Whit

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I have always had my secret places within and around the policies which form our lands; they are part of that private, internalised landscape every child imposes upon their surroundings, which sometimes survives into adulthood if we stay in the same place and the world does not change too much around us. Unlike the retreats of many children, mine had been havens almost for the sake of it, as I had had nothing at the Community to wish to escape from, unless it was too much loving attention.

As children both Allan and I were pampered by everybody around us; children have a pretty good life in the Community anyway, revered as the product of two souls' communing and respected for their unblemished new soul, but my brother and I were given a particularly easy ride because of the tragedy of our orphanhood. Being a Leapyearian and the Elect of God, I suppose I had one increment of indulgence more even than my brother, though such was the obvious determination by all around to recompense us for the sadness of our plight through diligent applications of love and the gratification of all but our most outrageous wishes, that I doubt Allan ever suffered because of my superior rank, unless it was the self-inflicted pain we call jealousy.

I think all this would have applied to any Community children who had lost their parents when they were so young, but certainly it can have done us no harm that we were grandchildren of the Founder, and that he transferred so much of his love for his son and his son's wife onto us, and took such an interest in our upbringing that any kindness extended to us was almost as good as a tribute paid directly to Salvador himself (in one way it was actually better as it did not smack of sycophancy).

All this is not to say that any child may simply ran riot within the Community; far from it, but providing you are not seen as exploiting your privileged position with too ruthless a degree of opportunism and do not directly challenge adult authority, it is possible to live so well as a child at High Easter Offerance that when an adult tells you these are the best years of your life, you can almost believe them.

I sat on the rusted wreck of an old truck, its russet body lying perforated and submerged by grasses and weeds, surrounded by gently swaying young pine trees a couple of miles west of the farm. I was sitting on the old lorry's roof, gazing out over the brown, glinting back of the gently flowing river. On the far bank, beyond the weeds and nettles, a herd of Friesians cropped the green quilt of the field, moving slowly across my field of vision from left to right, images of unthinking contentment engrossed in their methodical absorption.

I had seen Grandma Yolanda back to her car, still making reassuring noises and gently refusing her offers of further help. She hugged and kissed me and told me that she would be staying in Stirling that night, to be nearby in case I needed her. I assured her I wouldn't and told her to do whatever she had been going to do. She insisted this had been her plan all along, and that she would drive the few miles into the town, check in and then phone to leave the name of the hotel with the Woodbeans. I had not the heart to refuse her, so agreed that this was a good and helpful idea. She left with only a few tears. I waved her away and then returned to the farm.

I went up to my room in the farmhouse. It is a small room with a single dormer window and sloping ceilings. It contained a hammock, a small wooden desk and chair, one chest of drawers with a paraffin lamp on it, and an old wardrobe sitting - slightly lopsidedly on the old, uneven floorboards - in one corner. Aside from these things, there were a few clothes (very few, as those being sent from Bath hadn't turned up yet) and one or two small souvenirs of my modest travels. That was more or less it.

How little I had to show for my life, looked at from this perspective, I thought. And yet how rich I had always felt it was! All my life, all my worth and being were invested in the rest of the Community, in the people and the lands and the buildings and the continuance of our life here. That was what and where you had to look to find the measure of me; not at these few paltry personal comforts.

It was a while, thinking about all this, before I realised that I hadn't got my kit-bag back; it had been left over in the mansion house. Well, there was nothing in it I needed immediately. I changed into a coarse white cotton shirt with a collar and cuffs that had seen better days and donned my one other jacket, an old tweed thing with worn leather elbow patches. It had probably been a fisherman's; when it had been brought back from the charity shop in Stirling for me there was a small fishing fly lodged deep in the corner of one pocket. I kept the leather trousers on; I only possessed the two pairs I'd taken with me on my journey and they were both - with luck - still en route from the hotel in Bath. I re-straightened the brim of my travelling hat and hung it up behind the wardrobe door. Then I went for a walk and ended up sitting on the roof of the old truck, a few miles up the river bank.

I suppose you could label what passed there as meditation, but that might be to dignify it over much. Really I was just letting everything that had happened recently wash through me and from me, imagining that the river I gazed at was the stream of events I had been submerged in for the last nine days, and it was all now flowing away, leaving no more than a thin deposit of memory behind like a skin of river mud.

I wanted to feel washed clean, absolved of whatever I had been accused of, before I went back to the farm and my Grandfather.

I could not understand what had happened. I had held the tiny zhlonjiz jar in my hand for the first time in the house of Gertie Fossil; I knew I had not stolen it. I had read the note that the vial had come wrapped in, I could recall exactly the feel of its paper between my fingers, see the writing on it - enough like Salvador's for it certainly not to be in any way suspicious - and almost smell it.

