Locked Door Shuttered Windows

by J Stafford Wright

  "Does he really tell you everything?"

  "If he wants me to take some action, yes. Otherwise I think he prefers people to settle their own affairs, so long as they're not disrupting the community."

  "Don't you think you should call his attention to the religious group?"

  "Maybe."

  I felt prompted to pull a small notebook from my pocket, and my hand seized my pencil and wrote, Let them talk away. Talking about religion never did anyone any harm.

  I showed the paper to Kathleen.

  "So he uses automatic writing," she said. "And he's listening to everything we're saying."

  Once more she picked up a stone and threw it in the water. I had a feeling she wanted to ask me another personal question. It came. "Tell me honestly. Do you feel you're a better person since you came here? I feel myself that I've somehow deteriorated. I can't put it into words, but I seem to have lost a lot of incentive."

  "You're asking awkward questions," I said slowly.

  "But what's the honest answer to this one? Tell me."

  She pressed her hand on my knee, and looked into my face. I was annoyed, and pushed her hand away.

  "I think we've said enough," I said, getting quickly to my feet. "Shall I see you home?"

  "Thank you. I came by myself, and I can return by myself."

  As I walked away, Kathleen was still sitting by the lake, throwing stones into the water.

  I was even more angry on my way back than I had been when I came out. She was right, of course, about how I felt about myself.

  CHAPTER 18

  I had a bad night. I didn't get to sleep until after two, and was woken just before dawn by the sound of quiet feet coming to the front door, followed by the slight snap of the letterbox. By the time I'd made the effort to get up, there was no sign of anyone from the window, but there was a small folded note on the floor.

  The early morning light was just bright enough for me to read it in the hall. Please forgive me for yesterday. I must see you today. Same place, after the library closes at 5.00. Please come. K.

  I was disturbed. What had kept me awake in the night was Kathleen's voice repeating again and again in my brain, "Do you love him?" and "Do you feel you're a better person since you came here?" What was she going to ask next?

  I decided to take a walk after breakfast. I went up past Kathleen's house, although I knew she would be at the library. As I was passing, I was surprised to see smoke coming from the chimney of the house next door. There was nothing surprising about a log fire, but this was the house where the Stuckeys had lived, and it was supposed to be empty now. As agent, I ought to know who was there.

  I went up the path and knocked on the door. There was no reply, but I thought I heard a laugh. I knocked again, and after a further delay the door opened a little way, and I was confronted by Tom, the son of Bill and Betty Broadwood (he was the plumber), and behind him Pat the daughter of the printer Joe Penny and his wife Margaret. Tom glared at me, while Pat shrank back.

  "I wondered who was living here now," I began.

  "So now you know," he retorted. "Tom and Pat."

  "You're living together, then?"

  "Of course."

  "May I come in and talk to you both?"

  "No. There's nothing to talk about. We love each other, and we're living together. That's all there is to it, and it's no business of yours."

  "I think it is my business. I've been put in charge of this village, and I've to see that things go smoothly. And you're not going to upset things."

  "Okay, who put you in charge? We certainly didn't. You've told us about the crazy scientist who brought us here. We've never seen him. Is there really such a person, or are you responsible for everything?"

  We were at an impasse.

  Tom Broadwood went on, "Well, who made you the boss of the place? Why should we listen to you?"

  He slammed the door, and left me standing there. There was nothing to do but leave. I had no idea what I ought to do. Fortunately, I had made no threats of any specific action that I might take. I had spoken of their living together as a disturbance to the community, and I felt I was right.

  I suppose it was a hangover from my Christian days, but I couldn't see that living together in intimacy while unmarried was good policy in society. After all, almost every nation and tribe had found it expedient to have some form of marriage.

  I went straight home, only to find four people waiting for me by my front door: the parents of the young people I had just seen.

  Betty Broadwood ran out to meet me at the gate. "Mr Longstone, you must stop it at once," she shrieked.

