Miss Benson's Beetle

by Rachel Joyce

  What was she thinking? There was no driver.

  Margery’s mind locked again. She needed to find a driver. She needed to drive to get a driver….Absurd. Also, she had never driven a car in her life. Until meeting Enid, she hadn’t even traveled in one.

  Enid groaned.

  “Margery Benson,” Margery said out loud. “You have delivered a baby. Now where is your gumption? Drive a car.”

  She hoisted herself into the unfamiliar space behind the steering wheel. She tried to recall what she had seen Enid do. She twisted the key. The engine roared. She yanked at the handbrake, she flattened her foot on a pedal. The jeep leaped backward into a coconut stump. But Enid did not cry out. She did not even attempt to escape. Briefly she sat up. She said something about putting your foot down gradually, not all at once. She also said something about putting the jeep into first gear.

  “Headlamps,” she murmured. Then she fell asleep again. Margery flicked every switch she could find. Windshield wipers, hot air, even a radio—who knew the jeep had a radio?—came to life. At last, headlamps. The track shone ahead. A tunnel of light between trees. She eased her foot more slowly on the pedal, crunched the gear stick, and finally the jeep rolled forward. She pressed harder. The jeep was straining as if held back by a giant rubber band. She fumbled for the handbrake. Yanked it. The jeep clunked, it stuttered, it stalled. She tried the key again, the pedal again, the engine flared, she wrenched the car toward the track and picked up more speed. Faster, faster. Too fast. She was hitting stones, she was flying into branches, she could not understand how to stay in a straight line. When a drunk staggered out of the dark, she shrieked and swerved the car just in time, crunching the side of the jeep against rock, but she did not stop, she would not stop, she kept going.

  They traveled all night. She drove like a madwoman, praying out loud that every French policeman in New Caledonia was in bed, while also keeping the dial on the speedometer in the red. She no longer felt fear. Fear had penetrated right through her and out the other side. When Gloria began to cry, Margery cut the engine. She threw herself out of the driver’s seat. She scooped Enid in one arm, Gloria in the other, and did her best to attach the baby’s mouth to Enid’s bosom, like fixing a bivalve to an old pipe. After that, she continued, hurling the jeep over gravel roads, dirt tracks, bouncing through holes, steering hard to avoid a fallen tree, a herd of goats, with the radio playing at full volume, and also the heat. She was hungry, she was boiling hot, her legs were on fire. Dawn came. A sky so orange, the trees blazed; and there was the ocean to her right, full of flames. Then at last they reached the solid, elegant buildings of Nouméa. The Place des Cocotiers. The market. The port.

  Enid sat up. Briefly wiped the hair out of her face. Murmured, “Where are we, Marge? What are we doing?”

  “I’ve thought it through. Don’t argue with me. We have no choice. I have to save your life. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  Bougainvillea hung like purple lamps. The air was sweet and warm. Sunrise flared against windows.

  Margery pulled up outside the British consulate.

  He staggered toward the bungalow. He went flailing through the dawn light, swiping at leaves that were not there, stamping his boots to ward off snakes. He had been asleep again and he had woken, and it had struck him like a lightbulb going on. He had to get to the bungalow. He had to lead the expedition. That was why he was here. He had saved her life, and now she needed him to lead the expedition. He had no idea what he’d been doing all this time. He’d been sleeping and dreaming, and thinking people were chasing him. He even thought she’d tried to knock him over with the jeep. But that was just something in his head. There were no Japs. No snakes. This was not Burma. He was a free man.

  He reached the end of the dirt track. The sun was rising over the mountain, and everything was gold. He could see the washing line at the side of the bungalow, and there were little squares of cloth hanging up like handkerchiefs. He made his way to the steps that led to the veranda, hauling himself upward with his hands, but his legs trembled with the effort, and once or twice his feet slipped, and halfway there was a rough sound of sawing coming out of his chest that he realized must be his breathing. He must get to her. He must get to her before he got sick again and forgot what he was doing.

