The Running Grave, page 28
After the re-sorting of the groups, the day proceeded in the same way as the previous ones. Robin and the rest of Fire Group were ushered through a mixture of tasks, some physical, some spiritual. After feeding the pigs and putting fresh straw in the chickens’ nesting boxes, they were taken to their third lecture on church doctrine, which was conducted by Taio Wace, then had a chanting session in the temple, during which Robin, already tired, entered a pleasant, trance-like state which left her with a feeling of increased well-being. She could now recite Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu without needing to check the words or pronunciation.
After temple, they were led to a new crafting workshop.
‘Fire Group, called to service,’ said Becca Pirbright as they entered a slightly larger space than that in which the toy turtles had been made. The walls were hung with many different kinds of woven and plaited corn dollies: stars, crosses, hearts, spirals and figures, many of them finished with ribbons. In a far corner of the room, two church members – Robin recognised the woman who’d stood at the reception desk when they arrived, and the pregnant Wan – were working on a large straw sculpture. Piles of straw also lay on a long central table, in front of every seat. At the head of the table stood Mazu Wace in her long orange robes, with the mother-of-pearl fish around her neck, holding a leatherbound book.
‘N ho,’ she said, gesturing for Fire Group to take their seats.
There were fewer permanent church members seated at the table than at the turtle-making session. Among them was the teenage girl with long, fine mousey hair and large blue eyes whom Robin had already noticed. Robin deliberately selected a seat beside her.
‘As you know,’ said Mazu, ‘we sell our handiwork to raise funds for the church’s charitable projects. We have a long tradition of making corn dollies at Chapman Farm and grow our own straw specifically for this purpose. Today you’ll be making some simple Glory Plaits,’ said Mazu, walking to the wall and pointing at a flat, plaited corn dolly with wheat heads fanning out of the bottom. ‘Regular members will help, and once you’re working properly, I’ll read you today’s lesson.’
‘Hi,’ Robin said to the teenage girl beside her, as Mazu began leafing through the book, ‘I’m Rowena.’
‘I’m L-L-Lin,’ stammered the girl.
Robin knew at once that the girl must be the daughter of Deirdre Doherty, who’d been (if Kevin Pirbright was to be believed) the product of Jonathan Wace’s rape.
‘That looks hard,’ Robin said, watching Lin’s thin fingers working the straw.
‘It isn’t r-r-really,’ said Lin.
Robin noticed Mazu glance up irritably from her book at the sound of Lin’s voice. Although Lin hadn’t looked at Mazu, Robin was certain she’d registered her reaction, because she began showing Robin what to do without words. Robin remembered Kevin Pirbright writing in his email to Sir Colin that Mazu had mocked Lin for her stammer since childhood.
Once everyone had set to work in earnest, Mazu said,
‘I’m going to talk to you this morning about the Golden Prophet, whose life was a beautiful lesson. The Golden Prophet’s mantra is I Live to Love and Give. The following words were written by Papa J himself.’
She dropped her gaze to the open book in her hands and now Robin saw The Answer, by Jonathan Wace printed on its spine in gold leaf.
‘“There was once a worldly, materialistic woman who married with the sole aim of living what the bubble world considers a fulfilled, successful li—”’
‘Are we allowed to ask questions?’ interrupted Amandeep Singh.
Robin sensed an immediate tension among the regular church members.
‘I usually take questions at the end of the reading,’ said Mazu coolly. ‘Were you going to ask what the “bubble world” is?’
‘Yeah,’ said Amandeep.
‘That’s about to be explained,’ said Mazu, with a tight, cold smile. Looking back at her book, she continued reading.
‘“We sometimes call the materialist world the ‘bubble world’ because its inhabitants live inside a consumer-driven, status-obsessed and ego-saturated bubble. Possession is key to the bubble world: possession of things and possessiveness of other human beings, who are reduced to flesh objects. Those who can see beyond the gaudy, multicoloured walls of the bubble are deemed strange, deluded – even mad. Yet the bubble world’s walls are fragile. It takes just one glimpse of Truth for them to burst, and so it was with Margaret Cathcart-Bryce.
