Whit

CHAPTER EIGHT

'What about kangaroos?'

'Kangaroos ?' I said, wondering what Brother Zebediah was talking about.

'Kangaroos,' he confirmed as we boarded the Underground train at Kilburn Park. There were seats free and I thought I detected Zeb making to head for one and sit, despite the fact he did not have his Sitting Board with him. He coughed and made a show of walking past the first free seat to look at a newspaper lying on a more distant seat, then came back to where I was standing near the doors, which closed. The train moved off.

'Kangaroos?' I reminded him.

'Oh. Yeah,' he said. He shrugged in a quizzical manner. 'Eat them?'

'I see,' I said, and thought. The train charged through the dark tunnel, shaking and rattling.

It was mid-morning. It had taken an unconscionably long time to rouse my half-brother from his slumbers but I had been loathe to embark upon such a crucial part of my mission alone. I had been happy with my navigation through London the previous day; considering that I had not visited the British state's capital before, and while admitting the relative failure of my Back Bussing ploy, I thought I had done reasonably well in coping with a city of such - in my own experience - unprecedented size. Nevertheless, I did not imagine myself to be 'streetwise' and - suspecting that today's expedition would be more complicated in nature - I believed that I would therefore benefit from having Zeb's considerable local knowledge, built up over a number of years of capital living and the subject of obvious if quiet pride in his all-too-occasional letters home.

Extracting Zeb from his room or even his bed at a decent hour mat morning had proved to be the most demanding and frustrating task of my mission so far; my gentle cajolings, offered cups of coffee, eulogies on the beauty of the day, waitings of toast under the nose, admittedly jocular threats of excommunication, and even an invigorating reading from a particularly stimulating passage of the Orthography all failed to elicit more than low groans from the narrow crease in the covers that was all I could see of my brother in faith. (Zeb was alone in bed at this point, Roadkill having already left.)

Finally, it took a graduated series of containers - a thimble, an egg cup, a tea cup, a pint glass and a bucket - to convince him that I was serious and that he was getting no more sleep that day, no matter how much he was 'hurting'. People usually give in after having the thimble of water poured over them but Zeb held out until the tea cup, which indicated either a remarkably violent hang-over or admirably steely determination. I knew which one I'd have put my money on (if we were allowed to do such things).

He certainly didn't look well, and seemed to have developed a cold overnight; he spent so long in the toilet I suspected he was trying to indulge in some more sleep, though when I banged on the door he sounded already awake. He did eventually succeed in what he colourfully described as 'getting his shit together' and we finally left the house at the disgracefully late hour of ten o'clock.

Zeb wore grubby training shoes with no socks, the same flayed jeans he'd worn the night before, a shirt, a holed jumper and an old parka. I looked through one of the holes in his jumper as we walked to the Underground railway station. 'Brother Zebediah,' I asked suspiciously, 'is that shirt reverse-buttoned?'

'Aw,' he said. 'Shit. Is. Please. Look. Christ. Come on.'

'Brother Zebediah, this back-sliding has to stop. Come on; off with the jumper.'

'Aw. Fuck. Shit. Come on. No. Is…'

I stood in front of him and helped him off with his jacket, then pulled the jumper over his head.

'Christ. I don't. I mean. This. Fuck. Unreal.' We were outside a newsagent's, and I did not wonder at the looks we were getting, what with this stream of profanity. Zeb held his parka and jumper while I undid his shirt buttons one by one and did them up properly.

'Fuck. Is. What. I mean. Roadkill. I mean, she. We. Share. Both. Fuck. Whatever's. You know. Lying about.'

'"Reverse-button your shirts, that the Saved shall know each other."' I quoted him.

'Yeah. But. Fuck.'

Reverse-buttoning apparently started because Salvador was ashamed of having mismatched buttons on his shirt one time when he had to go to Stornoway. It became one of our rituals when it was realised that it could be a way of recognising other Orderites, as well as acting as a constant reminder that we are Different. Reverse-buttoning consists simply of pushing a shirt button through from the outside of the button-hole, so that the button is hidden, and faces in towards the skin. 'There,' I said, pushing Zeb's shirt back into his jeans and patting his concave belly. 'Heavens, Brother Zebediah, there's nothing of you.'

Zeb sighed and put his jumper back on, then shrugged his jacket over his narrow shoulders. He made to move off. 'Ah!' I said, and pointed at his forehead.

'Jeez. Is. Fuck. Hell.'

'I don't expect you have any of the blessed mud,' I told him, 'but you may use mine this once, and luckily I have brought some spare vials from the Community, one of which I can leave with you.'

