by Sarah Till
As if on cue, I look up and see Sarah wandering across the moorland toward me. I flick the switch on the kettle then wonder if it’s me she has come to see, or Gabriel. But she comes in and sits down as usual. She stretches like a cat who’s just had a lot of cream, and she tilts her head to one side. Counsellor mode.
‘You OK? Only you seemed a little bit upset last night.’
I sip my tea.
‘I was drunk.’
‘So you didn’t mind that I went off with Gabriel?’
I watch her lips form around his name and notice the red patch under her chin, chaffing from his stubble.
‘I was just a little surprised that you slept with him, that’s all. Only because you were telling me yesterday that you don’t need a man. And now you’re with Gabriel.’
I check out the situation and she smiles.
‘Oh. Right. Yes. Erm, for the record, I’m not ‘with’ anyone. And I don’t need a man. I wanted him, after all, who wouldn’t, he’s sex on legs. But anyone who’s around him for any length of time would get hurt.’
I want to ask her the details, if it was good, how they did it, how long it went on, and if he made her happy. But as usual, the words wouldn’t flow, my courage failed and I couldn’t talk about it.
‘What do you mean, get hurt?’
‘Well. He told me that he used to work in clubs, sleeping with different women every night. I mean hurt in the context of him not being a keeper. He won’t settle down. He’s your standard bad boy. Classic. He says he gave it all up when he met his partner and now he’s doing research into weather patterns. But from the performance last night, I doubt that he’s changed at all. He certainly is a fast worker.’ While I’m preoccupied with this, she flicks her hair and thinks for a moment. ‘In fact, his current work sounds a lot like what you are doing.’
It was true. He was almost part of my life already, as if he fitted into everything that I do. Everything about me, all my past, my interests, my work, and my future, was neatly nestled into his own story. Yet now Sarah had him.
‘Yes, it sounds very interesting. He’s told me he’s writing a book about the moor, and that’s why he’s here. Apart from the fact that he’s split from his partner, of course. But I get the feeling that there’s more to it.’
Despite her stated lack of interest in him, Sarah peruses the ex-partner line.
‘Mmm. He told me that they split up because of a disagreement. She was obsessed with him lying. So she ended it.’
‘She ended it? He told me he ended it.’
Sarah laughs.
‘Well, he might be the liar then! But who cares, I had a nice night. I felt a bit sorry for him, though. I think he really loved Ellie. They bought their house together, down on Anderson Drive, and he’s had to leave. I think he misses her.’
‘Not enough not to sleep with you though?’
Her deep brown eyes sweep over me and she sobers.
‘I fucked him, Patti, I don’t see what was wrong with that. I made sure he wasn’t with anyone first. But I make no bones about it, I used him, not the other way round. I’m not interested in him permanently. Or anyone permanently. I’ve got everything I need, Gabriel’s just an evening’s entertainment.’
I realise that for the first time in months I had forgotten about David and Sam. For a while, my broken heart had come second, worryingly, to the moor and its business. The pain comes flooding back now, and I remember love.
‘Don’t you want to be in love, though, Sarah? Don’t you miss it? You know, that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart.’
She’s blowing her coffee, but she looks up at me.
‘No. That warm fuzzy feeling in my heart lasted about as long as that warm fuzzy feeling between my legs. And as soon as I found out I could get that, and better, on my own, I cut out the middleman. And the pain. Because it never lasts, they always leave.’
‘But I know people who’ve been married for years, stayed together.’
‘Mmm. They do. But in the end, one of them goes. One of them leaves. Someone is left alone with the pain. I choose not. I choose to be self-sufficient. In every way.’
She’s bordering on the anathema of any discussions between women about sex. I know she desperately wants to share this, the secret that all those women who don’t depend on men, who are independent, partake in. But I manage to steer her away from talking about sex and, ultimately, herself, and ask her about her client the other day. We drink our coffee and she talks about some woman who’s coming to see her for a reading. My mind is torn between Gabriel, David and the little death, Le Petite Mort, she was talking about the other day. Sarah’s obsessed with it, with the sexual tension within herself, pivoting her whole life on it, but the more I think about it the less it seems to do with sex at all. Gabriel had mentioned it before dinner last night, and I’d kicked it around inside my head for a while; there are little deaths everywhere, and not just in the world. I finally realised that, for some reason, a long time ago, something inside me had died, and was now being reborn as hope, the small but growing possibility of a future. What had caused that little death inside me? Was it the lost babies? Or David’s constant infidelity? Or my past?
Finally Sarah stops talking about herself and I bring the conversation back to Gabriel.
‘So it was a one-night stand, then?’
She nods slowly.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll have to see what else crops up.’
She finishes her drink and saunters back across the moor. I watch her and wonder if she thinks Gabriel is watching too because she swings her hips provocatively. Everything she does is sex-laden, as if she can’t bear to waste a single opportunity.
