Page 13 of The Running Grave

Mazu’s thing was control. It’s really hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t met her. She could make people do anything, even hurt themselves, and I never once saw anyone refuse. One of my earliest memories from Chapman Farm is a teenager called Jordan whipping himself across the face with a leather flail. I remember his name, because Jonathan Wace used to sing the spiritual ‘Roll, Jordan, Roll’ whenever he saw him. Jordan was much bigger than Mazu, and he was on his knees and his face was covered in welts, and he kept whipping himself until she said it was time to stop.

In spite of everyone telling me how good and holy Mazu was, I always thought she was a terrible person. Looking back now, hating Mazu was the beginning of me questioning the entire church, although at the time I just thought Mazu was mean, not that the entire church culture was rotten.

Mazu never liked Louise and always made sure she was given the worst jobs at the farm, outside in all weathers. As I got older, I realised this was because Jonathan and my mother were sleeping together. Mazu never liked the women Jonathan was sleeping with.

Explaining how I woke up is complicated.

A few years after we joined the UHC, a new family moved into Chapman Farm, the Dohertys: mother, father and three kids. Deirdre Doherty got pregnant again while they were living at the farm, and gave birth to a fourth kid, a daughter Mazu called Lin. (Mazu gets naming rights over all kids born at Chapman Farm. She often asks the I Ching what the baby should be called. ‘Lin’ is the name of one of the hexagrams.)

I was 12 when the father, Ralph, took off in the middle of the night, taking the three oldest kids with him. We were all summoned into temple next morning, and Jonathan Wace announced that Ralph Doherty was materialist and egomotivated, whereas his wife, who’d stayed behind with Lin, was a shining example of pure spirit. I can remember us all applauding her.

I was really confused and shocked by Ralph and the kids leaving, because I’d never known anyone do it before. We were all taught that leaving the church would ruin your life, that materialist existence would literally kill you after having been pure spirit, that you’d end up going crazy and probably committing suicide.

Then, a few months after Ralph had left, Deirdre was expelled. That shocked me even more than Ralph leaving. I couldn’t imagine what sin Deirdre could have committed to make the UHC force her out. Usually, if someone did something wrong, they got punished. If a person got really ill, they might be allowed to leave to get medical help, but the UHC didn’t usually let people go unless they’d broken down so much they couldn’t work.

Deirdre left Lin behind when she went. I should have been glad, because Lin would still be able to grow up pure spirit rather than ruining her life in the materialist world. That’s how most of the members saw it, but I didn’t. Although I didn’t have a normal parent–child relationship with Louise, I knew she was my mother and that meant something. I secretly thought Deirdre should have taken Lin with her, and that was the first serious crack in my religious belief.

I found out why Deirdre was expelled by total accident. I was on Punishment for kicking or pushing another kid. I can’t remember the details. I was tied to a tree and I was to be left there all night. Two adults went past. Electric torches are forbidden at the Farm, so I don’t know who they were, but they were whispering about why Deirdre had been expelled. One was telling the other one that Deirdre had written in her journal that Jonathan Wace had raped her. (All church members over the age of nine are expected to keep journals as part of their religious practice. Higher-ups read them once a week.)

I knew what rape was, because we were taught that it was one of the terrible things that happened out in the materialist world. Inside the church, people have sex with anyone who wants it, as a way of enhancing spiritual connections. We were taught that rape was different, a violent form of materialist possession.

I can’t tell you how hearing that Deirdre had accused Papa J of rape made me feel. This is how indoctrinated I was: I remember thinking I’d rather have to be tied to that tree for a full week than have heard what I’d just heard. I’d been raised to think Jonathan Wace was the closest thing to God on earth. The church teaches that allowing bad thoughts about our leader or the church itself means the Adversary is working inside you to resurrect the false self, so I tried chanting, there in the dark, which is one of the techniques you’re taught to stop negative thoughts, but I couldn’t forget what I’d just heard about Papa J.