  Margaret Penny was quieter. "You must find them and bring them back."

  "I've found them," I said. "But you must be the ones to get them back."

  "Where are they then?" It was Betty Broadwood again.

  "Come inside and I'll tell you."

  We went in, in spite of Betty Broadwood demanding to go to them instantly.

  I told them that I had found the two, and that they had spent the night together. I had spoken strongly to them, but they had insisted that they were definitely planning to live together.

  "But they're not married!" wailed Mrs Broadwood.

  Her husband Bill joined in. "What arrangements have you got for weddings? You don't have a church here."

  "No. That's because none of us are Christians."

  "We'd always hoped that our son would have a church wedding, like we had."

  "We can arrange a marriage without a church."

  "You mean, like a registry office?" put in Margaret Penny.

  "Yes, more or less. Do you want them to marry?"

  There was dead silence. Then Joe Penny said hesitatingly, "I'm not sure that we do."

  The others nodded. I saw a temporary way out.

  "We'll arrange a marriage when you're all agreed. Meanwhile it's up to you to do what has to be done. It's hardly my job, and I could tell this morning that they won't listen to me. You'd better go and see them. They're in the Stuckeys' old house."

  The two sets of parents hardly paused to say goodbye. I watched them hurry up the road. I sat down before I was aware of Satan in the armchair opposite. I felt he had come in the nick of time to solve my problem.

  He began to speak before I could say anything. "You want my approval, don't you! Well, I don't approve."

  I was surprised. "You mean, you're happy for those two to live together."

  "Certainly. It won't disrupt the community. We have to encourage the young people, and if they want to live together and be free to separate if things go wrong, then let them do it."

  "Excuse me," I said, "but what about their parents? They're disrupted enough."

  "On the contrary. This is a Romeo and Juliet situation. The two families weren't on speaking terms until this happened, and now they're close -- for a time. Anyway, you'd better stand back and let things take their course. It isn't like wife swapping. We couldn't have that. I'd have to take one of the couples away."

  "Tell me, what line do you take on earth about this?"

  "If you'd still been teaching theology, you'd have been talking about 'situation ethics'. They've at last discovered what I've been practising since the beginning. Seeing which way the cat jumps, and jumping with it. You want to know what I do? I prompt a clergyman, the higher up the better, to denounce couples who are living together without being married, and then prompt the media to denounce the church for its narrow-mindedness. In another situation I would call the media's attention to some sex scandal, and when the Sunday papers had exposed it with cries of horror, I would find some well-known churchman to soft soap the people in the name of charity. Anything will do to blacken the Christian church."

  I thought of what Kathleen had said.

  "You mentioned charity," I said. "Charity in the Bible is love. Have you any time for love?"

  "Ah, you're thinking of your conversation yesterday with Kathleen Ryecroft. That woman put you on the spo
t when she asked you whether you loved me. At least you were honest. You don't love me, and I don't love you, and I don't love any of my helpers. The word is meaningless."

  I broke in. "But you recognise that those two young people in the Stuckeys' old house love each other."

  "Oh yes, I recognise sex attraction in the animal world. I hear it all the time in the world of pop. Spell it L-U-V if you want to."

  "I'm a bachelor myself, but I recognise that good married L-O-V-E is something beyond L-U-V, which is where the pop songs stop. And I know there's something more, not only married love."

  "My dear man, you've got a hangover from Christianity. It's one of those crazy ideas that drives people to sacrifice and martyrdom, and even to devotion to their so-called God. You don't imagine I've put you in charge here to love these people. You're fortunate that you can be boss and control them. They'd all like to be in your place. That's what life is all about."

  It was an illuminating comment on human nature, and presumably on diabolic nature too. I didn't reply.

  Satan changed the subject. "Now, I have something to tell you. You won't be in touch with me for a bit, unless there's a real emergency. I have to concentrate my efforts on fresh trouble in one part of the earth."

  I felt for a moment like a soldier, on the death of his officer, suddenly finding himself in command. A sort of panic.