I try to read and I go outside to complete my research sheets. I come back indoors, hoping Gabriel’s there and that I can talk to him. Now my teenage crush has worn off, and it turns out Gabriel’s not just a sex-mad groper, I’m quite warming to him. But I hear footsteps along the hallway, then on the stairs, then the back-door slams. It’s Sunday morning and David has gone out. I spend the rest of the day in the barn with my moorland friends, rebuilding a nesting box for the owlets and make sure the hives are fully functioning. I know where I am with them, they work in the light of the sun and rest by the shadow of the moon, or vice versa. Their routine is solid, timed by daybreak and dusk.
I come back to the house later, showering and pottering around. I make a batch of cherry scones, and an apricot pie with fruit from a tree at the back. As I weigh out the flour and sugar, and rub in the butter, I start to think about David. Something isn’t right. I’ve been living under a blanket of fear, numbing my senses until I don’t know what’s real anymore. David’s lies don’t add up, his unhappiness with me, so desperate that he has to find someone else. Not one person, but a string of women. There’s something else, something niggling me. Some reason why he won’t leave. It’s only since Gabriel’s arrived and I’ve had my senses jolted that I can see it. I need to do something, take some action to end this for once and for all.
I pull a throw around my shoulder, looking out from the window seat over the dark moorland. In this light it looks like there is no horizon, no line between the earth and the sky, just a fuzziness that merges the two. The purple carpet looks deeper in colour, and the business of the day is gone, with only the nocturnal creatures creeping around under the heather duvet. A huge bank of rolling clouds, the edges grey and their hearts black, sit behind the Pennines, and I can feel the dampness in the air.
I sit around, mulling over the future and finally admitting that my one defence against ending my relationship with David has disappeared. The prospect of having a baby with David suddenly seems ludicrous, and the only thing in my way now is fear.
The Bee
Most bees in the world are solitary bees. In the UK there are about 270 different species. Mated female bees live alone in a hole or burrow for only six to eight weeks while they lay up to about 8 eggs provisioning each in its own compartment. The burrow ma
y be in well-drained soil, soft brick mortar, in the ends of canes, or in tunnels specially made by beekeepers to create nest sites for particular species suited to pollinating specific crops.
Eusocial bees live together in social families or colonies and store food (honey and pollen) in wax pots in order to bridge periods of food shortage or bad weather. This is sufficient to last them only a few days, so they have evolved thick furry coats to enable them to forage in quite cold weather. When winter comes, bumblebee colonies die, leaving young queens in hibernation ready to start new colonies next Spring. There is just one species of honeybee in the UK although there are several different races of this species which inter-mate. Like Bombus bumblebees, honeybees have 3 castes. A large colony in Summer comprises one female queen, up to 70,000 female workers with perhaps 300 male drones between May and August.
The killer bee is a hybrid of the African Honeybee and European species of honeybee. Due to adaptation, this hybrid species has become more aggressive than other bees and has been known to attack and kill. The sting of the Africanized Honeybee is no more potent than your garden variety honey bee and they look pretty much the same. What makes killer bees more dangerous is that they are more easily provoked, angry, quick to swarm, attack in greater numbers, and pursue their victims for greater distances.
Chapter Six
Gabriel didn’t materialise yesterday and David arrived home just before midnight, far too late to speak to him. Around about eleven I realised that I was spending my life just waiting for something to happen. Ever since I had quit my former life and hidden myself away up on The Moor, I had kept ever so quiet, hoping that no one would notice me and I would never have to explain myself. The circumstances of my parents’ death had made it worse.
Even though my mind still refused to process what happened, I knew that deep down this was affecting me. I’d resolved last night that my life was going to change no matter what.
Lying next to David in the cool of the morning it was easy to believe I was safe when he was asleep, I feel scared. My plan was to confront David with everything that I knew; now I was thinking that maybe I would just go and have a cup of tea and sit with the morning air. I make my way through the creaky house, along to the utility room, looking for Gabriel, but he isn’t there. I look out at the heavy clouds, their edges barely visible in the early light, and think about what Gabriel said about the earth turning again. What a funny thing to say. It’s obvious that we all say the sun’s coming up or going down and every day we believe this is what is happening. Even so, it’s also obvious that this isn’t what’s really happening. Gabriel, with his islands floating away and his baby cabbages, seems to be a similar dichotomy. Not what he seems. I flush as I think about our bread, and worry that I was too easy, that I made him think that I was just another conquest, even if he said I wasn’t.
I fish David’s phone out his pocket, more by habit than anything else and go through the sequence, reading the texts one by one. I’m about to give up, sickened by the saccharine messages, when I see one that’s different. A definite meeting time. An arrangement. ‘Can’t wait to see you at three. See you then.’
I push the phone back and sit on the window seat. Sarah’s light punctures the darkness and I feel a stab of jealousy. Her life seems perfect, the choices she makes. I see her shadow pass across the kitchen window, imagine her pulling on her shawl over her naked body, and she appears at the door, stretching in the early dawn. She goes through the motions of her sun salute and I smile a little, it seems so familiar. Until I see a plume of smoke appear from around the side of the house.
