Iain Banks - Whit

At Waverley, having dispatched the four gins with the swift contempt they apparently deserved for not being vodkas, Uncle Mo still did not seem particularly drunk, though he was slurring his words slightly on occasion, and his turn of phrase - tricky and ill-cambered at the best of times - seemed to be tightening.

There was a half-hour to spare; it seemed only natural to repair to the bar. Uncle Mo appeared to have hit a plateau by that time and managed to cruise through the thirty minutes on nothing more than a brace of vodkas (obviously not counting the twelve that went into his hip flask straight from the optic on the discovery that there was no off-licence in the station).

We left the bar, I picked up a timetable for the east-coast line from the information centre, and then we boarded the train which was due to take us to York. My original plan had involved getting on the train with Uncle Mo and then saying I was going to the toilet or the buffet car just before the train was due to depart. I deliberately stowed my kit-bag on the luggage shelf at the end of the carriage, near the door, and claimed the seat that faced in that direction from Uncle Mo after he sat in it originally, claiming that I got sick if I didn't have my back to the engine. All this meant that I could leave my seat, collect my bag and get off the train just before it left, and not even risk being seen as the departing train went past me.

However, I had been thinking.

Despite the obvious importance of everything else I had had to take on board over the last twelve hours - Cousin Morag's allegations and revelations, the promise that at long last I might catch up with her, Allan's sacrilegious use of a piece of high-technical electronic equipment within the Community, his lies to Morag, his lies to me, his lies to the whole Community and the sheer selfish greed for power that these symptoms hinted at, not to mention my Grandfather's profane, misguided weakness and his attempt to seduce me - I could not stop thinking about that note on the address list in the desk, the note alongside my Great-aunt Zhobelia's name. 'Care of Unc. Mo'.

I remembered Yolanda's words. Something, for sure .

It spoke of the corrupting atmosphere engendered by the deception that had been revealed to me that what had once seemed innocent, or at any rate of no great consequence, I now found deeply suspicious. Great-aunt Zhobelia's decision to seek but her original family and her effective disappearance as far as the Community was concerned had always seemed odd before, but certainly well within the normal parameters of human contrariness; people are constantly doing things we find incomprehensible for what they regard as good and obvious reasons, and I had never really wondered about Zhobelia's decision any more than I had about Brigit or Rhea becoming apostate, accepting that people just did do strange, even stupid things sometimes.

But now, in the infecting climate of mistrust and apprehension brought about by my discovery of Allan's mendacity and the realisation that behind the curtain of familial and religious trust and love was hidden the machinery of perfidious malevolence, much that I had previously taken blithely on trust now set me thinking what sinister purpose might be concealed therein.

Great-aunt Zhobelia. Care of Uncle Mo. I wondered…

I felt a moment of dizziness, just as I had the night before, perched on the storeroom window. The moment passed, as it had just the night before when I had teetered on the fulcrum of that window at the back of the mansion house, leaving me in a moment of giddy clarity.

I made my decision; my mouth felt dry and there was a metallic taste in it. Heart thumping; again. This was becoming habitual.

What the heck. I would stay on the damn train. The timetable said I could get off at Newcastle upon Tyne and catch a train back to Waverley in time to get to the swimming pool for my rendezvous with Cousin Morag. If everything ran to time, that was. I'd risk it.

The train started off. An announcement informed us the buffet car was open for the sale of light refreshments, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages.

'I think that means the bar's open, Uncle Mo,' I said brightly. 'Would you like me to go and get us something?'

'What a good idea, niece!' Uncle Mo said, and took out his wallet.

'Dreams,' Uncle Mo repeated sadly, obviously getting into his stride with this theme. 'Dreams can destroy you, you see, Isis.'

'Really?'

'Oh, yes,' he said, and sounded bitter. 'I had my dreams, Isis. I dreamed of fame and success and being an admirable person, a person people would recognise without ever having met me. Do you see, Isis?' He reached across the table and grasped my arm. 'I wanted all this for myself you see. I was young and foolish and I had this idea that it would be wonderful to be loved without reason, just because people knew oneself from stage or film or the dreaded goggle-box; the television. But I was too young to see that it is not really you that they love; it is your part, your role, your persona, and in that much you are at the mercy of writers,' he grimaced, as though he had just bitten into something sour, 'producers, directors, editors and the like. Liars, egotists; all of them! They control the character you play, and they can destroy you with a few sentences typed on the typewriter, a few lines scribbled on a memo, a few words over a coffee break.'

He sat back, shaking his head. 'But I was young and foolish, then. I thought everyone would love me; I could not understand that there is so much cynicism and selfishness in the world, especially in certain professions of a so-called artistic bending. The world is a wicked place, Isis,' he said sombrely, fixing his watery gaze on me and lifting his plastic tumbler. 'A wicked, wicked place.' He drank deeply.

'I am starting to find that out, Uncle,' I said. 'I am finding wickedness and selfishness even in the heart of our-'

'It was ever thus, niece,' Uncle Mo said with a wave of his hand, that sour expression on his face again. 'You are the innocent now; you have your dreams and I hope they are not the source of bitterness that mine were for me, but now is your time and you are finding what we all find, no matter where we go. There-is much that is good in our Faith - well, your Faith - but it is still part of the world, the wicked, wicked world. I know more than you know; I have been around longer, I have kept in touch even though I was not there, you see?'

'Ah.'

'So I have heard much; perhaps more than if I had stayed in the Community.' He leaned forward, chin almost on the table again, and tapped his nose. I leaned forward too, but this time I led with my other arm; the one he'd been grabbing until now felt bruised and sore. 'I know things, Isis,' he told me.

'You do ?' I said, in my most breathless-ingénue manner, and widened my eyes.

'Oh yes,' Uncle Mo said, and sat back again, nodding his head. He straightened his jacket, patting the bulge over where his wallet was. 'Oh yes. Mysteries. Rumours.' He appeared to think for a moment. '… Things.'

'Golly.'

'Not all sweetness and light, Isis,' he said, finger wagging. 'Not all sweetness and light. There have been… darknesses along the way.'

I nodded, looking thoughtful as the train swung briefly away from the coast to enter the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. It slowed but did not stop as it passed through the station; we both watched the view unfold as the train curved out along a long arched stone viaduct across the river, revealing the jumbled old town on the steep north bank, the later, more uniform houses on the flatter south side, and the sloping road bridges between the two, outlined against the distant sea and clouds.