The Only Problem

‘Oh, Effie.’

Harvey had in his hands one of Leveque’s volumes. ‘He accepts Leviathan as the crocodile and Behemoth as the hippopotamus. He takes Behemoth to be a hippopotamus or at least a large beast.’

‘What about these other new Bibles?’ said Stewart, pointing to a couple of new translations. He wondered if perhaps Harvey was not so guileless as he seemed. Stewart thought perhaps Harvey might really be involved with Effie and her liberation movement. There was something not very convincing about Harvey’s cool-headedness.

‘Messy,’ said Harvey. ‘They all try to reach everybody and end by saying nothing to anybody. There are no good new Bibles. The 1945 Knox wasn’t bad but still obscure — it’s a Vulgate translation, of course; the Jerusalem Bible and this Good News Bible are not much improvement on the old Moffat.’

‘You stick to the Authorised then?’

‘For my purpose, it’s the best English basis. One can get to know the obvious mistakes and annotate accordingly.’

Harvey poured drinks and handed one to Stewart.

‘I think I can see,’ said Stewart, ‘that you’re happy here. I didn’t realise how much this work meant to you. It has puzzled me slightly; I knew you were dedicated to the subject but didn’t understand how much, until I came here. You shouldn’t think of marriage. ‘‘I don’t. I think of Effie.’

‘Only when you’re not thinking of Job?’

‘Yes. What can I do for her by thinking?’

‘Your work here would make a good cover if you were in with Effie,’ said the lawyer.

‘A very bad cover. The police aren’t really convinced by my story. Why should you be?’

‘Oh, Harvey, I didn’t mean —Anne-Marie arrived with a grind of brakes in the little Renault. She left the car with a bang of the door and began to proclaim an urgency before she had opened the cottage gate.

‘Mr Gotham, a phone call from Canada.’

Harvey went to open the door to her. ‘What is it from Canada?’ he said.

‘Your aunt on the telephone. She’ll ring you back in ten minutes.’

‘I’ll come up to the house right away.’

To Stewart, he said, ‘Wait for me. I’ll be back shortly and we’ll go out to lunch. You know, there could have been an influence of Prometheus on Job; the dates could quite possibly coincide. But I find vast differences. Prometheus wasn’t innocent, for one thing. He stole fire from Heaven. Job was innocent.’

‘Out to lunch!’ said Anne-Marie. ‘I’m preparing lunch at the chateau.’

‘We’ll have it cold for dinner,’ thundered Harvey as he got into the car. Anne-Marie followed him; looking back at Stewart who gave her a long smile full of what looked like meaning, but decidedly so unspecific as to mean nothing.

As they whizzed up the drive to the chateau Anne-Marie said, ‘You think because you are rich you can do anything with people. I planned a lunch.’

‘You should first have enquired whether we would be in for lunch,’ said Harvey.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, with some point. ‘It was for you to say you would be out.’

‘I apologise.’

‘The apologies of the rich. They are cheap.’

Half an hour went by before the telephone rang again. The police were vetting the calls, turning away half the world’s reporters and others who wanted to speak to the terrorist’s guru husband. Harvey therefore made no complaint. He sat in patience reading all about himself once more in the local morning newspaper, until the telephone rang.

‘Oh, it’s you, Auntie Pet. It must be the middle of the night with you; how are you?’

‘How are you?’

‘All right.’

‘I saw you on the television and it’s all in the paper. How could you blaspheme in that terrible way, saying those things about your Creator?’

‘Auntie Pet, you’ve got to understand that I said nothing whatsoever about God, I mean our Creator. What I was talking about was a fictional character in the Book of Job, called God. I don’t know what you’ve seen or read, but it’s not yet proved finally that Effie, my wife, is a terrorist.’

‘Oh, Effie isn’t involved, it goes without saying. I never said Effie was a terrorist, I know she isn’t, in fact. What I’m calling about is this far more serious thing, it’s a disgrace to the family. I mean, this is to blaspheme when you say that God is what you said he was.’

‘I never said what they said I said he was,’ said Harvey. ‘How are you, Auntie Pet? How is Uncle Joe?’

‘Uncle Joe, I never hear from. But I get to know.’

‘And yourself? I haven’t heard from you for ages.

‘Well, I don’t write much. The prohibitive price of stamps. My health is everything that can be expected by a woman who does right and fears the Lord. Your Uncle Joe just lives on there with old Collier who is very much to blame, too. Neither of them has darkened the door of the church for as long as I can remember. They are unbelievers like you.