The Wasp Factory (3 page)
Authors: Iain Banks
‘“Fucking” is not a four-letter word. It’s . . . it’s a seven-letter word. Isn’t that your lucky number?’
‘No. Look, will you tell me where you are? I want to know.’
‘I’ll tell you where I am if you’ll tell me what your lucky number is.’
‘My lucky number is
e
.’
e
.’
‘
That’s
not a number. That’s a letter.’
That’s
not a number. That’s a letter.’
‘It
is
a number. It’s a transcendental number: 2.718—’
is
a number. It’s a transcendental number: 2.718—’
‘That’s cheating. I meant an integer.’
‘You should have been more specific,’ I said, then sighed as the pips sounded and Eric eventually put more money in. ‘Do you want me to call you back?’
‘Ho-ho. You aren’t getting it out of me that easy. How are you, anyway?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Mad, of course,’ he said, quite indignantly. I had to smile.
‘Look, I’m assuming you’re coming back here. If you are, please don’t burn any dogs or anything, OK?’
‘What are you talking about? It’s me. Eric. I don’t burn dogs!’ He started to shout. ‘I don’t burn fucking dogs! What the hell do you think I am? Don’t accuse me of burning fucking dogs, you little bastard!
Bastard!
’
Bastard!
’
‘All right, Eric, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I said as quickly as I could. ‘I just want you to be OK; be careful. Don’t do anything to antagonise people, you know? People can be awful sensitive . . .’
‘Well . . .’ I could hear him say. I listened to him breathing, then his voice changed. ‘Yeah, I’m coming back home. Just for a short while, to see how you both are. I suppose it’s just you and the old man?’
‘Yes, just the two of us. I’m looking forward to seeing you.’
‘Oh, good.’ There was a pause. ‘Why don’t you ever come to visit me?’
‘I . . . I thought Father was down to see you at Christmas.’
‘Was he? Well . . . but why don’t
you
ever come?’ He sounded plaintive. I shifted my weight on to my other foot, looked around the landing and up the stairs, half-expecting to see my father leaning over the banister rail, or to see his shadow on the wall of the landing above, where he thought he could hide and listen to my phone calls without me knowing.
you
ever come?’ He sounded plaintive. I shifted my weight on to my other foot, looked around the landing and up the stairs, half-expecting to see my father leaning over the banister rail, or to see his shadow on the wall of the landing above, where he thought he could hide and listen to my phone calls without me knowing.
‘I don’t like leaving the island for that long, Eric. I’m sorry, but I get this horrible feeling in my stomach, as though there’s a great big knot in it. I just can’t go that far away, not overnight or . . . I just can’t. I want to see you, but you’re so far away.’
‘I’m getting closer.’ He sounded confident again.
‘Good. How far away are you?’
‘Not telling you.’
‘I told you my lucky number.’
‘I lied. I’m still not going to tell you where I am.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Well, I’ll hang up now.’
‘You don’t want to talk to Dad?’
‘Not yet. I’ll talk to him later, when I’m a lot closer. I’m going now. See you. Take care.’
‘
You
take care.’
You
take care.’
‘What’s to worry about? I’ll be all right. What can happen to me?’
‘Just don’t do anything to annoy people. You know; I mean, they get angry. About pets especially. I mean, I’m not—’
‘What?
What?
What was that about pets?’ he shouted.
What?
What was that about pets?’ he shouted.
‘Nothing! I was just saying—’
‘You little shit!’ he screamed. ‘You’re accusing me of burning dogs again, aren’t you? And I suppose I stick worms and maggots into kids’ mouths and piss on them, too, eh?’ he shrieked.
‘Well,’ I said carefully, toying with the flex, ‘now you mention it—’
‘Bastard!
Bastard!
You little shit! I’ll kill you! You—’ His voice disappeared, and I had to put the phone away from my ear again as he started to hammer the handset against the walls of the call-box. The succession of loud clunks sounded over the calm pips as his money ran out. I put the phone back in the cradle.
Bastard!
You little shit! I’ll kill you! You—’ His voice disappeared, and I had to put the phone away from my ear again as he started to hammer the handset against the walls of the call-box. The succession of loud clunks sounded over the calm pips as his money ran out. I put the phone back in the cradle.
