Bad Faith

by Gillian Philip

  I thought I was in for a row. I thought I’d done something mysterious and terribly wrong, but he just said, ‘Lunch,’ very brightly, and then he came over all jovial, all the way home. That meant he regretted being so rough but he didn’t want to explain, he didn’t want me to ask what I’d done wrong. Fine. I was afraid to ask anyway.

  Dad, it occurred to me with a shiver, didn’t know his own strength.

  • • •

  He’d left a visible mark and it was going to turn into a spectacular bruise. I had a surreptitious peek while Dad’s attention was on the road, under the cover of rearranging my shirt sleeve. He kept taking one hand off the steering wheel and rubbing it across his face and shoving his hair away and glancing sideways at me and sort of hissing through his teeth. Oh, he felt lousy about it. I wondered if I could ask for a pocket money raise on the strength of this.

  Then, looking at his tormented face, I thought: No. I don’t think I’ll mention it again.

  There was no point either of us being starving because back home, lunch wasn’t even ready. Mum had come home ahead of us, but all she was doing was staring into space, or the cooker hood, I wasn’t sure which. Dad immediately forgot I existed. He put an arm around her waist, kissed her cheek and muttered to her. Since she didn’t turn round laughing to give him a smooch, I assumed it wasn’t sweet nothings.

  Somehow I had to take my mind off my grumbling empty stomach. I went through to the television room, where Ming and Griffin were slouched on a sofa passing a can of Coke back and forth as they watched the lunchtime news. I thought it was sport headlines but when I watched more closely I could see the floodlit football stadium was hosting terrorist executions. An apostate: that’d be popular. Second billing: two Jews, a secularist and an Aikenhead. Cheery stuff, not.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know there were any Jews left.’

  Needless to say Griff ignored me entirely, but Ming tilted his head right back and grinned at me upside down.

  ‘Hiya, babes.’

  ‘Anything?’ I stared at the TV.

  Ming’s smile switched off and he looked back at the screen. ‘Nah.’

  I felt bad about being so curt, so I went and leaned on the sofa above him. Since the top of his head was right there and available, it seemed like a good idea to kiss it. Anyway, I liked the smell of his hair. He rolled his head sideways to look up at me. Lifting his hand he raked his fingers once through my cropped hair before reaching out for the Coke can again.

  Griff passed it across, but the look he gave Ming was dark, as if he’d like to slap his hand.

  ‘No news at all,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Unless you count five innocent people getting strung up on live television. Oh, and Martin Kingsmith getting shot in the head.’

  ‘No!’ I said. My jaw dropped.

  ‘Yeah, well, Cass meant the Bishop,’ put in Ming.

  ‘Who gives a toss about that tosser?’ said Griff.

  ‘Martin Kingsmith got shot in the head?’ I goggled at the TV. ‘The film director?’

  ‘No, Martin Kingsmith, the famous pig farmer.’

  ‘Shut up, Griff. Yeah, Cass, the film director.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No, he’s sitting up in bed eating grapes,’ said Griff. ‘Of course he’s dead, you dolt.’

  ‘Would you quit it? Leave her alone.’ Ming didn’t often snap at Griff, my brother being older and meaner and one of the undead and everything. How chivalrous, I thought, feeling a flutter below my diaphragm. I glanced down at Ming, all ready to smile my warmest gratitude at him, but he was riveted by the TV again, passing the Coke companionably back to Griffin. ‘Look, here comes the Mother of the Nation. Got the onion back in her handbag just in time.’

  We watched Ma Baxter walk to the podium. Her eyes were indeed red-rimmed in her doughy face. Usually they twinkled like the eyes of your favourite granny, though the only thing Ma Baxter had in common with our grandmother was that she’d been a single parent abandoned by her feckless husband. Maybe Bunty should have done what Ma Baxter did and turned her personal struggle into a dazzling political campaign – wronged but innocent woman, friend of the poor and pious, tragic but courageous victim of an immoral wastrel: you get the picture. On second thoughts, I don’t think Bunty could have pulled it off like Ma Baxter did, with a straight face (and eyes raised devoutly heavenward).

