Iain Banks - Whit

I could hear singing and the sound of a guitar coming from behind me, and childish laughter, far away, quickly gone.

A wind rustled the tops of the trees. I walked down the path, not sure where I was really going or what I was meaning to do. The path was dark under the rustling trees; over the river it was a little lighter again, and the old bridge looked deceptively solid and whole, bowed over the dark waters. Beyond, a sliver of yellow electric light came from a curtained window of the Woodbeans' little turreted house.

I made my way to the middle of the bridge and then stepped gingerly across the holed timbers to its downstream edge. I stood at the centre there, just behind the rusted iron shield that held the indecipherable coat of arms, facing east. I put up my arms and held onto the rough, gritty-feeling surfaces of two girders, and watched the river. It seemed solid and unmoving in the darkness, only the occasional muffled gurgle betraying its slow, untroubled current. After a while I thought I could make out the faintest of watery shadows on the waters, as the moon shone through the bridge in the increasing gloom. I could see it only when I looked away, and when I tried to see myself in that shadow - waving one arm slowly over my head - could not.

An owl hooted in the trees around the driveway and a car's engine sounded in the distance, the note faintly rising and falling as it passed unseen on the road. A couple of tiny, quick shapes flitted under the bridge, barely glimpsed, and must have been bats.

'Oh God,' I whispered. 'Help me.'

I closed my eyes and stood there in the darkness, listening with my soul, trying to call up the clear, calm voice of the Creator, abandoning myself to the silence so that I might hear Them. I heard: the river, like darkness liquefied, beneath me as it flowed; the owl, soft and distant and mysterious, a cry of hunting that sounded like longing; the susurrus of air shivering the branches, twigs and leaves; the far-away grumble of engine noise, dying on the wind. I heard my own heart beat, twin-pulsed: Is-is, Is-is, Is-is…

Images came, snatches of conversation, crowding, jostling their way to the front of my mind; Grandfather's body, Grandfather's voice. I shook my head slowly, heavily. My thoughts were still too noisy, drowning out anything else; I felt that God was there, that They were listening to me, but I could not hear Them. For all that there was quietness and peace around me - the slow river, the hushing breeze - there was a furious torrent and a shrieking gale in my mind, and I would hear no word of God until they abated.

I stepped carefully back to the wooden pathway that zig-zagged over the bridge's corrupted timbers and walked on to the drive in front of the Woodbeans' house. I looked up at the thin, toy-like house with its single small, cone-roofed turret. The light I had seen earlier came from the sitting room downstairs. I walked up to the door and knocked. I still didn't know whether I was going to try to contact Grandmother Yolanda or not.

Sophi opened the door, surrounded by light, holding a book, her long fawn hair spilling over her shoulders.

'Is!' she said, smiling. 'Hi. I heard you were… Are you all right?'

I could not speak; I tried to but I could not. Instead I started to cry again; soundlessly, hopelessly, helplessly. She pulled me to her, across that threshold, dropping the book from her hand and taking me in her arms.

'Isis, Isis, Isis!' she whispered.

Bonny, braw and big-boned, Sophi is my comfort and has been so for almost four years. One day, I know, she will find the good, kind man she yearns for and go off with him to be wifely and have babies. We shall be no more after that, and I hope that I am wise enough to accept this and make the most of the friendship we do have, for as long as we have it. I have asked myself if I love Sophi and I think the answer is yes, though it is genuinely the love of a sister, not a lover. I have asked her if she loves me and she has said she does, with all her heart, but it is a big heart, I think, and there will always be a place for others within it. Perhaps I'll never entirely vanish from that place, but I know that my position there will one day be overwhelmed by that good, kind man. I hope not to be jealous. I hope she finds him, but I hope she finds him later rather than sooner.

Mr Woodbean was out that night. I lay in Sophi's arms, on the couch in the sitting room, her blouse wet from my tears, her long hair curled across her breast, her blue-jeaned legs entwined with mine. Sophi has hair the colour of fresh straw. Her eyes are blue with brown flecks, like ocean worlds with islands scattered. She stroked my head, calmly and slowly, the way I imagined a mother would.

I had sobbed into her shoulder for a while after she had brought me into the sitting room, then she had sat me down on the couch and I had pulled myself together enough to tell her about my trip and my adventures - that alone had calmed me, and we even laughed a few times - then I'd come to the events of this evening, and I had broken down once more, throwing the story up as if it was sickness, spitting and hacking it out between great coughing sobs, until all that bile was finally out of me and I could wash it all away with tears.

'Oh, Isis,' she breathed when I was done. 'Are you sure you're all right?'

'Oh, far from it,' I said, sniffing. She handed me another tissue from the box she'd fetched when she'd realised that my tale would involve a lot of blubbing. 'But I'm unharmed, if you mean that.'

'He didn't hurt you?'

'No.' I coughed, then cleared my throat. I dried my eyes with the tissue. 'Except I feel like I've been… eviscerated, like everything's been pulled out of me, like there's just a huge space inside me where there used to be…' I shook my head. 'Everything. My life, my Faith, my family; the Community.'

'What are you going to do now?'

'I don't know. Part of me wants to go back right now and make my case before all of them; another part just wants to run away.'

'Stay here tonight, eh?' she said, raising my face to hers. She has a broad, tanned face, graced with soft brown freckles she pretends to hate.

'Is that all right?'

''Course it is,' she said, hugging me.

I laid my head on her breast again. 'He said he wouldn't see me again unless it was to confess and apologise. But I can't.'

'You better not,' she growled, with mock severity, squeezing me.

'I don't know what he'll say to the others, what he'll tell them. I want to believe he'll come to his senses, realise that whatever he thought he heard was a false signal, that he will repent, and ask my forgiveness; that… Oh, Sophi; I don't know,' I said, lifting my head and staring into her eyes. 'Could he have put the vial in my bag, meaning to lead to this? Was that his purpose all along? I can't believe that, but what else is there? Is there a Devil, after all, and it's in him?'

'You're the theologian,' she said. 'Don't ask me. I think he's just a dirty old man.'

'But he's our Founder!' I protested, sitting up and taking her hands in mine. 'He's done everything for us; revealed so much truth, brought us the light. I still believe that. I still believe in our Faith. I still believe in him. I just can't believe this is really him; it is like he's possessed.'

'He's old though, Isis,' Sophi said softly. 'Maybe he's frightened of dying.'

'What?' I exclaimed. 'But he will be in Glory! An adventure awaits him on the other side that will make all this life look a small, insipid, selfish thing. Death holds no fear for us!'

'Even holy people have doubts,' Sophi said, squeezing my hand. 'Don't you ever wonder if you've got it wrong?'

'No!' I said. 'Well, yes, but only because we are told to think of such things by the Orthography ; we must have faith, but not blind faith. But such theoretical doubt only strengthens our belief. How can Salvador himself really doubt what he's created?'