Miss Benson's Beetle

by Rachel Joyce

  “That’s right, Mrs. Pope,” murmured Daphne, terribly quietly. “You did say that.”

  “We need to stop, Victoria, before we make complete fools of ourselves. Remember the knitted rockets? You need to let this go before we become a laughingstock. What have those women done to any of us? They’re just looking for beetles.”

  At the mention of the knitted rockets, a further silence fell over the women. This one was more like British snow—the kind that doesn’t settle, just creates a thin, slippery mess. Suddenly Daphne Ginger and Coral Pepper realized it was time to go. They had matters to attend to at home. Within half an hour all the wives had remembered things that required their attention. They were picking up their summer coats and hats and handbags.

  “But we have to do something,” said Mrs. Pope. “We can’t let those women get away with it….”

  Too late. Not even Dolly stayed. Friday craftwork was over and no one had touched their Easter rabbits. She had been thwarted and made a fool of, and she was furious. She would show them all, not just the wives but Margery Benson and Nancy Collett. She would show them all she was not to be slighted.

  * * *

  —

  Mrs. Pope took the car straight to the British consulate. Maurice was in a meeting about an extension to the golf club. She had to wait for over an hour. Afterward he said he could not see how two British women wanted for murder could have made their way as far as New Caledonia. For a start, they wouldn’t have got past customs. He asked if she had remembered that the Dutch minister was coming for canapés and drinks at six.

  At the door, she paused. “Will you be dining at home?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Shall I wait up?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Of course.”

  * * *

  —

  Mrs. Pope drove to the French police station. It was packed. Not just people, but their dogs and baskets, even a pig.

  At last it was Mrs. Pope’s turn. A police officer beckoned her forward. She explained very clearly in French what must be done. The British citizens wanted for the break-in at the Catholic school had escaped to Poum. She knew who they were. They must be brought back immediately. They must be handed over to the British government. They were the murderers Nancy Collett and her accomplice. She had to say it several times. The French policeman had no idea what Mrs. Pope was talking about.

  “They are wanted in Great Britain.” Mrs. Pope produced her dossier. She took out her press cuttings. They trembled in her hands like paper flags. “This is a matter of extreme urgency.”

  The police official tried to make sense of Mrs. Pope’s newspaper cuttings. He was obviously having difficulty.

  She repeated in French, “You are looking for a large woman with big brown hair, aged fifty plus. The other is small with bleached hair. Very thin. There might also be a man with them. I’m not sure.” She added that the large woman had no dress sense, but he didn’t seem to think that made any difference. He didn’t even open his notebook.

  She pulled out her last stop. She said, “Don’t you realize? They have no visas. These women are in New Caledonia illegally, without visas. My husband is the British consul and he could not help them.”

  At last the police official shrugged. He said, “Bien sûr.” He would send a car up to Poum.

  It took two whole days. Enid screamed blue murder. She swore in languages as yet unknown to man. She refused to be seen by a doctor. Not that Margery could have found one. They were in a bungalow at the foot of a mountain. Even the boys from the shantytown made themselves scarce. Enid insisted that since Margery had brought her here, the least she could do was deliver her child.

  “But it is not due.” That had been Margery’s first reaction on flying into the bungalow and discovering that Enid was not—as she had feared—being held at gunpoint by some stranger they had never met, but standing in a pool of water. It was even running down her legs. “Enid,” she had warned. “Enid, you said your baby would not come until May. You promised me. No more lies. We said that—”

  Enid had begun to puff like a bulldog. She’d yelled as if Margery was still halfway down the track. “Maybe I got my dates wrong. I told you I was hazy. Anyway, I didn’t want to worry you—”

  “Worry me? How could you possibly worry me any more than this?”

  Enid growled. She actually growled.

  “Enid, I have no idea what I’m doing. And I’m terrible with blood. You know that. Stop this right now. You can’t have your baby here. We need to get you to the hospital in Nouméa. You need to be safe.”