I looked up, but there was still no sign of Father. I crept up the stairs and stuck my head between the banisters, but the landing was empty. I sighed and sat down on the stairs. I got the feeling I hadn’t handled Eric very well over the phone. I’m not very good with people and, even though Eric is my brother, I haven’t seen him for over two years, since he went crazy.
I got up and went back down to the kitchen to lock up and get my gear, then I went to the bathroom. I decided to watch the television in my room, or listen to the radio, and get to sleep early so I could be up just after dawn to catch a wasp for the Factory.
I lay on my bed listening to John Peel on the radio and the noise of the wind round the house and the surf on the beach. Beneath my bed my home-brew gave off a yeasty smell.
I thought again of the Sacrifice Poles; more deliberately this time, picturing each one in turn, remembering their positions and their components, seeing in my mind what those sightless eyes looked out to, and flicking through each view like a security guard changing cameras on a monitor screen. I felt nothing amiss; all seemed well. My dead sentries, those extensions of me which came under my power through the simple but ultimate surrender of death, sensed nothing to harm me or the island.
I opened my eyes and put the bedside light back on. I looked at myself in the mirror on the dressing-table over on the other side of the room. I was lying on top of the bed-covers, naked apart from my underpants.
I’m too fat. It isn’t that bad, and it isn’t my fault - but, all the same, I don’t look the way I’d like to look. Chubby, that’s me. Strong and fit, but still too plump. I want to look dark and menacing; the way I ought to look, the way I should look, the way I might have looked if I hadn’t had my little accident. Looking at me, you’d never guess I’d killed three people. It isn’t fair.
I switched the light out again. The room was totally dark, not even the starlight showing while my eyes adjusted. Perhaps I would ask for one of those LED alarm radios, though I’m very fond of my old brass alarm clock. Once I tied a wasp to the striking-surface of each of the copper-coloured bells on the top, where the little hammer would hit them in the morning when the alarm went off.
I always wake up before the alarm goes, so I got to watch.
2
The Snake Park
I took the little cinder that was the remains of the wasp and put it into a matchbox, wrapped in an old photograph of Eric with my father. In the picture my father was holding a portrait-sized photograph of his first wife, Eric’s mother, and she was the only one who was smiling. My father was staring at the camera looking morose. The young Eric was looking away and picking his nose, looking bored.
The morning was fresh and cold. I could see mist over the forests below the mountains, and fog out over the North Sea. I ran hard and fast along the wet sand where it was good and firm, making a jet noise with my mouth and holding my binoculars and bag down tight to my sides. When I got level with the Bunker I banked inland, slowing as I hit the soft white sand further up the beach. I checked the flotsam and jetsam as I swept over it, but there was nothing interesting-looking, nothing worth salvaging, just an old jelly-fish, a purple mass with four pale rings inside. I altered course slightly to overfly it, going ‘Trrrrrfffaow! Trrrrrrrrrrrrrfffaow!’ and kicking it on the run, blasting a dirty fountain of sand and jelly up and around me. ‘
Puchrrt!
’ went the noise of the explosion. I banked again and headed for the Bunker.
Puchrrt!
’ went the noise of the explosion. I banked again and headed for the Bunker.
The Poles were in good repair. I didn’t need the bag of heads and bodies. I visited them all, working through the morning, planting the dead wasp in its paper coffin not between two of the more important Poles, as I had intended originally, but under the path, just on the island side of the bridge. While I was there I climbed up the suspension cables to the top of the mainland tower and looked around. I could see the top of the house and one of the skylights over the loft. I could also see the spire of the Church of Scotland in Porteneil, and some smoke coming up from the town chimneys. I took the small knife from my left breast pocket and nicked my left thumb carefully. I smeared the red stuff over the top of the main beam which crosses from one I-girder to the other on the tower, then wiped my small wound with an antiseptic tissue from one of my bags. I scrambled back down after that and retrieved the ball-bearing I had hit the sign with the day before.
The first Mrs Cauldhame, Mary, who was Eric’s mother, died in childbirth in the house. Eric’s head was too big for her; she haemorrhaged and bled to death on the marital bed back in 1960. Eric has suffered from quite severe migraine all his life, and I am very much inclined to attribute the ailment to his manner of entry into the world. The whole thing about his migraine and his dead mother had, I think, a lot to do with What Happened To Eric. Poor unlucky soul; he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and something very unlikely happened which by sheer chance mattered more to him than anybody else it could have happened to. But that’s what you risk when you leave here.
