Zenandra’s social way of life afforded her kind many other advantages. Egg-laying activities would soon be centred on the queen alone. This left the other females to devote themselves to domestic affairs. Infertile females were certainly cheaper to produce resource wise. Another advantage was the restriction on males. They were only produced when needed. Their short life-span ensured the colony did not support them for any length of time. Zenandra had founded an impressive dynasty. Her adopted country, free of even the few major predators she faced in her native land, was proving to be a promised land indeed.
CHAPTER 7
The sun streamed through the open slim-line blinds of the bedroom window. The strength of the rays at such an early hour warned of a coming scorcher. Mark leant over Helen who slept on. Chance lay quietly cradled by his mother’s arm, though the phone had woken him too. His wide blue eyes watched Mark, bright and alert. Mark’s mind, befuddled by sleep, registered surprise when he identified the caller. It was Beth. He quickly decided to take the call in his home-office. Content beside his mother’s breast, Chance made no cry as Mark pulled on shorts and left the bedroom with the cordless phone. He reached the office, closed the door and turned his attention to the call. Beth’s words were to the point.
“Since when did you want the kids to live with you?”
“So they told you.”
“Of course they told me. You had no right to ask them not to.”
Mark remained silent.
“Well,” said Beth, “Say something.”
Her high pitched tone was frantic and belied the reasonable nature of her question. Mark’s mind clicked into the present, imagining her sleepless night. She would have been checking and rechecking the clock, trying to judge when was the earliest time she could ring. Her fearful insistence rendered Mark non-communicative. He felt backed against a wall, not just by Beth, but by life itself. His response to pressure these days was to retreat into sullen silence.
Beth waited, frustrated and angry at the end of the phone. Despite her feeling of urgency, she soon recognised that Mark had no intention of being forthcoming. Maybe in person she could reach him? She was woefully out of practise where dealing with Mark was concerned. Reining in her agitation, she arranged a meeting. No. Not at home. She had visions of dancing about, avoiding Mark’s amorous advances. What about lunch? Later this week? Her heart sank. She wondered how she could live for days with this pit of anxiety deep in her stomach. Curbing her impatience, Beth agreed to the date and time. She needed Mark on-side now, as she never had before. As she finished the call, she realised grimly that she faced several days in emotional limbo before the relief of resolution.
Momentarily Mark considered going back to bed. But the day’s heat and his desire for peace kept him up. Helen and Chance were likely to expect something of him if he returned to the bedroom. He decided instead to shower and dress. While grabbing a quick coffee he thought about the coming day. As usual he would drive his red sports car through the snarls of commuter traffic to his city office. Then he’d park in his reserved space before taking the elevator to the twenty second floor where his pretty and efficient secretary would greet him, all smiles and fluttering lashes, and remind him of his daily appointment schedule. He no longer looked forward to such days.
For months now he seemed to be operating on autopilot. The truly frightening thing was that nobody else seemed to notice. Increasingly he felt like a dispassionate and objective observer of his own life. His disconnection was accompanied by a crushing loneliness.
Helen provided him with no comfort. Since the birth of Chance she seemed preoccupied. The baby; her girlfriends; her social life – Mark felt that he was now little more than a money-making machine, important to Helen in that he supported her in a particular lifestyle. The cost of that lifestyle was skyrocketing. Helen’s credit card debt continued to escalate. It had been the subject of several bitter arguments.
Mark’s thoughts turned to Beth. During their marriage he had been the spendthrift. He remembered Beth’s gentle, exasperated chiding about keeping expenses down. Now he pictured her, tight-lipped and serious, doing the monthly budget at the kitchen table; flicking strands of flame-red hair behind her ear, a look of intense concentration on her beautiful face. He felt a shock of painful comprehension so intense that it completely broke his train of thought. He missed her! The emotion was unpleasant to feel.
