The Programme

CHAPTER TEN-3

“There now. Better?”

Jessica was compact, organised, in control and command and not only of herself. She was flaunting it, challenging Carey to match her composure.

Carey asked again:

“Did you stop Patrick taking the picture?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I liked it. Why? Did I do something wrong?” She was not disconcerted by Carey’s anxiety.

Carey stared at her for a moment, left the room, returned with a fresh mug of coffee for herself. It was the best she could manage.

Jessica sighed.

“We’ve got off on the wrong foot, haven’t we?”

“We?” Carey asked pointedly.

“All right, I have,” Jessica corrected herself casually. “This is your office; I apologise. But I’m not newly qualified; it’s difficult for me to share a room; perhaps more difficult, in the circumstances.” Carey’s firm.

“Forget it,” Carey said, knowing neither of them would do so.

Because Carey had given no notice of her return, her appointment book was empty. New work - always urgent - had been assigned elsewhere. There was enough to do but not too much. Between times, she made calls and visited with others. Alistair acted as if she had merely been abroad on a case, taking a few extra days. Alison was too busy to talk, on the telephone when Carey popped her head around the door, but waved and mouthed “nice to see you". Patrick was at court but came in to see her as soon as he returned. Diplomatically, Jessica withdrew from the room.

Patrick saw at once that his picture had been relocated where Carey could see it, smiled and nodded with pleasure.

“I hear tell you wanted it back,” Carey accused.

Patrick reddened.

“I didn’t think you’d want it anymore.”

“Oh, Patrick, I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, Jessica said she wanted me to leave it.”

“I’m still jet-lagged, everything feels unreal; I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve stepped into a play called The Watercolour. I’m going to go home soon. Catch a couple of hours sleep.”

Patrick rushed in before he could change his mind.

“Would you have dinner with me later? Just to catch up.”

“Yes. I’d like that.” Carey’s voice sounded hollow, ghost-like, someone else’s; she wasn’t sure what she was doing; maybe she was trying to turn the clock back. It was hard to tell who was more surprised. He backed out of the room before she backed off her decision.

“Come up to the house after work,” she said.

“Seven?”

“Sure.”

After he had finished with his lawyers in London, and handled another session with those in New York, Rockworth met Berlinger. They shook hands; Rockworth offered him a drink.

“I don’t,” Berlinger said shortly.

“What do you do, Mr Berlinger?”

“I deprogramme, Mr Rockworth.”

He had an attitude. Rockworth was used to it: people determinedly undaunted by his wealth and power.

“Yes; that much I knew. It’s a bit late for me, though.”

“Why did you ask to see me?”

“Have you deprogrammed anyone from The Programme - anyone else, that is?” He knew of the failed attempt to free Amanda Kroger.

“I’ve talked to a couple others.”

Rockworth studied the man across his desk. He was wearing a dark suit -blue but dark. He had made the effort. He was younger than he seemed at first. He was over six feet. Rockworth’s briefing told him Berlinger had been - in turns - a college athlete, a marine, a sports reporter then newsreader on local TV, finally he had made it to network television, only to quit a few months later to engage in his current crusade. He had a daughter who had joined the Moonies, a son who was a missionary in Central Africa, a wife who had died in a car crash no one knew was drink or suicide.

“You don’t say much.”

“I do when it matters.”

“Which is when? When you are persuading someone out of - out of what? A cult? A sect? How do you do that?”

“You said it - you don’t have anyone to get out.” His attitude was beginning to annoy Rockworth. He had offered Berlinger five thousand non-refundable dollars to come see him.

“I want to know,” he snapped.

“Why did you ask to see me, Mr Rockworth?”

Rockworth hesitated. He was not used to refusal. On the other hand, he wanted someone as hard and as unyielding as himself.

“I feel guilty, Mr Berlinger. What I did was wrong, committing my son to their care. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else; I feel it’s the least I can do; I gave them support, that makes me partially responsible. That’s why I asked you to come. I want to put them out of business; my lawyers are working on the lease in London; they need information; I want you to work with them; I also want you to work against The Programme in any other way you can - in America, too.” No limits.

“You want revenge,” Berlinger brushed off the claim to altruism.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Rockworth answered angrily.

For a moment, he thought he had lost the man. Then, for the first time, Berlinger smiled.

“It’s what we’re all doing, Mr Rockworth: them too.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the way I see it, Mr Rockworth. The people - these so-called gurus - it’s their way of getting revenge.”

“For what?”

