Whit

by Iain Banks

  Of the others, only Roadkill seemed to have either heard anything or thought there was aught untoward about what they had heard. I told her Zeb's handiwork had proved fragile, to the sound of Declan banging the hammock nails back into the roof trusses. I felt faint again and - waving away Dec's apologies -climbed back up to the loft, taking my hammock and bedroll with me. I shook it free of dust and re-hung it, then collapsed into it and was asleep within minutes.

  Next morning, with a head that felt stuffed with cotton wool and a cough that made me think I was coming down with the cold, I politely asked Boz for the videotape. (We will pass over my attempt by the laying on of hands to cure the sore knee which Declan woke up with and which was probably a delayed result of our fall, but what better proof is needed that all this clutter robs the Saved of their Holiness?) Boz seemed unembarrassed at my request, which was a relief, and went upstairs to get the video cassette. He showed me how to work the videotape player then went to make some breakfast.

  The sensation of so deliberately using the video player, the television and their remote control devices - not just sitting in the same room to be sociable while they were used - made my teeth ache. Our rules concerning such matters take the form of disciplines rather than outright prohibitions, and I did experience a kind of excitement in taking command of this seductive, blackly buttoned technology, however my principal emotion was one of tense, fractious unease, and I grew extremely frustrated when the machines did not seem to obey the remote controls. I muttered at the machinery and felt like throwing the remote controls across the room.

  Suddenly it occurred to me that this must be how Blands feel all the time. I calmed myself and persevered and before too long everything behaved. The videotape began to play.

  The woman was definitely Morag. Her voice sounded Euro-American somehow, but I could hear the Scottish accent coming through every now and again. From what I saw, the video itself had a semblance of a plot but it was patently used merely to provide punctuation for the various unlikely sexual exploits the heroine -Morag, Fusillada - indulged in with both sexes. As for the video's effect, well, I had a chance as never before to admire my cousin's bounteously sleek physique, and cannot say I was left unmoved by the theatrical but obviously unfaked copulatory shenanigans displayed, though quite why the video's makers thought that it was always necessary to show the men ejaculating each time was a mystery to me; the sight, which I had not witnessed before, hardly seemed to warrant the amount of time devoted to it and made me feel slightly queasy.

  Nevertheless, all in all, I admit I felt quite hot and bothered as I sat there, and viewed rather more of the production than strictly required to establish Morag's identity. I handed back the tape to Boz over breakfast. He asked did I really know Fusillada DeBauch? I replied that I did and asked him what he was doing that day.

  * * *

  Soho again. Suddenly the location we had been sent to the previous day seemed less like a complete red herring. The revelation that my cousin had - at the very least - a sideline as a worker in the sex industry suddenly made looking for her agent in this area seem quite reasonable, and so we had returned to try again to find Mr Francis Leopold.

  Brother Zeb had put his hair into a bushily disorderly ponytail as a disguise; he and Boz - who seemed unduly impressed that Fusillada was my cousin, and, I suspect, hoped we might bump into her - together distracted the large man with the much-be-ringed hands in the foyer of the erotic cinema while I slipped up the stairs between the picture house and the entrance to the Adult Book Shop. The stairs were narrow and steep. Three doors led off the landing at the top, which was lit by one grubby, dirt-streaked window whose outlook was anyway largely obscured by the facade advertising the cinema next door. Round a turn in the landing, another flight of stairs led to the next storey. I peered at the doors. Each had a little sign on it: Kelly Silk, Madame Charlotte, and Eva (S&M).

  I ascended to the next floor, where the landing was marginally better lit. Vixen, Cimmeria, FL Enterprises. Ah ha!

  I knocked on the door. There was no reply. After half a minute I tried the handle but the door was locked. A siren - ever the chorus to the city's songs - sounded somewhere nearby. I knocked again and rattled the door.

  The door to the left, marked Cimmeria, cracked open and a sliver of dark face looked out. I smiled and tipped my hat.

  'Good morning,' I said.

  'Yeah?'

  'Oh, indeed, it is!' I said, gesturing to the window. I glanced back at the door to FL Enterprises. 'I'm, ah, looking for Mr Leopold; is this his office?'

