by Iain Banks
There is an afterlife, and our Faith's ideas on that too have evolved over the years. Originally, incorporating the idea of Heaven and Hell, it was fairly conventional and recognisably Christian in inspiration. However, as Grandfather has tuned in more and more accurately to what God is saying, the afterlife, in the shape of the all-absorbing Godhead, has become more complicated and more sophisticated. Indeed it might almost be more true to say that what we live in is the pre-life; a sort of minor overture to the grandly symphonic opera that follows; a scrawny solo before the richly glorious massed choir. Most religions have some sort of angle on the truth in this regard, but I think it obvious that Luskentyrianism, with elements of almost all of them, decisively out-does the lot.
* * *
I did not enjoy my flight from London to Edinburgh, which was the first I had ever made. For one thing, I did not feel well, and the various movements and changes of pressure involved in flight seemed almost designed to introduce a reeling of discomfort even without the effects of far too much alcohol the night before. In addition, though, there are various mistakes and errors of practice and etiquette one can make when travelling by aircraft, and I think I made all of them.
Grandmother Yolanda found my gaffs most amusing; the business-suited fellow sitting to my other side was less impressed. My first mistake was to tell him - in a spirit of vigilant and caring friendliness and general camaraderie - to study his safety instructions when the conductress told him to; he looked at me as if I was quite mad. My final mistake - on the plane itself, anyway - was a result of trying to show off (how often is that the case!).
The cup of tea I asked for after my miniaturised meal was a little hot, and I'd noticed that above each seat was a small swivelling nozzle which dispensed cold air. I decided to redeem myself in the eyes of the businessman at my side by using the stream of air to lower the temperature of my tea. This was a fine idea in theory and would undoubtably have worked perfectly well if I hadn't ostentatiously held my cup right up to the nozzle and twisted it fully on, producing a fierce and highly directed pulse of air which displaced the tea in the cup and showered it over the businessman and the person in the seat behind him. Yolanda found the whole episode quite hilarious, and even stopped complaining about the lack of First Class for a few moments.
Yolanda's good mood evaporated rapidly when we got to Edinburgh Airport and she couldn't remember where she'd left her hire car.
'Thought it'd be quicker just leaving it here instead of turning it in and having to hire another one,' she said, stamping down another row of cars.
I followed, pushing a trolley. 'What sort of car was it?' I asked. Not that it would make much difference to me; cars are cars.
'Don't know,' Yolanda said. 'Small. Well, smallish.'
'Doesn't the car key tell you something?'
'I left the keys inside the exhaust pipe,' she said, with a hint of embarrassment. 'Saves carrying zillions of keys around.'
I'd noticed that some cars had stickers in the back window identifying hire companies.
'Can you remember what company it belonged to?'
'No.'
'They've got these letters on posts all over the car park; was it near- ?'
'Can't remember. I was in a hurry.'
'What colour was the car?'
'Red. No; blue…. Shit.' Yolanda looked frustrated.
'Can you remember what cars it was parked between?'
'Get real, Isis.'
'Oh. Yes, I suppose they might have moved. But maybe they're still here!'
'Range Rover. One was a Range Rover. One of those tall things.'
We checked all the Range Rovers in the car park before Yolanda thought to check her credit card slips. There was no sign of a car hire from Glasgow Airport.
'Probably left it in the car,' she admitted. '… Oh, the hell with this. Let's hire another one.'
'What about the one that's here?'
'Fuck it. They'll find it eventually.'
'Won't you get charged?'
'Let them sue. That's what lawyers are for.'
* * *
If our Faith had a Golden Age it was probably between the years 1955 to 1979; that was when our Order grew from just a few people, many of them related in one way or another, to a fully functioning religion with a complete theology, an established base (indeed, two established bases, the original at Mr McIlone's farm at Luskentyre and the new one at High Easter Offerance), a settled succession of Leapyearians - through my father, Christopher, and then myself - and a steadily growing number of converts, some of whom came to stay and work at the Community and some of whom were happier in the outside world, though remaining committed to the Order and pledged both to come to its aid if required and to act as our missionaries to the Unsaved.
