All the Fabulous Beasts

by Priya Sharma

  He did not exaggerate. The estate’s honey was a secret, kept by those who knew and didn’t want to share. Medicinal and beautifying, it was sought by kings, media moguls and entertainment divas.

  “They’re very shy people. Filthy rich, apparently. Not that you’d know to look at them.”

  He stepped closer.

  “The honey’s very expensive. It’s an aphrodisiac, you know.”

  The man lightly grasped her wrist and she pulled away. Undeterred, he went to the bed, seemingly to demonstrate the firmness of the mattress, patting the space beside him. Not looking her in the face made it an insipid invitation. He ploughed on.

  “My wife. She doesn’t understand me.”

  “Then perhaps you should make a better job of explaining yourself.”

  Vivien was shocked and excited, despite herself. Not by him but by the possibilities of the invitation. She had tried romance and found it fragile. This man was not offering her romance, but something entirely different.

  She hid her smile behind pursed lips as she ushered the manager, who was baffled by his own audacity, out of the door.

  *

  Long divorced, her marriage bewildering and brief, Vivien was an anomaly in her social circle. Being without husband or child, her personal and professional successes could be overlooked by her female friends. Being true friends, they never voiced their opinions that her manlessness had made her selfish and her childlessness had made her trivial. They never talked in pitying tones about her lonely nights of splendid isolation.

  She became a pale shadow of herself in the company of the husbands, sons and lovers of these friends. Her failure with men blighted her side of the conversation. She was socially uncertain, diffident and eager, where another sort of woman might have become bolshy and bitter. She put them in mind of their brothers, the ones that were young enough to need their approval and not old enough to be a rival. Her attempts at flirtation were charming. Innocent and awkward enough to share with their wives, mothers and lovers.

  It was this group of men that were the first to sense a change. They noticed her fingers lingering on the stem of her glass, that she no longer covered her mouth to stifle the laughter hidden there. There was nothing bitter in the tilt of her chin as she challenged their opinions. She teased them and it made them tingle. They did not share these exchanges with their wives, mothers or their lovers.

  Vivien Avery was in flower.

  *

  The queen is statuesque, bigger than any of her progeny who attend her. Her monarchy is two-fold. She is the only one of her tribe to reproduce and she has the power of chemical domination. Her prodigious pheromones keep the colony in supplication. The workers are her hand maidens, who clean and feed her from their own mouths with ambrosia, a viscous yellow milk that promises her abnormal longevity. So it is that for her entire life she is utterly theirs to adore, her residence a hexagonal cell that is both her throne and her prison.

  *

  Later in her life, when Vivien had a surfeit of leisure to reflect, those early days at the cottage were the ones she remembered most. She had memories of basking in the yard, eating roast chicken with her fingers. The crisp skin melting between her tongue and palate. There was a square of unsullied blue above her and she wondered if it could have been as perfect or if she imagined it that way. There were afternoons with a muted radio and tatty paperback. Her life before was vague by comparison, barely tasted, lost and wasted.

  Vivien also recalled when this life ended and her new one began.

  The encounter with the manager had reminded her that her body had its own purpose, not just functions. Its need for satisfaction disturbed her sleep. By night she stood naked before the mirror in the bedroom, studying her tarnished image and invoking the jolt of his fist around her wrist. Her hoarding ovaries now threatened to release all her eggs at once. This rampant fecundity made her shine. Her pheromones were maddening. Vivien Avery didn’t give a fig for procreation. Her state made her pleasure hungry. She longed to be a carnal adventurer.

  She turned around, peering over her shoulder to view herself. The motion made one scapula take flight. There was the hollow of her back. The ample hips and fleshy bottom. Flesh on fire, she glowed in the dark.

  The faint tapping startled her. It was a hesitant request for admission. She paused. It came again. Vivien pulled on clothes. The stairs creaked under her feet. She looked left to the soft shapes of the sofa. The rapping wasn’t at the front of the cottage, but from the kitchen door. This was a backdoor caller.

  The knocking came again. The trespasser had come through the estate and by the rotten door into her yard. She turned the key. The prospect of the manager didn’t threaten her even though she had not decided what to do with him yet.

  Vivien gaped. It was a woman. Tall and stooped. As naked as Vivien had been only moments before. Her silver hair was twisted into a rope over one shoulder. Her skin was taunt and uncreased on her aged face.

  “Help me.”

  The old woman stepped inside. Her abdomen was revealed. Womanhood had ravaged her. The skin sagged as though once greatly distended and then emptied. The abdomen of a mother, many times over. Her pubic hair was sparse and childish. Her breasts were like a beast’s, damaged by the dragging suckling of a large and selfish litter. Her limbs were emaciated. Yet the skin had the same sheen as her face, cosmetic, youthful and unnatural. Bony hands snatched at Vivien as she collapsed into her arms.

  Vivien lowered her to the ground, cradling her in her lap. The old woman smelled of honey. Her skin was thin satin slipping under Vivien’s hands. It was as though she had been oiled to keep it supple.

  “Please, help me.” She touched Vivien’s face, her fingers butterflies.

  Figures loomed up from the darkness outside.