‘“She was a rich woman, vain and selfish. She had doctors operate upon her body, the better to ape the youth so venerated within the bubble world, which lives in terror of death and decay. She had no children by choice, for fear that it would spoil her perfect figure, and she amassed great wealth without giving away a penny, content to live a life of material ease that other bubble-dwellers envied for its trappings.”’
Robin was carefully folding the hollow straws under Lin’s silent direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pregnant Wan massaging one side of her swollen belly.
‘“Margaret’s sickness was one of false self,”’ read Mazu. ‘“This is the self that craves external validation. Her spiritual self had been untended and neglected for a very long time. Her awakening came after her husband’s death by what the world calls chance, but which the Universal Humanitarian Church recognises as part of the eternal design.
‘“Margaret came to hear one of my talks. She told me, later, that she’d attended because she had nothing better to do. Of course, I was well aware that people often attended my meetings purely to have something new to talk about at fashionable dinner parties. Yet I’ve never scorned the company of the rich. That in itself is a form of prejudice. All judgement based on a person’s wealth is bubble thinking.
‘“So I spoke at the dinner and the attendees nodded and smiled. I didn’t doubt that some would write me cheques to support our charitable work at the end of the evening. It would cost them little and perhaps give them a sense of their own goodness.
‘“But when I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed upon me, I knew that she was what I sometimes call a sleepwalker: one who has great unawakened spiritual capacity. I hurried through my talk, eager to speak to this woman. I approached her at the conclusion of our talk and with a few short sentences, I’d fallen as deeply in love as I’d ever done in my life.”’
Robin wasn’t the only person who glanced up at Mazu at these words.
‘“Some will be shocked to hear me talk of love. Margaret was seventy-two years old, but when two sympathetic spirits meet, so-called physical reality dissolves into irrelevance. I loved Margaret instantly, because her true self called to me from behind the masklike face, pleading for liberation. I had already undertaken sufficient spiritual training to see with a clarity physical eyes cannot. Beauty that is of the flesh will always wither, whereas beauty of the spirit is eternal and unchange—”’
The door of the workshop opened. Mazu looked up. Jiang Wace entered, squat and sullen in his orange tracksuit. At the sight of Mazu, his right eye began to flicker and he hastily covered it.
‘Doctor Zhou wants to see Rowena Ellis,’ he muttered.
‘That’s me,’ said Robin, holding up her hand.
‘All right,’ said Mazu, ‘go with Jiang, Rowena. I thank you for your service.’
‘And I for yours,’ said Robin, putting her hands together and bowing her head towards Mazu, which earned her another cold, tight smile.
31
Nine in the fifth place…
One should not try an unknown medicine.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘You catch on quick,’ said Jiang, as he and Robin walked back past the chicken coop.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin.
‘Knowing the right responses,’ said Jiang, again rubbing the eye with the tic, and Robin thought she detected a hint of resentment. ‘Already.’
To their left lay the open fields. Marion Huxley and Penny Brown were staggering over the deeply rutted earth, leading the Shire horses in their endless ploughing, a pointless exercise, given that the field was already ploughed.
‘Metal Group,’ said Jiang with a snigger. Confirmed in her impression that this morning’s group reconfiguration had been a ranking exercise, Robin merely asked,
‘Why does Dr Zhou want to see me?’
‘Medical,’ said Jiang. ‘Check you’re ready to fast.’
They passed the laundry and dining hall, and then the older barns, one of which had a cobwebbed padlock on the door.
‘What do you keep in there?’ Robin asked.
‘Junk,’ said Jiang. Then, making Robin jump, he bellowed,
‘Oi!’
Jiang was pointing at Will Edensor, who was crouching in the shade of a tree off the path and appeared to be comforting a child of maybe two, who was crying. Will Edensor jumped up as though he’d been scalded. The little girl, whose white hair hadn’t been shaved like that of the other children, but stood out around her head like a dandelion clock, raised her arms, imploring Will to pick her up. A group of nursery age were toddling about behind him among more trees, under the supervision of shaven-headed Louise Pirbright.