'Shit,' Zeb said, but let me make the little V on his forehead with the mud-ointment. I pocketed my jar. 'There,' I told him, taking his arm and continuing towards the station. 'Now we are indeed ready to face whatever the city will throw at us.'

Zeb had gone very quiet after that and only spoke again once we had our tickets, when he asked about eating kangaroos.

'Tricky one,' I admitted. 'Could kangaroos' fore-legs really be said to be legs at all, given that they seem to be used more as arms?'

'Yeah,' Zeb said. 'See? 'Zactly.'

'Could go either way,' I said, nodding grimly. 'Sort of thing one might have to ask the Founder.'

'My pal,' Zeb said. 'Ozzie. Had some. Said. Like. Great. Best meat. Ever tasted. Lean. Delicious. Totally. Brutal. Brilliant. Really.'

'Hmm,' I said. 'In that case I'd probably err on the side of generosity; I have always been of the opinion that God does not normally make things appetising for no good reason.'

'Right. Good. Thought so. Yeah.' Zeb looked relieved for a moment and then oddly thoughtful, as though some aberrant brain-state had succeeded in troubling him.

'Orwell?' he said, tentatively.

'Orwell?' I echoed, puzzled.

He shrugged. 'Four legs good.'

I stared nonplussed at him for a moment, then understood. 'Ah!' I exclaimed, clapping him on the back and causing him to stagger. 'Two legs bad!' I laughed. 'That's quite funny, Brother Zebediah.'

He still looked confused.

Our train terminated at Baker Street. We returned almost to the surface; I stood to one side while Zeb queued at the ticket office, it being a frustrating property of the London Underground system that the techniques of Back Bussing cannot be applied.

I looked around. Such crowds of people! I was conscious of the complete reversal of the situation one experienced living in the Community, where for days, weeks, and even in certain cases months at a time one would know, and know fairly well, every single person one came into contact with; to see a stranger was an event. Here the opposite was the case; one assumed that everybody one bumped into was a stranger, and meeting a familiar face was generally a cause for joy and celebration.

'Excuse me. Can I help you?' said a quiet spoken, middle-aged man in a grey coat. He put one hand gently on my elbow. His other hand held a black briefcase. 'Are you lost?' he asked me.

'Far from it,' I told him, looking down at his hand. 'I am one of the Found. I suspect it is you who are one of the Lost, sir.'

'What?' he said, looking confused.

'Friend, you see before you one of the most fortunate and favoured people to walk the sorry soil of earth, for I walk in the sight of God. I have the joyful honour of-'

'Oi,' Zeb said, walking smartly up to us.

The man muttered something vaguely apologetic and moved away into the crowd, head down.

'Brother Zebediah, I was engaged in missionary work just there,' I rebuked him as we returned to the train tunnels.

'Like. Shit. Fuckin'. Pervert. More like. Got. Be careful.'

'Zeb, I am not totally naive concerning the ways of the world and the vices of the city,' I told him. 'Quite possibly that gentleman did have some nefarious and even sexually predatory motive in talking to me, but I ask you: what other sort of soul is more in need of being saved? I have a duty as an Officer of the True Church and especially as the Elect to spread the good word wherever and whenever possible. I am grateful for your concern but you must not assume that I am being gulled when in fact I am evangelising. I am perfectly capable of requesting help should I happen to need it.'

This seemed to send Zeb into something of a huff, and I reflected that perhaps it was as well that I hadn't gone on to point out that, as I was an inch or so taller than he, not to mention better and more sturdily built, his intervention in such circumstances might not always be as decisive as he seemed to imagine. Zeb's pique continued onto the train, and even my attempt to jolly him out of the mood by suggesting that we repair to the buffet car for a cheering cup of tea was met with a roll of the eyes and a 'Huh!'

Still, I hoped I had proved something regarding my resourcefulness and general urbanity just by revealing that I knew of the existence of such civilisational complexities as buffet cars on trains.

Our next change of line came at Green Park station, where we ascended to buy tickets for Covent Garden.

'Are you sure this is the quickest way to travel?' I asked my half-brother as - clutching another couple of tickets - we descended underground once more.

'Buses,' Zeb explained. 'Slower.'

'Yes, but it seems wasteful to have to keep buying separate tickets for each leg of the journey; all this extra to-ing and fro-ing from platforms to ticket office and back cannot be efficient.'

'Yeah,' Zeb sighed. 'Crazy, innit?'

Once we had established ourselves on the correct platform for Covent Garden, I stared suspiciously at an illuminated sign which read, 'Jubilee Line Southbound'.

'Hmm,' I said.

