Page 154 of The Running Grave

‘You get back to work!’ Jiang shouted at Robin, but he seemed to think better of hitting Emily, instead grabbing her by the wrist and attempting to drag her onto the vegetable patch.

‘Fuck off!’ she yelled, beating him with her free hand. ‘Fuck off, you fucking freak!’

Two of the young men in scarlet tracksuits now hurried to the struggling pair and in a few seconds had managed to persuade Jiang to release Emily, who immediately sprinted around the corner of the stable block and out of sight.

‘You’re in trouble now!’ bellowed Jiang, who was sweating. ‘Mama Mazu’ll teach you!’

‘What happened?’ said a voice behind Robin, who turned and saw, with a sinking heart, the bespectacled young woman with the large mole on her chin whom Robin had first met on the vegetable patch. The girl’s name was Shawna, and in the last few days Robin had seen far more of her than she’d have liked.

‘Emily didn’t want to work on the vegetable patch,’ said Robin, who was still wondering what could have inspired Emily’s act of resistance. However sullen she generally was, from Robin’s observation she usually accepted her work stoically.

‘She’ll pay for that,’ said Shawna, with great satisfaction. ‘You’re coming with me to the clarssrooms. We’re taking Clarss One for an hour. Oi got to choose moi own ’elper,’ she added proudly.

‘What about mucking out the stables?’ said Robin.

‘One of them can do it,’ said Shawna, waving grandly towards the workers on the vegetable patch. ‘Come on.’

So Robin propped her pitchfork against the stable wall and followed Shawna out into the misty rain, still pondering Emily’s behaviour, which she’d just connected with her refusal to eat vegetables at dinner.

‘She’s trouble, Emily,’ Shawna informed Robin, as they passed the pigsty. ‘Yew want to stay away from her.’

‘Why’s she trouble?’ asked Robin.

‘Ha ha, that’s for me to know,’ said Shawna, maddeningly smug.

Given Shawna’s lowly status, Robin imagined the eighteen-year-old had very few opportunities to condescend to anyone at Chapman Farm, and she seemed to want to make the most of a rare opportunity. As Robin had found out in the last few days, Shawna’s silence during Will Edensor’s lecture on church doctrine had been far from representative of the girl’s true nature. She was, in fact, an exhausting, non-stop talker.

Over the last few days Shawna had sought Robin out wherever possible, taking it upon herself to test Robin’s understanding of various UHC terms, then rewording Robin’s answers back to her, usually making definitions less precise or simply wrong. Their conversations had revealed Shawna’s belief that the sun rotated around the earth, that the leader of the country was called the Pry Mister and that Papa J was in regular contact with extra-terrestrials, a claim Robin had heard nobody else at Chapman Farm make. Robin didn’t think Shawna could read, because she shied away from written material, even instructions on the backs of seed packets.

Shawna had met Papa J through one of the UHC’s projects for underprivileged children. Her conversion to believer and church member appeared to have been almost instantaneous, yet key parts of the UHC’s teaching had failed to penetrate Shawna’s otherwise highly permeable mind. She routinely forgot that nobody was supposed to name family relationships and, in spite of the UHC’s insistence that fame and riches were meaningless attributes of the materialist world, evinced a breathless interest in the high-profile visitors to the farmhouse, even speculating on the cost and make of Noli Seymour’s shoes.

‘Yew hear about Jacob?’ she asked Robin, as they passed the old barn where the latter had found the biscuit tin and the Polaroids.

‘No,’ said Robin, who was still wondering why Emily had such a strong aversion to vegetables.

‘Papa J visited with him yesterday.’

‘Oh, is he back?’

‘He don’ need to come. ’E can visit people in spirit.’

Shawna looked sideways at Robin through the dirty lenses of her glasses.

‘Don’tchew believe me?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Robin, making an effort to sound convinced. ‘I’ve seen amazing things in here. I saw the Drowned Prophet appear when Papa J summoned her.’

‘It’s not appearing,’ said Shawna, at once. ‘It’s manny-fisting.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Robin.

‘Papa J says it’s toime for Jacob to pass. The soul’s too diseased. ’E won’t come roight now.’

‘I thought Dr Zhou was helping him?’ asked Robin.

‘’E’s done way more’n they do outsoide for someone like Jacob,’ said Shawna, echoing Penny Brown, ‘but Papa J says there’s no point goin’ on any more.’

‘What exactly’s wrong with Jacob?’