I had thought the unction's inclusion in my kit-bag a gesture that was both practical and sweet; it had never occurred to me that it might be a trick.

I tried to think why it had been done, and by whom. I had to face the fact that there might be poisoned thoughts behind the smiling faces of my fellows in our Order. I was the privileged one, after all; brought to my exalted prominence by a simple accident of birth. Certainly I had the Gift of Healing to recommend me to my fellow faithfuls' favour, but that has always seemed extra, something that never sat entirely square with our Faith in its purest form. Part of our creed promoted the idea that those born on the 29th of February became different and better because they were led to realise how much this mattered and symbolised, rather than emerged already semi-divine from the womb (otherwise how does one account for the fact that those born on that date in the past have not been especially gifted or wise?). In a sense, it is just luck that determines who is born a Leapyearian, even though there is a hint in the Orthography that God has a fingertip on the scales if not a hand in the whole business. So might not one - or even some - of my fellows feel aggrieved at my rank and suspicious of my uncanny power, convinced in their own minds that they were both more deserving, and more pure? In theory they ought to feel glad for me, support me and - if not actually worship me - honour and venerate me, and accept that God would be unlikely to have let somebody utterly lacking in worth be born into my position or receive my gift, but I cannot deceive myself that in such matters theory always carries the day in the depths of the human soul, or that our followers are somehow immune from irrationality, jealousy and even hate.

I found it hard even to imagine that my Grandfather himself could be behind this; perhaps only the memory of that sudden, shocking slap to my face made it remotely thinkable. Could Salvador himself feel envious of me? It hardly made sense; his whole life - since his rebirth on the storm-scoured Harrisian beach that night - had led towards the exalted state that first his son Christopher and now I occupied and would, perhaps, pass on to my offspring (not that it had to be me; a Luskentyrian Leapyearian is a Luskentyrian Leapyearian, after all, but we had made it a direct, in-family line so far and such seeming coincidences tend to develop a momentum and a tradition - even a theology - of their own), but who was to say how rational he was being, as he came to appreciate the imminence of his own death?

Allan was another man with cause to resent me; under a different system, all the Community and Order might fall to him on Grandfather's death (though how did one take account of Brigit and Rhea and Calli and Astar, and even uncle Mo? After all, neither of Salvador's original two marriages had been sanctioned by the state or established church). But what could he stand to gain? Nothing could alter the fact of my birth-date - the event had been observed by half the women of the Order - or shake what was one of the central tenets of our Faith; what were we if we did not believe in the interstitial, out-of-the-way nature of blessedness, exemplified by that one day in one thousand four hundred and sixty-one? Allan already controlled much of the day-to-day running of the Order; he had more power than I could imagine wanting for myself and we had never really disagreed over the way we saw the Order going when the sad time came that meant my accession. To attack me was to attack the Order itself and the very Faith through which Allan drew his influence, threatening everything.

Calli? Astar? Together or alone they might see me as a threat to their authority, but they too stood to lose much more than they could possibly gain. Erin? Jess? Somebody else who somehow felt confident of producing a Leapyearian next year, and wanted me out of the way, or at least compromised, beforehand?

None of these possibilities seemed to make much sense.

As for how it had been done, getting the vial itself would have been easy; it normally resided in the unlocked box on the altar in the meeting hall, which itself was always open. Getting it into my kit-bag would hardly have been more difficult; I recalled packing the bag in my room and leaving it there while I met with my Grandfather, Allan and Erin again. Later I went across the courtyard to brother Indra's workshop to see how the inner-tube boat was progressing, and then returned to my room to fetch the bag and leave it outside the meeting hall in the mansion house while we all convened again to pray and sing.

Anybody could have slipped up to my room, or dropped the vial into my bag while it was outside the meeting room; there was no lock on my room door - I don't think there is a functioning lock anywhere in the farmhouse - and we are anyway simply unused to guarding property or caring much about chattels; there is no culture of watchfulness or wariness in our Order that would raise suspicions in the first place.

The last opportunity somebody would have had to put the vial in my bag would have been that morning, as I was getting into the inner-tube boat; who had carried my bag from the farm? How many people had handled it before it was delivered into my hands?

I recalled that I'd found the zhlonjiz vial at the bottom of my kit-bag, implying that it had been hidden by somebody with plenty of time to place it there rather than having been simply dropped into my bag, but the jar had been tiny and - jiggled and bounced around as I'd walked from the coast into Edinburgh - it would have had plenty of time to work its way down from the top to the bottom of the kit-bag. I'd opened the bag twice after I'd packed it in my room, I thought, for food and for the vial of river mud, so maybe I would have seen the little vial sitting on top of the other things packed in there, but - again due to its size - maybe not.

