A Creed for the Third Millennium (25 page)

'How much extra time?'

'At the very outside, we could have it in
the bookstores by the end of September.'

'We would rather it was the end of
October, provided it takes off immediately.'

'With this one, no sweat,' he said, and
meant it.

'A million copies in hardback and at
least five million in paperback?'

That was too much to grasp, even for
Elliott MacKenzie. 'Hey hey hey, wait a minute!
With a book this hot, paperback not until a year after hardcover publication,
Judith. There is no way I'd see it go soft a day sooner.'

'Hard and soft editions out together,'
she said.

'No. Sorry, but no.'

'Sorry, but yes, Elliott. You won't
lose.'

'My dear girl, it would take an executive
order from the President of the United States to make me change my mind, and
even then I'd fight!'

'You'll have the executive order by
tomorrow at the latest, if that's your attitude. Only don't bother, Elliott,
please. You can't win.'

He pressed both hands against his eyes,
unwilling to believe her. And yet — he had to believe her, because she was not
the kind of person who bluffed. Just what in hell
was
this Joshua
Christian thing?

'Come on, Elliott, you're talking the
biggest book in the history of publishing, right? So how can you lose? Why get
greedy, huh? I put the book in your way, and I can take it out of your way just
as easily. You don't hold Joshua Christian to contract, Environment does.' She
sounded as if she was enjoying herself, but she also sounded as if she meant
every word she said.

He gave in. 'All right.' Pause. 'Damn
you!'

'Good boy! You can start leaking
scuttlebutt about the book as of yesterday, but until I give you the word, I
want no copies disseminated to anyone. If you need extra security staff, I'll
provide them for you gratis. Because I mean it, Elliott. No leaking the book
itself. No black market in advance copies, bound galleys or manuscript. I don't
care if you have to threaten to shoot your people, so long as the book stays
under wraps until I say it can be displayed.'

'Okay.'

'Fine. Now I want the paperback rights
sold at auction, and I want the press tipped off about the auction
beforehand.'

Where had she learned so much? He drew a
breath. 'I will do a deal with you, Judith. I will guarantee you advance
publicity that will measure up to your wildest dreams. But no auction. Goddam
it, I'm a
publisher!
And my instincts tell me this book is going to be a
perennial best-seller. So I want to keep the paperback rights within the group.
No auction! It goes to Scroll, our own paperback house.'

'I insist on an auction,' she
said.

'Look, Judith, I thought you wanted no
intimation of any kind that Environment is involved in this? Well, let me tell
you something. If I do as you ask, the whole publishing industry is going to
smell a rat, and so will the New York newspapers. Because I'm well known for my
sharpness, and to do as you ask is dumb.'

The phone was silent. Then, 'All right,
you win. You can keep the paperback rights within the Atticus group provided
publication coincides with the hardcover edition.'

'You've got a deal.'

'Okay. Now I want a protocol from your
publicity department as soon as possible. Not what they plan to do to launch Dr
Christian's book. What I want from them is their dream of heaven when it comes
to publicity for a book like Dr Christian's. The TV talk shows they'd give their
eyeteeth to get him on, the radio shows, the magazines, the Sunday supplements,
all that stuff. By the way, what do you think of his title? Is it good, or would
your marketing people rather it was changed?'

'No. It's a good title. I like the deity
angle and I like the hint of divine wrath. Intriguing in this world that still
hankers after God but can't admit it.'

'Mr Reece would like to know where the
title comes from. Did Lucy dream it up, or did he? Is it original?'

'No, it's not original. He and Lucy found
it when they were doing the usual title hunting through Bartlett's. The lines
were written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. "Get leave to work… for God, in
cursing, gives us better gifts than men in benediction." It says it all, I
think.' He paused. 'You did say Mr Reece? Tibor Reece, spelled as in
President?'

'That's right. Mr Reece is taking a very
personal interest in Dr Christian and his book — but that, I hope I don't need
to add, is a piece of news for your ears only.'

