Iain Banks - Whit

My head started to spin; alcohol never acted as rapidly. I passed on the next 'spliff and went for another cup of water, but took some of the next drug cigarette, and the next.

There was much talk and laughter, and at one point I found myself trying to explain to Roadkill that in a sense everything was action at a distance and that this was the most important thing in the world, even though as I told her this I knew I was talking complete nonsense. I told her this too and she just laughed. Some people I didn't know came in and Boz went through to the kitchen with them. When I went there for more water later on I saw him sitting at the table using a knife and a pair of scales to measure out small pieces of black stuff which he then wrapped and gave to the strangers. Boz smiled at me. I felt a little faint at the time so I just smiled back and went through to the living room again. I surmised, in a sort of hazy, dissociated way, that Boz must be cutting up weights to be distributed to small businesses in the area so that their scales were all properly calibrated.

To my shame it was at least a good quarter-hour before I saw Declan rolling another joint with the same black stuff - made crumbly by having been heated with a cigarette lighter - and realised what Boz was actually doing; this led me into a fit of the giggles so intense that at one point I almost lost control of my bladder. Once I had calmed down I explained the cause of my confusion to the others, whereupon several of them started laughing too, causing me to relapse into hysteria.

A little later I dried my eyes, excused myself and bade them all goodnight. I negotiated my way carefully and deliberately to my lofty boudoir, taking great care always to have three points of contact as I climbed the ladder, and - leaving the loft trap-door open to light my way - taking equal care to tread only on the doors providing the loft's flooring, and even more extra special care when, having partially disrobed, I swung myself into my hammock.

My head was spinning, the loft-space was spinning, and I had the distinct impression that they were in contra-rotation to each other. I closed my eyes but this only made the sensation worse. I thought it not impossible that with my senses so unusually disrupted I might be able to open my soul to God and so receive Their word, but not until I could both stop the room spinning and prevent occasional after-shocks of giggles afflicting my body.

I took several deep breaths and tried to compose myself by thinking of our family history, a subject which requires considerable concentration and an alert, retentive and - some might argue - an open mind.

Salvador Whit and Aasni Whit née Asis begat two daughters, Brigit and Rhea, and a son, Christopher, who was Salvador's first boy-child and born on the 29th of February 1952, and so was known as the Elect of God, and given a long, impressive name which ended in the Roman numerals II because he was a second-generation Leapyearian. Salvador Whit and Zhobelia Whit née Asis begat two daughters, Calli and Astar, and a son, Mohammed.

Christopher Whit and Alice Whit née Cristofiori begat a son, Allan, and a daughter, Isis, who was born on the 29th of February 1976, and whose name was suffixed with the numerals III because she was a third-generation Leapyearian. Brigit and anon begat a daughter, Morag, but Brigit later became apostate and moved to Idaho in the United States of America and reputedly is to this day without further issue. Rhea became apostate early on, allegedly married an insurance salesman and moved to Basingstoke in England and we know of no children from her loins. Mohammed lives in Yorkshire in England and is childless. Calli and James Tillemont begat a daughter, Cassiopeia, a son, Paul, and another daughter, Hagar. Astar and Malcolm Redpath begat two sons, Hymen and Indra, and Malcolm Redpath and Matilda Blohm begat a son, Zebediah, and Astar and Johann Meitner begat a son, Pan.

Erin Peniakov and Salvador Whit begat a son, Topee, and possibly a daughter, Iris. Jessica Burrman and Salvador Whit probably begat a daughter, Helen. Fiona Galland and Salvador Whit probably begat a daughter, Heather. Gay Sumner and Salvador Whit may have begat a daughter, Clio.

After that it gets complicated.

The room was still spinning.

I imagined I was in a porcelain-hulled boat, drifting silently upstream to the Pendicles of Collymoon with my cousin Morag at my side; she was slowly bowing the throaty, many-voiced baryton and somehow that was our means of propulsion; I was floating in a silvery spaceship, its rocket tubes like organ pipes; I was lying under the Deivoxiphone listening to the Voice of God but we had a crossed line and all I could hear was opera; I lay on the floor in Sophi's room in the little turreted house across the half-ruined bridge, talking about playing the organ in the cathedral while she lay on the bed, leafing through magazines, but my words were coming out of my mouth as literal bubbles with little fat naked men and women in them, performing strange and unlikely sexual acts in each one; I sat at the Flentrop organ, but the keys just snarled at me and became a piano with the top down and locked and all I could hear was the sound of a dwarf running up and down inside, stamping out some stupid, monotonous tune, and swearing loudly but muffledly; I lay in the moonlit clouds of my Grandfather's beard, listening to the clustered stars sing overhead; the northern lights curved and twisted in great shawls of ghostly luminescence, like the flapping sails of some vast craft fit to sail between the galaxies.

I wondered hazily if this might be the start of a vision. It had been my ambition to start having visions and so to take over from my Grandfather and follow in his footsteps, as it were. But - despite a few promisingly unsettling sensations I had experienced over the years - I had never been privileged with such a visitation. My Grandfather had told me that there were different ways to hear the Voice of God; one could calm oneself, prepare one's mind, meditate and relax and eventually know what it was God had said to one - the way everybody else in our Order did - or one could - as he had, in the past at any rate - just suddenly find oneself dumped willy-nilly, effectively at random, into one of those fit-like visions over which he seemed to have no control. But that was God speaking to him too, so if what I was experiencing now was the start of a vision, I reasoned, then perhaps my attempt this evening had worked after all, albeit not quite as I had anticipated.

'Howyi, Isis; you all right there?' said a voice nearby, making me start. I must have closed my eyes. I opened them again. I had no idea how much time had passed.

There was somebody standing by the side of my hammock, a tall shadowy shape looking down at me. I'd recognised his voice. 'Declan,' I said, focusing with some difficulty. What was it he had asked? Then I remembered. 'Yes, I'm fine,' I said. 'How are you?'

'Ah, I just thought you might be feelin' a bit strange, you know?'

'Yes. No; I'm all right.'

'Right,' he said. He stood there for a moment, just visible in the light from the loft trap-door. 'You sure, now?' he asked, putting his hand out to my forehead and running his fingers through my hair. He stroked the back of my head. 'Ah, Jayzus, Isis; you're a beautiful kid, ye know that?'

'Really?' I said, which was probably the wrong thing.

'Chroist, yes . Anyone ever tell you you look like Dolores O'Riordan?' he said, bending closer.

'Who?'

'The Cranberries.'

'Who?' I repeated, confused. Actually his hand was producing quite a pleasant sensation at the back of my head, but I knew that, as a man, Declan would be unlikely to regard that as an end in itself.

'Ye mean ye've never heard of the Cranberries?' He laughed gently, bringing his face nearer to mine. 'By God, ye have led a sheltered life, haven't you?'