I was a very poor investigator, I thought. I had failed to confront Morag and now I was failing to work out when, how and why somebody had made it look as if I was a common thief.

I shook my head at my own dreadful incompetence, and rose with creaking trousers if not joints to dust myself down, bid farewell to the river and return to whatever it was I had to face at the Community.

I returned to the mansion house at about six; in the office, Allan said that Salvador had eaten early and was having a nap; he'd call me if and when Grandfather wanted to see me. I went to the farmhouse for the evening meal, eaten in the kitchen with various Brothers and Sisters in an unusual and strained atmosphere which was only relieved by the children being barely less boisterous and loud than normal. Sister Calli, who was supervising the kitchen that evening, did not speak to me, and made a point of not serving me my food. Astar was kinder if still as quiet as ever, just coming up to me and standing by me, patting me on the shoulder. A few of the younger ones tried to ask me questions but were hushed by Calli or Calum.

I went back over to the mansion house. I told Sister Erin I would be in the library, and sat in there trying to read passages from the previous edition of the Orthography in a restless, unsettled manner until I gave up and just sat, looking round those thousands of books and wondering how many I had read and how many more I still had to read.

I picked up The Prince and read a few of my favourite passages, then I returned to Erin and said I'd be in the meeting room - the mansion house's old ballroom, where the organ was.

I sat there at the old organ, playing it silently save for the click and clack of my fingers on the keys and my feet on the pedals, pulling out stops and sweeping my hands over the keyboard, caressing it and pummelling it, humming and hissing to myself on occasion, but mostly just hearing the music in my head, its flowing, pulsing power and body-shaking reverberations existing only between my ears. I played until my fingers hurt, and then Sister Jess came to fetch me.

Jess left me in the sitting room of Grandfather's quarters while she checked he was quite ready to see me. She reappeared from the bedroom, closing the door on the dark space behind. 'He's having another bath,' she said, sounding exasperated. 'He's in a funny mood today. Do you mind waiting?'

'No,' I said.

Jess smiled. 'He said to break out the drinks; shall we?'

'Why not?' I said, smiling.

Sister Jess opened the drinks cabinet; I declined a whisky, having not long since got rid of my hang-over from the previous night, and settled for a glass of wine. Sister Jess chose the whisky, well watered.

We settled down on a couple of seat-boarded but otherwise quite plumply luxurious couches and talked for a while. Sister Jess is a doctor; she is slim and has long black hair she wears in a single long plait. She is about forty and has been with us for nearly fourteen years. Her daughter Helen is thirteen and Salvador may or may not be the child's father.

I have always got on fairly well with Jess, though I sometimes wonder to what extent she feels that I usurp some of her powers with my ability to Heal.

I told her of my trip down south; she said that at the time she'd thought I was mad to travel to Edinburgh by inner-tube, but congratulated me on getting there. She took a dimmer view of interfering with train signalling systems, but let it pass. There was no embargo I had been told of regarding the things I had found out in England, so, while I did swear her to secrecy until we both knew how widely Salvador wanted such facts to be disseminated, I felt free to tell her about Morag's alter ego, Fusillada. She blinked rapidly at that point, and almost choked on her whisky.

'You saw one of these videos?' she asked.

'By sheer luck, yes.'

She glanced at the closed door to Salvador's bedroom. 'Hmm; I wonder what he feels about that?'

'I take it Allan's told him all this?'

She leaned over towards me, with another glance at the door. 'I think he overheard quite a bit from outside the office door,' she said quietly.

'Oh,' I said.

'Let's have another drink,' she said. 'About time the lamps were lit, too.'

We lit the lamps and recharged our glasses.

'How is Salvador?' I asked her. 'Has he been keeping all right?'

She laughed quietly. 'Strong as an ox,' she said. 'He's fine. Been tiring himself out a bit recently and drinking too much whisky, but I think that's just all this revising he's doing.'

'Oh,' I said. 'He's managing all right with that himself?'

'Allan's been helping him; him and Erin, sometimes.'

'Oh. Well, that's good.'

'It's keeping him busy,' she said, glancing at the door again. 'I think he's getting impatient for the Festival.'

'I suppose everybody is, a bit.'

'Some with better reason than him,' she said quietly, leaning forward and with a conspiratorial grin. I did my best to reciprocate the expression. 'But, anyway,' she said, sitting back, 'what happened after you were arrested?' She held her hand up over her mouth, giggling.

