The Wasp Factory Page 0,77
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.
Just after half-past six, the phone rang. I leaped out of the chair, dived down the door out of the loft and skidded down the stairs, flicking the phone off the cradle and up to my mouth in one clean movement. I felt a buzz of excitement at how well co-ordinated I was today, and said, quite calmly: ‘Yes?’
‘Frang?’ my father’s voice said, slow and slurred. ‘Frang, iss ’at you?’
I let the contempt I felt creep into my voice: ‘Yes, Dad, it’s me. What is it?’
‘’M in the town, son,’ he said quietly, as though he was about to start crying. I heard him take a deep breath. ‘Frang, you know ’ve always loved you . . . ’m . . . ’m callin’ . . . callin’ from the town, son. Want you to come here, son, want you to come . . . come here. They’ve caught Eric, son.’
I froze. I stared at the wallpaper above the little table in the corner of the turn of the stairs where the phone sat. The wallpaper was a leafy pattern, green on white, with a