The Programme

CHAPTER SEVEN-4

We are growing as never before. The need for a new way of life, a new order, has never been so compelling. The grey forces who hold the reins of power in the world today demand uniformity from the greatest number. Uniformity of values. Uniformity of goals. Uniformity of approach. You must wear a mental uniform in order to be allowed to take part in the race for material success, howsoever it is defined. The greater the uniformity, the more who are alienated from it and yet who are left with no alternative.

We are the army of the alienated! We proudly wear the uniform of alienation! We will not accept singularity! We recognise only diversity - the diversity of God and Satan - the reconciliation between whom will bring diversity into reality! We line up in platoons behind these two great forces - some at one extreme, others at the other - so that we can all march together and in step! This is our way. It is the order you are looking for. The hierarchy of The Programme exists to allow you to find it. Its authority is derived from you. Doubt it, challenge it - you doubt and challenge yourself!

“I’ve been with Christopher,” Helen told him as they walked in the woods holding hands. Matthew had forgotten how pleasant on the ear was her gentle Canadian accent. He voiced neither surprise nor disappointment: he had wanted her to make a couple with Nahum.

“Nahum and I, well, it wasn’t the thing.”

“I miss you.”

“And I you.”

“Will we be together again, Matthew?” She bit on her lip.

Matthew stopped and turned her towards him, gripping her arms.

“When I was with you, you were the focus of my person; as much as anyone, as much as Carey is now. I could tell you it could be anyone, but that wouldn’t be true. There are people, no matter what, you’re never going to arrange yourself to be around - like you and Nahum, I should think. Nothing’s gone to have to come back again: it’s still there, it’s just not what we’re doing right now.”

She leaned against him, listened to the familiar beat of his heart.

“I know, Matthew, I know.” She put her arms around him, stroked his back, looked up and accepted his brief kiss in exchange.

“Tell me about Christopher.”

“Maybe there weren’t that many choices.”

“Caleb?” He only asked in order to find out if it had been mooted.

“I’d rather be with Enoch.” The giant Enoch bore the years of dissolution and despair in the lines of his face; he looked ravaged, exhausted, at the end of a long, hot march, without the energy to step into the shower or a bath before collapsing fully dressed on top of the bed. The idea of the elegant and fragile Helen lying down beside him was as alien as the image of her being clawed at by Caleb.

“I thought,” she hesitated, then admitted, “I thought it would be useful. To you.”

“Tell me,” he demanded as they began to walk back towards the farmhouse, holding hands again.

“I’m not sure; he’s not, well, open with me.” She glanced at Matthew shyly. “He’s not stupid.”

“No.” Far from it.

“I know she went to New Orleans,” Helens aid. “I heard Christopher talking to her. I don’t know why.”

Matthew quickly guessed.

“Phillipe,” he said. “Phillipe Lamarque.” They had first met Phillipe before The Programme was even a group, even the idea of a group. He was someone Huw knew; a big man, a black man. He had been around and about London’s esoteric sub-culture at the time The Programme had begun to emerge. At one moment he was a Scientologist; the next Sunday afternoon he could be found taking tea with the Druids; if there had been a black Masonic Lodge, he would have put his left foot into it.

Phillipe Lamarque was part black, part Creole. He had been amused by Matthew, amused enough to cause Matthew himself to doubt what he was doing: in this, he was unique. Lamarque had said: do it; the only criterion that counts is if it works. He had gone away, come back, taken a little part like a sip of tea, then disappeared again without explanation.

He had returned shortly after Huw had left the group. During a phase of free contact - contact with outsiders - Cassandra, on the rebound, had picked him up and for a few, short weeks no one else had mattered. Matthew had not been troubled while it was going on; only after it was over.

Lamarque had ended up in New Orleans, long before Katrina; even the hurricane had not dislodged him. The devastation would not have deterred Cassandra; to the contrary, it would have appealed - signs of Armageddon.

“What do you think?” Helen asked, meaning developments generally, not Phillipe.

“I think ... I think that if they had stayed in England, we would have lost them. I think they had begun to lose sight of the whole, were too focused on their own path. I think they needed to follow it down alone, to rediscover their part in the whole.”

“And if they don’t?”

“If they don’t, they don’t.”

