The Programme

CHAPTER THREE-3

“With all our symbols clanking in time,” Simon - least afraid of Caleb ridiculed.

Caleb glowered at Rebecca as if Simon’s attack was her fault.

Matthew ruled: “Caleb’s right.” Caleb nodded at Rebecca: to the victor the spoils. “One can make a fetish of being different; the purpose of the mission to America is to expand; I said, ’we are many; but we need to be more’.”

Brother Enoch held up a hand to speak: Enoch whose stammer had ceased the day he met Matthew in the street in Exeter, when The Programme spent some time in Devon, which was the day that he had joined The Programme, which was the day he had stopped injecting heroin - cold turkey. Brother Enoch said now:

“I never had a home before. I have a home here. I am comfortable. Therefore, it is time to go.” Enoch in the Bible had walked. He ran a hand through his long, scraggly hair and shrugged, as if apologising for interrupting.

Sister Meredith - Merry - a dark, attractive New Englander in her late twenties who like Matthew had come to England for her studies - leaned forward from behind Enoch, stroked his hair and kissed his hand until he settled down.

Caleb snarled:

“We’re all in agreement, Teacher.” Get on with it, he meant.

“Then it’s decided,” Matthew said.

They waited. He looked around at them all, until he had looked each one individually in the eye.

“The Seer is to lead this mission. Father Caleb, Father Christopher, you will go with her. Father Simon and Mother Naamah will stay here. So will Brother George and Sisters Hamah and Rebecca. Brother Enoch, Sister Meredith, Brother Micah and Sister Helen - you too will all go. With Father Nahum and Mother Jemima, there will be eight Superiors and Senior Messengers.” Father Nahum and Sister Jemima were the two Superiors already in the States. In all, Matthew was sending almost half of the upper hierarchy. “I will decide on the others later.” There would need to be Junior Messengers to service their seniors. No Initiates, the most junior resident rank of all; the missionaries would be expected to find new Acolytes and bring them into the fold as Initiates over there; if they could not do that much for themselves, the mission would fail.

No one needed to say anything as he crossed his legs, held his hands outwards palms open and facing up, closed his eyes and began to intone:

“We look to the energy that is the source of all life and of which we are but a tiny part to guide us and to feed us in this next step on the journey of reunification; I am one but we are many: together we shall be whole. We seek to be channels of conflict and vessels of the elements; I am one but we are many: together we shall be whole. We seek to be free of the petty aims and ambitions of our past lives - our vanities, our insecurities, the will to hurt in order to protect ourselves; I am one but we are many: together we shall be whole. We seek to stride confidently towards the fire, hands outstretched; I am one but we are many: together we shall be whole.”

As he prayed, The Seer rose from her place beside him and came and knelt down in front of him; if he was aware of her, he gave no sign. She reached out and touched his fingertips: while doing so, she looked up at The Programme symbol above his head, and said:

“I am one; we are many.”

She picked her away through the membership and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Matthew, oblivious, continued: “In conflict, we shall be free and we shall find harmony; in war, we shall be free and we shall find peace; in fire, we shall be free and we shall find our release; I am one but we are many: together we shall be whole.”

Father Simon was the next most senior member present; accordingly, he came first to kneel before The Teacher, touch his fingertips, look up at The Programme symbol and mutter:

“I am one; we are many.”

He too shut the door behind him as he left.

One by one they took their turns, first kneeling before Matthew, then proffering their allegiance to the group, finally leaving and shutting the door until the person next to perform the ritual decided he or she was ready.

In the end, only Sister Helen was left.

“Why?” she asked, barely concealing the emotional hurt.

“I need you to be there, Helen, to be there for me. Surely you of all people can see that?” Helen with her ability to identify the politics of The Programme. “You must be my eyes and my ears - and my voice, too, when I need to be heard.”

“You know what she will try to do?” Cassandra worked through others; her pleasure was not to voice her own malice directly, but to encourage others to give voice to their own.

“That’s why,” he said, beckoning her to come and kneel before him.

“What can I do?” Helen was crying now, quietly but distinctly, tears running down her cheeks.

He stroked them away with the backs of his fingers. Then her hair, the way she liked.

“I’m frightened,” she admitted.

“Of what will happen over there?”

“Yes, and...”

“And? Of our separation?”

She nodded silently: petty aims and ambitions - vanities and insecurities.

She wanted reassurance. It would have been easy. He, too, stayed silent. No one owned him; the hardest path led up the highest mountain to the furthest view.

She gazed mutely into his eyes: help me be strong.

He smiled, held out a hand.

“Come. Come with me.”

The Temple was not the only sound-proofed room in the building: in the rear part of the basement - which also housed the Coffee Lounge and the kitchen -was a private studio, where Matthew recorded his Internet messages.

It was also sometimes used for punishment; it was where Caleb’s men had confined Anthony while his future was decided.

