’ he said, indicating the back seat of the car. ‘Whatever it was, it really must have hit ’em hard.’

The airman said, ‘Suffocation, maybe. They could have had a leak in their muffler. When that carbon monoxide gets into the car, boy, you don’t even realise what’s happening to you. A friend of mine killed himself that way. You know, with the rubber hose.’

The trumpet-player held his hand over his mouth. There was no sound out here except for the whining of the wind in the Cadillac’s antennae, and the laboured breathing of the driver. There were a few brief rumbles of jet engines from the air force base, but they died away as quickly as summer thunder.

‘Some place to die, huh?’"said the airman.

The trumpet-player nodded. He was beginning to feel very cold now, and he was wishing that he had never stopped. It was so incongruous and so tragic to see this family sitting in their car that it brought tears to his eyes. ‘Do you have a light?’ he asked the airman.

The airman shook his head. ‘Don’t smoke. Easier not to, you know, with all that airplane fuel around.’

‘Doctor…’ whispered Donald Abbott.

‘A doctor’s coming,’ said the airman, loudly. ‘Don’t worry, old buddy, you’re going to make it.’ Then he looked at the trumpet-player and pulled a face, as if to say, what does it matter? The poor guy’s going to die anyway.

Under the tepee-like roof of Shearson Jones’s hallway, the television lights had been set up, and the cameras fixed into position. The whole morning had been chaos, with television people rearranging the furniture and reeling out hundreds of feet of cable and leaving styrofoam cups of coffee wherever they went. Shearson, in his mahogany-panelled study, had stayed well out of their way, except to talk for a half-hour to the director about how he was going to present his appeal, and how the broadcast should look. ‘Quiet and simple, with folksy dignity, that’s what I want,’ he had insisted. ‘There’s no way we should look like we’re rattling a tin cup under anybody’s nose.’

Peter Kaiser had spent five harassed hours mapping out contingency plans for handling all the money the appeal was going to bring in, and he had taken up so much of Karen’s time with typing and telephoning that she hadn’t even been able to get away for a swim. The fund had now been sub-divided into geographical regions – east, central, and west – so that contributions could be handled more efficiently. It would also make the money more difficult to trace, when accounting time came. Karen had spent most of the morning calling San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, briefing Peter’s regional office staff. None of them had been particularly helpful and happy about being disturbed on a Sunday, even this Sunday.

Ed had felt tense all day. He had woken just before it was light, and he had sat out on his balcony, wrapped in his bathrobe, smoking a cigar and watching the grey waters of the lake. Behind him, in his bedroom, Della McIntosh had lain sleeping on his bed, her red hair spread out over the pillow, her knees drawn up like a child. She had knocked on his door at midnight, and he had let her in without a word. They had said nothing to each other at all – nothing about motives or betrayal or politics. They had made love three times, and the last time she had sat on top of him, while he had reached up with his hands and cradled her heavy breasts. They had kissed once, almost a chaste kiss, and then slept.

After breakfast, Ed had watched the television technicians for a while. Then he had swum up and down Shearson’s triangular pool. He had thought of calling Season in Los Angeles, but somehow he had felt disinclined. There was too much on his mind. Della was no substitute for Season, but Season was so much more complicated. The day was sunny but cool.

At three o’clock, after everybody had sat around the lunch table for a gargantuan lobster salad, and Shearson had retired to his suite of rooms to doze and belch for an hour in private, the TV director had introduced Ed to his make-up lady and his continuity girl and the silent, elegantly-dressed black prompter who was going to hold up his short speech for him on large idiot boards. Then Ed had been given a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans to put on, his hair had been washed and blow-dried, and a small touch of blush had been rubbed along his cheekbones.

‘We want you to look healthy and rural,’ said the director.

‘Even though I’m destitute, and my crops have been wiped out?’ asked Ed.

‘Listen – people don’t want to be reminded of The Grapes of Wrath. They don’t want haggard sharecroppers. They want a healthy, friendly, young fellow who’s been hit by a tragic bolt from the blue.’

‘Would you like me to endorse somebody’s breakfast cereal at the same time?’ Ed had asked, sarcastically.

‘Just read what’s on the cards and sound as if you mean it,’ retorted the director. ‘And for Christ’s sake don’t smile.’

Ed was placed against a background of bare wooden floorboards and walls with only Andrew Wyeth’s severe painting of Dil Huey Farm behind him. The director had asked him to run through his words, and he had haltingly obliged. What had made it worse was that he had known all along he was never going to say them.