Yet another change of line, and a concomitant return to the surface for another pair of tickets at Finsbury Park station took us at last to Finchley; it was a short walk from the station to the block of flats off Nether Street which had been my cousin Morag's last address. I was unprepared for the opulence of the building; I suppose I have always associated flats with council dwellings and even slums, and had rather assumed that to her credit Morag was putting up with cramped conditions during her stay in London so that she could save money. However, from the size of the cars parked in the block's car park and the general look of the place, this was no rookery for the poor.

Marble steps led to glass double doors revealing a foyer lined by sofas and pot-plants. I shook the door handles but the doors appeared to be locked.

'Riff raff,' Brother Zebediah said. 'Keeps out.' He was looking at a sort of grid in the marble wall composed of small boxes with buttons and little illuminated labels. There was a grille to one side. 'Number?' he asked.

'Thirty-five,' I told him. He ran his finger down the little plastic windows. His fingernails were long and soiled. However, I thought the better of saying anything.

'Here,' he said. 'Thirty. Five. Says. Mr. Mrs. Coyle.' He pressed the button.

'… Yes?' a female voice said from the grille after a short delay.

'Excuse me, Brother,' I said to Zeb, taking his place. 'Good morning, madam,' I said into the grille. 'I am sorry to disturb you but I am looking for Ms Morag Whit, the internationally renowned baryton soloist.'

'…Excuse me?'

'Morag Whit, the internationally renowned baryton soloist' I repeated. 'She is my cousin. Does she still live here? This is the last address we have for her.'

'No. I'm sorry. The lady who used to live here left a couple of months ago.'

'I see. It's just that I'm her cousin, you see, and my family are rather anxious to trace her. Did she leave a forwarding address?'

'Not really. Might I ask who that other gentleman is there with you?'

I straightened and looked, with a degree of consternation, I'll admit, at Zeb. He nodded over our heads to a small box just inside glass doors.

'Camera,' he said.

'Good grief!' I said. 'Are we on television?'

'Closed circuit,' Zeb said.

'Lordy!' I gulped. 'Is that a much-watched show?' My mouth had gone a little dry.('… Hello?' said the small voice from the grille.)

Zeb stared at me, frowning with incomprehension. Then he grimaced. 'Not broadcast,' he said, sounding exasperated. 'Security. For flats. Private.'

I thought I understood and quickly turned back to the grille, blushing and flustered. 'I do beg your pardon, madam. I misunderstood. This is my half-brother, Brother Zebediah, another Luskentyrian.'

'I'm sorry?' said the female voice. Zeb sighed behind me and I caught him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. 'Another what?

'Another Luskentyrian,' I replied, feeling my face colour again. Explaining these things to Blands could be time-consuming. 'It's complicated.'

'I'm sure. Well,' the voice said with an unmistakable note of finality, 'I'm very sorry I can't help you.'

'She left no forwarding address?' I said desperately. 'We just want to make sure she's all right.'

'Well…'

'Please.'

'… She did leave the address of her agent, or… manager or something, for anything urgent. But just the address, not phone or fax.'

'That would be wonderful!' I said. 'Oh, thank you!'

'Well, just hold on; I'll go get it.' There was a click.

I turned, feeling relieved, to Zeb, who was looking vaguely out at the trees between us and the road. 'There we are!' I said, and clapped him enthusiastically on the back. He stumbled forward, coughing, and had to jump down a couple of steps before he could regain his balance. He glared back at me.

'… Hello?' said the metallic voice from the wall.

Our journey from Finchley was relatively simple, taking the Northern Line south to Tottenham Court Road and then walking along Oxford Street and down Dean Street to Brewer Street.

The premises corresponding to the address we had been given for Cousin Morag's agent - a Mr Francis Leopold - did not look very encouraging.

'Dirty books?' Zeb said, and made another forlorn attempt to pull his hand through the topological - and trichological - nightmare that was his hair. We stood on the pavement looking at the oddly blank window of something calling itself an Adult Book Shop.

'Well,' I said, looking to one side. 'The number may refer to this establishment.'

Zeb glanced. 'Porn cinema.'

'Or here?'

Zeb stuck his head into the doorway. 'Peep show. Downstairs. Upstairs. Models. Girls.'

I must have looked blank.

'Prostitutes,' he said, sighing.

'Ah,' I said. 'Well, where shall we inquire first?'

Zeb's narrow face managed to display a breadth of dubiety. 'Inquire? Really? Wise?'