I sense Gabriel is watching her too. He probably knows I am here and he would have seen me checking David’s phone. I’m still not sure how close he is to David. I suddenly wonder if he’s told him I’ve been spying on him I rush around the side of the house but it’s too late, Vera has already arrived and he’s crossed the road to meet her. She takes his arm and smiles up into his face. He’s finally wearing the outdoor clothing he bought and I watch as he walks off across the moor, chatting to her. I breathe in sharply as I realise I’m even jealous of Vera and her life on the heath - I’m almost in tears as I make the tea and sit watching Sarah. David’s phone beeps and I check it again. Another ‘three o’clock date’ message. Sam must be up early today. I wonder if she has a child, if she’s up with her toddler? Or maybe she commutes? Whatever she does, she’s up as early as me. Maybe she has to get up early to text, because she has a husband? I put the phone back and sip my tea. It occurs to me that David would be at work at three. I could go there to confront him, and if he wasn’t there at least I’d know I wasn’t losing my mind. He’d probably make some excuse for not being there, but I’d be one step nearer the truth. If he was there, with her, I could confront him, in a public place where he couldn’t get me.
I sit and wait for David to get up and make him breakfast. He grunts his way through it, grabs his coat and leaves. I say something about the car being broken and me getting it fixed and he nods, but I don’t think that he is listening. I kiss him on the cheek and notice that he leans backwards. My smile fixes until he’s out of sight, driving towards his job and probably his lover and I sit at the kitchen table, planning my afternoon. I’ve been to the school many times and I know where the music department is. I even know where the staff rotas are, so I can see where he’s supposed to be at three o’clock.
I go outside and look at the hives. I can see them all inside, doing what they are supposed to do, programmed in their tasks. I love honeybees, but I know there are many different kinds of bees. Bee species. Bees that live under the ground, bees that live in wood. Most people think that bees all live in hives and make honey. In fact, only a few species do that. Honeybees. Bumble bees live in colonies, but don’t produce honey. And all the other bees live on their own and all the females are fertile. Because we always assume that all bees live in hives and are sociable, we don’t notice the bees that aren’t fat and yellow striped. It’s just what we are used to. But there are literally hundreds of bee species that live alone, and only a few who live with other bees.
Gabriel returns at twelve, and I hear Vera drive away. I look at him, scanning him for any more of her story.
‘Busy again, Patti?’
He leans on the kitchen counter and smirks. He really pisses me off, but I can’t resist him, all at the same time.
‘Yes. All of a sudden I’m feeling very motivated.’
He laughs loudly, unbuttoning his outdoor coat. In a moment he’s right beside me.
‘Any particular reason?’
I laugh.
‘Maybe’.
He sits down at the table opposite me, and I don’t know where to look. He’s all ruffled from outside and although I know he’s not mine, I can’t help but find him easy on the eye. He pulls out the contents of his pocket and puts then on the table. Tobacco. A cheap lighter. A roll of twenty-pound notes. Some keys.
‘So. How are you now? I hope you’re not still worried about the other day. Like I said, I misjudged a situation.’
I shrug. I’ve thought about nothing else, and what it means.
‘No. Not really.’
‘Good. It’s just that I wondered if you’d help me with a few things. About the moor. After all, you’re the expert.’
His eyes are piercing me and he’s serious, not flirty like before.
‘I’d hardly say that. What do you want to know?’
‘Well, for a start, how did you come to live here. In this place?’ He looks around the high-ceilinged dining room approvingly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that someone who liked the city, the bright lights, would suddenly want to live up here?’
I want to tell him that I’m trapped here, David is holding me hostage, threatening me. But suddenly I can’t find the words.
‘We moved here after my parents died. I needed some peace. Like Sarah said, I scattered their ashes outside. Just to add to the dead people already here.’
I try
a smile and he smirks.
‘What about your family?’
It seems a little bit personal and I retaliate.
‘What about yours?’
‘Yeah. My parents live in Derbyshire. I left home when I was seventeen, like I told you, went to university, met a few girls, settled down with one and then...’
He looks sad.
‘Sarah said that you had worked the clubs. She reckons you are a bad boy!’
He laughs loudly at this. His face crinkles and the corners of his eyes crease.
‘Not really! I suppose I just like women. The other day...’ I raise my hand to brush the comment away and wish I’d never said anything. ‘I’m clumsy, never knowing the right time. But it’s hard to tell sometimes who’s interested and who isn’t. I guess I got it seriously wrong. Obviously, the other night was the result of too much wine and a strange situation. At one point I thought you two were going to start fighting!’
I cringe and blush.
‘Was it that obvious?’
‘Yeah. Good for a guy’s ego. But I sort of regret it now.’
‘What?’
‘Sarah. She’s very... self-obsessed.’
I laugh.
‘Mmm. She is. But I don’t think she means any harm.’
‘Maybe not. But I feel a bit sorry for her. She seems empty inside. Like everything is a performance.’ He snorts now, half laughing. ‘I’ve stumbled on a proper hornet’s nest here, haven’t I?’
‘Have you?’
‘Well, it certainly seems like it. Sarah’s practicing a one-woman tantric sex workshop continuously and you’re sitting here letting your bloke have an affair in front of you.’