Грэм Мастертон - Famine

Granger Hughes, in his white kaftan, came up to join Season at the window.

‘Pretty frightening, isn’t it?’ asked Season.

Granger shielded his eyes against the reflections in the glass. ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think it’s frightening. They’re all part of God’s flock, just as we are.’

‘If you think that, why are all of your friends sitting on all of this food, and why are we keeping them out?’

‘Someone has to carry on the Word,’ replied Granger. ‘Someone has to stay alive to keep the Lord’s teachings alive in the new world that must follow.’

Season looked at him for a while. Then she said hesitantly, ‘Granger? Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Okay? Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t mean any offence. It’s just that you’ve been acting kind of– I don’t know, spaced out.’

He stared at her, perplexed, but then he smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, in a voice that sounded more like the man she had first met, the man who had come around to Topanga Canyon to make love to her, ‘it isn’t often that an Old Testament situation actually happens for real, is it? I mean, this is a real Biblical workout for anybody’s faith. What next? Locusts? Seven fat kine, seven lean kine? Plague?’

Season turned and looked out at the silent crowds of people. The sun was up now, and they had let their fires burn down. They stood like ghosts of American suburbia amidst the drifting smoke. There was movement amongst them – shuffling, and rippling, as if they were trying to summon up enough courage to make a rush for the front of the supermarket.

‘I don’t know about tests of faith,’ Season whispered. ‘All I know is that I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’ Mike Bull came up, rolling up his shirtsleeves. He was already growing the beginnings of a beard.

‘That crowd’s looking pretty threatening to me,’ he said to Granger, pressing his face to the window. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if they try breaking in.’

‘Couldn’t we try throwing them out a few cans of food?’ asked Season. ‘Wouldn’t that show them we meant well?’ Mike Bull shook his head. ‘If they think we’ve got food to spare, just to keep them at bay, that’ll only get them worked up even more. Besides, we don’t want to help to prolong their stamina, do we? – not even for one day. Give them two, three days, they’ll be weak as kittens. Then, if we’ve managed to keep them out, they’ll either die, or they’ll try someplace else.’

Sally, rubbing sleep from her eyes, came up and put her arms around Season’s waist. Season stroked her hair, and then bent down and kissed her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It just seems to me that for active church-members, everybody here is acting pretty damn uncharitable.’

Mike Bull said, ‘Listen, lady – this might not seem like charity – but charity’s no use at all unless it works. If we open the doors of this supermarket and let everybody in, our whole stock of food – five months of food – is going to be gone in five minutes. Tomorrow, we’ll be hungry. Now, what’s the point of that? Do you want to see your daughter starve? Do you want to see her ribs showing through her skin? Because if you do, that’s the way to do it.’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said Season, defensively. ‘I don’t want Sally to starve and I don’t want to starve myself. But look at those people out there. They’re just ordinary people, like all of us.’

‘They didn’t follow the Church of the Practical Miracle,’ said Mike Bull, in a level voice. ‘And this , to me, is the practical miracle, with the emphasis on practical. Our people surviving this famine, and coming out the other side.’

Season turned to Granger. ‘I can see why your church was so popular,’ she said, caustically. ‘You were only interested in miracles that helped your unworthy little selves. Wholesome, capitalist, racially-selective, no-bussing. Proposition-thirteen, private-medicine-oriented miracles.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Mike Bull. ‘We let in Hispanics. We even let in blacks. Tony there – he’s Italian – he was going to join.’

‘I haven’t seen any blacks or Hispanics here in the supermarket,’ said Season.

Granger laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Regretfully, we couldn’t contact everybody in time,’ he said.

‘Besides,’ put in Mike Bull, ‘what are you being so critical about? This church has saved your life, hasn’t it? And your daughter’s life? Just be thankful you’re not out there with all of those hungry people!’

Season was about to say something sharp in reply, but she checked herself. Maybe she was just tired, and frayed, and depressed. Maybe she was sick of being imprisoned in this supermarket, sick of the lines for the washroom every morning, sick of the evening sing-songs and the daily arguments, sick of the whole way in which the Hughes Supermarket had become a microcosm of American smalltown thinking – we’re okay because we’re in here with our food, buddy, and just you keep your distance.

Season was a smart, bright girl; a city girl. In the city, you learned how to be aggressive and you learned how to survive. But somehow, sitting on your own little pile of stuff wasn’t what real survival was all about. Real survival was working things out with other people – taking the risk to relate. Amongst these smug, quasi-religious Californians, Season felt even more alienated than she had on South Burlington Farm.

‘Granger,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I apologise. You offered to help me and I accepted your offer. I didn’t have any right to slander your beliefs.’

But Granger didn’t answer. Granger was looking at her with a bright, mesmerised glassiness in his eyes that made her involuntarily turn around, to see if there was someone standing behind her.

‘Granger?’ she repeated. Even Mike Bull frowned. ‘You’re right,’ Granger said, in a hoarse, slow voice. ‘You’re absolutely right.’

‘I’m right? What are you talking about?’

Granger raised his hand, two fingers extended, a gesture unnervingly reminiscent of Jesus.

‘Those people out there – they deserve the benefits of our faith – they deserve the miracles – just as much as we do—’

‘Granger,’ said Mike, taking his arm. ‘Why don’t you come and have a cup of hot coffee, and maybe some cookies? I know Nan Mameweck just brewed up.’

‘No, you misunderstand me,’ breathed Granger. ‘I’m being tested here. This is my test. This is how my faith is being put through its ultimate workout. Don’t you see it? How God has spoken to me, through Season here? How God has arranged this whole situation, this entire interface, so that I can discover at last what practical miracles really are?’

‘Granger, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ said Mike. ‘I mean, really.’

‘You don’t remember John, chapter six, verse five, when the five thousand followed Jesus to the mountain, and Jesus said to Philip, Whence shall we buy bread , that these may eat? ’

Mike Bull glanced outside at the restless crowds. ‘Well, yes,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but the plain fact is that we just don’t have enough.’

‘That’s it!’ cried Granger, ‘that’s absolutely it! The gospel is repeating itself! I have said to you – how are we going to feed all those people out there – and you, like Philip, have said the modem equivalent of what Philip said, which was. Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them , that every one of them may take a little. But Jesus had asked Philip this question to test him, right? Because it’s written in the Bible that Jesus knew what he would do. ’