‘Are you on child duty?’ Jiang shouted at Will.
‘No,’ said Will. ‘She just fell over, so I—’
‘You’re committing materialist possession,’ shouted Jiang, and specks of spittle issued from his mouth. Robin was sure her presence was making Jiang more aggressive, that he was enjoying asserting his authority in front of her.
‘It was only because she fell over,’ said Will. ‘I was going to the laundry and—’
‘Then go to the laundry!’
Will hurried off on his long legs. The little girl attempted to follow him, tripped, fell and cried harder than ever. Within a few seconds, Louise had scooped the child up and retreated with her into the trees where the rest of the little ones were roaming.
‘He’s been warned,’ said Jiang, heading off again. ‘I’m going to have to report that.’
He seemed to take pleasure in the prospect.
‘Why isn’t he allowed near children?’ asked Robin, hurrying to keep up with Jiang as they rounded the side of the temple.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Jiang quickly, answering an unspoken question. ‘But we’ve got to be careful about who works with the little ones.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Robin.
‘Not because of – it’s spiritual,’ growled Jiang. ‘People get ego hits from materialist possession. It interferes with spiritual growth.’
‘I see,’ said Robin.
‘You’ve got to kill the false self,’ said Jiang. ‘He hasn’t killed his false self yet.’
They were now crossing the courtyard. When they crouched down at the pool of the Drowned Prophet between the tombs of the Stolen and Golden Prophets, Robin picked up a tiny pebble lying on the ground and hid it in her left hand before dipping the forefinger of her right into the water, anointing her forehead and intoning ‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’
‘You know who she was?’ Jiang asked Robin, as he stood up and pointed at the statue of Daiyu.
‘Er – her name was Daiyu, wasn’t it?’ said Robin, still with the tiny pebble held in her closed hand.
‘Yeah, but d’you know who she was? To me?’
‘Oh,’ said Robin. She’d already learned that the naming of family relationships was frowned upon at Chapman Farm, because it suggested a continuing allegiance to materialist values. ‘No.’
‘My sister,’ said Jiang in a low voice, smirking.
‘Can you remember her?’ said Robin, careful to sound awed.
‘Yeah,’ said Jiang. ‘She used to play with me.’
They proceeded towards the entrance of the farmhouse. As Jiang drew a little ahead of her to push open the dragon-ornamented doors of the farmhouse, Robin stowed the tiny pebble out of sight down the front of her sweatshirt, inside her bra.
There was a motto inlaid in Latin in the stone floor just inside the doors of the farmhouse: STET FORTUNA DOMUS. The hallway was wide, pristinely clean and immaculately decorated, the white walls covered in Chinese art, including framed silk panels and carved wooden masks. A scarlet-carpeted stairway curved up to the first floor. A number of closed doors, all painted in glossy black, led off the hall, but Jiang led Robin past all of these and turned right, into a corridor that led into one of the new wings.
At the very end of the corridor, he rapped on another glossy black door and opened it.
Robin heard a woman’s laughter, and as the door opened she saw actress Noli Seymour leaning up against an ebony desk and apparently lost in merriment about something Dr Zhou had just said to her. She was a dark, elfin young woman with cropped hair, wearing what Robin recognised as head-to-toe Chanel.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said through her laughter. Robin had the impression Noli vaguely recognised Jiang, but couldn’t remember his name. Jiang’s hand had again leapt to his winking eye. ‘Andy’s just making me roar… I had to come down here to get my treatments,’ she pouted slightly, ‘seeing as he’s abandoned us in London.’
‘Abandoned you? Never,’ said Zhou, in his deep voice. ‘Now, you’ll stay for the night? Papa J’s back.’
‘Is he?’ squealed Noli, clapping her hands to her face in delight. ‘Oh my God, I haven’t seen him in weeks!’
