by Ben Elton
'Yeah, you, Ninja, don't you shake your head cos you know you done it. He was sorting out my sister on the couch, right? And when I told him he was out of order and that I felt uncomfortable and threatened by his behaviour he told me he'd already done my mum!'
The chorus of boos that met this testimony was deafening. Throughout it, Ninja, Angel Delight, who was the sister concerned, and Heavenly Braveheart, the mother, continued to shake their heads and make gestures of defiance at the crowd.
Confessor Bailey turned to Ninja.
'Well, Ninja?' he asked. 'Is it true? Did you have sex with your wife's mother and sister on the family couch while she was at the shops?'
'She's always out at the shops,' Ninja protested, shaking his big tattooed arm at Madonnatella.
'I am so not always out at the shops,' Madonnatella replied, shaking her fist back.
'Answer the question, Ninja,' Confessor Bailey insisted sternly. 'Did you sort out your own mother-in-law and sister-in-law on your family sofa?'
'Well, maybe I did. I ain't perfect, I know that,' Ninja said, 'but so what, big deal, move on. Madonnatella should get over herself and find closure.'
Angel Delight and Heavenly Braveheart nodded vigorously at this.
'Angel Delight,' Confessor Bailey said, turning to the sister, struggling once more to force his voice above the chorus of boos and cheers with which the crowd reacted to Ninja's excuse. 'You gave a piece of your big arse to your sister's husband. Doesn't that make you a wicked, cheating, conniving, disgusting bitch?'
Angel Delight rose to her feet, her tattooed breasts heaving as she stared down the baying crowd.
'Yes, yes, I am! I'm a bitch, all right? I know I'm a bitch . . . but I am one sexy bitch, right!'
There were many whoops of appreciation for this defiant stance, which Angel Delight acknowledged by turning round, wiggling her bottom at the crowd and then doing a little dance.
'And if my sister can't keep her husband interested,' she went on, 'then I've got every right to get in there and sort him out. He's fantastic and I love him and we have amazing sex and he really understands the needs of a woman and he's dead sensitive and caring and that and we do everything together and he says I'm the best he's ever had and he's never had nothing like it.'
This vigorous defence won Angel Delight a great deal of support among the crowd and the mood of the room began to shift against Madonnatella.
'OK. That worked. The people like that,' Confessor Bailey shouted. 'The people like your pride, Angel Delight, they like your sassy style. But what about Mum? We haven't heard from Mum yet. OK, Heavenly Braveheart, bottom line. Isn't sexing your own son-in-law the greatest betrayal any mother could visit upon the daughter of her womb?'
'I kept the family home together,' Heavenly Braveheart protested. 'If me and Angel hadn't given Ninja what he needed he would have gone and got it elsewhere. We kept him in the family. I reckon we done Madonnatella a good turn.'
This argument produced loud applause, not least from Ninja himself. He sat clapping and nodding earnestly, giving every impression that, if anything, he felt he was the injured party.
'I hear you, Heavenly Braveheart. I hear you!' Confessor Bailey shouted. 'Family matters! Family is important! Nothing is more sacred in the eyes of the Lord than family. And while the Temple cannot condone a man enjoying the conjugal favours of his sister-in-law and his mother-in-law, I say there are worse things in the eyes of the Lord and the Love. Therefore I say to you, Madonnatella, the mote lies in your eye, for were Ninja satisfied in the communion of your loins he would not be seeking loinful communion elsewhere in the loins of your sister and mother. Therefore I say hug, make up, move on, find closure, get over yourself and put your house in order.'
This invitation led to Madonnatella assuring the Confessor that she would not only put her house in order but that she would do it immediately. Pulling off her brassiere, she strode across to Ninja and shook her enormous breasts in his face.
'These good enough for you?' she screamed. 'I'll show you amazing sex. I'll make Angel Delight look frigid! I'll make that cow look like a stick of wood!'