From then on, I got more and more screwed up. I couldn’t tell anyone what I’d overheard: for one thing, if Mazu heard me telling a story like that, God knows what she’d have made me do to myself. I tried to suppress all my bad thoughts and doubts, but the crack in my belief was getting wider and wider. I started noticing the hypocrisy, the control, the inconsistencies in the teaching. They preached love and kindness, but they were merciless on people for things they couldn’t help. For instance, Lin, Deirdre’s daughter, started stammering when she was really small. Mazu mocked her for it constantly. She said Lin could stop if she wanted to, and she needed to pray harder.

My eldest sister Becca was on a completely different course from the rest of us by this time, travelling round the country with Wace and helping run seminars and self-realisation courses. My other sister Emily was very envious of Becca. She sometimes got to join mission outings, but not as often as Becca did.

They both looked down on me and Louise, who were the no-hopers only fit to stay on the farm.

I got really bad acne in my teens. When UHC members go out in public, they’re supposed to look groomed and attractive, but Lin, Louise and I weren’t allowed out even to collect money on the street, because we didn’t fit the church image, me with my acne and Lin with her stammer. Louise went grey early and looks a lot older than she is, probably from working outside all the time.

The next bit is hard to write. I now know I started planning to quit the church when I was nearly 23, but as you never celebrated birthdays in there it wasn’t until I got out and found my birth records that I even knew what day I was born.

It took over a year for me to actually go, partly because I needed to get up my courage. I can’t emphasise how much the church dins into you that you won’t be able to survive outside, that you’re bound to go crazy and kill yourself, because the materialist world is so corrupt and cruel. But the main thing holding me back was that I wanted Louise to come with me. There was something wrong with her joints. I hadn’t heard of arthritis before I left the church but I think it must be that. They were swollen and I know she was in pain a lot of the time. Of course, she was told this was a sign of spiritual impurity.

One day when she and I were assigned livestock duty together, I started telling her my doubts. She started literally shaking then told me I should go to temple and pray for forgiveness. Then she started chanting to block out what I was saying. Nothing I said got through to her. In the end she just ran away from me.

I was terrified she’d tell the Principals I was having doubts and knew I needed to leave immediately, so I crawled out through a fence in the early hours of the following morning, after stealing some cash from one of the charity boxes. I genuinely feared I’d drop dead once I was outside on the dark road, alone, that the Drowned Prophet would come for me, out of the trees.

I used to hope Louise would follow me out, that me going would wake her up, but it’s been nearly four years, and she’s still inside.

Sorry, this has been really long, but that’s the whole story – Kevin

The first email finished there. Strike picked up the second and, after fortifying himself with more beer, continued to read.

Dear Colin,

Thanks very much for your email. I don’t feel brave, but I really appreciate you saying it. But you might not think it any more, once you read this.

You asked about the prophets and the Manifestations. This is really hard for me to write about, but I’ll tell you as much as I can.

I was only 6 when Daiyu Wace drowned, so I haven’t got very clear memories of her. I know I didn’t like her. She was Mazu’s princess and always got special treatment and lot more leeway than the rest of the little kids.

One of the teenage girls living at the farm took Daiyu on the vegetable run early one morning (the church sold farm produce to local shops) and they stopped off at Cromer beach on the way back. They both went in for a swim, but Daiyu got into difficulties and drowned.

Obviously, that’s a huge tragedy and it’s not surprising Mazu was devastated, but she went pretty weird and dark afterwards, and in hindsight, I think that’s where a lot of her cruelty towards my mother and kids in general came from. She especially didn’t like girls. Jonathan had a daughter from his previous marriage, Abigail. Mazu got her moved out of Chapman Farm to one of the other UHC centres after Daiyu’s death.

I can’t say for sure when the idea of Daiyu being a kind of deity started, but over time, Jonathan and Mazu turned her into one. They called her a prophet and claimed she’d said all these spiritually insightful things, which then became part of church doctrine. Even Daiyu’s death was somehow holy, like she’d been such pure spirit she dissolved from the material world. My sister Becca used to claim Daiyu had had the power of invisibility. I don’t know if Becca actually believed this, or just wanted to curry favour with Jonathan and Mazu, but the idea that Daiyu had been able to dematerialise even before she drowned got added to the myth, too.