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
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
‘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.
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.