The crowd's mood shifted once more and this gesture of self-confidence won the day. They cheered and stamped their feet and Ninja, having punched the air a number of times in celebration, fell upon his wife, declaring that he loved her so much that he would never look at another female member of her family again.
The following two testifications progressed along similarly hysterical lines. The congregation showed enormous interest in the conflict between a distraught woman's personal inclinations and the insistence of her tarot reader that she must leave the man she loved. After considerable agonizing, Confessor Bailey ruled that the woman must take her spiritual guru's advice. It was, after all, impossible to ignore the workings of fate and clearly the planets and the stars (which were the creation of the Love) were pulling the woman towards new horizons that did not include her current love. Confessor Bailey expressed his confidence that new love was just around the corner.
Next up, Confessor Bailey summoned to the stage a couple for whom the wife's reluctance to allow her husband anal sex was causing issues in their marriage. Not only was the husband becoming frustrated but it was also putting him at a social disadvantage down the pub, where he was the laughing stock of his mates, whose partners, he claimed, were up for anything. There were numerous interjections from the floor on this subject, both for and against the husband's position. A number of women and some men stated that if the wife had issues with taking it from behind then she should not feel pressurized to do so. Many people pointed out that, as there was no possibility of begetting children from such a practice, it should be a matter of personal taste whether one indulged in it. The husband was loudly booed for claiming that a lack of interest in sodomy indicated frigidity. On the other hand a large body of opinion in the room felt that the woman should simply grit her teeth, stop moaning and get on with it. After all, it was well known that what a man could not get at home he would get elsewhere and there were plenty of bitches out there who would think nothing of stealing a woman's husband. Eventually the Confessor announced that, having taken into consideration the feelings of the assembly, he would rule in favour of the wife.
'A woman's big arse is a gift that she may bestow or withhold,' he intoned solemnly. 'It is not given to this congregation to suggest otherwise.'
Trafford's head was splitting. The heat and the stench of sweat in the room were overpowering and the frenzied emotions and hysterical shouting of the congregation battered his eardrums like an artillery assault. He was asking himself how much more he could take when finally Confessor Bailey summoned him and Chantorria to the stage.
'Trafford has stopped giving Chantorria that which any respectable woman has a right to expect from her husband,' the Confessor announced to a smattering of boos, 'and what's more, it appears that he gets his kicks perving on the blogs and video diaries of other women!'
Confessor Bailey tried to make it sound exciting but the crowd knew a bog standard break-up when they saw one. Trafford and Chantorria were no star couple. They were unknown outside the tenement in which they lived and pretty much ignored within it. Conservatively dressed and clearly uncomfortable to be the focus of so many eyes, they were not glamorous either. The crowd liked their testifiers to strut, to big themselves up and to play to the gallery and Trafford and Chantorria were a major disappointment.
'Hey! Be proud!' Confessor Bailey admonished as they shuffled to their places. 'Don't you want to emote to the congregation of which you are a member?'
'Yes, yes, of course we do,' Trafford said as he took his seat.
'Well then, let's get to it! Chantorria,' Bailey asked, 'tell us why your marriage is on the rocks.'
'We've grown apart,' Chantorria replied. 'It just feels like it's over, that's all.'
This was not a testification likely to provoke much excitement in the crowd.
'What about his perving o
n blogs and other girls' vid diaries?' Confessor Bailey demanded, clearly hoping to add a little spice to the proceedings. 'Doesn't it make you uncomfortable that he finds other girls more attractive than you? Don't you have issues with that situation? Don't you feel threatened by it?'
'Not girls, Confessor,' Chantorria explained. 'He's always looking up this one girl, her name's . . .'
And as Chantorria said those words, Trafford saw her. Sandra Dee.
She was a member of his own congregation! He knew instantly why he had never spotted her before. This was the first time in years that he had testified, the first time in as long as he could remember that he had viewed the whole room from the stage. Normally he never saw the faces of his fellow worshippers, only the backs of their heads. He saw their faces now though – and there she was, sitting crushed in at the rear of the tiered seating. Crushed in but clearly alone. That was why she had caught his eye among the crowd: she was so very different. She wasn't shouting or shaking her fist. She had not leaped to her feet and her face was not contorted with rage; she was just sitting there, alone. A still figure in a frenzied crowd, her face calm, blank even. Giving nothing away.