I regaled her with the rest of my story, settling into the swing of its telling with, by now, practised ease. Grandma Yolanda was about to make her appearance - and Jess was still laughing at the thought of me being arrested and being televised in the process - when we realised our glasses were empty again. Jess listened quietly at the bedroom door, then tiptoed away with her finger to her lips and whispered, 'Singing. Still in the bath,' as she made her way to the drinks cabinet.

'Thanks,' I said, accepting my refilled glass.

'Cheers.'

'Mud in your eye.'

'You have been with Yolanda, haven't you?'

'She does rather rub off on you,' I admitted as we resumed our seats. I took up the threads of my story. I had almost finished when there was a ringing sound; the spring-hung bell up in one corniced corner of the room went on jangling as Jess straightened her plain grey shift and went to the bedroom door. I undid the laces on my boots.

She stuck her head round, I heard Grandfather's voice, then Jess turned and nodded to me. I drained my glass and ascended into the bedroom.

The door closed behind me.

Grandfather sat at one end of the room, against a huge pile of cushions. Candles burned on the shelf that ran all around the dark space, filling it with their soft yellow light and the heady fumes of their scent. Joss-sticks were fanned out in a small brass holder on the shelf near Salvador. My Grandfather was plump, pale, voluminously robed and his face was surrounded with fluffily dry white curly hair. He looked like a cross between Buddha and Santa Claus. He sat looking at me.

I made the Sign and bowed slowly to him; the bed moved gently underneath my sock-clad feet, like a gentle oceanic swell. Salvador nodded briefly when I straightened. He pointed to a place close in front of him to his left.

By his right hand would have been better, but probably too much to hope for. I sat where he had indicated, cross-legged. Grandfather's room-size bed was the one place one was allowed to sit without a Sitting Board; the softness was oddly unsettling when one's buttocks were habituated to the hardness of wood.

He reached under one of the giant cushions at his back and produced a bottle and two chunky cut glasses. He handed one glass to me, set the other on the shelf near him and poured us both some whisky. More drink, I thought. Ah well.

He raised his glass to me, though his expression remained serious. We drank. The whisky was smooth and I didn't cough.

He gave a great long sigh and sat back amongst the pillows. He looked at his glass and then, slowly, to me.

'So, Isis: do you want to tell me why?' he asked; his deep, luxuriant voice sounded thick, half choked.

'Grandfather,' I said, 'I did not take the vial. It was in my kit-bag. I didn't know it was there until I found it when I was at Gertie Fossil's.'

He looked into my eyes for a long time. I returned his gaze. He shook his head and looked across the room.

'So you had no hand in this at all; no idea it had been put there?'

'None.'

'Well then, who do you want to accuse, Isis?

'I don't want to accuse anybody. I've thought about who could have done this, and it could have been anybody. I have no idea who.'

'I've been told that you claim there was a… note,' he said, pronouncing the last word with the effect of somebody picking something distasteful up by the corner between thumb and forefinger.

'It said, "In case you need it", or something similar; I can't remember the exact words. It was signed with an "S".'

'But this has disappeared, of course.'

'Yes.'

'Weren't you even slightly suspicious?' he asked, a sour look on his face. 'Didn't it seem odd to you that I might have given you our most precious substance, our last link with Luskentyre, to take into the midst of the Unsaved?'

I looked down at my glass. 'I took it as a compliment,' I said. My face felt warm. 'I was surprised and I was flattered, but it never crossed my mind to be suspicious; I thought that you were giving me your blessing and trying to ensure the success of my mission by giving me something which would both succour me and be of practical value.'

'And was it? Of practical value, I mean.'

'No.'

'You took some.'

'I did. It… I was not able to make use of it. I don't know why. I hoped to hear more clearly the Voice of God, but…'

'So you then tried one of the Unsaved's illegal drugs.'

'I did.'

'Which didn't work either.'

'It did not.'

He shook his head and drank the rest of the whisky in his glass. He looked at my glass as he reached for the bottle. I finished my drink too. He refilled both glasses. I cleared my throat, eyes watering.

'And am I to understand, Isis, that our Sister Morag's fame does not come from… holy music, or even music in any form, after all, but from performing the sexual act to be recorded on film and sold to whosoever of the Benighted might wish to purchase such a thing?'

'It would seem so.'

'You're sure?'

'Quite positive. There was one close-up of her face in quite bright sunshine; she was sucking-'

'Yes. Well, we'll believe you, on this, for now, Isis, but I dare say we shall have to confirm this for ourselves, unpleasant though the task might be.'

'That may be possible without having to harbour a television set amongst us; one of Brother Zeb's colleagues called Boz was sure that he had seen a pornographic magazine which featured Morag.'

Grandfather was shaking his head sadly.

