Iain Banks - Whit

I nodded and touched my hat. 'Okay. Thanks for the paper,' I said.

I walked away to jeers and sudden laughter. The banana went sailing over my head and landed at the feet of Boz and Zeb, who were standing ten metres away at a street corner, looking distinctly anxious.

'I-sis,' Boz said once we were out of sight. 'You got to stop doin' that sorta thing. I think I walk behind you from now on; you always turnin' back into danger. Those guys are more dangerous than that damn Baskerville dog.'

'Hmm,' I said.

'Jeez. Fuck. Christ. Shit. God…'

'… Language, Brother Zebediah,' I said absently, leafing through the newspaper as we walked. '… Good grief!'

We ate lunch in a pub. I read the paper, half-page by half-page, keeping it tightly folded at Boz's request so that it was hard to tell from any distance what I was reading. I asked a few questions of Zeb and Boz regarding what I was reading, and can only assume they answered truthfully.

We spent half an hour or so eating lunch (I stood leaning against a wooden partition while Boz and Zeb sat). The sandwich I ate looked attractive but was damp and almost totally lacking in flavour. I drank a pint of beer which tasted rather of chemicals, and may also have led to what happened next.

'They prob'ly gone from there by now,' Boz said confidently. We were approaching the corner where he and Zeb had waited for me while I'd talked to the four young men. I looked in a shop window and saw their black-green reflections; they were just where we'd encountered them earlier.

'Yes, I'm sure they have,' I said, slowing and looking round. We were passing an interesting-looking shop called a Delicatessen. 'Boz,' I said brightly, halting and causing the other two to stop. 'I would like to contribute to the meal this evening. Unfortunately I am not allowed to enter retail premises; would you mind going into this shop here and purchasing an ingredient or two?'

'No problem, I-sis; what you want?'

'I have some money,' I said, pulling out a couple of one-pound notes.

Boz looked at the notes and laughed. 'I'll stand you it, I-sis. Just tell me what you wantin'.'

'Some fresh coriander, please,' I said.

'Comin' right up.'

Boz disappeared into the shop. I handed the two one-pound notes to Zeb. 'There was a toy shop back there,' I said. 'Could you get me a couple of water pistols?'

Zeb looked blank, an expression that I confess I thought suited him. 'Please,' I said. 'They're a present.'

Zeb walked back to the toy shop, still looking blank. Boz reappeared from the Delicatessen shop. 'Oh,' I said, touching my forehead. 'And a couple of bottles of that red pepper sauce; what's it called?'

'Tabasco?' Boz said, handing me the clump of fresh coriander. I stuffed it in a pocket and nodded. 'That's it.'

Boz grinned. 'That's strong stuff, I-sis. You sure you need two bottles?'

I considered. 'No,' I said. 'Make it four.'

I approached the group of shiny-green-jacketed men. They formed a line in front of me. I walked with my head bowed and my hands pressed in front of me in a gesture of supplication.

The fascists towered in front of me; a wall of crew-cut, black denim and green shiningness plinthed by bulbous brown leather boots. I bowed my head further and let my hands drop to my sides. I hoped my pockets weren't dripping.

'Sirs,' I said, smiling. 'I have read your publication. I have read of your hatred and despite of people different from you…'

'Yeah?'

'Fuck, really?'

'Despite wot?'

'You just don't fuckin' listen, do you?'

'… And I would like you to know that I feel exactly the same way as you do.'

'Wot?'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yes; I feel exactly the same way about people like you.'

'What- ?'

'Right-'

'God, forgive me,' I muttered, taking the little water pistols from my jacket pockets, one in each hand, and firing them in the faces of the green-jacketed men, straight into their eyes.

'Somerset,' Boz said, on the train into Liverpool Street.

'Apparently,' I confirmed, still carefully cleaning the watery red liquid off my hands with damp toilet paper. I had been thinking, trying to work out what Morag could have meant by talking about me bothering her. I still had no idea. It was troubling. 'I shall leave tomorrow,' I told Boz and Zeb.

Zeb stood with his arms crossed, staring at me. 'Mad.'

Boz kissed me hard on the lips when we got into the squat. 'Don't mean nuthin' by it, you understand, I-sis,' he said, still holding my shoulders. We looked at each other for a moment or two 'But,' he said. '… well…' He patted me on one shoulder and walked off.

'Mad.' Zeb stood there in the hall, shaking his head. He grinned. 'Tough,' he said.

'Cookie,' I agreed, and patted Zeb on the shoulder, as though passing it on.

I think it was my friend Mr Warriston of Dunblane who observed that the ridicule of fools is the surest sign of genius, and the scorn of political or religious leaders one of the least ambiguous signals that the object of their venom is espousing something threateningly close to the truth.

To this I would only add that as most of us are only too willing to define a fool precisely as a person who disagrees with us, a degree of self-fulfilment is inevitably introduced to the process which - while smacking of a kind of facile elegance - robs the observation of much of its utility.

Either way, it has always seemed to me that the average person has no difficulty weighing their own desires, prejudices and bigotries against the totality of the world's most sophisticated philosophies and every moral lesson such systems have ever given rise to, and judging their selfishness to be the more worthy of action.

As a Luskentyrian, of course, I am far from being an average person, and as a third-generation Leapyearian (indeed, the only one), I have privilege heaped upon exclusivity, with all the responsibility and freight of consideration that entails. Perhaps, therefore, it is not really my place to judge my fellows too harshly when what we share is debatably of less importance than that which divides and distinguishes us, which made me no better than the four men I'd left on their knees wheezing and cursing outside the station the previous day. Nevertheless, whether it was good for my soul or not, I was still relishing the memory the following morning while I stood at a motorway on-ramp in Gunnersbury, being occasionally jeered at from passing cars and vans - perhaps on account of my gender, perhaps due to my hat - and, as a rule, insulted by the drivers whose offers of a lift I declined because their automobiles seemed somehow too Blandly conventional.

This was part of my strategy for shaking the faith-corroding influence of the big city off my feet. I had grown too used to the electric light of the squat (which had confused me, once I'd stopped to think about it, but had been explained to me as simply the result of the electricity company not caring whether the building was legally occupied or not as long as the bills were paid). I had considered taking more of the cannabis cigarettes last night while Boz - with backing in mono by Zeb - detailed my exploits of the day to the others and I glowed with pride in spite of myself, regardless of an outward show of modesty. In the end I had not indulged.

I had a word with Zeb, telling him that I thought it best that I continued to search for Morag in the hope that my mission might be successful before I - or anybody else - reported back the bad news concerning our cousin's double life. Zeb did not demur. Then I had said my goodnights and goodbyes at a still respectable hour and gone to my hammock, pleased at not having given in to temptation. Next morning, however, I had found myself thinking about hopping on a bus or taking a tube, while I walked from Kilburn to here in the breaking dawn. Again, I had resisted, but all these urges and hankerings were signs that I was becoming infected with the thoughts and habits of the Unsaved.