  He knocked at the door and peered in at the window. He called, “It’s me! Boo! Rise and shine.” He guessed she must still be asleep, so he sat outside the door for a while and he rocked in her chair, like he’d seen her doing. And when the bad thoughts came, he gripped his hands into fists and told himself it would be okay now: he was here and so was she. Together they would finish the expedition. By now the sun was full on him and he was beginning to sweat.

  And suddenly he realized what must have happened. He’d seen the blood on her, she needed his help—she was lying inside the bungalow, waiting for him to save her. And he staggered out of the chair so fast it fell over, and then he swung his foot hard and kicked open the door.

  A terrible stillness. There was a mattress on the floor, piled with towels and blankets; there were pails of water. He called her name but even as he went from one room to the next, and he held out the gun, in case something sprang out, he knew she was not there. He saw the room where she slept; he saw piles of clothes, a makeshift kitchen with a sink. In her study, he found trays everywhere, stacked high, and he lifted them, and in each one there were beetles, like jewels, pinned, with their wings open. There was notebook after notebook, with neat writing and careful diagrams. There were even papers pinned on the walls, and boxes and boxes of little pots and jars, hundreds of tiny things wrapped in bandages, like cocoons. He unwrapped them, one after another, throwing off the bandages, like wrappers. He was aware of feeling cold and trembly, and his face being wet, and it was tears. He was crying—he was crying so hard he didn’t know how to stop.

  She had gone. She had gone without him. She knew he was leading her expedition, but once again she had given him the slip. He hadn’t dreamed the jeep, after all. He didn’t know why she kept doing that. It hurt him so much. They were together. He had saved her life. And suddenly the flame was inside him and it was so big he roared with it and lashed out, kicking the blankets, punching walls, throwing old tins, pushing over pots of water; he was back in the camp, and the Japs were waiting for him. Somewhere far away he thought he heard the sounds of pain. The green of the trees seemed to steal all the air so that even inside the bungalow everything had a strange glow.

  He picked up the first tray, and he lifted it over his head, ready to smash it. But the sounds of pain were not inside him anymore. They were beating on the roof and hammering at the doors and they were yelling at the windows. The trees were laughing, and the wind was laughing, and even the hundreds of beetles in the trays. Ha-ha-ha. He looked from one corner of the room to the next, terrified, confused. There were beetles flying at him, there were eyes. The shantytown boys were everywhere—they were peering in at the windows, they were crowding at the door, they were swarming around him, hanging upside down, doing cartwheels and somersaults, pulling at his clothes and poking him with sticks, shouting and pointing at him, as if he were a joke, yelling, shoving, and dragging him away from the study and toward the door. Some were even picking up the mess he’d made, and he did not know the words, he did not know what they were saying, but it sounded like Ree-tard. Ree-tard.

  He shoved one beetle into his pocket, put his hands to his ears, and ran.

  It was over. The terror was over. Enid was alive.

  A private doctor had operated immediately, removing what was left of the infected placenta. No questions were asked. Enid cried briefly but she had no strength. Gloria did the serious bawling. It was Margery’s limp that seemed to worry the doctor the most. When he saw the state of her legs, he was appalled. She needed penicillin immediately and a poultice. After that, he prescribed rest.

