Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory

"What? What dogs?"

"You heard. You're too close. No more dogs. Leave them alone. And no kids, either. No worms. Just forget about it. Come and see us if you want to — that'd be nice — but no worms, no burning dogs. I'm serious, Eric. You'd better believe it."

"Believe what? What are you talking about?" he said in a plaintive voice.

"You heard," I said, and put the phone down. I stood by the telephone, looking upstairs. In a few seconds it rang again. I picked it up, heard pips go, and replaced it on the cradle. I stayed there for a few more minutes, but nothing else happened.

As I started to go back to the lounge my father came along from the study, wiping his hands on a cloth, followed by odd smells, his eyes wide.

"Who was that?"

"Just Jamie," I said, "putting on a funny voice."

"Hnnh," he said, apparently relieved, and went back.

Apart from his curry repeating on him my father was very quiet. When the evening started to cool I went out, just once round the island. Clouds were coming in off the sea, closing the sky like a door and trapping the day's heat over the island. Thunder rumbled on the other side of the hills, without light. I slept fitfully, lying sweating and tossing and turning on my bed, until a bloodshot dawn rose over the sands of the island.

I WOKE from my last bout of restless sleep with the duvet on the floor beside the bed. Nevertheless, I was sweating. I got up, had a shower, shaved carefully, and climbed into the loft before the heat up there got too severe.

In the loft it was very stuffy. I opened the skylights and stuck my head out, surveying the land behind and the sea in front with my binoculars. It was still overcast; the light seemed tired and the breeze tasted stale. I tinkered with the Factory a bit, feeding the ants and the spider and the Venus, checking wires, dusting the glass over the face, testing batteries and oiling doors and other mechanisms, all more to reassure myself than anything else. I dusted the altar as well as arranged everything on it carefully, using a ruler to make sure all the little jars and other pieces were arranged perfectly symmetrically on it.

I was sweating again by the time I came down, but couldn't be bothered having another shower. My father was up, and made breakfast while I watched some Saturday-morning television. We ate in silence. I took a tour round the island in the morning, going to the Bunker and getting the Head Bag so I could do any necessary repair work to the Poles as I made my way round.

It took me longer than usual to complete the circuit because I kept stopping and going to the top of the nearest tall dune to look out over the approaches. I never did see anything. The heads on the Sacrifice Poles were in fairly good repair. I had to replace a couple of mice heads, but that was about all. The other heads and the streamers were intact. I found a dead gull lying on the mainland face of a dune, opposite the island's centre. I took the head and buried the rest near a Pole. I put the head, which was starting to smell, in a plastic bag and stuffed it in the Head Bag with the dried ones.

I heard then saw the birds go up as somebody came along the path, but I knew it was only Mrs Clamp. I climbed a dune to watch, and saw her pedalling over the bridge with her ancient delivery-bike. I took another look over the pasture land and dunes beyond, once she had disappeared round the dune before the house, but there was nothing, just sheep and gulls. Smoke came from the dump, and I could just hear the steady grumble of an old diesel on the railway line. The sky stayed overcast but bright, and the wind sticky and uncertain. Out to sea I could make out golden slivers near the horizon where the water glittered under breaks in the cloud, but they were far, far out.

I completed my round of the Sacrifice Poles, then spent half an hour near the old winch indulging in a bit of target practice. I set up a few cans on the rusty iron of the drum housing, went back thirty metres and brought them all down with my catapult, using only three extra steelies for the six cans. I set them up again once I had recovered all but one of the big ball-bearings, went back to the same position and threw pebbles at the cans, this time taking fourteen shots before all the cans were down. I ended up throwing the knife at a tree by the old sheep-pen a few times and was pleased to find I was judging the number of tumbles well, the blade whacking into the much-cut bark straight each time.

Back in the house I washed, changed my shirt and then appeared in the kitchen in time for Mrs Clamp serving up the first course, which for some reason was piping-hot broth. I waved a slice of soft, smelly white bread over it while Mrs Clamp bent to the bowl and slurped noisily and my father crumbled wholemeal bread, which appeared to have wood shavings in it, over his plate.

"And how are you, Mrs Clamp?" I asked pleasantly.

"Oh, I'm all right, " Mrs Clamp said, drawing her brows together like a snagged end of wool being unravelled from a sock. She completed the frown and directed it at the dripping spoon just under her chin, telling it: "Oh, yes, I'm all right."

"Isn't it hot?" I said, and hummed. I went on flapping the bread over my soup while my father looked at me darkly.

"It's summer," Mrs Clamp explained.

"Oh, yes," I said. "I'd forgotten."

"Frank," my father said rather unclearly, his mouth full of vegetables and wood shavings, "I don't suppose you recall the capacity of these spoons, do you?"

"A quarter-gill?" I suggested innocently. He glowered and sipped some more soup. I kept on flapping, stopping only to disturb the brown skin that was forming over the surface of my broth. Mrs Clamp sipped again.

"And how are things in the town, Mrs Clamp?" I asked.

"Very well, as far as I know," Mrs Clamp informed her soup. I nodded. My father was blowing at his spoon. "The Mackies" dog has gone missing, or so I was told," Mrs Clamp added. I raised my brows slightly and smiled in a concerned way. My father stopped and stared, and the noise of his soup dribbling off his spoon — the end of which had started to drop slightly just after Mrs Clamp's sentence — echoed round the room like piss going into a toilet bowl.

"Really?" I said, keeping on flapping. "What a shame. Just as well my brother's not around or he'd be getting the blame of it." I smiled, glanced at my father, then back at Mrs Clamp, who was watching me with narrowed eyes through the rising steam from her soup. Dough fatigue set into the piece of bread I was using to fan the soup, and it fell apart. I caught the falling end smartly with my free hand and returned it to my side plate, raising my spoon and taking a tentative sip from the surface of the broth.

"H'm," Mrs Clamp said.

"Mrs Clamp couldn't get your beefburgers today," my father said, clearing his throat on the first syllable of "couldn't', "so she got you mince instead."

"Unions!" Mrs Clamp muttered darkly, spitting into her soup. I put one elbow on the table, rested my cheek on a fist and looked puzzledly at her. To no avail. She didn't look up, and eventually I shrugged to myself and carried on sipping. My father had put his spoon down, wiping his brow with one sleeve and using a fingernail in an attempt to remove a piece of what I assumed to be wood shaving from between two upper teeth.

"There was a wee fire down by the new house yesterday, Mrs Clamp; I put it out, you know. I was down there and I saw it and I put it out," I said.

"Don't boast, boy," my father said. Mrs Clamp held her tongue.

"Well, I did," I smiled.

"I'm sure Mrs Clamp isn't interested."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Mrs Clamp said, nodding her head in slightly confusing emphasis.