'I think it's worth mentioning,' I said, 'that while I was unable to discover any evidence that Morag still plays music in public, it is still not impossible that she does so, though-'

'Oh, enough,' he said angrily.

'Well, it could still be-'

'What difference would it make, anyway?' he said loudly. He gulped at his whisky.

I sipped mine. 'It could still be seen as holy work in a sense, Grandfather,' I said. 'Certainly it is done for profit and involves the means of the dissemination of lies and Clutter, but still the act itself is a holy one, and-'

'Oh,' he said, sneering at me over his glass. 'And what would you know about that, Isis?'

I felt my face colour again, but I did not let my gaze fall from his. 'What I know is what you have told me; what you have told us all, in your teachings!' I said.

He looked away. 'Teachings change,' he said, his voice rumbling like thunder from those dense clouds of hair.

I stared at him. He was looking into his glass.

I swallowed. 'They surely cannot change to the extent that we join the Benighted in their fear of love!' I cried.

'No,' he told me. 'That's not what I meant.' He sighed, then nodded at my glass. 'Drink up; we'll find the truth of this yet.'

I drank, gulping the whisky down and almost gagging. Was this some strange new ceremony? Did we now believe that one could find the truth at the bottom of a bottle? What was going on? What was he talking about? He refilled our glasses again. He set the bottle down with a thump on the shelf between two heavy, flickering candles.

'Isis,' he said, and his voice was suddenly small and almost plaintive. His eyes glittered. 'Isis; is any of this true?'

'All of it, Grandfather!' I said, leaning forward. He reached out and took my free hand, holding it.

He shook his head in an angry, frustrated way, gulped some whisky down and said, 'I don't know, Isis; I don't know.' There were tears in his eyes. 'I'm told one thing, I'm told another thing; I don't know who to believe, who's telling the truth.' He drank some more. 'I know I'm old; I'm not young any more, but I'm not confused; I'm made confused, you see? I hear people say things and I wonder if they can be true, and I listen to the Voice of God and I wonder sometimes if what They say can be right, though I know it must, so I wonder is it something in me? But I know it can't be; after all these years… I just know, you see. Do you see, child?'

'I think so, Grandfather.'

He squeezed my hand, which he still held, on the covers.

'Good girl. Good girl.' He drained his glass, shook his head and gave a watery smile. 'You and me, Isis; we're the ones, aren't we? You are my grandchild, but you are the Elect, special like me; aren't you?'

I nodded hesitantly. 'By the grace of God and by your teaching, yes, I believe so, of course.'

'You believe in God, you believe in the Voice?' he said anxiously, urgently, squeezing my hand even tighter. It was starting to hurt.

'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, of course.'

'You believe in what is said, what is heard, what I am told?'

'With all my heart and soul,' I assured him, trying to flex the hand he gripped.

'Then why are you lying to me?' he roared, throwing his glass to one side and throwing himself at me. I fell back, toppling over as he thumped into me and pushed me down, pinning me down by the shoulders, my still-crossed legs pressed up into my chest by his belly; I had to put my hand holding the whisky glass out to one side to avoid spilling it, while my other hand lay on my chest, clutching involuntarily at the neck of my shirt. I stared up at my Grandfather's furiously livid face.

'I'm not lying!' I cried.

'You are, child! Admit you are! Open your soul! Let out this poison!' His body pressed down on mine, forcing my knees into my chest. He shook me by the shoulders; I felt whisky slop out of my glass onto my hand, chilling it. I felt around, trying to find anywhere I could leave the glass without it tipping over and spilling its contents, so I could have two hands free, but all I could feel was rumpled bedclothes, nowhere firm.

'What poison?' I gasped, breathless from the pressure on my chest. 'There is no poison! My conscience is clear!'

'Don't lie to me, Isis!'

'I'm not lying!' I shouted again. 'It is all true!'

'Why persist?' he roared, shaking me again. 'Why add to your sin?' His breath was warm and smelled of whisky.

'I am not! There is no sin to add to!'

'You took that sacrament! You stole it!'

'No! No! Why should I?'

'Because you hate me!' he yelled.

'I don't!' I gasped painfully. 'I don't; I love you! Grandfather, why are you doing this? Please get off me!'

He slid off me to one side, falling against the bottom of the tumbled slope of pillows and cushions, lying on his side next to me, staring at me, eyes still wet with tears. 'You don't love me,' he said, his voice hoarse. 'You want me dead, out of the way. You want everything for yourself now.'

I struggled upright onto my knees, put the whisky glass on the shelf at last and kneeled by him, my hand on his shoulder as he lay there, wheezing, staring away at the far wall.

