Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

  'It sounds dangerous to me,' Newbury said nervously.

  'Well, Newbury,' said Cassius, 'after Trafford himself, the person in the most danger from this plan is me and personally I think it's brilliant.'

  'I'm telling you,' Trafford exclaimed, 'the need is out there! The hunger. Our profile search proves it. The people are a ticking time bomb and we have the chance to explode it right in the Temple's face.'

  35

  Trafford convinced the Senate of his plan and left the meeting in a state of high excitement. His job now was to begin working on the speech he would make at Wembley. It was clear that this must be planned with enormous care, beginning innocently, revealing its agenda subtly and delivering its bombshell so surprisingly that by the time people realized what had been said it would be too late for any Temple elder to intervene. Everything depended on the moment in which he explained why Caitlin Happymeal was still alive: that was the key.

  Sadly, however, Trafford was never to be called upon to offer an explanation as to why his daughter was alive because, on the very morning after his meeting with the Humanist Senate, poor little Caitlin Happymeal developed severe diarrhoea and vomiting. Something had got into the water supply at Inspiration Towers and the whole building succumbed to a dose of cholera-plus. Everybody was extremely sick but there was only one fatality: the building's sole remaining infant. Caitlin Happymeal wasn't a miracle baby after all.

  The Temple moved swiftly to limit the damage to its credibility. Within twenty-four hours of the child's death, all traces of the Miracles Do Happen campaign had disappeared from the streets and from cyberspace. The tragedy was not even reported on the news. Now that Caitlin had died, it was suddenly as if she'd never lived.

  Trafford and Chantorria were so blinded by grief that for a few days they did not notice the radical change in their position in the community. They kept to their apartment, numb with shock, struggling to come to terms with the empty cot and the baby clothes and the toys which would never be played with again. If they noticed that there had been no callers and that nobody seemed inclined to stream in for a web chat, they put it down to people's embarrassment and reluctance to deal with the scale of their grief.

  On the fourth day Chantorria went out. Her pain was not receding but growing and she had decided to visit Confessor Bailey. Surely he would be able to find some words of comfort to help her through the torment of bereavement. But the girl who only the previous week had been privileged to anoint the Confessor's feet with precious oils now got no further than his front door. There at the entrance a servant who had previously bowed and scraped before her informed her brutally that she was no longer loved by the Love, and that if she wished to see the Confessor she could do so at the Community Confession like everybody else. What was more, she was never, repeat never, to approach the Spirit House uninvited again.

  Chantorria was an embarrassment to Confessor Bailey. He had bigged her up from the pulpit and now she was an affront to his credibility. She had made him look fallible and he wanted nothing more to do with her. She turned away and began slowly to make her way home. She was recognized on the route and people sneered and whispered and pointed. Some laughed.

  On the steps of Inspiration Towers she met Tinkerbell.

  'So Caitlin's dead then, is she?' Tinkerbell said bluntly without bothering even to say hello. 'Well, you'll have plenty of time on your hands now, won't you? Perhaps you could run a few errands for me.'

  Still dazed with grief, Chantorria did not immediately comprehend the scale of animosity that her brief period as an exalted Temple favourite had provoked. Surely Tinks, her bestest mate, was not like all the rest?

  'It's very lonely in our apartment now,' Chantorria said weakly.

  'Is it really?' Tinkerbell said with heavy sarcasm.

  'Trafford and I don't know what to say to each other.'

  'Well, he always was a bit of an arsehole, wasn't he?'

  'Could you pop down for coffee some time or a glass of wine, Tinks? I don't really know how I'm going to cope at the moment.'

  'Coffee and a glass of wine?' Tinkerbell repeated coldly.

  'Yes, or anything really.'

  Tinkerbell shoved her face up close to Chantorria's and spat out her reply.

  'Now you listen here, you stuck-up bitch,' she hissed.

  'You were all high and mighty when you thought you were God's bloody favourite, weren't you?'

  'No! No, I wasn't . . .' Chantorria protested.