Slipping back into the bedroom, he dressed hurriedly. Helen was half awake. He went to kiss her goodbye, but stopped when he met his baby’s calm gaze. For a moment he felt a connection to the child. Chance turned to nuzzle Helen’s naked breast. She snuggled him close and helped him find her soft, rosy nipple. The baby sucked contentedly, his eyes closed. Mark felt a familiar stab of jealousy, followed by shame. Irrationally, he felt rejected by them both. He turned and left the room.
Helen heard the front door slam and blinked back tears. She was keenly aware that Mark left without kissing her goodbye. It seemed these days that he never gave her any attention, except to criticise. She took comfort in the sweet heavy warmth of her nursing infant. It never ceased to amaze her how intensely her emotions were now entangled with this child. His vulnerability touched her in a place she was previously unfamiliar with. Still, motherhood did not entirely compensate her for the growing distance from Mark. Why couldn’t they both share this newfound joy? The more she lost herself in maternal bliss, the more Mark turned away. This confused and angered her. Her mood lightened a little as she planned her day. She’d arrange lunch with some friends. That would help deal with the loneliness. Then perhaps a little retail therapy.
The phone call left Beth immensely frustrated. Her urgent need to deal with this looming problem remained, but for now, she was left with nowhere to go. In a determined effort to restrain her churning emotions, she woke the children and tried to focus on the routine tasks of a school morning. She made lunches, checked timetables and prepared uniforms. By eight o’clock she’d bustled the kids out the front door to the bus stop.
There was now time to brew herself a coffee and to compose herself. Thoughts seethed in her head, out of control. Like kaleidoscope images, possible outcomes no sooner popped into view than they disappeared again, replaced by some other equally undesirable permutation. The kids would want to live with their Dad; they wouldn’t; one would, one wouldn’t; they would be embroiled in a custody battle; they would hate her if she did this or that; they would hate her no matter what she did; they would hate their father; she would hate their father…the possibilities were endless. Her meeting with Mark, however, was not until Friday and she needed to get through the next few days with her sanity intact.
Finishing breakfast, she dressed and went outside to meet the bright day. Whistling up the dogs, she walked down to the stables, intent on a ride to clear her mind. The beer-can Mark had dropped still lay to one side of the path. Stooping to retrieve it, she noticed it was already warm to the touch. The first intensely hot day of summer was here. A bold Willy Wagtail, resplendent in black and white plumage, followed her hopping from stone, to fence, to ground, wagging his upright tail and chattering cheekily at the dogs. Dell, the Scotch Collie bitch, was serenely indifferent to the impudent bird. Not so the terrier pup, Scrap. Clearly intrigued, Scrap began to leap about with excitement. The little Wagtail seemed supremely unaware of his own mortality. Calling Scrap to her, Beth picked him up and carried him the rest of the way.
The horses dozed in the shade of a bush gully, twitching their satin summer coats, their tails swishing away the flies. Beth stopped to check that the automatic water trough was operating. A slowly leaking valve created a damp patch of soil beneath the inlet pipe. A variety of insects were making grateful use of the available moisture. European wasps and Honeybees stood side by side, drinking the water from the wet earth. Beth noticed a Mud Dauber wasp, intent upon gathering her load of clay. The industrious insect forced her head down into the moist soil, at the same time raising her body into a nearly v
ertical position. While she worked, she gave vent to her feelings in a loud, satisfied hum. Finally she ceased to sing and rose carefully with a large lump of mud held proudly in her jaws. Once more intrigued Beth followed her to the stable.
On arrival at the nest site, the wasp ingeniously placed the soft mud in position, using her mouth, mandibles and feet. On further inspection, Beth noticed several other new nests under construction. She wandered around the other side to find the now completed Paper wasp’s nest alive with activity. Beth admired the queen for successfully establishing her first generation. Carefully, so as not to arouse the ire of the irritable insects, Beth moved closer. The nest consisted of a single comb of hexagonal cells, contained in a paper cup that hung from a central stem. It looked rather like an inverted umbrella. From beneath, Beth could clearly see up into the nest. The shallow peripheral cells at first appeared to be empty. However when her eyes adjusted to the deep shade, she could distinguish minute white eggs within. These eggs were cemented to the cell wall. Deeper central cells contained larvae. Two cells had white caps, and already contained pupae, whose silken cocoons lined and closed the chambers’ entrances. Three or four adult wasps guarded the nest.
