Miss Benson's Beetle

by Rachel Joyce

  Margery was too exhausted to write anything in her journal apart from a brief description of the terrain. Bolts of pain seemed screwed in the space between her eyebrows. Besides, the pages of her book were sopping wet, and the pen just made holes. Meanwhile, the tent—despite her best efforts—resembled a coffin. They could either sleep in the open on Enid’s perfectly assembled hammocks, or lie squashed beneath a bit of canvas. It was already crawling with red ants.

  Margery took off her boots. Her bare feet were mushy and hot and the smell was rancid, like something that had been kept in a dark place for too long. She smothered them in talc.

  “You need to do this,” she said, passing the tub to Enid. “You don’t want to get foot rot.”

  Enid’s feet were red, a few blisters forming on the heels. She sprinkled them with so much powder they looked like socks.

  “Do you want to know,” she said slowly, “how I got away from Taylor?” She lit another match. “I left while he was asleep.”

  Margery nodded. It stood to reason that you wouldn’t leave a man like Taylor while he was awake.

  “You were right, Marge. He was not a nice man. It’s a habit I have.”

  “What is?”

  “Falling for men who aren’t nice. I do it every time. It’s like I can’t help myself.”

  “Is your husband like that?”

  “No.” Enid balled her hands so hard the knuckles went white. It was like looking straight at the bone. Then she said, “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come to find me. I’d have got myself in all sorts of mess. No, Taylor was not a nice man. He tried to lock me in after you left the camp. And he took all the money I had. But at least I got his gun.”

  For a moment, the entire forest seemed to fall over. Margery was aware she needed to sit, then realized she was already doing that, so probably what she needed was to lie down. “Enid? You stole his gun?”

  “It’s in my haversack.”

  “You mean you have it with you?”

  “I thought we might need it.”

  “No, Enid. We do not need a gun. We will never need a gun. A stolen jeep I can manage, but a gun is not even an option.”

  The words came from Margery with a force that shocked her. And—as if that wasn’t enough—here were…not tears as such but noises like gulps, as if she were drowning. All she could see were the open French windows of her father’s study.

  Enid threw out her arms and grabbed hold of her. She held Margery’s head clamped against her chest. It was both painful and strangely reassuring, like being a football. She could even hear the wild thump of Enid’s heart.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you. Here.” Enid passed something improbable that turned out to be a handkerchief. It would barely cover a nostril. “Blow.”

  Margery did. She blew as small as she could, though technically there was nothing to blow out, she was just overcome.

  “Better now, Marge?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll get rid of the gun.”

  “Thank you, Enid.”

  “We’ll bury it in the morning.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s one more thing I need to say.”

  “Is it as bad as the gun?”

  “Marge, it’s my husband—”

  But Margery interrupted. For a terrible moment she’d been convinced Enid was about to confess to further weaponry. “Oh, Enid, I’ve worked that out.”

  “You have?”

  “I worked it out ages ago.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, of course you’re divorced. You don’t even wear a ring. I don’t know why you tried to cover it up.”

  In reply, Enid said nothing. Lit by another match, she looked only half familiar. Her eyes blazed, like chipped glass.

  “Enid? Whatever happens, we won’t need a gun.”

  “You really think that?”

  “I do.”

  “Hm,” said Enid. Just a noise.

  “Come on. We should sleep.”

  * * *

  —

  How does a woman get into a hammock, when she has not got into a hammock before? Enid asked if she needed help, but Margery—still piqued after the business with the tent and also her confession that she had never been on an expedition before—insisted she could manage. Enid seemed to mount her hammock with no difficulty whatsoever. One moment she was on the ground. The next she was in a hammock. She even had Mr. Rawlings with her, his ears glowing in the dark.

  “Sleep well, Marge!”

  Margery’s hammock was less amenable. She tried one leg first. It went swinging off with her a little bit on it, but mostly not. She tried taking it by surprise, mounting suddenly. The hammock accepted her weight, then performed a full cartwheel and tossed her out the other side, dumping her in a load of spikes. In the end, she gave a leap and pitched herself. She landed on her front, her mouth mashed against the canvas, rocking violently, but still, she had done it. Technically she was in a hammock, no one could argue with that, though she could barely move without the risk of depositing herself back on the ground. It took a lot of effort to roll herself the right way up. She pulled the mosquito net round her.

  But sleep? How could she possibly do that? Who in their right mind would even close their eyes? The bungalow was one thing, but at least there had been the pretense of a roof and some walls. This was terrifying. Her senses felt sharpened like pencils—her flashlight was about as much use as a paddleboat in the ocean. She heard whistles and screams from creatures she’d never even had nightmares about, let alone seen. Rough cawing, lunatic whooping, once a clang. When a pale shadow took shape, she lay taut as a trap, her eyes so wide they could have popped, until it gave a snort and became a pig. More whistling. More twitching. Another animal that screamed as if it was being eaten alive. She thought of Enid, the gun. Then something landed on her face.