I’m a Kansas wheat farmer. You’ve just heard Senator Shearson Jones asking for help on our behalf. All I want to say is that in Kansas we’re not the kind to go begging. We wouldn’t be asking for your assistance if we hadn’t been struck by the worst natural crop disaster for nigh on forty years. It’s hit us hard, and it’s hit us fast, and there was no way in the world we could have stopped it.

I want you to contribute to the Kansas Blight Crisis Appeal because my fellow wheat farmers and I want to go on growing wheat for this great country of ours. Every dollar you give will be sowed in the Kansas soil like a seed, and out of it we’ll be able to harvest a new economic strength and fine cereal foods for future generations of Americans.

I give you this personal promise. We’re tough, hardworking people. We don’t normally ask for handouts. And with the donation you send us, we’ll work ten times as hard as usual to make sure that we get back on our feet again fast. Thank you for listening. My name’s Ed Hardesty.

‘This is gibberish,’ said Ed, as the lighting technician came across the floor and tilted his head slightly to one side.

‘Face that way,’ said the technician. ‘If you face the way you were, your nose looks shapeless.’

‘If I face the other way, I can’t read the gibberish.’

‘You may think it’s gibberish,’ said the director. ‘But if you write sense for television, it comes out sounding weird. The first criterion is it has to sound like sense. Whether it is or not, that’s irrelevant.’

‘All right,’ said Ed. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t create any difficulties. If he created difficulties, they might not ask him to speak on the broadcast. The lighting technician switched off the spots, and he saw swimming coloured shapes in front of his eyes.

A few minutes before air time, Shearson Jones appeared, wearing a dark grey suit that would have swamped Orson Welles. He lowered himself carefully into a leather-backed throne of a chair, and the make-up lady fussed around him and mopped away the perspiration which had popped out on his forehead and around his mouth.

‘These lights are goddamned hot,’ he complained. ‘I feel like I’m losing pounds, just sitting here.’

Ed waited in the cool and the shadow behind the lights. He watched quietly as the television people straightened Shearson’s lapels, and shifted a potted yucca a few inches to the left, so that it wouldn’t look as if it was growing out of Shearson’s head. He was so tense and intent on what was going on that he didn’t notice Della approach him from behind until she put her arm around him.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Are you nervous?’

He looked down at her. She was dressed in blue jeans, a pink T-shirt, and no bra. Her nipples showed through the thin cotton.

There’s no reason to be nervous,’ said Ed. ‘It’s all written out on the cards for me. All I have to do is read it.’

‘But you’re still nervous?’

‘A little.’

She glanced around, to see if there was anybody standing close. Then she said, ‘I overheard you.’

‘You overheard me?’ he asked her. ‘What are you talking about? When?’

‘I overheard you talking to Karen on the balcony.’

Ed looked at her closely. She didn’t look away. Her eyes searched into his just as deeply, and with just as much intensity, as his were searching into hers.

‘What did you hear?’ he asked her.

‘Everything,’ she said.

‘You heard what I said about this broadcast?’

She nodded.

‘You haven’t told Shearson? Or have you?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘Why not? You silenced Dr Benson quick enough. I called him this morning and he’s been taken into a clinic to dry out again.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry?’ Ed said. ‘That guy spent years weaning himself off the bottle. Now you’ve probably ruined his life, as well as his career.’

‘Yes,’ said Della. ‘But you can believe me when I tell you he’s going to be fully compensated.’

‘By whom? Blue Cross doesn’t cover you for alcoholism.’

Della reached out and held Ed’s wrist, the gentle but persuasive way that a friend does. ‘I’m sorry about Dr Benson,’ she said. ‘But there’s something a whole lot more important at stake here. In fact, it’s so important that I have to ask you not to say anything today except what’s on the cards.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ demanded Ed. ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on? What Shearson Jones is doing? Do you have any idea what kind of a disaster we’re facing here? I mean – every crop in every state is blighted. Can you understand what that’s going to mean?’

‘The news is going to break out anyway,’ said Della. ‘But right now, I want to keep this Blight Crisis Appeal going for just two or three more days.’

‘For what? For Shearson Jones to make himself two or three million dollars richer?’

‘Precisely.’

Ed lifted her hand away from his wrist. ‘In that case, you can count me out. I wouldn’t give that fat slob a subway token.’