Then, in 1979, two disasters befell us, one affecting each of our two spiritual and physical homes. On Harris in April, Mr Eoin McIlone died. To our astonishment - and it has to be said, to our Founder's fury - he died intestate, and his farm was inherited by an Unsaved: Mr McIlone's vile step-brother from the town of Banff, who was interested only in selling the place as quickly as possible and making as much money as he could. He had no sympathy with our Faith, and as soon as he took possession of the property he turned out the Brothers and Sisters who lived and worked there. Some of those people had been there for thirty years, working the land and maintaining the fabric of the buildings, putting three decades of sweat and toil into the place for no more reward than a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, but they were ejected without a thought, without as much as a Thank you or a By-your-leave, as though they were criminals. We were told that Mr McIlone's step-brother went to church every Sunday, but by God there was little Christian charity in the man. If his Hell was true he'd rot in it.
Of the five Brothers and Sisters who were living at Luskentyre when Mr McIlone passed on, two came to us at the Community, one stayed in the islands to work on another farm, one remained there to fish, and one returned to her original family in England. Our world was suddenly smaller, and for all that High Easter Offerance was a fine, productive place, and far more balmily easeful than Luskentyre, still we felt, I think, the loss of our original home as though we had lost an old friend. Of course, I was barely three when this happened and can remember little or nothing of the time, but I'm sure I must have been affected by the mood of the people around me and surely joined in the mourning in my own childish way.
Luskentyre remained and remains a holy place for our Order, and many of us have been on pilgrimage to the area - I myself travelled there last year, attended by Sisters Fiona and Cassie - though we are denied access to the farm itself by its current owners and must content ourselves with staying in local Bed and Breakfasts, wandering the coastline and the dunes and surveying the remnants of the ruined seaweed factory.
Our grief at losing Luskentyre proved to be only a presentiment of what was to come, however, at the other end of the year.
* * *
'I have to be in Prague tomorrow,' Yolanda said as we finally made the motorway that would take us to within a few miles of High Easter Offerance. 'Sure you don't want to come?'
'Grandma, apart from anything else, I don't have a passport.'
'Shame. You should get one. I'll get you one.'
'I think it causes problems when we apply for passports.'
'I'll bet. What do you expect from a country where they not only won't let you bring a gun into the country but won't even let you buy one when you get here?' She shook her head.
'Will you be coming straight back?'
'Nope; then I head for Venice, Italy.'
I thought about this. 'I thought your other house was in Venice, California.'
Yolanda nodded. 'I've a house there, and an apartment in the original Venice.'
'Doesn't that get confusing?'
'Does for the IRS,' Yolanda said, glancing over at me and grinning.
I was shocked. 'Aren't they some sort of terrorist orga
nisation?'
Grandmother Yolanda had a good laugh at that. 'Kind of,' she agreed. 'Come to think of it, now that Russia's opened up, I might buy places in both Georgias. That would confuse the hell out of them, too.'
'Do you think you'll ever settle down, Grandmother?'
'Not even in an urn, child; I want to have my ashes scattered to the four winds.' She glanced at me. 'You could do that for me, maybe. If I left you instructions in my will, would you?'
'Um,' I said, 'well, I… I suppose so.'
'Don't look upset; I might change my mind, anyway; get myself frozen instead. They can do that nowadays, you know.'
'Really?' I had no idea what she was talking about.
'Anyway,' Yolanda said. 'Prague, Venice, then Scotland again.' (She pronounces it Skatlind.) 'I'm goin' to try and get back for the end of the month.'
'Oh, for the Festival.'
'Well, no, not specifically, but what is happening with that? For you personally, I mean.'
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked at the scenery of fields and hills. 'How do you -?'
'You know what I mean, Isis,' she said, not unkindly.
