by Ben Elton
'Well, of course she does. Of course, she thinks all of those things.'
Confessor Bailey stood back and solemnly laid his hand upon Trafford's brow. 'Then you will share the birthing video forthwith?'
'Yes . . . yes, I will, Father. Of course. I'm sorry,' Trafford replied.
'Good,' said the Confessor, smiling once more. 'You send my big love big time to Chantorria and to little Happymeal. Don't forget now.'
4
Trafford bid Bailey an obsequious farewell, hugely relieved to have got away without the prospect of official censure from the pulpit, and turned once more to face the crowd that was attempting to enter the tube station. A wall of gleaming, sweating, half-naked and occasionally entirely naked bottoms confronted him. Bottoms hanging over shorts, bottoms clamped around thongs. All or a part of every single buttock in the crowd was on display. Huge or petite, saggy or pert. Hairy, waxed, deep cleavages, mottled cheeks. Stretch marks, surgical scars, extravagant tattoos and love bites. Proud bottoms. In-your-face bottoms. Bottoms that were as good as anybody else's bottom.
Trafford knew that never in his life would he get used to the casual display of so much flesh. He did not want to see these bottoms; he did not want his vision busied with the endless quirks of other people's bodies. No matter how hard he tried not to notice, small details kept forcing themselves to the forefront of his consciousness and they made him queasy. He wished that these people would cover themselves up.
It wasn't that he found nakedness objectionable in itself. It was only that something in him felt that flesh should be presented artfully, with mystery even, not forced upon a person. It was the same with breast enlargements. He knew the logic: if boobs were attractive, surely then the larger the better. What was not to like? It was undeniable, and yet somehow he suspected that sometimes less might be more.
He never said this to anyone, not even to Chantorria. He knew only too well how threatened and uncomfortable people would feel if he were to reveal to them that he had a problem with looking at their naked buttock divisions. They would denounce him on the web boards; they would say that his failure to applaud the pride that they took in their body images was sacrilegious. Had they not all been made in God's image? Therefore anybody who had a problem with a person's appearance must also have a problem with God. They would hint darkly that only those who believed that the apes were man's brother had any reason to be ashamed of any aspect of humanity. It was dangerous enough that he was himself excessively modest in his dress. Declining to expose his own body an inch more than the heat and stern social convention dictated, he always wore a T-shirt rather than a vest and his shorts stretched almost halfway to his knees. Indeed so overdressed was he in comparison to the norm that it was not uncommon for people to accuse him of being a Muslim and tell him to get back to the ghetto or better still, to where he came from, if it was still above water.
Trafford attempted to put these thoughts from his mind and, fighting down the nausea that was mounting in his stomach, began for the second time that morning to shuffle his way towards the gates of the tube station. A news and infotainment loop was playing on the screens which hung above the gates. It was the same loop that had been playing on the lamp posts that lined the streets along which Trafford had walked to get to the station. It was also flickering, unbidden, on his travel card and had without doubt been playing in the lift that he had avoided that morning. All the same loop. So many platforms on which to view, so little to be viewed.
In Entertainment News various stars were engaged in ferocious struggles with their personal demons, struggles which with the help of God they were determined to win. In News News more huge bombs had gone off in crowded places. The army was doing a tough job under very difficult circumstances in the various peacekeeping zones around the world, and also in policing the walls of Christendom as a billion cholera-ravaged infidels massed at the gates pleading for a glass of clean water. In more mundane domestic news there had been a number of instances of vigilantism and People's Justice (with which the authorities sympathized but which they could not officially condone) and the government appeared to be standing idly by while a highly organized fifth column of paedophiles infiltrated the community.
In Weather News there were the usual broken sea defences, collapsed pumping stations and floods everywhere.
Trafford wondered why they did not simply play the same tape each day. It was always the same news and by 9 a.m. everybody had learned by heart the small variations in personalities and locations anyway.
Two more loops, he reckoned, and he'd be through the gates.
Hundreds believed dead . . .
He couldn't hear the soundtrack any more, not deep within the crowd. The commentary had merged with the cacophony created by the personal communitainment devices that hung from every neck.
The bomber, who was seventeen . . .
Uh! Uh! Duf duf! Duf duf!
Died when his . . .
Girl, you truly could be a star . . .
Trafford stuffed his own muted earphones deeper into his ears to try to shut out the noise. He was always trying to shut out the noise, along with the sight of people's bodies, and the smell. Sweat, perfumed toilet products and food. Above all, food.
The majority of people were eating as they shuffled forward, listening to their communitainers, staring at the video loop and pushing food into their mouths. It seemed that not a single sensory organ was in repose. It would be worse on the train, of course. Trafford was dreading it: a packed, baking hot tin can full of people eating pizzas and burgers and chicken and healthy chocolate-and-cereal brunch bars. He took out an extra strong peppermint, the only thing that got him through his journey without being sick. Unfortunately it was becoming increasingly difficult to track down peppermints that were not coated in chocolate. Shop assistants found it inexplicable that he asked for them. What was not to like about chocolate?