Thinking about it, that means that Eric has killed somebody, too. I had thought that I was the only murderer in the family, but old Eric beat me to it, killing his mum before he had even drawn breath. Unintentional, admittedly, but it isn’t always the thought that counts.
The Factory said something about fire.
I was still thinking about that, wondering what it really meant. The obvious interpretation was that Eric was going to set fire to some dogs, but I was too wise in the ways of the Factory to treat that as definite; I suspected there was more to it.
In a way, I was sorry Eric was coming back. I had been thinking of having a War shortly, maybe in the next week or so, but with Eric probably going to make an appearance I had decided against it. I hadn’t had a good War for months; the last one had been the Ordinary Soldiers versus the Aerosols. In that scenario, all the 72nd-scale armies, complete with their tanks and guns and trucks and stores and helicopters and boats, had to unite against the Aerosol Invasion. The Aerosols were almost impossible to stop, and the soldiers and their weapons and equipment were getting burned and melted all over the place until one brave soldier who had clung on to one of the Aerosols as it flew back to its base came back (after many adventures) with the news that their base was a breadboard moored under an overhang on an inland creek. A combined force of commandos got there just in time and blew the base to smithereens, finally blowing up the overhang on top of the smoking remains. A good War, with all the right ingredients and a more spectacular ending than most (I even had my father asking me what all the explosions and the fire had been about, when I got back to the house that evening), but too long ago.
Anyway, with Eric on his way, I didn’t think it would be a good idea to start another War only to have to abandon it in the middle of things and start dealing with the real world. I decided I would postpone hostilities for a while. Instead, after I had anointed a few of the more important Poles with precious substances, I built a dam system.
When I was younger I used to have fantasies about saving the house by building a dam. There would be a fire in the grass on the dunes, or a plane would have crashed, and all that stopped the cordite in the cellar from going up would be me diverting some of the water from a dam system down a channel and into the house. At one time my major ambition was to have my father buy me an excavator so that I could make
really
big dams. But I have a far more sophisticated, even metaphysical, approach to dam-building now. I realise that you can never really win against the water; it will always triumph in the end, seeping and soaking and building up and undermining and overflowing. All you can really do is construct something that will divert it or block its way for a while; persuade it to do something it doesn’t really want to do. The pleasure comes from the elegance of the compromise you strike between where the water wants to go (guided by gravity and the medium it’s moving over) and what you want to do with it.
really
big dams. But I have a far more sophisticated, even metaphysical, approach to dam-building now. I realise that you can never really win against the water; it will always triumph in the end, seeping and soaking and building up and undermining and overflowing. All you can really do is construct something that will divert it or block its way for a while; persuade it to do something it doesn’t really want to do. The pleasure comes from the elegance of the compromise you strike between where the water wants to go (guided by gravity and the medium it’s moving over) and what you want to do with it.
Actually, I think that life has few pleasures to compare with dam-building. Give me a good broad beach with a reasonable slope and not too much seaweed, and a fair-sized stream, and I’ll be happy all day, any day.
By that time the sun was well up, and I took off my jacket to lay it with my bags and binoculars. Stoutstroke dipped and bit and sliced and dug, building a huge triple-deck dam, the main section of which backed up the water in the North Burn for eighty paces; not far off the record for the position I had chosen. I used my usual metal overflow piece, which I keep hidden in the dunes near the best dam-building site, and the
pièce de résistance
was an aqueduct bottomed with an old black plastic rubbish-bag I’d found in the driftwood. The aqueduct carried the overflow stream over three sections of a by-pass channel I’d cut from further up the dam. I built a little village downstream from the dam, complete with roads and a bridge over the remnant of the burn, and a church.
pièce de résistance
was an aqueduct bottomed with an old black plastic rubbish-bag I’d found in the driftwood. The aqueduct carried the overflow stream over three sections of a by-pass channel I’d cut from further up the dam. I built a little village downstream from the dam, complete with roads and a bridge over the remnant of the burn, and a church.
Bursting a good big dam, or even just letting it overflow, is almost as satisfying as planning and building it in the first place. I used little shells to represent the people in the town, as usual. Also as usual, none of the shells survived the flood when the dam burst; they all sank, which meant that everybody died.
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