‘He says you can take your usual room,’ said Zhou, pointing upstairs. ‘The membership will be delighted to see you. Now, I have to assess this young lady,’ he said, pointing at Robin.
‘All right, darling,’ said Noli, offering her face to be kissed. Zhou clasped her hands, pecked her on each cheek, and Noli walked out past Robin in a cloud of tuberose, winking as she passed and saying:
‘You’re in very safe hands.’
The door closed on Noli and Jiang, leaving Robin and Dr Zhou alone.
The luxurious, meticulously tidy room smelled of sandalwood. A red and gold art deco rug lay on the dark polished floorboards. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of the same ebony as the rest of the furniture carried leatherbound books and also what Robin recognised as hundreds of journals of the kind lying on her bed, their spines labelled with the names of their owners. Behind the desk were more shelves carrying hundreds of tiny brown bottles arranged with precision and labelled in minuscule handwriting, a collection of antique Chinese snuff bottles and a fat golden Buddha, sitting cross-legged on a wooden plinth. A black leather examination couch stood beneath one of the windows, which looked out onto a part of the property screened from the courtyard by trees and bushes. Here, Robin saw three identical cabins built of timber, each of which had sliding glass doors, and which hadn’t been shown to any of the new recruits as yet.
‘Please, sit down,’ said Zhou, smiling as he gestured Robin to the chair opposite his desk, which like the desk was made of ebony, and upholstered in red silk. Robin registered how comfortable it was as she sank into it: the chairs in the workshop were of hard plastic and wood, and the mattress of her narrow bed very firm.
Zhou was wearing a dark suit and tie and a pristine white shirt. Pearls shone discreetly in the buttonholes of his cuffs. Robin assumed he was biracial because he was well over six feet tall – the Chinese men she was used to seeing in Chinatown, near the office, were generally much shorter – and he was undeniably handsome, with his slicked-back black hair and high cheekbones. The scar running down from nose to jaw hinted at mystery and danger. She could understand why Dr Zhou attracted television viewers, even though she personally found the sleekness and slight but detectable aura of self-importance unappealing.
Zhou flipped open a folder on his desk and Robin saw several sheets of paper, with the questionnaire she’d completed on the bus lying on top.
‘So,’ said Zhou, smiling, ‘how are you finding life in the church so far?’
‘Really interesting,’ said Robin, ‘and I’m finding the meditation techniques incredible.’
‘You suffer from a little anxiety, yes?’ said Zhou, smiling at her.
‘Sometimes,’ said Robin, smiling back.
‘Low self-esteem?’
‘Occasionally,’ said Robin, with a little shrug.
‘I think you’ve recently had an emotional blow?’
Robin wasn’t sure whether he was pretending to intuit this about her, or admitting that some of the hidden sheets of paper contained the biographical details she’d confided in church members.
‘Um… yes,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘My wedding got called off.’
‘Was that your decision?’
‘No,’ said Robin, no longer smiling. ‘His.’
‘Family disappointed?’
‘My mum’s quite… yes, they weren’t happy.’
‘I promise, you’ll live to be very glad you didn’t go through with it,’ said Zhou. ‘Much societal unhappiness stems from the unnaturalness of the married state. Have you read The Answer?’
‘Not yet,’ said Robin, ‘although one of the church members offered to lend me his copy, and Mazu was just…’
Zhou opened one of the desk drawers and took out a pristine paperback copy of Jonathan Wace’s book. The image on the front was of a bursting bubble, with two hands making the heart shape around it.
‘Here,’ said Zhou. ‘Your own copy.’
‘Thank you so much!’ said Robin, feigning delight while wondering when on earth she was supposed to have time to read, in between the lectures, the work and the temple.
‘Read the chapter on materialist possession and egomotivity,’ Zhou instructed her. ‘Now…’
He extracted a second questionnaire, this one blank, and took a lacquered fountain pen out of his pocket.
‘I’m going to assess your fitness to fast – what we call purification.’
