No, he decided. He was not preaching. Who the hell was he to preach? Out of the Church at sixteen, never been to mass in forty years. This was merely an imaginative inquiry into free will and predestination. Somewhat comforted, he read on, scratching, the White Owl, self-doused, relighted, hooting out foul smoke.

They said to him cheerfully, looking up

From picking a peahen bone or kissing the

Nipple or nates of son, daughter, sister,

Brother, aunt, ewe, teg: Why, stranger,

Hast not heard the good news? That Christ

Took away the burden of our sins on his

Back broad to bear, and as we are saved

Through him it matters little what we do?

Since we are saved once for all, our being

Saved will not be impaired or cancelled by

Our present pleasures (which we propose to

Renew tomorrow after a suitable and well-needed

Rest). Alleluia alleluia to the Lord for he has

Led us to two paradises, one to come and the other

Here and now. Alleluia. And they fell to again,

To nipple or nates or fish baked with datemince,

Alleluia. And Morgan cried to the sky:

How long O Lord wilt thou permit these

Transgressions against thy holiness?

Strike them strike them as thou once didst

The salty cities of the plain, as through

Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron

Thou didst strike down the traitor Zimri

And his foul whore of the Moabite temples Cozbi.

Strike strike. But the Lord did nothing.

Here came the difficulties. This whole business of free will and predestination and original sin had to be done very dramatically. And yet there had to be a bit of sermonising. How the hell? Enderby, who was not at present wearing his spectacles (ridiculous when one was otherwise naked, anyway he only needed them for distance really), gazing vaguely about the bedroom for an answer found none forthcoming. The bookshelves of his landlady sternly turned the backs, spines rather, of their contents towards him: not our business, we are concerned with the real issues of life, meaning women downtrodden by men, the economic oppression of the blacks, counter-culture, coming revolt, Reich, Fanon, third world. Then Enderby, squinting, could hardly believe what he saw. At the bedroom door a woman, girl, female anyway. Covering his genitals with his poem he said:

"What the devil? Who let you? Get out."

"But I have an appointment with you at ten. It's ten after now. It was arranged. I'll, wait in the-Unless-I mean, I didn't expect-"

She had not yet gone. Enderby, pumping strongly at the White Owl as if it would thus make him an enveloping cloud, turned his back to her, covered his bottom with his poem, then found his dressing gown (Rawcliffe's really, bequeathed to him with his other effects) on a chair behind a rattan settee and near to the air conditioner. He clothed himself in it. She was still there and talking.

"I mean, I don't mind if you don't-"

"I do mind," Enderby said. And he flapped towards her on bare feet but in his gown. "What is all this anyway?"

"For Jesus."

"For who, for Christ's sake?" He was close to her now and saw that she was a nice little thing he supposed she could be called, with nicely sculpted little tits under a black sweater stained with, as he supposed, Coke and Pepsi and hamburger fat (good food was what these poor kids needed), long American legs in patched worker's pants. Strange how one never bothered to take in the face here in America, the face didn't matter except on films, one never remembered the face, and all the voices were the same. And then: "They shouldn't have let you in, you know, just like that. You're supposed to be screened or something, and then they ring me up and ask if it's all right."

"But he knows me, the man downstairs. He knows I'm one of your students."

"Oh, are you?" said Enderby. "I didn't quite-Yes," peering at her, "I suppose you could be. We'd better go into the sitting room or whatever they call it." And he pushed past her into the corridor to lead the way.

The room where he was supposed to live (e.g., watch television, play protest songs on his landlady's record player, look out of the window down on the street at acts of violence) was furnished mostly with barbaric nonsense-drums and shields and spears and very ill-woven garish rugs-and you were supposed to sit on pouffes. Enderby waved this girl to a pouffe with one hand and with the other indicated the television set, saying, puffing out White Owl smoke, "I'm to be on that thing there."

"Oh."

"The Blowpipe Show or something. Can't think of the name offhand. What did you say your name was?"

"Oh, you know. Lydia Tietjens." And, as he sat on a neighbouring pouffe, she gave him a playful push, as at his rather nice eccentric foreign silliness.

"Ah yes, of course. Ford Madox Ford. Met him once. He had terrible halitosis, you know. Stood in his way. The Establishment rejected him. And it was because he'd had the guts to fight and get gassed, while the rest of the bastards stayed at home. I say, you're not recording that, are you?" For, he now saw, she had a small Japanese cassette machine and was holding it towards him, rather like a sideswoman with offertory box.

"Just getting a level." And then, after some whirring and clicking, Enderby heard an unfamiliar voice say: rest of the bastards stayed at home i say youre not rec.

"What did you say it was for?"

"For Jesus. Our magazine. Women for Jesus. You know."

"Why just women for Jesus? I thought anyone could join." And Enderby looked with fascination at the Xeroxed thing she brought out of what looked like a British respirator haversack-their magazine, typewritten, as he could see from the last page, with no margin justifying, and the front page just showing the name jesus and a crude portrait of a beardless though plentifully haired messiah.

"But that's not him."

"Right. Not him. What proof is there that it was a him?"

Enderby breathed hard a few times and said: "Would you like what we English call elevenses? Cakes and tea and things? I could cook you a steak if you liked. Or, wait, I have some stew left over from yesterday. It wouldn't take a minute to heat it up." That was the trouble with all of them, poor kids. Half-starved, seeing visions, poisoned with Cokes and hamburgers.

THREE

"Do you believe in God?" she asked, a steak sandwich in one paw and the cassette thing in the other.

"Is that tea strong enough for you?" Enderby asked. "It doesn't look potable to me. One bag indeed. Gnat piss," he added. And then: "Oh, God. Well, believing is neither here nor there, you know. I believe in God and so what? I don't believe in God and so what again? It doesn't affect his own position, does it?"

"Why do you say his?" she hizzed.

"Her, then. It. Doesn't matter really. A matter of tradition and convention and so on. Needs a new pronoun. Let's invent one, unique, just for-himherit. Ah, that's it, then. Nominative heshir. Accusative himrit. Genitive hiserits."

"But you're still putting the masculine first. The heshit bit's all right, though. Appropriate."

"I don't mind what goes first," Enderby said. "Would you like something by Sara Lee? Please yourself then. All right. Shehit Herimit. Herisits. It doesn't affect herisits position whether I believe or not."

"But what happens when you die?"

"You're finished with," Enderby said promptly. "Done for. And even if you weren't-well, you die then, gasp your last, then you're sort of wandering, free of your body. You wander around and then you come into contact with a sort of big thing. What is this big thing? God, if you like. What's it, or shehit, like? I would say," Enderby said thoughtfully, "like a big symphony, the page of the score of infinite length, the number of instruments infinite but all bound into one big unity. This big symphony plays itself for ever and ever. And who listens to it? It listens to itself. Enjoys itself for ever and ever and ever. It doesn't give a bugger whether you hear it or not."