She could hear voices over on the vegetable patch, where a few people were planting and hoeing. Robin knew for certain now that the scant number of vegetables produced on the patch by the pigsty were there merely to keep up the pretence that church members were living off the land, because she’d seen the cavernous pantry containing shelves of dehydrated noodles, own-brand tinned tomatoes and catering-sized tubs of powdered soup.
Robin had just returned to her mucking-out when a commotion over on the vegetable patch reached her ears. Moving back to the stable entrance, she saw Emily Pirbright and Jiang Wace shouting at each other while the other workers stared, aghast.
‘You’ll do as you’re told!’
‘I won’t,’ shouted Emily, who was scarlet in the face.
Jiang attempted to force a hoe into Emily’s hands, so forcefully that she staggered back a few paces, yet stood her ground.
‘I’m not fucking doing it!’ she yelled at Jiang. ‘I won’t and you can’t fucking make me!’
Jiang raised the hoe over Emily’s head, advancing on her. A few of those watching shouted ‘No!’ and Robin, pitchfork in hand, dashed out of the stable.
‘Leave her alone!’
‘You get back to work!’ Jiang shouted at Robin, but he seemed to think better of hitting Emily, instead grabbing her by the wrist and attempting to drag her onto the vegetable patch.
‘Fuck off!’ she yelled, beating him with her free hand. ‘Fuck off, you fucking freak!’
Two of the young men in scarlet tracksuits now hurried to the struggling pair and in a few seconds had managed to persuade Jiang to release Emily, who immediately sprinted around the corner of the stable block and out of sight.
‘You’re in trouble now!’ bellowed Jiang, who was sweating. ‘Mama Mazu’ll teach you!’
‘What happened?’ said a voice behind Robin, who turned and saw, with a sinking heart, the bespectacled young woman with the large mole on her chin whom Robin had first met on the vegetable patch. The girl’s name was Shawna, and in the last few days Robin had seen far more of her than she’d have liked.
‘Emily didn’t want to work on the vegetable patch,’ said Robin, who was still wondering what could have inspired Emily’s act of resistance. However sullen she generally was, from Robin’s observation she usually accepted her work stoically.
‘She’ll pay for that,’ said Shawna, with great satisfaction. ‘You’re coming with me to the clarssrooms. We’re taking Clarss One for an hour. Oi got to choose moi own ’elper,’ she added proudly.
‘What about mucking out the stables?’ said Robin.
‘One of them can do it,’ said Shawna, waving grandly towards the workers on the vegetable patch. ‘Come on.’
So Robin propped her pitchfork against the stable wall and followed Shawna out into the misty rain, still pondering Emily’s behaviour, which she’d just connected with her refusal to eat vegetables at dinner.
‘She’s trouble, Emily,’ Shawna informed Robin, as they passed the pigsty. ‘Yew want to stay away from her.’
‘Why’s she trouble?’ asked Robin.
‘Ha ha, that’s for me to know,’ said Shawna, maddeningly smug.
Given Shawna’s lowly status, Robin imagined the eighteen-year-old had very few opportunities to condescend to anyone at Chapman Farm, and she seemed to want to make the most of a rare opportunity. As Robin had found out in the last few days, Shawna’s silence during Will Edensor’s lecture on church doctrine had been far from representative of the girl’s true nature. She was, in fact, an exhausting, non-stop talker.
Over the last few days Shawna had sought Robin out wherever possible, taking it upon herself to test Robin’s understanding of various UHC terms, then rewording Robin’s answers back to her, usually making definitions less precise or simply wrong. Their conversations had revealed Shawna’s belief that the sun rotated around the earth, that the leader of the country was called the Pry Mister and that Papa J was in regular contact with extra-terrestrials, a claim Robin had heard nobody else at Chapman Farm make. Robin didn’t think Shawna could read, because she shied away from written material, even instructions on the backs of seed packets.
Shawna had met Papa J through one of the UHC’s projects for underprivileged children. Her conversion to believer and church member appeared to have been almost instantaneous, yet key parts of the UHC’s teaching had failed to penetrate Shawna’s otherwise highly permeable mind. She routinely forgot that nobody was supposed to name family relationships and, in spite of the UHC’s insistence that fame and riches were meaningless attributes of the materialist world, evinced a breathless interest in the high-profile visitors to the farmhouse, even speculating on the cost and make of Noli Seymour’s shoes.
‘Yew hear about Jacob?’ she asked Robin, as they passed the old barn where the latter had found the biscuit tin and the Polaroids.
‘No,’ said Robin, who was still wondering why Emily had such a strong aversion to vegetables.
‘Papa J visited with him yesterday.’
‘Oh, is he back?’
