Blind Faith (2 page)

Trafford was a civil servant of sorts. Most people who
were not in catering and hospitality were civil servants,
the government being by far the largest employer in the
country. In fact, since almost everything that people
consumed or used came from somewhere else, the
principal activity of the government was finding people
something to do.

Trafford worked for NatDat, the National Data Bank,
which existed to collect and store information about
the population. Historically NatDat had been a branch of
the Home Office but it had long since grown so huge that
the Home Office had become a branch of it. Every single
recordable fact about every single person in the country
was logged at NatDat. Every financial transaction,
every appearance on a CCTV camera, every click on
every computer, every quirk of every retina, every filling in
every tooth was captured and entombed in the
mainframes of NatDat and subsequently encrypted on to
the little black strips on the back of people's Temple
membership cards.

This was not an exercise in mass observation, nor was it
sinister evidence of an all-knowing police state. The police
had their own data bank with which to combat terrorism
and terrorism continued unabated anyway, it having long
since become clear that no matter how much information
was stored about people they would still be able to
detonate themselves in public places if they were really
determined to do so. In fact the vast majority of the
population (including most potential terrorists and
random killers) published every possible detail of their
lives on their Face Space pages anyway and lived in hope
that somebody would read them. In a world where a
desire for privacy was proscribed as a perversion and
a denial of faith, there was little point in government sponsored
mass observation.

Yet NatDat continued to grow, employing more and
more people, simply to record and to store more and more
information. To the best of Trafford's knowledge, nobody
ever looked at any of the information he stored. He had
never been called upon to supply any of it to anyone. He
merely processed it, as did a million others like him,
moving it from machine to machine like a great shifting
sea. Sometimes, in his dreams, Trafford imagined a
sudden information tsunami, a moment when all the
electronic movements, the As and Bs of a trillion zillion
micro-communications, would coalesce into one vast
unstoppable tidal wave and drown the population in the
virtual version of their own lives.

Despite the clarity of this vision and the fact that the
recounting of dreams was a major element in both social
intercourse and spiritual worship, Trafford did not share
this dream with anyone. When invited to describe a dream
at Community Confession or over chocolate lattes at
social hubs on Fizzy Coffs, Trafford never told the
truth. Instead he made up dreams, taking elements from
other people's interminable sagas and stitching them
together – a startled rabbit from one, a sense of falling
from another, a sudden overwhelming awareness that it
was 'all good' from a third, until he had enough to make
an acceptable tale which would see him through until he
could legitimately pass on the microphone.

Nobody ever noticed. Most people were simply itching
to tell their own tales. Trafford did not keep his dreams a
secret because he thought they were in any way significant;
they were meaningless to him and hence must be doubly
meaningless to anybody else. He kept them a secret simply
in order to enjoy the sensual pleasure of
having
a secret. Of
not emoting. Any secret was exciting to Trafford, no matter
how banal. Something which he alone knew. Something
which he did not share.

With weary resignation Trafford joined the crowd that was
attempting to get into the tube station. No matter how
much tidal planning the authorities imposed upon the
commuting population, there was always a crowd at the
entrance. There was a crowd at the entrance to everything
and a crowd inside everything and as often as not a crowd
assembled separately, in a holding area, awaiting access to
the crowd that was waiting at the entrance to join the
crowd that was inside. People spent so much of their lives
shuffling forward at a snail's pace that it had become part
of the physical characteristics of the population; they
shuffled even on those rare occasions when there was not
somebody jammed up in front of them and another
person pushing them from behind. The authorities often
ran public health campaigns urging people to straighten
their backs and to take proper strides instead of pigeon
steps. This would, they assured everyone, be good for
their spines and enable them to look to the horizon with
clear-eyed zeal. Nobody took any notice, sensing perhaps
that there was little point in taking proper strides when it
simply meant that you would arrive more quickly at the
next people jam.

Trafford hated people jams. He had heard stories from
his mother (who had perhaps heard them from her
mother) of a time when it was possible to find solitude,
when even in the cities there had been green places where
one might sit and not smell the sweat of half a dozen other
human beings. But that had been in the wicked years BTF.
Before the country had shrunk under the vengeance of the
Love and all the population had been forced to squeeze
into half the space it had previously enjoyed.

Trafford shuffled forward, watching the gates opening
and closing as the platforms beneath them emptied and
filled. He knew that he should not complain, that he was
lucky to live near a functioning tube line with an effective
pumping system. But he didn't feel lucky, crushed in
among the shuffling crowd, struggling towards the start of
his utterly pointless day. Exhausted after a night spent in a
tiny room with his even more exhausted wife and a
screaming baby, he did not feel lucky. He felt numb.

A voice called out his name. 'Trafford. Trafford Sewell.
Come share with me!'

