‘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 mobil
e 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 eye
s 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.’
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