Perched nearby, at the tip of a thin branch, was an enormous fly. The movement as it landed caught Beth’s eye. The insect was dark in colour with a distinct neck. Large, prominent eyes were positioned at the top of its head. It was huge – over twenty millimetres long – and Beth did not recall having seen anything like it before. On its face it had an ugly beard. From between its eyes a strong pointed proboscis protruded. The thorax and legs were very hairy and its abdomen was long and thin. The fly looked dangerous and thoroughly unpleasant.
This was an Assassin fly. A Paper wasp approached the nest, returning from a foraging mission. The fly darted in swiftly and grappled with the wasp, grasping her in mid flight. Successfully avoiding the wasp’s desperate attempts to sting, it held on firmly with its long spiny legs. The Assassin fly then inserted its sharp probiscis into its living victim through the membrane of the neck. Within seconds it had sucked the wasp dry. The limp and empty body was then discarded.
Beth was horrified. The Paper wasp nest was young, clearly consisting of only a dozen or so individuals. This opportunistic predator presented a real threat to its survival. The Assassin fly returned to its vantage point overlooking the nest site. Its large compound eyes keenly observed the colony as it patiently awaited its next opportunity to feed. Beth crept nearer. With a well timed whack, she swatted the fly hard. The force of the blow hurled the insect into the fork of a nearby tree. Before the stunned fly could recover, Beth squashed it with the heel of her hand. She wiped the remains off on the bark of the tree. Replete with the blood of its prey, the fly had made quite a mess when it burst. The usually gentle Beth felt a sense of elation at her kill. The ugly marauder would trouble the nest no more. She took one last, lingering, protective look at the colony before going for her ride. Little did she know that the European wasps posed a far greater threat to the Paper wasps than did the solitary, native hunter that she had just destroyed.
CHAPTER 8
It was finally Friday. Mark took more care than usual dressing this morning. He hummed to himself under the shower, his mood brighter than it had been for weeks. Helen was having breakfast in the sunroom. The open windows revealed an expanse of floor-length glass. The sunroom was situated on the north side of the house and the air conditioner was already working overtime. Mark contemplated the size of the next electricity bill and wished that, just sometimes, Helen could pull the curtains to keep the room cool. He contrasted her behaviour with that of Beth. On hot days Beth would close all the windows and drapes to keep out the heat. Woe betide anyone who left a door open! She used to maintain that air conditioners were not only costly to run, but gave out C.F.C’s, which harmed the atmosphere. He forgot how irritated he’d been by her behaviour at the time. Now he saw it as sensible and caring. Why couldn’t Helen be more like that?
Mark finished his shower and joined his girlfriend for breakfast. He looked around for the baby and did not see him. Chance must still be asleep on the king-size waterbed in the main bedroom. Mark had always wanted a waterbed but Beth had been dead against it. Now he had one and he felt as if he was sleeping on a big bowl of jelly. Helen insisted on keeping it though, because she said the movement helped the baby sleep. It seemed Chance never slept in his cot anymore. Sometimes Mark felt it would be better to just move into the spare room for the time being. Sometimes Helen thought that too.
Helen wore a pink satin dressing gown over matching briefs. Mark had never seen this particular ensemble before. He wondered how much it had cost him. The gown fell open to reveal her full breasts. Always large, they looked particularly luscious since she’d been nursing. Her body was lightly and evenly tanned, testimony to lengthy sessions at the local solarium. Her stomach, no longer entirely flat, was enticingly plump and soft. Her long, shapely legs were delicately crossed. Mark’s gaze travelled up to the silken pink triangle of her panties. If anything, Helen was even more beautiful since giving birth. Her body appeared softer, more yielding. Mark began to get excited. He crossed the room and pulled her to him without warning, his mouth urgently seeking hers, his hands finding the tender mounds of her breasts. Helen stiffened and pulled away. His desire vanished and he retreated to the kitchen.
