Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory

"There, you see?" I said, humming as I looked at my father and nodded towards Mrs Clamp, who slurped noisily.

I kept quiet through the main course, which was a stew, and only noted during the rhubarb and custard that it had a novel addition to the medley of flavours, when in fact the milk it had been made from had obviously been most profoundly off. I smiled, my father growled and Mrs Clamp slurped her custard and spat her stumps of rhubarb out on to her napkin. To be fair, it was a little undercooked.

Dinner cheered me up immensely and, although the afternoon was hotter than the morning, I felt more energetic. There were no slits of distant brightness out over the sea, and there was a thickness about the light coming through the clouds that went with the charge in the air and the slack wind. I went out, going once round the island at a brisk jog; I watched Mrs Clamp depart for the town, then I walked out in the same direction to sit on top of a tall dune a few hundred metres into the mainland and sweep the sweltering land with my binoculars.

Sweat rolled off me as soon as I stopped moving, and I could feel a slight ache start in my head. I had taken a little water with me, so I drank it, then refilled the can from the nearest stream. My father was doubtless right that sheep shat in the streams, but I was sure I had long since grown immune to anything I could catch from the local burns, having drunk from them for years while I had been damming them. I drank more water than I really felt like and returned to the top of the dune. In the distance the sheep were still, lying on the grass. Even the gulls were absent, and only the flies were still active. The smoke from the dump still drifted, and another line of hazy blue rose from the plantations in the hills, coming up from the edge of a clearing where they were harvesting the trees for the pulp mill farther up the shore of the firth. I strained to hear the sound of the saws, but couldn't.

I was scanning the binoculars over that view to the south when I saw my father. I went over him, then jerked back. He disappeared, then reappeared. He was on the path, heading for the town. I was looking over to where the Jump was, and saw him climb the side of the dune I liked to power the bike down; I had first caught sight of him as he had crested the Jump itself. As I watched, he seemed to stumble on the path just before the summit of the hill, but recovered and kept going. His cap vanished over the far side of the dune. I thought he looked unsteady, as though he was drunk.

I put the glasses down and rubbed my slightly scratchy chin. This was unusual, too. He hadn't said anything about going into the town. I wondered what he was up to.

I ran down the dune, leaped the stream and went back to the house at a fast cruise. I could smell whisky when I went through the back door. I thought back to how long ago we had eaten and Mrs Clamp had left. About an hour, an hour and a half. I went into the kitchen, where the smell of whisky was stronger, and there on the table lay an empty half-bottle of malt, one glass on its side nearby. I looked in the sink for another glass, but there were only dirty dishes lying in it. I frowned.

It was unlike my father to leave things unwashed. I picked up the whisky-bottle and looked for a black biro mark on the label, but there was nothing. That might mean it had been a fresh bottle. I shook my head to myself, wiped my forehead with a dishcloth. I took off my pocketed waistcoat and laid it over a chair.

I went out into the hall. As soon as I looked upstairs I saw that the phone was off the hook, lying by the side of the set. I went up to it quickly, picked it up. It was making an odd noise. I replaced it on the cradle, waited a few seconds, picked it up again and got the usual dialling tone. I threw it down and sprinted upstairs to the study, twisting the handle and throwing my weight against it. It was solid.

"Shit!" I said. I could guess what had happened and I had hoped my father might have left the study unlocked. Eric must have called. Dad gets the call, is shocked, gets drunk. Probably heading for the town to get more drink. Gone to the off-licence, or- I glanced at my watch — was this the weekend the Rob Roy's all-day licence started? I shook my head; it didn't matter. Eric must have called. My father was drunk. He was probably going to town to get more drunk, or to see Diggs. Or maybe Eric had arranged a rendezvous. No, that wasn't likely; surely he would contact me first.

I ran upstairs, went up into the close heat of the loft, opened the land-side skylight again and surveyed the approaches through the glasses. I came back down, locked the house and went back out, jogging to the bridge and up the path, making detours for all the tall dunes once more. Everything looked normal. I stopped at the place I had last seen my father, just on the crest of the hill leading down to the Jump. I scratched my crotch in exasperation, wondering what was the best thing to do. I didn't feel right about leaving the island, but I had a suspicion that it was in or near the town that things might start happening. I thought of calling Jamie up, but he probably wasn't in the best condition to go traipsing round Porteneil looking for Father or keeping his nostrils open for the smell of burning dog.

I sat down on the path and tried to think. What would Eric's next move be? He might wait for night to approach (I was sure he would approach; he wouldn't come all this way just to turn away at the last moment, would he?), or he might have risked enough already in telephoning and consider he had little left to lose by heading for the house right away. But of course he might as well have done that yesterday, so what was keeping him? He was planning something. Or maybe I had been too abrupt with him on the phone. Why had I hung up on him? Idiot! Perhaps he was going to give himself up, or turn tail! All because I had rejected him, his own brother!

I shook my head angrily and stood up. None of this was getting me anywhere. I had to assume that Eric was going to get in touch. That meant that I had to go back to the house, where either he would phone me or he would arrive sooner or later. Besides, it was the centre of my power and strength, and also the place I had the most need to protect. Thus resolved, heart lightened now that I had a definite plan — even if it was more a plan of inaction than anything else — I turned for the house and jogged back.

The house had grown still more stuffy while I had been away.

I plonked myself down in a chair in the kitchen, then got up to wash the glass and dispose of the whisky-bottle. I had a long drink of orange juice, then filled a pitcher full of juice and ice, took a couple of apples, half a loaf of bread and some cheese and transported the lot up into the attic. I got the chair which normally sits in the Factory and propped it up on a platform of ancient encyclopedias, swung the skylight facing the mainland right back, and made a cushion from some old, faded curtains.

I settled into my little throne and started watching through the binoculars. After a while I fished out the old bakelite-and-valves radio from the back of a box of toys and plugged it into the second light fixture with an adaptor. I turned on Radio Three, which was playing a Wagner opera; just the thing to put me in the mood, I thought. I went back to the skylight. Holes had broken in the cloud-cover in a few places; they moved slowly, putting patches of land into a brassy, glaring sunlight. Sometimes the light shone on the house; I watched the shadow of my shed move slowly round as the late afternoon became early evening and the sun moved round above the frayed clouds. A slow pattern of reflecting windows glinted from the new housing estate in the trees, slightly above the old part of the town. Gradually one set of windows stopped reflecting, gradually others took their place, all punctuated by occasional stabs as windows were shut or opened, or cars moved in the council streets. I drank some of the juice, held ice cubes in my mouth, while the hot breath of the house wafted out around me. I kept the binoculars on their steady sweepings, scanning as far to the north and south as I could without falling out of the skylight. The opera ended, was replaced by some awful modern music for what sounded like Heretic-on-a-rack and Burning Dog, which I let play because it was stopping me from getting sleepy.