He got up to go. I showed him to the door.
* * *
I can't pretend that I enjoyed the days that followed. Satan was silent when I tried to open up the line. I sensed that the whole village was getting restless. I found a slogan daubed on my gate. WHAT ABOUT HIS PROMISE TO COME? I washed it off, but I was worried.
I suppose a month had gone by when Kathleen came to me after dark one evening.
I had seen her at odd times lately, and I don't think anyone suspected there was anything between us. She looked serious as she kissed me.
"I've been hearing things in the library today," she said. "There's a whole lot of feeling against you. They're calling you a fake, and I believe a group of them are coming to take it out of you in some way."
"How do you mean?"
"They're planning violence of some kind. You must take care for my sake."
"And for my own," I said with a forced laugh. "But I can't do much until I know what they're planning. If only Satan would come, or at least speak to me, so I'd know what to do."
She caught my hand. "Let me stay with you tonight."
My immediate thought was she mustn't get involved in any trouble, but Kathleen interpreted my worried look differently.
She stepped back. "What have I said? Oh, John, I didn't mean what you're thinking. I want to wait till we're married, you silly old thing."
"And so do I," I said, as I pulled her to me. "It's funny, isn't it! We've thrown over Christianity, and now we're looking for Christian values in our marriage."
She laughed. "And if you're to be my husband, I'm staying here to be with you in case you're attacked tonight."
"And so you shall," I replied.
CHAPTER 25
The attack didn't come during the night, but a little after dawn when a heavy stone came through my sitting room window and just missed the sofa where I had been sleeping. I called to Kathleen to stay in the bedroom until we knew what was happening.
I put my jacket on, as I was already half dressed, and moved cautiously to the side of the window. I could see a group of about half a dozen men with stocking masks over their faces, and as I looked another stone crashed into the room.
I wasn't anxious to show myself downstairs, and certainly wouldn't open the front door. So I ran upstairs to the bedroom where Kathleen was peering through the gap in the middle of the curtains. The window was half open, and I pulled her aside and pushed the window open further so that I could show myself and speak.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" I shouted.
"We want you," one of the men called out.
Another picked up a stone and flung it. It hit the wall.
"You can say anything you want to say from there. I'm listening."
"You're a fraud. You've brought us here, and now we're fed up with this life."
"But you all chose to come," I shouted back.
At this point I heard a noise behind me, and saw Kathleen lying across the bed, completely still. Suddenly I felt energy draining out of me. It was an intensification of what I had felt before when Satan had first materialised. Next moment the blast of a trumpet came from the direction of the village green.
I staggered back to the window. The men had turned away, staring back at the green. In the middle of the green stood a plinth, and on the plinth a tall slim bespectacled figure in a white coat, a typical scientist as imagined by the popular mind. Satan had done the thing properly.
Then I suddenly saw what had happened. Satan had told me he would need to draw on the psychic energies of Kathleen and myself so as to materialise. He had worked on Kathleen's mind to bring us together at the time he wanted, but he had intervened in time to save us from harm by the crowd.
Kathleen was already coming out of her trance, and I caught hold of her hand and raised her up.
"I know," she said. "He's come."
"Are you all right?"
"I think so, more or less. What do we do now?"
"We go out, if you can manage it, and see what's happening. We'll slip out separately, and then you can find me and stay near me."
I looked out of the window again. All the men had vanished. It looked as though every person in the village was hurrying to the green, and we were not slow to join them.
I noticed that no one seemed anxious to step close to the plinth. Obviously, the figure of this super scientist awed them, and I think half of them were afraid that he would turn his magic against them. By now they had almost begun to take for granted the daily magic of goods teleported from earth, quite apart from the mysterious power that had brought us here into ready-built houses. But to come face to face with this worker of miracles was a different matter.
Satan's first words were conciliatory. "You have all wanted to see me, and here I am."
This brought no response from the crowd.
Satan went on, "My deputy John Longstone has told me that you have things to ask me. Is that so?"
"How long have we got to stay here?" a voice called.
This was taken up by, "Yes, yes, tell us," from several in the crowd.
"When you volunteered to come, you were accepted for life."
"We didn't know that at the time."
"You might have guessed. You knew you were taking part in building a good, settled community."
"If we'd been doing it on earth, we could have gone back home when we wanted."
"Yes, and spoilt the whole plan. What's wrong with life on Priam, with everything laid on for your happiness?"
No one answered for a moment, but then Peter Faber spoke. "I'm the doctor, and I'm in touch with the people, and can estimate their reactions. If I may say so, we have too much organised happiness, and many of us have the feeling that what we are wanting to do is somehow controlled by Big Brother."
"Doctor," said Satan, "as a well-read man you have heard of Epicurus and the hedonism that is based on his ideas. We are trying to practise a working hedonism, the pursuit of happiness. I am trying to let you have everything that makes for happiness, with restraint on things that might cause unpleasantness."
Someone shouted, "We'd rather go home and take our chances."
