Iain Banks - Whit

Therefore there is goodness and the potential for enlightenment in doing things differently, seemingly just for the sake of it.

The less conventional and normal one's life is, the less interference, the less jamming one will experience from the machinery of civilisation and the more receptive one will therefore be to God's signals.

Being born on the 29th of February is a good start.

Is it starting to become clear? The fact that I am not taking a train or a bus or even hitch-hiking to Edinburgh but instead am floating and paddling down this virtually untravelled stretch of twisty, muddy old river with the full intention of walking round half the city when I get there is because to do so is important for the holiness of my mission; to travel so is to sanctify the act of journeying itself and correspondingly increase my chances of success when I arrive at my eventual destination because I am travelling in the uncluttered sight of God, with a soul as uncontaminated by the fuss of Unsaved life as possible.

I paddled on into the misty, brightening morning, passing between more fields where cattle stood, coming within hearing of the main road, and seeing the roofs of a few farms and houses over the grassy river banks. I passed the remains of what must have been a small suspension foot-bridge in the shape of two obelisk-like concrete structures, standing facing each other across the brown waters. Near Craigforth House I had to negotiate a river-wide blockage of tangled tree-trunks and debris, and almost left my hat behind, snagged on a grey, weed-hung branch. I went under a pair of bridges and then swung round another bend to where the Forth is joined by the Teith. An army base lay to my right. The matt green aluminium hulls stacked on the grass were the only boats I had ever seen on the river upstream from this point.

I passed under the concrete expanse of the motorway; one lorry rumbled overhead in the sparkling mist. Immediately, the current increased as I approached some small low islands and passed two fishermen on the left bank, standing on the first sandy shore I had seen; then I heard the rush of water ahead, and knew the tidal weir lay before me.

The tide was in and the rapids negligible; my inner-tube craft bumped into a couple of submerged rocks and I'll own that my heart did beat a little faster as I was swept down the broad white slope of rushing water, but the total drop must have been less than two feet and I estimated that the worst I risked was a soaking. I got a few odd looks floating through Stirling, but you become used to stares when you're a Luskentyrian.

I had hardly slept that night. After our various councils of war and a long briefing session with my Grandfather in his sitting room, part of which Allan sat in on (during which, it must be said, Grandfather became gradually the worse for wear courtesy of a bottle of whisky), it had been late into the lamp-lit darkness when Brother Indra had reappeared from his workshop to declare himself satisfied with his alterations to the old black inner-tube. The inner-tube had been the largest of the inflatables the children had been using in the river during the previous summer; we had no paddle as such but Indra suggested the trenching tool. Sister Jess left for Gargunnock, the nearest village, where she would post a letter to my half-brother Zeb, in London, telling him to expect me within the next few days. On the way back she would call in at the Woodbeans' house and use their telephone to send a signal telling of my coming to the house of Gertie Fossil (a process much more long-winded than the words I have just used to describe it).

Meanwhile I had been given the old kit-bag which had been in our Order almost since it was founded and which had something of the status of a holy relic with us, and chosen what I would put into it. Sister Erin handed me a thick roll of paper cash, bound with a rubber band and sealed inside a plastic bag. I had already thought about this, and thanked her and the others, but then sorted out the twenty-nine one-pound notes and handed the rest back.

My Grandfather watched as I did this; I saw tears in his eyes, and he came over and crushed me to him, hugging me fiercely and saying, 'Ah, God; Isis, child! Isis, Isis, child!' and slapping me vigorously on the back. Allan smiled tremulously at the two of us, his face still pale. Erin's jaw had the set that meant she was biting her tongue; she forced a smile.

'You will make sure you come back in time for the Festival, won't you, child?' Salvador said, pulling away from wetting my shirt collar with his tears. 'You have to be there; more than anybody, you must be there. You will be back?'

'Please God it won't take anything like that long to talk to Morag,' I told him, holding his fleshy forearms. 'I hope I shall be back for the Full Moon Service, in the middle of the month. But if it does take longer, I shall…' I took a deep breath. 'I shall return in any event, in good time for the Festival.'

'It's so important,' Grandfather said, nodding. He patted my cheek. 'So important. I may not see another.' He blinked rapidly.

'You will,' I told him, 'but anyway, don't worry. Everything will be all right.'

'Sweet child!' He hugged me again.

With the preparations complete, Grandfather called a short after-supper service to ask for the blessing of God on my mission.

I found a morsel of time, late on, to slip out and away across the dark bridge to the Woodbeans' house on the far bank, to tell Sophi that I had to leave and to say goodbye.

My thoughts that night - as I lay in my hammock in my room in the farmhouse - centred around the coming trip, and the possible reasons for my cousin Morag's apostasy. I knew that sleep was probably impossible and that if I did drift off it would probably be just before I was due to be awakened, leaving me feeling shaky and disoriented and tired for much of the day, but I was resigned to this, and it is anyway well known that in such waking tiredness one can often experience a trance-like state which opens one all the better to the voice of the Creator.

Morag and I had been close friends even though she was four years my senior - I had always mixed easily with Community children older than myself, my special status as the Elect conferring the equivalent of a handful of years added to my actual age. Morag and I got on especially well, despite the difference in our years, sharing an interest in music and, I suppose, a similar demeanour. Morag is the daughter of my aunt Brigit, who left us six years ago. Aunt Brigit joined a Millennialist cult based in Idaho in the United States of America; one of those strange sects who appear to think salvation grows out of the barrel of a gun. She came back for the last Festival of Love, but spent most of her time trying to convert us to her new faith, although to no avail, of course (we are, arguably, far too tolerant sometimes). Aunt Brigit was never entirely sure who Morag's father was, which is a not uncommon result of the Community's informality, and one of those unfortunate trends which can help give credence to the more sensationalistic media reports about us. Certainly my Grandfather always treated her like a daughter, but then Salvador has always behaved as though all the Order children are his own, probably just to express his love for all the Saved, but perhaps just to be on the safe side.

Brigit's daughter is a tall, perfectly proportioned creature with bounteous brown-red hair and eyes deep and blue and big as an ocean; her saving flaw was a rather wide gap between her two front teeth, though - much to our disappointment - she'd had that seen to when she too came back to visit us four years ago.