He took down Robin’s age, asked her to step onto scales, noted down her weight, then invited her to sit down again so he could take her blood pressure.
‘A little low,’ said Zhou, looking at the figures, ‘but it’s nearly lunchtime… nothing to worry about. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs.’
After temple, they were led to a new crafting workshop.
‘Fire Group, called to service,’ said Becca Pirbright as they entered a slightly larger space than that in which the toy turtles had been made. The walls were hung with many different kinds of woven and plaited corn dollies: stars, crosses, hearts, spirals and figures, many of them finished with ribbons. In a far corner of the room, two church members – Robin recognised the woman who’d stood at the reception desk when they arrived, and the pregnant Wan – were working on a large straw sculpture. Piles of straw also lay on a long central table, in front of every seat. At the head of the table stood Mazu Wace in her long orange robes, with the mother-of-pearl fish around her neck, holding a leatherbound book.
‘N ho,’ she said, gesturing for Fire Group to take their seats.
There were fewer permanent church members seated at the table than at the turtle-making session. Among them was the teenage girl with long, fine mousey hair and large blue eyes whom Robin had already noticed. Robin deliberately selected a seat beside her.
‘As you know,’ said Mazu, ‘we sell our handiwork to raise funds for the church’s charitable projects. We have a long tradition of making corn dollies at Chapman Farm and grow our own straw specifically for this purpose. Today you’ll be making some simple Glory Plaits,’ said Mazu, walking to the wall and pointing at a flat, plaited corn dolly with wheat heads fanning out of the bottom. ‘Regular members will help, and once you’re working properly, I’ll read you today’s lesson.’
‘Hi,’ Robin said to the teenage girl beside her, as Mazu began leafing through the book, ‘I’m Rowena.’
‘I’m L-L-Lin,’ stammered the girl.
Robin knew at once that the girl must be the daughter of Deirdre Doherty, who’d been (if Kevin Pirbright was to be believed) the product of Jonathan Wace’s rape.
‘That looks hard,’ Robin said, watching Lin’s thin fingers working the straw.
‘It isn’t r-r-really,’ said Lin.
Robin noticed Mazu glance up irritably from her book at the sound of Lin’s voice. Although Lin hadn’t looked at Mazu, Robin was certain she’d registered her reaction, because she began showing Robin what to do without words. Robin remembered Kevin Pirbright writing in his email to Sir Colin that Mazu had mocked Lin for her stammer since childhood.
Once everyone had set to work in earnest, Mazu said,
‘I’m going to talk to you this morning about the Golden Prophet, whose life was a beautiful lesson. The Golden Prophet’s mantra is I Live to Love and Give. The following words were written by Papa J himself.’
She dropped her gaze to the open book in her hands and now Robin saw The Answer, by Jonathan Wace printed on its spine in gold leaf.
‘“There was once a worldly, materialistic woman who married with the sole aim of living what the bubble world considers a fulfilled, successful li—”’
‘Are we allowed to ask questions?’ interrupted Amandeep Singh.
Robin sensed an immediate tension among the regular church members.
‘I usually take questions at the end of the reading,’ said Mazu coolly. ‘Were you going to ask what the “bubble world” is?’
‘Yeah,’ said Amandeep.
‘That’s about to be explained,’ said Mazu, with a tight, cold smile. Looking back at her book, she continued reading.
‘“We sometimes call the materialist world the ‘bubble world’ because its inhabitants live inside a consumer-driven, status-obsessed and ego-saturated bubble. Possession is key to the bubble world: possession of things and possessiveness of other human beings, who are reduced to flesh objects. Those who can see beyond the gaudy, multicoloured walls of the bubble are deemed strange, deluded – even mad. Yet the bubble world’s walls are fragile. It takes just one glimpse of Truth for them to burst, and so it was with Margaret Cathcart-Bryce.
‘“She was a rich woman, vain and selfish. She had doctors operate upon her body, the better to ape the youth so venerated within the bubble world, which lives in terror of death and decay. She had no children by choice, for fear that it would spoil her perfect figure, and she amassed great wealth without giving away a penny, content to live a life of material ease that other bubble-dwellers envied for its trappings.”’
