The Wasp Factory

by Iain Banks

  ‘I’m Frank. Stop calling me Eric’

  ‘OK. OK. I’ll call you Frank.’

  ‘So who are you?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Eric?’ I said tentatively.

  ‘You just said you were called Frank.’

  ‘Well,’ I sighed, leaning against the wall with one hand and wondering what I could say. ‘That was . . . that was just a joke. Oh God, I don’t know.’ I frowned at the phone and waited for Eric to say something.

  ‘Anyway, Eric,’ Eric said, ‘what’s the latest news?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. I was out last night, at the pub. Did you call last night?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Oh. Dad said somebody did. I thought it might have been you.’

  ‘Why would I call?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ I shrugged to myself. ‘For the same reason you called tonight. Whatever.’

  ‘Well, why do you think I called tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Christ; you don’t know why I’ve called, you aren’t sure of your own name, you get mine wrong. You’re not up to much, are you?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, more to myself than to Eric. I could feel this conversation going all the wrong way.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Terrible. How are you?’

  ‘OK. Why are you feeling terrible?’

  ‘You don’t really care.’

  ‘Of course I care. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing that would interest you. Ask me something else, like how the weather is or where I am or something. I know you don’t care how I feel.’

  ‘Of course I do. You’re my brother. Naturally I care,’ I protested. Just at that moment I heard the kitchen door open, and seconds later my father appeared at the bottom of the stairs and, taking hold of the great wooden ball sculpted on to the top of the last banister, stood glaring up at me. He lifted his head and put it slightly to one side to listen better. I missed a little of what Eric said in reply to me, and only caught;

  ‘ . . . care how I feel. Every time I ring up it’s the same. “Where are you?” That’s all you care about; you don’t care about where my head’s at, only my body. I don’t know why I bother, I don’t. I might as well not take the trouble of calling.’

  ‘H’m. Well. There you are,’ I said, looking down at my father and smiling. He stood there, silent and unmoving.

  ‘See what I mean? That’s all you can say. “H’m. Well. There you are.” Thanks a fucking lot. That shows all you care.’

  ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary,’ I told him, then put the phone just a little away from my mouth and shouted to my father: ‘It’s only Jamie again, Dad!’

  ‘. . . why I bother to make the effort really I don’t . . . ,’ Eric rambled on in the earpiece, apparently oblivious to what I’d just said. My father ignored it, too, standing in the same position as before, head cocked.

  I licked my lips and said; ‘Well, Jamie—’

  ‘What? You see? You’ve forgotten my name again now. What’s the use? That’s what I’d like to know. H’m? What’s the use? He doesn’t love me. You love me, though, don’t you, h’m?’ His voice became slightly fainter and more echoey; he must have taken his mouth away from the handset. It sounded as though he was talking to somebody else in the call-box with him.

  ‘Yes, Jamie, of course.’ I smiled at my father and nodded and put one hand under the other armpit, trying to look as relaxed as possible.

  ‘You love me, don’t you, my sweet? As though your little heart was on fire for me . . .,’ Eric mumbled far away. I swallowed and smiled again at my father.

  ‘Well, that’s the way things go, Jamie. I was just saying that to Dad here this morning.’ I waved at Father.

  ‘You’re burning up with love for me, aren’t you, me little darlin’?’

  My heart and stomach seemed to collide as I heard a rapid panting noise come over the phone behind Eric’s muttering. A slight whine and some slobbering noises brought goose-pimples up all over me. I shivered. My head shook as though I’d just knocked back some hundred-proof whisky. Pant pant whine whine went the noise. Eric said something soothing and quiet in the background. Oh my God, he had a dog in there with him. Oh, no.

