Tell it to the Bees

by Fiona Shaw

  When she got up, he eased down and sat as she had done, back against the settee, feet towards the fire. She came back with a bar of chocolate and a pack of cards.

  ‘Don’t tell your dad. We’re going to eat the whole lot.’

  Charlie knew what she was doing, and he ate the chocolate.

  Irene could shuffle cards. Not like his mum or his dad did, but in a hard flick and then a long sweep.

  ‘I’ll teach you blackjack,’ she said. ‘It’s a card game they play in the casinos.’

  So she taught him and he counted numbers, filling his head till he had won a pile of matches. Then he lit them, end to end, nearly half a box, till the air was dense with phosphorous.

  Charlie was asleep when the door handle turned, the flutter in his eyelids the only sign of his flailing dreams.

  It was late. Robert stepped with the exaggerated steps of a drunken man.

  ‘Bloody dark,’ he muttered. ‘Black bloody dark.’

  Drawing close to the bed, he sank to his knees, patting the shadow of his son, murmuring densely.

  Awake suddenly, Charlie lay still as stone in the vinegary dark. He felt hands on his hair, a heavy palm on his brow. He froze. Then he remembered where he was and he waited.

  ‘Charlie,’ Robert said. And again. ‘Charlie. You listening?’ His breath was rich with beer. Charlie moved his head. ‘You listening?’ Charlie waited.

  ‘Good thing you’re a boy. No trouble like the girls. Like Annie. Bloody trouble.’

  Charlie felt his father’s hand on his cheek, smelled it.

  ‘You do as I say then.’ Robert tapped a finger, bored it into the sleep-sodden boy. ‘You do exactly as I say and we’ll all be happy families.’

  In the morning it was Irene’s knock on the door that woke him. He dressed and went downstairs. Irene was in the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ he said.

  ‘Gone already. To work.’

  ‘But he wasn’t here last night either.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t, was he.’ Her voice was snappy. ‘Quick now, because I have to go to work soon.’

  So he sat and ate his breakfast and thought how in an hour he would be at his desk. He wondered what his mother was thinking, and what to tell Bobby. He wondered why she hadn’t come to find him, and if he could go back home today, because he didn’t want to make his father angry, especially not with his mother.

  Irene sat down at the table. He could smell her perfume. He looked at her. She was like the woman on the book, all the lines – her lips, her hair, her blouse – drawn just so.

  ‘Your father left a message for you,’ she said.

  He waited. She looked at her nails, ran her fingertip round the curve of one. He felt his heart beat in his chest.

  ‘He’s got something to say to you, but he’s left me to say it.’

  She paused and looked back at him and he saw that she didn’t want to.

  ‘You have to go to work,’ he said at last, and she nodded, as if there were an agreement then between them.

  ‘He says that you’ll live here now and that you’re not to speak to your mother.’

  He didn’t understand. She was his mother. Why would he not speak to her, or be with her?

  ‘Do you understand, Charlie?’

  He couldn’t answer.

  ‘Charlie. Listen. You have to understand, or he’ll call in the police and you’ll go to court and a judge will stop you then. I know. He told me. If she comes to the school, you’re not to speak to her. Or to the doctor.’

  The words were like darkness. He didn’t understand. They were too heavy. They hurt him. When he spoke, his voice sounded small and thin.

  ‘Is he going to be at the school again?’ he said. It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t ask that.

  When he turned to look at Irene, she turned away from him and spoke to the wall.

  ‘You’re to come back here on your own today,’ she said.

  37

  It was Saturday; it was four days. She stood, as if waiting for a third person to join them, or for something to happen; something to change what was. Then she sat, touching her fingers to her forehead, like a summons to herself.

  ‘Each day I think it mustn’t be true. All through the day I have that thought,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jim said. ‘Did you see this coming? Any of it?’

  Beyond their closed door, the little girls argued about something.

  ‘Does it matter now?’ Jean looked at the ceiling and the floor. ‘Are you asking this as a friend or as a lawyer?’

  Jim was still in his chair, waiting.