  'Yeah.'

  I could still only see about two inches of the black face looking at me through the gap between door and jamb. I cleared my throat. 'Ah. Good. Only he doesn't seem to be in.'

  'Yeah?'

  'Do you know when he might be expected to return?'

  'No.'

  'Oh dear,' I said, and took off my hat, looking dejected.

  The one eye of the Negress I could see moved, her gaze taking in my hair, my face and then torso. 'What you want anyway?' she asked, opening the door a fraction wider.

  'I'm trying to trace my cousin, Morag Whit… I think she might be better known as, ah, Fusillada DeBauch.'

  The single eye widened. The door closed and it occurred to me that perhaps I had said something wrong. Well, this wasn't proving too fruitful, I thought, gripping my hat to replace it on my head. A chain rattled behind Cimmeria's door, and it swung open. The woman came out onto the landing, glancing around, then stood with her back to her door, her arms crossed. She was small and very black, with tied-back hair. She wore a black kimono which looked like silk. Her head tossed up once, like a horse's.

  'What you looking for her for? You really her cousin?'

  'Oh, I'm her cousin, certainly; her mother was my father's sister. We're from Scotland.'

  'Never have guessed.'

  'Really? I thought perhaps my accent would rather give-'

  'That was irony, child,' the woman said, looking away for a moment with widened eyes.

  'Oh. I beg your pardon,' I said, blushing. I felt awkward, but for some reason I trusted this woman. I decided to trust my instincts. 'Anyway, to answer your first question, I'm looking for Morag because… well, it's complicated, but we - I mean, her family - are concerned about her.'

  'Are you now?'

  'Yes. Also,' I hesitated, then sighed. 'May I be frank with you, Miss… Cimmeria?' (She nodded.)

  'Well,' I said, fingering the rim of my hat. 'The plain fact is Morag is, or was, a member of our church, back home, and we are concerned that she has lost her faith. Of most immediate concern is the matter of a festival that we are to hold at the end of the month - a very important festival, one that only takes place every four years. Cousin Morag was to be our Guest of Honour at that, and now, well, we don't know what to do. The festival is important, as I say, but her soul is more important, and personally I am worried that my cousin has fallen under the spell of some religious charlatan, and judge that ultimately to be the more important business, but I'm afraid it is the question of her attendance at the festival which presents us with the most immediate predicament.'

  Cimmeria looked through narrowed eyes, face turned slightly. 'What church is this?'

  'Oh,' I said, 'it's the True Church of Luskentyre; the Luskentyrians, as we're usually known. I don't expect you've heard of us. We're a small but active Faith based in Scotland; we have a… oh, I suppose you could call it sort of an ashram, a commune, near Stirling. We believe in-'

  Cimmeria held up one hand. 'Okay, okay,' she said, smiling. 'You people Christians?'

  'Strictly speaking, no; we regard Christ as one prophet amongst many and the Bible as one holy book amongst many; we believe there is merit and wisdom to be found in all holy teachings. We do believe in love and forgiveness and the renunciation of excess materiality and-'

  'Fine. Spare me,' Cimmeria said, holding up her hand again. She nodded at the door. 'So you're looking for Frank?'
/>
  I explained about visiting Morag's old apartment block in Finchley the day before, 'Is Mr Leopold her agent?' I asked.

  Cimmeria shrugged. 'Agent, manager; whatever.'

  'Phew!' I said, grinning. 'On the right track at last!' I hit my thigh with my hat. I can be quite shameless.

  Cimmeria laughed and pushed her door open. 'Come on in. You'll have to excuse the mess; this is early for me.'

  'I doubt it can match the mess created last night in the squat where I am staying while in London…' I said, accepting her invitation.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later I joined Boz and Zeb in the same cafe Zeb and I had retreated to a day earlier. They both appeared unharmed and in good spirits.

  'All right, chaps?'

  'Yeah. Fine. Cool. You?'

  'We're okay, I-sis.'

  I sat down between them, getting Brother Zebediah to move over. 'I had tea,' I told them, 'with a very nice lady called Cimmeria whose real name is Gladys; she told me that Mr Leopold is indeed Morag's - Fusillada's - agent and manager, and that he was here just yesterday, but that he has had problems with… Vat?' I said, looking inquiringly from one to the other.

