Honeybee

by Craig Silvey;

  It had a stuffed stinger tail with black velvet and yellow satin stripes. She shaped wings out of wire coathangers and stretched pantyhose over them. There was fur on the shoulders, and a tight black cap covered my head and my neck, with two antennae that stood straight up. There was also a pair of her black wool socks that I could stretch all the way up my legs.

  I tried it on. It fit me perfectly.

  She was really proud of it. She clapped and took lots of photos of me. Best of all, she promised to come to the performance.

  When I got to school, I couldn’t wait to show everyone what she had done. Mrs Grayson was impressed and relieved. The other kids were envious.

  The performance was held in the school theatre that afternoon. Backstage was busy and loud. Teachers were getting their classes into lines and making last-minute adjustments. I peeked out at the audience and saw my mum finding her seat right up the back. I wanted to wave to her, but Mrs Grayson came to get me.

  I was nervous when it was our turn to go on stage. All the flowers went out first and got into position. My job was to quickly run around to each one. They would hand me a furry ball of pollen which I placed in a basket, then I stuck a different-coloured ball of pollen onto their petals.

  The music started and I ran out on stage. I had to move really fast in time with the music. I tripped and dropped a couple of balls of pollen, and when I bent to pick them up, the rest rolled out of the basket and I had to pick those up too. I could hear the audience laughing, and I worried they were making fun of me, which made me go even faster. The crowd kept laughing. The whole act took less than three minutes, but it felt like time had stopped. When it was over, everyone cheered really loudly.

  I turned around to look for my mum, but the lights were too bright. I waved anyway, and the crowd cheered again. I kept waving. I didn’t realise I was the only one left on the stage until Mrs Grayson came to get me. Offstage, she smiled and gave me a big hug and told me I did a good job.

  Everybody else got changed, but I kept my costume on. I loved being the Honeybee. People treated me differently. I felt like I could be myself.

  After the performance, I found my mum in the car park. She was really happy. She gave me a hug and said I was a star. A few parents came over and said nice things too. I told everybody that my mum had made my costume.

  We drove to a shopping centre. I followed my mum into a liquor store, and the lady behind the counter said I looked adorable. I showed her how I had run around collecting pollen, and it made her laugh. When my mum got her change, she gave me the coins. Then she walked me to a doughnut shop and told me to choose whatever I wanted.

  I had never had money of my own to spend before. I walked up and down the glass display cabinet, but I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t choose. My mum apologised to the man behind the counter because I was taking so long. I started to panic, worried that I was going to run out of time and miss out.

  Then the man smiled at me and held up his finger. I watched him take a plain round jam doughnut out of the display. He put it on the bench behind him and turned his back to us. I looked up at my mum, but she just shrugged.

  After a couple of minutes, the man showed me what he had done. He had decorated the doughnut with stripes of caramel and chocolate icing and made it look like a bee. He had even drawn wings with vanilla icing, and stuck on two candy eyes. He put it in a small white box and gave it to me.

  ‘Little friend for you,’ he said.

  I tried to give him my coins, but he waved me away. I looked at my mum again before I took the box.

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.

  I held the box carefully. I was confused. I didn’t understand what had just happened. The man nodded and smiled. My mum put her hand on my back.

  ‘Come on, Honeybee,’ she said.

  The moment she called me that, I started to tear up. I stood at the counter and I couldn’t move. Everything had been so nice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ my mum asked. ‘Why are you upset?’

  But I couldn’t say.

  I stayed in the costume when I got home. I opened the box with the doughnut, but I didn’t touch it. I just looked at it.

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat it?’

  I shook my head.

  I buzzed around being the Honeybee, picking up shoes and cushions and pens and keys and putting them down somewhere else while my mum drank wine.

  When it got dark, she started to get dressed up. I watched her put on her make-up in the bathroom. I wanted her to stay home with me. She said she would only be an hour or so, but I knew it would be longer.

  Her phone rang.

  ‘That’s my ride.’

  Then she turned her face from side to side and winked at the mirror.

  ‘That’ll have to do, kid,’ she said.

  She slipped into her shoes, picked up her bag and went to the door.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Don’t go. Stay with me.’

  ‘I won’t be long. Couple of hours.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Call me Honeybee again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I like it when you call me Honeybee. Say, Goodnight, Honeybee!’

  She smiled and rolled her eyes.

  ‘Say it!’

  ‘Goodnight, Honeybee.’

  Then she walked out the door and she didn’t come home until the sun was up.

  I put on the costume every day after school. I didn’t want to stop being the Honeybee. I wanted to wear it to school, but my mum wouldn’t allow it. I never ate the doughnut. I just liked opening the box and looking at it. It went bad after a week. When my mum threw it out, I stopped wearing the costume. It didn’t feel as special anymore. We put it in a black plastic bag and my mum kept it in her wardrobe. But she still called me Honeybee, and it always gave me a tingly feeling on my neck.

