23
Nine at the beginning means:
Fellowship with men at the gate.
The I Ching or Book of Changes
At half past nine the following day, Robin walked out of Victoria Station into the cool, overcast morning. For a moment, she stood with her half-empty holdall over her shoulder, looking around at taxis, swarming commuters and buses, and experienced a moment of panic: there was no minibus, and she groped in her pocket for the UHC pamphlet, to check she had the right station and time, even though she knew perfectly well she did. However, just as she found the pamphlet, she spotted an orange-tabarded woman holding up a sign with the church’s heart-hands logo on it, and recognised Becca Pirbright, Kevin’s older sister, who’d led the second temple service Robin had attended.
Though Robin had previously compared Becca to a motivational speaker, it now struck her that she was more like an idealised notion of a Girl Guide: pretty and neat, with thick-lashed dark eyes, glossy brown hair and a creamy-skinned, oval face, which dimpled when she smiled. Beckoning hesitant arrivals to gather around her, she projected a cheery natural authority.
Beside Becca stood a short, heavy-set young man who had a low forehead, dark eyes, fuzzy dark hair and an underbite. As Robin looked at him, she noticed a slight tic in his right eye; it began to wink, apparently uncontrollably, and he hastily raised a hand to cover it. He too was wearing an orange tabard, and held a clipboard. Seven or eight people with backpacks and bags had already congregated around the pair by the time Robin joined the group.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hello!’ said Becca. ‘Are you one of us?’
‘I think so,’ said Robin. ‘Rowena Ellis?’
The young man with the clipboard marked off the name.
‘Great! I’m Becca, and this is Jiang. He’s going to be our driver.’
‘Hi,’ said Robin, smiling at Jiang, who merely grunted.
The name ‘Jiang’ made Robin wonder whether the young man was another son of Jonathan Wace’s, although he didn’t resemble the church leader in the slightest.
Robin’s fellow initiates were an eclectic bunch. She recognised the young, brown-skinned man in glasses who’d worn a Spiderman T-shirt in the temple, but the others were unfamiliar. They included a pink-faced man who looked to be in his late sixties and had the air of a professor, with his tweed jacket and wispy white hair; two teenaged girls who seemed inclined to giggle, one of whom was plump, with bright green hair, the other pale, blonde and much-pierced. An atmosphere of nervous tension hung over the group, which suggested people waiting to turn over their papers in an important exam.
By five to ten, the group had swelled to twenty people and everybody’s name had been checked off. Becca led the group across the busy road and up a side street, to a smart white minibus with the UHC logo on its side. Robin found herself a window seat directly behind the two teenaged girls. The spectacled young man sat beside her.
‘Hi, I’m Amandeep,’ he said.
‘Rowena,’ said Robin, smiling.
As the minibus pulled away from the pavement, Becca picked up a microphone and turned, kneeling on a front seat, to address the newcomers.
‘So, good morning! I’m Becca Pirbright, and I’ve been blessed to be a member of the Universal Humanitarian Church since I was eight years old. I’m going to be giving you a brief rundown on what you can expect during your week’s retreat, and then I’ll be happy to answer any questions you’ve got! Let’s just get out of London, so I’m not arrested for not wearing my seat belt!’ she said, and there was a little titter of laughter as she turned to take her seat again.
As they drove through London, quiet conversations broke out inside the minibus, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that these should be kept respectfully low, as though they were already inside a religious space. Amandeep told Robin he was doing a PhD in engineering, Robin told him about her cancelled wedding and her imaginary career in PR, and most of the bus heard the sixty-something man announce that he was a professor of anthropological philosophy called Walter Fernsby. Becca, Robin noticed, was observing the passengers in a mirror positioned directly over the windscreen, which was angled to watch the seats rather than the road. The slight movement of Becca’s right shoulder suggested that she was making notes.
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