  ‘No. I didn’t,’ Jean said finally.

  Children’s voices rose, pipsqueaky, imperative and then faded again.

  ‘It’s so quiet in the house. But differently. God knows, I was used to quiet. I lived alone for long enough. But Charlie.’

  This last was nearly a cry. There was a weight in her throat. She got up again, walked to the window. The garden looked clean and empty. Ground, tree, hedge, sky. This early, the grass still shone like glass.

  ‘I don’t know what it’s like to be a mother. But I am full of rage, Jim.’

  ‘And Lydia?’

  ‘It was the Christmas performance at his school yesterday.’

  ‘She didn’t go?’

  ‘Imagine her seeing him there, no more than a few feet away. Imagine him seeing her. Then the leaving?’

  Jim nodded. ‘So she didn’t go.’

  ‘I had to stop her. She knew the truth of how it would be, but she couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘Literally? You physically stopped her?’

  Jean looked again at the garden. The winter marked out the separateness of things. Knocked everything back into itself; told the tree to stand firm, drop its leaves and draw its sap in.

  ‘You know Robert’s sister, her sister-in-law, has been spreading gossip?’

  ‘Sarah told me.’

  ‘Lydia told me she dreamed she was at the school and everyone knew, mothers, teachers, children; everyone knew what Pam had said.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Give me one of your cigarettes,’ she said.

  Jim opened the silver box on the table and she waited, sitting down in the chair at the window, lifting her head to watch. He had a ritual with this box, more elaborate than his functional flick and shake of a packet, and right now it calmed her.

  ‘I can imagine you doing this in your office. Reassuring a client,’ she said. She nodded to him to light it for her; he drew delicately and passed the cigarette over.

  She should not have mentioned Lydia’s dream. It had not been as she had told it. Lydia had woken shaking, her hands about her head, and when Jean held her, she had cried out in fear before her dreaming self retreated, and she’d opened her eyes.

  ‘We were on the stage,’ Lydia told her. ‘We were performing and all the audience knew about us. We didn’t know it at first and so we sang a song, I think. But they began to murmur, then shout.’

  She’d broken into sobs and Jean was glad, because she didn’t want to hear any more.

  Jim drum-rolled his fingers on the coffee table. He lit a cigarette from the box for himself, but quickly, with no grace.

  ‘You’ve spoken to your colleague,’ Jean said. ‘The divorce man.’

  Jim drew on his cigarette again.

  ‘And?’ she said. ‘Come on, Jim. If it had been good news, you’d have said already.’

  His eyes dropped. He wouldn’t hold her gaze. His voice was deeper than usual.

  ‘You’ve said that Robert is living with his girlfriend, like a married couple?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked up. ‘In the same house?’ She nodded quickly. ‘Don’t you think …’ he said.

  ‘Think what?’

  ‘I’m sure she’s being kind to Charlie,’ he said.

  ‘What are you telling me?’ Jean’s voice was calm, expectant.

  ‘Well �
�’ Jim was hesitant. ‘There’s already talk. You know, Lydia knows, how damaging that could be. You’ve said so yourself. She’s having dreams about it. Perhaps it’s not fair to drag him through it. It’s not his fault. The way children are with each other. It could destroy his childhood.’

  ‘Strong words. Drag. Fault. Destroy.’

  He went on. ‘Maybe it would be better for him to be in a home with a man and a woman.’

  So he’d said it. She was relieved, in one way. Better to know what he thought.

  ‘You haven’t met Charlie’s father,’ she said, keeping her voice neutral.

  ‘Better a father than no father.’

  ‘And no mother?’

  ‘Jean.’

  She could hear his voice, appealing, appeasing. A dozen thoughts went through her mind. That she cared about Charlie. That his father didn’t. That he’d only taken Charlie to get at Lydia. That her heart – hers, Jean’s – was breaking. That if Jim saw Lydia now, he would think differently. But this last thought made her break her silence, because perhaps he would still think the same.

  ‘Tell me what your colleague said.’ And she turned away to end the other conversation.

