Miss Benson's Beetle

by Rachel Joyce

  Time to get a passport.

  * * *

  —

  The young man behind the desk said it took a month to process an application and, in any case, hers was not valid. He was very thin, verging on spindly, and his lashes were so pale his eyes looked shaved. “But I only have three weeks,” said Margery. “And what exactly is wrong with my application?”

  “You haven’t provided a photograph. And you can’t describe your face like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can describe your face as round. Or thin.”

  “That’s it? That’s the only way I can describe my face?”

  She had been queuing at the passport office for two hours. She’d had to wait in front of a woman with a cold, whose germs were hopping all over the place. She had filled in her form correctly, and when it asked for a description of her face she’d written “Intelligent.” If she hadn’t provided a photograph, it was because she didn’t have one.

  “Any photograph will do,” said the passport official, handing her a new application form, “so long as you’re not wearing a hat. You must have an old photograph?”

  But, no, Margery didn’t. She didn’t have a new one and she didn’t have an old one, with or without the hat. As a young woman she had once cut her face out of all the photographs of herself that she could find—and now it had become habit. She didn’t even know why she did it anymore. She just felt happier if she wasn’t in them. But the woman with the cold was beginning to sound bronchial, the passport official was staring at Margery as if she were some kind of ancient fossil, and none of that made any difference to the fact she had no photograph. “Unless you would like to accept one without my head?”

  The passport official said he wouldn’t. The head, he said, was the whole point. He sent her in the direction of a special coin-operated photo booth.

  * * *

  —

  Margery was an intelligent woman, as she’d put on her passport application, but the special coin-operated booth seemed to have come from another planet. The sign on the front advertised PHOTOS WHILE YOU WAIT!, raising the question of how you could possibly have your photo taken while you went off and did something else, but there was no time to take this up with the passport official because another person—Woman with Cold—had already come to have hers done, too. So Margery went inside the booth. She inserted her coins, she took off her hat, and was just bending forward to double-check the instructions when the flash went and missed her completely. She stepped out of the booth, queued again, then went back in and inserted more coins until she realized she didn’t have enough. By the time she returned with a fresh supply, a couple were already in the booth, using her coins, and also the booth, for something livelier than a photograph. Afterward she felt a need to wipe the seat, just in a hygienic way, so that a tutting queue began to form and, in her distress, she made it too high. Consequently, her second strip of photos were of her head but only the lower half. She looked barely human. More coins, more queuing. Her third set would have been perfect were it not for a helpful stranger who thought Margery might be having difficulties and opened the curtain as the flash fired: even though there was a full portrait of Margery, there was also one of a dark-haired woman she had never met, looking surprised and terribly apologetic. By now it was midafternoon.

  As she approached the passport official, he did his best to duck. (“I can still see you,” said Margery.) Quickly he stamped her application and said it would have to do. He would mark it as urgent.

  19 stockings (not in pairs)

  1 gray skirt

  1 gray cardigan

  2 girdles

  Illustrated Guide to Beetles of the World

  Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living by Snodgrass

  1 guide to rare orchids

  1 brown frock (belt missing)

  1 French dictionary

  30 packets of oatmeal

  1 pair of lacrosse boots

  Pocket Guide to New Caledonia by the Reverend Horace Blake

  * * *

  —

  Time was passing too fast. Her veins throbbed, her head spun, her jaw was a clamp. Write to L’Office Centrale de Permis in New Caledonia, write to the French embassy, write to the British consulate. Margery seemed to exist permanently above the surface of things. Buy supplies. Sort collecting equipment. Pack suitcase. Get vaccinations. And now that the stolen boots were in the hands of the police, Margery half expected to find a man in uniform, with a warrant for her arrest, every time she stepped outside.

  Miss Hamilton wrote daily, full of new ideas and suggestions. Wouldn’t it be jolly to dress as men and hire mules? Frankly, it wouldn’t. Margery had a thing about mules: she had been bitten as a teenager, and would do anything to avoid their large yellow teeth. She also had less in the way of funding than she’d let on. She had never been a full-blown liar—Barbara once made her take a bite out of the soap when she swore she hadn’t taken the sieve for beetle collecting—but the trust fund she had inherited from her aunts would barely cover the return voyage. She wrote again to the Royal Entomological Society, and once again they refused to help. The letter ended with a clear warning: Do not on any account make an expedition into the remote northern regions of New Caledonia. The same advice came from the Foreign Office.

  Cash, cash, she needed more cash. Margery sold everything but the bare bones of her flat. Once again, she watched a cart drive away, loaded this time with the furniture that had belonged to her aunts. It would have appalled them, and it appalled her, too, but she had no choice. As the buyer pointed out, it was better than a smack in the eye with a wet fish. So many things, she thought, would be better than that that it was hard to see this as a helpful remark.

