Whit

by Iain Banks

  I suppose you could label what passed there as meditation, but that might be to dignify it over much. Really I was just letting everything that had happened recently wash through me and from me, imagining that the river I gazed at was the stream of events I had been submerged in for the last nine days, and it was all now flowing away, leaving no more than a thin deposit of memory behind like a skin of river mud.

  I wanted to feel washed clean, absolved of whatever I had been accused of, before I went back to the farm and my Grandfather.

  I could not understand what had happened. I had held the tiny zhlonjiz jar in my hand for the first time in the house of Gertie Fossil; I knew I had not stolen it. I had read the note that the vial had come wrapped in, I could recall exactly the feel of its paper between my fingers, see the writing on it - enough like Salvador's for it certainly not to be in any way suspicious - and almost smell it.

  I had thought the unction's inclusion in my kit-bag a gesture that was both practical and sweet; it had never occurred to me that it might be a trick.

  I tried to think why it had been done, and by whom. I had to face the fact that there might be poisoned thoughts behind the smiling faces of my fellows in our Order. I was the privileged one, after all; brought to my exalted prominence by a simple accident of birth. Certainly I had the Gift of Healing to recommend me to my fellow faithfuls' favour, but that has always seemed extra, something that never sat entirely square with our Faith in its purest form. Part of our creed promoted the idea that those born on the 29th of February became different and better because they were led to realise how much this mattered and symbolised, rather than emerged already semi-divine from the womb (otherwise how does one account for the fact that those born on that date in the past have not been especially gifted or wise?). In a sense, it is just luck that determines who is born a Leapyearian, even though there is a hint in the Orthography that God has a fingertip on the scales if not a hand in the whole business. So might not one - or even some - of my fellows feel aggrieved at my rank and suspicious of my uncanny power, convinced in their own minds that they were both more deserving, and more pure? In theory they ought to feel glad for me, support me and - if not actually worship me - honour and venerate me, and accept that God would be unlikely to have let somebody utterly lacking in worth be born into my position or receive my gift, but I cannot deceive myself that in such matters theory always carries the day in the depths of the human soul, or that our followers are somehow immune from irrationality, jealousy and even hate.

  I found it hard even to imagine that my Grandfather himself could be behind this; perhaps only the memory of that sudden, shocking slap to my face made it remotely thinkable. Could Salvador himself feel envious of me? It hardly made sense; his whole life - since his rebirth on the storm-scoured Harrisian beach that night - had led towards the exalted state that first his son Christopher and now I occupied and would, perhaps, pass on to my offspring (not that it had to be me; a Luskentyrian Leapyearian is a Luskentyrian Leapyearian, after all, but we had made it a direct, in-family line so far and such seeming coincidences tend to develop a momentum and a tradition - even a theology - of their own), but who was to say how rational he was being, as he came to appreciate the imminence of his own death?

  Allan was another man with cause to resent me; under a different system, all the Community and Order might fall to him on Grandfather's death (though how did one take account of Brigit and Rhea and Calli and Astar, and even uncle Mo? After all, neither of Salvador's original two marriages had been sanctioned by the state or established church). But what could he stand to gain? Nothing could alter the fact of my birth-date - the event had been observed by half the women of the Order - or shake what was one of the central tenets of our Faith; what were we if we did not believe in the interstitial, out-of-the-way nature of blessedness, exemplified by that one day in one thousand four hundred and sixty-one? Allan already controlled much of the day-to-day running of the Order; he had more power than I could imagine wanting for myself and we had never really disagreed over the way we saw the Order going when the sad time came that meant my accession. To attack me was to attack the Order itself and the very Faith through which Allan drew his influence, threatening everything.

  Calli? Astar? Together or alone they might see me as a threat to their authority, but they too stood to lose much more than they could possibly gain. Erin? Jess? Somebody else who somehow felt confident of producing a Leapyearian next year, and wanted me out of the way, or at least compromised, beforehand?

