Miss Benson's Beetle
Page 30
* * *
—
The sky was a lamp of stars by the time they got to Poum. Margery banged at the door of the café until the owner appeared at the window, sleepy-eyed and confused. It was his wife who came up with a plan. (“I didn’t even know he had a wife,” said Enid.) They knew a man with a fishing boat. In twenty-four hours, Margery would need to be ready at the bay: there was bad weather expected in the day but the fisherman would take them out under cover of night. There wouldn’t be much room for luggage, but he would do it. He would help them leave New Caledonia.
By way of payment, Margery offered him the Reverend Horace Blake’s pocket guidebook. It was all she had left.
“Ha-ha,” howled his wife, pointing at the pictures. “Comme c’est drôle!”
* * *
—
They approached the bungalow slowly, too scared to look. But, once again, it had not failed them. Everything was almost exactly as they had left it. The door was closed, the roof intact. Inside, nothing had been smashed or flooded; if anything, the bungalow had been tidied. Discarded blankets and towels were now folded. Bowls that had contained water were dry and arranged in a line. The mattress Enid had used as a nest was now back in her room; her Baby Jesus painting hung at a straight angle on the wall; the chairs on the veranda were carefully positioned to admire the view. It was only really in Margery’s study that she got the strangest sense of malice. Things had clearly been picked up and shoved back in different places—some specimens were not packed in lint in the boxes where she’d left them but unwrapped and scattered on the floor. A notebook was open, a tin of Spam discarded, a tray was even in a different place. Nothing had been destroyed as such but it had definitely been touched and prized apart. She counted the specimens, trying to work out if anything was missing—again, she had the strangest sense there was. But, then, the last time she had been in her study was a week ago, when Enid was so ill, and her thoughts had been a jungle. Immediately she began to repack specimens and order her papers. In twenty-four hours, they would be free.
“I have an idea,” said Enid, that night. They were sitting side by side on the veranda. Gloria was asleep, and Enid had started flicking through one of Margery’s old beetle books as if it were a travel guide. “Borneo,” she said. “There’s lots of nice beetles there. See?” She held up the book. Upside down, but never mind. “We should go to Borneo. I reckon it’s hot there. We could find a little hut. Change our names. I have a good name for you, Marge.”
“Oh?”
“Trixie Parker.”
“Are you serious? ‘Trixie Parker’ sounds like a showgirl.”
“Well, you have the legs for it, Marge. I’m just telling you. You can be what you like. You’re an amazing woman. I never thought you could pull this off. And you’re funny, too. I think you’re funny. I never had a friend like you.”
“I never had a friend like you either, Enid.”
“I’m sorry we never found your gold beetle. Maybe it’s in Borneo.”
“Why would it be in Borneo?”
“I don’t know. I just have an idea.”
They went quiet, watching the moon. A ragged cloud passed over it, silvery white. “We won’t give up, Marge. We’ll keep looking for beetles. There are some real beauties out there.”
Suddenly Margery laughed. But this time it wasn’t what Enid had said that made her feel light inside. She said, “Enid, I’ve just realized the date. It’s my forty-seventh birthday. I’m forty-seven today.”
Enid squeezed her hand. Remarkably painful, even for a new mother. “Next stop, Borneo. The cocktails are on me.”
There were no more headlines about Nancy Collett or the Woman With No Head. Their story didn’t even make the back pages. An electric beginning, all the ingredients for a big trial, possibly a double hanging, then nothing. Not only had both women disappeared, but there was no progress in the case, except for some evidence that just made everything more complicated.
Namely: the brother of the deceased had come forward with a letter from Percival Collett in which he stated his intention to end his life by whatever means he could. It didn’t exonerate his wife, but she couldn’t be described as cold and calculating anymore. Even more compromising, there were rumors he was a homosexual. And since the botched hanging of Norman Skinner, many people had begun to question the notion of capital punishment. There had been protests outside prisons. Petitions. As for the Woman With No Head, also known as Margery Benson, it appeared she had simply been going on a big holiday.
Fortunately, plans for the Festival of Britain were now in full flow—a milestone between past and future, to enrich the present—and everyone wanted to read about that. The exhibitions, architecture, technology, the very best of British in science, industry, and the arts. People had suffered years of war: they had lost too much that they loved and been crushed by rationing. Now they wanted to think about the future, and they wanted hope. In London, the largest dome in the world, standing ninety-three feet tall, would hold exhibitions celebrating discovery not only in the New World, but also at sea and in outer space. A cigar-shaped tower, the Skylon, gave the impression of floating above the Earth. A new plush concert hall, the Royal Festival Hall, already stood on the South Bank. The Telekinema promised 3D film and large-scale television. And, for once, it wasn’t just London: the festival was for everyone in Britain. It would be nationwide.
A country that had spent years in rationing, in gray and brown, was coming alive with the promise of color and new possibility. Barely anyone cared about Nancy Collett and her accomplice with no head.
So even though a new sighting of the two suspects came through to The Times, it was from some woman yelling down the phone from an obscure little island no one had heard of, let alone been to. The editor let it go. What was the point, he asked his deputy, in giving people the stories they no longer wanted?