'Don't love me,' he mumbled. 'You don't love me…'

'Grandfather, I love you for yourself, for all you've done for me, the way you've looked after Allan and me as though we were your own children, but I love you doubly; I love you as our Faith's Founder, too. I can't imagine ever loving anybody half as much, not ever; not a quarter as much!' I lowered my face until it was beside his. 'Please; you must believe me. You're the most important person there will ever be in my life! No matter what happens! I love you beyond… everything!'

He turned his face from me, into the bedclothes. 'No,' he said, his voice muffled but steady and calm. 'No, I don't believe that is so; I have listened to God's Voice and They have given me the measure of your love for me. It has been beyond everything but it is not now… though I think it is beyond you, indeed.'

I didn't understand. 'Grandfather; you are everything to all of us. You are our light, our guide, our OverSeer! We rely on you. Without you we shall all be orphans, but with your teachings, with your Orthography and your example we shall at least have hope, no matter what the future holds. I know I can never be you and never equal you; I would never even attempt to do so, but perhaps, as the Elect, and as your son's daughter, I can reflect some part of your glory without disgracing it, and, with your teachings as my guide, eventually grow to be a fit leader of the Order. That is my-'

He turned his head to look at me, eyes bright with tears in the soft yellow candlelight. 'These are fine words, Isis, but you have known an easy life. We have kept you away from the harshness of it, from sacrifice and doubt and pain.'

'I am ready for all of them, for my Faith!'

His eyes searched mine. 'I doubt it,' he said, giving the smallest shake of his head. 'You say so, but… I doubt it. You only think you have faith.'

'I do have faith!'

'Untested, Isis. Mine has been tested, yours-'

'Test mine, then!'

'I cannot,' he said. 'God can, and would do, through me, but I'd risk losing you.'

'What?' I cried, pressing closer to him. 'What have They said?'

He looked away again, face in the bedclothes. 'Do you trust me?'

'With my life!' I said, hugging him fiercely.

He turned to me again. 'Do you trust me?'

'I do.'

His gaze shifted across my eyes. 'Isis,' he said. He seemed to hesitate.

'What?' I said, hugging him.

'Will you trust me?' he whispered.

'I will trust you.'

'Will you believe me?'

'I will believe you.'

He gave a deep, deep sigh, and rose slowly, almost painfully up from the bed covers. I helped him up and he nodded in thanks. He stood facing the shelf where the whisky bottle sat between the scented candles and the joss-sticks burned in their brassy holders. Standing there on that unsteady, shifting surface with him, my head was filled with the intoxicating warmth of the perfumed room. He took a step forward and blew out several candles, leaving one burning by the whisky bottle. He stepped to one side, and blew out more of the candles, dimming the room. He went along the wall, blowing out all but one other candle, then started blowing out the candles on the shelf beside the door to the sitting room beyond. I turned, watching him, wondering. He blew out all but two candles on the far wall, beneath the heavily curtained windows. By the door to the bathroom, he paused, his back to me. 'We must disrobe,' he said.

'Disrobe?' I asked.

He nodded. 'Disrobe,' he said, and leaning forward, blew out another candle.

I swallowed. I could barely think. What else was I to do? I had said I believed, I had said that I trusted. I did not know what it might be Grandfather had in mind, what he had been told to do by God, but I knew that it must be holy and blessed and - to my shame I thought of it, I confess - at least I knew that it could not be what the most prurient minds might imagine, for that was banned by the Orthography.

'Of course,' I said. I took off my jacket and placed it folded on the bed at my feet. I began to undo my shirt buttons. Grandfather took a deep breath and blew out another line of candles, not looking at me as I took off my shirt and then undid the button and zip on my leather trousers. He extinguished a last couple of candles. There were only half a dozen left burning round the walls of the whole large room now, their frugal light reducing everything, so that where there had been soft light there was now shadow, and where there had been shadows there was now darkness.

My mouth was dry as I slid my trousers off and placed them with my shirt and jacket. Grandfather faced away from me, turned towards the huge pile of pillows. He crossed his arms, reached down to his waist and with a grunt, and a slight stagger, pulled his robe up over his head. Underneath, he was quite naked. I had taken off my socks and now wore only my knickers. Seen from behind, Grandfather's body was bulky and solid; not as fat and soft as I'd thought. Certainly it was an old man's waist, bowing out, not narrowing, but there was a bull-like flatness across the small of his back that I doubted many men his age could boast. 'We must be quite naked,' he said quietly, still facing away from me, addressing the wall.

I felt my heart thud in my chest. My hands were shaking as I slipped off my undergarments.

He looked upwards, as if inspecting the room's ornate plaster frieze.