  "Don't worry! You won't be on your own. You'll have my deputy, the spirit I've appointed as Prince of Priam."

  My teaching days came back to me. "Daniel," I said to myself.

  "Yes, Daniel was clever enough to realise I had my princes controlling the nations that tried to destroy his people. I still have."

  "You've certainly got things organised, Satan. Was Saint Paul right when he spoke of fighting against principalities and powers and world rulers?"

  "Of course. It's what I said just now. Give as many as possible a position of power, and you keep them happy. Even the lesser spirits like to pick up a sense of power by possessing or influencing anyone they can."

  "So," I said, "I can still get any help I need from this Prince of Priam."

  "That is so. He will be on our hot line. I'll be back as soon as I've settled the trouble in the Middle East. Oh, and by the way, Kathleen Ryecroft will be waiting for you by the lake a little after six this evening, after the library closes."

  He was gone.

  I must have fallen asleep with the exhaustion that always followed the psychic drain on my energy that enabled Satan to materialise. Conversation on the telepathic hot line didn't have the same effect. I decided to take an afternoon nap.

  * * *

  It was nearly four-thirty when I woke up. There was time for a cup of tea and a few biscuits before I had to go to meet Kathleen. I had to admit to being uneasy, especially after the recent conversation with Satan on L-U-V, and the earlier suggestion that I should marry her. I didn't know what might be in her mind, and I was definitely not going to let her sweep me off my feet.

  I was at the lake in plenty of time, and sat down on the bank to wait. The early evening sun sparkled on the water. A flotilla of brown and blue ducks paddled by, and an occasional fish jumped with a scatter of water drops. I could see insects like mayflies swirling round and round above the water, and a blue and gold dragonfly settled on some grasses by the shore. It was a perfect evening. In fact, every evening was perfect on Priam, where the climate was balanced with rain and sunshine; the rain generally falling late at night.

  With so much to enjoy, my thoughts had switched from the coming meeting, and I didn't hear Kathleen as she approached quietly through the grass. She was there beside me, looking down on me. She had dressed in grey, as before, and was smiling. I scrambled to my feet and motioned to her to sit down with me.

  "I'm glad you could come, John," she said.

  "It's a beautiful place," I replied.

  She turned her head and looked at me. Her face was red. "If you're going to be cool with me, I'll go."

  "I'm sorry, Kathleen. You have something you want to say?"

  "I'm sorry if I upset you yesterday." She put her hand on my arm, and went on, "I need your help."

  I had to come off my high horse. "I'm sorry again. What is it?"

  "I must get away from this place."

  "Now look," I said, "you realise they're listening in to everything we're saying."

  "I know. But I must speak to you."

  "What's getting you down?"

  "It's the whole atmosphere. It's crushing me. I feel we're being watched all the time. I can hardly breathe. When I was young I had this really old motto on my bedroom wall, THOU, GOD, SEEST ME. I think it had been my grandmother's. I never knew whether it was a threat or a promise, but if there had been a god I never felt him with me. I'm only surprised, since you're psychic, that you haven't felt the same. Haven't you felt trapped and watched?"

  I pondered. Had I felt it? I had been aware of a background, but I had treated it as part of the whole plan for my leadership. I could see what she was feeling, but I dared not face what I was feeling myself. I must keep to my duty.

  "You know it's not possible to get away. We had all that out before Christmas."

  "But, John, we're psychic. Surely that makes a difference. I've tried by myself, and I can experience astral projection, but I can't travel away from Priam."

  "Then what do you want me to do?"

  "Couldn't you lend me your psychic force to combine with mine?"

  "It wouldn't work. We couldn't project your body through the galaxies to earth."

  "I thought we might project my astral body to earth, and then somehow I'd anchor myself and attract my physical body to join me there, instead of my astral body being drawn back to the physical as always happens."