  None of these possibilities seemed to make much sense.

  As for how it had been done, getting the vial itself would have been easy; it normally resided in the unlocked box on the altar in the meeting hall, which itself was always open. Getting it into my kit-bag would hardly have been more difficult; I recalled packing the bag in my room and leaving it there while I met with my Grandfather, Allan and Erin again. Later I went across the courtyard to brother Indra's workshop to see how the inner-tube boat was progressing, and then returned to my room to fetch the bag and leave it outside the meeting hall in the mansion house while we all convened again to pray and sing.

  Anybody could have slipped up to my room, or dropped the vial into my bag while it was outside the meeting room; there was no lock on my room door - I don't think there is a functioning lock anywhere in the farmhouse - and we are anyway simply unused to guarding property or caring much about chattels; there is no culture of watchfulness or wariness in our Order that would raise suspicions in the first place.

  The last opportunity somebody would have had to put the vial in my bag would have been that morning, as I was getting into the inner-tube boat; who had carried my bag from the farm? How many people had handled it before it was delivered into my hands?

  I recalled that I'd found the zhlonjiz vial at the bottom of my kit-bag, implying that it had been hidden by somebody with plenty of time to place it there rather than having been simply dropped into my bag, but the jar had been tiny and - jiggled and bounced around as I'd walked from the coast into Edinburgh - it would have had plenty of time to work its way down from the top to the bottom of the kit-bag. I'd opened the bag twice after I'd packed it in my room, I thought, for food and for the vial of river mud, so maybe I would have seen the little vial sitting on top of the other things packed in there, but - again due to its size - maybe not.

  I was a very poor investigator, I thought. I had failed to confront Morag and now I was failing to work out when, how and why somebody had made it look as if I was a common thief.

  I shook my head at my own dreadful incompetence, and rose with creaking trousers if not joints to dust myself down, bid farewell to the river and return to whatever it was I had to face at the Community.

  * * *

  I returned to the mansion house at about six; in the office, Allan said that Salvador had eaten early and was having a nap; he'd call me if and when Grandfather wanted to see me. I went to the farmhouse for the evening meal, eaten in the kitchen with various Brothers and Sisters in an unusual and strained atmosphere which was only relieved by the children being barely less boisterous and loud than normal. Sister Calli, who was supervising the kitchen that evening, did not speak to me, and made a point of not serving me my food. Astar was kinder if still as quiet as ever, just coming up to me and standing by me, patting me on the shoulder. A few of the younger ones tried to ask me questions but were hushed by Calli or Calum.

  I went back over to the mansion house. I told Sister Erin I would be in the library, and sat in there trying to read passages from the previous edition of the Orthography in a restless, unsettled manner until I gave up and just sat, looking round those thousands of books and wondering how many I had read and how many more I still had to read.

  I picked up The Prince and read a few of my favourite passages, then I returned to Erin and said I'd be in the meeting room - the mansion house's old ballroom, where the organ was.

  I sat there at the old organ, pla
ying it silently save for the click and clack of my fingers on the keys and my feet on the pedals, pulling out stops and sweeping my hands over the keyboard, caressing it and pummelling it, humming and hissing to myself on occasion, but mostly just hearing the music in my head, its flowing, pulsing power and body-shaking reverberations existing only between my ears. I played until my fingers hurt, and then Sister Jess came to fetch me.

  Jess left me in the sitting room of Grandfather's quarters while she checked he was quite ready to see me. She reappeared from the bedroom, closing the door on the dark space behind. 'He's having another bath,' she said, sounding exasperated. 'He's in a funny mood today. Do you mind waiting?'

  'No,' I said.

  Jess smiled. 'He said to break out the drinks; shall we?'

  'Why not?' I said, smiling.

  Sister Jess opened the drinks cabinet; I declined a whisky, having not long since got rid of my hang-over from the previous night, and settled for a glass of wine. Sister Jess chose the whisky, well watered.