"That is impossible," Satan said firmly.
"Then what will be the end of it all?" someone else called.
"You will go on living here and setting up a happy society. Your children will inherit the foundations you have laid."
"And what happens to us when we die?" This was the doctor again.
"Nothing. You will just die with the knowledge that you have contributed something worthwhile to our new society."
"No so-called pie in the sky, then?"
Satan smiled as he turned to the speaker. "You're right, Doctor, no pie in the sky. If you were still on earth you'd find that sensible people have thrown that idea out of the window."
"So you have nothing to promise us after death?"
"Nothing. You, Doctor, know perfectly well that there's no life except in the body and, when the body goes, it's earth to earth, dust to dust."
I was surprised when Peter Faber spoke out. "So the great magician can't promise us eternal life for our souls."
"Exactly. I can't promise an impossibility, and I'm surprised that a doctor would speak of a soul when he's never seen or operated on such a thing in his life."
Someone shouted, "We demand you take us home!" and others joined in.
Satan held up his hand for silence. "You are not going home. This is your home, and it's up to you to make it a happy home. I will let you have more if you want, more tokens, and more possessions. You've only to ask my deputy."
Someone called out, "We don't trust John Longstone. We don't like him. We want someone else to be in charge."
Satan replied "I have no complaints about him. But if you are not happy about him -- and I want you to be happy -- you can deal directly with me. I'm going back. I have other work to do. But I am giving you a statue of myself on this plinth. That will be something for you to see.
I will be linked to the statue, and when you come and speak your requests into the trumpet at its feet, I will note everything you say. Trust it as if it were me."
Satan stood there without moving. Those who were closest slowly came nearer. The figure stood motionless. Closer and closer they came, until at last one of them shouted, "He's dead!"
Another stretched out his hand, touched, and quickly drew his hand back.
"He's not dead," he called out, "he's turned into a statue!"
There was no lack of people pressing forward now to touch. I saw three women kneeling down, and a man joined them. I slipped back home, and Kathleen followed soon afterwards. To my surprise, my window had somehow been mended.
"What do you think about it all?" Kathleen asked.
"I think we have a god on our hands," I said.
For more than half of the village, my words proved to be right. The statue became a centre of veneration. This was helped by the fact that the mouth of the trumpet was so close to the ground that those who came with requests had to go down on their knees to speak into it. From this, it seemed only natural that the worshippers, if I may so call them, ended their petitions by gazing up at the face of the image.
I heard someone say, "We must keep in with him. He might do us harm if we get across him."
After a time I noticed bunches of flowers laid on the plinth.
CHAPTER 26
One day something happened that had some importance for Kathleen and myself. Young Tom Broadwood and Pat Penny, who had been living together, wanted to get properly married, especially as there was a baby on the way. I had been mostly ignored since Satan's visit, which was a blow to my self-esteem, but now these two came to ask me how they could be officially married, since there was no church or register office to apply to.
With my hot line to Satan no longer open, all I could do was advise them to go and speak to the statue. They followed my advice, and the trumpet spoke the answer. They must kneel in front of the statue and declare that they wished to take one another as legally man and wife. They told their friends, and on the appointed day we stood round and watched the solemnisation of the first wedding on Priam.
Kathleen and I discussed it afterwards. We too intended to be married, although for some reason we had gone out of our way to keep our relationship secret.
"I don't know about you," said Kathleen, "but I don't fancy getting married at Satan's feet."
I agreed. But what was the alternative if we wanted to be properly married? To live together as Tom and Pat had done? We were caught in a trap.
Meanwhile I sensed a change in the atmosphere of life, and there seemed to me to be a steady deterioration. It arose, I believe, from Satan's clear approval of, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die." Certainly those I've described as "worshippers" at the statue were asking for much more than they needed.
The bank had instructions to increase the allowance of tokens. There was no poverty in the village, and indeed no one had been in need since we had arrived. Now there was a rush for luxuries, with the idea of keeping up with the neighbours. But rivalry didn't bring contentment. There was always the feeling that there must be more to come.
I noticed another group, who took advantage of extras, but who were profoundly dissatisfied with the thought of living and dying on Priam. If they were to die, they wanted first to return to earth, and they were convinced that the superscientist could arrange this by the same method that had brought them here.
I think only the doctor and his wife, beside Kathleen and myself, had any real insight into what was happening. One evening I had to call at the surgery with a septic finger, and after he had finished with me, Peter Faber asked me to sit down while he sat at his desk.
"There aren't any more patients this evening," he began, "so I'd like to have a talk."
"That's fine," I said.
"Well, I'm not happy with the way things are going. Excuse me being blunt, but I have a set of spoilt babies on my hands. They have everything they want, far more than they need, but they're coming to me with all sorts of things wrong. You know what psychosomatic means."
I nodded.
"Some of their ailments are real, some, I believe, are in the mind."
I interrupted. "Why has it happened?"