Robin was carefully folding the hollow straws under Lin’s silent direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pregnant Wan massaging one side of her swollen belly.
‘“Margaret’s sickness was one of false self,”’ read Mazu. ‘“This is the self that craves external validation. Her spiritual self had been untended and neglected for a very long time. Her awakening came after her husband’s death by what the world calls chance, but which the Universal Humanitarian Church recognises as part of the eternal design.
‘“Margaret came to hear one of my talks. She told me, later, that she’d attended because she had nothing better to do. Of course, I was well aware that people often attended my meetings purely to have something new to talk about at fashionable dinner parties. Yet I’ve never scorned the company of the rich. That in itself is a form of prejudice. All judgement based on a person’s wealth is bubble thinking.
‘“So I spoke at the dinner and the attendees nodded and smiled. I didn’t doubt that some would write me cheques to support our charitable work at the end of the evening. It would cost them little and perhaps give them a sense of their own goodness.
‘“But when I saw Margaret’s eyes fixed upon me, I knew that she was what I sometimes call a sleepwalker: one who has great unawakened spiritual capacity. I hurried through my talk, eager to speak to this woman. I approached her at the conclusion of our talk and with a few short sentences, I’d fallen as deeply in love as I’d ever done in my life.”’
Robin wasn’t the only person who glanced up at Mazu at these words.
‘“Some will be shocked to hear me talk of love. Margaret was seventy-two years old, but when two sympathetic spirits meet, so-called physical reality dissolves into irrelevance. I loved Margaret instantly, because her true self called to me from behind the masklike face, pleading for liberation. I had already undertaken sufficient spiritual training to see with a clarity physical eyes cannot. Beauty that is of the flesh will always wither, whereas beauty of the spirit is eternal and unchange—”’
The door of the workshop opened. Mazu looked up. Jiang Wace entered, squat and sullen in his orange tracksuit. At the sight of Mazu, his right eye began to flicker and he hastily covered it.
‘Doctor Zhou wants to see Rowena Ellis,’ he muttered.
‘That’s me,’ said Robin, holding up her hand.
‘All right,’ said Mazu, ‘go with Jiang, Rowena. I thank you for your service.’
‘And I for yours,’ said Robin, putting her hands together and bowing her head towards Mazu, which earned her another cold, tight smile.
31
Nine in the fifth place…
One should not try an unknown medicine.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
‘You catch on quick,’ said Jiang, as he and Robin walked back past the chicken coop.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Robin.
‘Knowing the right responses,’ said Jiang, again rubbing the eye with the tic, and Robin thought she detected a hint of resentment. ‘Already.’
To their left lay the open fields. Marion Huxley and Penny Brown were staggering over the deeply rutted earth, leading the Shire horses in their endless ploughing, a pointless exercise, given that the field was already ploughed.
‘Metal Group,’ said Jiang with a snigger. Confirmed in her impression that this morning’s group reconfiguration had been a ranking exercise, Robin merely asked,
‘Why does Dr Zhou want to see me?’
‘Medical,’ said Jiang. ‘Check you’re ready to fast.’
They passed the laundry and dining hall, and then the older barns, one of which had a cobwebbed padlock on the door.
‘What do you keep in there?’ Robin asked.
‘Junk,’ said Jiang. Then, making Robin jump, he bellowed,
‘Oi!’
Jiang was pointing at Will Edensor, who was crouching in the shade of a tree off the path and appeared to be comforting a child of maybe two, who was crying. Will Edensor jumped up as though he’d been scalded. The little girl, whose white hair hadn’t been shaved like that of the other children, but stood out around her head like a dandelion clock, raised her arms, imploring Will to pick her up. A group of nursery age were toddling about behind him among more trees, under the supervision of shaven-headed Louise Pirbright.
‘Are you on child duty?’ Jiang shouted at Will.