‘Ed,’ said Della, ‘I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’

Ed slowly turned his head and stared at her. ‘Now I know you’re joking,’ he said. ‘You just want me to go out there and speak my words like a good little boy, so that Shearson and you can get away with as much loot as possible.’

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘Why should I? You certainly don’t look like an FBI agent. Do you have a badge?’

‘Back in Washington, yes.’

‘Well, that’s convenient,’ said Ed.

‘Ed,’ insisted Della, ‘you have to believe me. We’ve been trying to catch Shearson Jones red-handed for nearly two years. Now, we’ve got ourselves a chance.’

‘So why did you silence Dr Benson?’ asked Ed.

‘I had to. I didn’t want to, but I had to. None of the appeal money has been transferred to Shearson’s private accounts yet, and until that happens, he isn’t guilty of anything. He told me to keep Dr Benson quiet and that’s just what I did, in the most harmless way I could think of. I had to keep his confidence.’

Ed looked at her again. At the curly red hair, and the soft shining lips, and the huge breasts.

‘You’re an FBI agent?’ he asked her. ‘I don’t believe it. Eliot Ness always wore pinstripe suits.’

‘I was chosen for my looks. I worked on the Miami pornography scam a couple of years ago. It’s the kind of work I do best.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘Ed,’ said Della, ‘you don’t have to believe me. But if you don’t, Shearson Jones could escape from this whole set-up scot-free.’

Ed closed his eyes for a moment. He knew what his urgent duty was: to stand up in front of those television cameras and tell as many people as possible what was going on. They were voters, and citizens, and human beings, and they had a right to know. Yet if Della was telling the truth and she did work for the FBI, it was equally important that he didn’t blow her carefully-arranged scam and warn Shearson Jones off. After all, she had actually given her body to Shearson Jones for the sake of a watertight arrest, and Ed wasn’t the kind of man who thought that was an easy or an offhand thing for a woman to do, even a woman like Della McIntosh.

He opened his eyes. Della was still looking at him intently.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether to believe you or not. If you’re really an FBI agent, why didn’t you tell me this last night?’

She gave an ironic smile. ‘I was always told that it was impolite to talk with your mouth full.’

‘I mean seriously.’

‘Because I wasn’t sure of you,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure how you were going to react. And because I was making love to you. That’s all.’

Ed said, ‘I don’t know if that’s enough. Not to convince me of what you are, anyway, and what you’re doing here.’ Della gave him a long, level look. ‘In that case, you’d better go out in front of those cameras and say just what your conscience dictates.’

Ed said quietly, ‘I think I’m going to have to.’ Surprisingly, Della had tears in her eyes. Ed could see them sparkling in the back light from the television floods. ‘The goddamned wretched thing about it is. I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said. That’s the goddamned wretched thing about it.’

Ed said, ‘Della—’ but she turned quickly away and walked back across the television cables, and out through the door that led to the side verandah. Ed felt tempted to follow, but he could hear that Shearson was almost finished with his introductory speech, and he knew that the television people would be calling him forward in a minute or two.

The director twisted around in his folding-chair, caught Ed’s eye, and pointed towards the place where Ed was supposed to stand. Ed nodded, and tippy-toed across the floor. As if in a dream, he could hear Shearson Jones saying ‘… and now… I want you to meet one of the farmers I’ve been talking about… one of the hardworking, strong-willed Kansas wheat growers who have had to fight against this terrible and unprecedented disaster alone and single-handed… with only their guts and their know-how to rely on…’

It was discovered by chance. It could have remained hidden, and nobody would ever have known, not until it was far too late. Although, by the time it was found, it was far too late anyway. The damage had been done.

The grain ship City of Belleville was docked at St Louis, Missouri, taking on a cargo of hard wheat for Europe. It was Sunday afternoon, a few minutes after five o’clock, and Ed Hardesty had already started speaking on the television. Not that the stevedores at Jefferson Docks cared very much – they were too busy on overtime, loading thousands of tons of grain from the wharfside silos into the City of Belleville’s holds. The shipment was already a week overdue and the men had been promised double time if they caught up on the lost seven days.

The ship’s first mate was a tough, bullet-headed little man from Milwaukee. His shore friends called him ‘German’. His ship friends called him ‘Square’, because of his shape. His real name was Herman Heller, a second-generation immigrant whose only surviving relative, his dotty father, now sang off-key Lieder in a Wisconsin nursing-home.

