Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

  Trafford knew exactly what Cassius would say. The first rule of the Humanist movement was never to draw attention to oneself. On the other hand, Trafford reflected, Cassius had always insisted that the best form of deception was a bold front and you could not get much bolder than being the unwitting star of an infotainment loop. Besides which, being in the favour of the Temple could hardly be a bad thing. He had been able to use his new status to defend Sandra Dee at work and so bring her into the movement, and who knew what other opportunities might arise for him to put his spiritually elevated position to good use?

  This thought (and another alcopop) brought Trafford's mind uncomfortably round to Confessor Bailey and his obvious interest in Chantorria. Suddenly he was angry; furious even. Not jealous, or at least he didn't think it was jealousy. After all, he was in love with Sandra Dee, and under normal circumstances nothing would have been more convenient than for Chantorria to develop an attraction elsewhere. Trafford was angry with Bailey's sudden interest because it was so stupid. Clearly Bailey wanted Chantorria because he had convinced himself that she was holy, a spiritually blessed woman, favoured by God, the mother of a miracle angel. Elders of the Temple always reserved the best of everything for themselves and that usually included the pick of the local women (for those who were not confirmed bachelors). Bailey was pursuing Chantorria because she was his due.

  Just then Chantorria returned from Tinkerbell's flat. Trafford was by then halfway through his third drink but the alcohol was not helping to lighten his mood. Chantorria was wearing a matching bra and thong in virginal white which, she explained, the girls had given her as a present to celebrate being on the news.

  'Sweet, isn't it?' Chantorria said, taking up her clutch bag. 'Really, really tasteful. I think it hits the right note for a private audience with my Confessor.'

  'Chantorria,' Trafford replied angrily, 'he's only interested in you because of Caitlin. You know that, don't you?'

  'Well, what's wrong with that?' Chantorria snapped back. 'I'm the mother of a miracle angel; of course my Confessor's interested in me.'

  Trafford moved discreetly to mute their webcast.

  'Caitlin Happymeal is not a miracle angel,' he hissed.

  'She is! She's alive, isn't she? Isn't that a miracle? Don't you think it's a miracle that our baby is the only survivor of the plagues?'

  'Epidemics.'

  'Plagues. Our baby is alive. That's all we know and it's a miracle whichever way you look at it.'

  'Chantorria, you know very well that—'

  'I know that God moves in mysterious ways, Trafford,' Chantorria said. 'Who made that . . . that thing you say you gave to her? God did.'

  'Men did, Chantorria. Men using their intellect who—'

  'And who made the men? Who made their intellect?'

  'Well, who made this precious God of yours then? Another God, a bigger one? And who made him?'

  'I am not discussing this any more, Trafford,' said Chantorria, turning up the sound again. 'All I know is that we have been blessed. We are the luckiest family in London. You think the blessing came one way, I think it came another, but either way it's a blessing and blessings come from God. Can't you understand that? What's not to understand? I'll see you at the Spirit House. Don't you dare be late.'

  Chantorria, carrying her little bag, tottered towards the door. She was wearing a pair of stiletto heels that she also seemed recently to have acquired. No doubt another gift from Tinkerbell. Trafford watched her as she went. From the back she was almost totally naked. The only clothing that could be seen was her thin bra strap and the tiny piece of lace that emerged from between her buttocks.

  'Aren't you going to say goodbye to the miracle angel?' he said with a sneer.

  Chantorria turned and looked at him once more. 'Goodness, Trafford, I do believe you're jealous.' Then she tottered over to Caitlin Happymeal's cot. 'Bye, angel. Don't mind Daddy, he never wanted to give Mummy a seeing-to anyway so I don't know what his problem is now.'

  After that she went out, leaving Trafford very clear in his mind what his problem was. He felt terrible. He was a committed Humanist and yet it seemed that he had by his own actions made a major contribution to the 'evidence' of God's mysterious ways.