  In reply, Enid had screamed in yet another foreign language. Then she’d made knuckles of her fists and said, “You may have forgotten this, Marge, but we are wanted for murder. Not to mention petty theft. Checking in at a hospital may not be such a good plan. And, anyway, how would we get there? Hitch a lift? My waters have broken. My baby is coming. This is the safest place I could be. So do not pass out on me, Marge. I swear I’ll kill you if you pass out. We need clean towels, clean blankets, hot water, clean knives….”

  Hour after hour. It went on and on. Margery barely closed her eyes. Sometimes Enid roared and crawled on her hands and knees, her face scorched, insisting this was it, get ready, Marge, I’m having a baby, but then the pains would come to nothing. Instead she would sit very quietly with her back to the wall, or even curl up and sleep. Other times she paced up and down the veranda, moaning and gripping her back. She circled the front room round and round—Margery had to move a chair to mark the weak spot in the middle of the floor, she was so terrified Enid would crash through it. In Poum, she had made the decision to start work immediately on her collection. Instead she wrapped a huge cloth round her waist and another round her head, turban-style, and within no time, she was fetching pans of water from the creek, and trying to light a fire outside to warm them; she was searching for towels and washing them, hanging them on the line, flapping them to get them to dry more quickly. She even cleaned the bungalow.

  Everything she did was bewildered and complicated. She brought Enid water, she rubbed Enid’s temples, she held her hand, she cleared up the mess when Enid couldn’t relieve herself in time. She fetched all the blankets she could find. She sterilized anything that was even vaguely sharp. She just hoped that, when the moment came, Enid would deliver her baby quickly and without requiring any real assistance. Margery didn’t know how long it would take, or what it would involve. The only person in her life who had ever given birth was her mother and, of course, she’d said absolutely nothing on the subject. In fact, now that Margery thought about it, the idea astonished her. That her mother had given birth, and not once but five times. It seemed so unlikely.

  Meanwhile, Enid screamed, she cried, she raged, she bucked, she whimpered, she sweated, she crawled, she crouched. Her belly was hanging so low, it was hard to believe the whole lot wouldn’t slide out in seconds—though how exactly it would all fit, Margery had no idea. She couldn’t remember a time she had felt more useless. She was folding the mosquito nets and scrubbing corners, cleaning things just to appear busy. One moment it was broad daylight, the next she had to light the hurricane lamp.

  “Branston pickle, hot baths, autumn leaves, toast with marmalade…”

  Another thing that happened to Enid: after twelve hours of labor, she was so exhausted she became morose. In between pains, she began to list all the things she missed from home. She wouldn’t stop. She sat with her feet in a bucket, reeling them off, like an outrageous shopping list. Light rain, green grass, pigeons. Cricket, fish and chips, Weetabix, Vim, Robin starch, Sylvan Flakes for home washing, Rowntree’s Cocoa, Quaker Puffed Wheat, Shippam’s fish paste, Bird’s Custard Powder. Even smog. She actually said she missed British smog.

  Fake coal fireplaces where the coals glowed red and smelled of nothing. Yes, she missed
those. Daffodils, white bread. She was in tears now. She couldn’t believe she was never going to see them again. Salad cream, paper bags, traffic lights, proper queues, ration books. Rain hats, bus conductors, the Radio Times. “The Festival of Britain,” she bawled. Her nose ran with snot. “I will never get to see the Festival of Britain!” Yet again the hours had hurtled past. Outside, dawn light was already filtering between trees.

  Margery knelt beside her. She was so exhausted that the air was swimming, and yet at the same time, her body felt like a plank. She wiped Enid’s face with a cloth, she rubbed her feet, she even made the mistake of holding Enid’s hand: a new pain came and Enid might as well have run over Margery’s arm with the jeep. Then Enid relaxed. She remembered again that she missed home. She resumed her crying.

  “I’m a burden. It’s all my fault. If it wasn’t for me, you’d have found the gold beetle. And you’d be going back to Britain. You’d have all those things to go back to. You’d have been better off if I’d stayed in Brisbane with Taylor. I told you to leave me behind.”

