Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

  'Has KitKat learned to talk since he went to Heaven then?' Trafford asked.

  He said the words without thinking. He was furious with Tinkerbell for the brutal way she had dismissed Chantorria's efforts to bond. What was more, he was also hugely irritated by the ridiculous notion that Honeymilk had special powers. It was obvious to Trafford that Honeymilk, the self-appointed neighbourhood psychic, was a stupid, cloddish woman, a busybody, a gossip and a liar to boot. The idea that this moronic creature was having conversations with toddlers who had died before they learned to speak was simply absurd.

  Trafford certainly knew why he had made the comment but nonetheless he wished that he hadn't. Chantorria's face had gone from bright red to ghostly white. She was terrified. Trafford had dissed a bereaved mother about her departed kiddie. Nothing, literally nothing, could be more calculated to offend the community.

  Barbieheart, who seemed capable of listening to forty conversations at once, was on it like a shot.

  'What did you just say?' she thundered.

  'I . . .' Trafford struggled for a reply.

  'Are you suggesting that Honeymilk hasn't been channelling little KitKat?' Barbieheart asked in horror.

  'He didn't mean that!' Chantorria bleated.

  'Honeymilk . . . feels what my baby's thinking,' Tinkerbell protested.

  Tinkerbell was confused. After all, it was so unlikely that anybody would publicly diss an emoting dysfunctional that she was not entirely sure she had heard Trafford correctly.

  'Of course she feels it,' Barbieheart shouted furiously. 'Honeymilk is a brilliant psychic. She's the dogs. Honeymilk is so there for all of us—'

  'Yes, yes, that's right,' Trafford butted in, knowing that he must extricate himself from this potentially lethal faux pas before the other forty or so people sharing Tinkerbell's pain began to take an interest in what he had said. 'That's exactly what I meant.'

  'What? What did you mean?' Barbieheart demanded suspiciously.

  'How . . . how . . . wonderful it is that, through Honeymilk, Tinkerbell has the comfort of knowing her baby's feelings.'

  'Then what did you mean by asking if KitKat had learned to talk?' Barbieheart asked, still far from convinced.

  'Well, I meant that the fact that Gucci KitKat could not talk when he was alive must make the feelings of his spirit all the more intense. Like talking . . . but even better! An innocent baby can say in feelings so much more than we could ever say in words, and thank the Love we have Honeymilk to . . . to interpret that for us. It's as if Gucci KitKat could talk.' Trafford smiled at the webcam, his face a picture of pious innocence.

  Barbieheart bought it completely.

  'Aaaaah,' she said, all anger gone now and replaced with sugary empathy, 'isn't that a lovely thing to say, Tinkerbell?'

  Tinkerbell smiled on the screen, confident now that she had not been dissed, happy to be loved up.

  'Yes, thanks, Trafford,' she said, 'that's lovely. Yeah. Thanks for being there for me.'

  'Any time,' Trafford replied, smiling, pleased to see the colour returning once more to Chantorria's face.

  12

  'I don't know what I'll do if I lose Caitlin Happymeal,' said Chantorria.

  Their dinner was nearly over now. Chantorria had passed what remained of the meal in the virtual conviviality of the tenement chat room, declaiming and emoting furiously in a self-conscious effort to socialize and ingratiate herself with Barbieheart after the near debacle of Trafford dissing Tinkerbell.

  Now, after almost half an hour, when Trafford could stand the stilted conversation and extravagant professions of faith no longer, he had logged out. He and Chantorria could still be seen and spoken to but their own conversation was muted. The Temple considered this level of privacy socially and spiritually acceptable, even desirable at this time of the evening. As each day drew to a close, men were encouraged to go one-on-one interactively with their current wives in order to nurture their relationships and recommit to each other and to a love of the Love.

  'I know I'd rather die myself,' Chantorria continued.

  'Yes,' Trafford replied, staring into the congealed remains of his ready meal. 'When Strawberry Lovebliss and I lost Phoenix Rising that was how we both felt. I still do feel that way sometimes, when I think of her. How much better it would have been if I had died. Except that then, of course, I would never have met you and we would never have had Caitlin . . .'