  Possibly it meant no harm. Possibly it mistook her for something friendly, or at least inanimate. But Margery did not feel friendly, and neither did she feel inanimate. Her first instinct was to bat it. Unwise. It got meshed in her net. Flapping and squeaking. A bat. She had batted a bat. And now Margery was panicking and the bat was panicking and there was something in her mouth, but it was not a bat, it was her net, and even though the bat had flown free, she was swinging wildly—up, down! Up, down!—like an awful ride at the fair, while a hundred mosquitoes zoomed in to bite her.

  The dawn chorus came miles before dawn. It was actually the middle of the night. Nevertheless, every bird in New Caledonia woke early and decided to sing about it. Then the cicadas joined in, less a chirruping than heavy marching. Gradually, silver light seeped into the dark, and shapes came to life. A banana tree. A rock. The birds went back to sleep. The cicadas settled down. She told herself that if anything was going to eat her, it would surely have started by now, and dared to close her eyes. She managed thirty minutes. Then she woke again. Rain was falling all over her.

  It had been the most awful night of her life. The gap between making a plan and actually doing it was unbridgeable: nothing Professor Smith had taught her had prepared her for this. Nothing she’d read had prepared her, either. She was covered in insect bites—they had even got inside her ears. She was soaking wet, possibly rotting, and she felt wrung out from lack of sleep. Worse, her body had seized up. The only way to get out of the hammock would be by extending herself in segments, like a foot rule. She had no idea how she would walk another step. Already she knew she was in something she was not made for.

  She thought of the British wives at the consulate party listing everything they missed from home: Branston pickle, gray drizzle, perfect English grass. They were right. Faced with the rainforest, she felt desolate. Back at home she had a flat with a bed in it, clean sheets, and a nice bedside lamp. She missed
streetlights, windows, curtains, roads with proper names. Rationing was better than this. And even though her aunts had taught her it was wrong to cry—even though she hadn’t done so at her mother’s funeral—a million tiny dots seemed to prickle her nose, culminating in a salty rush as tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t a clue why she was lying in a hammock on the other side of the world, already half crippled, looking for a beetle that had never been found—she could die out here, under these alien stars, and no one would know. She thought of her father, her mother, her brothers. She thought of the professor, Barbara, and her aunts. And the more she thought about the people she’d lost, the more she wanted them back. Her crying wasn’t about missing home anymore. It wasn’t about Branston pickle, or green grass, and roads with proper names. It was something else. It had been with her ever since her father had walked out of his French windows and left her behind. You might travel to the other side of the world, but in the end it made no difference: whatever devastating unhappiness was inside you would come, too.

  Margery lay in her horrible hammock and sobbed.

  In Nouméa, the British wives had gathered at Mrs. Pope’s for Friday craftwork before the day got too hot. The meetings gave them something to look forward to, especially in the cyclone season, when the weather could turn without warning and, before they knew it, thoughts of Christmas at home could balloon into despair. It was no wonder some of the wives had already been sent away.

  Weekly coffee allowed them to show off a new frock, exchange a recipe, and share an activity, though the knitted space rockets for the local orphanage, their last project, had turned out looking like woolly condoms, and the women had been a laughingstock. Even the Australians had laughed; Mrs. Pope still hadn’t got over it. Her husband had suggested she might invite other wives—New Zealanders and Dutch. After all, they spoke English—but Mrs. Pope said no. Speaking English was not the same as being British. Besides, they themselves were a small number, and when you were in a minority, you had to stick together.

  Since it was nearly Christmas, they were cutting out paper chains to decorate the British consulate for Mrs. Pope’s Three Kings party. They talked about their fancy-dress outfits—Mrs. Pope would be wearing gold this year—and the news from home, though the latest papers still only went as far as October, so strictly news wasn’t new, it was just more of what they’d already heard. Rationing. The Festival of Britain. The Norman Skinner trial. Then they returned to things more local. Apparently, there’d been a development on the theft from the Catholic school. The French police had a new lead.

  “No!” gasped the women.

  “Yes!” said Mrs. Pope. She cut out a paper star. She knew how to milk a moment.

  “Do tell us!” chorused the women.

  Mrs. Pope put down her scissors and leaned forward. She said in a low voice, “Maurice says they think the suspect is British.”

  “British?” Absolutely no one could believe it. They had to say it again. “British?”

  “I can’t believe they think a British person did it,” said Mrs. Peter Wiggs. “I thought it was one of the natives.”

  “It appears not,” said Mrs. Pope. “Of course, it’s frightfully embarrassing.”

  The women agreed the whole situation was both frightful and embarrassing, almost as if the entire British community had been accused of theft.

  “What will the French police do? Will they interview us?”

  Mrs. Peter Wiggs, also known as Dolly, was Mrs. Pope’s right-hand woman. She was a sweet person, but her intelligence she saved for special occasions.