  Then there was the day we had to leave our apartment in a hurry, and my mum left the costume behind. I wanted to go back for it, but she refused. It was gone. And that was when everything started to go really wrong. We moved in with Steve, and she stopped calling me Honeybee.

  ‘Why does this memory mean so much to you?’ Diane asked.

  ‘When I was the Honeybee, I felt like she really cared about me and she was proud of me and I was important to her. The first time she called me Honeybee, what I heard was that she loved me.’

  A week later, I was on my way home from seeing Diane when I got a message.

  It was from my mum. My hand shook as the texts came through.

  I felt queasy. I put the phone face down and closed my eyes. It vibrated again. I looked at the screen.

  It was so unexpected that I was suspicious. I thought it might be Steve trying to trick me. I wrote back.

  A few seconds later my phone rang. It was her. I silenced the call and waited for it to ring out. Then I messaged.

  I waited.

  I started to type a reply, then deleted everything and tried again.

  She replied straight away.

  I turned my phone off and looked out the window. My heart was beating fast and I was so anxious I wanted to throw up.

  When I got home I wandered through all the rooms. I imagined my mum here with me. I imagined giving her the keys. I could have her back and we could be a family and we wouldn’t have to move out. I thought about where the baby would sleep, and how I might help to raise it so my mum could live her life and never worry about money.

  I turned my phone on.

  I caught the train there. She wasn’t living at the house in Hamilton Hill anymore. She gave me the address of a one-bedroom apartment in Kingsley.

  I was nervous. I was wearing a yellow summer dress cinched with a thin black leather belt. I wore some clip-on earrings and I took Edie’s big black leather handbag. I had applied some liquid foundation and done some light contouring. I chose a cherry red lipstick.

  I didn’t feel comfortable. I had c
hanged back into boy clothes ten times before I made myself leave in my new dress.

  Before I did, I stared at myself in the mirror.

  ‘Come on, Honeybee.’

  I needed to show my mum who I was. I needed to tell her the truth. And I wanted to tell her about all the things I had to look forward to.

  I wanted to tell her about my friend Peter. Tonight Aggie and I were surprising him at the recording studio. Aggie had been practising old jazz and swing standards with her bandmates for weeks.

  I wanted to tell her about Jean-Philippe Vollard. A week ago I had dug out his business card from the front garden and called him. His accent was hard to understand, but he invited me to work and train at The Blue Goose. I would begin with food preparation during the day, and when I was good enough he would put me on his service team. I would have my first day at the restaurant tomorrow.

  I wanted to tell her about Vic and Edie and what they had done for me. Next weekend, Len Oakes was putting on a barbecue for all his club friends to unveil the Black Shadow. There would be over two hundred people there. I had finished writing about Vic and Edie for the wall display, and I was going to read it out for everyone there. It would be the funeral that Vic never had.

  I wanted to tell her about Diane. How she grew up and what she went through and the person she was now. I wanted to tell her how similar we were, and how much she meant to me.

  Then I had to ask my mum for two things.

  I stood up when we approached Greenwood Station. The train slowed down and stopped. I pushed the button and the doors opened.

  I stepped onto the platform and walked up the ramp and across the railway bridge. Halfway over I stopped to look over the rail at the tracks below.

  Then I kept going.

  My mum’s apartment was on the ground floor of the block. The lock on the security door was broken and the wire mesh was ripped.

  I knocked and waited. I looked around.

  It was a clear, hot April day.

  It was the day that Sam Watson died.

  My mum opened the door.

  She was wearing one of Steve’s old grey t-shirts. Her middle was round, like she had a basketball under there. Her hair was oily and flat, and her skin was puffy and blotchy. She had bags under her eyes. She didn’t look beautiful anymore.

  We stared at each other for a moment.

  ‘I didn’t even recognise you,’ she said.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said.

  She kept staring. I felt awkward. Then she half smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, come in.’

  I followed her inside. It was dark. There were beach towels covering the windows. The linoleum floor was sticky. It was really hot and hard to breathe. The air seemed thicker somehow.

  It was like walking into a dream. I felt like I had been here before. I had grown up in this apartment.

  She didn’t have any furniture other than a round plastic table and two chairs. There was an ashtray with cigarette butts in it. We sat down. The door to the single bedroom was closed. I don’t know why, but it made me uncomfortable.

  ‘If you want a tea or a coffee you got to heat the water in the microwave because the gas isn’t connected.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said.

  ‘So you’re wearing this stuff all the time now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a pretty dress,’ she said. ‘Looks expensive.’

  ‘I bought it.’

  ‘You been living with that old man again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  I was starting to sweat.

  ‘Are you here by yourself?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m on my own again. But there’s only one person to blame for that.’

  She looked down and picked at her nails. Then she looked up again.

  ‘Sam, I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I said some horrible things. I should have believed you. But I know it wasn’t you who tipped off the cops.’

  I wanted to feel relieved, but I still wasn’t sure.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Whippy.’