  'VAT.' Boz nodded slowly, then sipped carefully at his coffee. 'Value Added Tax, I-sis.' He tutted and shook his head, seemingly unimpressed with the concept.

  'Indeed,' I said. 'Well, apparently Mr Leopold has been experiencing difficulties with this VAT for some time now and is currently helping Customs and Excise with their inquiries.'

  'Huh. Well. So,' Zeb said.

  'So,' I said, 'Cimmeria - Gladys - told me that she thought Mr Leopold lives in the county of Essex, in a village called Gittering, near Badleigh, and thinks that that was where he took a number of the papers and files he previously kept in the office. She suggests we try there. What do you say?'

  'Essex!' Zeb said, with an expression on his face which, given we were sitting in a cafe in central London, might have been better suited to accompanying the word 'Mongolia?' delivered in the same tone of voice.

  'I-sis; you think your cousin might be there?'

  'Well,' I said, 'apparently some of the scenes for certain of Fusillada's videotape productions were shot in Mr Leopold's home there, which is called La Mancha. Cimmeria - Gladys - knows this because some of her friends have been there to take part in them. So, as Morag is no longer living at the flat in Finchley, I suppose it is not impossible she is there, though we have no guarantee, of course.'

  Boz thought about this. He looked very big and bulky in baggy black trousers and an expensive-looking black leather jacket. He wore a black peaked cap; it was back to front so that people behind him could read the white letter X. 'What the hell,' he said. 'I wasn't doin' nuthin' much today anyway. And I heard about Essex girls, eh?' He delivered what looked like the gentlest of pulled punches past me to Brother Zebediah's arm; Zeb rocked in his stool and looked pained. He forced a smile while he rubbed his arm.

  'Suppose. Yeah. Shit. Essex. Shit.'

  'Let's make tracks!' I said, jumping off my stool and unable to resist nudging Zeb in the elbow. He looked startled and stared concernedly at his elbow. Boz slurped on his coffee.

  * * *

  We took a bus to Liverpool Street station and a train from there to Badleigh. Not having anticipated a journey outside the capital, I had not brought my Sitting Board, so Zeb and I stood in the aisle by Boz's seat. Boz read a paper called the Mirror. I whiled away the time for Zeb by reading him parts of passages from the Orthography and asking him to recall what words came next. He was shockingly poor at this, though that may have been because completing the pieces of text would have required talking in sentences of more than one word and he had obviously quite got out of that particular habit.

  At one point, when Boz had gone to the toilet for 'a quick toke' (which I took to be Jamaican slang for a bowel movement, given the amount of time he was away), I asked Zeb, 'Why does Boz wear his cap back to front?'

  Zeb looked at me as though I had asked him why Boz wore his shoes on his feet. 'It's. Like. Baseball cap,' he said scornfully.

  I thought about this. 'Ah,' I said, really none the wiser.

  The city went on and on; every time I thought we had finally left the metropolis behind, the patch of greenery I'd based this assumption on would turn out to be a park or an area of waste ground. Eventually, however, while I was engrossed in the Orthography (Zeb had gone off to the toilet some time earlier) the city gave way to countryside, and when I next looked up we were sliding through a level landscape of fields and narrow lanes, dotted with buildings, villages and towns, all sliding quickly past under a sky of small clouds. I felt some relief at having left the vast busyness of the city behind, as though my clutter-smothered soul was finally drawing something like a clear and unobstructed breath again.

  Badleigh proved to be a flat town with a split personality: a village-like old town with low, erratically streeted buildings to one side of the railway line, and a cubical landscape of medium-rise brick and concrete on the other. One building I thought at first must still be under construction proved on closer inspection - as the train slowed and we got ready to get off- to be a multi-layered car park.

  * * *

  'He says it's three miles, I-sis,' Boz told us, after talking to the man in the ticket office.

  'Good!' I said. 'A stroll.'

  'No way, man,' Boz said, grinning from behind dark sunglasses. 'I call us a taxi.' He loped off to the exit.

  'For a mere three miles?' I said, aghast, to Zeb.