'Sandra Dee,' said Chantorria, completing her sentence.
Now Sandra Dee's expression changed as it dawned on her that a colleague had been cyberstalking her. She looked shocked of course but also, Trafford felt, scared.
'Who is this Sandra Dee, Trafford?' Confessor Bailey thundered. 'Is she the reason you are no longer interested in your wife?'
Sandra Dee was staring at him, her face glowing red. Now their eyes met and instead of looking away as he had expected her to do, she continued to stare. Her gaze burned into him, a silent, furious accusation. Here was a woman who had gone to extraordinary lengths to remain private and he had caused her name to be cited publicly from the stage of a Community Confession; what was more, cited as the only tangible evidence in a divorce case. In the end it was Trafford who looked away, unable to meet her eyes any longer for the guilt and remorse that they provoked in him.
'No!' Trafford shouted. 'Absolutely not! I don't know her at all. It was just a random blog, a hit that . . . a hit that intrigued me.'
Trafford and Sandra Dee might have been finding this exchange intense but for the crowd it was a very dull business. They wanted passion, sex, blood even. They weren't interested in some nonentity net-perving on a girl he had not even had sex with. Confessor Bailey could see that the congregation was getting restive and decided to move on, granting them their notice of intended separation and dismissing them from the stage.
As Trafford crossed the room to resume his seat he did not look up towards where Sandra Dee was sitting but he was certain that she was still staring at him. He could almost feel the heat of her eyes burning holes in him.
'Well, that's over with,' Chantorria said as they sat down. But Trafford knew that she was wrong.
23
The measles-plus epidemic, when it came, was shocking in its suddenness and severity. These epidemics always were. The Lord and the Love, as Confessor Bailey often said, had no time to mess around.
'Oh, he's got a temper,' the Confessor assured his congregation, 'and when he smites, he smites hard. Some people call it vengeance, which of course it is, but I like to call it tough love.'
There were those who believed that other factors were causing the ever-increasing severity of the epidemics. The reckless overuse of antibiotics had played a part, they felt, as had appalling diet, sinking standards of public hygiene and deteriorating water quality in what was now a subtropical climate. These issues were discussed on the more serious chat shows and various health-orientated websites. Never for a moment was it suggested that these factors were anything other than God's work; people merely hinted that man in his sin might like to consider eating more fruit and vegetables, and completing the courses of those antibiotics that were still being prescribed.
The truth was that the deadly potential of all the major diseases grew with each new plague and measles, or measles-plus as it was now known, was no exception. The virus was constantly evolving so that each time it returned it was more violent and more deadly than before.
It was the same with mumps-plus, whooping cough-plus, meningitis-plus and all the other diseases of childhood. For it was in pre-faith-school illnesses that the deterioration in public health was most alarming. Infant afflictions that had once been survivable had steadily become more and more lethal. Conversely, those who survived the first few years of their lives seemed better placed to fight off the plagues of adulthood. As Confessor Bailey said, those who were chosen to survive were clearly righteous and strong and favoured in the sight of the Lord. Or, according to the health websites, they had developed viral immunity due to some fortunate minor exposure (which had of course been arranged, in his wisdom, by the Lord). But infants, in their innocence, had developed neither righteousness nor viral immunity and therefore a great winnowing regularly took place in the cot and the nursery.
Trafford and Chantorria became aware that there was measles-plus in their building one morning as they sat down to breakfast. Just as the news was being broadcast to the wallscreens in their kitchen, Trafford and Chantorria heard the first mother sobbing through the thin fabric of Inspiration Towers. A new strain of measles-plus had been identified and it was ripping through their little community like a hurricane, borne upon every cough, every sneeze and every breath. The authorities were already setting up a quarantine zone around the half-dozen tower blocks that made up the estate.
