The Programme

CHAPTER FIVE-3

“It’s a lovely fantasy, Andrew, but it’s off the map. Too damned many obstacles.”

“Apart from Charles?”

“Charles and Alistair Mathison.” He paused. “Alison Hansen. Carey, too, I would have thought: she wouldn’t like the change.”

“Ah, Carey,” Andrew said wistfully. “No, it couldn’t be done without her.”

Before Colin could respond, a pretty girl of about twenty-five approached, long athletic legs balanced on high heels, her blouse a button too open, eyes wide, lips glossy, smiling worshipfully at Andrew.

“I’m late. I’m sorry.”

“Come and meet Colin. Annette, Colin. Colin’s my oldest friend.” He scowled at Colin. “And don’t you dare say Annette’s my youngest.”

Colin rose to shake her hand but did not sit down again, trying to avert his eyes from her blouse.

“I was just leaving.”

“Stay and have another drink.”

“Please do,” Annette imitated with apparent sincerity.

“I have to get home; Andrew’s worn me out.”

“Hard match?”

“No. Not that.” Colin offered a hand to his friend. “Let’s lunch, shall we?”

Then they were gone and everything was tranquil. The Coffee Lounge seemed emptier, though there were as many customers, but there were fewer Initiates and Junior Messengers waiting on them.

Sister Lilith had been left behind, which Carey welcomed: there was a relationship between them, as if Lilith’s first night welcome meant more than the mere accident of passing through the foyer at a particular moment.

Sometimes, instead of spending time in the Coffee Lounge, she would sit with Lilith on reception: they talked for hours on end, rarely interrupted by calls or callers. Carey was no longer an outsider or a stranger. She had a special status, whether as the group’s solicitor or Matthew’s; she cherished it and managed simultaneously to feel guilty about it.

Sister Lilith told her about her background. She was by qualification a State Registered Nurse, working in her hometown of Detroit. A couple of years before, she had been involved in an incident in the operating room: a patient had died in the course of a procedure that was designated routine. Accusations had flowed. Complaints had been filed against both Lilith - it was her own name, not a Biblical alias - and another nurse: anyone but a doctor who cost twice as much to train.

“They blamed you?” Carey guessed.

Lilith shook her head, square and determined.

“Uh huh. In the end, they blamed the doctor.”

“So?”

“I couldn’t figure, how come they spent more money finding out who was to blame than the cost of the operation: I mean, they knew what had happened -that wasn’t in doubt. It was all about who let it happen. You know?”

“So?” Carey repeated, despite herself ever the lawyer.

“So, I mean, what’s the big deal about blame - what’s its street value? You know, sometimes don’t you just look around and say, ugh, what kind of a game are we playing?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Carey said, as if explanation enough.

“Is it right, what they say, it’s just a game? Law?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes what happens is real, terrifyingly real, and you know that it’s going to have an influence on the rest of the client’s life. It’s hard to think of that sort of thing as a game, whether it’s a divorce settlement, a job settlement, a housing dispute, a claim for personal injuries or whatever. Very little of it is a game to the clients, you know?”

“Sure,” Lilith said softly. “Or to a patient.”

They sat in silence, each side of the reception desk, Lilith protected by it, Carey overshadowed by the portrait of Matthew.

“From there to here?” Carey asked.

“I sold my car, my stereo, my TV, most of my clothes, everything I owned really. I jumped my last month’s rent, too, which doesn’t make me proud, you know. I took the train to Montreal, flew to Paris, travelled around Europe on a train. I, well, I did some other things I’m not sure I’m that proud of - guy things - and I managed to end up here in London, wondering whether to spend my last few bucks on a flight home or a score,” of dope. “I met Merry in the street, selling the magazine, and I told her to f**k off, I didn’t want any religious s**t to complicate it all.”

Carey jerked back in her chair: she had been around enough to be appalled at the idea of telling a Messenger to f**k off.

“What happened?”

“Merry said right, who needs it? Let’s go for a coffee. Just like that. I was a complete stranger and she just said, screw it, what she was doing was less important than whatever pain I was in. I guess that’s about the whole story. A week later I was washing up in the Coffee Lounge kitchen; a month later, I was a member. I haven’t thought about much since; I’ve been enjoying myself, you know; it’s warm, there’s so many people around.”

“I can’t see myself, well, you know, joining something - oh, like this, anything.”

“So don’t. No one expects you to join, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” This was Carey’s first feed-back on howProgramme members saw her.

“Oh, you’re a lawyer, and you’re Matthew’s lawyer, you’re not like, well, someone off the street. Maybe you don’t need the same things as the rest of us. You’ve got this, like, thing with Matthew: The Programme’s his thing; you’re like, well, I don’t know, what I’m thinking is like when we had a new med. student at Buffalo South - where I worked - you could see some of them were fast-tracking. That’s you: on a fast-track to the top.”