 
“Yes, Doctor,” said Dolly Wiggs. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  What had made Margery change her mind at the last minute and drive away from the British consulate? Something had seemed to plummet through her. The sudden knowledge that the British consul was the last person who would help her, even if she explained, as she intended, Enid’s whole story. She had caught sight of Mrs. Pope on the freshly cut grass, with her hair already coiffed, and dressed in a crisp housecoat; she had seen Mrs. Pope shouting at a gardener, a man so old he stooped to stand; she had seen Mrs. Pope wagging her fingers right up close to this man’s nose; she had seen Mrs. Pope glance suddenly toward the jeep and lift her hand to her eyes, trying to block out the early-morning sun. And Margery had realized in that moment that this woman was far more dangerous than Enid’s illness. To ask her husband’s help was the worst idea Margery had come up with so far. So, instead of getting out of the jeep, she had dug through her handbag. She had pulled out the slip of paper—Mr. and Mrs. Peter Wiggs—that Dolly had given her all those weeks ago at the consulate party. Margery had urged Enid to lie low in the back seat and hold tight to Gloria. Then she had whacked her foot down on the accelerator, revving off at full speed, checking in her rearview mirror that Mrs. Pope was not on her trail, slowing only when they were safely round the corner to ask complete strangers for help, pointing at Dolly’s address, trying her best to understand the directions that came back at her in French.

  Dolly Wiggs had answered the door straightaway. She had gasped. “Miss Benson? You two look like wild women!” Nevertheless she had helped Margery carry Enid inside the house, saying nothing about the red dust that ended up on the multiple frills of her skirt.

  “She’s had a baby,” Margery had said. “She needs medicine. A doctor. You are my last chance, Mrs. Wiggs. No one knows we’re here. Please help.”

  * * *

  —

  Dolly had paid the doctor, and now she was sheltering the women in a summerhouse at the end of the garden. It was perfectly safe. Peter was up at the mine and wouldn’t be home for weeks. Dolly prepared the hideaway with two beds and a flask of tea, along with china cups. It was those that moved Margery most, not the fresh bed linen and towels, or the neat curtains with ties, but the delicacy of the cups. It had been a long time since they had drunk from anything but tin mugs, or the jerrican, and even though china cups had seemed pointless to her once, she saw how beautiful they were, how important. Inside her hand, with its broken nails, those cups looked small and sanctified.

  Dolly fetched spare clothes that smelled of summer, though she wasn’t sure whether to supply Margery with frocks or her husband’s trousers, and in the end provided a freshly laundered selection of both. She was constantly bringing plates of food down to the summerhouse, sprigged with flowers, and she was clearly smitten by Gloria. She even produced a suitcase of unused baby clothes, folded between tissue.

  “You, too?” said Enid.

  “Yes.” Dolly nodded but she didn’t cry. “May I hold Gloria?”

  Dolly could spend hours happily easing Gloria’s tiny legs and tiny feet into cotton baby nighties, and white dresses with smocking, polka-dot romper suits, little pink cardigans with felt flowers sewn on them. She made up bottles of formula so that she could feed Gloria while Enid slept, and she taught Margery how to do the same. Margery and Enid were free to wander the garden and wash whenever they chose. There were baths filled with bubbles. Thick towels heated on a rail. Dressing gowns. Slippers.

  Nevertheless, the mountain pulled Margery. From Dolly’s garden, she often stared at the great knuckles of rock that stretched away, scarlet by day, blue at dusk, with the evening star shining above. She would picture herself standing at the two-pronged peak that she knew was like two chimneys; she would imagine the tiny rooftops of Poum in the distance, the shantytown, the expanse of blue ocean; behind her, the forested slopes and jagged peaks, and far away the tiny beaten track that she and Enid had made, snaking between the foothills.

  When clouds took shape, and with them a current of hot air so that the atmosphere felt ready to burst, and the sky held a tacky glare, she knew a cyclone was on its way. Sure enough, it came within hours, a wheeling pillar driving up from the coast, blowing up so much dust it coated everything in red. Palm trees bent at a slant, thrashing against the sky, giant birds were tossed like scraps of paper. Then the clouds opened and the rain came in a waterfall. She watched it bounding down the sides of the nearest peaks and knew there would be flooding all over the island and trees down. She thought of the Last Place, and worried it had not survived. She thought of her collection and hoped against hope it was still in one piece. Even though she’d abandoned the beetle, in the last two nights she’d dreamed about it, as if, now that she had given up, it had decided to come and find her instead.

