Whit

CHAPTER SEVEN

Brother Zebediah had not received the letter informing him of my imminent arrival; the squat - for such the house he lived in was - had at best an erratic postal service which seemingly depended largely on the sympathy or otherwise of the post-person on whose round it was. The household did not possess a telephone, so the letter had been our only means of communication. Accordingly, no preparations had been made for my arrival. Zebediah did the best he could however, considering. He was all set to give me his room which he shared with Roadkill, his girlfriend, while they decanted to the loft, but on viewing the room and the state of the plaster on the walls, I suggested that the loft might be more suitable for me, as I could rig my hammock safely between two of the roof trusses. Roadkill looked relieved at this.

The loft was haphazardly floored with old doors and random bits of wood; I had Zeb rearrange these and take away the single electric light bulb which hung from the roof; I would use a candle for light. (In fact I had been hoping that the squat might be entirely free of electricity, and I had been disappointed to find that it was not.) In addition, Zeb generously donated a rug and a small table from his room to make the place look more welcoming.

I stuck my head out of the skylight to check which direction was nor-nor-west, then instructed Zeb - who had found a hammer and two six-inch nails - where to rig my hammock. With it in place, we repaired to the kitchen, where Zeb lit the stubs of some scented Order candles and ceremonially washed my feet in a small plastic basin while Roadkill prepared food in the form of some type of pastie or samosa; I handed her some blessed tea and a tiny amount of lard. She looked at the two little twists of greaseproof paper oddly, then looked inside, sniffing.

'This smells like tea,' she said. She had a pleasant accent I was unable to locate anywhere more exactly than south-east England.

'It is,' I told her.

'Eeurgh; this one smells of animal.'

'That is lard,' I said, and looked severely at Zeb, who was cleaning between two of my toes with his little finger. He looked guilty, as well he might; it was obvious that Brother Zeb had not been performing certain of our dietary rituals.

'What, like from pigs?' Roadkill asked.

'That is correct,' I told her.

'Can't handle that, man,' Roadkill said, taking the tiny package in two fingers and dropping it on the Formica-topped table near me.

'Roadkill's a veggie,' Zeb said apologetically.

'That is quite all right,' I said, and smiled at the lass. 'I understand. As you no doubt know, our own Faith forbids eating some meat too, in the form of that from anything with two legs, like birds for example.' I saw Roadkill and Zebediah exchange an odd look at this point, and surmised that Zeb had been corrupted by the city to the point where he had eaten fowl. My mission down here might have to include bringing Brother Zebediah back onto the straight and narrow too, I suspected (if there was time). Appearing not to notice their guilty glance, I went on, 'If you'd just put a little of the tea into whatever you are making for me, I'd be most grateful.'

'What, tea leafs, in the patties?' she asked.

'Just the merest sprinkle,' I told her. 'As if it were salt or pepper. It's not for taste; it has symbolic value only.'

'Right,' she said. 'Symbolic value. Sure.' She turned away, shaking her head.

I retrieved the little twist of lard and pocketed it; I would anoint the food with it myself just before eating.

There was a bang from the hallway, footsteps, and a large young white man with very short hair and wearing a grubby anorak with colourful badges on it entered the kitchen. He stopped and looked down at Zeb, who was still washing my feet. I smiled up at him.

'Chroist,' he said in an Irish accent, and grinned.

'Close,' Zeb said, sighing.

'You've got a step-sister called what?'

'Hagar,' I confirmed, nodding.

'But that's a guy's name, innit, Zeb?'

Zeb looked vague, and shrugged.

'Yeah,' Roadkill said. 'Like that strip in the Sun.'

For a moment I wondered what possible relevance removing one's clothes in daylight had before I recalled there was a popular newspaper called the Sun. 'Well, as I understand it,' I said, 'Hagar is a biblical name, a Hebrew name; that of Abraham's wife's maid; her slave.'

'Cool.'

It was early evening and we were walking back from an off-licence on Kilburn High Road, through the roar and stench of the rush-hour traffic; I had volunteered to help Zeb and Roadkill fetch some celebratory alcohol for the squat's evening meal; I rang my 2-9-4 code back to the Woodbeans' house from a nearby call-box while they were actually buying the drink. This turned out to come in the shape of garishly labelled plastic bottles full of something called Litening Stryke, a form of cider.

I thought some more. 'And I have a step-brother called Hymen.'

'Hymen?' Roadkill said. 'Like in virginity; like in maidenhead?'

'That's right.'

'A step-brother?'

'Yes.'