Herman Heller was standing at the ship’s rail smoking his pipe and watching the pale brown river roll by. Here in St Louis, the weather was humid and uncomfortable, and there was a dark stain of sweat down the back of Herman’s light blue T-shirt. He was thinking about a woman he knew in New Orleans – a quiet, jolly woman with a big nose who ran a delicatessen on the south side of the city. She had a husband who was confined to a wheelchair, and she didn’t ask anything of Herman but vigorous humping when he was there and suggestive letters when he wasn’t. Herman was good at suggestive letters. The woman’s blutwurst was unsurpassed.

Herman was deep in his reverie when Dan Bashnik came up to the bridge in his red woolly hat and held up what appeared to be a black metal baton. ‘Square,’ he said. ‘Take a look at this.’

Herman took out his pipe. ‘What’s that? Where’d you find it?’

‘Number One hold. It was just lying there on top of the grain.’

Herman held out his hand for it. Dan Bashnik passed it over, and watched while Herman inspected it. Herman hefted it in his palm, then twisted it around, and finally sniffed it to see if it smelled of anything.

‘What do you make of it?’ asked Dan.

‘I don’t know. Never seen anything like it. Maybe it’s part of a grain sorting machine, got itself loose.’

‘You going to hand it in?’

‘Sure, it’s no use to me.’

Dan wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Well, if there’s any kind of reward for it, don’t forget who found it.’

‘I should forget my friend, Dan Bashnik?’

‘You’d forget your own mother if it meant the difference between two bucks and ten.’

Herman jammed his pipe back between his pecan-coloured teeth. ‘Just fuck off, Bashnik. If there’s anything in it. I’ll make sure you get your share.’

He opened the door to the bridge and laid the black metal baton on the varnished shelf beside the maps of the Mississippi. It stayed there all afternoon and all evening, until Herman went ashore to check the cargo inventory and the bills of lading. Then – almost as an afterthought – he shoved it into the pocket of his windbreaker.

It was dark as Herman made his way down the gangplank to the dockside. There was the whinnying of cranes, and the clatter of fork-lift trucks, and the odd cold echoing sound of warehouses and water and ships. Herman walked across to the offices with the steady plod of a man who has been doing the same thing for twenty years at somebody else’s expense. He looked neither right nor left.

One of the St Louis safety inspectors was in the office when Herman walked in, a white-faced young man with a John Denver haircut and an immature moustache. He was smoking a cigarette and flicking through a girlie magazine. Errol Marx of the grain company was there too, a shaven-headed black man with heavy-rimmed eyeglasses.

‘You ready to leave?’ asked Marx.

‘Just as soon as we clear the paperwork,’ Herman told him.

Marx reached for his clipboard, took out a ballpen, and sniffed. ‘It took you long enough to get that goddamned grain on board,’ he said.

Herman didn’t answer. He did his job at one pace and one pace only, and that was Heller’s pace. If anybody objected, that was tough tits. He reached into his pocket for his matches.

The safety inspector said, ‘It’s unfair, you know. All these magazines are full of white girls. Only one or two black girls. Don’t you think that’s discrimination?’

Marx ticked off a column of figures. ‘They don’t have black girls because black men don’t need to read magazines,’ he said. ‘Black men get all the tail they want for real.’

‘Oh, bullshit,’ said the safety inspector. ‘Just because I fancy looking at some black ass now and again.’

‘Well, here’s something else to look at,’ said Herman, taking the black metal baton out of his pocket. ‘One of my guys found it in the wheat. A real toothbreaker, huh?’

The safety inspector peered at the baton for a moment, frowned, and then slowly put down his magazine.

‘Put it down,’ he said, in a cautious voice.

‘Why? What’s it going to do? Blow up? It hasn’t blown up yet.’

‘Put it down,’ insisted the safety inspector.

Herman, puzzled, laid the baton down on the desk. Errol inspected it through his spectacles, poked it with the end of his pencil, and said, ‘What the hell is it?’

‘I should be asking you that,’ said the safety inspector. ‘It came out of your wheat. Now, just you wait here for a while. I want to go get something. And make sure you don’t touch that thing any more.’

Herman shrugged at Errol, and told the safety inspector, ‘Okay. You’re the boss.’

