The Wasp Factory Page 0,24

food, apparently satisfied if not pleased. I drank.

‘Is there anything special you’d like me to order from the town?’ he said eventually, as he rinsed his mouth with real orange juice. I shook my head, drank my beer.

‘No, just the usual,’ I shrugged.

‘Instant potatoes and beefburgers and sugar and mince pies and cornflakes and junk like that, I suppose.’ My father sneered slightly, though it was said evenly enough.

I nodded. ‘Yes, that’ll do fine. You know my likes.’

‘You don’t eat properly. I should have been more strict with you.’

I didn’t say anything, but kept on eating slowly. I could tell that my father was looking at me from the other end of the table, swilling his juice round in his glass and staring at my head as I bent over my plate. He shook his head and got up from the table, taking his plate to the sink to rinse it.

‘Are you going out tonight?’ he asked, turning on the tap.

‘No. I’ll stay in tonight. Go out tomorrow night.’

‘I hope you won’t be getting steaming drunk again. You’ll be arrested some night and then where will we be?’ He looked at me. ‘Eh?’

‘I don’t go getting steaming drunk,’ I assured him. ‘I just have a drink or two to be sociable and that’s all.’

‘Well, you’re very noisy when you come back for somebody who’s only been sociable, so you are.’ He looked at me darkly again and sat down.

I shrugged. Of course I get drunk. What the hell’s the point of drinking if you don’t get drunk? But I’m careful; I don’t want to cause any complications.

‘Well, just you be careful, then. I always know how much you’ve had from your farts.’ He snorted, as though imitating one.

My father has a theory about the link between mind and bowel being both crucial and very direct. It’s another of his ideas which he keeps trying to interest people in; he has a manuscript on the subject (‘The State of the Fart’) which he also sends away to London to publishers now and again and which they of course send back by return. He has variously claimed that from farts he can tell not only what people have eaten or drunk, but also the sort of person they are, what they ought to eat, whether they are emotionally unstable or upset, whether they are keeping secrets, laughing at you behind your back or trying to ingratiate themselves with you, and even what they are thinking about at the precise moment they issue the fart (this largely from the sound). All total nonsense.

‘H’m,’ I said, non-committal to a fault.

‘Oh, I can,’ he said as I finished my meal and leaned back, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, more to annoy him than anything else. He kept nodding. ‘I know when you’ve had Heavy, or Lager. And I’ve smelt Guinness off you, too.’

‘I don’t drink Guinness,’ I lied, secretly impressed. ‘I’m afraid of getting athlete’s throat.’

This witticism was lost on him apparently, for without a pause he continued: ‘It’s just money down the drain, you know. Don’t expect me to finance your alcoholism.’

‘Oh, you’re being silly,’ I said, and stood up.

‘I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen better men than you think they could handle the drink and end up in the gutter with a bottle of the fortified wine.’

If that last sally was intended to go below the belt, it failed; the ‘better men than you’ line was worked out long ago.

‘Well, it’s my life, isn’t it?’ I said and, putting my plate in the sink, left the kitchen. My father said nothing.

That night I watched television and did some paperwork, amending the maps to include the newly named Black Destroyer Hill, writing a brief description of what I’d done to the rabbits and logging both the effects of the bombs that I’d used and the manufacture of the latest batch. I determined to keep the Polaroid with the War Bag in future; for low-risk, punitive expeditions like that against the rabbits it would more than repay the extra weight and the amount of time consumed using it. Of course, for serious devilry the War Bag has to go by itself, and a camera would just be a liability, but I haven’t had a real threat for a couple of years, since the time some big boys in the town took to bullying me in Porteneil and ambushing me on the path.

I thought things were going to get pretty