  'Yes, you fucking were. You had the whole bloody building running round after you. Well, now it turns out you're no better than anybody else. The Lord and the Love doesn't give a shit about you. And he didn't give a shit about your little brat either, did he? Because she's dead, isn't she? Just like the rest of our kiddies. Except at least none of us went around claiming our kiddies was saints. We never thought we was the Virgin fucking Mary and our kiddies was Jesus fucking Christ. No! But you! You, Chantorria, and your precious little Caitlin fucking Happymeal, you was the chosen ones, wasn't you? Well, not any more, babes. So deal with it!'

  'Please don't!' Chantorria pleaded, tears running down her face.

  'Just because the Confessor was sorting you out you thought the sun shined out of your arse. Well, you know now, don't you! So just you keep out of my way, all right? Because you made a fool of us, you did. I even had my Lexus running round trying to fix your shower. I even spruced up your scrawny manky muff for you. Well, you're on your own now, because you've brought disgrace on the whole of Inspiration Towers, you have. You've made fools of us and everybody wishes you'd just do what your kid did and fuck off and die.'

  Chantorria ran weeping from her tormentor. When she entered her apartment there was no respite. Barbieheart was waiting for her, on the wall.

  'Well, well, if it isn't the Holy Mother of God herself,' Barbieheart sneered.

  'Barbieheart, please,' Chantorria pleaded, 'why is everybody being so cruel? I just lost my baby!' 'They all lost their babies, love, but they didn't use it to claim they was special like you, did they?' Barbieheart replied, twisting the truth without a thought. 'They didn't turn our building into a laughing stock by claiming that their snotty kiddie was the bloody new Messiah. No, love, you did that, didn't you? You made your precious bed and now you've got to lie on it because nobody wants to know you any more.'

  With that, Barbieheart muted her sound and on the screen made an exaggerated performance of turning away – or at least as far away as her vast, stationary bulk would allow.

  'Please, Barbieheart, please!' Chantorria wept, shouting at the camera, but Barbieheart opened a sack of cheesy fried corn snacks and ignored her.

  Chantorria sank to the floor, crying uncontrollably. Trafford did not look at her either. He was sitting beside Caitlin Happymeal's empty cot, where he had sat for most of the previous four days. When he spoke he addressed empty space.

  'Let the stupid bitch go, Chantorria,' he said. 'Who cares what Barbieheart thinks? Who cares what anybody thinks? It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.'

  Chantorria looked up and began to stare at Trafford. For fully a minute she stared in silence until finally Trafford raised his face to hers.

  'What?' he said.

  'You.' Her voice was filled with bitterness. 'You. You bastard. This is all your fault.'

  Trafford was astonished. He had not thought he was capable of feelings of any kind that day but Chantorria's accusation stunned him.

  'What the hell do you mean?'

  'Everything started to go wrong when you did what you did!'

  'It started to go wrong when you began to believe that you were the chosen one. If we're a target now it's because you made a spectacle of yourself, because you chose to believe that God had saved Caitlin.'

  Chantorria flew at him.

  'Well, you certainly didn't save her, did you, you bastard!' she screamed. 'Your precious vaccination didn't save her!'

  'It saved her from measles and mumps! She died of cholera, Chant
orria. She wasn't vaccinated against cholera. A vaccination isn't magic, it's not like your bloody Temple, it's a scientific process that—'

  'Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear! I tell you it all started to go wrong when you did what you did. We were all right till then!'

  She was trying to beat her fists on his chest; he was forced to hold her off.

  'Caitlin is dead!' he shouted into her face. 'Nothing else matters, not you, not me, certainly not those imbeciles out there' – he made a gesture to the webcam. 'Caitlin is dead and there is nothing we can do about it. She wasn't a miracle angel but she was our angel and she's dead.'

  Slowly Chantorria's violent anger subsided. She sank back down to the floor and they did not speak to each other again that evening. Eventually, as the gloom gathered in the room, Chantorria went to lie on the bed, leaving Trafford still sitting beside Caitlin's cot. Neither of them slept; they simply began the process of enduring the night, separate and alone, locked in grief.