“Does it matter? Somewhere along the line, they all got passed over - they all wanted something the world wouldn’t give them; mostly, I guess, God got there before them. They’re all little men, Mr Rockworth, all of them. Even Crane. Little inside. This is their way of saying screw you - I’m going to take it for myself; they especially like taking away your children. Makes them feel powerful; like God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.”

“Is that how you feel about your daughter?”

“Mr Rockworth,” Berlinger said expressionlessly, “I don’t have a daughter. No more than you have a son.”

Carey went home shortly after she had made the date with Patrick. Before she went to bed, she took a shower and wrapped herself in a towel, sitting in the living room with another cup of coffee, watching CNN and smoking, while she dried. She drifted off on the sofa, awoke to the sight of Hammer Reach, Matthew and Cassandra outside the farmhouse.

“Last night. When did you last sleep with your wife?”

She did not doubt it: it was pure Matthew, and pure Cassandra to have told the world.

She fought panic, told herself that she did not care. Matthew had made her no promises of fidelity.

She switched off the television; she was too tired to think about it. Instead of going directly to her own bedroom, she found herself in what had become Emily’s, drawing comfort from the presence of Emily’s belongings, wishing she had come back with her, wondering what she was doing, trying not to conjure up the worst images. She stretched out on Emily’s bed, still wrapped in her towel, in moments she was asleep.

She dreamed of Matthew, Phillipe, Caleb; they were dancing around something - a sacrifice - a chicken - her own heart, raw and red, pumping blood - it was strangely easy, not at all scary - she reached out to touch it for herself, stroke it, it felt sensual, s****l - it was her soul - she was being passed around the men - naked - they were touching her but none of them made any move to possess her - the sacrifice was Emily - now Carey was scared - her heart had been brushed off the altar onto the ground - it started to pump violently jumping all over the place - she was trying to catch it, grab it, stuff it back inside herself - dead Emily was sobbing - asking her to do it - she mounted her, lay alongside her, cradled her head in the crook of her arm; it’s all right, chérie, as if they were by the pool at the apartment in Antibes - Charles shook her awake - he was saying something - but it was the doorbell - she fought against its clamour to find out what Charles was saying - the bell won and she awoke without finding out.

She answered the door wearing a silk dressing-gown that belonged to Emily, grabbed from a hook on the back of her door.

Patrick. In a suit.

She was embarrassed; she had forgotten he was coming.

She stepped back to let him in.

He was equally embarrassed, tense, memories of their times together which he had worked hard to forget were back in a flash. He walked past her in the small hall careful not to touch her, even accidentally.

“Would you like a drink.”

Her voice was a mix of tiredness from the trip abroad and the flight home, her uneasy sleep, and the sudden memory of Cassandra’s brash claim coming back to her even as she stood at the door.

It was not cold, but she felt shivery, goose-bumps, tingly, sensuous. She was acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the dressing-gown, Emily’s dressinggown against her skin. She had been smoking too much; it made her voice sound husky, sexy.

“Sure. Why not?”

He did not know what he wanted. He had loved her, still loved her. They had brought out something special in each other. It had not worked. It had made him unhappy. He had chosen to have nothing rather than not enough. He would be a fool to try again for more than they could make.

He followed her into the kitchen where she struggled with a bottle of wine.

“Here, let me,” he held out a hand.

She turned and as she did so, the dressing-gown fell half open. He caught a flash of breast, flushed, looked up to find her eyes meeting his. He took the bottle, the corkscrew already well lodged, put the cold bottle between his legs. He pulled sharply on the corkscrew; she was giggling at him; suddenly the corkscrew popped; he thanked God it was still wine not champagne.

She took the bottle, poured two glasses, handed one to him, held it by the thin stem. His hand seemed larger than she remembered, more lined; it was Phillipe’s hand, or Caleb’s or Matthew’s, from the dream. Instead of taking the glass by the bowl, he wrapped his fingers around hers so they were locked together.

She asked: “Is this what you wanted?”

“The wine?”

“No.”

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

“But it is now?”

She pulled her hand free. She hesitated for a moment longer, then untied the belt of the dressing-gown so it fell open. She stood for a moment then led the way upstairs to her bedroom still carrying her glass. She took each step slowly, carefully, savouring it. In her bedroom, she lay on the bed, still wearing Emily’s dressing-gown, watching him detachedly as he tore at his clothes, using him like a mirror to watch herself.

They ordered in pizza and ate in the kitchen, either side of the small counter.