“Sometimes I’m scared, Matthew. What will happen to us?”

“When the time comes, follow your own path. The Programme remains whole.”

“Let them go, Matthew; before it’s too late. You don’t need them; we don’t.”

He let go of her hand, turned and stared back at the path through the woods from which they had emerged.

“I can’t,” he said eventually, simply. “They have a right; they are a part of it; until they don’t want to be any more.”

“And you think they have the same caring attitude towards you?” She sounded bitter; it was easier for Matthew to withstand them than it was for her.

“I think... I think we’ll all find a way through. Together; together in the end. Maybe it will be hard; maybe some will fail or fall; maybe there will be pain. It can’t always be easy.”

“Me, Matthew,” she insisted. “I’m scared for me.”

“They won’t hurt you,” he assured her. “That would be to hurt me.”

She wanted to tell him: that was what she was trying to say.

Anthony - naked - in a punishment cell, not even The Programme symbol around his neck; Caleb cracks a stock-whip, points at the boy with its leather handle, licks his lips.

“Do you want it?”

Anthony, shivering, shakes his head violently. He has been beaten before, though not whipped.

“You like doing it to others,” Caleb goads him.

“I’ve changed,” Anthony whispers. “That was then. There.”

Caleb snorts disbelievingly.

“I was just a child.”

“You were never a child, Anthony,” Caleb sneers. “You were just small; small and mean and growing.”

“I didn’t mean any harm. I wasn’t going to do anything.” He is still talking about Thomas. “It’s been months; I’ve behaved.”

“But it hasn’t left you, has it, Anthony?” Caleb speaks almost gently. “It’s always inside of you.”

Suddenly, momentarily defiant, Anthony says:

“I thought that was what The Programme is about? It’s in all of us. Always.”

Caleb cracks the whip: do not answer back.

“What do you want of me, Caleb?” Anthony begs, crying. “This?” He touches his hands to his body. “That?” He points at the whip. “What would The Teacher think?” he adds, regretting the words before they are out of his mouth. The moment of defiance has passed.

Caleb said:

“I know you. You and I, we’re the same. I’ve been there, in a cell like this; but I handled it, and I learned to handle myself. That’s what you have to do. And if you can’t, there’s no place for you to go - not in The Programme, not outside.”

“I want to, Caleb,” Anthony replies, his voice trembling. “I’ve always wanted to. You show me, Caleb,” he pleads. “I’ll do anything.”

For a moment, Caleb is tempted. Then, without explanation, he pokes the tip of the whip through one of the top holes in the air-brick, leaving it dangling as he steps out and slams and locks the door behind him. Outside, he pulls on the end of the whip and pushes it back in through another, until there is enough on the inside to tie into a knot.

Inside the cell, Anthony focuses on the whip, setting its handle in motion like a pendulum, struggling to understand what Caleb meant by it.

Impulsively, suddenly lonely, Carey called Emily.

“Carey? Are you all right?”

“I just felt like a chat. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Carey; really fine.” There was something in her tone that was different; there had been changes.

“What’s going on, Em?”

“I did it, Carey; last Saturday.” Joined The Programme. It was not something Carey had expected. She ought to have felt glad; instead, for some reason she shivered.

“Where are you ringing from?” Emily asked.

“Hammer Reach. The farm. How’s work?” She changed the subject.

“Ah, well, they’re re-organising. Merging two departments. And guess what?”

“They’re going to make you redundant,” Carey said. “I expected it; I just didn’t expect it so soon. We can fight it, you know.”

“No,” Emily sounded sad but only just. “It’s time to move on. As long as I’m there, well, you know.” Richard around every turn in the corridor.

Carey asked after Chapter members. Shyly, Emily told her she had been seeing Simon; Emily, too, was fast-tracking.

She said:

“I want to come over.”

“What, here?”

“I miss you.”

“Don’t you have to work any time out?”

“Yes, sure. But like you said, I could fight it. I haven’t been in this week; they aren’t complaining. I think they’ll go for holiday time during my period of notice, don’t you?”

“Do it, Em. Matthew and I are planning to take a trip, to the South, where he was born. Come over; join us.”

“What about Matthew? Do you think he’ll mind?”

Carey laughed.

“Matthew? When did he ever mind a following?”