  Jim told her at last. That no judge would give Lydia custody of Charlie with such allegations made. That public feeling would be against her, or worse.

  ‘Worse? What could be worse than a judge who knows nothing, who cares less, leaving a child with such a father?’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, but you’re too partisan, Jean. You’ve only got one side. Only got Lydia’s account of things.’

  ‘What did your colleague mean, worse?’ she challenged him.

  Jim was speaking to her now as if she were a child.

  ‘People who don’t know Lydia could make life very difficult for her. For you too. Ugly. Especially if they gang up. Crowds do things that people as individuals wouldn’t.’

  ‘All because I’ve given her room in my house to live? And Charlie?’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s what you say. But Pam will say differently. So will Robert.’

  Above them again they heard the noise of children, and a lower voice that was Sarah’s.

  ‘You’re my oldest friend,’ she said.

  ‘My colleague gave me some advice on how she should conduct herself. I could have given it to you myself, but I think you might listen harder if it comes from another solicitor and not from me. Shall I tell you?’

  ‘All right, and then let’s leave this, please, because I can’t … Let’s make coffee and take the girls into the garden to run about as if nothing is wrong.’

  ‘She should do all she can to hide any untoward affection …’ Jim paused and she glanced round at him. He went on. ‘That is what he said. Any untoward affection for you,’ he went on in a tone that dared her to deny, or affirm, ‘and, once the dust has settled, she should appeal to the father’s kindness of heart.’

  ‘His kindness of heart. Any more?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did he have any more advice for us?’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘Appeal to Robert’s kindness. Maybe Lydia will try such a thing, but the man has no kindness of heart. We’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing I believe to be wrong. Meeting Lydia and Charlie. It is the best thing that has happened to me. Better even than not marrying you.’

  Jim laughed at that, or at least he tried to, which was enough to let them leave the room for now.

  38

  There were times in the day when Lydia knew she was drowning. Some she could anticipate. First thing in the morning, or the time in the evening when she should be tucking him in. Others came upon her unexpectedly, catching at her heels, tugging the sand from under her feet. These times came like the seventh wave, which she could never see, even as Charlie counted it in for her on the beach those months back. But however the waters came, they swept over her, pressing the air from her lungs and filling her eyes with salt water till the world was a blur and each breath took her further under.

  She started to wake in the night, sure she was hearing him, and just as she had done when he was tiny, she would be out of bed before her dream had even broken. Then, pulling her dressing gown around her shoulders, careful even in her half-sleep to come out of her door and not Jean’s, she’d be halfway across the landing before she remembered.

  He was not there, his sheets were smooth and tucked, his curtains open to the night.

  It was only days. She could still count them on her two hands. A child learning to count could do the same. But she had never counted time so hard. She carried a photo with her in her apron pocket, or between the pages of a book she couldn’t read. Jean had taken it not long ago. Charlie grinning, one tooth half-grown, his socks exasperatingly adrift, which made her hurt more than she could say.

  Dot came again and they sat before the fire. Jean offered whisky. Behind them, the Christmas tree rose to the ceiling, painted angels with painted smiles, dull baubles turning slowly in the still air; on the floor the box of candles.

  ‘The factory is full of talk,’ Dot said. ‘Rumours flying.’

  ‘Is it about us?’ Jean said.

  ‘Some of it.’ Dot looked at Jean, as if for confirmation of something, and Jean nodded slightly. ‘Some of it is.’

  ‘Tell us then,’ Lydia said.

  Dot hesitated.

  ‘You came here because you had things you could tell us, Dot. Say them, or leave us be.’

  ‘I’m your friend, Lydia. I came here because I’m your friend.’

  ‘He has my child. That’s all I care about.’

  ‘Nothing can be worse than now, anyway,’ Jean said.

  Dot sipped the whisky, which she was not used to.

  ‘Burning your throat?’ Jean said.

  But she saw courage flare in Dot’s cheeks and then Dot spoke, steadily and evenly.

  ‘It’s being said that Robert knew there was something wrong. Before he ever met Irene.’