  The One Church loved Ma Baxter, informed the electorate she was the strong and pious leader they needed, and let it be known that Hell (or the militias) were a very real prospect for anyone who disagreed. Ten years back, in other words, they handed her the last meaningful election on a collection plate. They were made for each other. Ma Baxter got power and iconic status, the One Church finally got an unshakeable grip on the political process.

  I’m not that into politics, but I know all this because my brother never shuts up about it. Neither does my father.

  A deal with the devil, he keeps shouting at the poor old radio. We’ve done a deal with the devil. And the price is our collective bloody soul.

  And Mum just sighs and goes, Shush, Gabriel. You’ll give yourself an aneurysm.

  Ma Baxter certainly had the last laugh on the feckless husband, found floating past the docks a month after the election with a flick knife between his shoulder blades. A well-deserved flick knife, was the understanding verdict of Ma Baxter’s adoring press, and that was the only verdict there ever was, since the only suspect they arrested (a slightly bewildered secularist) was shot in the face by a pious gun nut before he ever got near a courtroom.

  Gosh, though, the woman looked good on all that personal tragedy. Her hair was tinted a mousy brown-blonde, but there was just enough grey left at the temples to be reassuring. Between two humongous minders she seemed small and feisty, and their blank eyes and folded arms made her ever so human and endearing in comparison. Not twinkly, though, not right now. She had a tired, grief-stricken air.

  ‘This is a matter of deep personal pain to me,’ she was saying as cameras flashed. ‘I have spoken to the Commissioner of Police and he assures me his best investigators are studying the CCTV footage. He is as confident as I am that this misguided person will be brought to justice.’

  ‘Misguided,’ snorted Griff.

  ‘Sh,’ said Ming.

  ‘...I understand fully the deep hurt that Mr Kingsmith caused with his vile film, but this violence was so needless.’ Sighing, she brushed her forehead with trembling fingers. ‘However offensive Mr Kingsmith’s visit, however provocative...’

  ‘He came to see his mother!’ exploded Griff.

  ‘Sh!’

  ‘...should have been safe in our country, and his death is a matter of deepest regret to this government.’

  ‘How about remorse?’ That came from the TV. The faint shout was only just caught by the microphones, and if the errant journalist said anything else it was drowned out by the shocked muttering of the others, the scrape of chairs as people turned. Of course the cameras didn’t turn, but Griff tensed and sat forward on the edge of the sofa, his eyes suddenly alight.

  ‘Blimey, who’s that?’ said Ming.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Is this live?’ I asked, suddenly a lot more interested.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ming, without looking round.

  ‘That’ll be Colum Quinn.’ Dad was standing at the door. ‘Edits the Questioner. Writes most of it, too, since there’s hardly anybody who’ll dare work for him.’

  I glanced at him and smiled, but he didn’t smile back. He looked very troubled.

  Ming and Griff were peering at the screen as if there was some cat’s chance in hell of the cameras focusing on the suicidal loon. Griff shook his head. ‘Bet they chop that out for the six o’clock bulletin.’

  Ma Baxter’s eyes had turned steely, but she recovered quickly and shook her head in the sincerest sadness you could imagine. ‘If anyone should feel remorse, it’s our neighbours, for provoking this violence! We are a contented, peaceful society, bu
t they’d love to see us riven by conflict and disbelief.’ Ma Baxter’s eyes were twinkling again, warning and comforting all at once. ‘Well, we’re a small country, but our Church is a strong one, and so is our faith! Other God-fearing nations stand shoulder to shoulder with us. The United Midwestern States, the Holy African Republic, our allies in the Middle East...’

  ‘She’s off,’ muttered Griff in disgust. ‘What’s on the other channel?’

  ‘No, shut up and listen,’ said Ming, almost admiringly. ‘That was an overt threat.’

  Ma Baxter gave us all a direct sweet smile. ‘Yes, we believe in dialogue and peace, unlike our enemies. But don’t let them imagine we’re weak!’

  There was a crackling, thumping sound, dull clicks. Somebody grabbing for a microphone, that’s what it sounded like.

  ‘Who’s actually threatening us, Mrs Baxter?’

  Ming laughed in disbelief. ‘Whoo! Is he still there? What a trooper!’

  ‘He’s a dead man walking, that’s what he is.’ But Griffin looked hugely impressed.

