‘I don’t know about tests of faith,’ Season whispered. ‘All I know is that I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’ Mike Bull came up, rolling up his shirtsleeves. He was already growing the beginnings of a beard.

‘That crowd’s looking pretty threatening to me,’ he said to Granger, pressing his face to the window. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if they try breaking in.’

‘Couldn’t we try throwing them out a few cans of food?’ asked Season. ‘Wouldn’t that show them we meant well?’ Mike Bull shook his head. ‘If they think we’ve got food to spare, just to keep them at bay, that’ll only get them worked up even more. Besides, we don’t want to help to prolong their stamina, do we? – not even for one day. Give them two, three days, they’ll be weak as kittens. Then, if we’ve managed to keep them out, they’ll either die, or they’ll try someplace else.’

Sally, rubbing sleep from her eyes, came up and put her arms around Season’s waist. Season stroked her hair, and then bent down and kissed her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It just seems to me that for active church-members, everybody here is acting pretty damn uncharitable.’

Mike Bull said, ‘Listen, lady – this might not seem like charity – but charity’s no use at all unless it works. If we open the doors of this supermarket and let everybody in, our whole stock of food – five months of food – is going to be gone in five minutes. Tomorrow, we’ll be hungry. Now, what’s the point of that? Do you want to see your daughter starve? Do you want to see her ribs showing through her skin? Because if you do, that’s the way to do it.’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said Season, defensively. ‘I don’t want Sally to starve and I don’t want to starve myself. But look at those people out there. They’re just ordinary people, like all of us.’

‘They didn’t follow the Church of the Practical Miracle,’ said Mike Bull, in a level voice. ‘And this, to me, is the practical miracle, with the emphasis on practical. Our people surviving this famine, and coming out the other side.’

Season turned to Granger. ‘I can see why your church was so popular,’ she said, caustically. ‘You were only interested in miracles that helped your unworthy little selves. Wholesome, capitalist, racially-selective, no-bussing. Proposition-thirteen, private-medicine-oriented miracles.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Mike Bull. ‘We let in Hispanics. We even let in blacks. Tony there – he’s Italian – he was going to join.’

‘I haven’t seen any blacks or Hispanics here in the supermarket,’ said Season.

Granger laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Regretfully, we couldn’t contact everybody in time,’ he said.