Page 99 of The Running Grave

‘Was that your decision?’

‘No,’ said Robin, no longer smiling. ‘His.’

‘Family disappointed?’

‘My mum’s quite… yes, they weren’t happy.’

‘I promise, you’ll live to be very glad you didn’t go through with it,’ said Zhou. ‘Much societal unhappiness stems from the unnaturalness of the married state. Have you read The Answer?’

‘Not yet,’ said Robin, ‘although one of the church members offered to lend me his copy, and Mazu was just…’

Zhou opened one of the desk drawers and took out a pristine paperback copy of Jonathan Wace’s book. The image on the front was of a bursting bubble, with two hands making the heart shape around it.

‘Here,’ said Zhou. ‘Your own copy.’

‘Thank you so much!’ said Robin, feigning delight while wondering when on earth she was supposed to have time to read, in between the lectures, the work and the temple.

‘Read the chapter on materialist possession and egomotivity,’ Zhou instructed her. ‘Now…’

He extracted a second questionnaire, this one blank, and took a lacquered fountain pen out of his pocket.

‘I’m going to assess your fitness to fast – what we call purification.’

He took down Robin’s age, asked her to step onto scales, noted down her weight, then invited her to sit down again so he could take her blood pressure.

‘A little low,’ said Zhou, looking at the figures, ‘but it’s nearly lunchtime… nothing to worry about. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs.’

While Zhou pressed the cold head of the stethoscope to her back, Robin could feel the tiny pebble she’d tucked inside her bra sticking into her.

‘Very good,’ said Zhou, putting the stethoscope away, sitting and making a note on the questionnaire before continuing his questions on pre-existing health conditions.

‘And where did you get that scar on your forearm?’ he asked.

Robin knew at once that the eight-inch scar, which was currently covered by the long sleeves of her sweatshirt, must have been reported by one of the women in the dormitory where she undressed at night.

‘I fell through a glass door,’ she said.

‘Really?’ said Zhou, for the first time showing some disbelief.

‘Yes,’ said Robin.

‘It wasn’t a suicide attempt?’

‘God, no,’ said Robin, with an incredulous laugh. ‘I tripped down some stairs and put my hand right through a glass panel in a door.’

‘Ah, I see… you were having regular sex with your fiancé?’

‘I – yes,’ said Robin.

‘Were you using birth control?’

‘Yes. The pill.’

‘But you’ve come off it?’

‘Yes, the instructions said—’

‘Good,’ said Zhou, still writing. ‘Synthetic hormones are exceptionally unhealthy. You should put nothing unnatural in your body, ever. The same goes for condoms, caps… all disrupt the flow of your qi. You understand qi?’