Carey was halfway between being flattered and appalled.

“It’s still joining, though.”

“No, it’s not. One thing’s joining The Programme; the other’s about joining Matthew. Do you see?”

Carey took a deep breath.

“Matthew. He and, er, Cassandra, they’re not, well, together. Right?”

“Right,” Lilith grinned cheekily. “You’ve got a thing for him?”

“Of course not; he’s a client.” Carey was blushing.

Lilith’s laughter was infectious: despite herself, Carey joined in.

“You must be the only one, then,” Lilith said.

“It frightens me. Only, I don’t know what I mean: Matthew or The Programme.” Flashes of Marion on her knees in church, praying to a wrathful God: flashes of herself, on her knees before God, asking for forgiveness; a flash of herself, naked, kneeling before Matthew, as she had fantasised. “People like me, we don’t join, er, well, cults, you know?” She repeated the thought she had at the Midnight Meditation.

“And people like me do?”

“The religion puts me off,” Carey admitted.

“It’s a metaphor, just a metaphor,” Lilith reassured her. “What do you think? Can you see me, or, say, Rebecca or Merry engaged in some, I don’t know, what do you think? A Satanic ritual, for Christ’s sake? How about Mother Naamah?” The most ridiculous image of all.

“Of course not. I suppose, what I’m saying, I suppose I agree with a lot of what The Programme teaches - about demons within, the impulses we all keep hidden; it frightens me - well, you know, to let them out.”

“Like the man says - you have to let them out of the dark to see them.”

“What about Matthew?” Carey asked hotly, suddenly bold. “What about his dark side?”

Lilith was less disturbed by the question than Carey had expected.

“It’s not my business. Sure, he’s got a dark side too. We all have. I’ve seen him be cold, dark, unforgiving. Perhaps cruel. We’re not talking about him as a man; he’s The Teacher.”

“But without Cassandra, The Seer? What is he?”

“Tell me what you’re asking about?” Lilith said patiently. “The Teacher or Matthew?”

“I don’t know,” Carey answered plaintively. “If I knew, I probably wouldn’t ask.”

She could not leave Patrick hanging in the wind. One morning, as she went out to court, she left a note for him saying simply -"Dinner?". When she got back, he had returned the note to her, a tick through its one word, throwing the burden back onto her to decide when. She rang him from her room, instead of going through to his.

“Tonight?”

“Okay.”

They both hung up, one dry with apprehension, the other with stale anger.

It was taken for granted that they would go out from the office once they were both finished working. She went to fetch him soon after seven. He was studiously turning the pages of a file, filling time.

“Hi.”

He smiled, came around his desk: she hugged him quickly, kissed him on the cheek.

“Where are we going?” he asked: her date.

“How about The Island Queen?” She suggested a restaurant above a pub in Islington, in her direction home not his.

They walked up in strained silence. Waiting for a table, she told him about Antibes, taking Emily with her and how it had surprised Charles.

“I’m not surprised. He’s conventional that way.”

“What? Making friends with clients? It’s how he built the firm up. He’s enormously proud of his old political clients. Most of them came to the house one time or another.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant as a father; he’s protective; he doesn’t want to see you involved in something, well, I suppose I mean stressful.”

“He shouldn’t have encouraged me to be a lawyer,” she quipped, sipping her wine: she had been drinking less and less since she had started to go down to The Programme - this was her first drink for a week; she could already feel it going to her head.

“Do you think that was it? He didn’t like the idea of my making friends with a, er, well a battered woman I suppose he’d say?”

“I should think so. All parents want their children to be safe, kept away from trouble - and troubled people. Wouldn’t you?”

“Arnott?” The barman called out.

They ordered: fresh carrot and coriander soup followed by filo pastry filled with leek and brie on a tomato sauce base for her; mussels followed by pan fried leg of lamb steak for him. She was also eating less meat since she had been spending time at The Programme.

“No, I’m going to move on to water,” she answered when he asked if she wanted more wine.

The look on his face made her laugh.

“Disappointed?”

“No. I’m pleased for you.”

“I never thought about children”, she mused: “I mean, how I’d be with them.”

“Do you really not want them, Carey?”

“And be like Dad was with us? God, no.”

“What about Colin? He’s managed all right.”

“Yes, but I’d have to be Jan. Or find one.”

“You’re so,” Patrick fumbled for the words, “you’re so principled; you never make a move without deciding on the principle first.”

“I’m comfortable with what I know. I don’t want to move on until I’m sure it’s right.”

“Sometimes, though,” he forked a mussel into his mouth and chewed on it before continuing: “It isn’t the way to do things; not everything is about principles; some things are just for doing.”

He was talking about them; she was thinking about The Programme.

As if he could read her mind, he asked:

“Tell me about The Programme, then.”

“What do you mean?” They had only talked about it as a case.

He flushed, embarrassed by his indiscretion: Colin had mentioned to him that Carey was spending time at The Programme, probing how much Patrick knew about his sister’s involvement.