"Just a theory of mine," he said. "I think they're afraid -- basically afraid that they'll die before they've had time to enjoy all they have. They want me to patch them up to keep them going."
"You're probably right," I said. "And maybe some of them are producing an illness to punish themselves for having so much. A hangover from early teachings where God put down the mighty from their seat."
It was his turn to nod agreement. "Tell me, John," he said, "how are you reacting to all this affluence?"
I hesitated before replying. "It may sound … pious, but I don't think it's making any difference. I've naturally drawn all the tokens I've needed since we've been here, and I don't think I've drawn any extra since our scientist was here."
"I guessed not," said Peter Faber. "It's been the same with my wife and me. But I fancy we're in a minority. I'm afraid I would shock you if I said I sometimes wonder whether the Christian attitude to life may be correct."
"You mean contentment, I take it, not the Christian ideas about God."
"I suppose so, if one can have the one without the other."
There was a ring on the bell, and the doctor rose. "Sounds like another patient after all."
I heard him at the door. It was a patient. I said goodbye, and left. I wished he hadn't talked like that.
* * *
Soon after this, I was made once more aware of Satan's values. He was evidently quite willing to allow material luxuries, but he was determined to stop some other so-called freedoms which might disrupt his community. From time to time a voice spoke through the trumpet on the statue. The voice named no names, but gave a warning to someone who was doing what was wrong.
If the warning was ignored, an accident happened. Thus a married man who was carrying on with a neighbour's wife, slipped and broke his ankle one night as he was leaving his gate, while simultaneously, as she was getting ready to go out and meet him in the woods, she caught her coat on the kettle and poured a stream of near boiling water on her foot.
A violent husband, who was about to strike his wife, found his arm paralysed, and remain paralysed for a week -- when equally suddenly his arm returned to normal. Two teenagers who had been drinking heavily and damaging property, woke up to find themselves blind, again for a week.
At the same time, the voice was naming people for rewards of extra tokens or presents when they had done some act of kindness, such as cooking for an invalid, tidying a garden, or painting a house, without asking for payment -- as had happened when Agnes Brown was ill.
CHAPTER 27
The doctor's remarks about Christians worried me more than I had realised at the time. At first I didn't mention them to Kathleen, since I knew she might well take Peter Faber's suggestion seriously. But if we were to be married, we would have to agree on such a vital issue. So I told her one evening.
She responded as I was afraid she would. "Don't you think there may be something in it?"
"Be sensible," I said. "You don't have to be a Christian to believe in self-control. Why, you and I believe in it, don't we? Christians believe that if you're good, self-sacrificing people, you'll have a nice self-indulgent life in heaven."
"Is that entirely fair? When you used to call yourself a Christian, did you have that idea in your mind?"
"To be quite honest, I don't think I did."
"I was never allowed to be a Christian. My father would point to the people coming out of the local church, and tell me they were a lot of hypocrites. He said he could be good without being a Christian. When I was older, I used to wonder what he meant by "good", because I knew he was being unfaithful to my mother. But I've always felt that anyone can be good if they really want to."
I found m
yself back in my lecturing days. "Christians would say that there is plenty of common ground of morality with non-Christians. Christian morality coincides with what is satisfactory for individuals and community. So others, not just Christians, find by experience that some things are satisfactory, and so they are good, while others are disruptive and bad."
Kathleen nodded. "I see that. That seems to be the principle Satan is working on here. But what puzzles me is how Christianity can claim to be better. I suppose it has something special to do with Jesus, and he sets an example of goodness that satisfies. But is that all?"
"No, there's more than that. Christians believe in … in … a nice cup of tea."
Something was wrong.
"What was I saying? I can't remember. My mind's confused."
Kathleen's eyes were staring, without seeming to see me.
"What's wrong with us?" I shouted. "Our minds are being taken over. We must fight it. Concentrate, Kathleen, concentrate!"
Her voice became slow and quiet. "It's no use, John, we can't." And then, deliberately, and louder, "God, if you exist, stop Satan muddling our minds!"
"No, Kathleen, no!" I cried. "You mustn't say it." But as I spoke, I knew my mind was clear once more.
We sat and looked at each other without speaking for a full minute. She came over to me, and stood with a hand on my shoulder. "Don't be angry with me," she whispered, "it just came out. I couldn't help it."
"I'm not angry, Kathleen. But what is this going to mean? You realise we've challenged Satan. And we can't stop now."
"We can, if I promise never to appeal to God again."
"But after what's happened tonight, you're bound to have some sort of belief in God."
Kathleen stayed silent for some time, obviously deep in thought. "Yes," she said at last, "yes, I'm bound to. God did what we couldn't do ourselves."
"Or could we say that the idea of prayer triggered off a powerful suggestion in both of us?"
"So I'm marrying a professional sceptic and you're marrying a credulous, suggestible woman. Seriously, ought we to go through with it? Aren't we going to find ourselves on different sides?"
"Listen," I said, "we love each other, and we're going to be married."
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