Blind Faith (3 page)

'Was it a difficult birth?' the priest went on. 'Did
Chantorria tear?'

'A little but . . .'

'If so, all the more reason to share and to emote. Tragedy
and pain are lordly creations too, sent to test our strength
and try us. Be proud of your pain! When we share
our suffering we learn and we grow and we share our
connection with God.'

'Everything's fine, really . . .'

'Say Love!'

'Love!'

'Say
Everlasting
Love!'

'Everlasting Love!'

'Let me hear you say Ev Love!'

'Ev Love!'

The Confessor had raised his face to Heaven for these
ringing incantations but now his fierce glare returned
to Trafford.

'Then
why
have you not done your duty by your
community and posted a birthing video?'

There was simply no answer. The truth would have
resulted in a public denunciation at Confession, perhaps
even a whipping. Once more Trafford stared at the ground.
A new thought occurred to Bailey.

'Is Chantorria
ashamed
of her cooch?' he asked suddenly.

'No, Confessor! Certainly not! It was me who . . . forgot
to post the vid.'

'Eve had a cooch! Mother Mary had a cooch! Diana
had a cooch! Cooches make kiddies. Chantorria
should be proud to be a strong woman with a kiddiemaking
cooch.'

'She is! Of course she is, Father. Very proud. Proud to be
a woman.'

'A strong woman! A woman of faith.'

'Yes, of course. Faith is at the centre of our lives. Nothing
is more important to us than our one-on-one relationship
with the Love. We talk to him all the time.'

'Then why has she not shown the cooch the Love gave
her to the world in its time of greatest creativity? Does
she not wish to be a role model? To empower others?
To help them to celebrate and to learn from her Lord-given
experience? Does she not think that she is beautiful
and that everybody should watch her, share with her?
Applaud her?'

'Well, of course she does. Of course, she thinks all of
those things.'

Confessor Bailey stood back and solemnly laid his hand
upon Trafford's brow. 'Then you will share the birthing
video forthwith?'

'Yes . . . yes, I will, Father. Of course. I'm sorry,'
Trafford replied.

'Good,' said the Confessor, smiling once more. 'You
send my big love big time to Chantorria and to little
Happymeal. Don't forget now.'

Trafford bid Bailey an obsequious farewell, hugely relieved
to have got away without the prospect of official censure
from the pulpit, and turned once more to face the crowd
that was attempting to enter the tube station. A wall of
gleaming, sweating, half-naked and occasionally entirely
naked bottoms confronted him. Bottoms hanging over
shorts, bottoms clamped around thongs. All or a part of
every single buttock in the crowd was on display. Huge or
petite, saggy or pert. Hairy, waxed, deep cleavages, mottled
cheeks. Stretch marks, surgical scars, extravagant tattoos
and love bites. Proud bottoms. In-your-face bottoms.
Bottoms that were as good as anybody else's bottom.

Trafford knew that never in his life would he get used to
the casual display of so much flesh. He did not want to see
these bottoms; he did not want his vision busied with the
endless quirks of other people's bodies. No matter how
hard he tried not to notice, small details kept forcing
themselves to the forefront of his consciousness and they
made him queasy. He wished that these people would
cover themselves up.

It wasn't that he found nakedness objectionable in
itself. It was only that something in him felt that flesh
should be presented artfully, with mystery even, not forced
upon a person. It was the same with breast enlargements.
He knew the logic: if boobs were attractive, surely then the
larger the better. What was not to like? It was undeniable,
and yet somehow he suspected that sometimes less might
be more.