  “Mother, we’ve been so worried.”

  They came as a pair, one enfolding the old lady in a blanket like she was an injured animal, pulling her from Vivien’s embrace, the jealousy plain on her face.

  “Mother,” said the other, “we thought we’d lost you.”

  They clucked and fussed with palpable concern. They were shorter than their mother, solid country girls. Squat and square rather than curved. They were dressed in simple blouses and trousers that looked homemade.

  “Do you want to bring her in? I’ll light the fire and get some clothes.”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  The taller one was brusque but the other one seemed more inclined to conversation.

  “This is our mother,” the girl said as though it weren’t obvious. “She’s never wandered off like this before.”

  “Your mother’s lucky to have such a caring family.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.” The girl beamed at her, pleased by the comment. Vivien saw that she wasn’t a girl at all, but a woman. Her lack of grooming, the unplucked eyebrows and the faint moustache, made her look younger. She lingered as her stocky sister lifted their frail parent in her arms.

  “Hadn’t you better help them?”

  “She’s very strong.” Her hand loitered on the door frame, as if to stop Vivien from shutting her out. “We look after her. She’s very old now. What’s your name?”

  “Vivien.”

  “I’m Bea.” She pointed to Vivien’s arm. A bee had landed there. Insects could be as insomniac as old ladies. Bea lifted it off with care. She held it up and it took flight. “They like you.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, nice to meet you.” Vivien started to close the door.

  “You’re very kind to have helped us.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Most people wouldn’t have answered the door. How much longer are you staying?”

  “Another week.”

  “Are you with your husband?”

  “No,” Vivien hesitated, “I’m not married.”

  Bea leaned in. She seemed to be deciding something.

  “Wi
ll you come to see us? I think my family will like you. We can thank you properly.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Please. It would mean so much to all of us. Through there, tomorrow afternoon then,” she pointed back to where she’d come from, “and if you don’t come, we’ll have to come and get you.”

  *

  It is appropriate that the workers are female, their passion not for themselves, but for the greater good. They are supple creatures, young and unfeminine, relishing their roles as cleaners, guards and builders, as hunter-gatherers and factory workers.

  These workers forage among the flowers, curling tongues sucking nectar from blooms into their rosebud mouths. They hurry back to the hive with this delivery, where other workers wait with eager, open mouths.

  They show blind devotion to the queen. They smother her with mother love which is touching as they are sterile.

  A life of toil, doting on their queen, sweet and incestuous honeyed kisses, mass murder and the production of a spoon of honey are the best that they can hope for.

  *

  Vivien pushed open the door to the orchard. The wood was crumbling splinters against her palms. There was a sound on the air, a hum between the trees, a buzz, the Om that underlies the universe. It hung before her, sound given body.

  It was a swarm.

  He came through the bees as if invincible. Vivien was won over immediately, enchanted by his entrance. She admired the broadness of his chest and shoulders. The sinews of his forearms made her shudder. He wasn’t pretty, which was good, as she distrusted prettiness. She’d made altars of beautiful men only to have tear them down again. Her ex-husband was one such man. She’d become indifferent to his sculpted face. By the end she found it vacuous. They was no chemistry, no urgency between them. Give her an ugly, charismatic man any day. She imagined them to be more attentive lovers.

  “You’re quite safe,” his molten voice poured right through her, “they’re not interested in you.”

  The man lingered in the swarm. When he opened his mouth bees flew onto his tongue. She gasped as they crowded his mouth. She imagined kisses, full of stings. Swollen tongues and bruised lips. He blew gently, sending them on their way.

  “You must be Vivien. I’m Tom.”

  “Hello.” She was shy. The shyness that is loaded with expectation, that showed her thoughts were giving her cause to blush. She was determined to enjoy this game. After all, it was her summer and nothing would be as sweet again.

  Tom carried an enamel pail. He dipped his fingers in and they came out coated, dripping honey. Tom offered himself to her and she took them in her mouth.

  He tasted exquisite.

  *

  “Come and join us. There’s a picnic in your honour.”

  They walked together through the orchard. The boughs leaned towards them, laden with gifts. Several women were at work, harvesting the fruit. There was singing, the sound of wassailing and cider, of garlands and maidens. They were dressed in simple homemade clothes, like the women who’d come in the night. They turned as Tom and Vivien approached, eyes full of appraisal.

  The kitchen garden opened up before them. Here more women were at labour, rearing rows of brassica and pulling up potatoes. Ferny carrot stalks spilled from their trugs. One woman had her face buried in a lavender bush, grasping it like a lover’s face. She surfaced, glowing with pleasure. There was that song again.

  They walked around to the front of the house whose leaded panes stretched above them, winking in the sun. The doors were treble height, unassailable and carved with bees.

  The lawn spread out under the sun, blankets laid upon it and men laid out upon them. They turned their heads, they smiled at her and some even stood up but were waved back down by Tom.

  “Here.” Tom directed her to an empty woollen square and handed her a glass. His spoon clinked needlessly upon the glass as though he needed this to get everyone’s attention. “I’d like to introduce Vivien.”

  Glasses were raised amid murmurs of welcome.