  “It’s not true, Enid.” Margery bathed Enid’s head with cold water. Enid wriggled down, much like an enormous caterpillar, and lay with her head in Margery’s lap. Margery stroked her hair. It was half black now, only the ends still bleached. Margery watched Enid’s great belly twitch and buck and harden.

  “Talk to me, Marge. Tell me what you miss about home. Do you miss snow? Biscuits? Buckingham Palace?”

  “No, Enid. I don’t. I don’t miss any of those things.”

  “You’re saying that to make me feel better. You’re being nice because I’m having a baby.”

  “I’m not, Enid. I don’t miss them.”

  And it was true. She wasn’t being kind. As she continued to stroke Enid’s hair, she tried to summon up pictures of home. She thought of the serrated edges of her aunts’ grapefruit spoons—on which she’d almost sawed off the end of her tongue so many times. She thought of the cagelike elevator to her flat, which was never in use because people always forgot to close the gate properly. She even pictured her front door. A lamp in her bedroom with a tasseled shade. And those things stayed exactly where she pictured them, back in London, happy to be there, not requiring Margery to miss them in any significant way, or even use them again. She settled Enid on a blanket and got up to stretch her legs. From the veranda, she watched the flaming sun beyond the trees, she smelled the sweet air, she heard the orchestra of birds and insects, and far away the ocean; she saw the red flowers like two hands in prayer, the vast kauri trees, and realized that the strangeness around her now felt like home. Without her even realizing it, this had been home for some time. She had traveled to the other side of the world, but the distance she’d covered inside herself was immeasurable.

  And, after all, what did it mean? Home? Suppose it was not the place you came from, but a thing you carried with you, like a suitcase. And you could lose your suitcase, she knew that now. You could open another person’s luggage, and put on their clothes, and though you might feel different at first, out of your depth, something inside you was the same, and even a little more true to itself, a little more free.

  Then finally it happened. After forty-eight hours, Enid’s baby came.

  * * *

  —

  Margery had just been to fetch more water from the creek. It had taken longer than normal because there were so many tiny eels; they kept swimming into her pans and she had to keep fishing them out. By the time she got back to the bungalow, Enid was on the floor, wiggling like an overturned beetle. She screamed and went rigid, as if she’d been lashed from the inside. Next moment, she was on her hands and knees.

  “Oh, God,” she roared. “This is it, Marge. This is really it.” Margery’s head began to swing, like a lamp in the wind. Somehow, she had got used to Enid’s labor. She had got so used to it, she had forgotten it would end in actual childbirth. “Enid,” she said. “You’re going to have to talk me through this.”

  But Enid’s face twisted as a fresh wave of pain hit her. The tiny hairs of her eyebrows locked together. For absolutely no reason, she began to sob again. Her cries were desperate and childlike. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”

  “What do you mean, Enid?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. Marge, I don’t want to have a baby. I want to go home.” She curled into a weak little ball.

  Right, Margery said to herself. You have crossed to the other side of the world. You have climbed a mountain. You have slept in hammocks. You can do this, too. She pushed up her sleeves. She readjusted her turban. For a glorious moment, she felt like Barbara.

  She parked herself squarely in front of Enid. She said, “Enid, stop this right now. You are having a baby. You wanted this, remember? You have wanted this for so long. So no more crying. Where is your gumption? Get that baby out.”

  “Yes, Marge.” Enid hung her head and strained, as if she were relieving the most awful constipation.

  “Big breaths.”

  “Yes, Marge. Big breaths! Whoof. Whoof. Whoof. Is it coming?” While it was true that Margery’s mother had never talked to her about childbirth, it was also true that she knew about beetle reproduction. She knew that insect eggs came out of the opposite side of the head, and that, as lovely as Enid’s face was, she was staring at the wrong end to be of any practical help.

  “I’m going to take a look, Enid. Is that all right?”

  “No, Marge. I think I’ve made a mess.”

