Iain Banks - Whit

I had returned to my own room after my phone call to Morag from the Woodbeans'; I had already decided I would be departing for somewhere in the morning and, tempted though I was to stay again with Sophi, I felt it appropriate and fitting to spend a night - at last - in my own old hammock in my own room in the Community, after so long away from it.

It had taken a good hour for my feverish thoughts to subside sufficiently to let me sleep, but I awoke at my usual time, dressed, packed and went down to the kitchen, where I informed a bleary-eyed Uncle Mo that I would be coming with him to Spayedthwaite. The atmosphere in the kitchen became glacial the moment I entered; much worse than the day before. When I made my announcement to Uncle Mo in the sudden silence, there was a muttered 'Good riddance' from somebody at the far end of the table, and no voice raised in my support.

I knew then that all my politicking yesterday had been in vain, and the scurrilous lie about the attempted seduction of Grandfather had already been disseminated.

I made to leave, but stopped at the door and looked back in at them.

'You have been deceived in this,' I told them. 'Wickedly deceived.' I was able to keep my voice low; the kitchen had probably never held such numbers and such silence at the same time. I was unable to keep the sadness and the hurt from my voice. 'With God's help I will prove this to you one day and reclaim your good regard.' I hesitated, unsure what more to say, and aware that the longer I stood there the greater became the possibility that somebody - perhaps the one who had wished me good riddance - would rob me of my chance to say my piece. '… I love all of you,' I blurted, and closed the door and walked quickly away across the courtyard, a strange high keening ringing in my ears, my fists clenched painfully, nails digging into my palms and my teeth clenched together so hard my nose hurt. It seemed to work; no tears came.

I ascended to the office to tell Allan I was leaving. I was given five pounds spending money; Uncle Mo would get my ticket for me. I found it surprisingly easy to look Allan in the face, though I suspect he found me cold and oddly unconcerned at leaving the Community again so soon. I should perhaps have made a show of regret or even distress, but could not bring myself to do so.

He assured me again that he would be doing all he could to help restore my reputation and my standing in the Community while I was away, and would both keep in touch and be ready to call me back on the instant that the situation improved and Grandfather's humour ameliorated. Please God that would not be long.

I just nodded and said I agreed.

Polite, restrained, dissembling, I stood there with an aspect outwardly quite banal, but in my heart, in my deepest soul, it was as though great cold stones slid grinding and grating across each other into some dreadful new configuration, like a vast lock fit to secure one continent to another, but now undoing, freeing its great ladings to the demands of their different influences, different courses, different velocities, and to the catastrophes incumbent upon their now opposed and antagonistic movements.

Within me there was now set in place a cruel desire; a will, a determination to seek the lode of truth amongst this flinty wilderness of lies and follow its path and its consequences wherever they might lead. I would seek to do no more than lay bare the truth, to mine the gold from this mountain of leaden falseness, but I would expose that vein of truth utterly and without fear, favour or qualification, and if the result of its revelation meant the destruction of my brother's reputation and his place within our Order, even if it meant the humbling of my Grandfather, then I would not shrink from it, nor hesitate to pursue this course to the very limit of my abilities, no matter what balances my actions shook or what structures my excavations threatened.

And, I decided - there and then, in the Community office in the mansion house, at the epicentre of my hours-old astonishment and wrath, with that key still hanging round my brother's neck, that locked drawer with its treacherous cargo not more than a few feet away - I would embark upon my mission sooner rather than later, before the trail or the dish grew cold, and before the results of these most recent infamies became too set in stone to suffer amendment.

My brother and I parted with an insincerity only I knew was quite mutual.

As I left the office I met Sister Amanda, coming downstairs with her and Allan's child, Mabon, in her arms. Amanda is a few years older than Allan, a slim, red-haired woman I've always been on good terms with. I said hello to her but she just hurried past me, averting her head and clutching the one-year-old to her chest as though I was a monster who might rip the infant from her arms and tear it asunder. The child looked back at me over her shoulder, his big dark eyes full of what looked like dismayed surprise. He and his mother disappeared into the office.

The bus took Uncle Mo and me into Stirling half an hour later. Brother Vitus was sent to see us off. He carried our bags and seemed monosyllabic with embarrassment or shame.

He waved back, once, perfunctorily, as the bus took us away, and I was left thinking that the contrast with the last time I had left High Easter Offerance - upon the slow rolling river in that misty dawn, with the well-wishes of all the Community sounding hushed but resonant in my ears - could not have been much greater.

I might have cried then, but there was something cold and stony and sharp in me now that seemed to have frozen all my tears.

When we got to the station at Stirling we had twenty minutes to spare before our connecting service with Edinburgh arrived, which time, Uncle Mo informed me - even allowing a couple of minutes for making our way to the appropriate platform - was exactly the decent minimum for drinking a large and comforting vodka and soda at a civilised pace, without unseemly gulping towards the end and an undignified gallop along the platform. It more or less behoved him so to do, therefore, and he wondered if I would join him in a fast-breaking drink, it being a very early hour in the morning for him, all things and current style of life considered. I accepted an orange juice and a sandwich.

Uncle Mo pronounced the vodka a particularly good one for a public bar, and knocked the drink back as if it was water. He ordered another. 'One must make hay while the sun shines, Isis,' he said as he paid the bar lady. 'Grab one's opportunities. Seize the time!' He seized the glass and sampled that vodka, too. It turned out to be equally worthy of note.

I ate my sandwich quickly, but paced my sips of the orange juice so that I finished it a couple of minutes before our train was due. Uncle Mo managed to cram in another vodka and soda before we heard the train arrive and had to quit the bar quickly to run for the train. He purchased my ticket on board. It was a single, I noticed. I mentioned this.

He looked discomfited. 'Your brother gave the money,' he said. 'He will send additional funds for a ticket back later, along with some money for your keep.'

I nodded, saying nothing.

There proved to be a trolley service on the train from Stirling to Edinburgh. Uncle Mo found this out by asking another passenger. For a while he sat fretting and turning to look back up the aisle every few moments, then he announced he was going in search of the toilet. He reappeared a few minutes later with four miniatures of gin, a larger bottle of tonic and a small can of orange. 'I bumped into the buffet trolley,' he explained, setting his supplies down on the table and passing the orange juice to me. 'No vodka. Tsk.'

'Hmm,' I said.

I was already starting to reconsider my plans.