They waited in silence for nearly five minutes. Herman packed his pipe again, and lit it, and the small office was clouded with aromatic smoke. Errol Marx sneezed twice, and then blew his nose on a Kleenex. ‘You don’t object to my smoking, do you?’ asked Herman, rhetorically.

Eventually, the safety inspector came back. As he came through the door, he was unzipping a black plastic carrying case, and taking out a grey rectangular instrument with a white calibrated dial.

‘What goes on here?’ asked Errol. ‘What the hell’s that thing?’

‘You never seen a geiger counter before?’ asked the safety inspector.

‘Geiger counter? Like, for radioactivity? You mean that thing could be radioactive?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m checking.’

The safety inspector switched the geiger counter on. Immediately, without him having to hold it anywhere near the black baton, it began to click as loudly and wildly as a migration of locusts.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said the safety inspector, switching it off. ‘What’s wrong?’ demanded Herman. ‘What is that thing? What goes on here?’

The safety inspector didn’t answer him. Instead, he picked up Errol Marx’s telephone and dialled a number. Errol glanced at Herman and shrugged as the safety inspector waited to get through. They both watched him biting his lips in anxiety.

At last, someone answered. The safety inspector said, ‘Fred? It’s Nelson. Listen, I’m sorry to call you now, but I’ve got myself a red alert down here. No, nothing like that. We’ve got the City of Belleville here, loading up with wheat from number seven silo, and some from number eight. Well, one of the crew members came into Errol Marx’s office a few minutes ago with something they’d turned up in the wheat. I kind of recognised it – I mean. I’ve seen something like it before in science magazines so I checked it over with the geiger counter. Yes, right – and it went way off the scale. I’m sure of it, Fred, no mistakes possible. Right. Well – we’re going to need the fire department down here, I guess, and an ambulance, and someone who knows something about radiation. Sure, I’ll have the ship and the dockside sealed off right away.’

Herman interrupted him. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘what are you talking about, radioactive? You can’t seal my ship off. I have to sail in an hour.’

The safety inspector held his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘There’s no way. No way at all. Your ship, your cargo, and most of your crew – especially you, because you’ve been handling that thing – you’re all highly radioactive. You’re not going any place tonight but hospital.’

‘Then what the hell is that thing? And what the hell’s it doing in the wheat?’

‘The second question I can’t answer,’ said the safety inspector. ‘As for the first question – well, I believe it’s some kind of radioactive isotope.’

‘Isotope?’ queried Herman, looking at Errol Marx.

Errol said, ‘Search me.’

During the evening, Donald Abbott and the bodies of his family were flown from the sanitarium at Cannon AFB to an isolation hospital on the outskirts of Phoenix, near Scottsdale. Donald Abbott was scarcely alive, and the medics at Cannon had given him only a one per cent chance of survival. ‘I never saw anyone so close to death without actually being dead,’ one of the doctors said later.

The first diagnosis was food poisoning, and when it was discovered that the Abbotts had spent the past two days with Mrs Abbott’s mother in Santa Fé, police and health officials were urgently sent to her home to check on the food that the family might have eaten – and on the safety of Mrs Abbott’s mother herself.

For two or three hours – until it was given a full medical clearance – the chief suspect was a tub of chocolate maple ice-cream, which only the Abbott family had eaten. Then the coroner’s report came in on the contents of Mrs Abbott’s stomach, and it was clear that she had consumed a frankfurter sausage and a quantity of bread sometime during Saturday evening. The coroner’s comment was bald and devastating. ‘The frankfurter sausage was analysed, and found to contain sufficient botulin to poison a horse.’

The New Mexico Highway Patrol located Mary’s Diner within twenty-three minutes of being called from Phoenix. Mary, bewildered and shocked, confirmed that the Abbott family had eaten hotdogs there on Saturday evening. Eight airmen and a truck driver had also eaten there, but they had all chosen hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or reubenburgers. The Highway Patrol officers took away all the fresh meat from Mary’s Diner, sealed it in plastic, and sent it to Phoenix for tests.

On Monday morning, at 10.30 a.m., Donald Abbott died of botulism.

The death of Donald Abbott and his family had yet to make news, however. What was news, as Sunday became Monday, was that a Kansas wheat farmer had stood in front of the cameras on live coast-to-coast television and announced that Americans were facing a whole lot more than ‘a noticeable percentage of inconvenience’ from the crop blights which had struck all over the country. They were facing nothing less than the total destruction of their agricultural economy, and possible starvation.