  Ma Baxter had closed her eyes in sorrow, shaking her head as the thuds and shouts grew more distant, ending in a slammed door. ‘While we remain strong and sure, we can’t be threatened. Not by decadent secularism. Not by split foreign churches that are dying of indifference. Not by North America. And not by the cockroaches next door!’

  That was Ma Baxter. Just your rather adorable granny, funny and wise, but then she’d throw in a sentence that made you wonder if you’d heard it right. And of course that made it all the more convincing, because someone so jolly and maternal would never make up that stuff. Someone like that will always have your best interests at heart.

  She had her hands clasped together now as if she was praying, her grape-dark eyes lifted heavenwards. ‘Thank the One God, we remain united against the true threat: Godlessness! We are under relentless moral and spiritual attack, never forget that!’

  A woman journalist raised her pen respectfully. ‘Mother Baxter, do you believe Mr Kingsmith’s film was part of that spiritual assault?’

  ‘Now, I would never pretend to be a film critic.’ Ma Baxter gave a self-deprecating giggle, and there was a ripple of sympathetic laughter from the press corps. ‘But let me just say this. If only those who do not share our faith could at least understand and respect it...’

  ‘Oh, that’s it.’ Griff clicked the mute button on the remote. ‘I can’t stand any more of her. If it wasn’t her militias that shot the poor bugger, I’ll eat my PlayStation.’

  ‘Best thing for it,’ I muttered.

  Griff gave me his worst glare, but Ming was still gazing with fascination at Ma Baxter’s moving lips. ‘Do you believe in evil, Griff?’

  ‘What d’you mean, believe?’ Griff jerked his head at the TV as he stood up and dropped the remote on the sofa. ‘It’s not a leap of faith. I’m looking at it.’

  ‘Griff,’ said Dad, but his voice was so tired it was hardly a warning at all.

  ‘She’ll cancel the elections. You wait.’

  ‘Don’t be naïve, Griffin,’ Dad snapped. ‘Of course she’ll hold elections. Where’s her opposition? Dead, or in prison, or bought off with quangos and junior ministries and crap meaningless jobs. She’s neutered us. All of us.’ He looked as if he might cry. Instead he turned on his heel, slamming out of the room so violently the door bounced back open.

  I stared, hoping my jaw wasn’t hanging open too far for dignity. Ming and Griff and I glanced at one another, then Griff raised his eyebrows and puffed out a breath. The atmosphere was dense with embarrassment, but with brilliant timing Mum stuck her head round the door.

  ‘Lunch, you three. I hope you’re staying, Menzies, I made enough for...’

  We all looked round at Mum, but now she was staring past us at the television. As we rose to squeeze past her, she grabbed the remote and clicked the sound back on.

  ‘Too late, Mum, you missed the press conference.’ Griff shouted from the hall as he and Ming headed for the kitchen: ‘He’s dead, shedunnit, come and have lunch.’

  Mum only leaned her hands on the back of the sofa as the sleek Tanya Moonfleet smiled at her. ‘In regional news, the demolition of the derelict tenements on the East Side finally got underway as Mother Baxter’s exciting regeneration plans for the capital come to fruition. The first ambitious phase of development...’

  Mum didn’t look as if she was seeing anything. She stared at the screen with empty eyes, desolate and sadder than I’d ever seen her.

  I blinked and frowned. I’d remembered something very suddenly. Mum leaning on the sofa like that, looking far more cheerful. Must have been a party or a get-together or something, because the room was full of people, and she was leaning on the sofa because Dad was on the other side of it and she was asking him to get her something. Bishop Todd was standing beside her and he turned and put his hand familiarly on her waist, squeezing it. Then his hand swivelled so that his fingertips were actually brushing her backside. Mum didn’t like that, and Dad liked it even less, his eyes locked on Todd. Todd was always flirting with Mum, I remembered now, and she’d always pretend she didn’t mind, because she had to. Sickeningly I realised what he was doing: insinuating himself, getting close to Griff, covering up what he really wanted.

  The memory was astonishingly clear, but the most vivid thing about it wasn’t Mum’s miserable smile, or Dad’s lethal blue eyes. It was Todd’s fingers, white and fat and horrible as if they were already the hands of a corpse. Just the memory of them made me shudder, as if I was Mum and those grub fingers were squeezing my waist, touching my backside. It felt so real I shuddered and exclaimed in disgust.

