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.