  Just then Caitlin Happymeal giggled. She laughed a lot, much more than she cried. Most things seemed to amuse her and the little rope of coloured shapes and rattles that hung above her cot was a particular source of pleasure. She was punching at them and spinning them wildly with her fat little arms and legs, and the more they spun the more she laughed until Trafford and Chantorria could not help laughing too, and for a moment the three of them laughed together over nothing more than a few bright cubes of spinning plastic.

  'I think I'd do anything to protect Caitlin,' Trafford said, still gazing at his little daughter.

  'Well, of course you would. We both would,' Chantorria replied.

  This was the opening that Trafford had been hoping for, a chance to introduce the subject of vaccination, but he hesitated. He did not doubt Chantorria's absolute commitment to their child but he knew that life in the tenement had made her timid and fearful. She would not be an easy person to inveigle into heresy.

  He missed his chance. Chantorria's attention had been drawn back to the screen on which Tinkerbell continued to silently emote. That was the hell of those screens: even when the sound was muted, it was almost impossible to avoid one's eye becoming fixed on them.

  'Both kids gone,' Chantorria said. 'Poor Tinkerbell will have to begin all over again, although not with that bastard Sabre, Love willing.'

  Like everybody else in their building, Trafford and Chantorria were familiar with the detail of Tinkerbell and Sabre's stormy marriage, thanks to the numerous times she and her aggressive, unstable partner had emoted. They were serial emoters, proud victims of every sort of dysfunction. Their violent quarrels and sexually charged reconciliations had never been offline and had of course featured noisily at the Community Confessions. They could also be followed blow by blow and orgasm by orgasm, live, through the thin walls of the building.

  Sabre was a serial adulterer.

  Tinkerbell was a pill-popping pothead.

  Sabre kept trying it on with Tinkerbell's mates.

  Tinkerbell never gave Sabre any anyway.

  There had of course been numerous public reconciliations too, with Confessor Bailey reminding the snarling combatants that only the Lord and the Love could show them the way to learn and to grow. Then, to the cheers of the group, Sabre would enfold Tinkerbell in his arms and sort her out on the floor of the confessional and all briefly would be well.

  'He's going to prison anyway,' Trafford said, not that he was remotely interested in discussing Sabre.

  'You really think they'll bang him up?'

  Sabre was currently on remand, awaiting trial for driving a vanload of thugs into a Muslim ghetto. The gang had kidnapped two youths and beaten them to death with baseball bats.

  'He'll get a year for sure.'

  'Even after they bombed our shopping precinct? Surely not.'

  'It wasn't the kids that Sabre killed who bombed our precinct.'

  'You don't know that.'

  'Yes, I do. The kids who blew up our precinct went up with their own bomb; they're in a billion pieces.'

  'Well, I hope Tinkerbell finds a better fella for her next husband,' Chantorria said. 'She'll need all the strength she can get after losing KitKat.'

  Once more Chantorria had provided Trafford with the opening he needed. This time, tentatively, he began to speak what was on his mind.

  'I met a man today,' he said. 'Well, not met exactly, I've met him lots of times, at work, over cake, you know, and doughnuts. But today I actually talked to him. Or rather he talked to me. He took me to lunch. We had falafels.'

/>   'I can't believe what you said to Tinkerbell about Honeymilk,' Chantorria exclaimed suddenly. 'What got into you? That kind of comment could get you blogged up big time.'

  'I didn't like the way she dissed you when you offered to be there for her.'

  'She's lost a kiddie.'

  'I don't want to talk about Tinkerbell. I'm telling you about this man.'

  'What man?'

  'The one who took me to lunch. His name's Cassius.

  He's quite old.'

  'What about him?'

  'He seemed . . . he seemed to know me.'

  'What do you mean, know you?'

  'I mean he guessed that . . . that sometimes . . . I like to keep things to myself.'

  For the second time that evening the colour drained from Chantorria's face.

