The Programme

CHAPTER FOUR-1

CHAPTER FOURGuiltily, she took Emily with her to the South of France.

It was a first, to befriend a client and bring her into the family.

Emily was not too badly hurt, blamed herself, claimed that something she had said when Richard rang about his belongings during the afternoon might have led him to believe that he would be welcome to return that evening despite the court order, might even actively have caused him to return. She was one sentence shy of claiming it was her responsibility that he had lost all control, had gone further than ever before, had beaten her until her screams forced the neighbours to call the police.

When Carey visited her at the flat the next morning, one side of her face bruised black, one side of her body still bandaged, her legs either side of a pillow, Richard was under arrest: even if Emily did not want to pursue the complaint, the physical evidence was overwhelming; she could withhold evidence to support a charge of attempted rape but not the assault itself; besides, he had breached the court order.

The flat was a cracked mess. Carey asked about other friends she might stay with. They were friends of the couple and did not want to take sides, or run the risk, or get involved. She could not let her stay at her home alone.

“I’ve got the room. Stay a while.”

“I can’t,” Emily was sincere in her protestations. “You’ve done enough. Look, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have rung you.”

“It’s not your fault; none of it. Stop blaming yourself. I said to ring, then I went out and forgot. Leave me my mistakes, please.”

They were fighting for responsibility. Emily burst out laughing, then clutched her cheek.

“Ouch, that hurts. I’m sorry.” Which made them laugh again.

Carey had stayed late at the Coffee Lounge, long past closing time but, she noticed, so did many others, people she had thought were visitors.

“Acolytes,” Matthew explained his world. “They are also part of The Programme. Everything needs an opposite: residents need non-residents.”

“We all need to feel superior to someone?”

“Different, let’s say.”

“I don’t know how people do it,” she said, admitting ignorance and interest in equal measure.

“Do what?”

“Join something like this: give up everything else. I mean, I can see the attraction: complete change; the freedom to redesign yourself. I just don’t know how people have the courage.”

“Is it that much different from joining anything else? It’s just a question of degree.”

“It’s the size that makes the difference; the perimeters, perhaps.”

“Which is a question of how you measure them. We’re used to measuring space by reference to external criteria, houses, jobs, friends, money: success. Here, we build on a sense of our own identity: the stronger it is, the less we need things to which to attach it. It’s enormously liberating, owning nothing, needing nothing: you don’t need to worry about what to wear, where your next meal’s coming from, what you’re going to be doing tomorrow or at the weekend. You give everything you can to, and get everything you need from, the group.”

“I don’t know, Matthew,” she said, stirring the watery remains of her drink with the long-handled spoon with which she had picked out its fruit.

As if on cue, Sister Lilith approached the table deferentially.

“I am one,” she said.

“We are many,” he replied without self-consciousness.

“Would you like anything, Teacher?”

“Some tea would be nice. Carey?”

“All right; thank you.”

Sister Lilith smiled at her.

“Did you enjoy the Job’s Reward?”

“I did. It was delicious. Thank you.”

After Sister Lilith had left them, she said:

“She’s a nice woman. How long has she been a member?”

“l’m not sure,” Matthew admitted. “A couple of years, I think.”

“What did she do before?”

“You’re looking for types. Everyone did something different. Everyone did something alone. Everyone had something missing. After that, it’s mostly window-dressing.”

“You’ve got it all so worked out, Matthew. I envy you.”

“All I have worked out is the need to keep on working it out. I don’t know where I’m going, or where The Programme is going; I don’t know how this case will work out. I don’t know how you’ll work out either.”

She shivered: she didn’t either.

“All I know is, you have to take the next step just right; if each step is right, then the journey is right, then the destination will be right.” His voice was soothing, mesmeric, mellifluous.

Carey looked up to see that someone new had brought their tea.

The woman was carrying a tray, bearing three glasses, not two, each in a plastic holder. She sat down next to Matthew without being invited. She was small, dark, heavy-breasted.

“Hello Carey; I’m Cassandra.”

“The Seer,” Carey murmured despite herself, trying not to think how ridiculous the name sounded.

“That’s right. I thought if I didn’t come up and introduce myself, Matthew wouldn’t introduce me to our own solicitor.”

Carey couldn’t remember the last time she had heard anyone bury so many barbs in so few words.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Carey said. “I’m sure we would have met soon.”

Cassandra giggled.

“Excellent, excellent.”

Matthew was amused: no matter how much they fought, no matter that there were locked into combat for the soul of The Programme, no matter the different paths they took within it, they were still its twin poles.

“Will you come to America?”

“It’s too early to say. I don’t know if the case will need it.”

“But we might need you. Or, perhaps, we might just want you.”

Carey’s eyes flashed.

“I wouldn’t know about that. It’s too far away. I thought we were only supposed to look one step at a time.”

Cassandra reached across, took her hand, held onto it.

“That’s why I’m called The Seer,” she warned her.

As suddenly as she had arrived, she was gone.

Carey stared at the table for time to recompose herself. She asked Matthew:

“Is she always like that?”

“I’ve known her for twelve years; I don’t think she’s ever been the same twice.”

“How do you keep up with it? With her, I mean?”

Matthew took the same hand that Cassandra had let fall on the table with one of his hands, stroking the back of it with the fingers of the other.

“I don’t. She rushes ahead, then darts into a corner to hide and watch, and I think, all I can do is take the next step, my own next step, just right.”

“I am one?”

“Right. I am one; we are many; The Programme moves forward on many feet.”

