‘Theresa told me not to. Theresa’s my sister, she – she didn’t want me to come here at all. She said the UHC’s a cult,’ said Robin apologetically.
‘And you listened to your sister.’
‘No, but I really came here just to explore things. I didn’t know I’d stay. If I’d known how I’d feel once I’d had my Week of Service I’d have brought my bank cards – but if you let me write to Theresa, I’ll be able to arrange a bank transfer to the church’s account. I’d like to donate a thousand pounds.’
She saw, by the slight widening of Mazu’s eyes, that she hadn’t expected so large a donation.
‘Very well,’ she said, opening a drawer in her desk and withdrawing a pen, writing paper and a blank envelope. She also pushed a template letter to copy and a card printed with the UHC’s bank account details across the desk. ‘You can do that now. Luckily,’ said Mazu, taking a ring of keys from another drawer, ‘your sister wrote to you just this morning. I was going to ask somebody to give you her letter at lunch.’
Mazu now headed towards the cabinet on which Daiyu’s portrait stood and unlocked it. Robin caught a glimpse of piles of envelopes held together with elastic bands. Mazu extracted one of these, relocked the cabinet and said, still holding the letter,
‘I’ll be back in a moment.’
When the door had closed behind Mazu, Robin took a quick look around the office, her eye falling on a plug socket in the skirting board, into which nothing was plugged. With the camera she believed was hidden in the air freshener recording her every move she didn’t dare examine it, but she suspected, having used such devices herself, that this innocent socket was also a covert recording device. Possibly Mazu had left the room to see what she’d do if left alone, so Robin didn’t move from her chair, but set to work copying out the template letter.
Mazu returned a few minutes later.
‘Here,’ she said, holding out the letter addressed to Robin.
‘Thank you,’ said Robin, opening it. She was certain it had already been opened and read, judging by the suspiciously strong glue used to reseal it. ‘Oh good,’ said Robin, scanning the letter in Midge’s handwriting, ‘she’s given me her new address, I didn’t have it.’
She finished copying out the template letter, addressed the envelope and sealed it.
‘I can get that posted for you,’ said Mazu, holding out a hand.
‘Thank you,’ said Robin, getting to her feet. ‘I feel much better for doing this.’
‘You shouldn’t be giving money to “feel better”,’ said Mazu.
They were the same height, but somehow, Robin still felt as though Mazu was the taller.
‘Your personal bar to pure spirit is egomotivity, Rowena,’ said Mazu. ‘You continue to put the materialist self ahead of the collective.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘I – I
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Mazu, with a little waggle of the letter Robin had just handed her, and the latter surmised that not until the funds were safely in the UHC’s bank account would she be deemed to have made spiritual progress.
Robin left the farmhouse holding her letter. Though it was lunchtime, and she was very hungry, she made a detour to the women’s bathroom to examine the page in her hand more closely.
Robin noticed, tilting the paper beneath the overhead light in the toilet cubicle, there was an almost imperceptible line of strip Tippex: somebody had obliterated the date on which it had been sent. Flipping the envelope over she saw that the time and date of the postmark had also been blurred. So exhausted she could no longer estimate lengths of time with much accuracy, and having no recourse to any calendar, Robin couldn’t remember exactly when she’d requested the fake letter from Theresa, but she doubted she’d ever have known it existed had Mazu not wanted her to have Theresa’s address.
For the first time, it occurred to Robin that one reason for Will Edensor’s lack of response to the letters informing him that his mother was dying might be that he’d never received them. Will was in possession of a large trust fund, and it was surely in the church’s interests that he remain at the farm, meekly handing over money, rather than discover, on learning of his mother’s death, that he couldn’t see her as a flesh object, or treat her love as materialist possession.
Robin knew Colin Edensor’s one thousand pounds must have reached the UHC’s bank account because a few days after she’d given Mazu her letter ordering the bank transfer she was reunited with her original group of high-level recruits. Nobody mentioned her Revelation session, nor did anyone welcome her back; all behaved as though she’d never been away.