He never said this to anyone, not even to Chantorria. He
knew only too well how threatened and uncomfortable
people would feel if he were to reveal to them that he had
a problem with looking at their naked buttock divisions.
They would denounce him on the web boards; they would
say that his failure to applaud the pride that they took in
their body images was sacrilegious. Had they not all been
made in God's image? Therefore anybody who had a
problem with a person's appearance must also have a
problem with God. They would hint darkly that only those
who believed that the apes were man's brother had any
reason to be ashamed of any aspect of humanity. It was
dangerous enough that he was himself excessively modest
in his dress. Declining to expose his own body an inch
more than the heat and stern social convention dictated,
he always wore a T-shirt rather than a vest and his
shorts stretched almost halfway to his knees. Indeed so
overdressed was he in comparison to the norm that it was
not uncommon for people to accuse him of being a
Muslim and tell him to get back to the ghetto or better
still, to where he came from, if it was still above water.

Trafford attempted to put these thoughts from his mind
and, fighting down the nausea that was mounting in his
stomach, began for the second time that morning to
shuffle his way towards the gates of the tube station. A
news and infotainment loop was playing on the screens
which hung above the gates. It was the same loop that had
been playing on the lamp posts that lined the streets along
which Trafford had walked to get to the station. It was also
flickering, unbidden, on his travel card and had without
doubt been playing in the lift that he had avoided that
morning. All the same loop. So many platforms on which
to view, so little to be viewed.

In
Entertainment News
various stars were engaged in
ferocious struggles with their personal demons, struggles
which with the help of God they were determined to win.
In
News News
more huge bombs had gone off in crowded
places. The army was doing a tough job under very
difficult circumstances in the various peacekeeping zones
around the world, and also in policing the walls of
Christendom as a billion cholera-ravaged infidels massed
at the gates pleading for a glass of clean water. In more
mundane domestic news there had been a number of
instances of vigilantism and People's Justice (with which
the authorities sympathized but which they could not
officially condone) and the government appeared to be
standing idly by while a highly organized fifth column of
paedophiles infiltrated the community.

In
Weather News
there were the usual broken sea defences,
collapsed pumping stations and floods everywhere.

Trafford wondered why they did not simply play the
same tape each day. It was always the same news and by
9 a.m. everybody had learned by heart the small variations
in personalities and locations anyway.

Two more loops, he reckoned, and he'd be through
the gates.

Hundreds believed dead . . .

He couldn't hear the soundtrack any more, not deep
within the crowd. The commentary had merged with the
cacophony created by the personal communitainment
devices that hung from every neck.

The bomber, who was seventeen . . .

Uh! Uh! Duf duf! Duf duf!

Died when his . . .

Girl, you truly could be a star . . .

Trafford stuffed his own muted earphones deeper into
his ears to try to shut out the noise. He was always trying
to shut out the noise, along with the sight of people's
bodies, and the smell. Sweat, perfumed toilet products
and food. Above all, food.

The majority of people were eating as they shuffled
forward, listening to their communitainers, staring at the
video loop and pushing food into their mouths. It seemed
that not a single sensory organ was in repose. It would be
worse on the train, of course. Trafford was dreading it: a
packed, baking hot tin can full of people eating pizzas and
burgers and chicken and healthy chocolate-and-cereal
brunch bars. He took out an extra strong peppermint, the
only thing that got him through his journey without
being sick. Unfortunately it was becoming increasingly
difficult to track down peppermints that were not coated
in chocolate. Shop assistants found it inexplicable that he
asked for them. What was not to like about chocolate?

In some ways Trafford enjoyed Fizzy Coffs. He loathed
crowds but he was not averse to company, not least
because he sensed that one or two of his colleagues at
NatDat kept, as he did, a part of themselves private. He
would never know for sure, of course. That was the point
about privacy: it was private, which was what made it
so special. The pressure to share and to emote was so
all-encompassing it was exhausting.

A banner hung from the roof of Trafford's office.
How do
you feel?
it asked.
Tell someone right now!
This was a slogan
promoted by the Ministry of Well-being, alongside
Sharing. What's not to like?

All day long on the TV, the radio and over the web the
community was constantly cajoled to ring in and emote.

'Tell us how you feel,' the DJs demanded. 'We want to
hear from
you
! What's making you angry?'

