The Wasp Factory Page 0,21

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 cagoule. 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 café, 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 space-ship. I got bored with it and sat down with my coffee.

I inspected the posters on the café walls to see if