The shocks were too thick and fast. Has
he
read it?'

'Yes. He's most impressed.'

'Judith, just what is going
on?'

'A little altruism for a change, Elliott.
Believe it or not, the government of this country cares about the people of this
country. And we feel, Mr Reece and Mr Magnus and I, that Dr Joshua Christian,
the man and his ideas and his book can have a more positive effect on the
national morale than anything in the last fifty years at least' Her voice
changed. 'You've read it. Don't you agree?'

'Wholeheartedly.'

When he went home he told his wife all
about it, so secure in her discretion that it never occurred to him for one
moment not to tell her. Sally didn't gossip, didn't even like to hear gossip.
For more years than he cared to remember she had shared his interests and his
world without being involved in it other than through the bonds of matrimony.
Their only child was safely in college at Dartmouth and as bookish as his
parents, but with his father's strong business streak in him also to ensure that
Atticus would go on being a family concern. There had been a MacKenzie at the
helm of Atticus since Elliott's great-great-grandfather founded the house, and
the house had gone from strength to strength, put a large amount of high-quality
reading matter on the bookshelves of America, and enabled the MacKenzies to live
in a very much better way than they had back in the Highlands of
Scotland. But now the one-child family threatened
all that. Oh, for the freedom to sire more than one child! If anything happened
to Alastair — No! He refused even to think of that; instead he thought of what
would happen should his son sire an unsatisfactory child. Still, he comforted
himself — for he was a sensible man — he knew of other dynastic families who had
sired a dozen children without managing to produce a satisfactory heir. It was
all in the luck of the genes.

So he went home and told his wife all
about it.

'I'm champing at the bit! Where is it?
I've got to read it at once!' Sally cried.

'I don't have a copy,' he
confessed.

'Good God! It's very strange, Elliott. Do
you fully understand what's going on? I mean, here's the President of the United
States taking an interest.'

'The only thing I understand fully,' he
said, 'is the business end of it. And I can assure you that Atticus has got
itself the biggest book in the history of publishing.'

'Including the Bible?' she asked
dryly.

He considered that, laughed, shrugged,
and gave her a brave reply. 'Who knows?'

Things were really going terrifically
well, Dr Judith Carriol congratulated herself as she stepped from the little
subsonic helicopter that had brought her from Washington to Holloman in less
than an hour, scuttle-huffing its way across the empty sky as if pursued by the
Furies. Ah, this was the life! Holloman's one and only governmental car was
waiting for her on the tarmac of the disused airport, amid tall weeds and
windswept heaps of anonymous detritus, with a uniformed man complete to cap
standing to assist her into its back seat. Not that she had any illusions about
her importance. The moment Operation Messiah was over, it would be back to buses
and hoofing it. Still, she could relish this opportunity to bask in the kind
of  importance normally reserved only for
elected officials of the highest calibre, and she kept telling herself in every
quiet moment during her stuffed days that she must never become so accustomed to
luxury that the return to normality would prove unendurable. A leaf out of
Joshua Christian's book. Enjoy, but when it's finished, don't look back. Onward
and upward into tomorrow.

Strange. She hadn't seen him for two
months, but at the last moment, standing on the sidewalk exactly between 1047
and 1045 Oak Street, she could not bring herself to go through the back door
into 1045, where at this hour she knew he would be busy in his clinic. Instead,
she buzzed to be admitted to 1047.

Mama's embrace was natural and warm; she
might have been welcoming a daughter. 'Oh, Judith! It's been too long.' Mama
held her away to gaze at her with what seemed genuine love in the soft depths of
her eyes. 'A car! I saw you pull up. I was out in the yard with the wash — isn't
it lovely to be able to hang out the wash in the sun again instead of in the
basement?'

Pain. Oh no, I don't want to feel pain! I
mustn't feel pain! For what you are about to receive I cannot be held
responsible. Mama, Mama, how will you cope with the realization of all your
dreams and ambitions for him? How big is the soul inside your gorgeous shell?
Why do you welcome me as if I am his prospective wife, and the wife of your
choosing? Where I am going to send him there will be no time or energy for a
wife, and where I am sending myself there can be no husband.