'Brother Zebediah,' I said, shocked. 'You're not embarrassed, are you?' I waved at the varied sexual emporia in front of us. 'Such places are stigmatised by a hypocritical society which is still frightened by the power of sexuality; nevertheless in their own admittedly somewhat sordid and avaricious way such places celebrate the physical communion of souls.'

(Actually, even as I was saying all this, I was feeling a bit dubious about it, but I was more or less quoting a certain Brother Jamie, a convert from Inverness who'd gone to Stirling University, the campus of which was only a few miles from the Community; for some reason this had all sounded more plausible when he'd said it. Now that I was actually confronted with the establishments he had been talking about, they didn't look celebratory at all. However, I'd launched into this mini-sermon so I supposed I'd better round it off, false signal or not.)

'Why,' I exclaimed, 'by our doctrine they ought to be accorded the status of churches!'

Brother Zebediah looked levelly at me through hooded eyes for a moment. He took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. 'Churches. Right. Yeah. Way. Go. Okay. Cool. Uh.' He nodded at the nearest door. 'After.'

Our inquiries at the various facilities of dubious repute met with no success. 'What's this abaht?', 'Who're you from?', 'Never 'erd of 'im.', 'Never 'erd of 'ur, neevir.', 'Look, I got a business to run, inn-I?' and 'Fack orf'. comprised the more helpful of the various replies we received. My attempts in the cramped foyer of the erotic picture house to explain that - despite the obvious squalidness of the surroundings and the primarily financial motive behind the pornographic concerns we found ourselves in the midst of - there was still a degree of common cause between such grubbily commercial exploitations of humanity's most holy instinct and the pure, sanctified expression of that urge to be discovered through our Holy Order was met initially with glazed incomprehension.

Then, quickly thereafter, the back of my jacket and shirt collar were gripped extremely firmly by the heavily ringed hand of a very large crop-haired gentleman in a suit - pushing my hat down over my eyes so that I could hardly see where I was going - and Zeb and I were given an undignifiedly rough escort past a variety of lurid posters to the doors, where we were ejected into the street outside with such force that I almost lost my footing and came within inches of colliding with a person on a motorcycle. This person then skidded to a stop, pushed up his helmet visor and informed me in no uncertain terms of my sexual activity, mental acuity and physical size, characterised me correctly by my genitals, then changed tack and insinuated that my hat was supported by a - presumably grossly enlarged - male sexual organ, and finally that my parents' union had not been sanctioned either by the state or an established church.

I tipped my hat and begged his pardon. He roared away, shaking his crash helmet.

Zeb joined me on the far pavement; his collar had been in the other fist of the man who had seen us off (who was now standing with his arms massively crossed, filling the doorway to the cinema). A few people in the crowded street were looking at us.

'Okay?' Zeb asked.

'Dignity a little tarnished,' I told him, adjusting the lapels of my jacket. 'Otherwise, uninjured. And you?'

'Fine,' Zeb said, shrugging his shoulders forward and pulling down on his jumper.

'Good,' I said, adjusting my hat properly. 'Time for a cup of tea, I think; what do you say?'

'Tea. Yeah. Right. Café. There.'

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, proved no more able to offer help, if rather more polite and stately in the manner of not providing it.

'Well, obviously, we are not really the sort of venue one would find a soloist at,' said the young man who had been summoned by the box office to talk to us. He seemed quite pleasant and well dressed, though he appeared to be troubled by his hair, a length of which over his right temple continually fell over his right eye and had to be swept back into place. I was surprised to find somebody working for an Opera House who did not appear to open his teeth or make more than the most cursory of movements with his lips when he spoke.

'I see,' I said. Our surroundings now were rather at the other end of the scale from the pornographic picture house only a fraction of a mile away, though the amount of gilt and deep, vibrant colours gave the magnificent foyer a similar if more monumental feel. 'But you have heard of her; Morag Whit, the internationally renowned baryton soloist?'

'Baryton,' the young man said, sweeping his blond hair back and staring at the central chandelier high above us. 'Baryton…' He pursed his lips. 'Isn't that in Ireland somewhere?'

'It is a form of viola da gamba,' I said frostily. 'With extra resonating strings.'

'Yes,' the young man said, drawing the word out as though it was an extrusion. 'Yes.' He nodded. 'You know, I think I did see something about a concert once…'

'It would probably be my cousin who was soloist,' I told him.

'Hmm,' he said, crossing his arms and putting one hand up to his mouth. 'Apart from that, I really can't help you, I'm afraid. I can't imagine what your cousin was doing writing to you on our headed notepaper, but then I imagine it isn't something we keep under lock and key, exactly, and of course with photocopiers and so on these days, well…' He smiled, tipping his head to one side. His hair fell over his eye again; he swept it back once more.