I knew what she meant. I knew so well that I had been trying hard not to think about it for some long time by then, and this whole excursion to look for Morag had itself provided a way of not thinking about it. But now that Morag's trail had finally gone cold and there seemed to be some sort of problem requiring my presence at the Community, I had no choice but to confront the question: what to do?
'Isis. Are you happy taking this part in this Love-Fest or not?'
'It's my duty,' I said lamely.
'Bullshit.'
'But it is,' I said. 'I'm the Elect of God.'
'You're a free woman, Isis. You can do what you please.'
'Not really. There are expectations.'
'Fooey.'
'I am the third generation; there's nobody else. As far as Leapyearians go, I'm it,' I said. 'I mean, anybody can be a Leapyearian; it doesn't have to be somebody in the family or even somebody in the Community, just somebody in the Order, but it would be… neater if it was kept in the family. Grandfather hoped it might be Morag who provided the next generation, but if she's not even part of our Faith any more…'
'That doesn't mean you have to try to produce the next generation now if you don't want to.' My grandmother looked over at me. 'Do you, Is? Do you want to be a mother now? Well?'
I had the sinking feeling that Yolanda wasn't going to look back at the road until I answered her. 'I don't know,' I said, looking away and watching the spire of Linlithgow Palace appear round the side of a low hill to my left. 'I really can't decide what to do.'
'Isis, don't let them put pressure on you. If you don't want to have a child yet, just tell them. Hell, I know that old tyrant; I know he wants another 'Elect' to keep this… well, to keep the Order going, but you're just young; there's still plenty of time; there's always the next goddamn Festival. And if you decide it's never going to be the right time, then-'
'But by the next Festival the pressure will be even worse!' I cried.
'Well then-' Yolanda began, then glanced at me, frowning. 'Wait a minute; you sure 2000 is a leap year?'
'Yes, of course.'
'I thought if the year's divisible by four it's a leap year, unless it's divisible by four hundred, when it isn't a leap year.'
'No,' I said wearily (we had all this drummed into us preschool at the Community). 'It's not a leap year if it's divisible by one hundred. But if it's divisible by four hundred, it is a leap year.'
'Oh.'
'Anyway,' I said. 'I don't think Salvador believes he'll see 2000.'
'Let's cut to the chase here, Is. The question is, are you ready to be a mother or not? That's what they expect of you, isn't it?'
'Yes,' I said, miserably. That's what they want.'
'Well, are you ready?'
'I don't know!' I said, louder than I meant, and looked away, chewing on a knuckle.
We drove on in silence for a while. The smokes and steams of Grangemouth oil refinery swung past to our right.
'You seeing anybody, Isis?' Yolanda asked gently. 'You got anybody special?'
I swallowed, then shook my head. 'No. Not really.'
'You had any boyfriends yet?'
'No,' I confessed.
'Isis, I know you seem to develop slower out here, but shit, you're nineteen; don't you like boys?'
'I like them fine, I just don't…' My voice trailed off as I wondered how to put it.
'You don't want to fuck them?'
'Well,' I said, blushing, 'I don't think so.'
'What about girls?' Yolanda sounded a little surprised but mostly just very interested.
'No, not really.' I leaned forward, elbows on thighs, chin in hands, staring glumly at the cars and trucks ahead of us on the motorway. 'I don't know what I want. I don't know who I want. I don't know that I want.'
'Well then, God's sakes, Isis!' Yolanda said, waving one hand around. 'All the more reason to tell Salvador to take a hike! Christ almighty; get yourself sorted out first. No one who loves you is going to give a damn if you're gay or want to stay celibate, but don't get pregnant on the off chance you'll drop on the twenty-ninth of February just to keep that old letch happy!'
'Grandmother!' I said, genuinely shocked. 'You mean Salvador?'
'Who the hell else?'
'He is our Founder! You can't talk about him like that!'