  ‘Well! Listen! Listen, Jamie! What do you think?’ I said loudly and desperately, wondering if my father could see my goosebumps. I thought my eyes must be starting out of my head, too, but there was little I could do; I was trying the best I could to think of something distracting to say to Eric. ‘I was – ah – I was just thinking that we really must – must get Willy to give us another shot of his old car; you know, the Mini he bombs up and down the sands on sometimes? That was really good fun earlier on, wasn’t it?’ I was croaking by now, my mouth drying up.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’ Eric’s voice said suddenly, close to the phone again. I swallowed, smiled once more at my father, whose eyes seemed to have narrowed slightly.

  ‘You remember, Jamie. Getting a shot of Willy’s Mini. I really must get Dad here’ – I hissed those two words – ‘to get me an old car I could drive on the sands.’

  ‘You’re talking crap. I’ve never driven anybody’s car on the sands. You’ve forgotten who I am again,’ Eric said, still not listening to what I was saying. I turned away from looking down at my father and faced into the corner, sighing mightily and whispering ‘Oh my God,’ to myself, away from the mouthpiece.

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right, Jamie,’ I continued hopelessly. ‘That brother of mine is still making his way here, as far as I can tell. Me and Dad here are hoping he’s all right.’

  ‘You little bastard! You’re talking as though I’m not even here! Christ, I hate when people do that! You wouldn’t do that to me, would you, me old flame?’ His voice went away again, and I heard doggy noises – puppy noises, come to think of it – over the phone. I was starting to sweat.

  I heard footsteps in the hall below, then the kitchen light click off. The footsteps came again, then started up the stairs. I turned round quickly, smiled at my father as he approached.

  ‘Well, there you go, Jamie,’ I said pathetically, drying up metaphorically as well as literally.

  ‘Don’t spend too long on that phone,’ my father said as he passed me, and continued up the stairs.

  ‘Right, Dad!’ I shouted merrily, beginning to experience an ache somewhere near my bladder that I sometimes get when things are going particularly badly and I can’t see any way out.

  ‘Aaaaoooo!’

  I jerked the phone away from my ear and stared into it for a second. I couldn’t decide whether Eric or the dog had made the noise.

  ‘Hello? Hello?’ I whispered feverishly, glancing up to see Father’s shadow leave the wall on the floor above.

  ‘Haaaooowwwaaaaooooww!’ came the scream down the line. I shook and flinched. My God, what was he doing to the animal? Then the receiver clunked, I heard a shout like a curse, and the phone rattled and crashed again. ‘You little bastard— Aargh! Fuck! Shit. Come back, you little—’

  ‘Hello! Eric! I mean Frank! I mean— Hello! What’s happening?’ I hissed, glancing up the stairs for shadows, crouching down at the phone and covering up my mouth with my free hand. ‘Hello?’

  There was a clatter, then ‘That was your fault!’ shouted close to the handset, then another crash. I could hear vague noises for a bit, but even straining I couldn’t make out what they were, and they could have been just noises on the line. I wondered whether I should put the phone down, and was about to do so when Eric’s voice came again, muttering something I couldn’t make out.

  ‘Hello? What?’ I said.

  ‘Still there, eh? I lost the little bastard. That was your fault. Christ, what’s the use of you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, genuinely.

  ‘Too bloody late now. Bit me, the little shit. I’ll catch it again, though. Bastard.’ The pips we
nt. I heard more money being put in. ‘I suppose you’re glad, aren’t you?’

  ‘Glad what?’

  ‘Glad the goddam dog got away, asshole.’

  ‘What? Me?’ I stalled.

  ‘You aren’t trying to tell me you’re sorry it got away, are you?’

  ‘Ah. . . .’

  ‘You did it on purpose!’ Eric shouted. ‘You did it on purpose! You wanted it to get away! You won’t let me play with anything! You’d rather the dog enjoyed itself than me! You shit! You rotten bastard!’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I laughed unconvincingly. ‘Well, thanks for calling – ah – Frank. Goodbye.’ I slammed the receiver down and stood for a second, congratulating myself on how well I had done, all things considered. I wiped my brow, which had become a little sweaty, and took a last look up at the shadowless wall above.

  I shook my head and trudged up the stairs. I’d got as far as the top step on that flight when the phone went again. I froze. If I answered it. . . . But if I didn’t, and father did. . . .