Britain had moved on.
Dawn came. The loveliest so far. The steps, the veranda, the dirt garden were all shuttered in gold. Out in the forest, an enormous tree she’d never even noticed suddenly burst into flower, with buds like candles. It was good to be here for the last time, and clear themselves out of the place that had become home. Like last rites, thought Margery, not that she’d ever observed any.
They would take the fishing boat and get off the island. Make their way to Australia. Change their names. Keep moving. She would sell her flat in London. Take work where she could. When she thought about the future, she saw herself, Enid, and the baby, nothing else.
No one could get to them via the west coast road, and Margery knew from the mule boys that the river would not be passable for at least a day or two. There was nothing to do but wait until midnight for the boat. Outside she buried a little pile of the worst of the rags, then carried the old chairs back to the garden. She left a few pots, a few pans in the kitchen, the very last tins of Spam, in case the boys from the shantytown needed them. In her study, she packed away her notes and journals. Wrapped her specimen trays in the blankets. She left Enid’s rug where it was, to cover the weak spot in the floor, then washed diapers for Gloria. She made up bottles of Dolly’s formula milk, in case Enid needed to sleep.
Mother and baby were lying on a blanket on the veranda. Enid was already dressed in her pink travel suit, ready to depart, with the red valise next to her packed with baby clothes. Margery was just at the top of the steps when Enid opened one eye. “You’re going for a last look, aren’t you?”
“No, Enid, I’m not. I’m hanging out diapers.”
Enid laughed, pulled Gloria close, and began to feed her. “Don’t be late for Borneo. There are two gin and limes out there, and they’ve got our names on.”
Margery picked her way barefooted across the garden. It was already midafternoon, but the sky was one of those blue ones that looks as if it will stay that way forever. Margery kept her back to the
mountain as she pegged the diapers on the line. She didn’t want to see it, yet she could sense it. She could sense it as clearly as if it were tapping her on the shoulder.
Years later, she would still not be able to explain the wildness that suddenly came over her. The strange whipping up, like being yanked by the neck and hurled toward a cliff edge, the quickening of her breath, the goosebumps prickling her arms, and the feeling of lightness that followed, as if she were already free-falling. Possibly it wouldn’t have come at all, if Enid hadn’t planted the idea. It was as absolute and undeniable as the moment she’d picked up the lacrosse boots and walked out of her job all those months ago. Margery threw down the washing basket. She turned to the mountain fast, as if she might catch it moving.
The elephant grass lay flat but the path they’d once cleared was already overgrown. The new leaves were a lighter green, but the lianas had swung back into a closed curtain, the ferns were tall, and boulders blocked the way. High up, threads of mist sewed the two-pronged peak, and birds of prey drifted, smaller than feathers. Everything seemed so still. She ran forward. Hauled herself over the first rock.
It was easy. Without shoes, she felt nimble. And she knew which plants to hold on to, which to avoid. Creepers hung like braids, and she swished them to the side, bowing her head. Higher. A little higher. Plenty of time. She balanced on the balls of her feet.
Quickly, she reached the real thick of the forest. Her blood was pumping, her mouth dry as paste, the old weakness in her hip playing up again, her lower legs sore, but she could do it. She heard a caw, a twitch, a boom, the rustling of water. She pressed on. Three red parrots flew out. She pressed on. A trace of smoke. She hauled herself over another boulder. The bare soles of her feet tingled and felt good. Then, in the time it would take to turn and begin to climb back the way she had come, there was a smell of cold, and a mist dropped, billowing out of the sky, blotting out treetops, shooting at her, as if from an explosion. She was surrounded. Driven into a pool of white emptiness.
The mist would go: it had come fast. But she hugged her arms, suddenly chilled. Even sound had gone. All she had to do was turn round and go carefully back the way she’d come, but she couldn’t see it—she couldn’t see a thing.
And now she wasn’t thinking, or planning; she was trying to feel her way back down, through this blindfold of mist. Branches nicked her skin, snagged her hair. She could barely breathe. Her bare feet were stumbling, slipping, twisting. Stung. She went on and on, scrambling clumsily, reaching for things that were not there, even crawling sometimes on her knees.
She was lost. Lost in a mist up a mountain, while Enid was down below in the bungalow, waiting. She kept going. Flailing. Pushing. Then her foot came down on something razor sharp. She could feel it open like a knife through a piece of fruit.
Exhausted, terrified, knowing she was defeated, but also not knowing what more to do, she stopped. She sat down. She had crossed the world to find her father’s beetle and yet here she was, behaving like her mother, a woman who’d never done anything with her life except stay in a chair.
“Help me,” she said. “Please. Help me.” She didn’t even know whom she was talking to. Whatever it was, it wasn’t logical.
The mist didn’t go immediately. She had to wait, and it felt like hours. And maybe it was only because she was staring at it now, instead of fighting, but bit by bit, she could detect a movement, a thinning out, a shifting, until a white ball of light emerged high above, like a blind eye, that she knew must be the sun. A stone revealed itself at her foot. A blurred red shape became a flower. The mist parted, rolling back, pouring away, and the world came to life once more. Trees. Stones. A crown of blue above. She was in some kind of glade.