“And if they don’t all move in the same direction?”

“Then that’s the direction we’ll move in.”

“I’m just a lawyer; it’s too abstract for me. I need to know what the destination is so I can plan the tactics for getting there.”

He sipped his tea.

“It’s where you think you’re going, but when you get there it won’t be what you think.”

“Because?” She couldn’t help herself; it felt like she could listen to him for hours.

“Because what you see at a distance is not the same as what you see from close up: at the least, it has proportions which are different.”

“Different to?”

“To you.”

“And?”

“And, secondly, because once you enter it you become a part of it; then you cannot see it the same way.”

“This is the room you are a part of?” She had read it in a magazine, or heard it on the Internet: you cannot describe a room that you are in.

“Right.” He leaned across to touch her cheek. She blushed and took his wrist in her hand, but - immediately - she was not sure what to do with it and quickly sensed that it was the wrong thing to do in this place: she had touched The Teacher.

“I’m sorry,” she said, letting go, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed.

Again, he did not brush the apology aside or tell her it was unnecessary.

“So you concentrate on the next step, just the next step. Taking it right,” she repeated what he had said earlier. “That’s all you can do, right?”

“You’re a quick study, Carey.”

“If you’ve taken a step, but then you don’t like where it’s led you, it may be too late.”

“Sometimes you have to let go, let yourself go.”

“That’s what scares me. That’s what stops me taking the first step.”

“Think about a bottle of rancid water. How do you make it whole?”

“Excuse me?” She didn’t see the connection.

“It’s an old Zen saying. You cannot make it whole by pouring it away a bit at a time, and filling it up again. You have to pour it all out until the bottle is empty; then you fill it up anew.”

This time, she did not make the mistake of taking his hand, but she reached across the table and laid her own in front of him, open and facing up, for him to take if he wanted.

“’You just paint it all over and start again’?” He took her hand.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said to Emily.

She had persuaded Emily to pack some things, come to Islington with her.

“After the hearing, let’s take a break.”

“A holiday?” Emily sounded doubtful. Her eyes were all on the hearing, the committal application to deal with Richard’s breach of the original order not to molest her. “Why?”

“Why not?” They were stretched out on Carey’s two, right-angled sofas, talking, drinking wine, nibbling cheese, listening to music, smoking - both of them.

“I’m on sick-leave,” Emily protested weakly. She had not gone back to work since the assault. There had been a meeting at Carey’s office - two of them, a man and a woman - and Emily and Carey. The man was Emily’s boss; the woman, from human resources.

The man admitted:

“We’ve got some difficulties here. Richard’s partner level.”

“Emily’s not asking for him to be sacked; their offices aren’t even in the same block. She just wants reassurance about her own position; she wants to know that he’ll be kept away, no one’s going to put them into contact; and, of course, that there’ll be no indirect, er, consequences.”

The woman rushed in.

“Absolutely. There’s no question of it. When Malcolm said there were difficulties, he meant that all of us, well, naturally, we want to give Emily all the support we can, we’re all on her side here. He’s just saying, Richard can’t be, well, you know, sacked.”

Carey was at work; she did not need a bullshit dictionary. She said:

“And, er, if he wasn’t at partner level, you’d sack him, right?”

“No, I’m not saying that either,” the woman blushed. “But we’d have more room for manoeuvre; he could be relocated, for example, further afield. Another town, perhaps.”

“But because he’s at partner level, you can’t? Please.” Carey pulled a face. Partners had little more power than any other employee; maybe their payoff wasn’t called redundancy but buy-out, but they could be, and were, sacked as often and as easily as everyone else.

“What do you want, Ms Arnott?” the man asked.

“I’ve said what Emily is after,” Carey repeated. “And of course she’s going to need some time off.”

“Absolutely,” the woman said. “As much as she needs.”

“The longer the better, you mean?” Carey said.

“I don’t know why you think that. I don’t know what you think we want.” The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

The man was harder by a head.

“If Emily feels it’s going to be too difficult, then we’ll just have to work something out.”

“Yes, I thought so,” Carey grinned.

“Will you all stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here?” Emily pleaded. “I want my job; I need it; I just don’t want to have to worry that he’s going to come around the next corner; and I don’t want any of his friends taking it out on me. Is that so much to ask? Look at me, damnit.” She pointed to her face, still swollen.

The man nodded at Carey.

“Right, then. Why don’t we all step back and consider our positions for a while? Time’s no problem; Emily is obviously entitled to some sick-leave; that gives us an opportunity to review the situation clear-headedly.”

“So?” Carey said at the house. “We’ll go to the South of France; people go there for their health; you can recuperate in the sun.”

“I can’t afford it.”

“All it’ll cost you is the flight. We have a flat. There’s room. I have to go down anyway. My father’s there.”

The Programme was all about the move. Not just for the residents but also for the Acolytes. No secret had been made of the plan: to the contrary, a moment such as this was seminal for those who were hesitating about joining. Though The Programme would not take Acolytes, there was nothing to stop some going with of their own accord. A few were thinking about using the occasion to pay a visit home for its own sake. The Junior Messengers nominated for the States after the monthly meeting were particularly keen on camp-followers: with no Initiates, they were on the bottom rung; a few outside friends could help both with the mundane tasks of establishing themselves in Boston, and to make contacts in the community from which they wanted to recruit.

Father Nahum flew back from the States to brief them and to consult with The Teacher: Mother Jemima stayed behind. She was British; her immigration status was unsatisfactory; it was one thing to tempt fate or the gods, quite another the INS.