  Having Caitlin Happymeal inoculated had of course been the best thing he had ever done, but the unexpected consequence of people loudly giving the Lord the credit was deeply depressing. The fact that his own wife, who actually knew the truth, believed it was doubly depressing. And it was getting worse. Trafford had never dreamed they would end up on the news and the fact that Confessor Bailey was entering into spiritual communion with Chantorria would make things worse again. Endorsement from a Confessor of the Temple would further confirm people's conviction that Chantorria was blessed and that Caitlin had survived as a result of divine intervention.

  Trafford cursed the horrible irony that his private subversion, which had been motivated by pure reason, had been spun so as to entrench religious superstition. Trafford turned to his computer with a new sense of urgency. His search program was almost completed. Within a few days he would be in a position to instruct the DegSep engine to create for him a virtual network of potential revolutionaries. Trafford intended to begin sending out messages to this anonymous community immediately. Cassius had promised to furnish him with the first, which, it had been agreed, would be a brief illustrated article on the theory of evolution. The second would be about the flood itself, explaining that the rise in sea levels had in fact been the unfortunate and preventable result of unrestricted burning of fossil fuels.

  Trafford intended that the mail shots should be self-generating, an automated message cycle, triggered by a single code word which, once sent, would create an unstoppable avalanche of seditious spam that would continue even if the people who wrote it had been caught. Each message would have a title that he hoped would convince the recipient to read what had been sent. Trafford had been working on these titles also, as had Cassius and the others. Trafford's favourite had been suggested by Connor Newbury.

  If God is so clever why does he choose such arseholes to run his Temple? Ever take a really critical look at your Confessor? Trafford smiled. If he received an email with a title like that he knew that he would open it.

  You are not alone in wanting to be alone! That had been Cassius's suggestion, as had Ever thought about thinking for yourself?

  So far, apart from Can you keep a secret? Trafford had not come up with a title, but now he wrote down the word evolve.

  All the time he had been working on the program Trafford had been wondering what should be done with this virtual community, should he ever succeed in establishing it. After all, it was one thing to encourage people to think for themselves, but if all they did was think and took no action then the Temple had nothing to fear. For Trafford thinking wasn't enough; he despised the way his fellow Humanists were content to protest simply by their existence. Something physical had to be done. Revolutions in the head could only be the beginning.

  A sign was needed, a secret sign. A single word perhaps, something by which each freethinker might recognize another. A single word that said it all.

  And Trafford knew that the word must be evolve.

  Because 'evolve' was more than a word. It was a call to arms. A simple instruction to rise out of the swamp, to become a sophisticated organism, a creature capable of independent thought.

  But the word 'evolve' dripped with heretical connotations. It could never be displayed openly, never be held up as a sign.

  Trafford typed it out backwards and with a sudden surge of excitement noticed that it spelt evlove.

  Ev Love. He had heard that phrase before.

  'Let me hear you say Love! . . . Let me hear you say Everlasting Love! . . . Let me hear you say Ev Love!'

  One of those shorthand phrases that the Temple had coined to describe their God was the reverse of the word which they feared most.

  Ev Love. That would be his key. That would b
e the code to trigger the program and the term he would include in all communications. The term by which each recipient might display their faith, for if challenged they could claim it was simply a reduction of Everlasting Love.

  Ev Love. It even sounded like Evolve.

  He could not wait to tell Cassius.

  Show the words Ev Love, Trafford wrote. By these words shall you be known.

  32

  At eight o'clock that evening Trafford, holding Caitlin Happymeal in his arms, presented himself at Confessor Bailey's house and was ushered by a servant into the same luxuriously appointed room in which he and Chantorria had sat discussing their now cancelled divorce. Chantorria was already there of course, sitting on a stool at Bailey's feet. She was reading from a book, a big, jewel-encrusted leather-bound volume entitled Bible Stories and Other Inspirational Writings.

  Trafford thought that she looked rather flushed.

  The Confessor raised a hand to indicate that Trafford should wait in the doorway until the reading was finished. Trafford was therefore forced to hover in silence while his wife completed the lines of doggerel with which she had been engaged and Confessor Bailey sat with his eyes closed and a rapturous expression on his face. He was stroking Chantorria's hair.

