Brond Read Free

Margaret Briody said, laughing, intervening innocent in the arena to draw the Professor’s offering of biscuits and cheese and embarrass me
on her behalf into a hallucinatingly vivid, brief memory of Jackie Kennedy.
    ‘Actually,’ the Professor took up the definition with surprising amiability, ‘it is by this time a series of serials. Do you see? Sets of episodes, each forming a story, and
each leading into a new set while all the time featuring the same central character.’
    The incorrigible Margaret rang out, ‘We’ve discovered your secret vice – watching Dr Who .’
    ‘My grand-niece is devoted to it. But I don’t apologise for watching it. The format has some interesting conse— consequences. Take this latest episode. The Doctor is confronted
by an alien intelligence, a splendid villain. For him to overcome it entirely would mean it couldn’t crop up in a later serial of the series. So, at the moment he’s about to obliterate
it, his friends burst in with the best of intentions and inadvertently allow it to escape off into outer space. The intelligence which runs away, lives to fight another day – or aeon
rather.’
    ‘The point’s a nice one, Tom.’ The same deep soft voice sounded from the depths of the black leather chair. ‘Take the parallel case of our local theology. God and the
Devil are locked in perpetual conflict, but Dr God never manages to wipe Lucifer out. Just as well of course, or the world and all of us with it, moon too, sun and stars, would snuff out and be
done.’
    ‘I don’t see why the world should do that,’ Jerry grumbled. It was obvious he disapproved of this conversation but couldn’t resist trying to retake the high ground.
‘Get rid of the Devil and the world should turn back into Eden.’
    ‘I seem to remember, Brond,’ the Professor addressed the man hidden from me in the chair, ‘you inclining to the opinion that Satan made the material universe in a series of
feints, weavings and subterfuges as he defended himself against a vengeful Creator.’
    ‘I’ve never been persuaded,’ the hidden speaker said, ‘that God would not dispose of evil at once – if He could.’
    ‘Oh, great!’ Jerry said harshly. ‘So God’s a loser as far as you’re concerned. What happens then if Satan wins? Have you a theory for that?’
    ‘That would be absurd,’ the soft voice said dismissively.
    ‘For a man who wants to limit the divine power, Brond,’ the Professor said, ‘it hardly seems sporting to argue its omnipotence in the next breath.’
    ‘You misunderstand me,’ the voice said pleasantly. I could not see his face, but I imagined somehow that he might be smiling. ‘It’s my idea that defeat is what Satan is
after, not the destruction of souls and all that melodrama.’
    ‘The Devil wants to be defeated? But you’ve already said that he has the power to prevent God from doing that. Isn’t there a contradiction there somewhere?’
    ‘Not really. Satan sets out to torment and so God, who is good, is compelled to encounter him – when required. God has no choice, however weary He may be of the game. Satan has to be
defeated – but never is entirely. In which case, we owe roses and sunsets,’ the white hand tapped upon the black leather of the chair, ‘to Satan’s pleasure in being
mastered.’
    ‘It’s the wine Prof Gracemount serves that does the damage,’ Donald Baxter said and belched. ‘Cheap wine, cheap theology. If I could find a church that
served Château Lafite for communion, I’d become a convert.’
    He lifted his pint and took a long slurping draw on it. I had to lean forward to hear what he was saying; the downstairs bar of the Union was crowded and everybody was yelling over the Country
and Western.
    ‘You look awful,’ he said. ‘You’re sweating like a pig. Gracemount’s wine has poisoned you.’
    ‘I didn’t feel like going home.’ My lips were thick and rubbery. ‘My digs, I mean. Not home. Long way from