  Mum jerked round and stared at me. ‘Cassandra,’ she said. ‘You’re still there.’

  Jeez. As if it wasn’t my house and she wouldn’t have expected to find me standing in the TV room. I sighed. ‘That’s me. Thought you said lunch was ready?’

  ‘Yes, I...’ She looked back at the TV, disoriented. Ma Baxter was in a yellow hard hat, charming the demolition workers and getting a chaste kiss on the cheek from one of them.

  The reporters were laughing.

  ‘Lunch?’ I said patiently. ‘Unless that sight just killed your appetite.’

  ‘Lunch,’ said Mum, and smiled. No comment.

  6: Roadkill

  How did it happen? Very, very quickly. So fast you couldn’t see it happening.

  Why did it? Nobody quite seems to know. Dad says that’s because everybody lost interest in politics, just as the One Church was getting very interested indeed.

  Here’s what Dad tells me, while Mum sighs and puts her hands over her ears and pretends to read a book. That after Church Unity, the One Church just kept swelling like a great big amoeba. They wanted a bigger say in people’s lives and the best way to get it was to go straight to the people. Back to basics, back to faith. Back to being the Faithful. And a lot of people liked that. You could believe in the One Church, you could trust it. Not like a bloody politician.

  And it was, you know, catching.

  Dad says: Cass, people wanted certainties. And I’ll say, like the world being round? And he’ll say, no, not that kind, not the certainties that set you free to ask more questions. Certain certainties. Never having to ask yourself hard questions, because somebody already has the answers for you.

  So the doubters and the woolly liberals died out or limped off to the neighbouring state to claim theological asylum. If they were slow to do that, or mouthy, or just unlucky, they went missing. Meanwhile graduates were pouring out of the faith colleges and into the Assembly and the Civil Service and the media, convinced of their ruling destiny (you only had to look at Jeremiah Maclaren) and brimming with political wiles because they’d had extra credits and time off to campaign for the likes of Ma Baxter.

  Oh, and all this happened just as the Respect and Privacy Bill was passed, so the media suddenly got terribly wary of offending public figures or insulting religious ones. And it was just like Dad said: pe
ople enjoyed having firm guidance again, and the feel of the moral high ground under their feet. Some people were not too happy about the situation, but you’d be amazed how many of them were quite delighted.

  So just like that we had a theocratic elected dictatorship. Wham, bam, thank you, Bishop.

  I used to say to Dad, well, come on, it couldn’t have been that simple. And he’d say, yes, Cass, it really was that simple. It really was that easy.

  But he seems bewildered, as if he doesn’t understand why he didn’t see it coming, and why he ended up on the side he did. I don’t know why he did, either. I suppose he had a vocation and he loved his God, and he wanted influence with the One Church, too. And he didn’t want to vanish in the small hours or have a terrible accident. And once I heard him say to Mum, I’m human, Brenna. I just am. Venal and greedy and scared and human.

  • • •

  Generally, though, Mum didn’t get involved in these discussions because she didn’t like to encourage Dad, and she only ever talked politics if she was in a filthy mood. I guess this was one of those times, her hackles almost visibly raised as she scrubbed violently at a pan after lunch.

  ‘Ma Baxter and her schemes. The woman can’t afford that stupid bloody redevelopment!’ Mum banged the pan so hard onto the worktop I thought she’d dented it. The dishwasher in the corner grumbled and whooshed, so that she had to raise her voice, the tone of it almost hysterical. ‘Where does the government find that kind of money?’

  ‘That’s the point, Brenna,’ said Dad bitterly. ‘She’ll spend us into an economic crisis to make herself popular. Then she’ll whip up the electorate against some poor sods who can’t answer back. And she’ll blame the neighbours too, of course. She’ll have us at war for her bloody vanity.’

  They were getting all worked up, and the whole subject bored me to tears since they’d been on about the city redevelopment all through lunch. It was beyond embarrassing, with Ming there and everything. Avoiding more sensitive topics, perhaps, but they didn’t need to take it out on the rest of us.