'The Creator's ways are many and strange,' he said, as though talking to the shelf. 'We question, we think, and we question our thinking, trying to determine what is right, what is true and what is false, what is given from above and beyond and what comes from within.' I saw him shake his head, slowly. 'We cannot ever know completely, and eventually we have to stop questioning.' He fell silent. He stood for a while, then nodded, again slowly. His shoulders quivered, and he put his hands up to his eyes. 'Oh, Isis,' he said, his voice breaking. 'Is God always right? I have always believed that They are, but…' His head bowed and his shoulders shook.

I stood and watched for a moment, then stepped forward, terribly aware of my nakedness, and stretched out my arms to put my hands on his shoulders. He clamped his hands on mine, then turned quickly and faced me, pulling me closer until his full belly touched my flat one. 'We are wisps, Isis,' he hissed, taking me by the shoulders and gripping me tightly. 'We are reeds caught in the storm, pulled away by the flood; who are we to stand in Their way?'

I shook my head, hoping that my eyes weren't too wide. 'I don't know,' I said, for want of anything better.

He looked down in between us and nodded vigorously. 'Let us sit, Isis,' he said.

We sat; I in the lotus position, he on his haunches with his arms resting on his knees. He looked me up and down, and I felt good and fine and pure and brazen at the same time, flushed with alcohol and God knows what. He shook his head. 'Ah, Isis; you are the very vision!' he breathed.

'I am God's image, as are we all, in our own fashion,' I replied, my voice shaking.

'No, no; more than that,' he said breathlessly, still staring at my body. 'What God has said…' He looked up into my eyes and slowly spread his arms wide. 'Isis,' he said thickly, 'come to me…'

I parted from my lotus position and kneeled forward, tentatively extending my arms. He took my hands in his and pulled me forward to him, enfolding me in his warmth and pushing my arms out above and to the side.

'Isis, Isis,' he said, burying his head between my breasts, breathing in hard.

'Grandfather,' I said into the clearing in the thicket of his hair that was his bald patch. 'What has God said?'

'Isis!' he said again, raising his head to mine and hugging me tighter so that I could feel each fold and roll of fat on his torso as I was pulled into him. 'Isis!' he said, rubbing his head from side to side between my breasts. 'We are in Their power, under Their control! We must do as They say!'

His hands cupped my buttocks, kneading them. He raised his head and brought his face up to mine. 'We must join our souls, child. We must commune together!' He pushed his mouth towards mine.

'What?' I yelped, bringing my arms up to his shoulders to try and push him away. 'But, Grandfather!'

'I know!' he cried hoarsely, as his head turned this way and that, trying to bring our lips together. 'I know it seems wrong, but I hear Their voice!'

'But it's forbidden!' I said, straining at his shoulders, still trying to push him back. He was forcing me over and down now, onto the bed beneath. 'We are two generations apart!'

'It was forbidden; it isn't any more. That was a mistake. The Voice was clear about that.' He pushed me down so that my back thumped onto the bed; I managed to wriggle my legs to one side so that I was half on my side to him. He held me tightly round the waist, still trying to kiss me. 'Don't you see, Isis? This is meant. We are the Elect; the chosen ones. The rules are different for us. This is holy; this is ordained by God.'

'But you're my Grandfather!' I cried, bringing one hand up to my face to push his seeking, probing lips away. One of his hands was trying to push down to my belly; I held it with my other hand.

'Isis! We don't have to take any notice of the Unsaved's stupid rules! We're marked out, we're special, we can do what we want and what God decrees! What have their stupid rules and regulations got to do with our Holy Purpose?'

I was still wrestling with his hand as it tried to push down to my groin; his bearded face was panting and sweating above me; he kissed my lips for a moment but I twisted my head away.

'But I don't want to do this!' I wailed.

'Want?' he laughed bitterly. 'What has what either of us want got to do with this? We do what God tells us to do! We both have to submit to Their will, Isis! We both have to submit! We both have to trust; trust and believe! You promised to trust; you promised to trust and believe, remember?'

'But not this!'

'Is your love of God conditional then, Isis?' he asked breathlessly, still trying to work his sweat-slicked hand between my legs. His breathing was very quick and urgent now and his face was bright red. 'Do you only do what God insists you do when it suits you? Is that it? Is it?'

'No!' I spluttered, my own breathing becoming difficult as his weight bore down on me. 'But this must be a false signal! God would not demand this!'

