Iain Banks - A Song Of Stone

… And find I cannot help but recall another tumultuous spoilage, long ago, instituted by Father if carried out by Mother. It was, too, the occasion of our first separation.

The memory's hazed, not so much by the accumulation of, other, intervening events as due to my lack of years at the time. I remember that after the initial exchange of shouts, Mother screamed and Father only talked, that her voice assaulted the ears and that one had to strain to hear his, most of the time. I remember she threw and he ducked, or tried to catch.

We were in the nursery, playing, when we heard their voices, raised, and rising to us in that airy space of brightly painted attic. The nurse looked flustered, hearing the shouts and screams, the harsh words and accusation filtering up from the bedroom on the floor below. She went and shut the door, but still the noise came to us, carried by some by way of the castle's much altered geography while we played with bricks or trains or dolls. I think we looked at each other, keeping silent, and went on playing. Until I could stand no more and ran past nurse and hauled the door open, sobbing as I ran down the narrow steps while the woman cried out after me, calling me back. She ran, following me, and you came padding behind her.

They were in his bedroom; I charged through the door Just as Mother threw something at him. A piece of porcelain, part of his collection, it flew, white as a dove, across the room and smashed on the wall above his head. I think he'd made to catch it, and might have, but for my sudden appearance. He scowled at me as I ran towards my mother, crying and wailing.

She was standing by a display cabinet against one wall; he was by the door connecting to her room. He was dressed for a trip to town. She wore filmy night things under a housecoat, her hair was wild, her face striped with some beauty treatment. In her left hand she held a piece of lavender paper with writing on it.

She was not aware of me until I thudded into her thigh and clamped myself to her, begging her and Father to stop shouting, stop arguing, stop being horrible to each other. I smelled her perfume, the treasured natural odour of her and the light, flowery scent she favoured, but I detected something else too; there was another perfume, darker and muskier than hers, which I realised only later must have emanated from the sheet of mauve notepaper she held crumpled in her hand.

I thought, perhaps, that just by being there, just by reminding them of my existence I might stop them shouting, never imagining that my presence, that very existence, might itself provide a further stimulus for dispute. I did not know that the whole course of our lives from then on had been determined by two pieces of paper in that room. One white, severe and crisply edged, folded neatly in Father's jacket was a letter with a seal of state upon it, sending him to a foreign capital to represent his country; the other a mauvely fragrant tissue, hotly crumpled in Mother's hand had been hidden by Father, discovered by Mother, re hidden by her and then revealed, minutes ago, in response. Both represented an opportunity for the holder, together they defined a calamity for our family.

She clasped me to her as I sobbed into the comforting quilt of housecoat, her balled fist the one holding the note pressing between my shoulder blades and trembling. She shouted again, words tumbling fast, desperate and breathless from her mouth. Fierce, accusing, humiliated words; phrases and sentences of discovery and betrayal and abandonment and sordid, filthy acts and hate. I understood few of those words at the time, can directly remember none of them now, but their meaning, their import pierced my ears like burning spikes and blistered inside my head; I screamed for her to stop and threw my hands over my ears.

Somebody else's hands closed round me and started pulling me away. I clutched at Mother again, tighter than ever, while the nurse tried to prise me away from her and you stood in the doorway, holding on to the doorknob, dark eyes wide, calmly inquisitive.

Father's voice was measured, calm, reasonable. He spoke of duty and opportunity, of staleness and fresh starts, of the weight of the past and the promise of. the future, and of tired land and new lands. That very coolness induced the opposite in Mother and his every word seemed to incite her wrath and draw still greater venom from her, wrenching each word of public responsibility from his mouth and twisting it, forcing it to the question of what was fit private behaviour and finding each one not just wanting but disgraceful.

Father made the point that we should all go; Mother screamed he would leave alone. Mother's, voice was becoming hoarse; she reached into the display cabinet, withdrew another figurine and threw it at Father, who caught that one and held it while he spoke in quietly reasonable tones to her. She moved, making me move with her while the nurse tried to pry my fingers from her hip; Mother put her flattened hand into the cabinet and swiped a shelf full of the porcelain figures out, smashing and bouncing them on to the floor.

I wailed, kicked at the nurse.

You crossed the room and gently took the caught figure from Father's hand, then as Mother threw another one over your head, which deflected off Father's outstretched arm and broke on the floor you knelt and started picking up the broken pieces of porcelain from the floor, gathering them in your paint spotted smock where the intact figure lay.

I think my wracking sobs must have weakened me, for finally the nurse pulled me away from Mother; the nurse gripped my hand tightly in hers and dragged me screaming, my feet pulling a rug with me, towards you. You looked up at her, then stood and carefully emptied the pieces you had gathered on to the tall bed. You took the nurse's other hand as she led you and pulled me to the door, her apologies unheard over Mother's gasping screams. The next thrown piece hit Father hard on the head. He put one hand to his brow and looked annoyed at seeing the blood smearing his fingers.

I broke away at the door and ran back; the nurse gave chase and I leapt upon and ran across the bed. scattering the porcelain pieces you'd retrieved. I ran to Father, now wanting to protect him from Mother's anger.

He pushed me away. I stood, dizzy and confused, between the two of them, staring up at him as he pointed to me and shouted something back. I remember not understanding, thinking, How could he not want me? What was wrong with me? Why would he take only you?

Mother shrieked denial; the nurse grabbed me with both hands and stuck me under her arm, supporting me on her hip; I struggled only weakly at first, still bewildered. Near the door I shook and wriggled free once more and ran back towards Father. This time he swore, took me by the scruff of the neck and marched me to the door past the crying, apologising nurse. He threw me far out into the hall. I landed at your feet. The nurse exited the room at a run and the door slammed behind her; the lock clicked.

You reached down to wipe some of Father's blood from the side of my neck.

He took you with him that day, and for the first and last time he struck his wife as she tried to keep you with her as well. She was left lying sobbing on the courtyard's stones as he led you, uncomplaining, down to the passageway, through it and over the bridge to his waiting car. I knelt by Mother, sharing her tears, and watched you and him both go.

You looked back just once, caught my gaze and smiled and waved. I think you never looked so unconcerned. My tears seemed to dry instantly, and I found myself waving feebly in return, to your back, as you skipped off.

I step to the central stair, where plaster like a fall of purer snow covers one huddled, sleeping form, which moves, mumbles in its sleep and barely disturbs the dust. Something cracks loudly under my foot as I pass by, and a drunken, incoherent challenge issues from the crumpled shape. I stand still, and the soldier sleeps again, mumbling down to silence.