Messiah

Clarissa turned her bright eyes on me and, without acknowledging the presence of our host, said right off: 'You've met him at last.'

I nodded. The plot was finally clear to me: the main design at least. 'We had dinner together last night.'

'I know. Iris told me. You're going to help out of course.'

'I'd like to but I don't know what there is I might do. I don't think I'd be much use with a tambourine on street corners, preaching the word.'

'Don't be silly!' Clarissa chuckled. 'We're going to handle this quite, quite differently.'

'We?'

'Oh, I've been involved for over a year now. It's going to be the greatest fun… you wait and see.'

'But…'

'I was the one who got Iris herself involved. I thought she looked a little peaked, a little bored. I had no idea of course she'd get in so deep, but it will probably turn out all right. I think she's in love with him.'

'Don't be such a gossip,' said Hastings sharply. 'You always reduce everything to… to biology. Cave isn't that sort of man.'

'You know him too?' How fast it was growing, I thought.

'Certainly. Biggest thing I've done since…'

'Since you married that brassy blonde,' said Clarissa with her irrepressible rudeness. 'Anyway, my dear, Iris took to the whole thing like a born proselyte, if that's the word I mean… the other's a little boy, isn't it? and it seems, from what she's told me, that you have too.'

'I wouldn't say that.' I was a little put out at both Iris and Clarissa taking me so much for granted.

'Say anything you like. It's still the best thing that's ever happened to you. Oh God, not avocado again!' The offending salad was waved away while Hastings muttered apologies. 'Nasty, pointless things, all texture and no taste.' She made a face. 'But I suppose that we must live off the fruits of the country and this is the only thing which will grow in California.' She moved without pause from Western flora to the problem of John Cave. 'As for your own contribution, Eugene, it will depend largely upon what you choose to do. As I said, I never suspected that Iris would get in so deep and you may prove to be quite as surprising. This is the ground floor of course… wonderful expression, isn't it? the spirit of America: the slogan which broke the plains… in any case, the way is clear. Cave liked you. You can write things for them, rather solid articles based on your inimitable misreadings of history. You can educate Cave, though this might be unwise since so much of his force derives from his eloquent ignorance; or you might become a part of the organization which is getting under way. I suppose Iris will explain that to you: it's rather her department at the moment. All those years in the Junior League gave her a touching faith in the power of committees, which is just as well when handling Americans. As for the tambourines and cries of 'Come and Be Saved', you are some twenty years behind the times. We… or to be exact I ought to say 'they'… have more up-to-date plans.'

'Committees? What committees?'

Clarissa unfolded her mushroom omelet with a secret smile. 'You'll meet our number-one committee member after lunch. He's coming, isn't he?' She looked at Hastings as though suspecting him of a treacherous ineptitude.

'Certainly, certainly, at least he said he was.' Hastings motioned for the serving-woman to clean away the luncheon dishes and we moved to other chairs beside the pool for coffee. Clarissa was in fine form, aggressive, positive, serenely indifferent to the effect she was having on Hastings and me.

'Of course I'm just meddling,' she said in answer to an inquiry of mine. 'I don't really give two cents for Mr Cave and his message.'

'Clarissa!' Hastings was genuinely shocked.

'I mean it. Not that I don't find him fascinating and of course the whole situation is delicious… what we shall do! or you shall do!' she looked at me maliciously. 'I can foresee no limits to this.'

'It no doubt reminds you of the period shortly after Mohammed married Khadija.' My own malice, however, could not pierce Clarissa's mad equanimity.

'Vile man, sweet woman. But no, this is all going to be different although the intellectual climate (I think intellectual is perhaps optimistic but you know what I mean) is quite similar. I can't wait for the first public response.'

'There's already been some,' said Hastings, crossing his legs which were encased in pale multicolor slacks with rawhide sandals on his feet. 'There was a piece yesterday in the News about the meetings they've been having up near Laguna or wherever it is he's been speaking this time.'

'What did they say?' Clarissa scattered tiny saccharine tablets into her coffee like a grain goddess preparing harvest.

'Oh, just one of those short suburban notes about how a Mr Joseph Cave, they got the name wrong, was giving a series of lectures at a funeral parlor which have been surprisingly well attended.'

'They didn't mention what the lectures were about?'

'No, just a comment: the first one so far in Los Angeles.'

'There'll be others soon but I shouldn't think it's such a good idea to have too many items like that before things are really under way.'

'And the gentleman who is coming here will be responsible for getting them under way?' I asked.

'Pretty much, yes. It's been decided that the practical details are to be left to him. Cave will continue to speak in and around Los Angeles until the way has been prepared. Then, when the publicity begins, he will be booked all over the country, all over the world!' Clarissa rocked silently for a moment in her chair, creating a disagreeable effect of noiseless laughter which disconcerted both Hastings and me.

'I don't like your attitude,' said Hastings, looking at her gloomily. 'You aren't serious.'

'Oh I am, my darling, I am. You'll never know how serious.' And on that high note of Clarissa's, Paul Himmell stepped out onto the patio, blinking in the light of noon.

He was a slender man in his fortieth and most successful year, with hair only just begun to gray and a lined but firmly modeled face, bright with ambition. The initial impression was one of neatly contained energy, of a passionate temperament beautifully, usefully channeled. The twist to his bow tie was the work of a master craftsman.

The handshake was agreeable; the smile was quick and engaging; the effect on me was alarming: I had detested this sort of man all my life and here at last, wearing a repellently distinguished sports coat was the archetype of all such creatures, loading with a steady hand that cigarette holder without which he might at least have seemed to me still human. He was identified by Hastings who, with a few excited snorts and gasps, told me beneath the conversation that this was the most successful young publicist in Hollywood, which meant the world.

'I'm happy to meet you, Gene,' he said as soon as Hastings had introduced us. He was perfectly aware that he had been identified while the first greetings with Clarissa had been exchanged: he had the common gift of the busy worldling of being able to attend two conversations simultaneously, profiting from both. I hate of course being called by my first name by strangers but in his world there were of course no strangers: the freemasonry of self- interest made all men equal in their desperation. He treated me like a buddy. He knew (he was, after all, clever) that I detested him on sight and on principle and that presented him with a challenge to which he rose with confidence… and continued to rise through the years, despite the enduring nature of my disaffection. But then to be liked was his business and I suspect that his attentions had less to do with me, with a sense of failure in himself for not having won me, than with a kind of automatic charm, a response to a situation which was produced quite inhumanly, mechanically: the smile, the warm voice, the delicate flattery… or not so delicate, depending on the case.

'Iris and Cave both told me about you and I'm particularly glad to get a chance to meet you… to see you too, Clarissa… will you be long in the East?' Conscious perhaps that I would need more work than a perfunctory prelude, he shifted his attention to Clarissa, saving me for later.

'I never have plans, Paul, but I've got one or two chores I've got to do. Anyway I've decided that Eugene is just the one to give the enterprise its tone… a quality concerning which you, dear Paul, so often have so much to say.'