The Prodigal Son. Colleen McCullough

parallel in the state. It can perform the most difficult assays and analyses, and the autopsy techniques have changed almost out of recognition.”

      “Oh, science!” said Tinkerman, screwing up his mouth. “It is the cause of all our human woes.”

      Millie couldn’t help herself. “What an asinine thing to say!” she snapped, having no idea she was thrilling the Parson wives, who would have given their billions to say that to a man in doctor’s robes. “I would have said God was the cause of human woes—look at the wars fought in God’s name,” she said.

      If she had thrown him into a vat of cement, he could not have grown any stiffer. “You blaspheme!” he accused.

      She lifted her lip. “That answer is like trotting out a block of wood as a remedy for plague! This is 1969, not 1328. It’s permissible to question defects in the nature of God.”

      “Nothing permits anyone to question anything about God!”

      “That’s like saying our Constitution would be improved if it forbade freedom of speech. Science too comes from God! What we discover are more revelations about the complexity of God’s design. You should come down out of your heavenly clouds and stare through a microscope occasionally, Doctor. You might be amazed, even awestruck,” said Millie, very angry.

      “I am amazed at your blindness,” he said, floundering.

      “Not I, Doctor, not I! Look in a mirror.”

      “Speaking of which, Tom,” said M.M. affably, “are you all set for your speech? The main course is here.”

      Im answer Tinkerman got to his feet and rushed off on a bathroom run; when he finally came back he seemed to have gotten over his flash of frustrated temper, for he sat down, smiling. Millie too had had time to let her anger cool; feeling someone edge behind her, she looked beyond Mrs. Eunice Parson to see Mrs. Tinkerman settling. Their eyes met—was that sympathy?

      “Do you have a degree, Mrs. Tinkerman?” she asked, sure of affirmation; Doctors of Divinity must have highly educated wives!

      “Dear me, no,” said Mrs. Tinkerman. Her brown eyes blazed a moment, then went out. “I was a secretary.”

      “Do you have children?”

      “Yes, two girls. They went to the Kirk Secretarial College and have very good jobs. I believe that there are so many Ph.D.s in sociology that they have to work as cashiers in supermarkets, whereas good secretaries are as scarce as hen’s teeth.”

      “They are indeed,” said Millie warmly. “Lucky for your husband too—no university fees to pay.”

      “Yes, that was a consideration,” Mrs. Tinkerman said, her voice devoid of expression.

      The peach pie arrived—yum! Poor woman, Millie thought as she smoothed her melting ice cream all over the still hot pie. She doesn’t even hate her husband, she just dislikes him. It must be hell to have to lie in the same bed. Or perhaps she doesn’t. If I were her, I would have taught myself to snore very, very loudly.

      Time for the speeches, thought Carmine, shifting restlessly.

      “M.M. ought to dispense with that fool high table,” said Fire Chief Bede Murphy.

      “I agree,” Carmine said, “but why, Bede?”

      “Fire hazard, for starters. Too narrow for a table seating people down both sides. I’ve been noticing it all evening. On a bathroom run they have to squeeze past, and some of the guys put their palms on the shoulders of those sitting down. Must be annoying. I mean, would you want to palm M.M.’s acres of gold detail? Or that snooty bastard who’s the incoming Head Scholar? And tell me why Chubb thinks the Town would be offended if it weren’t invited to these bean feasts? The whole Town and Gown rigmarole gives Ginny and me the shits. Our Saturday nights are ours! We went to a lot of trouble to make sure no babysitting the grandkids on a Saturday, and then what? We’re here! The food’s good, but Ginny can broil scrod too.”

      “A brilliant summation,” said Fernando, grinning.

      “I mean, the bathroom run palming is unnecessary,” Bede went on. “There’s plenty of room down here on the floor to put a fourth and even a fifth table. Then they could put marble busts of Tom Paine and Elmer Fudd up on the dais, surrounded by orchids and lilies.”

      “The one who really dislikes being palmed on a bathroom run is our new Head Scholar,” said Carmine, winking at Desdemona, whose eyelids were beginning to droop. Come on, M.M., turn down the thermostats!

      “According to Jim and Millie, Tinkerman despises the whole world,” said Patrick. He sipped, grimaced. “Oh, why do they always fall down on the coffee?”

      “C.U.P. doesn’t like its new Head Scholar,” said Manfred Mayhew, contributing his mite. “It’s all over County Services that he’s a Joe McCarthy kind of fella—witch hunts, though not for commies. Non-believers.”

      “I fail to see how the head of an academic publishing house can conduct witch hunts,” said Commissioner Silvestri.

      “That’s as may be, John, but they’re still saying it.”

      “Then why haven’t I heard the slightest whisper?” the Commissioner demanded.

      “Because, John,” said Manfred, taking the plunge, “you are an eagle in an eyrie right up in a literal tower, and if it’s built of brick instead of ivory, that’s only an architectural reality. To those of us who live below you, John, it is a genuine ivory tower. If Carmine and Fernando don’t tell you, you don’t know—and don’t say Jean Tasco! She’s got a titanium zipper on her mouth.”

      Gloria Silvestri’s coffee had gone down the wrong way: Carmine and Fernando were too busy fussing around her to make any comments—or let their eyes meet. Masterly, Manfred!

      Mawson MacIntosh had slipped the cord holding his reading half glasses around his neck and had gathered his notes together; he was a wonderful speaker and as extemporaneous as he wished to be—tonight, judging from his notes, only partially. Not before time, thought Carmine, feeling the cool air on the back of his neck. M.M. had turned the thermostats down, which meant no naps in a warm hall. Desdemona would wake up in a hurry, as would all the women, more scantily clad than the enrobed men.

      “Ladies and gentlemen,” M.M. said, on his feet and using the most democratic form of address, “we meet tonight to celebrate in honor of two men and one institution …”

      What else M.M. said Carmine never remembered afterward; his attention was riveted on Dr. Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman, still seated, and looking very distressed. His crisp white handkerchief was out, fluttering at his face, beaded in sweat, and he was gasping a little. The cloth billowed down to the table as he put his hands up to his neck, wrenching at his tie, more constricting than usual because it held his hood on and kept his gown in perfect position.

      “Patsy!” Carmine rapped. “Up there, up there!” Over his shoulder he said to Desdemona as he followed his cousin, “Call an ambulance, stat! Resuscitation gear on board. Do it, do it!”

      Desdemona was up and running toward the banquet supervisor as Carmine and Patrick mounted the dais, scattering its occupants before them. M.M. had had the good sense to be gone already, his chair thrust at a startled waiter.

      “Down, everybody, off the dais!” M.M. was shouting, “and get your chairs out of the way! Women too, please. Now!”

      “Nessie will have sent someone young and fast for my bag, but we’re parked over on North Green,” said Patrick, kneeling. The new Head Scholar’s gown, hood and coat were removed and the coat rolled into a pillow; Patrick ripped open Tinkerman’s dress shirt to reveal a well muscled, laboring chest; he was fighting desperately to breathe. Came a very few weak retches, some generalized small jerks and tremors, then Tinkerman lay staring up at Patrick and Carmine wide-eyed, in complete knowledge that he was dying. Unable to speak, unable to summon up any kind of muscular responses. Eyes horrified.