  'I told you people would work it out!' she hissed. 'You and your stupid secrets. Why do you have to be so weird! Why do you have to keep things to yourself? What's the point of it? Where does it get you?'

  'It doesn't get me anywhere, love,' Trafford replied patiently. 'It just helps me through the day. You've done the same thing yourself.'

  Trafford looked across the room to where an old Palm Pilot lay on the kitchen bench. It was what they used for shopping lists and keeping their accounts but Trafford knew that occasionally Chantorria used it as a notepad, jotting down little thoughts and observations, things that she did not then copy to her laptop or include in her public blog, things that only she would ever read or know about. Sometimes she even put her secret thoughts in rhyme. There had been a time when Chantorria had shared these little jottings with Trafford. When they had laughed and cried together over the strange and inconsequential things that she had felt the need to write and which he had thought were beautiful and she said were rubbish. Those days were gone now. Only the power of young love had briefly given Chantorria the strength to share a secret.

  'I hardly do that any more,' she protested.

  'I know,' Trafford replied sadly.

  'Besides I don't mean any disrespect to my maker,' Chantorria went on. 'Where's the harm in a little poem?'

  'If there's no harm in them why do you keep them private?'

  'I don't keep them private! I just don't . . . I just forget to blog them, that's all. I'm not weird. I don't think I'm special. And now look, you've been caught and we're in trouble. They know you keep secrets.'

  'Cassius isn't they,' Trafford assured her. 'He's just him and we have nothing to fear from him either.'

  'How do you know he's not a policeman?'

  'A policeman sitting in the corner of my office for years trying to trap me?' Trafford replied. 'Perhaps I'm a bit more important than I had imagined.'

  He felt a little ashamed, directly quoting Cassius's withering response to his own identical paranoia. But it also felt good to say it, to come out with a response based on logic and evidence. Chantorria felt that he might have been entrapped by the authorities; he had deduced that this was enormously unlikely.

  'Besides,' Trafford continued, 'Cassius has a much bigger secret than you or I could ever have. If anyone needs to be worrying about the cops it's him.'

  'Well, that's even worse then. What were you talking to him for? Is he a Muslim terrorist? A sodomite! What does he have to worry about?'

  Trafford told Chantorria how he had been offered the services of a Vaccinator. Chantorria listened in silence but horror was written clearly on her face. When Trafford had finished she angrily demanded that he denounce Cassius to the Temple immediately.

  'Do you think I should?' Trafford asked.

  'I think,' Chantorria whispered urgently, 'that if he's a Vac— one of those awful people and he gets caught, which he will be, and then they Tube him, which is the first thing they'll do, and then they find a vid of you sitting having a falafel with him, you are going to have a lot of trouble explaining why you didn't denounce.'

  'I think we should look at this logically.'

  'I am looking at it logically and don't talk to me like I'm a bloody idiot. You always do that and actually it's you who's being an idiot. Logically it's bloody obvious that when they catch this bloke, logically they'll want to talk to the people he's talked to. That's you, Trafford, and logically what do you think will happen then?'

  'I'm not talking about me, or you for that matter. I'm talking about Caitlin. Supposing this man really can help her survive?'

  'He can't.'

  'Well, all right, how about we say there's a hundred-to-one chance. Would you accept that?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't want to discuss it.'

  'Just think about it for a minute, for Lord's sake.

  Chantorria! Say the odds are a hundred to one that he can help. Shouldn't we still take them? Shouldn't we take any remote, tiny chance to help our daughter grow up healthy? Even a thousand-to-one chance is better than nothing at all! Chantorria, I don't want to go through again what I went through with Phoenix Rising. I don't know if I can.'

  'Trafford, they burn Vaccinators.'

  'Only when they catch them. He doesn't think he will be caught,' Trafford replied. 'He doesn't think they notice things.'

  'They notice everything.'

  'We've always assumed that they do. But maybe they don't.'

  'Trafford, you have to denounce him.'

  'I'm not going to denounce him.'

  'He's an enemy of faith. Protecting him puts us all in danger.'

