After supper, Mother Eve gives a little lesson in the Scripture. They’re finding Scripture that works for them, rewriting the bits that don’t. Mother Eve speaks on the story of the Book of Ruth. She reads out the passage where Ruth tells her mother-in-law, her friend, ‘Don’t tell me to leave you. Whither thou goest, I shall go. Your people shall be my people. Your God will be my God.’
Mother Eve is easy amongst these women, in a way Roxy finds difficult. She’s not used to the company of girls; it’s been boys in Bernie’s family and boys in Bernie’s gang, and her mum was always more of a man’s woman and the girls at school never treated Roxy nice. Mother Eve’s not awkward like Roxy here. She holds the hands of two of the girls sitting next to her and speaks softly and with humour.
She says, ‘That story about Ruth, that’s the most beautiful story of friendship in the whole of the Bible. No one was ever more faithful than Ruth, no one ever expressed the bonds of friendship better.’ There are tears in her eyes as she speaks, and the girls around the table are already moved. ‘It’s not for us to worry about the men,’ she says. ‘Let them please themselves, as they always have. If they want to war with each other and to wander, let them go. We have each other. Where you go, I will go. Your people will be my people, my sisters.’
And they say, ‘Amen.’
Upstairs, they’ve made a bed up for Roxy. It’s just a little room; a single bed with a hand-stitched quilt across it, a table and chair, a view of the ocean. She wants to weep when they open the door, but she doesn’t show it. She remembers, quite suddenly, as she sits on the bed and feels the coverlet under her hand, a night when her dad brought her back to his house, the house he lived in with Barbara and with Roxy’s brothers. It was late at night and her mum was ill with vomiting, and she’d called Bernie to pick up Roxy and he’d come. She was in her pyjamas, she can’t have been more than five or six. She remembers Barbara saying, ‘Well, she can’t stay here,’ and Bernie going, ‘For fuck’s sake, just put her in the guest room,’ and Barbara crossing her arms across her bosom and going, ‘I told you, she’s not staying here. Send her to your brother’s if you have to.’ It was raining that night and her dad carried her back out to the car, the drops falling past the hood of her dressing gown to fall on her chest.
There’s someone expecting Roxy this evening, sort of. Someone who’ll catch it in the neck if they’ve lost her, anyway. But she’s sixteen, and one text will sort that out.
Mother Eve closes the door, so it’s just the two of them in the little room. She sits on the chair and says, ‘You can stay as long as you like.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got a good feeling about you.’
Roxy laughs. ‘Would you have a good feeling about me if I was a boy?’
‘But you’re not a boy.’
‘Do you have a good feeling about all women?’
Mother Eve shakes her head. ‘Not this good. Do you want to stay?’
‘Yeah,’ says Roxy. ‘For a bit, anyway. See what you’re up to here. I like your …’ She searches for the word. ‘I like how it feels here.’
Mother Eve says, ‘You’re strong, aren’t you? As strong as anyone.’
‘Stronger than anyone, mate. Is that why you like me?’
‘We can use someone strong.’
‘Yeah? You got big plans?’
Mother Eve leans forward, puts her hands on her knees. ‘I want to save the women,’ she says.
‘What, all of them?’ Roxy laughs.
‘Yes,’ says Mother Eve, ‘if I can. I want to reach them and tell them that there are new ways to live, now. That we can band together, that we can let men go their own way, that we don’t need to stick to the old order, we can make a new path.’
‘Oh yeah? You do need a few blokes, to make babies, you know.’
Mother Eve smiles. ‘All things are possible with God’s help.’
Allie’s phone beeps. She looks at it. Makes a face. Turns it over so she can’t see the screen.
‘What’s up?’ says Roxy.
‘People keep emailing the convent.’
‘Trying to get you out of here? Nice place. I can see why they’d want it back.’
‘Trying to give us money.’
Roxy laughs. ‘What’s the problem? Got too much?’
Allie looks at Roxy thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Only Sister Maria Ignacia has a bank account. And I …’ She runs her tongue over her top front teeth, makes her lips click.
Roxy says, ‘You don’t trust no one, do you?’
Allie smiles. ‘Do you?’
‘Price of doing business, mate. Got to trust someone or you’ll get nothing done. You need a bank account? How many do you want? Want some out of the country? Cayman Islands is good, I think, don’t know why.’
‘Wait, what do you mean?’
But before Allie can stop her, Roxy’s taken out her phone, snapped a picture of Allie and is sending a text.
Roxy grins. ‘Trust me. Got to find some way to pay my rent, don’t I?’
A man arrives at the convent before seven o’clock the next morning. He drives up to the front gate and just waits there. Roxy knocks on Allie’s door, drags her down the driveway in her dressing gown.
‘What? What is it?’ says Allie, but she’s smiling.
‘Come and see.’
‘All right, Einar,’ says Roxy to the man. He’s stocky, mid-forties, dark hair, wearing a pair of sunglasses on his forehead.
Einar grins and nods slowly. ‘You OK here, Roxanne? Bernie Monke said to look after you. Are you being looked after?’
‘I’m grand, Einar,’ says Roxy. ‘Super-duper. Just gonna stay with my mates here for a few weeks, I reckon. You got what I need?’
Einar laughs at her.
‘I met you in London once, Roxanne. You were six years old and you kicked me in the shins when I wouldn’t buy you a milkshake while we waited for your dad.’
Roxy laughs, too, easily. This is simpler for her than the dinner. Allie can see it.
‘Shoulda bought me a milkshake, then, shouldn’t you? Come on, hand it over.’
There’s a bag with – clearly – some of Roxy’s clothes and other things in. There’s a laptop, brand-new, top of the range. And there’s a little zip-up case. Roxy balances it on the edge of the open car boot and unzips it.
‘Careful,’ says Einar. ‘Rush job. Ink will still smudge if you rub it.’
‘Got that, Evie?’ says Roxy. ‘No rubbing them till they’re dry.’
Roxy hands her a few items from inside the case.
They’re passports, US ones, driver’s licences, social-security cards, all as legitimate-looking as if they’d been made up by the government themselves. And all the licences and all the passports have her photo in. Changed a bit each time: different hair, a couple of them with glasses. And different names, to match the names on the social-security cards and the licences. But her, every time.
‘We did you seven,’ says Roxy. ‘Half a dozen, and one for luck. Seventh one’s UK. In case you fancy it. Did you manage to get the bank accounts, Einar?’
‘All set up,’ says Einar, fishing another, smaller zip-up wallet out of his pocket. ‘But no deposits over one hundred thousand in one day without talking to us first, all right?’
‘Dollars or pounds?’ says Roxy.
Einar winces slightly. ‘Dollars,’ he says. Then, hurriedly, ‘But only for the first six weeks! Then they take the checks off the accounts.’