The Running Grave, page 22
When the minibus reached the M11, Becca turned on her microphone again and, speaking to the passengers in the angled mirror, she said,
‘Hi! So, now we’re fully on our way, I’ll give you some idea what to expect when we reach Chapman Farm, which has a really important place in our church’s history. Have any of you read Papa J’s book The Answer?’
Most passengers raised their hands. Robin deliberately hadn’t read Jonathan Wace’s book prior to entry into the church, because she wanted both a pretext for questions, and to present herself as someone who still needed to be convinced of the church’s truths.
‘Well, as those who’ve read The Answer will know, we follow the teachings of the five prophets, who are all buried or memorialised at Chapman Farm.
‘Your stay at the farm will focus on what we like to call the three “S”s: study, service and spiritual practice. You’ll be undertaking a wide range of activities, some of them practical tasks out in the fresh air, others focusing on your spiritual needs. We find that people learn a lot about themselves, perhaps even more than they learn about us, during these retreats.
‘To get you started, I’m going to pass back some questionnaires. Please fill them in as best you can – I’m passing out pens, too. We’re coming up to a nice straight bit of motorway, so hopefully nobody will get motion sickness!’
There was another ripple of nervous laughter. Becca passed a pile of stapled questionnaires to one of the people behind her, and a handful of pens, which were then passed around the passengers, who took one of each.
Robin noticed as she took a pen that it had been numbered. She glanced down the list of questions on the paper. She’d half-expected a medical questionnaire, but instead saw what she quickly realised was a kind of personality test. The person answering was supposed to mark a series of statements ‘strongly agree’, ‘somewhat agree’, ‘somewhat disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’, and to write their name at the top of the page.
1 Once I make up my mind, I seldom change it.
2 I prefer to work at my own pace.
3 I have many friends and acquaintances.
4 People like to come to me with their problems.
5 I gain satisfaction from achieving my goals.
The questionnaire ran over ten sides of paper. Many of the statements were reworded versions of those that had gone before. Robin set to work, answering in the persona of Rowena, who was both more gregarious and more concerned about other people’s approval than her creator. The two teenaged girls in the seat in front were giggling as they compared answers.
It took forty minutes for the first completed questionnaire to be passed back to Becca. Robin handed in her own shortly afterwards, but deliberately kept hold of her pen, to see what happened. When at last all the questionnaires had been handed in, Becca took to the microphone again.
‘I’m missing pens ten and fourteen!’ she said gaily, and Robin made a show of realising she’d absent-mindedly put pen ten into her pocket. Pen fourteen was located rolling under a seat.
‘We’re going to have a quick bathroom break here,’ said Becca over the microphone, as the minibus turned into a Shell service station. ‘You’ve got thirty minutes. Don’t be late back to the minibus, please!’
As Robin descended the minibus steps, she saw Becca was flicking through the questionnaires.
Having visited the bathroom, Robin walked back towards the car park. Knowing what lay ahead, she felt a strong desire to buy chocolate, even though she wasn’t hungry. Instead, she examined the front pages of newspapers in the shop. The ever-nearing Brexit referendum dominated them.
‘Well, I hope you’re all feeling relieved!’ said Becca merrily into the microphone, after everyone had got back onto the bus, eliciting another little laugh from her passengers. ‘We’ve got just over an hour left until we arrive at Chapman Farm, so I’m going to say a little bit more about what you should expect there, and then give you the opportunity to ask any questions.
‘As you probably know, one of the UHC’s priorities is to effect meaningful change in the materialist world.’
‘Amen to that!’ said Walter Fernsby, the professor of philosophy, which made many of his companions laugh again.
‘Our main charitable concerns,’ continued the smiling Becca, ‘are homelessness, addiction, climate change and social deprivation. All these issues are, of course, inter-related, and are ills generated by a capitalist, materialistic society. This week, you’ll be joining us in our efforts to, quite literally, change the world. You might think your contribution too small to matter, but our teaching is that every single act of mercy or generosity, every minute of time given to better the world, or to help another human being, has its own spiritual power which, if harnessed, can bring about almost miraculous transformations.