5
In some ways Trafford enjoyed Fizzy Coffs. He loathed crowds but he was not averse to company, not least because he sensed that one or two of his colleagues at NatDat kept, as he did, a part of themselves private. He would never know for sure, of course. That was the point about privacy: it was private, which was what made it so special. The pressure to share and to emote was so all-encompassing it was exhausting.
A banner hung from the roof of Trafford's office. How do you feel? it asked. Tell someone right now! This was a slogan promoted by the Ministry of Well-being, alongside Sharing. What's not to like?
All day long on the TV, the radio and over the web the community was constantly cajoled to ring in and emote.
'Tell us how you feel,' the DJs demanded. 'We want to hear from you! What's making you angry?'
Every health worker and spiritual adviser had the same message: 'Deal with your issues. Be proud of your feelings. Confront your demons. Talk about yourself! '
Above all, this was the message of the Temple.
'Man is God's work!' Confessor Bailey thundered to his congregation. 'Everything we are, everything we do, everything we say is the creation of the Lord and the Love.
Therefore, when we talk about ourselves we are actually talking about God! Each thought we have, each word we say, each part of the bodies in which we exult is a gift from the Love and should be held up high for all to see! A desire for privacy is a denial of the Love and he who denies the Love has no faith!'
Trafford wanted privacy, or even just a bit of peace. Every day he wanted to shout, 'Here's an idea: why don't we all shut up for five minutes?' But it was a very serious crime to have no faith.
It had not always been a crime. The Temple liked to imply that it had been but it had not. Trafford knew this because the change in the law had come about in his own lifetime. The statutory obligation to have faith was the very first of the Wembley Laws, or People's Statutes to give them their legal title.
As all laws were now Wembley Laws, it was increasingly difficult to recall a time when there had been any other
form of legislation, but there had been. When Trafford was a boy, laws had still been the creation of a misguided, corrupt, out of touch, elected élite who called themselves Members of Parliament.
The change had come about due to the growing frustration within the community and particularly within the High Council of the Temple that the elected lawmakers were not 'listening to the people'. No matter which group of politicians was elected to govern, they always found themselves immediately out of step with the 'will of the people' and, what was worse, they refused to listen to it and learn. It seemed almost to be a function of government that it existed to frustrate the clear-sighted common sense of men and women of faith.
Strangely, this problem bothered the politicians as much as it did the people themselves. Of course it was in a politician's own interest to legislate for whatever it was that the people wanted. The question was how best could the elected representatives hand back power to the electorate?
The first solution they tried was the instant plebiscite. Major issues were put before the people online and the people were then invited to vote and, if they wished, suggest alternatives and amendments. This had been a disaster, promoting as it did not the will of the people but the will of the person, the individual. For it was very soon discovered that while crowds can be controlled, individuals often act independently, and in the great democracy of the net any computer-literate paedophile or ape lover could communicate with the entire world and any number of points of view could be exhibited and canvassed. Anarchy ensued and, astonishingly, it became increasingly difficult to define what the 'will of the people' actually was.
It was the Confessors of the Temple who came up with the solution. Physical laws would be made by physical people. It would be a return to the very definition of democracy. The Temple had access to the people, the Temple regularly organized vast gatherings of the people. What could be more obvious than to grant these gatherings law-making powers? The Holy Order was announced at the weekly Wembley Stadium Faith Festival. These were the celebrations at which charismatic believers from all over the capital convened to share their heartache, rejoice in the Love and testify to their faith. The stadium held 250,000 people and so it was decreed that any gathering of that number who could be seen to speak with one voice should be able to make a law.
Since it was only the Temple who were in a position to stage such events and also the Temple which controlled the New New Wembley Stadium, the only venue that could hold so vast a crowd, it followed that the Temple would henceforth make the laws and government would become merely an organ of administration. This development, besides being solid common sense, was also legal in every way, even under the old laws. For even in the time of ignorance BTF, it had been a crime to incite religious hatred and what could be more calculated to incite religious hatred than to deny the will of the faithful?
The first Wembley Laws passed were inevitably the Faith Laws and the most important Faith Law of all was the one that made it illegal to have no faith. This statute also drew legitimacy from the old laws BTF, for even then it had been an offence to denigrate another person's religion. The Temple simply argued that if a person had no faith themselves then clearly that person did not believe in the faith held by others, and if you did not believe in something then how could you possibly respect it? A person must therefore, by law, have faith.
6
The one thing about Fizzy Coff days that Trafford loathed with a passion was the Gr'ug. The Gr'ug, or Group Hug, was a compulsory part of the communal working experience. Trafford tried to avoid them as often as possible by being absent on little office errands or feigning sickness in the lavatory, but he had to be careful: repeated absences could provoke severe censure and even denunciation at Confession. Therefore on the majority of occasions the Gr'ug had to be faced.
'Gather round, everybody,' a cheery voice shouted.
It was Princess Lovebud. Princess Lovebud always initiated the Gr'ugs, though she had no specific authority to do this since there were no ranks or degrees of seniority among Trafford's immediate colleagues.
Officially hierarchy was kept to a minimum in government workplaces in order to avoid damaging people's self-esteem and making them feel uncomfortable. Personal aspiration was of course statutory. It was a Wembley Law.