‘No,’ said Will. ‘She just fell over, so I—’
‘You’re committing materialist possession,’ shouted Jiang, and specks of spittle issued from his mouth. Robin was sure her presence was making Jiang more aggressive, that he was enjoying asserting his authority in front of her.
‘It was only because she fell over,’ said Will. ‘I was going to the laundry and—’
‘Then go to the laundry!’
Will hurried off on his long legs. The little girl attempted to follow him, tripped, fell and cried harder than ever. Within a few seconds, Louise had scooped the child up and retreated with her into the trees where the rest of the little ones were roaming.
‘He’s been warned,’ said Jiang, heading off again. ‘I’m going to have to report that.’
He seemed to take pleasure in the prospect.
‘Why isn’t he allowed near children?’ asked Robin, hurrying to keep up with Jiang as they rounded the side of the temple.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Jiang quickly, answering an unspoken question. ‘But we’ve got to be careful about who works with the little ones.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Robin.
‘Not because of – it’s spiritual,’ growled Jiang. ‘People get ego hits from materialist possession. It interferes with spiritual growth.’
‘I see,’ said Robin.
‘You’ve got to kill the false self,’ said Jiang. ‘He hasn’t killed his false self yet.’
They were now crossing the courtyard. When they crouched down at the pool of the Drowned Prophet between the tombs of the Stolen and Golden Prophets, Robin picked up a tiny pebble lying on the ground and hid it in her left hand before dipping the forefinger of her right into the water, anointing her forehead and intoning ‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all who worship her.’
‘You know who she was?’ Jiang asked Robin, as he stood up and pointed at the statue of Daiyu.
‘Er – her name was Daiyu, wasn’t it?’ said Robin, still with the tiny pebble held in her closed hand.
‘Yeah, but d’you know who she was? To me?’
‘Oh,’ said Robin. She’d already learned that the naming of family relationships was frowned upon at Chapman Farm, because it suggested a continuing allegiance to materialist values. ‘No.’
‘My sister,’ said Jiang in a low voice, smirking.
‘Can you remember her?’ said Robin, careful to sound awed.
‘Yeah,’ said Jiang. ‘She used to play with me.’
They proceeded towards the entrance of the farmhouse. As Jiang drew a little ahead of her to push open the dragon-ornamented doors of the farmhouse, Robin stowed the tiny pebble out of sight down the front of her sweatshirt, inside her bra.
There was a motto inlaid in Latin in the stone floor just inside the doors of the farmhouse: STET FORTUNA DOMUS. The hallway was wide, pristinely clean and immaculately decorated, the white walls covered in Chinese art, including framed silk panels and carved wooden masks. A scarlet-carpeted stairway curved up to the first floor. A number of closed doors, all painted in glossy black, led off the hall, but Jiang led Robin past all of these and turned right, into a corridor that led into one of the new wings.
At the very end of the corridor, he rapped on another glossy black door and opened it.
Robin heard a woman’s laughter, and as the door opened she saw actress Noli Seymour leaning up against an ebony desk and apparently lost in merriment about something Dr Zhou had just said to her. She was a dark, elfin young woman with cropped hair, wearing what Robin recognised as head-to-toe Chanel.
‘Oh, hello,’ she said through her laughter. Robin had the impression Noli vaguely recognised Jiang, but couldn’t remember his name. Jiang’s hand had again leapt to his winking eye. ‘Andy’s just making me roar… I had to come down here to get my treatments,’ she pouted slightly, ‘seeing as he’s abandoned us in London.’
‘Abandoned you? Never,’ said Zhou, in his deep voice. ‘Now, you’ll stay for the night? Papa J’s back.’
‘Is he?’ squealed Noli, clapping her hands to her face in delight. ‘Oh my God, I haven’t seen him in weeks!’
‘He says you can take your usual room,’ said Zhou, pointing upstairs. ‘The membership will be delighted to see you. Now, I have to assess this young lady,’ he said, pointing at Robin.
