A Creed for the Third Millennium (36 page)

'Knowing Joshua,' said Miriam, 'he hasn't
even noticed. Everyone around him could be wearing one of those T-shirts, and he
still wouldn't notice. He never does notice much to do with himself — he wears
highly selective blinkers, you know, and they blot out anything to do with
himself.'

'You're quite right,' said James. 'Poor
Joshua!'

'It
is
a compliment,' said Mama
feebly.

But it was Martha's face tipped Mary's
precarious balance; the poor Mouse sat burning to take the poster for her own,
yet didn't have the courage to do so.

'It's disgusting!' Mary hissed, leaping
to her feet. 'Oh, you fools, you idiots! They're
using
him! They don't
care about him, all they care about is what they can milk out of him, and you're
right, Mirry, he's blind! He's a donkey that will pull their cart as long as
they dangle the carrot! Can't you see how they're using him? All of us? And when
they're finished—' she pushed impatiently at her tears '—they'll just kick him
to one side. It's disgusting!' She turned to Martha, shrinking away in terror.
'Grow up, damn you! Grow up! Does he love you? Does he love any of us except
Mama? No, he doesn't! Why don't you love someone who loves you back? Oh,
why
don't you?'

She made a grab at the poster to tear it
up, but Martha was too quick for her. The poster was removed from the table, rolled up, and passed
reverently to Mama.

'Go to bed, Mary,' said Andrew
tiredly.

She stood a moment longer looking down at
all of them, then she turned and left, not running; she would not give them that
satisfaction,

'Oh, why is she such a difficult girl?'
asked Mama, distressed but helpless, for she didn't honestly know what was the
matter with Mary, nor therefore what to do about it.

'She's jealous of Joshua,' said James.
'She always has been, poor Mary.'

'Well,' said Mama, picking up the T-shirt
and poking it down inside the poster, 'I think the best thing we can do with
these is burn them.'

Martha got up. 'Give them to me, I'll
take them down to the incinerator,' she said colourlessly.

But it was Andrew who reached out and
plucked the roll off Mama. 'No, I'll do it,' he said. 'You, my Mouse, can make
me a mug of hot chocolate.' He lifted wry brows at James and Miriam. 'I'm sure
the plants won't mind a little puff of warmth from Joshua!'

That was perhaps the most depressing of
the Christian family's early reactions to Joshua's sudden fame. It was followed
very shortly by the most euphoric, heralded by the arrival of Elliott MacKenzie
on the back stoop of 1047 Oak Street He was armed with a proposal.

However, he waited until after Mama
served him an excellent dinner, using the time to observe the various Christian
faces, and wondering how their fair placid beauty could ever interlock with
Joshua's dark turbulence.

'Joshua is going to be literally months
touring around the United States,' he said over coffee, 'and I have an enormous
market abroad, especially in Europe and South America. England, France, Germany,
Italy and the Netherlands are clamouring for a
visit from Joshua, as are all the states south of Panama.'

They sat listening attentively, proud but
a little puzzled.

'Anyway, I have an idea I'd like to put
to you,' he went on, 'though there's no need to give me an answer right away.
You've always supported Joshua in the clinic, you're a very close-knit family
and I guess you know Joshua, his work and his ideas, better than anyone else.'
He paused, turned to James in particular. 'James, would you and Miriam consider
touring the Eurocommune on Joshua's behalf? I know Miriam is a very fine
linguist — which actually Joshua is not — and that gives you a very great
advantage. It's not the same as Joshua, but in all honesty I don't think that
matters.' Then he turned to Andrew. 'I've got a job for you too, if you're
interested. South America. Would you and Martha take that on for Joshua? I know
you speak fluent Spanish, and we'd put you through an intensive course of
Brazilian Portuguese before you go.'

'How do you know what languages we
speak?' asked Mary, staring at Elliott MacKenzie so painfully that he shifted
uncomfortably in his palest-pink chair.

'Joshua told me, when he had dinner at my
place. He's terrifically proud of all of you, you know. And I think it would
delight him to realize you were taking his work into other
countries.'

'It's a very hard thing to decide,' said
James slowly. 'Usually Joshua's here to make the decisions. Couldn't we contact
Joshua — by phone if it can't be arranged any other way — and see what he
thinks?'

'Well, I hate to remove Joshua's
authority, but honestly he's got so much on his plate at the moment that I think
it would be much better if you didn't bother him,' said Elliott MacKenzie
delicately.

'I'll go,' said Mary abruptly.

Her brothers both turned to stare at her,
astonished.

'You?'
asked James.

'Yes. Why not me?'

'For one thing, Drew and I are married,
we have wives to help us. For another, we have the necessary
languages.'

'Please let me go!' she
whispered.

Andrew laughed. 'We haven't even decided
yet if anyone is going, Mair. But Jimmy's right. If any of us go, it will have
to be the married couples. You and Mama must stay here to look after things.'
His eyes rested thoughtfully on Martha, who sat with lids lowered and face
blank. 'Actually I'm very tempted, Elliott,' he said, turning to smile at the
Atticus publisher with a great deal of his oldest brother's sweetness. 'A couple
of months in South America might do my wife the world of good.'

So it was that Dr Christian's mother
joined him in Mobile, Alabama. As reason for her sudden unheralded appearance,
she gave out the news that all work in the clinic had had to be discontinued
because of the head of the clinic's meteoric plunge to fame.