The television people hadn’t pulled the plug on him, as Ed had expected them to. The director had recognised good hard news material when it was handed to him on a plate, and Shearson Jones had wrathfully decided it was better not to intervene. If he had ordered the transmission to be killed, he would only have given Ed’s comments more public credibility. But he had sat on his throne and glared in fury at Ed with a face like a malevolent blancmange.

Ed had been chilled but sweating as he faced the dark, polished, noncommittal lens of the television camera. He had been aware of Shearson Jones, smouldering in his chair; and of Della, who had returned from the verandah to listen to him. In some ways, though, the most disconcerting face of all had been that of the elegant young black prompter, who had continued to hold up his idiot cards regardless of what he was actually saying. There had been moments when he had almost slipped into his pre-written speech, simply because he was groping for words, and there they were, up in front of him.

‘I was supposed to stand here today and tell you how much we Kansas wheat farmers need your help,’ he had said.

‘The trouble is, I can’t do that. My conscience won’t let me. Because the truth is that every one of you is going to need help just as badly as we do. This blight that you’ve been hearing about – these isolated crop diseases – well, they’re neither as slight nor as isolated as you’ve been led to believe.

‘What’s happening is that every major fruit, vegetable and cereal crop in the entire continental United States is being quickly destroyed by a virus. They’re not totally destroyed yet, by any means, but unless an antidote can be sprayed on the worst of them within a matter of days, this country is going to be facing shortages like you’ve never seen before, and that’s quite apart from the prospect of complete economic collapse.

‘I want you to know that an antidote to the virus was recommended to the federal agricultural research laboratories two days ago by the Pentagon’s chemical warfare experts. They’ve looked at the blight, and they believe it’s quite close to something called Vorar D – which was artificially engineered for defoliating the jungle in Vietnam. They think it’s curable, and they’ve already told that to Senator Shearson Jones.

‘Senator Shearson Jones, however, has kept that information to himself, just like he’s kept every fact about this crop blight to himself – even when it started to become clear that it could possibly herald a major disaster. And why? Because he wanted businesses and private individuals and Congress itself to contribute lavishly to his crisis fund. He didn’t want us all to be worried about our own problems, or the prospect of nation-wide catastrophe, because we wouldn’t dig so readily into our pockets if we were.

‘I believe you ought to know that Senator Shearson Jones and some of the senior members of his staff have made provision to keep themselves supplied with food during the coming lean months; and I believe you also ought to know that the President himself has ordered the administration in Washington to be provided for. That’s how real the danger has already become.

‘This is the truth as far as I know it. There may be worse things happening which I don’t know about. The prospects for the fall and the winter may be better than I’ve been led to understand. I don’t know. All I can say right now is that this nation is faced with the prospect of a famine, and that every man, woman, and child has the right to know.’

When Ed had finished speaking, the lofty triangular room had fallen totally silent. Then the elegant young black prompter had let one of his cards fall, and it had skated across the floor.

Shearson Jones had lifted himself out of his chair, and waddled to the centre of the hall. His bulk had been dark, imposing, and immovable.

‘Hardesty,’ he had said, harshly, ‘you have just brought down the temple. The art of politics, quite apart from feathering one’s own nest, is to preserve the public’s sacred ignorance. The public, far from having a right to know, have a right to be kept in the dark. It is for their own good, their own safety, and their own survival. You don’t shout “fire!” in a crowded auditorium, even if there is a fire. You tell the audience that there has been an infestation of fleas, or that the leading actor has fallen sick, and then you usher them quietly out.

‘I admit quite freely, that I might have exploited some aspects of this blight to my own personal ends, although you will never get me to say so in front of a judge, or a Senatorial committee.

‘But you have seriously misjudged my capabilities as a politician in keeping this crisis low-key. I have been trying to save this country’s neck. And now, with your one foolish broadcast, you have guaranteed its strangulation.’

Ed had stayed where he was.

‘I shouldn’t let it worry you. Senator,’ he had said, loudly. ‘You’ll be okay, won’t you? You have plenty of food, and plenty of wine, and enough money to last you through the next few months. Why should you be upset?’

‘Because the United States of America is my country,’ growled Shearson. ‘And because you have effectively undone with two hundred ill-advised words the work of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and hundreds of Americans a hundred times abler and more dedicated to this country than you are.

‘Graft is one thing, Hardesty. Suicide is another.’