Any person who is prepared to dream the dream can be whatever they want to be. By law.
This law was one of the many inconsistencies of life that Trafford noted every day and which troubled him deeply. Just as it was against the law to denigrate a person's faith, it was also illegal to doubt or deny the practical reality of their ambitions and aspirations, or 'dreams' as they were popularly known. Trafford could not understand this. Everybody he had ever met wanted to be hugely rich and famous and yet not one of them had ever become so. In fact, as things got progressively harder, hotter and more crowded in the city, people's lives were quite clearly getting worse. Nonetheless the concrete certainty that each person could have everything they ever wanted simply by wanting it was a statutory human right.
Trafford could see that reality contradicted official dogma every day and in every way. Yet still people believed (or claimed to believe) that dreams could and would come true and it was legally required of Trafford that he believe in their belief. Something simply wasn't making sense.
To Trafford's mind, nothing made sense, particularly God. Once he had heard a woman shouting on a street corner. She had insisted that if God, the Love, the Creator, the Supreme Being, cared so much about kiddies, why were so many of them dying in pain? She had been holding a baby to her lactating breast as she spoke and when the police finally prised it from her it was discovered to be dead. The woman had voiced a contradiction that had occurred to Trafford many times. It must, he felt, have occurred to everybody. Yet the woman was arrested for incitement to religious hatred and Trafford never saw her again.
So many laws contradicted actual personal experience, which was why, despite the absence of official rank in the workplace, there was nonetheless a strict pecking order. It was based on the conspicuous public display of spiritual orthodoxy and in Trafford's little world Princess Lovebud was top dog. Princess Lovebud was so filled with faith that Trafford wondered how there was any room left inside her for the doughnuts which she consumed throughout the day.
Princess Lovebud believed in everything. First and foremost, of course, she believed in the Lord and the Love and the law of the Temple. It also went without saying that she believed in Baby Jesus and that Baby Jesus wanted Princess Lovebud to dream the dream and to be anything and everything that she wanted to be. But Princess Lovebud's all-consuming faith went further. She was a trained astrologer, a tarot reader, a white witch and a departmental Slimmer of the Year (using the power of faith). She practised only tantric sex and claimed to be a Buddhist in that she believed absolutely in the power of love and the healing strength of being her own person. All these faiths were entirely consistent with the teachings of the Temple, since it was assumed that all faith was simply a faith in the Love by another name. The obvious exceptions to this law were the designated 'false faiths', Islam, that great 'other', and of course the dirty Jews.
Princess Lovebud certainly had faith. She was (as she constantly reminded people) a deeply, deeply spiritual person. She was also as dangerous as a pit bull if crossed and would diss you big time on the office blog if she detected, even for a moment, a lack of respect for her or her family.
Trafford suspected that she was an informer for the Inquisition.
'Group Hug!' Princess Lovebud shouted, smiling broadly and throwing wide her arms, and then, in a grating imitation of a little girl, she added, 'Wanna hug, need a hug, got to have a hu-u-u-u-g.'
Trafford and his colleagues dutifully assembled in the centre of the open-plan office and formed a circle with their arms entwined and heads bowed solemnly towards the centre. Trafford, to his horror, found himself standing next to Princess Lovebud, laying his arm across her naked back, or at lea
st as far as it would go, for Princess Lovebud was proud to be a woman of size and Trafford's arm was not long enough to hook itself around her waist. He was instead forced to leave it resting across the great folded muffin top that bulged over her satin thong. This position was agonizingly ambiguous. How much pressure to apply? Too little would indicate a lack of joy and commitment to the communal experience, while too much might bring forth an accusation of harassment and disrespect. Princess Lovebud was terrifyingly unpredictable and a charge of abuse from one rumoured to have contacts in the Inquisition was too alarming even to think about.
'O Lord, O Love, O Lord of Love,' Princess Lovebud chanted loudly as Trafford struggled to keep his arm from shaking, 'grant us the serenity to be ourselves and to love ourselves and to be everything that we want to be. To dream the dream and to live the dream as you want us to do, O Lord. Each day is an open door; let us have the courage to step through it and not to close it behind us, that others might step through it also. You made me in your image, Lord, and so it is my duty to love myself as you love me. I believe that children are the future. Amen.'
'Amen,' the circle echoed at the top of their voices.
'And speaking of children,' Princess Lovebud shouted, like some holiday-camp master of ceremonies about to announce the raffle prize, 'I believe Trafford has some news for us!'
All eyes turned to Trafford. He should have seen it coming, of course; obviously a woman like Princess Lovebud would never allow a big cake moment like the birth of a kiddie to pass un-caked, and yet he was at a loss what to say.
'Yes,' he stammered, 'that's right . . . Chantorria has had a baby girl.'
'Well, don't sound so happy about it!' Princess Lovebud shrieked with steely-edged good humour, adding, 'A little girl! A girly girl! May she have enormous proud boobies and may her daddy buy her even bigger ones!'
Everybody laughed heartily and then cheered. People shouted, 'Way to go' and 'Bring it on' and Trafford was high-fived and hugged and kissed.