'Oh, you've no idea what it's been like!'
she said to her son breezily. 'People everywhere! They don't come for treatment,
they just seem to want to look at our houses and have a cup of coffee and talk
to us because we're your family. It's like trying to move around with a million
newborn chicks all over the floor! We can't work But it's quite all right,
dearest,' she said with great earnestness because he stood there so still
and quiet, 'we've all found other work to do. Mr MacKenzie is sending James and
Miriam to Europe because the book's out there, and everyone's screaming for you.
Only you can't go because you've got here to do, and anyway, you don't have the
languages. Then because Andrew speaks such beautiful Spanish, Mr MacKenzie is
sending him and Martha to South America. The book's out in South America too. So
there I was! Out of a job! James and Miriam and Andrew and Martha have already gone to New York for
briefing or coaching or something, and they won't be back. So — anyway! — I told
Mary she would have to look after the houses and the plants, because
I'm
going to come along with you!'

His stillness broke into a huge jerky
shudder. 'But — my work!' he gasped.

Mama rattled on nervously. 'Well, of
course it goes on, dearest Joshua, but it just can't go on in the clinic any
more is all. It's going on throughout the country, and in other countries as
well. You can rest assured James and Andrew will work very hard for you abroad!
You see, after Mr MacKenzie went back to New York we had a family talk, and we
all decided that the best thing we could do for you in the circumstances was to
help publicize the book.'

'What have I done?' he asked, of no
one.

Mama had not given Dr Carriol time to
divert this thoughtless relaying of information it had been decided to keep from
Dr Christian for the moment; impotent but seething, Dr Carriol deemed it best to
hold her tongue until Mama ran down. Now she tried to step in and repair the
damage.

'You're doing it,' she said soothingly.
'Joshua, you are doing what you most wanted to do! You're actively helping
millions of people to recover from the depression of decades! There's a whole
new mood in the country, and it's entirely due to you.'

He turned his poor shrivelled face to her
piteously, desperately. 'Is it, Judith? Is it really?'

She took hold of his hands, squeezing
them hard. 'My dear, I would not mislead you about something so important!
You're in the midst of working a great miracle.'

'I'm
not
a miracle worker! I'm
just a man doing a man's best!'

'Yes, yes, I know. I meant it
metaphorically.'

'Why did it have to be like
this?'

A huff of breath in a little sigh came
out of her, half exasperation, half frustration. 'Look, in
a month you've gone from utter obscurity to absolute fame. How could you know
what it was going to be like? No one could have known, including me! Certainly I
for one never thought of what might happen in Holloman. But in spite of the
clinic's closure, you're moving forward in ten-league boots.'

'Is this then my life's work, Judith? But
this isn't real! This won't last, it can't last! It was never intended to last!
The clinic—' He stopped, so moved he could not finish.

'Joshua, when this is over you can reopen
your clinic. That's so easy! What's happened in Holloman isn't going to last
either. James and Andrew will come back, you'll all be together again, the
clinic will reopen, and your life will resume some normality. Of course you
won't ever be entirely free from the effects of
God in Cursing,
but I
don't suppose you want to be. You will be able to continue your work in
Holloman! Mama's news just seems such a catastrophe because of the life you're
leading at the moment, because you feel if you were there the clinic wouldn't be
closing. Calm down and
think
about everything! What you're doing now is
the most unreal existence in the world — constantly travelling, constantly
meeting new people, constantly giving of yourself in ever-increasing amounts —
but you never thought it would be easy, Joshua. So how about giving everything a
little time ? Let yourself work through this period of transition, and then
reorganize yourself. Don't you say in your book that change means
reorganization? And that reorganization takes time and patience?
Work?'

He tried to laugh, a tight little rustle
of noise, a face too twisted for success. 'I'm a poor subject for my own
preaching, that's the trouble. I can only listen to it inside my own head. And
my own head is beginning to be a pretty bad place these days.'

'Joshua, it's late,' she said, her voice
dropping half an octave with unconscious solicitude.
'We have a six o'clock start in the morning, because this is Mobile, and there's
a breakfast show. Go to bed.'

He went, but there was no euphoria
tonight. For the first time since he had started on his tour, Dr Carriol knew
him to be depressed. God damn Mama! Why is it that certain women are so sure of
their maternal ground that they refuse to think with anything higher up than
their own uteruses? During all of Dr Carriol's desperate attempts to mend what
Mama had made, Mama sat looking adorably bewildered and innocent, her eyes
travelling from Joshua to Judith and back again as if she didn't really
understand what was going on. But how could she not understand?

Obviously she didn't understand, for when
he started to leave the room she got up to follow him, to fuss and
cluck.

Dr Carriol put out a hand to detain her
rather roughly.

'Oh no you don't! I want a few words with
you,' she said grimly, and hustled Mama from the sitting room in the opposite
direction from Joshua's room, to her own room — and had Mama thought of
accommodation? Did she think she could share a room with dear Judith? And how
had she got all the way to Mobile? Not with the help of Atticus, for sure! Oh
she knew she was doing the wrong thing, all right. But it didn't stop her doing
it, thought Dr Carriol, eyeing her sourly.

'What's the matter, Judith?' Mama
quavered. 'What is it? What have I done?'

'The last thing in the world your son
needed was to be told a lot of garbage about his clinic closing down and his
brothers taking off for foreign parts.'

'But it's all true! Why shouldn't he
know? I thought he'd be pleased!' Mama whined.

'When he came back to Holloman with all
this touring behind him was time enough to tell him. Why do you think I haven't
told him? At the moment he is under incredible strain, Mama! He's
travelling without letup, he's not getting enough sleep, and he's draining every
reserve of energy he's got by talking to people nonstop and signing hundreds of
books and letting people shake him by the same hand he signs with — Mama,
why
did you come? Don't you understand that your presence is just another burden
he's going to have to pick up and carry as well?'

Mama gasped, her magnificent bosom
heaving.
'I
am his mother!' Another gasp. 'I — I — I have been entirely
responsible for him since he was four years old! I know what a strain he's
under, that's why I came! Believe me,
Doctor
Carriol, I'll be a help to
him, not a burden!'