  It rained for three more days. A torrential rain that came down perpendicularly, and fired off every surface. The whole garden shuddered under the weight of it and began to change color, tree trunks slicked to gray, leaves shiny and black. Out in the bay, the ocean churned. And then it was over. Once again, the sky was blue, the water calm, the mountains so clear she could make out the many folds and colors. Tiny insects spiraled through the light. She took up her position outside, staring upward.

  “It isn’t over, you know,” said Enid. She was cradling Gloria. Margery had not even been aware that Enid had followed her into the garden. “You can’t give up. You promised you wouldn’t.”

  “But that was before. Everything’s different now.”

  “We’ll go back to the Last Place and keep looking.”

  “It is very definitely over, Enid. Tomorrow Dolly is going to put out feelers for someone who might buy my collection. I just hope it’s still in one piece after the cyclone. Then we need to find a way of getting off the island. We can’t stay here. We have Gloria to think of.”

  “You’re behaving as if you can turn your back on your vocation. But it’s not like that, Marge. It won’t let you off so lightly. You’re deep in this. You’re in it up to your eyebrows. And you don’t seem to realize. It isn’t like me. Your vocation is not your friend. It’s not a consolation for someone you lost once, or even a way of passing the time. It doesn’t care whether you’re happy or sad. You must not betray it, Marge. And Gloria will not thank you, you know. It will be a terrible thing for her to bear if she learns one day that you gave up on your vocation simply for her. You saved my life, Marge. I will not let you kill yours.”

  Enid was crying. She could not say any more. But Margery looked at her and knew she was right. As impossible as it seemed, finding the beetle was still her vocation, and that wasn’t even a question of choice. It was a terrible thing, it was a beautiful thing, and she had no idea anymore if she had chosen it or it had chosen her. Either way, it was in her makeup. It was a part of her in the same way her blood was a part of her, and so were her hands.

  But that was by the by. Within a few hours, they would be in the jeep for the last time. Hurtling back north.

  * * *

  —

  Dolly was buying provisions in the market. The cyclone had cleared the air, and it was the bluest kind of morning. She took pleasure in finding the best guavas and chokos, the sweetest pineapples. Three of everything. It took her a moment to notice that a shadow had grown behind her.

  “You’ve been quiet, Dolly,” said Mrs. Pope. “You didn’t come to Friday craftwork. You didn’t even telephone or send a note. We were all worried about you.”

  Dolly was at a loss. Something dangerous was passing between them, and she felt the need to do a little ironing, just to uncrease her mind. She stared at the watermelons in her basket. “Gosh!” she said. “Don’t you love tropical fruit?”

  “I thought Peter was still at the mine?”

  “He is!”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes!”

  “Since when did you
buy three melons?” Mrs. Pope scanned the contents of Dolly’s basket. “Or three croissants? Or three of anything?”

  Dolly’s face went blank. She had no idea what expression to put on.

  “A funny thing,” said Mrs. Pope. “I swear a jeep stopped outside the consulate villa the other day. Without a number plate.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Pope,” said Dolly in a rush. “They have a baby now. They’re lovely women when you get to know them. They’re not evil. I swear it. On my children’s lives. You don’t know them….”

  Mrs. Pope straightened. “But, Dolly, dear, you have no children.” She reached for her wrist, and squeezed hard. “Where are they, Dolly? I know you know.”

  Dolly burst into tears and told Mrs. Pope everything.

  Mrs. Pope hesitated as she picked up the phone. She had been made a fool of twice. Not just the embarrassment with the knitted rockets, but now the recent business with the French police. They had driven all the way to Poum and found the British man, just as she’d said, but his paperwork was exactly as it should have been. There were no dangerous women. They had asked at the café: no one had seen them in weeks. The head of the French police had complained to Maurice. He had suggested his wife should not be wasting police time.