Iain Banks - Whit

'… told you, she's obsessed,' I heard Allan say. Then, 'I know, I know … Why, have you had any more letters? … No, no, she doesn't, ah… didn't find out. No, you're all right there… Well, I don't know how, but she, ah, she didn't… well, she didn't say anything. No, wouldn't be like her… I don't know… You did? Yes, so did that old bat Yolanda… Yes, she brought her back.'

He was talking on a telephone! It took me that long to work it out; it was such an unthinkable thing, to have a telephone in the Community, and here, right at its heart! He had one of those portable wireless telephones; that was what he had taken out of the drawer in the desk! He was talking to somebody on it! The deception of the man! And to think I had felt bad, felt like a sinner, dammit, for making a couple of calls from a telephone box in Gittering! For shame, brother! I had half a mind to burst in on him and denounce him to his face, but luckily that particular rush of blood to the head didn't last very long.

'… Well, not for long,' Allan said. 'I asked Uncle Mo to come up here; looks like we've persuaded her to take a holiday with him.'

So Mo had been calling Allan. My uncle must have dialled the wrong number in his cups, having the vague idea that he was ringing the Community but getting the Woodbeans' number, not Allan's. So, did wireless phones have answering machines too? I supposed they must have, or could link into one somewhere else. Perhaps that accounted for the few minutes of silence when Allan had first entered the storeroom; he had been taking his messages. Well, of course; he couldn't be seen with the phone, couldn't carry it around and have it ringing while he was amongst us.

'… Spayedthwaite; oop north,' Allan said, putting on a funny accent. '… Tomorrow, with any luck. Why, what were you…?… Really?… Flumes?… Well, it's not Spain, I suppose, but…'

Spain? Hadn't Morag been due to go there with Mr Leopold, her agent/manager? Good grief! Was he talking to Morag ? Then why -? I abandoned speculation to continue listening.

'… Oh, I see. Really. Well, everybody should have a hobby, they say…. So we might see you yet for the Festival?… It was a joke. I dare say she will, too…. Oh, getting crazier; latest thing was she had a private audience with the old man and offered herself to him; tried to get him to screw her. Can you believe that?'

What ? I felt my mouth fall open as I stared at the door, black in front of my face, unable to believe what I was hearing. What was I being accused of now? Attempting to seduce my Grandfather when in fact he had practically tried to rape me? If I had felt there was ice in my veins a few minutes earlier, I could believe it was superheated steam now. The treachery of it! The calumny! The mendacity! This was… this was evil .

'… I know, I know,' Allan said. '… Well, of course nobody else was there , Morag, but I believe Grandfather, don't you?… Well, quite…. Yes…. I don't…… No. No idea…. Yes, me too. Sorry about the lateness of the hour…. What?… No, I don't suppose it is, really, not for you, but it is for us. Well, I'll say…'

I'd heard enough. I wasn't quite so sure of my route back to the curtains as I had been from them to the door but I got there without bumping into anything. I slipped back behind them again and adjusted the gap until it was the same as it had been before.

The storeroom door opened and Allan reappeared with the paraffin lamp and the little portable telephone; different centuries in each hand. He put the phone back in the drawer of the main desk, locked it and - apart from one sniff at the air, which seemed to satisfy him - left the office without further ado. I heard the key turn in the lock and listened to his footsteps fade as he climbed the stairs back to his room.

I stood for a while, trembling as though cold.

So, my brother was spreading lies about me to Morag. I had the distinct impression that they were not the first, either. And how long had he been able to call her? Why had I been sent to find her at all? Why had he made no mention of her apostasy? The world seem to tip around me again, out of kilter, out of joint, out of its head.

I stepped out from the curtains with a strange feeling of numbness. I made faces of disbelief into the darkness. Had I really heard what I had just heard? I shook my head. Here, now, was no place to stand wondering what was going on.

I pulled myself together as best I could and relit my candle - waving the match's cloud of smoke away with one hand - then returned to the typing desk by the door.

The piece of paper I was looking for was in a folder in the deepest drawer. I noted down the numbers for Morag in a kind of insensible daze, my mind still reeling with shock at what I'd heard. I almost put the sheet of paper back in its folder straight away, and on such a trifle, at that moment, did the whole fate and future course of our Faith potentially hang.

Instead of putting the paper away, then, I looked at the other names and addresses.

And saw that there was an entry for Great-aunt Zhobelia, whom we had always been told had gone off to find - and perhaps effect a reconciliation with - her original family and then effectively disappeared. Great-aunt Zhobelia whom Grandmother Yolanda was convinced had once hinted at… something. Something for sure, she'd said. By God, I would welcome anything sure in my world, just now. There was no actual address for Zhobelia, just a note that said she was 'Care of Unc. Mo'.

I looked at it, transfixed. Now what?

I half expected to find full addresses and telephone numbers for Aunt Rhea,. or even Salvador's original family, but there were no more surprises. I looked through a few other folders and riffled through all the loose papers, in case there were any more revelations, but I think my courage was running out at that point; my hands were shaking. I put the desk back as I'd found it and lifted the candle carefully this time.

I stopped at Allan's desk and tried its drawers, but they were all locked, and I couldn't find a key anywhere; I strongly suspected that the only key was the one hanging round his neck. My teeth were starting to chatter, though I wasn't cold. The mantelpiece clock said the time was half past midnight. I decided it was time to retreat. I considered keeping the candle aflame when I went back through the storeroom, but I really did feel I had entirely used up my quota of good fortune for the night, and it would be just my luck for there to be a Luskentyrian or two wandering around out there in the formal garden or beyond, so I blew out the candle.

I forgot to walk backwards through the storeroom and banged a shin so hard I swear I actually saw lights -1 think it was because I closed my eyes so hard; it was that or cry out. Doubled-up, limping and rubbing my shin, I got to the window, muttering quiet but vehement curses under my breath. It was only as I was climbing out of the opened window and saw starlight reflected in the pond on the ground below that it occurred to me that this was probably the window I had been thrown out of by my father on the night of the fire, sixteen years earlier.

Suddenly realising that, I experienced a second of dizziness as I straddled the opened sash-window, and for a moment I was terrified that I was about to totter and fall; certainly I was quite far enough above the ground to break my neck if I did. The moment passed, but my tattered nerves, already stretched to their limit, could have done without the scare. I started to tremble again.

Perhaps because I was shaking so much, getting down to the ground proved more difficult than climbing up had been, and I hung on my fingertips for a good half-minute desperately trying to fit the welt of my boots into a crack, but I made my way down eventually and got back as far as the orchard wall before I came up with an idea.