  'Love is love and the Lord whom we call the Love is love,' Chantorria read in tones of deepest sincerity. 'Without the Lord who is the Love we have no love and since we have love, we have the Lord who is the Love, for the two are one, immortal and indivisible. It is so now, was so in the beginning and shall be so evermore. The Lord and the Love is kind and he is merciful and whosoever doubteth that shall be wiped from the face of the Earth and suffer hellish torment for all eternity. Such are the ways of the Love.'

  'Thank you, child,' the Confessor said as Chantorria closed the book. 'That was beautiful. It eases my troubled and weary soul to hear the sweet voice of a righteous woman speak the Lord's truth.'

  'I'm honoured to be your comfort, Holy Confessor,' Chantorria replied.

  Only now did Confessor Bailey look at Trafford.

  'Take a seat beside your wife,' he ordered. 'The Bishop Confessor is a busy man. I don't imagine that he will be long.'

  Indeed Trafford had scarcely had a moment to sit down and acknowledge Chantorria's nervous smile when the loud banging of a staff on the front door announced the arrival of the great man. This knocking was followed by the frantic scuttling of servants in the hallway and suddenly Solomon Kentucky himself strode into the room, accompanied by four large security guards.

  'I have come!' he said, almost as if he was the Lord himself paying a visit instead of merely one of his senior representatives on Earth.

  Confessor Bailey, Trafford and Chantorria dropped immediately to their knees.

  'My house is not worthy, Bishop Confessor, and nor am I,' Confessor Bailey replied.

  'Damn right about that, Bailey,' the Bishop Confessor replied, laughing hugely. 'But then none of us is worthy in the eyes of the Lord, yet we all hope one day to stand naked before him. If I visited only with those who were worthy I'd have a damn small social circle! Ha! Ha! Ha! Am I right? Of course I'm right. Kiss my rings.'

  He offered his huge, soft, podgy right hand for Confessor Bailey to approach. Upon each finger and the thumb were great sparkling rings. Confessor Bailey shuffled forward on his knees and kissed each one. Then the great man transferred the flashing neon mitre that he was holding in his other hand, and presented a second set of jewel-encrusted fingers to be worshipped and adored. Trafford and Chantorria of course said nothing in the presence of such eminence.

  'So this is the family!' Solomon Kentucky thundered. 'I would know them were I to have met them among a thousand families! The blessing of the Love is upon them. I feel the Love.'

  'Hallelujah!' shouted Confessor Bailey.

  'Hallelujah!' echoed Chantorria.

  'Stand, child,' Solomon Kentucky said to her. 'Gather up your angel baby and stand. Do not be afraid.'

  Chantorria took Caitlin Happymeal from Trafford's arms and stood before the Bishop Confessor. Trafford was disgusted to note that there was already a look of transported rapture on her face, and he wondered if she was about to begin speaking in tongues.

  'You, child, are blessed in the favour of the Lord and the Love,' Solomon Kentucky intoned, 'and in his wisdom he has designed for you a purpose. There is work for you and your family to do!! Let me hear you say Yeah!'

  'Yeah!' said Chantorria.

  Trafford did not know whether the Bishop Confessor had meant him also. He decided it was safer to say nothing, not wishing to draw attention to himself. Solomon Kentucky didn't seem to notice either way. He was only interested in the mother and child. Handing his mitre to one of his guards, he laid a hand on each of their brows.

  'I feel it!' he shouted. 'I feel it! I feel the blessing of the Love! This child is truly holy. Her mother is blessed. Let me hear you say All Right!'

  'All right!' Chantorria shouted.

  'All right!' Trafford echoed meekly, having been kicked by Confessor Bailey.

  'This kiddie will inspire the faithful!' Solomon Kentucky went on. 'There has been great suffering of late. Many righteous people have lost a kiddie, two kiddies or more! The faithful need a sign. The people need a symbol! The honest, Love-fearing men and women of this great country of faith need hope! Let me hear you say A'come on!'