“I just gathered, well, that you’d been hanging about it a bit.”

“I don’t know what to say, really. It’s not clear what it is - a religion, a psychological theory, a therapy group or a cult. There are times when it turns me right off. And it’s not hard to see that there are people who don’t have the strength to thrive on their own who could be taken in by it. On the other hand, there are times I find myself thinking, well, yes, it’s got a lot of the answers.”

“It? What is it?”

“Whatever you want it to be. There’s a lot written or talked about what they believe, and there’s very little to disagree with: Matthew says he positively wants the common ground; common ground in what people believe and in what disturbs them. It all turns on his purpose, I suppose.”

“His purpose? God’s purpose?”

“I forgot you had such a down on religion.” As if she had not herself often spoken out angrily against it.

“I’m not down on it; I’m down on what people do in its name. I’m comfortable with the idea that there’s something more out there, that I come from something and that I’ll go back to it, and if you press me on it, I daresay I’ll admit to calling it God, but I don’t need a mysterious American with long hair trying to look like Jesus, asking me to give him all my money and spend my life in his service just to prove God exists. He doesn’t give his followers anything; he needs them to prove he exists.”

“You talk like you know him.”

“Just the type.”

At the Mayfair house, Matthew wandered the dark corridors. He was disoriented. He had wanted and had organised the separation, but he felt the departure more keenly than he could show.

He thought of Cassandra and the early days, the early adventures, the times when they had discovered there was nothing they could do to each other that would destroy their love or the group, from physical or mental games, through role-playing their deepest fantasies and acting out their most powerful ambitions, to dark ceremonies and the worship of gods of their own manufacture.

Had they been aware that they were building a world in which he was God and she his right-hand angel? Yes. Had they thought they were creating an environment in which others would let go of their self-control, and in doing so would become dependent on them? Yes. Had they enjoyed watching members strip down to their basest elements and lay them in separate piles at their feet like tributes? Yes. Had they knowingly indulged their drives with the bodies of near-children without guilt? Yes. Had they known it was dangerous, that it would accommodate a Caleb or an Anthony Rockworth as much as a benign Naamah, a wise Merry, or an innocent Rebecca, and lead to cross-infection between them? Yes. Had they known people would do things they would never be able to forget, that they would become addicted to, so that they would have to stay in The Programme, self-made exiles from the outside world? Yes and yes again.

He scourged himself with his crimes and comforted himself with the knowledge that it had been without malice. Above all, he comforted himself with the realisation that it had worked, so many of them were happy together, had found a way to be with each other’s pain and, thence, with their own. Yet he could not bury the fear that their offences had outweighed the gains, that they had laden The Programme with more pain than it could bear. Nothing they had done while forming The Programme had separated him and Cassandra; he was not sure, though, that The Programme itself might not be the one thing that could. The fire beyond.

He let himself into The Temple, mumbling automatically:

“I am one.”

He answered himself:

“We are many.”

He thought, but did not say aloud: “Together we shall be whole”.

From a spring-door cupboard so flush with the wall of an alcove that it could not be seen, he extracted candles, bowls, bottles of oil. He set them around the giant floor-cushion which was The Temple’s only furniture, sometimes its throne. He poured oil into bowls, placed lit candles within them, lick-spittles of light arose from the flames, the air was heavy with scent. He settled himself cross-legged on the cushion in their midst.

He wanted someone. He could not say who. Cassandra; Helen; Carey. He got up from the cushion, stretched. He pulled his sweater over his head, unbuckled his trousers, quickly stripped. He was tumescent, not hard. He stepped across and pressed himself flat against the painting of The Programme symbol, his cheek cold against the paper, then flung himself around so that he was facing the room, his back to the wall, arms outstretched, a crucifixion pose, humming desire.

He was not surprised when the door opened; he would have been more surprised had no one come.

It was the boy, Lucius, whom he had made Cassandra leave behind. Matthew wondered how many times Lucius had come to this room in the middle of the night, to be played with by his wife. He could imagine Cassandra sprawled across the giant cushion from which she taught, and on which Matthew would himself sit bethroned during a Midnight Mass, being f****d by youth, pretending the years were not taking their toll, savouring the abuse of their most hallowed place. He grew hard at the thought, made no attempt to conceal it, focused on Lucius as the boy’s eyes adjusted to the dull light until they caught and were held like a magnet.

Lucius pushed the door shut behind him. Said nothing. Licked his lips. This was a rough trade game from the hidden alleys of Soho, tiny mews where men met boys and did them in desperation propped against a wall or bent over the hood of a car.

Lucius stood before The Teacher, waiting, remembering.

“What do you feel?”

Matthew said:

“Agony. ”

Matthew smiled thinly. In a corner of the room, he imagined Cassandra crouched, robed again in red and applauding. He nodded to Lucius: the boy approached.