The Hand of the Devil by Dean Vincent Carter Page A

pulled a huge one off my leg last year in Jamaica. Stamped on it. I don’t like killing things but then he’d only have tried to get me again, wouldn’t he?’
    ‘She,’ Mather said.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘She.’ He left the word in the air while I stood in the doorway feeling slightly puzzled. He dropped a couple of teabags into a faded brown teapot and said, ‘ She would have tried again, not he . Only the female mosquito bites people.’
    ‘Oh, I see.’ I watched Mather take the kettle and pour the boiling water into the pot. ‘So the males don’t bother people?’
    ‘Well,’ Mather began, putting the kettle back in its cradle. His expression was serious, but I sensed he was enjoying the informal tutorial. ‘There are cases of males biting people, but it’s a very rare occurrence. They’re probably just . . . confused.’
    ‘Confused? You mean, they thought they were girls?’
    Mather gave me an odd look, clearly unappreciative of my stab at humour. ‘Well, not quite. They just made a mistake, that’s all. It happens.’ He sounded a little frustrated with the direction the conversation was taking. ‘Males feed on vegetation, you see. Females do the same, but they need to ingest blood because the protein it contains facilitates egg production.’
    ‘I see. So it’s more for breeding purposes than for sustenance?’
    ‘That’s right. The blood meal is purely to aid reproduction.’
    ‘So I squished a lady. How rude of me.’
    ‘Indeed.’ Mather placed cups and plates on a large tray. ‘Would you mind giving me a hand?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    He added a large plate of toast, some butter and jam, and a couple of napkins. ‘I’ll bring the rest in,’ he said.
    ‘Right.’ I turned and left the kitchen, taking the tray into the living room, where I set it down on the small table by an armchair. Mather followed shortly with the tea. It was only then that I realized how hungry I was. Sitting down in one of the armchairs, I set about filling my stomach.
    The birds were still singing in the trees outside as I ate the toast, pausing only to wash it down with gulps of tea. Once more I was struck with the feeling that I might have had a wasted journey. I was keen to conclude my business on the island and get started on the journey back to London. I did, after all, have a job to get back to. Nevertheless, I decided to delay a while longer before saying something that might sound rude. Sitting back in the chair with my tea, I waited for him to resume the conversation. He had the detached look that had been so common amongst my lecturers at university. I guess he too believed that a speech should be thought through as much as possible in advance, instead of being delivered unprepared. Only when he had finished his first piece of toast did he continue.
    ‘You see, Mr Reeves, the male mosquito is of no real interest to entomologists,’ he began, cleaning his teeth with his tongue. ‘He is little more than a drone. Once fertilization has taken place, he’s out of the picture. He can do what he likes until he finally expires. It is the female that really matters.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘ She is the one who penetrates us – violates us, if you like.’ He grinned.
    ‘Right. So tell me a little about malaria,’ I said, trying to get to the point of my visit.
    ‘Malaria?’ He took a sip of tea, eyeing me curiously.
    ‘Yes. How does a mosquito pass it on? Where does it get it from in the first place?’
    Mather looked through the window into the distance to my left. He broke a piece of toast off his second slice and put it in his mouth. He was clearly relishing a perhaps rare opportunity to educate another on his favourite subject.
    ‘A lot of people wrongly assume,’ he said, still chewing, ‘that the mosquito somehow introduced malaria to the world and proceeded to spread it from human to human like some flying poisoned needle.’
    A plane passed overhead, temporarily breaking my host’s narrative.