  My heart was beating really fast. I pretended to be surprised.

  ‘Really?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Steve was going to fight his charges in court, so before the trial they sent him the police facts sheet. In the statement it said they acted on information provided by Ricky Wragg. That’s Whippy’s real name. He was the one. Not you. Steve reckons he must have got picked up and he tried to cut a deal by giving people up.’

  ‘Steve is sure it was him?’

  ‘Yeah. The night Steve got arrested, Dane went straight to Whippy’s place to hide out. When he explained what happened, Whippy said it must have been you. He said you threatened to rat on him once. Dane said he was acting really paranoid. Then the day after, Whippy disappeared. Just packed up and cut off his phone and left. At the time, Steve thought he was just being careful, but now he knows why. He’s devastated. Whippy was like a brother to him. Steve knew he had no choice but to plead guilty. They gave him six months. Could be out in less though. Mark got eighteen months because he took the gun charge and had prior history.’

  ‘What happened to Dane?’

  ‘They never arrested him. Steve and Mark wouldn’t give him up.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s working private security somewhere up north I think. I haven’t heard from him.’

  ‘What about Whippy?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  That made me uneasy. I remembered how he had threatened me.

  ‘You really don’t know?’ I asked.

  ‘Wherever he is, he’s not stupid enough to come back here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’ll get what he’s owed.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So now it’s just me. I don’t have anyone. Except you. Like it always was. Gavin kicked me out of his place, so I’m staying here until Steve gets out. He’s got twelve weeks left.’

  ‘Twelve weeks? I thought you said he was in for six months.’

  ‘He went in start of January.’

  ‘Wait. So how long ago did you get the facts sheet?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Couple of months now, I guess.’

  The air went out of me and my stomach knotted up. All those weeks I was hurting, I could have had her back.

  ‘Why did it take you so long to tell me?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘You said you didn’t want me in your life anymore. I thought I was never going to see you again. I’ve been on my own. Why did you wait? Why didn’t you tell me as soon as you knew?’

  She shook her head and looked away. Then she started to cry.

  ‘I’m ashamed, Sam. I’m so sorry. I missed you so much, but I didn’t want to face what I said to you. I didn’t mean those things. When Steve got locked up I was just afraid of losing everything and I put it all on you. Oh God, I did it to you again: I left you on your own. I’ve been such a terrible mother.’

  ‘Please don’t say that. You always did your best. I made it hard for you. You did a good job.’

  ‘You have to understand, I was so young and I was on my own. People wanted to help me, but I pushed them all away because they made me feel ashamed for having you, and I thought I could do it all by myself. I was a stupid, stubborn kid. I didn’t know how hard it would be. I knew it was too much for me. I just wanted to run away from everything. But you can’t run away when you have a baby. You can’t do it. I tried.’

  She gasped and covered her face with her hands.

  ‘Sam, I did some horrible things. I did some horrible things to you.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You were always there. Even when we had nothing, we had each other.’

  She shook her head. I was just making her cry more.

  ‘You don’t get it, Sam, okay? It’s not just that I couldn’t provide for you. I went to some dark places. I almost killed you. I almost killed my l
ittle baby.’

  ‘No you didn’t. Don’t say that. It’s not true.’

  I reached across and rubbed her back. She was crying so hard now it made my heart hurt.

  ‘It is. It is true! It is.’

  She tried to suck in air. She couldn’t look at me.

  ‘It was so hard. You wouldn’t stop crying. You were just a little baby. You would not stop. Nothing worked. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I didn’t know what you wanted. Every night, you cried and cried. I tried to comfort you and feed you and soothe you, but you wouldn’t stop. And I knew I couldn’t do it. I just felt all this regret and all this dread. I was out of my depth and I was all on my own. And I hated you. I hated you. I thought about giving you up, but then everybody would know I’d failed. Then one night I just snapped. I couldn’t do it anymore. Sam, you have to understand, I was young and scared and I was so tired. I was so stressed out. I can’t …’

  She took a deep breath. Then she kept going. She spoke so softly I could hardly hear.

  ‘I got a plastic bag. One of those big green ones. And I put you inside it. I thought I could tell people it was a cot death, you know? I tied it up and I walked out of the apartment and down the stairs and I kept walking. I made it about a block away and suddenly it was so quiet. I couldn’t hear you anymore and I realised what I had done. And I turned around and I ran. I ran as fast as I have ever run. I ran even though I knew it was too late. I ran back into the apartment and you weren’t crying anymore. And I felt the most awful kind of sickness, I can’t even tell you.

  ‘I ran to your cot and I saw that you had torn a little hole in the bag with those tiny fingers. That’s how much you wanted to survive. You were so strong. I ripped the bag open and I picked you up and I begged you to be okay. All I wanted was to hear you cry again. I felt your little heart beating. You were alive. But you barely ever made a sound after that. And I always worried that it damaged you somehow, that it did something bad to you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.’