‘All right, darling,’ said Noli, offering her face to be kissed. Zhou clasped her hands, pecked her on each cheek, and Noli walked out past Robin in a cloud of tuberose, winking as she passed and saying:
‘You’re in very safe hands.’
The door closed on Noli and Jiang, leaving Robin and Dr Zhou alone.
The luxurious, meticulously tidy room smelled of sandalwood. A red and gold art deco rug lay on the dark polished floorboards. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of the same ebony as the rest of the furniture carried leatherbound books and also what Robin recognised as hundreds of journals of the kind lying on her bed, their spines labelled with the names of their owners. Behind the desk were more shelves carrying hundreds of tiny brown bottles arranged with precision and labelled in minuscule handwriting, a collection of antique Chinese snuff bottles and a fat golden Buddha, sitting cross-legged on a wooden plinth. A black leather examination couch stood beneath one of the windows, which looked out onto a part of the property screened from the courtyard by trees and bushes. Here, Robin saw three identical cabins built of timber, each of which had sliding glass doors, and which hadn’t been shown to any of the new recruits as yet.
‘Please, sit down,’ said Zhou, smiling as he gestured Robin to the chair opposite his desk, which like the desk was made of ebony, and upholstered in red silk. Robin registered how comfortable it was as she sank into it: the chairs in the workshop were of hard plastic and wood, and the mattress of her narrow bed very firm.
Zhou was wearing a dark suit and tie and a pristine white shirt. Pearls shone discreetly in the buttonholes of his cuffs. Robin assumed he was biracial because he was well over six feet tall – the Chinese men she was used to seeing in Chinatown, near the office, were generally much shorter – and he was undeniably handsome, with his slicked-back black hair and high cheekbones. The scar running down from nose to jaw hinted at mystery and danger. She could understand why Dr Zhou attracted television viewers, even though she personally found the sleekness and slight but detectable aura of self-importance unappealing.
Zhou flipped open a folder on his desk and Robin saw several sheets of paper, with the questionnaire she’d completed on the bus lying on top.
‘So,’ said Zhou, smiling, ‘how are you finding life in the church so far?’
‘Really interesting,’ said Robin, ‘and I’m finding the meditation techniques incredible.’
‘You suffer from a little anxiety, yes?’ said Zhou, smiling at her.
‘Sometimes,’ said Robin, smiling back.
‘Low self-esteem?’
‘Occasionally,’ said Robin, with a little shrug.
‘I think you’ve recently had an emotional blow?’
Robin wasn’t sure whether he was pretending to intuit this about her, or admitting that some of the hidden sheets of paper contained the biographical details she’d confided in church members.
‘Um… yes,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘My wedding got called off.’
‘Was that your decision?’
‘No,’ said Robin, no longer smiling. ‘His.’
‘Family disappointed?’
‘My mum’s quite… yes, they weren’t happy.’
‘I promise, you’ll live to be very glad you didn’t go through with it,’ said Zhou. ‘Much societal unhappiness stems from the unnaturalness of the married state. Have you read The Answer?’
‘Not yet,’ said Robin, ‘although one of the church members offered to lend me his copy, and Mazu was just…’
Zhou opened one of the desk drawers and took out a pristine paperback copy of Jonathan Wace’s book. The image on the front was of a bursting bubble, with two hands making the heart shape around it.
‘Here,’ said Zhou. ‘Your own copy.’
‘Thank you so much!’ said Robin, feigning delight while wondering when on earth she was supposed to have time to read, in between the lectures, the work and the temple.
‘Read the chapter on materialist possession and egomotivity,’ Zhou instructed her. ‘Now…’
He extracted a second questionnaire, this one blank, and took a lacquered fountain pen out of his pocket.
‘I’m going to assess your fitness to fast – what we call purification.’
He took down Robin’s age, asked her to step onto scales, noted down her weight, then invited her to sit down again so he could take her blood pressure.
‘A little low,’ said Zhou, looking at the figures, ‘but it’s nearly lunchtime… nothing to worry about. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs.’