  ‘Irene, is she,’ Lydia said. ‘Irene.’

  ‘She’s called Irene Meadows.’

  ‘Irene,’ Lydia said again. ‘The name my boy, my son is saying. Now, while you talk here, Charlie is saying, “Irene”.’

  ‘What is she like?’ Jean said.

  ‘She’s young. She works in an office.’

  Lydia nodded, impatient. ‘We know that. We know she is young. How would she not be young? But what is she like? With Charlie?’

  ‘I’ve never met her,’ Dot said. ‘I don’t know. But I’ve heard that she is kind.’

  Lydia looked up to the ceiling to hold away the tears.

  ‘Don’t make her kind,’ she said, her voice crying though her eyes were still dry. ‘Don’t make her kind.’ She looked at Jean. ‘Should she be kind?’

  ‘It’s better that she is. For Charlie. Until he returns.’

  ‘I’d best go,’ Dot said. ‘I’ll come another time. Tomorrow even. Or to the surgery –’

  But Lydia pleaded. ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t go.’ The tears she had kept at bay fell down her face.

  ‘It’s gossip, what I hear in the factory,’ Dot said. ‘You know that.’

  ‘But it’s all that anybody knows,’ Jean said. ‘So it might as well be true.’

  ‘Please don’t talk of Charlie any more,’ Lydia said. ‘Tell us what else is being said.’

  But she could not sit and hear of the rumours that had spread like Chinese whispers around the cafeteria.

  ‘I will go to bed,’ she said. ‘Tell it to Jean, so that we know.’

  Lydia lay as still as a stone between the sheets so as not to feel too much. Her body had lost its way this last week, not knowing when it was hungry, or tired, or cold. She lay exhausted, bone-tired, but awake. This end of the night she could sleep, if she could only still her mind. So she did what she had learned to do when she was much younger and her head was buzzy, not with grief, like now, but with dancing and possibility.

  She pictured an empty room, no colour
on the walls, no window, nothing to look at except the small, plain table in its centre. On the table, a tin can, with no label. Once her mind had seen the can, she held it there. She would let her mind look nowhere else in this imagined room, would not let it leave.

  Just beyond the table, just behind the dull walls and the empty room, a terrible tide of feelings surged and sank, but she kept her eyes on the can; she would not look away. And at last, her thoughts beached, she slept.

  It was still deep dark when she woke and her limbs felt drugged and heavy; her hair was across her face like weed. She had been dreaming. It was summer, not winter, and she was laughing with Charlie in their kitchen, which was bright with sunlight, and there were tiles on the floor and rough plaster on the wall, and outside, beyond, was the sea.

  For a minute the dream was warm on her skin and then, just as certainly, it was ashes and she cried out. No words, only sound.

  She cried out and Jean was there, but she had no answer for her pain. She could only hold her.

  She held her, and it was seconds or minutes or hours that they lay like that. It was time out of mind. They lay so long, so still, that Lydia no longer knew where her body ended and Jean’s began. Until at last she sought Jean out, hungry now, desperate for something, for another kind of falling, and Jean made love to her in that dark bed so that she cried out again, hard and loud, and covered Jean’s wrist with her hand, holding her close inside, as if never to let her go.

  ‘Did we do something very wrong?’ Lydia whispered.

  ‘No,’ Jean said. ‘Not wrong at all.’ But when Lydia slept again, her body washed through with fatigue, Jean lay awake, wondering if indeed she had done something very wrong to this woman she so loved.

  In the end, Jean went downstairs. It was late and it was cold. The kind of cold that has no time for pain. She sat before the last warmth of the fire. Christmas was in two days. She had discussed and organized with Sarah while they decorated the tree, and they would do what they could. But no one pretended that all this was bearable.

  She had been down there for perhaps ten minutes when the bell rang fiercely. It surprised her. It had been a while since she had been called out in the night. She went to it quickly. Lydia was asleep upstairs, and the bell in the bedroom was disconnected, but Jean had watched her. Her sleep was fitful and would need little to undo it.