  Margery moved to Enid’s rear quarters. Her mind clouded. Enid was right. The mess was terrible, the stink unholy. But she must not faint. She must not fail Enid. A dark glistening head was stationed between Enid’s legs. Enid screamed and screamed and screamed as more of it slid out. “Don’t black out on me, Marge!”

  Too late. Waves of nausea were filling her. Everything was appearing in multiples: where there had been one head, she was now seeing three or four. Margery was lifting, she was drifting, she was about to fly…

  “Get down!” cried Enid. “Catch it!”

  “With what, Enid?”

  “Your hands! Your hands!”

  Margery got to her knees just as a shoulder appeared. It was like reaching for something terrible down a hole. Then Enid gave the roar of a bear and out squirted the whole bloody, wrinkled baby in one go. Legs, arms, torso, even feet. Everything. Right into the cup of Margery’s hands, like a skinned rabbit.

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes, Enid. She’s alive.”

  “Show me!”

  Nothing for it but to clasp this miracle—this slippery, bloody, fat-covered thing—in her arms and pass it to Enid between her legs. Enid sobbed. “Oh, my baby! Oh, my baby!” She rolled onto her back, and as her eyes alighted on its face, she gasped with joy as if she’d been struck by a thunderbolt. “Quick! Warm water! Blankets!”

  Margery brought clean warm water. She brought blankets. But something was terribly wrong. Something was attached to the baby. A blue belt. Margery had no idea how to mention it.

  “It’s the cord. You have to cut it,” said Enid, suddenly super-casual. “Get the knife. Sterilize it.”

  “Cut it? Are you sure, Enid?”

  Enid instructed Margery to fetch string and make two ties in the cord—one near the baby, one near her—and cut in between. The knife went through the rubbery gristle with an ease that appalled her, though Margery could barely look. Enid made no sound whatsoever. She didn’t even seem to notice. She was too busy inspecting her baby’s fingers, her toes, her ears and mouth, wiping her with a cloth, rubbing her to keep her warm.

  At last it was over. Margery felt as if she’d been run over by a herd of buffalo. She would willingly climb up and down mountains for the rest of her life rather than deliver another human baby. But just as she reached for the floor to lie down—a chair seemed a complete waste of time—Enid screamed again, and
announced she was ready to push.

  Again.

  Another child? More screams. More panting. Margery crawled to inspect Enid’s business end. It gave a belch, then spat out a lump of her liver.

  “The afterbirth,” groaned Enid. “You must get rid of it.”

  Margery fetched a pot and took it out of the bungalow and as far into the garden as possible, trying her best not to have anything to do with it, though the mosquitoes had got wind of the awful thing and were following her in clouds. By the time Margery returned to the bungalow, Enid had wiped the blood and fatty substance from the baby’s face and was smiling as if she had just birthed an angel.

  “Marge! You didn’t faint! You did it! You gave me my baby!” Euphoric, she fitted the child to her melon-sized bosom, and in what seemed like no time, the baby lifted her mouth, latched on to the nipple, and began to feed. And there it was. The love. Margery watched and tears sprang from her eyes, and she wiped them away, but more came.

  Enid said softly, “Is your hip hurting?”

  “My hip’s fine. I haven’t even felt it.”

  “You should get some rest.”

  “Yes, Enid. Maybe I will now.”

  Margery staggered out to the veranda. Yet again it was dark. Her clothes looked like a butcher’s.

  How many trillions of millions of times had this scene been played? For every human life there was this. The elemental battle to take the first breath, and survive. Finally Margery sat on the veranda, ready to pass out, yet so keyed up she had no idea how she would ever sleep again. Her thoughts felt cosmological in size. Enid had done it. She had fulfilled her vocation. She was now a mother. And how wrong Margery had been. There was nothing small about it, and nothing ordinary, either. What a monumental vocation it was. Everything led to this: no responsibility in life could be greater. It seemed only right now to sit and contemplate the stars. They reeled and pulsed above her. A kaleidoscope of lights.