  I shook my head. "No, I'm sure that wouldn't work. Don't you think you ought to stay here and face it out for the sake of others? After all, now that you know so much about what goes on behind the scenes, you can help me to keep things running sweetly."

  Kathleen stared down into the water before answering. "It's funny, John. I believe at one time I would have thought just that. But now, no, I'm thinking more of myself than of others. Why should I sacrifice myself for them?"

  "You know you'll have to stay. I daren't help you even if I could. I'm watched all the time."

  "So you wouldn't sacrifice yourself for me, any more than I would for the others. If I don't get away, I'll go off my head."

  "Why not ask the doctor for some tranquilisers?"

  Kathleen laughed derisively. "John Longstone, I expected something better from you. I came asking for bread and you offered me tranquilisers. There's no point in going on."

  She scrambled to her feet and I got up with her. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I suppose I'd better say everything I came to say. If my first idea was no good -- and it evidently isn't -- I was going to ask you about angels."

  "What about them?"

  "Well, we know now that there are goodness knows how many spirits under Satan. Could there be spirits on the other side, like Michael and others?"

  "Certainly the Book of Revelation says that Michael and his angels fought against the devil and his angels, but Revelation is a strange book."

  "A lot of people believe in guardian angels. Suppose they are just as real as Satan's angels. Couldn't I ask them for help?"

  I felt uneasy. If there was anything in the idea, it seemed like going over to the enemy. I could only tell her that I didn't know.

  "Then I'll try," she said, and moved quickly away.

  I stood and watched until she had disappeared among the trees.

  * * *

  Two days later I went to the library and fidgeted among the books until two other borrowers had gone. Then I spoke to Kathleen at the desk. She looked drawn and tired.

  "It's hopeless," she said. "I've relaxed, and appealed three times to an angel to help me, but all I got was a voice surging up inside me, saying, 'No angels here. No angels
here.' And I've felt worse ever since. Whatever can I do?"

  There were tears in her eyes as she reached across the counter and gripped my arms. "John, if only you felt it too! Then we could plan something together."

  I slipped my arms from her grasp, and caught hold of her hands. They felt icily cold. "I'll stand by you, Kathleen," I said. "I want you to be free to tell me anything any time. We'll sort things out together somehow. But you must face it, you can't escape. And I have my loyalties here."

  "Thank you," she said, and took her hands away. For a moment I felt that, if the counter had not been between us, she would have kissed me, as she did in the wood.

  The door of the library opened and I moved away. Kathleen dived below the level of the counter, and when she stood up again she was perfectly composed.

  CHAPTER 19

  The days that followed were far from happy, but this had nothing to do with Satan's absence. His deputy the Prince of Priam carried on admirably. He opened up the hot line each day, and kept me informed of anything I needed to know, and was always ready with advice.

  There was, however, one event that he didn't tell me about until afterwards. This was the calling of a meeting of the council. All the other five members were somehow notified, but I was left out. The Prince told me afterwards that it was better for me not to be involved, since Margaret Penny was raising the matter of her daughter Pat and Tom Broadwood living together. They had refused to listen to their parents, who wanted to separate them. My belief is that the Pennys didn't feel that the Broadwood boy was good enough for their daughter.

  Satan's deputy gave me an outline of what was said at the meeting. Margaret Penny had abused me for not taking a stronger line, as she thought I could have done in my position. Bill Broadwood backed her. I imagine he had failed to understand, as I had, that his son was not regarded as good enough, but his wife had probably not let him forget the family scandal. Dave Sugden, the storekeeper, gave them half-hearted support, but Jim Token the farmer, and to my surprise the doctor, saw no reason to interfere.

  Dr Faber, who in my absence was in the chair, closed the discussion by asking whether others had gathered that there was a growing opposition to my leadership. He had heard grumbles from his patients. What exactly was my position? I had kept referring to some superior, mysterious scientist, but no one had ever seen him. Did he, in fact, exist? If not, why shouldn't someone else be democratically elected to take on the leadership?