  We settled down on a couple of seat-boarded but otherwise quite plumply luxurious couches and talked for a while. Sister Jess is a doctor; she is slim and has long black hair she wears in a single long plait. She is about forty and has been with us for nearly fourteen years. Her daughter Helen is thirteen and Salvador may or may not be the child's father.

  I have always got on fairly well with Jess, though I sometimes wonder to what extent she feels that I usurp some of her powers with my ability to Heal.

  I told her of my trip down south; she said that at the time she'd thought I was mad to travel to Edinburgh by inner-tube, but congratulated me on getting there. She took a dimmer view of interfering with train signalling systems, but let it pass. There was no embargo I had been told of regarding the things I had found out in England, so, while I did swear her to secrecy until we both knew how widely Salvador wanted such facts to be disseminated, I felt free to tell her about Morag's alter ego, Fusillada. She blinked rapidly at that point, and almost choked on her whisky.

  'You saw one of these videos?' she asked.

  'By sheer luck, yes.'

  She glanced at the closed door to Salvador's bedroom. 'Hmm; I wonder what he feels about that?'

  'I take it Allan's told him all this?'

  She leaned over towards me, with another glance at the door. 'I think he overheard quite a bit from outside the office door,' she said quietly.

  'Oh,' I said.

  'Let's have another drink,' she said. 'About time the lamps were lit, too.'

  We lit the lamps and recharged our glasses.

  'How is Salvador?' I asked her. 'Has he been keeping all right?'

  She laughed quietly. 'Strong as an ox,' she said. 'He's fine. Been tiring himself out a bit recently and drinking too much whisky, but I think that's just all this revising he's doing.'

  'Oh,' I said. 'He's managing all right with that himself?'

  'Allan's been helping him; him and Erin, sometimes.'

  'Oh. Well, that's good.'

  'It's keeping him busy,' she said, glancing at the door again. 'I think he's getting impatient for the Festival.'

  'I suppose everybody is, a bit.'

  'Some with better reason than him,' she said quietly, leaning forward and with a conspiratorial grin. I did my best to reciprocate the expression. 'But, anyway,' she said, sitting back, 'what happened after you were arrested?' She held her hand up over her mouth, giggling.

  I regaled her with the rest of my story, settling into the swing of its telling with, by now, practised ease. Grandma Yolanda was about to make her appearance - and Jess was still laughing at the thought of me being arrested and being televised in the process - when we realised our glasses were empty again. Jess listened quietly at the bedroom door, then tiptoed away with her finger to her lips and whispered, 'Singing. Still in the bath,' as she made her way to the drinks cabinet.

  'Thanks,' I said, accepting my refilled glass.

  'Cheers.'

  'Mud in your eye.'

  'You have been with Yolanda, haven't you?'

  'She does rather rub off on you,' I admitted as we resumed our seats. I took up the threads of my story. I had almost finished when there was a ringing sound; the spring-hung bell up in one corniced corner of the room went on jangling as Jess straightened her plain grey shift and went to the bedroom door. I undid the laces on my boots.

  She stuck her head round, I heard Grandfather's voice, then Jess turned and nodded to me. I drained my glass and ascended into the bedroom.

  The door closed behind me.

  Grandfather sat at one end of the room, against a huge pile of cushions. Candles burned on the shelf that ran all around the dark space, filling it with their soft yellow light and the heady fumes of their scent. Joss-sticks were fanned out in a small brass holder on the shelf near Salvador. My Grandfather was plump, pale, voluminously robed and his face was surrounded with fluffily dry white curly hair. He looked like a cross between Buddha and Santa Claus. He sat looking at me.

  I made the Sign and bowed slowly to him; the bed moved gently underneath my sock-clad feet, like a gentle oceanic swell. Salvador nodded briefly when I straightened. He pointed to a place close in front of him to his left.

  By his right hand would have been better, but probably too much to hope for. I sat where he had indicated, cross-legged. Grandfather's room-size bed was the one place one was allowed to sit without a Sitting Board; the softness was oddly unsettling when one's buttocks were habituated to the hardness of wood.

