‘Thanks,’ he muttered, when she joined him.
‘No problem,’ said Robin.
‘It always does this to me,’ said Will, mopping his watery, pink-rimmed eyes on his sleeve.
‘It’s easier if you freeze them first,’ said Robin.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes, but it’s a bit late for us to try that now. I s’pose we’ll just have to work fast.’
Will smiled. For a brief moment he looked much younger than he usually did.
The noise in the kitchen was relentless, what with the clanging of the enormous pans, the hissing of the vector fan over the industrial ovens and the bubbling and spitting of the usual slop of tinned vegetables, cooking on multiple gas rings.
‘How long have you been in the church, Will?’ Robin asked.
‘Um… four years or something, now.’
‘So that’s how long I’ll have to be here, to know doctrine as well as you do?’
She’d thought the question would either flatter him or provoke him into a lecture, either of which would provide an opening to push him on his allegiance to the UHC.
‘You just have to study,’ he said dully.
Wondering whether he was being less opinionated because his eyes were bothering him, or for some deeper reason, she said,
‘So you’ve been here for four Manifestations of the Drowned Prophet?’
Will nodded, then said,
‘But I can’t talk about it. You’ve got to experience it, to really understand.’
‘I feel as though I got a kind of preview,’ said Robin, ‘during my Revelation session. Daiyu came to the temple. She made the stage tip up.’
‘Yeah, I heard about that,’ said Will.
‘I know I deserved it,’ said Robin, ‘so I suppose I should be glad it happened. It’s like you said to me on the vegetable patch, there’s no “in trouble”, is there? It’s all strengthening.’
For a moment or two Will was silent. Then he said,
‘Have you been in the library yet?’
‘I searched it for Mazu’s fish,’ said Robin. ‘I haven’t used it properly.’
Though beautifully appointed, with mahogany tables and brass reading lights, the library contained few books, and half of them had been written by Jonathan Wace. The rest of the stock comprised holy texts of all major religions. While Robin would have welcomed a quiet hour in the library, she doubted she’d be able to concentrate long on the Guru Granth Sahib or the Torah without falling asleep.
‘Have you read the Bible?’ asked Will.
‘Um… bits,’ said Robin cautiously.
‘I was reading it yesterday. John, chapter one, verse 4:1: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”’
Robin glanced at him. She might be mistaken, given his reddened, puffy eyes, but she thought he looked worried.
‘Oh Lord, I’m going to need help,’ said a loud female voice. Robin and Will looked round. Noli Seymour had just entered the kitchen wearing a pristine white tracksuit, and was making a comical expression, hands pressed against her face. ‘I’m an awful cook!’ she said, looking round. ‘Some of you experts are going to have to help me!’
If Noli had imagined a stampede to assist her, or that the kitchen workers would be charmed by her admission of helplessness, she’d miscalculated. Tired and sweaty, none of them smiled, although Sita handed her an apron. Robin had a presentiment about what was about to happen, and sure enough, one of the older women pointed Noli to the pile of onions Robin and Will were tackling, doubtless thinking that this was where she could do least harm. Noli was enough of an actress to fake enthusiasm.
‘Great… um… have you got gloves?’
‘No,’ said the woman, returning to the large vat containing a gallon of tinned tomatoes bubbling on the stove.
‘Hi, I’m Noli,’ said the actress to Will and Robin. ‘Have you got—? Oh, thanks,’ she said, as Robin passed her a knife. ‘So what are your names?’
They told her.
‘Rowena, wow, that’s so funny, I played Rowena in Ivanhoe at drama school,’ said Noli, looking sideways at the way Robin was slicing her onion, and trying to copy her. ‘It was kind of a challenge, actually. I much prefer playing characters with substance, you know? And Rowena’s basically just, you know, beautiful and kind and noble,’ Noli rolled her eyes, ‘and I’m like, “Um, wouldn’t it be easier to use a mannequin or something?” Oh, God, I hope you aren’t named after Lady Rowena!’ Noli added, with a peal of laughter. ‘Were your parents fans, or something?’
Before Robin could answer, Will, whose streaming eyes were still fixed on the onion he was chopping, muttered:
‘Materialist possession.’
‘What?’ said Noli.
‘“Parents”,’ said Will, still not looking at Noli.
‘Oh – yeah, right,’ said Noli. ‘You know what I mean, though.’
‘No, I wasn’t named after Lady Rowena,’ said Robin.