'Isis, child,' Yolanda said, shaking her head. 'You know I love you, and God help me I even have a lot of time for that old rogue because I think basically he's a good man, but he is a man; I mean, he's human and he's very male, you know what I'm saying? I don't really know that he's anything holy at all; I'm sorry to say that because I know it hurts you, but-'
'Grandmother!'
'Now! Just hear me out, child. I've seen just about every damn cult and faith and sect and religion and pseudo-religion the world has to offer in my time, and it seems to me maybe in some sense your Grandfather is right about one thing: they are all searching for the truth, but they never find it, not all of it, not any of them, and that includes you people; you're no more right than anybody else.'
I was sitting with my mouth hanging open, appalled by what I was hearing. I'd always known Grandmother Yolanda wasn't the strictest adherent of our Order, but I'd like to think that somewhere underneath all this restless, rootless, wasteful consumerism there was still a core of Faith.
'And you know what I think? I think it's all a load of crap. I don't doubt there is a God, although maybe even that's more habit than true faith, God knows, but I don't think anybody in any religion has ever said one damn useful thing about Him or Her or It. You never noticed religions always seem to get invented by men? When you ever hear of a cult or a sect started by a woman? Hardly ever. Women have the power of creation in them; men have to fantasise about it, create Creation itself, just to compensate; ovary envy. That's all it is.' Yolanda nodded with self-certitude while I looked on. 'Know what decided me on all this?'
She looked at me. I shrugged, too choked to speak. 'Koresh,' she said. 'Remember him?'
'I don't think so.'
'What? WACO: We Ain't Comin' Out? Were you on the moon or something? You must have seen…' Yolanda rolled her eyes. 'No, I guess you didn't.'
'Wait,' I said. 'Yes; I think my friend Mr Warriston might have told me something about it. Wasn't that in Texas?'
'Town called Waco,' my grandmother confirmed. 'About a hundred miles south from Dallas. Drove down there the day it happened. Day it ended. Saw the embers. Made me mad as hell, goddamn government doing that… not that it was right to bomb Oklahoma City, mind… But the point was Koresh,' she said, wagging one finger at me. 'They showed film of him from before, holding a Bible and leading his followers in some marathon worship session and said he wanted to be a rock star; tried to be one, in fact, but didn't get anywhere. Became a prophet instead. And how did he end up living? Worshipp
ed, that's how, in a place where he could have any woman he wanted and smoke dope and drink all night with his buddies. Hog heaven. He got the rock-star life without having to become one; he got what he really wanted: sex and drugs and worship. He was no more holy than, I don't know, Frank Zappa or somebody, but he got to pretend he was, got his own farm, all the guns he could play with and at the end he even got to become some sort of dumb martyr, thanks to the Feds and that fat dick Clinton. Frankly I didn't care Koresh died, or care very much that his followers did, though I probably should; you like to think they knew the choice they were making and were just plain stupid, and if you'd somehow gotten into the same situation you'd have been smarter… No, it was the children that made me cry, Isis; it was knowing they died, knowing they suffered, and weren't old enough to have made up their own minds about whatever insane fucking power-trip that egotistical asshole Koresh was taking his people on.'
I stared at my grandmother. She nodded as she looked ahead. 'That's my thoughts on the subject, Grand-daughter. Seems to me women have been falling for this holy-man shit down through all the centuries and we ain't stopped falling for it yet. Jesus. The KKK: Koresh, Khomeini, Kahane; well, to hell with the lot of them, all the fundamentalists, and that Aum Shitface gang from Japan, too.' Yolanda shook her head angrily. 'World's more like a goddamn comic-book every fuckin' day.'
I nodded, and thought the better of asking my grandmother exactly what she was talking about. She took a deep breath and seemed to calm herself somewhat. She smiled briefly at me. 'All I'm saying is, Isis, don't be in too big a hurry to join up too. You get your head sorted out, but remember: men are a bit crazy and a bit dangerous, and they're jealous as hell, too. Don't sacrifice yourself for them, because they sure as shit won't do it for you; fact is they'll try and sacrifice you.'