  'I think we should put Caitlin's safety before our own.'

  'Of course we should! We do, always!'

  'Then I think we should have her inoculated.'

  'Is this a terrible sick joke?' Chantorria asked furiously.

  'No, of course it isn't.'

  'Well, stop fucking grinning then!' Chantorria shouted into Trafford's face.

  Trafford had indeed been grinning, following the policy Cassius had suggested of not provoking attention by appearing furtive. He relaxed his face, reflecting that it was in fact Chantorria's expression which was least likely to draw attention from any web spies who might be snooping. It was far more common for the residents of his little rabbit warren to be screaming at each other than smiling.

  'I think we should allow this man to inoculate Caitlin,' Trafford repeated.

  'I don't believe I'm hearing this. Please tell me you're not serious.'

  'I think . . . I think that we have to do everything we can to protect our daughter.'

  'You want to allow a total stranger to stick dirty needles into her? I don't call that protection.'

  Chantorria went to Caitlin Happymeal and picked her up and hugged her, as if she expected Trafford to produce a great spike there and then and murder the infant with it on the video game table. Perhaps Caitlin somehow sensed Chantorria's fear, for mother and daughter both now seemed to be staring at Trafford accusingly. Physically Caitlin was much more Chantorria's daughter than her father's; she had the same lovely olive-toned skin and huge dark eyes. Now all eyes were on Trafford and for a moment he felt like a stranger in his own family.

  'I don't think the needles they use are dirty,' he replied quietly.

  'You said yourself they're filled with the same poison they are supposed to protect the child from! Trafford, they fill those needles with disease.'

  'You're not stupid, Chantorria. You know the theory as well as I do,' Trafford replied, angry now that he was being forced on to the defensive.

  'It's not a theory, it's witchcraft.'

  'A small dose of the bacteria educates the child's immune system.'

  'And you believe that?' Chantorria asked incredulously. 'It's voodoo, Trafford, black magic. It's—'

  'All I know is that I've analysed a decade's worth of figures from a period just Before The Flood . . .'

  'Monkey time.'

  'Call it what you like but the fact is that in those days all the children survived.'

  'I don't believe it. It just couldn't be. The Love gathers the children unto him, that's all. It's
a fact of life, it can't be changed.'

  'It was changed, Chantorria! And not by God but by man. Before The Flood almost no children died in infancy.'

  'Yes! Yes, Before The Flood! And why did the Love visit the flood upon the monkey men? Because of their vanity! Because of their arrogance! Because of their stories and because they thought they could obstruct the purpose of the Lord by sticking needles full of poison into their children like the witches they were!'

  'You don't know that the flood was a result of God's anger with man. You've only been told it.'

  'We know there was a flood. We know half the world drowned. We know the Muzzies got it worse than we did. Who else do you think sent it but God? And why, if not to punish man for forgetting and denying him?'

  'The world got warmer, that's all we know. It's still getting warmer. Ice melted, the seas rose. That is all we know.'

  'We know that we deserved to be punished.'

  Trafford did not believe her. He knew that she was intelligent, that she had an enquiring mind. He did not believe that she accepted without question the orthodox teaching of the Temple any more than he did. Nonetheless, faced with the fear of being accused of heresy, she had become as pious as any Princess Lovebud or Barbieheart.

  In the end that was how they made people believe. Through fear.

  'Try to think about Caitlin instead of yourself,' he said. 'Surely we have to give our baby any chance we can. Any chance.'

  'I don't wish to discuss it. I won't discuss it.'

  Chantorria refused to speak further on the matter. They finished their meal without saying another word, after which Chantorria changed Caitlin Happymeal's nappy and Trafford threw away the tea things. Then they went to bed. They were exhausted. Caitlin Happymeal kept them up most of the night and they had got into the habit of going to bed as early as her in order to snatch what sleep they could.

  They didn't sleep, of course. Caitlin was whingeing in the heat just like every other infant in the building. Some were ill, of course, coughing and sneezing, and it seemed to Trafford as if all of them were in the same room as him and Chantorria.