Chantorria looked at Trafford, her face a picture of alarm and misery. This was the moment every parent dreaded, to be trapped on the wrong side of a quarantine fence, imprisoned in a hotbed of infection. The authorities would not lift the barriers until the disease had run its course.
'Caitlin looks fine!' she wailed. 'They have to let us out before she gets it!'
'You know they won't,' Trafford replied. 'They never do.'
It was true: everyone had heard stories of distraught parents trying to storm quarantine fences with their children in their arms. It never worked. The police were prepared to shoot rather than risk infection escaping.
'But she looks well!' Chantorria lamented once more.
'That's right, she does.'
'They have to let us out!'
'Chantorria.' Trafford spoke quietly. 'They are not going to let us out. We're quarantined. But all the same, I think she will be OK.'
Chantorria was hardly listening. Already she had placed a mask sprayed with air freshener over Caitlin Happymeal's face and she was now stuffing wet rags into the crack at the foot of the front door in an effort to keep out the germ-laden air.
'Chantorria,' Trafford repeated, 'I said I think she may be OK.'
His wife looked up at him angrily.
'Think! Think!' she shouted. 'What's fucking thinking got to do with anything? We need to pray!'
'Don't you think they're all praying, Chantorria?' Trafford asked. 'In every room in this building they're praying to the very same God who they claim sent the damn plague in the first place.'
Chantorria was crying now, tears of impotent panic.
'Well, we have to do something,' she wailed. 'Help me seal the windows . . . or go and buy some lavender . . . or just shut up and read one of your stupid manuals! Anything. We have to do something. We can't just let her die.'
'I don't think she is going to die,' Trafford replied. 'You see, Chantorria, I already did do something.'
Chantorria looked at him, hope starting in her eyes.
'You mean . . . ?'
'Yes. I had Caitlin inoculated.'
Within hours the tenement was filled with the sound of weeping, as baby after baby succumbed to the fever and mother after mother succumbed to despair. Toddlers and little children had more strength to sweat it out but the smallest all quickly became very sick. All, that is, except Caitlin Happymeal.
In and out of the streets and corridors of the estate and all
through every building mothers watched helplessly as their infants' eyes grew redder and throats grew more painful. As long as the symptoms were similar to those of a cold or flu there was still hope, slim hope but hope nonetheless. Each parent tried to believe that their child had only caught a chill and would prove miraculously resistant to the carnage enveloping the community. But once the spots arrived people knew in their hearts that hope was lost and all that remained was prayer. The spots began around the ears and spread to the body, growing in size and number until they formed a solid rash, a rash that sucked the life out of the infected babies as their temperatures rose and rose. With the rashes the weeping of the mothers decreased, to be replaced by the deep sadness of silence as parents sat over cots awaiting the inevitable. Such was the suddenness and ferocity of the epidemic that almost every child suffered simultaneously, and thus the numbing pain of the mothers was synchronized also. On the Dying Day, as such days had come to be called, a terrible hush descended across the whole estate as in the space between two sunsets a tiny generation succumbed.
When the local health department finally lifted the quarantine, one month after the fevers had begun, in Inspiration Towers no child under one survived.
No child, that is, except Caitlin Happymeal.
Caitlin had remained unaffected and oblivious to the tragedy going on around her, and as the tiny coffins were carried from the building she played happily in her cot.
With Caitlin's miraculous survival came a change in Chantorria. The month that the family had spent cooped up in their apartment while the air rang with the agony of dying babies had affected her deeply. The long nights of watching Caitlin, scarcely daring to hope that Trafford's act of heresy might save her, had also left their mark. Chantorria became rather distracted and, to Trafford's astonishment, bearing in mind the nature of Caitlin's deliverance, more spiritual.
Their divorce had been only days away from finalization when the plague struck. But the couple had put everything on hold during the quarantine period and now it seemed that Chantorria had changed her mind. She wanted reconciliation.