Iain Banks - Whit

I heard a door close and then the sound of footsteps behind me as I got to the gateway. I looked back and saw Allan appear from the mansion house and hurry across the courtyard to the farm.

'So, Isis, it seemed to me that, all things being as they are, and with your best interests to heart, you might wish to come with me to stay in Spayedthwaite, just for a while. What do you think?'

'Hmm.' I crossed my legs and clasped my hands. We were in the office again, Allan, Erin, Uncle Mo and I. It was late, and the lamps were burning. I had been called here from my room by Sister Bernadette.

'Obviously you might want to think about this,' Allan said. 'But if you did want to take up Uncle Mo's offer, well, you could always return at any time. I'm sure we can stretch to a return ticket,' he smiled.

'Yes, I see,' I said.

I was only making the pretence of thinking about this. I'd guessed why Uncle Mo was here, conjectured upon what might be suggested, thought about what I ought to do and so already knew what I was going to say.

'There is a friend of mine in Spayedthwaite who has a theatre,' Uncle Mo said.

'Really?' I said. 'A theatre?'

'Indeed; a theatre,' Uncle Mo said. 'Well, it became a cinema, later.'

'Ah.'

'Mostly it is used for the playing of bingo, nowadays. Well, entirely, actually,' Uncle Mo admitted, but then brightened. 'However, it has an organ. A very splendid one, I might say, which rises from the beneath of the screen. I have heard that you are interested in playing the organ, Isis.'

I forbore to make any smart remarks about Morag, and just smiled and said, 'Hmm,' again.

Apparently thinking that he hadn't thrown enough organs into the battle to convince me to accompany him home, Uncle Mo snapped his fingers and hoisted his eyebrows dramatically. 'I have another friend, a colleague, who also has an organ, in his home!' he said.

'Really?' I asked.

'Yes; it is free-standing, and has two keyboards.'

'Two? Good heavens.'

'Indeed.'

'Perhaps Isis would rather stay here,' Erin suggested, patting her bunned hair, as though a single filament would have dared stray.

'Well,' said Allan reasonably, 'yes, she could. Of course. Of course.' He tented his fingers, brought his forefingers up to his mouth and tapped them against his lips, nodding. 'Certainly.'

I had learned to appreciate the finer side of Allan's phrasing and body language many years before, and had rarely if ever heard him say No quite so decisively. It suddenly struck me that my brother could probably say Hello with a note of finality.

'That is true,' he said, holding out one hand to Erin. 'On the other hand,' he said, holding his other hand out flat in balance. 'Salvador does seem… rather upset with Is. To the point of not wanting to see her, sad to say,' he said, looking at me sympathetically. 'Now, with him staying in his quarters so much of the time, this need not be such a terrible obstacle, but obviously when he does want to do something like lead a meeting or come along to break bread with us, there is a problem, and we have to ask Is to stay away, and he's aware that we have asked her to stay away, and that… distresses him by itself. Similarly, he may even feel slightly trapped, one might say, in his quarters, as he doesn't want to leave on the off chance he might bump into Is, and so that too keeps what's happened at the front of his mind a lot of the time… Obviously,' - another look at me - 'not a good thing. So…' Allan tented his fingers again and studied the ceiling. '… So there does certainly exist an argument that the best thing to do would be for Isis to depart briefly and let Salvador relax a little, maybe get this whole sorry thing sorted out, certainly let him think and, let us be frank,' - he looked from Erin to me and back - 'let us work on him, so that perhaps we can, well, finally get this… sorted out,' he said and coughed, as though using the sound as a way of covering up the repetition.

'I see,' I said.

'And it would be a holiday, as well!' Uncle Mo put in.

'Well, of course,' I said, agreeably.

'Still,' Erin said. 'Sister Isis has only just come back from her travels. Perhaps she is tired.' She smiled at me.

'Not in the least,' I said.

'Well, then,' Uncle Mo said, as though it was therefore all settled.

I nodded. 'Well, I can see it might be a good idea to go away for a while, but I'd like to think about it.'

Allan nodded. 'Good idea; sleep on it.'

'Jolly good!' Uncle Mo said.

Erin glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece behind Allan's desk. 'Well, it's late,' she said.

We all agreed it was late, and time for bed. As we left the room I took another look at the desk by the door where I'd seen the list of names and addresses earlier, but the desk had been tidied and was bare of paper,

After we'd all left the study, Allan locked the door behind us.

I lay in my hammock in my room in the farmhouse, my mouth dry, my hands sweating and my heart thumping. I had waited in a state of increasing dread and excitement for what I hoped was about two hours, but now I had to act, and I felt as nervous as I think I've ever felt in my life.

'God,' I whispered into the darkness. 'Forgive me and help me in what I'm going to do.'

I still had not heard the Voice. I knew that God was still there, still talking - or at least able to talk - to me if only I could calm my troubled soul. I was not sure there was any point in asking God for help - They do not tend to interfere at such a level of events - but if it kept Them trying to talk to me, perhaps I would hear something that might help me over the course of the next hour or so. It could do no harm.

My Grandfather once compared the Voice of God speaking to a human soul to the reflection of the moon on water; if the water is perfectly calm, the moon is seen clearly, undistorted. If the waters of the soul are slightly disturbed, the moon will still be visible and recognisable, but it will seem to move and shiver and it may not be possible to make out any features upon it. If the waters of the soul are in torment, tossing stormily about, then the moon's single bright face will be broken into a million sparkling points of light, casting up a meaningless clutter of scattered light which an observer might not even be able to identify as moonlight.

Well, the surface of my soul just then was riven and agitated indeed, and I should not have been surprised that I could not detect the Voice. Still, I felt the loss keenly, and one petulant, childish part of me interpreted it as just another abandonment. I sighed.

'Here goes,' I whispered (though not, this time, really to the Creator), and got up.

I dressed, used my penknife to cut an inch of candle, then pocketed the knife, the stub of candle and a box of matches. I had a pencil and a sheet of paper in another pocket. I put on an old flat cap I hadn't worn since I was about fourteen - it was slightly too small for me but that meant it wasn't likely to fall off, and it did cover my fair hair quite effectively. I put my ear to the door, listening, but could hear nobody about. I left the room and went to the toilet; I had meant to, using the noise of the flush to cover my footsteps heading further along the corridor, but in the event I would have had to have gone anyway, so affected by my trepidation had my entire system become.

I knew from long experience where each and every loose floorboard was along the corridor, and could avoid them easily even in the total darkness. On the stairs I hugged the sides of the steps, and near the bottom - to avoid five noisy stairs without the noise created by jumping - I slid down the banister rail. The farm's back door is in the old kitchen, now used as a washroom; it has the quietest door. I closed it gently behind me, and was out into the cool night and the smell of freshly moist foliage, the south-facing greenhouse to one side. The sky was three-quarters clouded and the wind smelled damp, but the rain held off.