'What? An act of love? What is that to demand? Did Buddha hesitate to renounce all his worldly goods? Did Mohammed hesitate to take up arms and make war? Did Abraham not take his son to the mountain to kill him, because God demanded it? Would he not have done so if God had not stopped him? All They demand here is an act of love, Isis; an act of love, to prove we are both true! We both must submit!' He gave a grunt and twisted his hand free of mine; it dived between my tightly clenched legs, trying to finger my sex; I heaved and wriggled out from underneath him, rolling away over the bed; he grabbed at me, catching my ankle as I tried to stand, bringing me down on all fours. 'Submit, Isis, submit! Prove your love for God!' He tried to mount me from behind but I wrestled him off.

'This is not you!' I shouted, and scuttled away, grabbing up my clothes as I stood on the bed's unsteady surface. 'God could not ask this!'

My Grandfather kneeled on the bed, his engorged manhood poking up at the underside of his belly like a supporting strut. His face set into an expression I had never seen before: a look of furious, seething loathing that produced a terrible feeling of emptiness and sickness in me.

'You would deny God then, Isis?' he said thickly. I backed into a closed door; it was the one to the bathroom, not the exit to the sitting room; he was between me and it. He spread his arms wide. 'You would deny the sacrament that is the holy joy of souls' communion.''

I leaned back against the door and pulled on one leg of my trousers. 'If God wanted this They would have spoken to me as well,' I said.

'They spoke to me!' he roared, thumping himself on his chest with one fist. He lunged at me as I stood on one leg to put my other leg in the trousers. I'd half expected he would, and so was ready for him. I jumped to one side and escaped him but dropped my jacket and socks onto the bed. I hopped across the bed, dragging on the trousers and pulling them up, my shirt wedged under one armpit. I had a clear run at the door to the outside now. I stood there, breathing hard and looking at him as he stood up by the bathroom door, a pale shadow in the flickering candlelight; his chest and belly heaved with every breath. His penis had gone limp now. He wiped his face with one hand.

'You Judas,' he breathed.

'Grandfather, please-' I began, pulling on my shirt.

'You heathen!' he rasped, a tiny fleck of spittle arcing through the air caught in the candlelight. 'Apostate! Infidel! Misbeliever! You Unsaved wretch!'

'This is not fair, Grandfather,' I said, my voice almost breaking. I tucked in my shirt tails. 'You are-'

'Fair?' he said, grimacing, loading the word with sarcasm. 'What is fair? God does not deal in fairness; God commands. You have no right to deny Them.'

'I do not believe I am,' I said, trying not to cry.

'You do not believe me,' he whispered.

'I believe you have been… misled,' I said, biting my lip.

'Oh, you do, do you? You're barely more than a child; what do you know of God's Word?'

'Enough to know They would not ask this, not without telling me as well as you.'

'You vain child, Isis. You have sinned against God and against your own Faith.' He shook his head and padded across the bed to where his robe lay. While he slipped it on over his head I retrieved my socks, knickers and jacket.

'I think we ought to forget this, Grandfather,' I said, putting on my socks. He looked about, then picked up the glass he had thrown across the bed. He poured himself another whisky.

'I can't forget this,' he said. 'God can't, either. I don't know if this can ever be forgiven or forgotten.'

I put on my jacket. 'Well, I think it would be for the best if we both forgot what's happened here.'

'You are a thief and a misbeliever, child,' he said calmly, not looking at me but studying his whisky glass critically. 'It is not in my power to forgive you.'

'I am not a thief; I am not a misbeliever,' I said, and then, despite myself, started to weep. The tears stung my eyes and flowed down my hot, flushed cheeks. I was furious at myself for behaving so girlishly. 'You are the one in the wrong; not me,' I said angrily, speaking through my sobs. 'I have done nothing; nothing wrong. I am falsely accused and all you can do is try to… to have your way with your own grand-daughter!'

He gave a single scoffing laugh.

'You are the one who needs forgiveness, not me,' I told him, sniffing back my tears and wiping my cheeks with my knickers.

He waved one hand dismissively, still not looking at me. 'You stupid, selfish… foolish child,' he said, shaking his head. 'Get out of my sight. When I look on you again it will be to accept your confession and apology.'

I sucked in my breath. 'Grandfather!' I cried, despairing. 'What is wrong with you? What has changed you? Why are you being like this?'

'Isis, child, if you can accept your guilt and answer it in front of me, before the Festival, you may yet be able to take your proper part in that celebration,' he said, still studying his glass. He finished his whisky and then walked across the bed to the bathroom door; he opened it - golden lamp-light spilled from the open door - and closed it behind him. I stood there for a moment, then wept a little more. I stuffed the knickers in my pocket and left the room.

The sitting room beyond was unoccupied; one lamp shone on a desk by the drinks cabinet. I took my boots and ran out, sitting to do up my laces on the top step of the stairs, by the light of a wall candle. Sniffing and blinking, I walked down the stairs and out of the silent mansion house.