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‘Yeah.’
‘How did you and Flora travel to Chapman Farm?’
‘I drove, thank God,’ added Henry fervently, ‘because then I had the car there, so I could get away. Most of the other people had come on a minibus, so they had to wait for the minibus to take them back. I was really fucking glad I took my car.’
‘And what happened when you got there?’
‘Er – well, you had to check in all your stuff and they gave you these tracksuits to wear, and after we changed, they made us all sit down in this barn, or whatever, and Flora and I were looking sideways at each other, and we were, like, cracking up. We were thinking, “What the fuck have we done, coming here?”’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Then we went to this big communal meal, and before the food arrived, they played “Heroes”, by David Bowie. Over speakers. Yeah, and then… he came in. Papa J.’
‘Jonathan Wace?’
‘Yeah. And he talked to us.’
Strike waited.
‘And, I mean, you can see how people fall for it,’ said Henry uneasily. ‘While he was talking, it was like, he was saying, people chase things, all their lives, that never make them happy. People die miserable, and frustrated, and they never, kind of, realise it was all there for them to find. Like, the true way, or whatever. But he said, people get, like, buried in all this materialistic bullshit… and he was really… he’s got something,’ said Henry. ‘He wasn’t, like, some big shouty guy – he wasn’t what you’d think. Flora and I felt like – we discussed it, afterwards – he was, like, one of us.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘Like, he got what it’s like, to be… what it feels like, not to be… like, to be different, you know? Or maybe you don’t, I don’t know,’ Henry added, with a laugh and a shrug. ‘But Flora and I weren’t taking the piss any more, we kind of… yeah, anyway, we went off to our dormitories. Separate, obviously. They put men and women in different dorms. It was kind of like being back in boarding school, actually,’ said Henry, with another little laugh.
‘Next day, they woke us up at, like, 5 a.m. or something, and we had to go and do meditation before breakfast. Then, after we’d eaten, we got split into separate groups. I wasn’t with Flora. They split up people who knew each other.
‘And after that it was, like, really intense. You hardly had a minute to think and you were never alone. There were always UHC people with you, talking to you. You were either in a lecture, or you were chanting in the temple, or you were helping work the land, or feeding the livestock, or making stuff to sell on the street, or cooking, and people were constantly reading UHC literature to you… oh yeah, and there were discussion groups, where you all sat around and listened to one of the UHC people talk and you asked questions. You had activities until, like, 11 o’clock at night, and you were so tired at the end of the day, you could hardly think, and then it all started at 5 a.m. again.
‘And they taught you these techniques that – like, if you had a negative thought, like, about the church, or about anything, really, you had to chant. They called it killing the false self, because, like, the false self is going to struggle against the good, because it’s been indoctrinated by society to think certain things are true, when they’re not, and you’ve got to fight your false self constantly to keep your mind open enough to accept the truth.
‘It was just a couple of days, but it felt like a month. I was so tired, and really hungry most of the time. They told us that was deliberate, that fasting sharpens perception.’
‘And how did you feel about the church, while all this was going on?’
Henry drank more gin and tonic before saying,
‘For the first couple of days, I was thinking, I can’t wait for this to fucking end. But there were a couple of guys in there, proper members, who were really friendly and helped me do stuff, and they seemed really happy – and it was, like – it was a different world, you kind of lost – lost your bearings, I s’pose. Like, they’re constantly telling you how great you are, and you started wanting their approval,’ said Henry uncomfortably. ‘You couldn’t help it. And all this talk about pure spirit – they made it sound like you’d be a superhero or something, once you were pure spirit. I know that sounds insane, but – if you’d been there – it didn’t sound insane, the way they were talking.
‘On the third day, Papa J gave another big speech in the temple – it wasn’t the kind of temple like they’ve got now, because this was before the really big money started coming in. The farm temple was just another barn, then, but they’d made it the nicest building and painted the inside with all these different symbols across religions, and put an old bit of carpet down where we all sat.
‘Papa J talked about what will happen if the world doesn’t wake up, and basically the message was: normal religions divide, but the UHC unites, and when people unite across cultures, and when they become the highest version of themselves, they’ll be an unstoppable force and they can change the world. And there were loads of black and brown people at Chapman Farm, as well as white people, so that seemed, like, proof of what he was saying. And I – you just believed him. It sounded – there was nothing there you could, like, disagree with – ending poverty and all that, and becoming your highest self – and Papa J was just, like, someone you’d want to hang out with. Like, he was really warm and he seemed – he was, like, the dad you’d have if you could choose, you know?’
‘So what changed your mind? Why did you leave, at the end of the week?’
The smile faded off Henry’s face.
‘Something happened and it kind of… kind of altered how I felt about them all.
‘There was this really heavily pregnant woman at the farm. I can’t remember her name. Anyway, she was with our group one afternoon when we were ploughing, with Shire horses, and it was bloody hard work, and I kept looking at her and thinking, should she be doing this? But, you know, I was eighteen, so what did I know?
‘And we’d just finished up the last bit we were supposed to be doing, and she kind of doubled over. She was kneeling in the earth in her tracksuit, and clutching her belly. I was terrified, I thought she was going to, like, give birth there and then.
‘And one of the other members knelt down beside her, but he didn’t help her or anything, he just started chanting loudly in her face. And then the others started chanting. And I was watching this, and I was thinking, “Why aren’t they helping her up?” But I was kind of… paralysed,’ said Henry, looking shamefaced. ‘It was, like – this is how they do things here and maybe… maybe it’ll work? So I didn’t – but she was looking really ill, and finally one of them ran off towards the farmhouse, while everyone else was still chanting at her.
‘And the guy who’d gone to get help came back with Wace’s wife.’
For the first time, Henry hesitated.