‘And this change won’t merely be external. An internal change takes place when we commit to lives of service. We become more than we’ve ever dreamed we could be. I’ve personally witnessed people coming into their full spiritual power, shedding all materialism, becoming capable of extraordinary acts.
‘On arrival at Chapman Farm you’ll be divided into small groups. I can promise you, you won’t be bored! Groups rotate through different activities. You’ll attend temple and lectures, but you’ll also be crafting objects that we sell for charity and looking after the animals we keep at the farm, who are part of our commitment to ethical farming and a life in harmony with nature. You may even be asked to do some cooking and cleaning: acts of simple caretaking which prove commitment to our community and care of our brothers and sisters within the church.
‘Now, does anyone have any questions for me?’
Half a dozen hands shot into the air.
‘Yes?’ said Becca, smiling at the plump, green-haired girl.
‘Hi – um – how quickly do most people go pure spirit?’
‘I get asked that question every single time!’ said Becca, and the passengers laughed along with her. ‘OK, so – the answer is, there is no answer. I’m not going to lie to you: for most people, it takes a while, but there are definitely individuals for whom it happens fast. The founder of the church, whom we call Papa J – but he’s exceptional – he was showing signs of being pure spirit aged thirteen or fourteen, although if you read The Answer, you’ll know he didn’t yet realise why he could do things most people can’t. Yes?’ she said, to the blonde teenager sitting beside the first questioner.
‘Do we get to choose our groups?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Becca kindly. ‘We want you all to have the best possible individual experience during the retreat, which means we tend to put people who know each other into different groups.’
Robin saw the teenaged girls glance at each other, crestfallen, as Becca went on,
‘Don’t worry, you’ll still see each other! You’ll be sharing a dormitory at night. But we want you to have an individual experience that you can process in your own, unique way… yes?’ she said, to Walter the professor.
‘If we have a specific skill set that might be useful to the church, should we declare it? So we can be of more use?’
‘That’s a great question,’ said Becca. ‘We have some very gifted individuals within the church – I’m talking about artists, doctors, scientists – who initially undertake what, in the materialist world, would be considered quite menial tasks, knowing that this is a step towards enlightenment. That said, we do assess individual members once they’ve completed what we call Service, so as to place them where they can best serve the church and its broader mission.
‘Yes, the gentleman in the glasses?’
‘What do you say to people who claim the UHC is actually a cult?’ asked Amandeep.
Becca laughed. Robin didn’t see even a split second of consternation.
‘I’d say the church definitely attracts slurs and negative attention. The question we should be asking is, why? We’re arguing for equality across races, we want redistribution of wealth. I’ll just say, judge for yourselves, after a week. Keep an open mind, and don’t let the mainstream media, or people with a vested interest in the status quo, tell you what truth is. You’re on the threshold of seeing truths that, honestly, will amaze you. I’ve seen it hundreds of times now. Sceptics come along out of curiosity. Some of them are actively hostile, but they can’t believe it, when they see what we’re really about… yes?’
‘Will Papa J be at Chapman Farm, when we’re there?’
The questioner was a middle-aged woman with what looked like home-dyed ginger hair and large, round glasses.
‘You’re Marion, aren’t you?’ said Becca, and the questioner nodded. ‘Papa J moves between our temples and centres, but I believe he’s going to be dropping into Chapman Farm this week, yes.’
‘Oh!’ sighed Marion, beaming as she pressed her hands together, as though in prayer.
24
The dark force possesses beauty but veils it. So must a man be when entering the service of a king.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
The minibus had driven through Norwich and arrived in countryside. After half an hour’s travel along lanes bordered by hedgerows, Robin finally saw the sign for Lion’s Mouth, a narrow, tree-lined road. Robin, who’d memorised the map with the subcontractors’ annotations, spotted cameras placed discreetly in trees to the right.