'I see,' I said. 'Oh well, thank you anyway.' I fished in one of my jacket pockets.

'My pleasure,' he said, smiling. He turned to go, his hair falling over his eye again as he did so.

'Please; with my compliments.' I handed him a Kirbigrip.

'Well,' I said, 'this is all most odd.' Brother Zebediah and I stood on the terrace of the Royal Festival Hall in a mild, blustery river wind, looking across the broad, grey-brown back of the River Thames. Pleasure boats crisscrossed before us, sunlight glinting on their windows as they rocked across the waves and slapped through the scissoring wakes of their fellow craft.

'Yep.'

I turned to face Zeb, arms folded, my back against the railings. Zeb's face looked pinched and jerky somehow. 'But I have seen the poster!' I protested.

'Yep.'

The Royal Festival Hall claimed never to have heard of Cousin Morag; they certainly had not hosted a concert by her at eight o'clock on Tuesday, the 16th of February, 1993, which was - unless my normally accurate and reliable memory was failing me - the date and time detailed on the poster which hung in the hall of the mansion house back in High Easter Offerance and which my Grandfather was so proud of.

The eventually helpful lady member of staff we had been referred to was adamant that no person of that name was known to her, and that indeed there had never been a solo baryton concert in the South Bank complex (at least when I mentioned the instrument itself she had heard of that; I was beginning to wonder if it existed). She was slim, cardiganed and well-spoken and her hair was neatly bunned. I suspected at the time - from her confident manner and general bearing - that I had met a memory as retentive as my own, but knew that one of us must be wrong, and so implored her to check. She invited us to take a seat in the coffee bar and disappeared back into the administrative offices of the building, to reappear with a large, battered-looking thing she called a print-out and which detailed all the events in the various parts of the complex over the year 1993.

'If there had been such a concert it would probably have been more suited to the Purcell Room…" she told us, leafing through the broad, green-lined pages.

'Could the poster have got the year wrong?' I asked.

She looked sour and took off her glasses. 'Well, it certainly didn't happen last year; I'd remember, but if you really want I can check 'ninety-two.'

'I'd be terribly grateful,' I said in a small voice, taking off my hat and trying to look waif-like.

She sighed. 'All right.'

I watched her go. 'Brother Zebediah,' I said to him. He looked startled, as if he had been falling asleep in his seat. 'I think we ought to get the lady a cup of coffee, don't you?'

He looked at me. I nodded towards the serving counter. He looked cross for a moment. 'Me,' he said. 'Always. Me. Paying. Not,' he waved one hand at me. 'Turn?' (I glared at him.) 'No?' he said, faltering.

'Brother Zebediah,' I said, drawing myself up and putting my hat back on. 'I am on a highly important mission with the blessing of and instructions directly from our Founder himself; I do have some emergency funds but otherwise I am relying on the support of the Blessed, whether they adhere strictly to our code or not. I hope you are not already forgetting the gravity of this matter; Morag has been central to our missionary plans for some time now, quite apart from being especially favoured by our dear Founder and due to take centre-stage at the quadrennial Festival. We all have to make sacrifices at such a time, Brother Zebediah, and I am shocked that you should-'

'Right! Okay! Right! All right! I'm going!' he said, interrupting me before I had really had a chance to make my point. He loped off to the counter.

The lady did not want any coffee, which put me at a disadvantage with Brother Zebediah for the rest of the meeting, during which I became convinced that Cousin Morag had indeed never played on the South Bank. I thanked her as she rose to leave and then I sat back, thinking. Zeb drank the cup of cooling coffee with a smug expression and an unnecessary amount of noise.

'No forwarding address, no agent, no concerts; nobody has heard of her!' I exclaimed. 'And her a soloist of international repute!'

'Yup. Weird.'

In such a situation the average person might start to doubt their sanity. However, Luskentyrians have it drummed into them from a very early age that it is the outside world, the world of the billions of Blands, that is obviously, demonstrably, utterly and (in the short term) irredeemably insane, while they themselves have had the immense good luck (or karma, if you like, there's a fine and still debatable theological point at issue here) to be born into the one True Church with a decent grasp of reality and a plausible explanation for everything.

I did not, therefore, even begin to question whether I was in full possession of my faculties (with the singular and brief exception of my memory, as mentioned above), though I was well aware something was seriously out of kilter somewhere, and that as a result my mission was rapidly taking on a degree of complexity and difficulty neither I nor my fellow Officers back at the Community had bargained for.

Urgent action was obviously called for.

What I really needed to do was talk to God.