  Margery visited the travel agent and paid for two tickets in a shared berth, tourist class, on RMS Orion from Tilbury to Brisbane, returning home on February 18. The agent showed her a pamphlet with brightly colored photographs of yellow deck chairs and a sea as blue as a swimming pool; spacious cabins with yellow flowers and yellow beds and yellow curtains at the porthole; though when she asked if she might keep the pamphlet, he said sadly not. She booked a twin room at the Marine Hotel in Brisbane, where they would spend two nights before catching the flying boat to Nouméa. She converted all that was left of her savings into traveler’s checks; she had vaccinations against typhoid and yellow fever—for a few days her left arm was about as useful as a third leg—and began to collect supplies.

  “Throughout New Caledonia,” wrote the Reverend Horace Blake, “toilet facilities are primitive. Take all precautions against possible infection.”

  Where there had once been furniture, her flat was now crammed with towers of Izal lavatory paper, Chamberlain’s colic and diarrhea remedy, James’s powder for fever, water-purifying tablets, sulfuric acid, emetic tartar, talcum powder, Epsom salts, and lavender water, as well as two folded tarps, calico sheets, two mosquito nets, a pocketknife, Walkden’s ink powder, strops and hones, needles, thread, tape, gauze-worsted stockings, four months’ supply of Spam, condensed milk—basically, anything that came in a tin and that she could get without coupons—curry powder, powdered coffee, batteries, bandages, quinine, brushes, twine, blotting paper, notebooks, pencils, two hammocks, and a canvas tent. She sent off to Watkins and Doncaster for specialist collecting equipment—a sweep net, a pooter with two rubber tubes, specimen vials, killing jars, a supply of ethanol and naphthalene, trays, mothballs, cotton wool, paper, labels, and insect pins—but when she unpacked the box, the vials were smashed and she had to send them back.

  Strange, though, to see these things after so many years. To hold a length of tube again. To place one end in her mouth and the other over an imaginary beetle, and suck quickly, the breath not too sharp, and not too soft, either, pulling the insect up the tube and depositing it safely in a specimen jar. It was as thoug
h her senses had secretly kept hold of a memory her mind had put away.

  In terms of clothes, Margery packed an assortment of brown things, plus her best purple frock for special occasions. She tried to buy a safari helmet and was offered a sun hat. She asked about a plain jacket with pockets and flaps, and was told the style was available only for men. But supposing she needed to put things in her pockets? And keep them there with a flap? The assistant suggested a handbag. Handbags, he added, in case she really hadn’t got the point, could be found on the ground floor between cosmetics and hosiery. In the end she gave up on the jacket and found a secondhand pith helmet that looked more like a cake tin than something a human being would put on her head. The supplies of food and camping gear would be sent ahead in a tea chest, while she would keep her precious collecting equipment in a special Gladstone bag.

  With five days left, Margery delivered her tea chest to the shipping company. The next time she saw it she would be on the other side of the world. Impossible to imagine, like standing on her head. Waiting for her at home was another letter from Miss Hamilton.

  “Dear Miss Benson…” The message was unusually short and Margery read slowly. Miss Hamilton wrote that she had been doing a little “searching and investigating of my own!” That sounded a happy thing and in no way prepared Margery for what came next. Following some communication with Margery’s previous employers, Miss Hamilton regretted she was no longer able to accompany her on account of “an unfortunate incident that is now in the hands of the police.” Margery felt a small crushing feeling somewhere beneath the rib cage. She had to reach for the console table—only the table was no longer there and instead she stumbled into the wall.

  It is easier for human beings to believe the worst things said about them than the kindest. Margery felt as if Miss Hamilton had found her way into her most shameful secrets and was now serving them jubilantly on a plate for the whole world to see. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  Could she go without an assistant? Of course she couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly manage all the equipment and, anyway, it wouldn’t be safe. No use asking Mr. Mundic: he’d be deep-frying beetles before she so much as grabbed her sweep net. There was only one choice left, and admittedly it was scraping the barrel. With three days to go, Margery wrote to Enid Pretty and offered her the job. In terms of packing, she told her to travel light. A hat, boots, three plain frocks, plus one for special occasions. All bright colors, flowers, feathers, pom-poms, ribbons, et cetera, were in the worst possible taste and entirely to be avoided. She ended with an instruction to meet at nine beneath the clock at Fenchurch Street station where she would be easily recognized by her safari outfit. True to form, Enid Pretty’s reply made absolutely no sense.

  “bear miss denson. Please to acept! pink hat!”

  Margery wrote to the shipping company, adding Enid Pretty’s name to the passenger list. She had a pith helmet (√), boots (√). She had an assistant, who clearly had problems telling b from d, a passport—albeit one with a photo of a woman she’d never met in the background—as well as the Reverend Horace Blake’s pocket guide, a full set of new collecting equipment, and enough lavatory paper to supply a small town. Yes, there had been a disappointment, but it was not the end of the story. This was just the beginning of a different adventure.

  And finally she was doing it. She was on her way to New Caledonia.

  It started as a bit of fun. To put her in her place. Plus, he had a thing about teachers. He’d never forgotten the idiot who’d moved him to the class for retards. “I can read,” he’d said.

  And this teacher, he’d said, “Then show us, Mundic. Show the class you can read.”