‘I just get typecast, you know?’ said Noli, who was doing her best to touch the onion she was chopping as little as possible, holding it steady with her fingertips. ‘I’m constantly saying to my agent, “Just once, can you get me a character with character?” I’ve been feeling that so much more since joining the church,’ she added earnestly.
The threesome chopped in silence for a little while until Will, after wiping his irritated eyes on the sleeve of his sweatshirt again, glanced at Noli and said,
‘Are you really going to make a film about the Drowned Prophet?’
The actress looked up at him, startled.
‘How on earth did you know about that?’
‘Are you?’ said Will, his reddened eyes fixed on his work again.
‘Well, not just about – nothing’s definite. I’ve been talking to Papa J about maybe doing a film about him. How on earth did you know that?’ she added, with another little laugh.
‘I was the one serving you your potatoes when you were talking about it to Papa J,’ said Will. ‘In the farmhouse.’
The kitchen workers in their immediate vicinity were now listening to the conversation. Some had deliberately slowed down in their tasks, so as to make less noise.
‘Oh, of course you were, yes,’ said Noli, but Robin could tell Noli had no memory of Will at all. ‘Well, it’s just something I think could be really interesting. We could make sure a big cut of the profits go to the UHC, obviously. I think it would be an incredible way to bring awareness of the church to a wider audience. Of course, he doesn’t think anyone would watch a movie about him,’ she said, with a giggle. ‘That’s the funny thing about him, he doesn’t realise what he is, does he? He’s so modest, it’s one of the things I really admire about him, it makes a really nice change from the people I meet in my business, I can tell you.’
‘Would you be Daiyu, in the film?’ said Will.
‘No, of course not, I’m too old,’ said Noli. ‘I’d quite like to play his first wife, because he’s told me a bit about her, and she sounds like a – well, she was no Lady Rowena, put it that way.’
‘D’you think it’s strange,’ said Will, still dicing onions, ‘that Papa J married twice and nobody in the church is supposed to marry?’
‘What?’ said Noli. Her knife slipped off the onion she was mangling.
‘Will!’
One of the older women had spoken, her tone a definite warning. The kitchen workers around the onion choppers seemed to have come back to life: there was a resumption of the usual clanging and clattering as they moved away.
‘Of course it’s not strange,’ said Noli. ‘His first marriage was before he even – anyway, it’s a Higher-Level Truth, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’ said Will, still looking at the onion he was chopping.
‘Papa J and Mama Mazu, you can’t – it’s not the same. They’re, like, our parents – all of our parents.’
‘Materialist possession,’ muttered Will again.
‘Oh, come—’
‘Have you read the Bhagavad Gita?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Noli, clearly lying.
‘Lord Krishna talks about people of demonic nature. “Self-conceited, stubborn, intoxicated by pride in wealth, they perform sacrifice in name only, with ostentation.”’
‘Ohmigod, there are so many people in acting like that,’ said Noli. ‘The last show I did—’
But her voice was drowned out by another. Somebody outside the kitchen was screaming.
72
Nine in the third place…
The woman carries a child but does not bring it forth.
Misfortune.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
The kitchen door banged open to reveal Penny, whose once-green hair was now straggly and brown, and the front of whose sweatshirt was stained with what looked like blood.
‘It’s Lin,’ she wailed. ‘In the women’s bathroom. She’s – oh my God—’
Robin and Will were the first to move. Robin followed the younger man at a sprint, her apron slightly impeding the motion of her knees, and behind her she could hear some of the older women also running. They dashed down the pathway into the courtyard, but at the dormitory door, Will checked. Men weren’t supposed to enter the women’s dormitory. Robin pushed him aside, ran through the empty dormitory and through the bathroom door.
‘Oh Jesus,’ she said aloud.
There was a puddle of blood seeping from under one of the toilet cubicle doors. She could see Lin’s bloodstained legs, which weren’t moving.
‘Lin,’ Robin yelled, pounding on the locked door, but there was no answer. Robin dashed into the neighbouring cubicle, jumped up onto the toilet seat, seized hold of the top of the partition and pulled herself over it.
‘Shit,’ said Robin, landing and slipping in the blood surrounding the teenager, who sat slumped against the toilet.
She’d expected suicide, but saw at once that the blood, of which there seemed a terrifying amount, seemed to be issuing from Lin’s vagina. Her tracksuit bottoms were sodden and she was wheezing, while her neck, face and hands were covered in an angry red rash.