'Weird. Does he really use that name?'

'Regrettably, no; Brother Hymen is an apostate, and-'

'A what?'

'An apostate; one who has renounced his or her faith.'

'Oh.'

'I'm afraid so. Apparently he makes a living diving for golf balls in lakes on American golf courses, and goes under a new name now.'

'Don't blame him; I mean, Hymen.'

'It is a male name, you know,' I said. 'Hymen was a Greek deity; the son of Apollo.'

'Wow,' Roadkill said admiringly. 'You know a lot about this holy stuff, don't you?'

I smiled. 'Well, you might say it's my job.' (Zeb guffawed, then looked a little fearfully at me, but I just smiled.)

'What exactly are you supposed to be?' Roadkill asked.

'I am the Elect of God,' I told her. 'The third generation of our family born on the twenty-ninth of February.'

'Wow.'

'In my case, I was born on the twenty-ninth of February nineteen seventy-six. Officially, if you were to ask me what age I am, I would have to say that I am four and three-quarters.'

'Shit.' Roadkill laughed.

'Not four and three-quarter years of course; four and three-quarter quadquennia. I am nineteen years old.'

'Hmm.' Roadkill looked thoughtful. 'So what sign does that make you?'

'Astrologically? It is our belief that the Elect have no sign. It is one aspect of our holy separateness.'

'Freaky.' She shook her head. 'Shit, you must have to have a hell of a birthday party if it only comes round every four years.'

'We try to make it special,' I agreed.

'Tell Roadkill about the Festival, Is,' Zeb suggested, putting together the first real sentence I'd heard him utter since I'd arrived.

'You mean you haven't, Brother?' I asked.

'He ain't told me nothin' about this sect of yours,' Roadkill said, hitting Zeb on the forearm with her free hand.

'Well. Shit. You know. Complicated,' Zeb said, reverting. Actually I was glad he hadn't. While any festival is by its very nature not something one can really keep secret, Salvador did prefer us not to bruit the details of ours about too much, for the media-sensitive reasons I have already gone into. However, I judged that telling Roadkill was probably a reasonable course of action.

'It happens at the end of May every year before a leap year,' I told her. 'We ask those wishing to participate to perform the act of love without contraception as frequently as possible around that date, to increase the chances of another Elect being born.'

'Fuck,' Roadkill said after a moment's thought. 'An orgy?'

'Well, that's a pejorative term, isn't it?' I said. 'No; that implies exclusively group sex, I believe, whereas the Festival is concerned to promote all forms of potentially procreative activity. Really, it's just a huge celebration; the public side of it wouldn't embarrass the most prudish soul. What goes on behind closed doors afterwards is up to the individuals concerned.'

'Oh yeah?' Roadkill said.

'Well then, why not come and visit us?' I suggested. 'You and Zeb would be very welcome at any time, of course, but especially so if you came for the Festival,' I said to her.

Roadkill glanced at Zeb, who frowned down at the pavement. 'I dunno,' she said. 'He hasn't said nothin' about it.'

Zeb glanced at me and I frowned at him.

'Well, you should come,' I told Roadkill. 'Not necessarily to take part in the procreative side of the Festival, but just because it's such an enjoyable time; we have music and dancing and feasts and the children stage little plays… It's a time of celebration, of rejoicing,' I told her. I laughed. 'There is absolutely no compulsion to engage in constant sex if you don't want to, believe me.'

'Hmm; right,' Roadkill said, noncommittally.

As I'd spoken the words, though, I'd wondered who I was trying to convince. As far as I was concerned there was indeed a degree, if not of compulsion then certainly of expectation that I would be taking a full part in this Festival, even if Morag did show up (I, recalled that remark of Grandfather's to the effect that I was looking 'healthy' and telling me I had a duty to enjoy myself, just a couple of days ago). The pressure I'd be under if my cousin didn't come to the Festival hardly bore thinking about. Great things - it seemed to me - might be expected of my ovaries.

Roadkill had obviously been thinking along the same lines. 'So,' she said, smiling at me and flexing one pink-rinsed eyebrow. 'Were you under-age last time, or is this your big… you know; big occasion? This Festival.'

I smiled as confidently as I could. 'Well, yes, it's possible that I might be expected to be one of the centres of attention, this time round.'

'Wow,' Roadkill said. 'You got anybody lined up yet, as a father I mean?'

I shrugged. 'I'm still thinking it over,' I said, which contained an amount of truth.

'So do you have to get married first or anything?'

