Whit

Yolanda's good mood evaporated rapidly when we got to Edinburgh Airport and she couldn't remember where she'd left her hire car.

'Thought it'd be quicker just leaving it here instead of turning it in and having to hire another one,' she said, stamping down another row of cars.

I followed, pushing a trolley. 'What sort of car was it?' I asked.  Not that it would make much difference to me; cars are cars.

'Don't know,' Yolanda said. 'Small.  Well, smallish.'

'Doesn't the car key tell you something?'

'I left the keys inside the exhaust pipe,' she said, with a hint of embarrassment. 'Saves carrying zillions of keys around.'

I'd noticed that some cars had stickers in the back window identifying hire companies.

'Can you remember what company it belonged to?'

'No.'

'They've got these letters on posts all over the car park; was it near- ?'

'Can't remember.  I was in a hurry.'

'What colour was the car?'

'Red.  No; blue….  Shit.' Yolanda looked frustrated.

'Can you remember what cars it was parked between?'

'Get real, Isis.'

'Oh.  Yes, I suppose they might have moved.  But maybe they're still here!'

'Range Rover.  One was a Range Rover.  One of those tall things.'

We checked all the Range Rovers in the car park before Yolanda thought to check her credit card slips.  There was no sign of a car hire from Glasgow Airport.

'Probably left it in the car,' she admitted. '… Oh, the hell with this.  Let's hire another one.'

'What about the one that's here?'

'Fuck it.  They'll find it eventually.'

'Won't you get charged?'

'Let them sue.  That's what lawyers are for.'

* * *

If our Faith had a Golden Age it was probably between the years 1955 to 1979; that was when our Order grew from just a few people, many of them related in one way or another, to a fully functioning religion with a complete theology, an established base (indeed, two established bases, the original at Mr McIlone's farm at Luskentyre and the new one at High Easter Offerance), a settled succession of Leapyearians - through my father, Christopher, and then myself - and a steadily growing number of converts, some of whom came to stay and work at the Community and some of whom were happier in the outside world, though remaining committed to the Order and pledged both to come to its aid if required and to act as our missionaries to the Unsaved.

Then, in 1979, two disasters befell us, one affecting each of our two spiritual and physical homes.  On Harris in April, Mr Eoin McIlone died.  To our astonishment - and it has to be said, to our Founder's fury - he died intestate, and his farm was inherited by an Unsaved:  Mr McIlone's vile step-brother from the town of Banff, who was interested only in selling the place as quickly as possible and making as much money as he could.  He had no sympathy with our Faith, and as soon as he took possession of the property he turned out the Brothers and Sisters who lived and worked there.  Some of those people had been there for thirty years, working the land and maintaining the fabric of the buildings, putting three decades of sweat and toil into the place for no more reward than a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, but they were ejected without a thought, without as much as a Thank you or a By-your-leave, as though they were criminals.  We were told that Mr McIlone's step-brother went to church every Sunday, but by God there was little Christian charity in the man.  If his Hell was true he'd rot in it.

Of the five Brothers and Sisters who were living at Luskentyre when Mr McIlone passed on, two came to us at the Community, one stayed in the islands to work on another farm, one remained there to fish, and one returned to her original family in England.  Our world was suddenly smaller, and for all that High Easter Offerance was a fine, productive place, and far more balmily easeful than Luskentyre, still we felt, I think, the loss of our original home as though we had lost an old friend.  Of course, I was barely three when this happened and can remember little or nothing of the time, but I'm sure I must have been affected by the mood of the people around me and surely joined in the mourning in my own childish way.

Luskentyre remained and remains a holy place for our Order, and many of us have been on pilgrimage to the area - I myself travelled there last year, attended by Sisters Fiona and Cassie - though we are denied access to the farm itself by its current owners and must content ourselves with staying in local Bed and Breakfasts, wandering the coastline and the dunes and surveying the remnants of the ruined seaweed factory.

Our grief at losing Luskentyre proved to be only a presentiment of what was to come, however, at the other end of the year.

* * *

'I have to be in Prague tomorrow,' Yolanda said as we finally made the motorway that would take us to within a few miles of High Easter Offerance. 'Sure you don't want to come?'

'Grandma, apart from anything else, I don't have a passport.'

'Shame.  You should get one.  I'll get you one.'

'I think it causes problems when we apply for passports.'

'I'll bet.  What do you expect from a country where they not only won't let you bring a gun into the country but won't even let you buy one when you get here?' She shook her head.

'Will you be coming straight back?'

'Nope; then I head for Venice, Italy.'

I thought about this. 'I thought your other house was in Venice, California.'

Yolanda nodded. 'I've a house there, and an apartment in the original Venice.'

'Doesn't that get confusing?'

'Does for the IRS,' Yolanda said, glancing over at me and grinning.

I was shocked. 'Aren't they some sort of terrorist organisation?'

Grandmother Yolanda had a good laugh at that. 'Kind of,' she agreed. 'Come to think of it, now that Russia's opened up, I might buy places in both Georgias.  That would confuse the hell out of them, too.'

'Do you think you'll ever settle down, Grandmother?'

'Not even in an urn, child; I want to have my ashes scattered to the four winds.' She glanced at me. 'You could do that for me, maybe.  If I left you instructions in my will, would you?'

'Um,' I said, 'well, I… I suppose so.'

'Don't look upset; I might change my mind, anyway; get myself frozen instead.  They can do that nowadays, you know.'

'Really?' I had no idea what she was talking about.

'Anyway,' Yolanda said. 'Prague, Venice, then Scotland again.' (She pronounces it Skatlind.) 'I'm goin' to try and get back for the end of the month.'

'Oh, for the Festival.'

'Well, no, not specifically, but what is happening with that?  For you personally, I mean.'

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and looked at the scenery of fields and hills. 'How do you -?'

'You know what I mean, Isis,' she said, not unkindly.

I knew what she meant.  I knew so well that I had been trying hard not to think about it for some long time by then, and this whole excursion to look for Morag had itself provided a way of not thinking about it.  But now that Morag's trail had finally gone cold and there seemed to be some sort of problem requiring my presence at the Community, I had no choice but to confront the question: what to do?

'Isis.  Are you happy taking this part in this Love-Fest or not?'

'It's my duty,' I said lamely.

'Bullshit.'

'But it is,' I said. 'I'm the Elect of God.'

'You're a free woman, Isis.  You can do what you please.'

'Not really.  There are expectations.'

'Fooey.'