  I ran back down, picked it up, heard the coins go in; then ’Bastard!’ followed by a series of deafening crashes as plastic met metal and glass. I closed my eyes and listened to the cracks and smashes until one especially loud thump ended in a low buzz telephones don’t usually make; then I put the phone down again, turned, looked upward, and set wearily off, back up the stairs.

  • • •

  I lay in bed. Soon I would have to try some long-range fixing of this problem. It was the only way. I’d have to try to influence things through the root cause of it all: Old Saul himself. Some heavy medicine was required if Eric wasn’t to wreck single-handedly the entire Scottish telephone network and decimate the country’s canine population. First, though, I would have to consult the Factory again.

  It wasn’t exactly my fault, but I was totally involved, and I might just be able to do something about it, with the skull of the ancient hound, the Factory’s help and a little luck. How susceptible my brother would be to whatever vibes I could send out was a question I didn’t like too much to think about, given the state of his head, but I had to do something.

  I hoped the little puppy had got well away. Dammit, I didn’t hold all dogs to blame for what had happened. Old Saul was the culprit, Old Saul had gone down in our history and my personal mythology as the Castraitor, but thanks to the little creatures who flew the creek I had him in my power now.

  Eric was crazy all right, even if he was my brother. He was lucky to have somebody sane who still liked him.

  6: The Skull Grounds

  WHEN Agnes Cauldhame arrived, eight and a half months pregnant, on her BSA 500 with the swept-back handlebars and eye of Sauron painted red on the petrol-tank, my father was, perhaps understandably, not ferociously pleased to see her. She had, after all, deserted him almost immediately after my birth, leaving him holding the squealing baby. To disappear without so much as a phone call or a postcard for three years and then breeze back down the path from the town and across the bridge – rubber handlebars just clearing the sides and no more – carrying somebody else’s baby or babies and expecting to be housed, fed, nursed and delivered by my father was a little presumptuous.

  Being only three at the time, I can’t remember much about it. In fact I can’t remember anything about it at all, just as I can’t remember anything before the age of three. But then, of course, I have my own good reasons for that. From the little I’ve been able to piece together when my father has chosen to let slip some information, I’ve been able to get what I think is an accurate idea of what happened. Mrs Clamp has come across with some details on sporadic occasions, too, though they are probably no more to be relied on than what my father’s told me.

  Eric was away at the time, staying with the Stoves in Belfast.

  • • •

  Agnes, tanned, huge, all beads and bright caftan, determined to give birth in the lotus position (in which she claimed the child had been conceived) while going ‘Om’, refused to answer any of my father’s questions about where she had been for the three years and who she had been with. She told him not to be so possessive about her and her body. She was well and with child; that was all he needed to know.

  Agnes ensconced herself in what had been their bedroom despite my father’s protests. Whether he was secretly glad to have her back, and perhaps even had some foolish idea that she might be back to stay, I can’t say. I don’t think he is all that forceful really, despite the aura of brooding presence he can show when he wants to be impressive. I suspect that my mother’s obviously determined nature would have been enough to master him. Anyway, she got her way, and lived in fine style for a couple of weeks that heady summer of love and peace, etcetera.

  My father still had full use of both his legs at the time, and had to use them to run up and down from kitchen or lounge to the bedroom and back when Agnes rang the little bells sewn into the bell-bottoms of her jeans, which lay draped over a chair by the side of the bed. On top of that, my father had to look after me. I was toddling around at the time getting into mischief the way any normal, healthy three-year-old boy does.

  As I say, I can’t remember anything, but I’m told that I did seem to enjoy annoying Old Saul, the bandy-legged and ancient white bulldog my father kept – I’m told – because it was so ugly and it didn’t like women. It didn’t like motorbikes, either, and had gone wild when Agnes first arrived, barking and attacking. Agnes kicked it across the garden and it ran off yelping into the dunes, only reappearing once Agnes was safely out of the way, confined to bed. Mrs Clamp maintains that my father ought to have put the dog down years before all this happened, but I think the wet-jowled, yellow-bleary-eyed, fishy-smelling old hound must have worked on his sympathy just by being so repulsive.