'No. We regard marriage as optional to love and procreation; some people actually treat their partners better without that form of commitment, and some people are better as single parents, especially in our Community, where child care can be shared. But if I did want to marry, I could. In fact, I could marry myself,' I told Roadkill, who looked a little dubious at this. I explained. 'As an officer of the Luskentyrian Sect I'm empowered to officiate at all religious ceremonies including marriages, and there is a precedent for the officiating cleric himself - or herself - being one of the parties to the marriage.'

'Freaky,' Roadkill said.

'Hmm,' I said. 'Ah.' I nodded at the lane that led round to the back of the squat. 'Here we are.'

In February 1949 my Grandfather decided to marry Aasni and Zhobelia Asis; he had - not just with God's permission but indeed at Their insistence - bestowed upon himself the title Very Reverend, which meant that he could carry out religious ceremonies. The sisters agreed that their ménage à trois ought to be regularised, and a ceremony was duly held in the specially decorated hall of the old seaweed factory. The only witness was Eoin McIlone, the farmer who had given the sisters and later Grandfather shelter and succour. He and Salvador had taken to playing draughts several evenings a week in the spare room-cum-study at Luskentyre Farm, a couple of miles along the road from the seaweed factory. They argued incessantly each evening, and with increasing vehemence as they gradually drank more and more of Mr McIlone's whisky, but - partly because they both enjoyed arguing and partly because neither could ever remember what they had been arguing about when they woke up the following morning (Mr McIlone alone in his narrow bunk set into the wall of his old farm house, Grandfather in between the two Asis sisters in his bed on the floor of the old factory office) -they both entirely looked forward to their draughts games, whisky and arguments.

Salvador and his two brides spent their wedding night in the seaweed factory as usual, but the sisters had redecorated a different room in the offices and moved the bed - two mattresses covered with bedding - through to their candle-lit marital suite. That night, a rat ran across the bed, terrifying the two sisters and rather spoiling the whole event, and the next day Salvador constructed a kind of huge, three-person hammock out of various lengths of rope, stout wooden battens and a large piece of sailcloth, all of which he'd found washed ashore over the previous few months while he'd been scouring the shores for the lost canvas grip.

Slung from the iron roof-beams of the old factory office in their giant hammock, the sisters felt much safer, and when the factory and almost everything in it were burned a few months later by a crowd of indignant locals with flaming torches and Grandfather and his two wives moved into a barn at Mr McIlone's farm, the one thing the girls had rescued from the fire and bundled into the back of the van - apart of course from Great-aunt Zhobelia's special chest sent to her from Khalmakistan by her grandmother, and repository of the zhlonjiz - had been the giant hammock.

Actually I strongly suspect, from hints dropped by Calli and Astar, who heard the original story from Aasni and Zhobelia, that it was a very small crowd of indignant locals, and I know that it was late one Friday night, and that drink had been taken, and the men concerned had probably heard some grotesque exaggeration of Grandfather and the sisters' marital arrangements, and they probably didn't mean to torch the factory, they were just looking for Salvador to give him a good hiding. He was, however, already hiding, having taken refuge in the sisters' van which was outside; they had concealed him beneath some bolts of reject tartan they'd picked up for a song from a fire-sale in Portree, but being drunk and clumsy one of the men fell and smashed his lantern and the fire started and the rest ran away while Grandfather cooried deeper under the bales of tartan and the sisters at first tried to put the fire out and then just saved what they could. But the way Grandfather tells it is better.

At any rate, although the original monumental hammock was left behind in Luskentyre when the Community moved to High Easter Offerance, and Salvador and the sisters thereupon enjoyed more normal sleeping arrangements in the shape of a couple of beds shoved together, that is why hammocks are sacred to us and why an Elect is expected to sleep in one at least every now and again, and whenever they are away from the Community (and preferably with their head pointed towards the Community, to show their thoughts lie in that direction). Personally I've always liked hammocks and never really felt comfortable in ordinary beds, so I rarely sleep in anything else.

I lay in my hammock. The loft was spinning. I suspected I had put away too much of the Litening Stryke cider over the course of the evening. At home, when we wish to partake of alcohol we almost invariably drink our own ales, produced in the brew house at the farm. There are certain ceremonies in which small amounts of a special Holy Ale are used, and generally the fact that fermented or distilled fluids have a certain effect on the human brain is taken as being at best a benediction and a gift from God, and at worst an example of Their irritatingly inventive sense of humour which it would be dangerously unwise as well as distinctly unsporting not to be a willing party to. At the same time, however, while a degree of tipsiness is welcomed and indeed even encouraged at certain social events in the Order, extreme inebriation and loss of control of one's mental and bodily functions is very much frowned upon.