Sister Rebecca stood before Father Caleb. She was naked. Her full breasts hung disproportionately from her painfully thin frame and narrow back; two of her toes were joined by a web. Her nudity humiliated her and her humiliation thrilled him. He too was naked: his chest was thickly matted with grey hairs. His erect p***s was thick and stubby, like the rest of him.

He reached out, placed his palm flat on the top of her head, and thrust her down towards the floor. At first, she thought he was going to put it in her mouth but he changed his mind and continued to push down until she fell backwards onto the hard, cork-tiled floor. With his foot he prodded until she rolled herself over and lay prone, her hands stretched out along the floor above her head, her breasts squashed against the ground, jutting out either side of her in globs of flesh.

He stepped down and straddled her like a horse. He reached around and placed one hand against her mouth for her to lick it wet. He used her spit to moisten his p***s. Once, after a private meditation for a half-dozen intimates, he had watched through an open door as Cassandra mounted Matthew like this; he was doing what Cassandra could not.

Positioned to begin, he thrust himself directly into her, ramming her in stone silence.

Colin played squash and worked out in a gym: this was something else his father despised.

While he worked out, he watched women and fantasised.

Then he went home to the wife to whom he had never been unfaithful and the children he loved more than life itself, the way he wished his father had loved them.

Unless he went to his gym, Colin usually arrived home at about seven thirty. There were a half-dozen parking spaces at the back of the office, of which two were for clients and the remaining four allocated to the Management Committee: perks of office. Though it would have been quicker by tube, he always drove. They were the two parts of the day he had to himself, his private time.

Tonight, Carey was coming to dinner. She had arranged it with Jan. No one had consulted him. Irritated, he kept to his squash date; but, loving her, he did not ask her to rearrange her visit.

“What’s up?” Jan asked at the door to the study to which he invariably first retreated to put out his files for later, or to scribble down a thought he had during his journey home before it was swept away by family noise and news.

“Nothing.”

They touched lips lightly; she took his raincoat to hang it in the hall cupboard; he smiled as he was reminded that this was the life he had wanted and that he had not begun yet to regret. She was a good-looking woman and bright, though she had dropped out of university shortly before the end of her first year and surfed undemanding jobs until they had met at a lunch party and, over a six month period, decided that neither of them would be likely to find anyone more suitable.

She accepted his answer at face value, not because she believed him but because Carey was due at any moment and there would be no time to finish a discussion. As if on cue, the doorbell rang and she went to let in her sister-in-law, the other woman in Colin’s life and the only one by whom she felt threatened. They kissed the air and let go in time for the girls to grab at Carey’s skirt demanding attention and presents.

“Sophie, Alice, I’ve told you,” Jan reprimanded exasperatedly.

“It’s all right,” Carey laughed. “I like it really.”

She had come straight from work. From her briefcase, she extracted Matel boxes: a Barbie for each of them. As they snatched them away from their aunt, Jan was torn between further, futile scolding of her children and resentment towards Carey: they were her children with Colin, not Carey’s. She opted for polite admonition.

“You spoil them, Carey; you shouldn’t.”

“I don’t see them often enough to spoil them. Besides, children should be spoiled. Where’s Tim?”

“Here I am,” he said from the doorway to the kitchen.

He was a strapping lad, far bigger than his years, with a face that was so obviously Charles it constantly reminded her of nature’s mystery: a generation skipped but not lost.

“I didn’t think you’d want Ken,” Carey laughed, bending to be kissed. She didn’t remark that he had grown again: he was sensitive about his size. “Have you got one of these?”

She had bought him a child’s version of a pocket electronic organiser, with quizzes and games as well as address book and diary. His face lit up with unfeigned joy: it was an exciting gift, a real present not just a token.

Colin joined them. In a group, all but Jan who had food to prepare, they made their way into the living room. The girls would have to go to bed shortly: it was after eight and a school night. The nanny was off: it would be all hustle.

“Five minutes, now, girls.” Colin opened the negotiation.

“Ten, Daddy, please, please.”

They clambered onto the sofa for protection, one either side of Carey, clutching their dolls. Sophie’s was a teacher Barbie with a blackboard and two tiny doll pupils at their own desks.

Carey held up the one she had purchased for Alice, a doll with detachable hair, plastic scissors. “I don’t remember there being so many of them. I wish I was a child now; the toys are incredible.” Tim was sombrely punching the keys of his organiser, already mastering its features.

“You are, Carey, you are,” Colin teased. “Drink?”

“When did I ever say no?”

She was still slightly pissed from lunchtime.

They bantered until Jan called through that dinner was nearly ready. Tim was to be allowed to eat with them, on a promise to go straight to bed afterwards.

“Come on, girls. If you’re good, perhaps Carey’ll read you a story.”

“Come on, I said,” Colin upped the irritation quotient a notch. “I mean it.” He hovered over them, parentally threatening.

“All right, all right, don’t be such a lawyer,” Sophie whined back.

Colin and Carey exchanged a glance of surprise, then both of them burst into laughter.

“Don’t be a lawyer,” Alice imitated her sister. “Don’t be a lawyer.”

From cute to irritating in ten seconds flat.