  “No, Dolly. They won’t interview us. Not unless we are behaving suspiciously, which we are not, because we are British citizens and we didn’t commit the crime. But I hear they are looking at the paperwork of all new arrivals.”

  “It seems an awful lot of trouble,” said Dolly. “Just for a theft.”

  “It’s the principle, Dolly. Besides, the French have always had it in for us.” She put some glue and sparkles on her paper star. “If you ask me, they never got over Waterloo.”

  “What about those two nice women? From the Natural History Museum?”

  “What about them, Dolly?”

  “I hope they’re not suspects. They seemed so nice.”

  “Nice?” repeated Mrs. Pope. “Did you not see the assistant? She was practically a call girl.”

  “I liked her hair,” said Dolly.

  The housemaid arrived with a plate of mince pies, but Mrs. Pope waved them away. The pastry was soggy and the woman had misunderstood and put stewed goat inside them instead of pawpaw.

  She said, “Those two women won’t last up north. They’ll be back before Christmas. Mark my words.” And then she said, as if the two thoughts had suddenly become connected, “I fully intend to find out who broke into the Catholic school.”

  Across the table crawled a strange insect with a long proboscis and feelers on both sides. It was dragging another insect with it. Mrs. Pope watched a moment, the way it carried the other, testing the way, like the blind. She lifted an old newspaper and flattened it.

  “Morning, Marge! Rise and shine!”

  There was only one thing worse than being stuck in the rainforest on the other side of the world, and that was being stuck in it with Enid Pretty. Enid had just enjoyed the best night’s sleep of her entire life. She loved sleeping outside—she hadn’t even noticed the rain. Now that it had stopped, the forest was rayed with light. Soft mist hung in threads between trees. Raindrops hung everywhere like silver fish.

  “Do you need help getting out of your hammock, Marge?”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  “Only you look a bit stuck.”

  “I am admiring the tropical scenery, Enid.”

  “Have you been crying?” Enid was now peering over the edge of Margery’s hammock. She was holding her well-slept dog, and her hair stood out in a halo.

  “Of course not.”

  “I think I might go for a lovely morning swim to freshen up. Do you want anything?”

  “Like what exactly? A bowl of cornflakes?”

  Enid laughed and laughed. Her dog wagged its tail. “See you soon, Marge.”

  As soon as Enid was safely out of the way, Margery took her life into her hands and deposited herself out of her hammock. The only way was to swing! swing! swing! then toss. She landed in a heap that hurt, and crawled to her feet. She had been right about her hip: it would have been easier to saw off her leg than walk on it. And after all her crying, her eyes felt like red stones. She fetched a clean wet shirt out of her haversack. She took a button and lined it up with a buttonhole. She zipped up her shorts. She tucked in the shirt. She shook her socks to lose the ants. She knocked the insects out of her boots, and slotted her feet inside them. She tried to focus on these very small things while knowing that within her there was a colossal thing, and the colossal thing was telling her, “This is useless. There is no way, Margery Benson, in which you can keep going.”

  Enid returned from her swim with a bundle of green bananas, and then had more luck with the fire and managed to heat enough water to brew a pot of coffee that was so strong Margery might as well have eaten the powder. Apparently something with teeth had made holes in everything inside the tent that wasn’t a tin, so all they had left on the menu was Spam. Enid mashed it with the bananas. It was even worse at breakfast than it had been for lunch and tea. Margery’s stomach went into spasm.

  “I never realized before how versatile Spam is,” said Enid, happily digging into it with her spoon. “I think I could eat Spam for the rest of my life and not get tired of it. But there’s one more problem. It’s our supplies of lavatory paper.”

  Margery’s heart dropped. Or maybe it was her stomach. Hard to tell. Since drinking Enid’s coffee, her insides had begun to swap places. “What about our supplies of lavatory paper?”

&n
bsp; “They’ve been eaten as well. Covered in holes. We’ll have to use leaves.”

  “Leaves?”

  Unperturbed, Enid fixed her hair and makeup with the aid of her compact mirror. Meanwhile, she broke into a nonstop monologue about a man she’d seen once at the circus who could ride a pony while carrying an umbrella and a lion cub. It had absolutely nothing to do with anything. It probably wasn’t even true. “What happened to your face? It’s swollen up, like a punching bag. Looks like you’ve been bitten all over.”

  “I have been bitten all over.”

  “Hm,” said Enid, again. “At least it’s a nice day. At least we’re safe.” She looked up at the basketwork of trees and lianas above their heads. An enormous leaf slowly fell, like a pterosaur pierced with an arrow.

  “Safe? How can you possibly call this safe?”

  There was no time to wait for the answer. Margery’s sudden need for the privy was monumental. She felt ready to explode. No choice but to run for the undergrowth.

  By the time she came back, she had lost substantial amounts of herself. Worse, she smelled like a goat. Enid had already packed the hammocks and the tent and what she could retrieve of their supplies. She stared at Margery, up and down, in the way that car mechanics look over old bangers before consigning them to the junk heap. “You okay, Marge?”