“What was it like?” He left her to decide whether he meant America or The Programme.

“Disneyland,” she answered promptly.

“What are you saying? That it’s unreal?”

“In some ways, yes; not your reality.” Her eyes shone.

“Yours?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I meant: it was like a visit.”

“Now you’re trying to decide if you want to go back or stay here?” He was astute. She had to be careful what she said. He had too many loyalties to take him for granted. Her position in the firm would already have been filed somewhere between tenuous and terminal if her name had not been Arnott.

“I know I belong here.” She avoided a direct lie though not by much.

“Don’t sound so sad about it; it’s not the worst thing on earth.”

“I know. It’s just - it’s like stepping into a place with a completely different set of rules and objectives; that’s what I meant about Disneyland - the objective is to get your turn on the ride; in between, you obey the rules, which are mostly to wait your turn on the ride.” She caught the look of confusion on his face, reached across, touched his cheek. “Oh, Patrick, don’t try so hard to understand; it won’t make any sense to you anyway.”

“I know it won’t; I was trying to make sense of you.”

“What do you think of Jessica?” She changed the subject suddenly.

“I like her, actually.” As if it was surprising.

“Everyone seems to. Colin says even Charles likes her.”

“He does.” Patrick confirmed. “Are you jealous?”

“Of her?”

Patrick nodded.

“Why should I be?”

“Everyone likes you too,” he answered elliptically.

“Do you?”

“What? Like you?”

“Yes.”

“You know I do.”

“No. I know you have feelings for me and I know you’re attracted to me. But I’ve never been quite sure if you liked me, you know, just in myself.”

He thought for a moment before answering.

“I’m not sure I know what that means. ’In yourself’. Do people exist like that - separate from what they do, from what you want from them? Is that what The Programme is about?”

“I think that’s what it tries to be. Not making demands of each other to be someone in particular; being ourselves; seeing what we make of ourselves, on our own and collectively. It’s about not deciding what we want to happen and going towards it but letting whatever comes out of being ourselves happen, and out of being together while we do it.”

“And what does come out of it?”

“Something different every day,” she said. “That’s the fun part.”

“And the serious part?”

“Does it have to have one?” She could not confide in him the inner tensions of the group; he was an outsider.

“We’re back where we began, aren’t we? What are you going to do?”

“No. That’s not the question. It’s where I’m going to do it. I believe in the things The Programme stands for. That’s what you find hardest, all of you. That I actually believe in it, in anything apart from the law.”

“What we find hard is to know what it is.”

“It’s a group; I suppose you’d call it a religion, but not in a conventional way; articles of faith is the phrase that comes to mind. We all agree on certain propositions and we agree to live together in recognition of them, out of respect for them, and then we see what happens. In turn, what happens defines the faith. Does that make any better sense?”

“It’s far too abstract for me,” he grimaced.

“We’re fond of one another, right?”

“I hope so.”

“But we both know things haven’t been working out.”

He nodded but said nothing.

“So we decided to do nothing at all instead of struggling to carry on with the bits that did work.”

“You’ve got a short memory, Carey. I thought, just now.. .”

“That was us again, for a short time, wasn’t it? What were you doing?”

He had the answers he needed.

“Having s*x,” he said flatly.

And:

“That’s all,” he lied.

“And that’s fine with you? That’s enough?

”He felt himself growing angry, as if she was playing with him, had been playing with him beforehand. She had changed, she was different, he could not understand her, he did not like what he saw. He repeated the thought to himself, shook his head sorrowfully, said:

“I think you’re right.”

“What?”

“I don’t think I do like you. Anyway, not like this.”

She laughed brittly:

“Well then; don’t say nothing good comes out of The Programme - it’s what you needed to feel, isn’t it?”

After he had gone, she was lonely. She tried calling the Chapter House. Neither Father Simon nor Mother Naamah - Chapter Mother since the departure of Cassandra - was available. The best she could manage was Sister Rebecca - even Sister Lilith was serving in the Coffee Lounge so could not speak. Rebecca sounded distant, uncomfortable with Carey, they were not connecting.

She opened a second bottle of wine and sat at the window in her study overlooking the street, the way she used to do, smoking and surfing the Internet, waiting for the drink to do its trick. She had gone with Matthew, failed, lost him; Emily had gone over, Carey had come home - lost her too; she had agreed to see Patrick, lost him; Colin did not have the time for her - she and her new roommate at work were not going to get along; Charles was in Antibes.

She was home, she thought bitterly: this was home. Her head began to spin.