Every health worker and spiritual adviser had the same
message: 'Deal with your issues. Be proud of your feelings.
Confront your demons.
Talk about yourself!
'

Above all, this was the message of the Temple.

'Man is God's work!' Confessor Bailey thundered to his
congregation. 'Everything we are, everything we do,
everything we say is the creation of the Lord and the Love.

Therefore, when we talk about ourselves we are
actually
talking about God! Each thought we have, each word we
say, each part of the bodies in which we exult is a gift from
the Love and should be held up high for all to see! A desire
for privacy is a denial of the Love and he who denies the
Love
has no faith
!'

Trafford wanted privacy, or even just a bit of peace. Every
day he wanted to shout, 'Here's an idea: why don't we all
shut up for five minutes?' But it was a very serious crime to
have no faith.

It had not always been a crime. The Temple liked to
imply that it had been but it had not. Trafford knew this
because the change in the law had come about in his own
lifetime. The statutory obligation to have faith was the very
first of the Wembley Laws, or People's Statutes to give
them their legal title.

As all laws were now Wembley Laws, it was increasingly
difficult to recall a time when there had been any other
form of legislation, but there had been. When Trafford was
a boy, laws had still been the creation of a misguided,
corrupt, out of touch, elected élite who called themselves
Members of Parliament.

The change had come about due to the growing
frustration within the community and particularly within
the High Council of the Temple that the elected lawmakers
were not 'listening to the people'. No matter which group
of politicians was elected to govern, they always found
themselves immediately out of step with the 'will of the
people' and, what was worse, they refused to listen to it
and learn. It seemed almost to be a function of government
that it existed to frustrate the clear-sighted common
sense of men and women of faith.

Strangely, this problem bothered the politicians as
much as it did the people themselves. Of course it was in
a politician's own interest to legislate for whatever it was
that the people wanted. The question was how best
could the elected representatives hand back power to
the electorate?

The first solution they tried was the instant plebiscite.
Major issues were put before the people online and the
people were then invited to vote and, if they wished, suggest
alternatives and amendments. This had been a disaster,
promoting as it did not the will of the people but the will of
the
person
, the individual. For it was very soon discovered
that while crowds can be controlled, individuals often
act independently, and in the great democracy of the net
any computer-literate paedophile or ape lover could
communicate with the entire world and any number of
points of view could be exhibited and canvassed. Anarchy
ensued and, astonishingly, it became increasingly difficult
to define what the 'will of the people' actually was.

It was the Confessors of the Temple who came up with
the solution. Physical laws would be made by physical
people. It would be a return to the very definition of
democracy. The Temple had access to the people, the
Temple regularly organized vast gatherings of the people.
What could be more obvious than to grant these
gatherings law-making powers? The Holy Order was
announced at the weekly Wembley Stadium Faith Festival.
These were the celebrations at which charismatic believers
from all over the capital convened to share their heartache,
rejoice in the Love and testify to their faith. The stadium
held 250,000 people and so it was decreed that any
gathering of that number who could be seen to speak with
one voice should be able to make a law.

Since it was only the Temple who were in a position
to stage such events and also the Temple which controlled
the New New Wembley Stadium, the only venue that
could hold so vast a crowd, it followed that the
Temple would henceforth make the laws and government
would become merely an organ of administration. This
development, besides being solid common sense, was also
legal
in every way, even under the old laws. For even in the
time of ignorance BTF, it had been a crime to incite
religious hatred and what could be more calculated to
incite religious hatred than to deny the will of the faithful?

The first Wembley Laws passed were inevitably the Faith
Laws and the most important Faith Law of all was the one
that made it illegal to have no faith. This statute also drew
legitimacy from the old laws BTF, for even then it had been
an offence to denigrate another person's religion. The
Temple simply argued that if a person had no faith
themselves then clearly that person did not believe in
the faith held by others, and if you did not believe
in something then how could you possibly respect it? A
person must therefore, by law, have faith.