Trafford knew the voice well. He also knew that he
would have to go share. He would have to relinquish his
place in the mass shuffle (despite being no more than
two gate closures from the entrance) and go where he
was summoned. It would make him late for work, of
course, but this would not lead to his being counselled
and encouraged to reconsider the decisions he took
about what time he left the house. No employer would
ever expect a person to disobey their Confessor's invitation
to share.

Trafford turned and began to push back against the
human tide.

And there was so much tide to push against. So many
people and so
much
of each person. And almost all of it
on display. So much flesh. So much sweating near-naked
flesh. Huge women in the tiniest of crop tops and
panties, combinations that were basically little more
than bikinis. Some were bare even at the bosom, the big,
baby-sucked nipples pointing accusingly at Trafford as he
struggled past, pink and brown signposts reminding him
that he was going in the wrong direction. Men in short
shorts and trainers, in vests, or bare to the waist. It was
often the largest bellies that were the most exposed,
thrust forward like great battering rams, proud bellies,
bellies of size, topped off with pendulous, quivering,
hairy man breasts.

Trafford held his arms aloft as he attempted to penetrate
the almost solid mass of flesh that faced him. He did this
for fear that his hands might accidentally brush against a
breast or, worse, get lodged in a crotch as he attempted to
prise his way past. The merest touch could so easily be
wilfully misinterpreted.

'Are you fiddlin' with me?' a voice would shriek. 'Did
you disrespect my booby?'

Always it seemed to Trafford that the larger and more
naked the woman, the more likely she was to scream that
her breasts had been disrespected. Yet in such a crush and
with breasts so very, very large it was difficult to avoid
disrespecting them. Breasts like beach balls, bursting out
of tiny triangles of shiny cloth, with great burned-brown
semicircles of half-revealed nipples loomed inches from
his face.

The inevitable happened.

'Pervert!' someone shouted. 'The fucking station's
behind you.'

Trafford did not attempt to find from whom the voice
had come. He knew that the last thing an outraged person
wanted to hear was reason and so instantly he turned
ninety degrees and pushed sideways against the crowd. He
had to get away from that voice: the word 'pervert' was but
a short step from the word 'paedo', and once that word
was uttered in a restive, sullen crowd the stakes mounted.

It was astonishing how, in crushes where there was scarcely
room to scratch one's nose, space could suddenly be found
to kick a man to death.

'Sorry, sorry. Excuse me,' Trafford muttered, his arms
raised and his chin on his chest, touching nobody's
boobies, catching nobody's eye. 'My Confessor called me,
I have to get through.'

The angry voice receded behind him and then, all in a
rush, as if breaking through a dense jungle canopy,
Trafford popped out of the wall of bodies and almost into
the arms of his community spiritual guide, Confessor
Bailey.

'Hey, hey, hey!' Bailey laughed, big and jovial as always.
'Steady there, steady. More haste less speed, Trafford, as a
wise man once said.'

'You called me, Confessor. Was there something?'
Trafford asked, trying to look as cheerful as the Confessor
was pretending to feel.

'Something? Something! Of course there's something,
Trafford!' Bailey shouted, enfolding him in a fierce
bear hug. 'Congratulations is what there is, brother!
Congratulations and love salutations! I understand that
the Lord of Life has blessed you and your lovely,
lovely, sexy, sexy lady with a beautiful baby girl kiddie.
Am I right?'

Confessor Bailey continued to hold Trafford in his huge
embrace. The preacher was a big man; the top of Trafford's
head came barely to his chin, Trafford's cheek was pressed
against Bailey's chest and the smell of expensive designer
perfume and scented toilet products mixed with sweat
was nearly overpowering. Bailey wasn't naked, of course:
he was dressed quite modestly, as befitted his senior
position in the community, in tight, pure white satin
hot pants, white knee socks and a white Lycra cycling
jersey. The jersey was emblazoned with a glittering golden
cross spotted with winking pin lights. Above the cross was
a rainbow, also illuminated, and within the rainbow a
hologram of a dove in flight. On his head Confessor
Bailey wore a tall mitre studded with costume jewels and
bound with more strings of lights.

'You are right,' Trafford stammered into Bailey's chest,
trying not to breathe in too deeply, 'we've had a baby.'

'All good, I hope. Chantorria well? Strong? Proud? In
control? Working on getting her figure back?'

'Yes, yes, of course.'

'Then I say Go, girl! Praise the Lord. Praise the Love!'

'Praise the Love,' Trafford echoed dutifully.

'Kiddie doing fine?'

'Yes, very well, thank you, Father,' Trafford replied.
'She's gorgeous.'

'Of course she is. Made in the image of her precious sexy
mother and as such in the image of our Creator. And does
the gorgeous darling have a name?'

'Well, we thought perhaps . . . Caitlin.'

Confessor Bailey frowned. Formal, traditional names
were not fashionable any more. The past itself was not
fashionable. Everybody knew that it was in the past that
society had made its mistakes. The past was a place of
ignorance, heresy and dark, dark sorcery. The past was a
place where man was taught that the ape was his brother
and where Christian ministers claimed that God was not a
real person at all but merely a metaphor for goodness.