  'City,' Zeb said, shrugging, then appeared to think. His face brightened briefly. 'Lanes,' he said, with a hint of pride, I thought. He nodded happily. 'Lanes,' he said again, and sounded pleased with himself.

  'Lanes?' I asked.

  'Lanes. Narrow. No pavements. Cars. Speeding. Walking. Dangerous.' He shrugged. 'Lanes.' He turned and walked to the doors, beyond which Boz could be seen getting into a car.

  'Lanes,' I muttered to myself, feeling obliged to join my two comrades.

  * * *

  'Well, I'm sorry, dear, but you can't kneel on the seats.'

  'But I could put the belt round me!' I said, struggling to pull the restraining seat-belt out far enough.

  'That's not the point though, love, is it? The regulations say that my fares have to be seated. If you're kneeling you're not seated, are you?'

  'Could I sit on the floor?' I asked.

  'No, I don't think so.'

  'But I'd be seated!'

  'Yeah, but not on a seat; you wouldn't be seated on a seat, know what I mean? There something wrong with her, mate?'

  'The child's eccentric, man; she's from Scot-lan'. I'm sorry. Hey, I-sis; you got the man here thinkin' he got some sort of lunatic in the back of his car here-'

  'Well, I meant like piles or sumfing, actually…'

  '-he goin' to be askin' us to get out an' walk if you don't settle down. Sorry, man; you just start the meter rollin' now; we get this sorted.'

  'Look,' I said, 'haven't you got some sort of board or something hard I could sit on?'

  The taxi driver looked round at me. He was a hunched little chap with alarmingly thick glasses. 'Sumfing hard to sit on?' he said, then glanced at Boz. 'See; told you.'

  He reached down the side of his seat and handed me a large book. 'Here we go; the A to Z; will that do?'

  I tested it; the battered hardback flexed a little. 'It will suffice. Thank you, sir.'

  'All part of the service,' he said, turning back. 'Nuffink to be embarrassed about. Had the same problem myself once, 'cept you don't usually see people young as you wif it, do you?'

  'No,' I agreed as we started off and I belted myself in, too flustered to follow what he was talking about.

  The car smelled powerfully of a cheap, sharp perfume. We passed the three miles to Gittering being regaled with graphic tales of our driver's multiple hospitalisations and various operations.

  * * *

  'Attractive. Ranch style,' Zeb said, star
ing with admiration at the large house beyond the gate separating road from driveway. At the far end of the drive, La Mancha was a white bungalow complex with roofs at various angles and large windows backed by closed curtains. The gardens looked well tended, although somebody had abandoned a gaily painted horsecart in the centre of the lawn, there was a new-looking plough standing on a strip of grass across the drive from the lawn, and a brightly decorated cartwheel lay against the side of the house. It looked terribly clean and tidy to be a working farm.

  There were various signs on the shoulder-high white wooden gate; one said, 'La Mancha', another said, 'Private Property -Keep Out', and another said, 'Beware Of The Dog', and had a colour picture of the head of a very large dog on it, just in case the reader was under any illusion concerning what dogs looked like.

  'This is it,' I said, looking through the bars of the gate for a slide or staple that would allow us to open it.

  'Whoa,' Zeb said, tapping the 'Beware Of The Dog' sign.

  I slid the gate's bolt and started to push it open. 'What?' I said. 'Oh, don't worry about that; they probably don't have any dogs. Besides,' I told my two uncertain-looking companions as I held the gate open for them, 'I have a way with animals, especially dogs.' I closed the gate after us, then took the lead and headed for the house.

  We were halfway down the drive when we heard the deep-throated barking. We all stopped. A huge hound came running round the side of the building, looking very much like the one on the sign at the gate; it was brown-black, its head was huge and there was spittle already flying from its jowls as it came powering towards us. It looked about the size of a foal.

  'Jeez!'

  'Run! I-sis; run!'

  I glanced back to see Zeb and Boz - who was still looking back at me - heading smartly for the gate.

  I felt calm. I had faith. And I really did have a way with animals. I thought for a moment, weighing up the situation. Behind me, the dog barked again; it sounded like a dinosaur with a bad cough. I started to run.