  About two in the morning there was a sudden blast of noise and light as Tinkerbell and some of her girls exploded on to the wallscreen. They were all drunk, their faces flushed and ugly, and they had decided to drop in for a web chat.

  'Hi, Chantorria,' Tinkerbell shouted, as usual leading the pack. 'Are you saying your prayers? Me and the girls were wondering what a saint does at night. Not much by the look of it, eh? Won't get another little kiddie with you in bed and him in the kitchen, will you? Or at least, if you do, that one really will be a miracle!'

  The girls shrieked with laughter, clustered around Tinkerbell's webcam.

  'Will you come and bless us, Chantorria?' another of the gang sneered. 'Why don't you put that halo on and come up and sing us a hymn!'

  Trafford sat with his eyes closed listening to the laughter and the shrieking, which seemed to go on for hours. He did not even have the energy to reach over to the control and mute the sound. Bullied or not bullied, it was all the same to him now that Caitlin Happymeal was gone. Chantorria lay silently also, too devastated, it seemed, even to beg for mercy.

  Eventually the pack tired of failing to get a reaction and lost interest in their fun. Peace returned but it did not bring rest. For yet another night Trafford did not sleep at all and from the sound of sobbing in the bedroom he knew that Chantorria was not sleeping either.

  The following day was a Fizzy Coff and so Trafford was forced to get up, eat something and prepare for work. Bereavement was far too common an occurrence for it to be used as an excuse for absenteeism. Quite the opposite in fact; people were expected to seek out an audience with whom they could express their grief.

  Chantorria was still lying on the bed as Trafford made ready to leave.

  'Well, I'll see you later then,' he said as he began unlocking the door. 'I'll get some food and stuff on my way back, shall I? Unless you feel like doing some shopping?'

  Chantorria turned to look at him, her eyes hollow. For a moment Trafford was taken aback. She did not look anything like she had ever looked before. She looked like a zombie.

  'I mean,' Trafford continued, 'I don't mind doing it myself. I just thought it might give you something to do, get you out of the apartment.'

  Still Chantorria did not reply. More and more her face looked to Trafford like the face of a corpse.

  'Well,' he said finally, 'I'll see you later then. Call me if you need anything.'

  As his hand was on the latch she spoke.

  'We deserve this, you know,' she said in a strange, deathly monotone.

  'Please, Chantorria. Don't.'

  'We tried to defy God.'

  'We did not try to defy anyone . . .'

  'He had a plan and we tried to cheat. Now he's punished us for it.'

  For a moment Trafford thought about continuing to reason with her but one look at the lifeless, soulless, hopeless apparition that had previously been his wife and he realized it was pointless.

  'I'll come straight back after work,' he said.

  When Trafford arrived at the office, Princess Lovebud was lying in wait, clearly anxious to exact revenge for the brief period of self-assertion that Trafford had enjoyed during his time as a Temple favourite. He had been expecting unpleasantness but he was nonetheless surprised at the form which her initial attack took. She actually hit him. She marched across the room and slapped him in the face with all the strength that her elephantine arm could muster. The blow sent him reeling.

  'You little shit,' she shouted at him. 'We're the joke of the whole of DegSep, we are. I must have had a thousand emails already! I told them we were blessed, I told them we had a prophet on our floor! Now what do I look like? Well, I'll tell you something right now, you little wanker. I'm watching you, I am, and when you put a foot wrong, which you will, you're dead.'

  Trafford said nothing and went to his desk. He passed Cassius, who gave him a tiny nod of sympathy. Sandra Dee was nowhere to be seen.

  Ever alert to weakness of any kind, Princess Lovebud noticed Trafford looking.

  'Yes,' she sneered, 'I notice that ginger bitch you was sticking up for hasn't had the guts to show her face. No, because she knows I'm after her too. Well, let's face it, you're not a lot of use to her now, are you? Not now it turns out that the Lord and the Love don't care about you at all.'

  Trafford was sorry that Sandra Dee was absent; he had been hoping to see her, hoping for a smile of encouragement to help him through the day. With his daughter gone his love for Sandra Dee was the only positive emotion he had left in his body. Not that it could ever fill the void left by Caitlin Happymeal and it was unreciprocated anyway, but he would have liked to see her.