'We haven't absolutely decided yet,' Trafford continued
hurriedly, his courage deserting him. 'Chantorria thought
perhaps Happymeal.'

'You should listen to your lady,' Confessor Bailey
replied firmly. 'She has a clever head on those strong,
womanly shoulders. Cute too, and great boobs for
naturals. Big and proud.'

'Thank you, Confessor Bailey, I shall tell her that you
said so.'

The Confessor smiled but his mood did not lighten.

'I checked your Face Space page, Trafford,' he said
sternly. 'I also checked your board on the Community
Space site.'

Trafford looked at the ground, knowing what was
coming. There could be no other reason for Confessor
Bailey to summon him from the crowd.

'I even Goog'ed you up on the WorldTube and yet . . .'
Bailey continued, his voice getting sterner by the syllable,
'I found no birthing video.'

Trafford's head remained bowed. He had only hoped to
keep the secret for a short time, just while he and
Chantorria got to know their child. He had intended to
post the required video that very evening. It had been just
his luck to bump into Bailey. He stared fiercely at a rotting
remembrance card that lay between his feet.

Fanta: Gone to Heaven but always in our hearts.

'Problem with your broadband, Trafford?' Confessor
Bailey asked icily. 'I find if you just turn it off at the wall
and wait five minutes . . .'

'I didn't actually post a birthing video . . . yet,' Trafford
admitted. It was always better to confess, the Temple
knew everything anyway. Everybody knew everything.

'Chantorria reminded me to but . . . well, I just haven't
got round to it.'

The priest smiled but it was a hard, joyless smile. 'You
just haven't got round to it?'

'No.'

'You did not feel moved to share this beautiful and most
special Lord-given event, which is like no other and after
which you will never be the same, with your community?
With the world?'

'I announced it,' Trafford protested weakly. 'I put it on
my blog.'

Now Bailey was not even bothering to smile.

'You
announced
it? You put the
birth of a kiddie
on your
blog
? And that is
all
?'

'I wrote about it! I described how beautiful—'

'You
described it
!' The priest was angry now. 'The Lord
has blessed us with digital recording equipment with
which we can capture, celebrate and worship in diamond
detail the
exactitude
of every nuance of his creation and yet
you, you in your vanity, think that your
description
, the
work of your lowly, humble, inadequate
imagination
, can
somehow do the job better! You believe your description,
your
fiction
, to be a better medium for representing God's
work than digitized reality!'

Suddenly Trafford was scared. He had not expected
Confessor Bailey to put this spin on his excuse. Fiction was
not a word that was used lightly. Fiction was a sin, fiction
was sacrilege. Everybody knew that invention, the act of
creation, was the prerogative of the Love and only of the
Love. God created reality and man worshipped it, that was
the way of truth. Men created only lies.

'No!' Trafford protested. 'Not fiction! Just . . . a
description, that's all. A description of reality . . . reality
in words.'

'Why didn't you record it? Why didn't you broadcast
real
reality instead of your own paltry efforts to
describe
it?
When you shave in the morning do you use a mirror?'

'Well, yes, of course I—'

'Exactly, you do not rely on a
description
of your face. You
do not apply the razor to your flesh guided only by the
printed word! Because if you did you would soon cut
yourself to pieces.'

'Well, no . . .'

'So
real
reality is fine when it comes to your own
personal comfort but when it comes to celebrating the
divine gift of life, a
description
of reality will suffice. Is
that it?'

'No!'

'
Why
did you not Tube a birthing video, Trafford?'

Trafford knew the answer but he could never say it. He
could not possibly confess that his decision to delay
posting the birthing video on the net had been the result
of a strange force deep within him which desired a
moment of
privacy
. A longing to keep something to
himself
, even if only for a short while.

He could not say that. Nothing was more offensive to
the Temple and to the community in general than
privacy. Why would anyone wish to hide any aspect of
themselves from the gaze of others? Was it not their duty
to celebrate themselves? Perhaps Trafford was ashamed
of something? Or perhaps he thought he was in some
way special?
Better
than his fellow men and women,
too
good
for them?

'Privacy,' Bailey stated with quiet menace, 'is a blasphemy,
Trafford. Only perverts do things in private.'

'I know that, Confessor.'

'If you have nothing to be ashamed of, you have nothing
to hide.'

'I just didn't think anybody would be interested,'
Trafford stammered. 'You know, there's so much going on
in our tenement besides us. Goodness knows, Galaxy
Starlight at Number 8a is having sex with her husband's
dad but her husband still loves her big time so now it's a
threesome and they're streaming it live 24/7. Why would
anybody want to look at—?'

'Is something wrong?' the Confessor broke in, his
face suddenly a picture of desperate concern. 'Is the
kiddie deformed?'

'No!'

'Thank the Love.'

'Thank the Love.'

'Say hallelujah!'

'Hallelujah!'