Iain Banks - Whit

There is an afterlife, and our Faith's ideas on that too have evolved over the years. Originally, incorporating the idea of Heaven and Hell, it was fairly conventional and recognisably Christian in inspiration. However, as Grandfather has tuned in more and more accurately to what God is saying, the afterlife, in the shape of the all-absorbing Godhead, has become more complicated and more sophisticated. Indeed it might almost be more true to say that what we live in is the pre-life; a sort of minor overture to the grandly symphonic opera that follows; a scrawny solo before the richly glorious massed choir. Most religions have some sort of angle on the truth in this regard, but I think it obvious that Luskentyrianism, with elements of almost all of them, decisively out-does the lot.

I did not enjoy my flight from London to Edinburgh, which was the first I had ever made. For one thing, I did not feel well, and the various movements and changes of pressure involved in flight seemed almost designed to introduce a reeling of discomfort even without the effects of far too much alcohol the night before. In addition, though, there are various mistakes and errors of practice and etiquette one can make when travelling by aircraft, and I think I made all of them.

Grandmother Yolanda found my gaffs most amusing; the business-suited fellow sitting to my other side was less impressed. My first mistake was to tell him - in a spirit of vigilant and caring friendliness and general camaraderie - to study his safety instructions when the conductress told him to; he looked at me as if I was quite mad. My final mistake - on the plane itself, anyway - was a result of trying to show off (how often is that the case!).

The cup of tea I asked for after my miniaturised meal was a little hot, and I'd noticed that above each seat was a small swivelling nozzle which dispensed cold air. I decided to redeem myself in the eyes of the businessman at my side by using the stream of air to lower the temperature of my tea. This was a fine idea in theory and would undoubtably have worked perfectly well if I hadn't ostentatiously held my cup right up to the nozzle and twisted it fully on, producing a fierce and highly directed pulse of air which displaced the tea in the cup and showered it over the businessman and the person in the seat behind him. Yolanda found the whole episode quite hilarious, and even stopped complaining about the lack of First Class for a few moments.

Yolanda's good mood evaporated rapidly when we got to Edinburgh Airport and she couldn't remember where she'd left her hire car.

'Thought it'd be quicker just leaving it here instead of turning it in and having to hire another one,' she said, stamping down another row of cars.

I followed, pushing a trolley. 'What sort of car was it?' I asked. Not that it would make much difference to me; cars are cars.

'Don't know,' Yolanda said. 'Small. Well, smallish.'

'Doesn't the car key tell you something?'

'I left the keys inside the exhaust pipe,' she said, with a hint of embarrassment. 'Saves carrying zillions of keys around.'

I'd noticed that some cars had stickers in the back window identifying hire companies.

'Can you remember what company it belonged to?'

'No.'

'They've got these letters on posts all over the car park; was it near- ?'

'Can't remember. I was in a hurry.'

'What colour was the car?'

'Red. No; blue…. Shit.' Yolanda looked frustrated.

'Can you remember what cars it was parked between?'

'Get real, Isis.'

'Oh. Yes, I suppose they might have moved. But maybe they're still here!'

'Range Rover. One was a Range Rover. One of those tall things.'

We checked all the Range Rovers in the car park before Yolanda thought to check her credit card slips. There was no sign of a car hire from Glasgow Airport.

'Probably left it in the car,' she admitted. '… Oh, the hell with this. Let's hire another one.'

'What about the one that's here?'

'Fuck it. They'll find it eventually.'

'Won't you get charged?'

'Let them sue. That's what lawyers are for.'

If our Faith had a Golden Age it was probably between the years 1955 to 1979; that was when our Order grew from just a few people, many of them related in one way or another, to a fully functioning religion with a complete theology, an established base (indeed, two established bases, the original at Mr McIlone's farm at Luskentyre and the new one at High Easter Offerance), a settled succession of Leapyearians - through my father, Christopher, and then myself - and a steadily growing number of converts, some of whom came to stay and work at the Community and some of whom were happier in the outside world, though remaining committed to the Order and pledged both to come to its aid if required and to act as our missionaries to the Unsaved.

Then, in 1979, two disasters befell us, one affecting each of our two spiritual and physical homes. On Harris in April, Mr Eoin McIlone died. To our astonishment - and it has to be said, to our Founder's fury - he died intestate, and his farm was inherited by an Unsaved: Mr McIlone's vile step-brother from the town of Banff, who was interested only in selling the place as quickly as possible and making as much money as he could. He had no sympathy with our Faith, and as soon as he took possession of the property he turned out the Brothers and Sisters who lived and worked there. Some of those people had been there for thirty years, working the land and maintaining the fabric of the buildings, putting three decades of sweat and toil into the place for no more reward than a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, but they were ejected without a thought, without as much as a Thank you or a By-your-leave, as though they were criminals. We were told that Mr McIlone's step-brother went to church every Sunday, but by God there was little Christian charity in the man. If his Hell was true he'd rot in it.

Of the five Brothers and Sisters who were living at Luskentyre when Mr McIlone passed on, two came to us at the Community, one stayed in the islands to work on another farm, one remained there to fish, and one returned to her original family in England. Our world was suddenly smaller, and for all that High Easter Offerance was a fine, productive place, and far more balmily easeful than Luskentyre, still we felt, I think, the loss of our original home as though we had lost an old friend. Of course, I was barely three when this happened and can remember little or nothing of the time, but I'm sure I must have been affected by the mood of the people around me and surely joined in the mourning in my own childish way.

Luskentyre remained and remains a holy place for our Order, and many of us have been on pilgrimage to the area - I myself travelled there last year, attended by Sisters Fiona and Cassie - though we are denied access to the farm itself by its current owners and must content ourselves with staying in local Bed and Breakfasts, wandering the coastline and the dunes and surveying the remnants of the ruined seaweed factory.

Our grief at losing Luskentyre proved to be only a presentiment of what was to come, however, at the other end of the year.

'I have to be in Prague tomorrow,' Yolanda said as we finally made the motorway that would take us to within a few miles of High Easter Offerance. 'Sure you don't want to come?'

'Grandma, apart from anything else, I don't have a passport.'

'Shame. You should get one. I'll get you one.'

'I think it causes problems when we apply for passports.'

'I'll bet. What do you expect from a country where they not only won't let you bring a gun into the country but won't even let you buy one when you get here?' She shook her head.