‘He don’ need to come. ’E can visit people in spirit.’
Shawna looked sideways at Robin through the dirty lenses of her glasses.
‘Don’tchew believe me?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Robin, making an effort to sound convinced. ‘I’ve seen amazing things in here. I saw the Drowned Prophet appear when Papa J summoned her.’
‘It’s not appearing,’ said Shawna, at once. ‘It’s manny-fisting.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Robin.
‘Papa J says it’s toime for Jacob to pass. The soul’s too diseased. ’E won’t come roight now.’
‘I thought Dr Zhou was helping him?’ asked Robin.
‘’E’s done way more’n they do outsoide for someone like Jacob,’ said Shawna, echoing Penny Brown, ‘but Papa J says there’s no point goin’ on any more.’
‘What exactly’s wrong with Jacob?’
‘’E’s marked.’
‘He’s what?’
‘Marked,’ whispered Shawna, ‘boi the devil.’
‘How can you tell someone’s been marked by the devil?’ asked Robin.
‘Papa J can always tell. There’s marked people everywhere. Their souls aren’ normal. Some of ’em are in governments, so we gotta weed ’em out.’
‘What d’you mean, “weed them out”?’
‘Get rid of ’em,’ said Shawna, with a shrug.
‘How?’
‘’Owever we ’ave to, because thass one of the ways we’ll git the Lotus Way farster. You know what the Lotus Way is, roight?’
Robin started saying that the Lotus Way was a term for the earthly paradise that would descend once the UHC won its battle against the materialist world, and which would segue smoothly into the afterlife, but Shawna interrupted.
‘Thar she goes. BP, look.’
Becca Pirbright was crossing the yard ahead of them, her glossy hair shining in the sun. Robin had already overheard mutterings about Becca from the farmhands and kitchen workers. The consensus was that Becca was too young to have ascended so rapidly in the church, and had a very inflated opinion of herself.
‘Know why we all call ’er “BP”?’
‘Because her initials are the same as a bubble person?’ Robin guessed.
‘Yeah,’ said Shawna, who seemed disappointed Robin had got the joke. ‘Gawn,’ she muttered scornfully, as Becca kneeled quickly at the fountain of the Drowned Prophet. ‘She’s always showin’ off about ’ow she and Daiyu were mates, but she’s lying. Sita told me. Yew know Sita?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. She’d met the elderly Sita during her last session in the kitchens.
‘She says BP an’ Daiyu never loiked each other. Sita can remember all of that, what ’appened.’
‘About Daiyu’s drowning, you mean?’ asked Robin, watching Becca disappear into the temple.
‘Yeah, an’ all the miracles BP says she saw ’er doin’. Sita dunt reckon BP saw all what she says she did. And Emily’s BP’s sister.’
‘Yes, I—’
‘We think that’s why Papa J won’t increase with BP, like she wants.’
‘He won’t what?’ said Robin innocently.
‘Increase with her,’ said Shawna, as they stopped at Daiyu’s pool to kneel and dab their foreheads with water. ‘The Drowned Prophet will bless all ’oo worship ’er. Yew don’t know nuffing, do yew?’ said Shawna, standing up again. ‘Increase means ’ave a baby! Oi’ve ’ad two in ’ere,’ said Shawna proudly.
‘Two?’ said Robin.
‘Yeah, one right after I got ’ere, an’ ’e went to Birmingham, an’ one that’s spirit born, so she’s gonna be better than the firs’ one. We all know BP wants to increase by Papa J, but ’e won’t. She’s got a disruptive sister and there’s Jacob too.’
Thoroughly confused, Robin said,
‘What’s Jacob got to do with it?’
‘Yew don’t know nuffing, do yew?’ said Shawna again, chuckling.
They passed under the archway to the area where the children’s dormitory and classrooms were and entered a door numbered one.
The classroom was a ramshackle, shabby space with children’s pictures pinned haphazardly on the walls. Twenty small children in scarlet tracksuits were already sitting at the tables, their ages, Robin guessed, between two and five. She was surprised that there weren’t more of them, given that there were a hundred people at the farm having unprotected sex, but was primarily struck by their strange passivity. Their eyes wandered, their faces blank, and very few were fidgeting, the exception being little Qing, who was currently crouched under her desk pressing blobs of plasticine onto the floor, her mop of white hair contrasting with the rest of the class’s buzz cuts.
On Robin and Shawna’s appearance, the woman who’d been reading to them got to her feet with an appearance of relief.
‘We’re on page thirty-two,’ she told Shawna, handing over the book. Shawna waited until the woman had closed the classroom door before throwing the book down on the teacher’s desk and saying.
‘Orlroight, less get ’em started on somefing.’