'I wasn't sure if I'd be disturbing him
if I went into 1045, so I thought it would be better to come here.' She followed
Mama through the innermost back door and into the kitchen. How is he?' she
asked, and sat down as Mama began to prepare coffee.

'He's well, Judith. Very well. But glad
to see the end of Lucy, I think. Doing that book took so much out of him! He wouldn't stop pulling his weight
in the clinic while he was writing it, that was the trouble. She was very good,
mind you. Lucy Greco, I mean. Very nice. Very good. But he needed you very much.
I kept hoping you'd come! It's time he wasn't alone.'

'Mama, this is ridiculous! You've only
met me once, you know nothing about me! So to treat me as if I am the centre of
Joshua's emotional life is — is incongruous! I'm
not
Joshua's fiancee! He
is not in love with me, and I am not in love with him. And don't, please don't
set your heart on a marriage between us, because it's not going to
happen.'

'Silly girl,' said Mama fondly. She put
cups down on the table, her best Lenox service, and leaned to check how the
coffee was coming on. 'Get your breath back. And don't be so negative! Have your
coffee with me and then you can go into the living room to wait for him. I'll
buzz him to come over as soon as he's free.'

Interesting as well as exasperating. The
Mamas of this world were disappearing, she was among the youngest of them at
forty-eight, or was it still forty-seven? A dying breed, women who could afford
to exude maternalism because they had a houseful of children. They had used up
the staggering amounts of excess energy Nature had given them for just that
purpose. It was all right for the ones like herself who could pluck a
satisfactory substitute out of their own internal resources, but so many women
couldn't. Or wouldn't. Well, Joshua Christian, you will certainly be able to
help all the couldn'ts, but the wouldn'ts? I do not think anyone can help a
wouldn't.

Windows had magically appeared among the
greenery, neat unframed rectangular glass panes that let the sun stream in to
dance with a billion golden motes down solid shafts of light. The plants were
absolutely rejoicing, burst into a dazzle of flower, waxy spike and velvety
tumble and silky mass. Pink and cream and yellow and blue and lilac and peach.
Very little white. How clever of the Christians to avoid
white blossoms in a white room. This was a wonderland that must surely have
thrilled them every time they remembered to look to really
look.
Only how
often was that?

They are beautiful people. It takes
beautiful people to make beauty in their surroundings when it is so much easier
to put up with dreariness.

When his mother buzzed and gave him the
news that Dr Judith Carriol was waiting in the living room to see him, Dr
Christian found himself mildly surprised. So much had happened since he last saw
her that he had largely lost sight of the fact she had been the prime mover. Oh
— yes — Judith Carriol. Judith Carriol? A vague memory of violet and scarlet, of
someone exhilarating to talk to, of a timeless friend and an eternal
enemy…

Between then and now he had planted and
tended and harvested and winnowed a vast field of thought, and at the moment he
was gazing across the stubble wondering and wondering what must be planted next.
He tingled with possibilities divorced from any fellow man or woman, he groped
after the odd sensations which had plagued him so all through the winter, daring
to dream that maybe after all he did have a destiny wider and bigger than this
clinic in Holloman.

Why should I be so sad? he asked himself,
turning at the end of the passageway that joined his two houses not towards the
back stairs and Mama's kitchen, but towards the front stairs to the living room.
There was nothing between us. Nothing at all beyond an intellectual stimulation
and compatibility. I just knew she had significance for me, and I was afraid of
her, that is true. But there was nothing else. There could be nothing else,
given who and what we are. To dally unfruitfully in the arms of a lover, no
matter how beloved, is a solipsistic alternative both of us discarded many years
ago. She is not now intruding into my present trailing bits of the past around
her like a bridal veil. Why therefore am I so afraid to see her face? Why do I
not want to remember her?