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.
There were already two people buried at Chapman Farm when Daiyu died. I never knew the first guy. He was an American called Rusty Andersen, who used to live on a patch of ground on the edge of the Aylmerton Community. He was an army veteran and he sounds like what you’d call a survivalist these days. Mazu and Jonathan claimed Andersen had joined the church before he died, but I don’t know whether that’s true. He was hit and killed by a drunk driver on the road outside the farm one night, and they buried him at the farm.
The other man buried on the land was called Alexander Graves, who died in his twenties. He was definitely part of the church. I vaguely remember him being odd and chanting all the time. Graves’ family kidnapped him when he was out on the street collecting money for the UHC, but soon after they took him back to the family home, he killed himself. He’d left a will saying he wanted to be buried at the farm, so he was.
We all knew Andersen’s and Graves’ stories, because they were used as object lessons by Jonathan and Mazu, illustrations of the danger of leaving the farm/church.
Over time, Andersen and Graves became prophets, too – it was like Daiyu needed company. Andersen became the Wounded Prophet and Graves the Stolen Prophet, and their supposedly holy sayings became part of church doctrine, too.
The fourth prophet was Harold Coates. He was a struck-off doctor who’d been on the land since the Aylmerton Community days, too. Even though the church bans all medicines (along with caffeine, sugar and alcohol), Coates was allowed to grow herbs and treat minor injuries, because he was one of us. They made Coates the Healer Prophet almost as soon as he was buried.
The last prophet was Margaret Cathcart-Bryce, who was the filthy-rich widow of some businessman. She was over 70 when she arrived at the farm, and completely infatuated with Jonathan Wace. Her face had been lifted so many times it was tight and shiny, and she wore this big silver wig. Margaret gave Wace enough money to start doing a massive renovation of Chapman Farm, which was really run down. Margaret must have lived at the farm for 7 or 8 years before she died and left everything she had to the Council of Principals. She then became the Golden Prophet.