At first she thought it had snowed. White flakes lay all round her. But they weren’t snow; they were tiny frilled wax-white flowers on deep purple spikes, the blooms so small she could barely see the individual petals, with green leaves the size of her fingernail. The air smelled so sweet it was heavy.
No sooner had the word “orchid” formed itself in her mind than she saw a flash of gold. And not one. Many. Clasped like tiny gold jewels to the white flowers and the green leaves and the trees above and the vast fronds and rocks. Hundreds of thousands of gold beetles. The more she looked, the more she saw. They were popping out everywhere. And, for the first time, she had no killing jar. She didn’t even have a net.
She would grab one. There were enough. She scanned the clearing. As if by magic, a specimen flew down and landed on her left wrist. She stared in wonder. Tiny gold head, thorax like a gold puffy skirt, tiny gold legs, long antennae like a gold tiara. It was the most dressed-up little extrovert she’d ever seen.
One swift movement of her right hand, she’d have it.
But before she could twitch so much as a muscle, the beetle opened its elytra and unfolded a second set. Even its delicate papery wings were gold. And for some reason it did not fly away. It opened and shut its wings in a kind of butterfly stroke—how lightly they performed the task of taking life forward. Then it closed everything compactly again, the soft wings folding and folding in their simple and yet infinitely complicated way beneath the hardened shell of the elytra. It crept closer to her knuckle. She couldn’t believe her luck. A suicidal beetle. It was practically turning itself in.
She looked at the tiny brilliant thing on the back of her hand. She looked and looked. She could not feel its weight, yet its presence on her skin was like being seared.
Enid had been right. She had been right all along. Margery’s adventure was not about making her mark on the world: it was about letting the world make its mark on her. That she and Enid had survived, that she had found a beetle that until this moment had lived in her imagination, that Enid had had a baby, that Margery had delivered this child, that she could still breathe in and out, that the world was in one piece after so much devastation, all this was a miracle. There was no need for her to kill the beetle or pin it or name it after her father. It was enough to know she’d seen it once, and would probably never see it again. She would leave the discovery of the beetle for someone else.
And suddenly she felt as if she were spread over the whole island, and inside things, too. Never in her life had she felt so near that porous line where her own body finished, and the earth began. And blessed. She felt blessed.
Another beetle made a landing on her shoulder. Then one more, alighting on her nose. Three on her right arm. Two on her elbows, a whole batch on her foot. They were falling on her, like gold rain. And Margery Benson, who had not picked up a toy since the day her father had stepped out of the French windows, was up a mountain, on the other side of the world, reaching up her fingers, jigging an arm, wobbling her arse. She had the strangest feeling she was not alone, that her brothers were there, her aunts, her father, even her mother and Barbara. They were all there, playing with a hundred thousand gold beetles, as if joy was the most serious thing—and, what was more, a hundred thousand gold beetles were playing with them. She felt more alive than the world itself.
* * *
—
It was getting dark by the time she scrambled down the end of the path and crossed the garden to the bungalow. The rickety silhouette of the Last Place was ahead, with its broken steps and veranda, lit up from inside by a hurricane lamp. Already she could make out Enid’s profile at the window.
“Enid!” she yelled. “Enid!” She waved.
But as she got close, it was not Enid she could see at the window. It was someone else. A face she didn’t know. Spotting her, he waved.
Margery scanned the gloom. In flashes, she saw the dirt track. The dusty garden. Diapers on the line. No sign of Enid. The baby. Her red valise. They’d gone.
He was hunched by the window in the light of the hurricane lamp. All around him, moths flapped against the walls of the bungalow, throwing papery shadows. She had no idea who he was.
As Margery stepped forward, he straightened. “Hello,” he said. He sounded nervous, unsure, and yet relieved. He looked desperately ill. His face was hollow and gray, the bones poking out of him. His clothes were rags; his skin blistered and slashed; his short hair matted. Barely human. Something hung from his back like a punctured balloon. She realized it was an old haversack.
Horror clawed her skin. Her first thought was to get Enid and the baby out of the bungalow, but she had underestimated him. She’d only glanced from Enid to the door when he pushed past, jerkily, blocking her path. He kept one hand in his pocket. She wondered if he was hurt.
“I thought you’d gone without me, Miss Benson.”
It was like falling down a step that she hadn’t seen, and trying to keep her balance. She felt hollowed. So he was British. He knew her name. Not only that, he knew she had been living here, and that she was planning to leave soon. She sensed it would be a good idea to address him by name, too, if only she knew what it was.
Panic made her stupid. She couldn’t think. Her brain could only produce fleeting and useless images of men in the dining room on the RMS Orion, or the migrant camp at Wacol, men at the British consul’s cocktail party, customs officers and policemen. But none was a match for this fragile one in front of her, who had now inched so close he could reach out and touch her hair. Sweat was running off him.
“Who are you?”
He blinked. Astonished. He gave a short laugh as if he didn’t believe what she’d just said. “You don’t remember me?”