  “Thank you.” Vivien would not be flustered. Be it a coven, cult or clan, she would stand her own ground. No harm had come to her so far. It was just a plate of sandwiches and drinks.

  Tom lay down, reclining like a sultan on a nest of cushions. He patted the space next to him. There was nothing insipid about this invitation.

  Vivien sipped her drink, musing on the order of things before her. The women worked, the men looked on. Sunshine smiled upon them. A paradise for men and bees. The women’s arms were always full: a spade, a tray, a plate or jug. Cult indeed. Subjugated, sexless women with hairy legs and industrious hands.

  No wonder I’m in such demand. Vivien shocked herself with such an unsisterly thought.

  Bea’s hand fell on her shoulder.

  “I’m so happy to see you.” She kissed Vivien’s cheek.

  “How’s your mother?”

  Vivien had been so distracted by Tom that she hadn’t asked him about the old woman and Vivien now wondered if she was his mother too.

  “Not well,” Bea’s face fell. “Not well at all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s not been well for a while.” There was a cropping sound as Tom ripped up grass. “Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  He addressed Bea as she stood over him like a servant bearing a plate of fruit in one hand.

  “Are you always so rude?”

  “Don’t worry,” Bea was radiant. Vivien had taken her side. “I’ll get him back.”

  “Tom,” Vivien put a hand upon his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt slipped over his skin. “Don’t be so unsociable. Bea can join us if she likes.”

  “Whatever you want.” Tom shrugged and looked away.

  “I can’t, but thank you. I have things to do. I’ll give you some privacy.” Bea eyed Tom, her mouth close to Vivien’s ear. “My brother likes you.”

  “Are all these men your brothers?” Vivien called after her. “Surely not.”

  Bea did not turn to answer, leaving Vivien to be more direct.

  “Are you all related?”

  “Yes, we are. This is my family.”

  The occupied women and men at leisure were busy listening.

  “And you all live here together?”

  “Our family are direct descendants of the original beekeepers that lived in your cottage. There’s always been bees, so there’s always been us.”

  “So where were you born?” Vivien asked Tom. She was determined to find them out.

  “Here. Bred and reared.”

  “And you grew up here?”

  “I’ve never lived anywhere else.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Why would I want to live anywhere else?”

  Why indeed?

  “But haven’t you ever wanted to get away?”

  “Not at all,” he looked troubled, “it’s a simple life but I don’t know how much longer it can last, especially now with our mother being so ill. I love how we live. It satisfies me. In most things.”

  He handed her a piece of apple. It had arrived already sliced. The flesh was white beneath the skin.

  “Most things?” She bit into it. Tart juices flooded her mouth.

  “Nearly,” he smirked at her, “but not everything.”

  Vivien stifled a giggle. A colony of inbred beekeepers living in arcadia. Tom’s sauciness appealed. A simple man, a simple life, what was there not to like?

  *

  The drones are hedonists. These spoilt boys exist to feed and fornicate, a golden life which culminates in mating with their monarch. They have no inkling that this will herald their demise, hence their surprise when their servant-sisters, the jealous workers, rise up in pre-ordained revolution to starve, brutalise and slaughter the consorts of their beloved queen.

  *

  After the picnic, Tom and Vivien retraced their steps across the man-littered lawn, through the falling dusk of the kitchen garden, past the hives and trees to the back o
f the cottage. There was a large, yellow moon in the darkened sky. It was low enough for Vivien to draw it down and put it in her pocket.

  The rotten door was as she left it, half pushed open.

  “What are these?”

  Vivien saw what she’d missed earlier that day. The side of the wall facing the orchard was a series of niches. Some were empty, some containing the last glimmer of candles. It looked like a shrine.

  “They used to contain bee bowls.”

  “Bowls?”

  “Straw baskets. An early form of the beehive.”

  “Oh.”

  Neither of them could be still. Their bodies, one electrified by the other, were in constant motion. She twirled from side to side on one heel; he twiddled a long stalk of grass between his fingers, put it in his mouth and took it out again.

  “Bee bowls,” she arched her back, “I’ve never heard of them before.”

  They had moved into the yard.

  “15th century.” His eyes flickered from her eyes to her mouth and back again.

  “As old as that?” She unlocked the kitchen door, eager for him to continue her education inside. They came close enough to raise the hairs upon her arms.

  “There’s always been bees here. That’s how we began. Wax used to be how the estate paid their taxes.”

  “A wax tax?”

  “As candles for the church,” he frowned, the idea displeased him, “before we were excommunicated for heresy.”

  “Really?”

  “Persecuted for witchcraft. As they did with anyone with knowledge of birds and bees.”

  She trailed her fingers down her neck. His frown softened and faded.

  “Tom, are you trying to convert me?”

  They had reached the stairs. Vivien was on the first step. Tom caressed the newel post with his palm.

  “Convert you?”

  “To your religion. To bees.”

  He laughed. She entwined a strand of hair around her forefinger.

  “It’s not a religion. A way of living, maybe.”

  He leaned towards her. They had reached the top of the stairs. His clothes seemed wrong on his large frame. She wanted to take them off.

  “I’ve no intention of being one of your little women, waiting on you hand and foot.”