Community beers tend to be relatively heavily flavoured but mild in strength, whereas the cider we had consumed with the evening meal had been just the opposite, and I was suffering the effects of having treated one like the other.

The evening had passed very pleasantly; the others in the squat were Dec, the Irishman who'd walked in as Brother Zebediah had been washing my feet; Boz, a most sizable and lustrously black Jamaican man with a fabulously deep, slow voice; Scarpa, his interestingly pale south London girlfriend; and Wince, a smaller version of Boz but, confusingly, with an Irish accent.

They had been a little wary of me at first, but things had gradually become more convivial, first over the meal of vegetable curry, sweet potatoes and chicken (the last of which I couldn't eat, of course, and was glad to see Brother Zebediah passed on as well) and later while watching a videotaped film in the squat's living room, which was bare but functional and - in terms of new-looking electrical entertainment equipment - surprisingly well-equipped. I was, especially initially, distinctly uncomfortable sitting in the presence of all this cluttering technology, but felt that it was my duty to be sociable; I was, after all, the ambassador for my Faith amongst these people, as well as owing them the normal courtesies a guest owes hosts.

Partly, no doubt, the feeling of relaxation I experienced was due to the effects of the Litening Stryke as well as the 'blow' drug cigarettes they smoked, but partly too it was thanks to my somewhat playing the holy fool, regaling them with tales of our life at High Easter Offerance, our history, Revealed truths, commandments and rituals.

They all appeared to find this most entertaining, and there was much laughter and giggling. Dec wiped tears from his eyes at one point and asked me, 'Jayzus, Is, what are you on?'

'A mission,' I informed him, to further hilarity.

I think Zeb was a little embarrassed in places, but I counted it no disgrace for our Order to be the cause of such enjoyment in others, and it is anyway the case that what one initially laughs at and finds quite ridiculous can often, on more sober reflection, come to seem quite sensible and latterly even wise. There are more ways than one in which to spread the good word!

I had managed to have a quiet word with Zeb at one point, helping him to do the dishes after the meal. I briefly explained the nature of my mission and told him I expected his full cooperation in the search for our cousin Morag, which would start promptly on the morrow.

'Well, I. Never heard. Her. Being. Internationally famous,' Zeb muttered towards the suds.

'Well, she is, Brother Zeb,' I told him. 'Are you in the habit of attending classical concerts or mixing in that sort of circle?'

'No. But.'

'Well, then,' I said, emphatically.

Brother Zebediah looked as though he was going to argue about this, but I looked sternly at him, and he smiled meekly and looked down, nodding.

We were watching one of the videotaped films - it appeared to consist largely of cars chasing each other, lots of large colourful explosions and American men becoming angry and sweeping coffee tables, mantelpieces and so on clear of breakables - when I realised I was getting overly intoxicated. I stood and made my goodnights, requesting only a pint glass of water to take to my hammock-side. I tried to read a few passages from the Orthography by candlelight but confess that my vision, even with one eye determinedly closed, was not really up to the task. I closed the word of the Creator and vowed to read twice as much the following evening; I disrobed to my underwear and climbed into the hammock with a practised ease that even my sobriety-compromised state could not endanger.

It occurred to me, as I lay there, swinging in my hammock and trying to ignore the pressure in my bladder, that we were all abbreviated: I from Isis to Is, Zebediah to Zeb, Declan to Dec, Winston to Wince… I wasn't sure about Boz or Scarpa but one certainly sounded contracted, though both could have been nicknames.

I got up to relieve myself, donning my jacket for modesty. As I left the toilet, I heard somebody say something like, '-got the bucket!' and Brother Zebediah barged out of his and Roadkill's room wearing only his trousers and an amulet, dashed past me holding his mouth and was sick in the still-flushing toilet. I hesitated, looking from the toilet to the wooden ladder which led to the loft, uncertain whether to offer to help my half-brother or not.

Zeb came out of the toilet a few moments later, sighing and smiling.

'Are you all right, Brother Zebediah?' I asked.

'Yeah,' he said, and smiled broadly. 'Yeah,' he nodded, and took me by the shoulders and then hugged me. 'You're beautiful, Is,' he said, and sighed again, then walked off, smiling, back to his room.

I climbed back to my hammock in the loft, somewhat bemused, but thankful that Zeb seemed able to shrug off minor maladies with such alacrity.