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‘Oh, you’re coming too, Emily?’ said Vivienne in surprise, when she entered the dormitory a couple of minutes after Robin. Emily threw Vivienne an unfriendly look as she turned away, tugging on a clean sweatshirt.
Robin deliberately left the dormitory alongside the silent Emily, hoping to sit beside her on the minibus, but they’d gone only a few yards when Robin heard a male voice calling, ‘Rowena!’
Robin turned and her spirits plummeted: Taio had returned to the farm. He, too, was wearing a clean white tracksuit, and appeared to have washed his hair for once.
‘Hello,’ Robin said, trying to look happy to see him, as Emily walked on, head down, arms folded.
‘I chose you to come out with the fundraising group today,’ Taio said, beckoning her to walk with him across the courtyard, ‘because I’ve been thinking about you while I was away, thinking you should be given a few more opportunities to demonstrate a change in thinking. I hear you donated to the church, incidentally. Very generous.’
‘No,’ said Robin, who wasn’t going to fall into the kind of trap the church elders regularly set for the unwary, ‘it wasn’t generous. You were right, I should have done it earlier.’
‘Good girl,’ said Taio, reaching out and massaging the back of her neck, causing gooseflesh to rise on Robin’s back and arms again. ‘On the other matter,’ he said in a lower voice, his hand still resting on her neck, ‘I’m going to wait for you to come to me, and ask for spirit bonding. That will show a real change of attitude, a real abandonment of egomotivity.’
‘OK,’ said Robin, unable to look at him. She saw Emily glance back at the pair of them, her face expressionless.
Boxes of UHC merchandise and collecting boxes bearing the UHC’s heart-shaped logo were already being loaded onto the minibus by Jiang and a couple of other men. When Robin got on the bus she found Emily already sitting beside Amandeep, so chose to sit next to Walter, with Emily directly across the aisle.
It was still very early and the sky overhead had a pearlescent glow. As the minibus drove down the drive and out through the electric gates, Robin felt a surge of elation: she was as excited about seeing the outside world again as she’d have been boarding a plane to a fabulous holiday. Emily’s right leg, she noticed, was jumping nervously up and down.
‘Right,’ said Taio, speaking from the front of the bus, which his brother Jiang was driving. ‘A word for those of you who haven’t yet fundraised for us. Some of you will be manning the stall selling merchandise, and the rest will be using the collecting boxes. Any interest in the church, give them a pamphlet. Today’s take will be divided between our young people’s drop-in centre in Norwich and our climate change awareness programme. We’ve got posters, but be ready to answer questions.
‘Remember, every single contact with a BP is an opportunity to save a soul, so I want to see lots of positivity. All interactions with the public are a chance to show how passionate we are about our mission to change the world.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Walter loudly; he was far thinner than he’d been on joining the church and his skin now had a slightly grey tinge. He seemed neither as confident nor as talkative as he’d been on arrival at Chapman Farm, and his hands had a slight tremor.
Almost an hour after it had left the farm, the minibus passed over the River Wensum and entered the city of Norwich. Robin, who’d only ever seen the city while travelling to Chapman Farm, noticed more flint-covered walls and many church spires on the horizon. The colourful shopfronts, billboards and restaurants brought a double sense of familiarity and strangeness. How odd, to see people in normal clothing going about their business, all in possession of their own money, their own phones, their own door keys.
Now, for the first time, Robin truly appreciated the bravery it must have taken for Kevin Pirbright, who’d lived at the farm since the age of three, to break free and walk out into what must have seemed to him a strange and overwhelming world of which he didn’t know the rules, with hardly any money, no job, and only the tracksuit he was wearing. How had he managed to get himself a rented room, small and shabby though it had been? How challenging had it been to find out how to claim benefits, to get himself a laptop, to set about writing his book? Glancing at Emily, Robin saw the woman transfixed by all she was seeing through the window, and wondered when was the last time Emily had been permitted to set foot outside one of the UHC centres.
Once Jiang had parked the minibus, the merchandise was unloaded and three of the younger men shouldered the heavy components of the stall they were about to set up. The rest, including Robin, carried the boxes of plush turtles, corn dollies, posters and pamphlets. Taio carried nothing, but walked ahead, occasionally exhorting the rest of the struggling group to keep up, the metal poles of the stall clanking in an army kit bag.
Once they’d reached the junction of three pedestrianised streets, which would be a busy thoroughfare once the surrounding shops opened, the experienced younger men set up the stall in surprisingly quick time. Robin helped set out the merchandise and pin glossy posters of UHC projects to the front of the stall.
She’d hoped to be given a collecting box, because that would give her most freedom; she might even be able to slip into a shop and check a newspaper. However, Taio told her to man the stall with Vivienne. He then informed those departing to collect money so that members ‘averaged’ a hundred pounds a day. While he didn’t say so explicitly, Robin could tell that the collectors got the message that they shouldn’t come back without that amount, and she watched in frustration as Emily and Jiang, who’d been put in a pair together, walked out of sight.
Once the surrounding shops had opened, the numbers of people passing the stall increased steadily. Taio hung around for the first hour, watching Robin and Vivienne interact with customers and critiquing them between sales. The cuddly turtles, which were popular with children, were the biggest draw. Taio told Robin and Vivienne that if people decided not to buy a turtle or a corn dolly, they should still be offered the collecting box for a donation to the church’s projects, a strategy that was surprisingly effective: most of those they asked donated a few coins or even a note to escape the awkwardness of not having bought anything.
At last, to Robin’s relief, Taio left to check how those with collecting boxes were getting on. As soon as he was out of earshot, Vivienne turned to Robin and said, in her usual would-be working-class voice that lapsed when she forgot herself,
‘I can’t believe ’e let Emily come.’
‘Why?’ asked Robin.
‘Don’t you know abou’ what happened in Birmingham?’
‘No, what?’
Vivienne glanced around, then said in a lower voice,
‘She got into a CR with a guy up there.’
This, Robin knew, meant a relationship anybody outside the church would consider unexceptional: a monogamous partnership beginning in mutual sexual attraction, which the UHC considered an unhealthy extension of the possession instinct.
‘Oh, wow,’ said Robin. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Yeah, but that’s not all,’ said Vivienne. ‘She told the guy a ton of lies that made ’im question his faith, and he ended up talking to a church elder about it, which is why she got relocated to Chapman Farm.’
‘Wow,’ said Robin again. ‘What kind of lies?’