  He reached under one of the giant cushions at his back and produced a bottle and two chunky cut glasses. He handed one glass to me, set the other on the shelf near him and poured us both some whisky. More drink, I thought. Ah well.

  He raised his glass to me, though his expression remained serious. We drank. The whisky was smooth and I didn't cough.

  He gave a great long sigh and sat back amongst the pillows. He looked at his glass and then, slowly, to me.

  'So, Isis: do you want to tell me why?' he asked; his deep, luxuriant voice sounded thick, half choked.

  'Grandfather,' I said, 'I did not take the vial. It was in my kit-bag. I didn't know it was there until I found it when I was at Gertie Fossil's.'

  He looked into my eyes for a long time. I returned his gaze. He shook his head and looked across the room.

  'So you had no hand in this at all; no idea it had been put there?'

  'None.'

  'Well then, who do you want to accuse, Isis?

  'I don't want to accuse anybody. I've thought about who could have done this, and it could have been anybody. I have no idea who.'

  'I've been told that you claim there was a… note,' he said, pronouncing the last word with the effect of somebody picking something distasteful up by the corner between thumb and forefinger.

  'It said, "In case you need it", or something similar; I can't remember the exact words. It was signed with an "S".'

  'But this has disappeared, of course.'

  'Yes.'

  'Weren't you even slightly suspicious?' he asked, a sour look on his face. 'Didn't it seem odd to you that I might have given you our most precious substance, our last link with Luskentyre, to take into the midst of the Unsaved?'

  I looked down at my glass. 'I took it as a compliment,' I said. My face felt warm. 'I was surprised and I was flattered, but it never crossed my mind to be suspicious; I thought that you were giving me your blessing and trying to ensure the success of my mission by giving me something which would both succour me and be of practical value.'

  'And was it? Of practical value, I mean.'

  'No.'

  'You took some.'

  'I did. It… I was not able to make use of it. I don't know why. I hoped to hear more clearly the Voice of God, but…'

  'So you then tried one of the Unsaved's illegal drugs.'

  'I did.'

  'Which didn't work either.'

  'It did not.'

  He shook his head and dran
k the rest of the whisky in his glass. He looked at my glass as he reached for the bottle. I finished my drink too. He refilled both glasses. I cleared my throat, eyes watering.

  'And am I to understand, Isis, that our Sister Morag's fame does not come from… holy music, or even music in any form, after all, but from performing the sexual act to be recorded on film and sold to whosoever of the Benighted might wish to purchase such a thing?'

  'It would seem so.'

  'You're sure?'

  'Quite positive. There was one close-up of her face in quite bright sunshine; she was sucking-'

  'Yes. Well, we'll believe you, on this, for now, Isis, but I dare say we shall have to confirm this for ourselves, unpleasant though the task might be.'

  'That may be possible without having to harbour a television set amongst us; one of Brother Zeb's colleagues called Boz was sure that he had seen a pornographic magazine which featured Morag.'

  Grandfather was shaking his head sadly.

  'I think it's worth mentioning,' I said, 'that while I was unable to discover any evidence that Morag still plays music in public, it is still not impossible that she does so, though-'

  'Oh, enough,' he said angrily.

  'Well, it could still be-'

  'What difference would it make, anyway?' he said loudly. He gulped at his whisky.

  I sipped mine. 'It could still be seen as holy work in a sense, Grandfather,' I said. 'Certainly it is done for profit and involves the means of the dissemination of lies and Clutter, but still the act itself is a holy one, and-'

  'Oh,' he said, sneering at me over his glass. 'And what would you know about that, Isis?'

  I felt my face colour again, but I did not let my gaze fall from his. 'What I know is what you have told me; what you have told us all, in your teachings!' I said.

  He looked away. 'Teachings change,' he said, his voice rumbling like thunder from those dense clouds of hair.

  I stared at him. He was looking into his glass.