  Agnes duly went into labour about lunch-time one hot still day, pouring sweat and Omming to herself while my father boiled lots of water and things and Mrs Clamp dabbed Agnes’s brow and like as not told her of all the women she’d known who had died in childbirth. I played outside, running around in a pair of shorts and – I imagine – quite happy to have the whole pregnancy thing going on because it gave me more freedom to do as I liked about the house and garden, free from my father’s supervision.

  What I ever did to annoy Old Saul, whether it was the heat that made him especially cantankerous, whether Agnes really had kicked him in the head when she arrived, as Mrs Clamp says – none of this do I know. But the little tousle-headed, dirty, tanned, bold toddler that was me might well have been up to some sort of mischief involving the beast.

  It happened in the garden, over a piece of ground that later became a vegetable patch when my father went on his health-food binge. My mother was heaving and grunting, pushing and breathing, an hour or so away from producing, and attended by both Mrs Clamp and my father, when all three (or at least two; I suppose Agnes might have been too preoccupied) heard frenzied barking and one high, awful scream.

  My father rushed to the window, looked out and down into the garden, then shouted and ran out of the room, leaving Mrs Clamp goggle-eyed, alone.

  He ran out into the garden and picked me up. He ran back into the house, shouted up to Mrs Clamp, then put me on the table in the kitchen and used some towels to stop the bleeding as best he could. Mrs Clamp, still ignorant and quite enraged, appeared with the medicine he had demanded, then almost fainted when she saw the mess between my legs. My father took the bag from her and told her to get back upstairs to my mother.

  One hour later I had recovered consciousness, was lying drugged and bloodless in my bed, and my father had gone out with the shotgun he owned then to look for Old Saul.

  He found him in a couple of minutes, before he had properly left the house. The old dog was cowering by the door of the cellar, down the steps in the cool shadow. He whined and shivered, and my young blood mixed on his slavering chops with gamey saliva and thick eye-mucus as he girned and looked shakily and pleadingly up at my father, who picked him up and strangled him.


  Now, I did eventually get my father to tell me this; and, according to him, it was just as he choked the last struggling life out of the dog that he heard another scream, this time from above, and inside the house, and that was the boy they called Paul being born. What sort of twisted thoughts went through my father’s brain at the time to make him choose such a name for the child I cannot start to imagine, but that was the name Angus chose for his new son. He had to choose it by himself because Agnes didn’t stay long. She spent two days recovering, expressed shock and horror at what had happened to me, then got on her bike and roared off. My father tried to stop her by standing in her way, so she ran him over and broke his leg quite badly, on the path before the bridge.

  Thus it was that Mrs Clamp found herself looking after my father while he insisted on looking after me. He still refused to let the old woman call in any other doctor, and set his own leg, though not quite perfectly; hence the limp. Mrs Clamp had to take the newly born child into the local cottage hospital the day after Paul’s mother left. My father protested but, as Mrs Clamp pointed out, it was quite enough to have to look after two invalids in the one house without having an infant needing constant care as well.

  • • •

  So that was my mother’s last visit to the island and the house. She left one dead, one born and two crippled for life, one way or the other. Not a bad score for a fortnight in the summer of groovy and psychedelic love, peace and general niceness.

  Old Saul ended up buried in the slope behind the house, in what later I called the Skull Grounds. My father claims that he cut the animal open and found my tiny genitals in its stomach, but I never did get him to tell me what he did with them.

  Paul, of course, was Saul. That enemy was – must have been – cunning enough to transfer to the boy. That was why my father chose such a name for my new brother. It was just lucky that I spotted it in time and did something about it at such an early age, or God knows what the child might have turned into, with Saul’s soul possessing him. But luck, the storm and I introduced him to the Bomb, and that settled his game.