  'A'come on!' Chantorria and Trafford shouted.

  'A'come on, a'come on, a'come on – on!' Kentucky shouted.

  'A'come on, a'come on, a'come on – on!' Chantorria and Trafford echoed.

  'This kiddie, little Caitlin Happymeal, will be that sign. That symbol. That hope! In the name of the Lord and the Love. The Creator of all things and many things more. In the name of his holy mother Mary and his saintly daughter Diana. In the name of Jesus, Abraham, Elvis and Moses. In the name of the twenty-eight Apostles of the Gospel and the Fifteen Pillars of the Faith. In the name of the stars that guide us and the numbers that foretell that which only he can know and which for us is mystery. In the name of all the prophets and elders of the Temple. In the name of this tiny kiddie Caitlin Happymeal. I say Let his will be done. Amen!'

  'Amen!' Confessor Bailey shouted.

  'Amen!' said Chantorria and Trafford. Chantorria by this time was shaking and twitching, her lip quivering with ecstasy. Solomon Kentucky, on the other hand, suddenly dispensed with his evangelical posturing altogether and called for a chair that he might get down to business.

  'As you know,' he said, accepting a large glass of sweet sherry and a chocolate eclair from a servant, 'these recent epidemics have been particularly severe and the suffering has been truly terrible. Yours is not the only community that has been devastated, although certainly the plagues that visited themselves upon this particular district were mighty indeed. Now little Caitlin Happymeal is, as we can see, highly telegenic and it has not gone unnoticed in the councils of the Temple that her Heaven-sent good fortune has struck a particular chord among the faithful of this parish and indeed, since she featured on the infotainment news earlier today, increasingly in the wider community. People are thirsting for good news and right now Caitlin Happymeal is it. She's a lively, pretty little thing and of course Chantorria here is more than easy on the eye and there is nothing like a hot momma with big healthy naturals and a cutesome kiddie to put a sunnier spin on things. Our PR people had in fact been looking for just such a combination to head up a post-plague feel-good campaign and, having checked out a considerable sample of surviving kiddies, we've fixed on Caitlin Happymeal to be our Face of Hope. We have decided to make this little child a poster girl for the Lord's divine mercy.' Kentucky helped himself to another cake before adding grandly, 'Your heavenly poppet is going to be a big, big star.'

  Then the Bishop Confessor snapped his fingers and one of his grim, silent security guards inserted a memory stick in Confessor Bailey's computer. Immediately there appeared on the screen a series of adverts featuring Caitlin's face.


  'This is just rough work,' Solomon Kentucky said, 'but you'll get the idea and I think you're going to love it.'

  There was Caitlin Happymeal, smiling and gurgling and cooing in a video poster format, beneath the banner headline Miracles Do Happen.

  'That's the shout line we're running with,' Solomon Kentucky explained. 'Miracles Do Happen. Pretty good, huh? Short, clear, to the point. We want to say to people, "Don't despair. If the Love can save this child, he can save them all. In fact he has saved them all for he has gathered them to him." '

  'Isn't that rather a mixed message?' Trafford said before he could stop himself. Confessor Bailey turned on him in fury.

  'The Bishop Confessor is speaking,' Bailey snapped.

  'No, no,' Solomon Kentucky insisted, 'this is the father. Let's hear him out. Mixed message, you suggest, young man? How so?'

  'Well,' Trafford began nervously, 'is it our daughter who's been saved by not dying or all the dead children who've been saved by dying and then going to Heaven?'

  Solomon Kentucky thought for a moment.

  'Both,' he said finally. 'And in the beautiful eyes of Caitlin Happymeal all the parents whose kiddies are in Heaven will see the eyes of their own children and they will know that the Lord loves them.'

  'Oh . . .' Trafford said. 'I see.'

  'This little baby,' the Bishop Confessor continued, 'is to be the central image in a huge post-plague media campaign. She will carry the Miracles Do Happen message into every dwelling and workplace in the country. There will be video posters, commercials, a number-one hit song and above all your family will be the key figures of testification at a Wembley Faith Concert.'