Helen eyed him uncertainly. She’d been taken by surprise. Mark hadn’t shown much physical interest in her lately, and when he had, it had been ill timed. It didn’t bother her a great deal as her libido was low since giving birth to Chance. She even went so far as to mention it to her doctor, who said it was normal and told her not to worry. Still, she sometimes missed Mark’s attention, if not the sex. Helen followed him into the kitchen, rubbing against him and smiling as he made coffee. But he was no longer interested. Mark had retreated to where she could not follow and Helen didn’t know how to summon him back. Gulping down his coffee, Mark left with a perfunctory goodbye. Helen felt resentment rise in her like indigestion. What she needed was to get her mind off things for a while. Chance was going to childcare for the first time this morning. Helen was sure it would do him good to mix with other babies. She trusted the centre to provide the best possible care. After all, it was the most expensive facility in the area. Meanwhile, Helen and her friends planned a day out at the local poker machine venue.
It was lunchtime. Mark arrived at the restaurant several minutes early. Beth was already there. She also took extra care dressing that morning, choosing a cool, deep green linen suit that matched her eyes. Her hair was up, in deference to the heat of the day. She also thought that it made her look stern. The style accentuated the long sweep of her milky white neck, such a contrast to Helen’s artificial glow. Behind her smile, Mark saw the worry in her eyes. It pleased him; made him feel important. If the truth were known, his suggestion for the children to live with him had been ill conceived from the start. He regretted it almost as soon as the offer was on the table. His motivation at the time had been purely to annoy Helen. His caution to the children not to tell their mother was an attempt at damage control. The effect of the news on Beth however was a bonus. Clearly she now took him seriously.
Beth watched Mark cross the room to her table. He looked suave in his grey silk shirt and tie. Beth suddenly felt unsophisticated and gauche. She’d waited all week for this moment and now she was decidedly nervous. They’d not met in such a way since long before their separation. Mark’s attitude made it seem more like a date than a meeting to discuss the future of their children. He joined Beth at the table and ordered them both a drink. Beth’s hand shook ever so slightly as she took her glass, a fact that did not escape Mark’s notice.
Beth began directly.
“I couldn’t believe it when Rick said you wanted them to live with you!”
“Why should that surprise you? You know how much I love them,” said Mark.
“But you never said that the current arrangeme
nt didn’t suit you. Whatever happened to talking to me?”
“I tried to talk to you,” he lied. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
Beth silently examined their past few encounters. She could not recall Mark trying to ‘talk’ to her about anything. She felt cross.
“The kids are settled and you know it. Why, you even missed an access last month. How can you say you want to see more of them?”
At this point in the conversation a waiter arrived to take their order. Beth waved the menu away in exasperation. Mark took it upon himself to order for her.
“Let’s talk after we’ve eaten,” he suggested hopefully.
Beth launched into an attack.
“We came here to discuss the children. I will not agree to any change in the custody arrangements.”
She was almost shouting. The couple at the next table glanced over at them. Mark remained silent.
Beth continued. “The kids don’t want to live with you. They have both told me this.”
This was untrue. Beth had been afraid to broach the subject at home until she knew where Mark stood. Her lie left her feeling a little desperate.
“Then we might need to let a court decide, mightn’t we?” returned Mark with an infuriatingly patronising tone.
He observed his wife closely. She was clearly in a highly charged emotional state. He knew her financial affairs were not such as would fund a protracted Family Court proceeding, particularly since he’d been a fraction tardy with his child support payments lately. Beth looked very close to tears. He felt compassion for her. Underneath the table he reached for her hand and she did not withdraw it.
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