  So he’d picked up the book, doing one word at a time, but the teacher was right, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t get the words to stop jigging. The class laid into him after school. Retard, they called him, and they’d kept it up from that day on, ragging him and shouting “Reee-taaaaard.”

  So, yes, he didn’t care for teachers.

  After the interview, he’d waited for her outside Lyons. He’d wanted to spook her because it wasn’t right, the way she’d laughed when he’d said there’d be snakes. What did she know? She was a woman. She needed him to lead her expedition. Five years he’d been back from Burma, and he still couldn’t hold down a job. Either he’d get sick, or something would upset him, and he’d land in a fight. There were people queuing for food and people going on buses and people waiting to cross the road, and he couldn’t remember, he couldn’t remember anymore how to be ordinary like them because he had seen things in Burma none of those people had seen. Sometimes he couldn’t even remember who he was. He kept his passport in his pocket just to remind himself. And there were times he’d be okay, but then he’d open a newspaper and find another story about a POW who’d hanged himself and that was it, he was back in Burma all over again. There were days he even had the same thought. All he wanted was to get away.

  So he followed her as she left the Corner House—it wasn’t difficult, with the fog and everything, and he liked hiding in doorways when she turned, having a laugh at her expense. After that he got curious. He wondered where a woman like her lived. He guessed a shabby terrace house. The last thing he expected was a fancy mansion block.

  He went back the next day, even though it was so cold he’d had to stuff his hands into his pockets to keep warm. But it was a thing to do because there’d been days recently he couldn’t even summon the energy to play a game of cards, or he’d start, and it was like a switch inside him had got stuck, and he wouldn’t know how to stop. He was about to leave when she appeared at a window. He felt a bolt of adrenaline, like he hadn’t known since the day the army had marched past and he’d signed up on the spot. So he counted the windows and he did it out loud because sometimes his thoughts got scrambled, and now he knew she lived on the fourth floor.

  After that, it became his job, following her. He left the hostel every day like he was going to work. He got a notebook and he called it the Book of Miss Benson. He wrote facts he knew, such as her address, and he kept the book safe in his pocket, alongside his passport and her map.

  He went through her rubbish and found out she liked tinned soup and biscuits. He found out she lived alone. He followed her to a travel agency, and as soon as she left, he went and spoke to the chap, and he said, “I fancy a cruise to the other side of the world,” and the chap laughed and said what a coincidence, he’d just sold two last-minute tickets for the RMS Orion. Mundic said, “When’s she going? When’s she coming back?” That was his first mistake: he shouldn’t have said that—it gave him away—and he started rubbing his hands because he was scared. But the travel agent didn’t notice. He said, “Leaving Tilbury on October the nineteenth and returning home on the eighteenth.” So Mundic wrote those details in his Book of Miss Benson. And the chap said, “Take a leaflet, why don’t you, sir? If you’re interested?” Mundic put that into his notebook as well.

  The more he found out, the more powerful he felt. Sometimes he said to himself, “In five minutes Miss Benson will walk onto the street.” And when she did, it was like he was so big nothing could hurt him ever again. Besides, she wasn’t the kind to give in. It wasn’t as easy to spook her as he’d thought, and he liked that. It kept him on his toes. When her collecting equipment arrived, he stopped the delivery chaps outside and said he would look after it. He broke a few things while they weren’t looking. Little ones. Just so she’d know he was watching.

  Three weeks of following her, and it was more than teaching her a lesson; it was like being a man again. And now she was going to leave. She was going to New Caledonia.

  He didn’t know what he would do without her.

  Fenchurch Street station, October 19, 1950. Nine o’clock on the dot. No sign of Enid Pretty. No sign of anyone beneath the station clock, except Margery in her pith helmet and boots, holding her insect net like an oversized lollipop, glancing
left and right to check the path was clear of policemen.

  The evening before, she couldn’t eat. Despite the waste, she’d scraped her meal into the bin. The night had been even worse. She’d slept in fits and starts; the only dream she had played itself on a loop and was about her watch being broken. It would have been less exhausting if she’d sat up for hours, staring at the wall. Later, waiting outside for a cab in the morning, she had glanced up at her empty window and, just for a second, felt bereft. She was convinced she was seeing it for the last time. But she’d noticed someone on the other side of the road, and quickly moved on in case he thought she needed help.

  The railway station was mayhem: crowds rushing, locomotives shunting and chugging, whistles sounding, doors slamming, pigeons flying to the rafters with a clatter of wings. And everywhere the soot, the smoke. Several people noticed Margery’s helmet and slowed for a second look—she might as well have stuck a bowl of fruit on her head. Five minutes passed. Ten. Across the concourse, a short, thin woman, with hair like bright yellow candy floss, stood smoking nervously. Quarter past nine. The train was going to leave at half past.

  But finally here was Enid Pretty. A neat woman with one suitcase and sensible brown shoes, hurrying toward the station clock as if her life depended on it. Margery waved her sweep net: “Miss Pretty! Miss Pretty!”

  The woman caught sight of Margery and paled. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are. My name’s not Miss Pretty. Please leave me alone.” She rushed past.