Blackberry Wine

34

Pog Hill, Summer 1977

IT REALLY STARTED WITH ELVIS. MID-AUGUST, THAT WAS, AND Jay’s mother grieved with a vehemence which was almost genuine. Perhaps because they were the same age, he and she. Jay felt it, too, even though he’d never been an especial fan. That overcast sense of doom, the feeling that things were coming apart at the centre, unravelling like a ball of string. There was death in the air that August, a dark edge to the sky, an unidentifiable taste. There were more wasps that summer than he ever remembered before – long, curly, brown wasps which seemed to scent the end coming and turned spiteful early. Jay was stung twelve times – once in the mouth as he swigged a bottle of Coke, lucky not to be taken to Casualty – and together Gilly and he burned seven nests. Gilly and Jay started a crusade against the wasps that summer. On hot, moist afternoons, when the insects were sleepy and more docile, the two of them went wasping. They would find the nests, stuff the hole with shredded newspaper and firelighters and flame the whole thing. As the fire took and smoke poured into the nest the wasps would come flying out, some buzzing and burning like German aircraft in old black-and-white war movies, darkening the air and sighing, an eerie, chill sound, as they spread, bewildered and enraged, over the war zone. Gilly and Jay lay quiet in a hollow near by, far enough away from the danger spot, but as close as they dared, watching. Needless to say, this tactic was Gilly’s idea. She would squat, eyes wide and bright, as close as she could. No wasp ever stung her. She seemed as immune to them as a honey badger to bees, and as naturally lethal. Jay was secretly terrified, crouching in the hollows with his head down and pounding with black exhilaration, but the fear was addictive and they sought it time and again, clinging to each other and laughing in terror and excitement. Once, urged by Gilly, Jay put two Black Cat bangers into a nest under a dry-stone wall and lit the fuses. The nest blew apart, but smokelessly, scattering stunned and angry wasps everywhere. One managed to get into the T-shirt he was wearing and stung him again and again. It felt like being shot, and Jay screamed and rolled on the ground. But the wasp was indestructible, twitching and stinging even as he crushed it beneath his frantic body. They killed it at last by tearing off the shirt and dousing it in lighter fluid. Later Jay counted nine separate stings. Autumn loomed close, smelling of fire.