  He wondered where she could be.

  Just then the lift doors opened and two policemen emerged, accompanied by an official of the Temple. They marched straight across the floor towards where Trafford was sitting but it was not until they were standing before him that he realized it was him they had come for.

  'Trafford Sewell,' said the Temple official, 'you're under arrest for crimes against faith.'

  Instinctively Trafford turned to look at Cassius. His face was frozen with fear.

  36

  After Trafford had left the building to go to work Chantorria had shaved her head. Then she had put on her whitest bikini and the halo of which she had previously been so proud, but which she now wore upside down. She had then gone to Dirty Sexy Filthy Bitch and bought a small cat-o'- nine-tails from their S&M range. With this she had begun walking through the district whipping herself and shrieking at the top of her voice that the Lord and the Love should smite her down for the sinner that she was. Eventually, with her back lacerated and bloody, she arrived at the Spirit House to which she had been denied entry the previous day.

  Once more she stood on the step and begged to see the Confessor. Once more she was refused but this time she screamed and shouted at such a pitch that Confessor Bailey came to the door and threatened to call the police if she did not leave.

  'Punishment is all I deserve,' Chantorria protested. 'There can be no forgiveness for me. I want to confess.'

  'Confess then and clear off,' Confessor Bailey replied.

  'My husband had our baby vaccinated while I stood by and did nothing!' Chantorria screamed. 'Now the Love has taken Caitlin away from me as punishment for defying him.'

  This was a very much more significant confession than Bailey had been expecting and he immediately had Chantorria brought into the house and taken down to the cellar while the Community Inquisitor was summoned. During the wait Bailey, unable to contain his horror at Chantorria's crime, took up his whip and flogged the weeping woman as she lay writhing on the wet stone floor. All the servants of the house were called to witness the punishment and the largest and strongest of them took up the lash when the Confessor tired.

  Bailey had just called for cakes and wine to give him strength and ordered his men to chain Chantorria to a rough wooden table when Brother Redemption arrived. The Community Inquisitor was rarely seen in daytime
; he was a creature of darkened rooms, gloomy cells and the night. Unlike most officers of the Temple, he was thin, but such flesh as he had was covered in tattoos. His body was a tableau of occult symbols and hellish nightmares in which various devilish creatures performed acts of sex and torture on sinners. On his forehead the legend Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee was written in Gothic script. Brother Redemption travelled about the parish in a rickshaw drawn by four convicted felons. Inside the rickshaw he kept his instruments of torture, and these were carried in when he swept into Bailey's Spirit House demanding to be shown the wretched sinner who had poisoned her baby. No screws and clamps were necessary to force a confession because Chantorria was only too anxious to unburden herself.

  'I am a sinner! I deserve my punishment,' she sobbed from the table on which she lay in chains. 'My husband set our family on the path of defying the Lord!'

  'Bring her up to the street,' Brother Redemption ordered.

  'Perhaps, Brother,' the Confessor protested, his face red and his lips wet, 'I should keep the girl here for now. I know the wretched woman and it may be that more would be learned if I were to deal with her personally.'

  Confessor Bailey was standing at the foot of the table on which Chantorria had been spread. He had divested himself of his magnificent cloak and golden thong and was naked apart from his white thigh boots and the bejewelled piercings that adorned his private parts. These flashed and glinted in the dim cellar light.

  'Bring her up to the street,' Brother Redemption repeated and turned on his heel.

  Confessor Bailey was furious to be dismissed in such a manner but the Inquisition was not an organization that even he could cross. Chantorria was dragged back up from the cellar and out into the street, where a jeering crowd had assembled. There she was bound by her wrists to the back of the rickshaw and forced to run behind it as Brother Redemption whipped up his four convicts and drove away.

  37

  Trafford was taken from his desk at DegSep then by boat to the headquarters of the Lake London Inquisition. This was a truly terrifying edifice, spoken of only in whispers, and it occupied the great dome of what had once been the city's foremost cathedral. Known to all as the Booby, in shape it reminded people of a surgically enhanced breast.