Not long after entering Lion’s Mouth, they turned up a well-maintained track. Electric gates opened at the minibus’s approach. The bus drove up a short driveway until it reached a car park, in which two identical minibuses were already parked. Ahead lay a long, one-storey edifice of light brick which, in spite of its Gothic windows, appeared recently built, and far away, on the horizon beyond the farm, Robin spotted a tall, circular tower that looked like the rook of a chess-playing giant.
The passengers disembarked, carrying their holdalls and rucksacks. Becca led them inside, where they found a room that resembled the changing room of an upmarket gym. Opposite the door was a wall of lockers. To the right was a counter, behind which stood a smiling black woman with long braids, wearing an orange tracksuit. On the left-hand side were a series of changing cubicles.
‘All right, everyone!’ said Becca. ‘Line up here to receive your tracksuits from Hattie!’
‘OK, everyone, listen, please!’ said the attendant, clapping her hands. ‘When I’ve given you a tracksuit, footwear, pyjamas, bag and locker key, you change in the cubicle. Put your waterproof coat, underwear and pyjamas in your UHC bag. Then put your day clothes, jewellery, phones, money, credit cards, etc into the bag you’ve brought with you, and put it in the locker! I’ll ask you to sign a chit, to show which locker’s yours, and you’ll hand me back the key.’
Robin joined the line and soon, equipped with white cotton pyjamas, a slightly worn pair of trainers, a size medium orange tracksuit and a bag made of hessian with the church’s logo stamped on it, proceeded into a cubicle and changed.
Having put on her tracksuit and trainers, and stuffed her pyjamas, underwear and coat into the hessian bag, Robin placed her holdall into the locker – she’d brought no credit cards, as they were all in Robin Ellacott’s name, only a purse containing cash – handed her key back to the woman with braids and signed a chit to say her possessions were in locker 29.
‘Just a quick check,’ said the attendant, and she rifled through Robin’s hessian bag to check the contents, then directed her with a nod to sit on a bench with the others who’d already changed.
The blonde teenager was now tearfully demanding why Hattie wanted her to remove the many studs and hoops from her ears and nose.
‘This was clearly stated in your pamphlet,’ said the attendant calmly, ‘no jewellery. It’s all down there in black and white, honey. Just put it in the locker.’
The girl looked around for support, but none came. Eventually she began tugging out the bits of metal, eyes full of tears. Her green-haired friend watched, and Robin thought she seemed torn between sympathy and a desire to blend in with the silent watchers on the bench.
‘Wonderful!’ said Becca, once everyone was clad in their orange tracksuits, and had their hessian bags over their shoulders. ‘OK, everyone, follow us!’
The group rose, bags over their shoulders, and followed Becca and Jiang through a second door, which opened onto a path leading between square buildings of pale brick. Multicoloured pictures of children’s handprints had been stuck to the windows of the building to the left.
‘Some of our classrooms!’ Becca called over her shoulder, ‘and the children’s dormitories!’
At that moment, a procession of small children, all dressed in miniature orange tracksuits, appeared out of one of the classrooms, led by two women. The new recruits paused to let the children pass into the opposite building, and the children gazed at them, round-eyed. Robin noticed that all of their hair had been cropped close to their heads.
‘Aww,’ said the green-haired teenager, as the children disappeared. ‘Suh-weet!’
As the group passed through the archway at the end of the path, Robin heard gasps from those directly ahead of her, and when she, too, emerged into the paved courtyard beyond the arch, she understood why.
They were facing an enormous five-sided building built of ruddy stone. White marble columns stood either side of a flight of broad white marble steps, which led up to a pair of golden doors, currently closed, but which had a similar, ornate scarlet and gold carved surround to the entrance to the temple in Rupert Court, featuring the same animals, but on a far larger scale.
In front of the temple, in the centre of the courtyard, were four plain stone sarcophagi, which had been positioned around a central fountain and pool, like rays of the sun. In the middle of the pool stood the statue of a little girl, whose long hair swirled around her, as though in water, whose face was tilted to look upwards and whose right arm was raised to the skies. The fountain spouting behind her made the surface of the surrounding pool dimple and sparkle.
