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of all sorts that most interests me, the fellowship and unity of those people without any great power base of their own. I’ve never been much of a joiner. My profession has supplied almost everything for me as of right, but now I have this urge to attempt something on a public scale.’
    ‘I’m not suggesting that you become one of us, that you have any obligation to adopt a religious stance, just that you might find it helpful to accept some assistance in support of your ideas. We have a community programme which operates nationally for example, and which tries to respond to the needs people have instead of being just a recruiting agency for a political party, or sectional interest group.’
    ‘All I know at present,’ says Slaven, ‘is that I have a compulsion to speak out. I’m bursting with it and I don’t understand why. Maybe it’s some sort of folly that I’ll regret.’
    ‘Do you know Tuamarina?’
    ‘By Blenheim isn’t it.’
    ‘We’re planning a regeneration rally there in the winter. Us in conjunction with the Women’s League and local rural fellowship organisations. I have close ties with both Maori and Pakeha in the area. Come and speak at Tuamarina — a wider audience for your ideas. We get hundreds of people often and they’re just the ones you care most about I’d say. We think Tuamarina is appropriate for an ethnically inclusive meeting because of its history.’
    The young Thomases sit patiently against the house side of the patio and their lips move as their father discusses with Slaven the forthcoming Tuamarina rally, but moving at this time not in a silent rhetorical preparation, but because they enjoy the fruit loaf which Kellie has put before them. They have heavy, luxuriant hair hanging very straight and Kellie finds that their names are Iago and Dafydd. The names are so correct that Kellie can’t resist asking the Rev Thomas why his own Christian name sounds not at all Celtic. ‘There’s Anglo-Saxon in the family,’ he says in a tone which shows that such honesty is painful.
    Kellie asks him also what he finds in Slaven’s views which he thinks should be brought to a wider audience. ‘Fellow feeling, collectivism,’ says Thackeray. ‘An emphasis on the spiritual dimension in everyday matters. People can’t understand the social and political systems any more. They feel angry and threatened and disappointed because of their own ignorance and powerlessness. Most have no way of expressing what’s gone wrong, no concept of what can be done to correct things, so they fall back on isolation and selfishness, dog eat dog. But Aldous has the gift, you see. He’s been chosen to speak on the behalf of others. It’s a wonderful thing that.’
    ‘I’ve only done it once, just to twenty-three people,’ says Slaven.
    ‘It’s plain to see though. Most of those people are talking about it all the time. I’ve developed a skill for public speaking,I’m known for it, but you have the gift you see. Quite different. You’ll always be admired now, or hated, because people won’t be able to ignore what you say.’
    ‘Sounds as if it could be an albatross,’ says Kellie.
    ‘A phoenix, Mrs Slaven,’ says Thackeray. ‘Risen out of the arcing fire; the lightning,’
    ‘The gift is it,’ say Iago and Dafydd in unison as their only contribution.
    See Kellie’s garden spread around them, the sere birch leaves rattling a little on the paving alongside the patio, the anxious sound of the Hammond boy’s remote control model plane from the next four hectare block, the tension creases on the trousers of Iago and Dafydd as they sit politely. Here is the trough to be glimpsed beyond the flowers and shrubs. It has that bright show of green moss and algae at the leak. And on the breeze which rattles the leaves comes the oil-wool-dry shit smell of the hobby Romneys which can be heard cropping grass close to the fence. In the close texture of such boredom surely nothing of significance can be