Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory

I lit the candle inside the skull of Old Saul. That orb of bone, holed and yellowing, was what killed all those little creatures who met their death in the mud on the far side of the creek. I watched the smoky flame waver inside the place where the dog's brains used to be and I closed my eyes. I saw the Rabbit Grounds again, and the flaming bodies as they jumped and sped. I saw again the one that escaped the Grounds and died just before it made it to the stream. I saw the Black Destroyer, and remembered its demise. I thought of Eric, and wondered what the Factory's warning was about.

I saw myself, Frank L. Cauldhame, and I saw myself as I might have been: a tall slim man, strong and determined and making his way in the world, assured and purposeful. I opened my eyes and gulped, breathing deeply. A fetid light blazed from Old Saul's sockets. The candles on either side of the altar flickered with the skull-flame in a draught.

I looked round the Bunker. The severed heads of gulls, rabbits, crows, mice, owls, moles and small lizards looked down on me. They hung drying on short loops of black thread suspended from lengths of string stretched across the walls from corner to corner, and dim shadows turned slowly on the walls behind them. Around the foot of the walls, on plinths of wood or stone, or on bottles and cans the sea had surrendered, my collection of skulls watched me. The yellow brain-bones of horses, dogs, birds, fish and horned sheep faced in towards Old Saul, some with beaks and jaws open, some shut, the teeth exposed like drawn claws. To the right of the brick, wood and concrete altar where the candles and the skull sat were my small phials of precious fluids; to the left rose a tall set of clear plastic drawers designed to hold screws, washers, nails and hooks. Each drawer, not much larger than a small matchbox, held the body of a wasp which had been through the Factory.

I reached over for a large tin on my right, prised the tight lid off with my knife and used a small teaspoon inside to place some of the white mixture from the tin on to a round metal plate in front of the old dog's skull. Then I took the oldest of the wasp cadavers from its little tray and tipped it on to the white pile of granules. I replaced the sealed tin and the plastic drawer and lit the tiny pyre with a match.

The mixture of sugar and weedkiller sizzled and glared; the intense light seared through me and clouds of smoke rolled up and around my head as I held my breath and my eyes watered. In a second the blaze was over, the mixture and the wasp a single black lump of scarred and blistered debris cooling from a bright yellow heat. I closed my eyes to inspect the patterns, but only the burning after-image remained, fading like the glow on the metal plate. It danced about briefly on my retinas, then disappeared. I had hoped for Eric's face, or some further clue about what was going to happen, but I got nothing.

I leaned forward, blew out the wasp candles, right then left, then blew through one eye and extinguished the candle inside the dog skull. Still glare-blind, I felt my way to the door through the dark and the smoke. I went out, letting the smoke and fumes free into the damp air; coils of blue and grey curled off my hair and clothes as I stood there, breathing deeply. I closed my eyes for a bit, then went back into the Bunker to tidy up.

I closed the door and locked it. I went back to the house for lunch and found my father chopping driftwood in the back garden.

"Good day," he said, wiping his brow. It was humid if not particularly warm, and he was stripped to the vest.

"Hello," I said.

"Were you all right yesterday?"

"I was."

"I didn't get back till late."

"I was asleep."

"I thought you might be. You'll be wanting some lunch."

"I'll make it today, if you want."

"No, that's all right. You can chop the wood if you have a mind to. I'll make lunch for us." He put the axe down and wiped his hands on his trousers, eyeing me. "Was everything quiet yesterday?"

"Oh, yes," I nodded, standing there.

"Nothing happened?"

"Nothing special," I assured him, putting down my gear and taking my jacket off. I took up the axe. "Very quiet, in fact."

"Good," he said, apparently convinced, and went into the house. I started swinging the axe at the lumps of driftwood.

After lunch I went into town, taking Gravel my bike and some money. I told my father I'd be back before dinner. It started to rain when I was halfway to Porteneil, so I stopped to put on my ka-gool. The going was heavy but I got there without mishap. The town was grey and empty in the dull afternoon light; cars swished through on the road going north, some with their headlights on, making everything else seem even dimmer. I went to the gun and tackle shop first, to see old Mackenzie and take another of his American hunting-catapults off him, and some air-gun pellets, too.

"And how are you today, young man?"

"Very well, and yourself?"

"Och, not too bad, you know," he said, shaking his grey head slowly, his yellowed eyes and hair rather sickly in the electric light of the shop. We always say the same things to each other. Often I stay longer in the shop than I mean to because it smells so good.

"And how's that uncle of yours these days? I haven't seen him for — oh, a while."

"He's well."

"Oh, good, good," Mr Mackenzie said, screwing up his eyes with a slightly pained expression and nodding slowly. I nodded, too, and looked at my watch.

"Well, I must be going," I said, and started to back off, putting my new catapult into the day-pack on my back and stuffing the pellets wrapped in brown paper into my combat-jacket pockets.

"Oh, well, if you must, you must," said Mackenzie, nodding at the glass counter as though inspecting the flies, reels and duck-calls within. He took up a cloth by the side of the cash register and started to move it slowly over the surface, looking up just once as I left the shop, saying, "Goodbye, then."

"Yes, goodbye."

In the Firthview cafe, apparently the location of some awful and localised ground subsidence since it was named, because it would have to be at least a storey taller to catch a view of the water, I had a cup of coffee and a game of Space Invaders. They had a new machine in, but after a pound or so I had mastered it and won an extra spaceship. I got bored with it and sat down with my coffee.

I inspected the posters on the cafe walls to see if there was anything interesting happening in the area in the near future, but apart from the Film Club there wasn't much. The next showing was The Tin Drum , but that was a book my father had bought for me years ago, one of the few real presents he has ever given me, and I had therefore assiduously avoided reading it, just as I had Myra Breckinridge , another of his rare gifts. Mostly my father just gives me the money that I ask for and lets me get what I want for myself. I don't think he's really interested; but, on the other hand, he wouldn't refuse me anything. As far as I can tell, we have some sort of unspoken agreement that I keep quiet about not officially existing in return for being able to do more or less as I like on the island and buy more or less what I like in the town. The only thing we had argued about recently was the motorbike, which he said he would buy me when I was a bit older. I suggested that it might be a good idea to get it in midsummer so that I could get plenty of practice in before the skiddy weather set in, but he thought there might be too much tourist traffic going through the town and on the roads around it in the middle of the summer. I think he just wants to keep putting it off; he might be frightened of me gaining too much independence, or he might simply be scared that I'll kill myself the way a lot of youths seem to when they get a bike. I don't know; I never know exactly how much he really feels for me. Come to think of it, I never know exactly how much I really feel for him.