‘Our temple,’ said Becca, smiling at the looks of surprise and awe on the newcomers’ faces, ‘and our prophets.’
She led them now towards the pool, where both she and Jiang knelt quickly, dipped a finger into the water and dabbed it onto their foreheads. Together they said,
‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’
Robin didn’t look to see how her fellow initiates reacted to this unusual behaviour, because she was primarily interested in memorising the layout of the buildings. The building on the left-hand side of the courtyard looked like the original farmhouse. Originally a plain, undistinguished house with walls covered in rounded flints, it had clearly been enlarged and substantially renovated, with extra wings and a reworked entrance with double doors, on which a pair of dragons had been carved.
Facing the farmhouse on the other side of the courtyard were four much plainer buildings that Robin thought looked like more dormitories.
‘All right,’ said Becca, ‘the women are going to follow me and the men, follow Jiang. We’ll reconvene by the pool.’
Becca led the women into the dormitory on the centre right.
The interior reminded Robin of a large, old-fashioned sanatorium. Rows of metal-framed beds stood upon shining tiled floors. The walls were painted a stark white. A large copper bell hung from the middle of the ceiling, which was connected to a thick rope whose end dangled beside the entrance.
‘Choose any bed that doesn’t already have pyjamas on it,’ said Becca, ‘and put your bags into the boxes under your beds. You’ll find journals on your pillows!’ she called after the women who were already striding away from her, to find their sleeping places. ‘We ask you to record your thoughts and impressions daily! This is a way of measuring spiritual progress, and also a means of helping the Principals guide you better on your journey with us. Your journals will be collected in and read every morning! Please write your name clearly on the front of the journal, and please do not tear out pages.’
Most of the women had gravitated naturally towards the far end of the dormitory, where there were windows overlooking woods, but Robin, who wanted a bed as close as possible to the door, spotted one by the wall and, by dint of walking faster than anyone else, managed to secure it by placing her pyjamas on the pillow. Her blank journal had a pencil tied to it with a length of string. Glancing around, she saw three or four small wooden tables supporting the kind of sturdy, crank-turned, desktop pencil sharpeners she’d used at primary school. Having put her hessian bag into the wicker box under the bed, she wrote the name Rowena Ellis on the front of her journal.
‘If anyone needs the loo,’ called Becca, pointing through a door leading to a communal bathroom, ‘it’s right through there!’
Though she felt in no need of the toilet, Robin took the opportunity to examine the communal bathroom, which had a row of toilets and a row of showers. Tampons and sanitary towels lay in packets in open baskets. Windows were set high over the handbasins.
When all the women who wished to do so had used the bathroom, Becca led the group back into the courtyard, where they were reunited with the men.
‘This way,’ said Becca, leading the group on.
As they walked around the temple, they passed a few church members walking in the opposite direction, all of whom beamed and said hello. Among them was a teenaged girl, sixteen at most, who had long, fine mousey hair, sun-bleached at the ends, and enormous dark blue eyes in a thin, anxious face. She smiled automatically at the sight of the newcomers, but Robin, glancing back, saw the smile disappear from the girl’s face as though a switch had been flicked.
Behind the temple was a smaller courtyard. To the left lay what appeared to be a small library built of the same red stone as the temple, its doors standing open, a couple of people in orange tracksuits sitting at tables inside, reading. There were also older buildings, including barns and sheds which looked as though they’d been there for decades. A newer building lay ahead, which, while not as grand as the temple, must still have cost a huge amount of money. It was long and broad, made of brick and timber, and when Becca led them inside, it proved to be a spacious dining hall with a beamed ceiling, and many trestle tables standing on a flagged stone floor. At one end was a stage, with what Robin supposed would be called a high table standing on it. Sounds of clanging, and a faint, depressing smell of cooking vegetables, proclaimed the close proximity of a kitchen.
