The Beloved Girls

by Harriet Evans

  And then from the opened comb inside the chapel brown-black forms were emerging from the dark hole. Overhead, I saw a faint flash in the sky: lightning, coming in from the Bristol Channel.

  Suddenly I knew I had to get out. I felt the danger and knew with certainty that my father didn’t see it. I grabbed Janey. ‘Come on,’ I said as, outside, there was more screaming. I looked at Mummy. Under her heavy fringe, her dark eyes were blank.

  ‘You take too much, Charles,’ she said. ‘You always did.’ She put her hands on Merry’s shoulders, and propelled her towards the door, pushing her gently away, and then she did the same to Joss, but he moved away.

  ‘Let me go, Mummy. I’m fine. Absolutely fine.’

  All the time, the bees were emerging from the opened comb. More and more, like oil, sliding over the dull stone, across the wall, some flicking off and into the air, hovering, and all the time outside, the noise grew. I could hear them shouting. ‘Get out, guys!’

  ‘Come on. Come,’ I said. ‘They’re angry. I don’t think it’s safe, honestly.’ I looked up at the ceiling, my hand holding hers. ‘Come on, Dad –’

  My father was wrestling with the final tomb, hacking away at the mud seal. You could hear the roar of the bees inside, and, above, the ones in the roof.

  ‘Stay there!’ He kicked his leg out towards me. ‘Kitty – why must you make everything so damned difficult!’

  His kick caught me in the stomach. It winded me, and knocked him back against Aunty Ros, who was cutting the comb in two. ‘Steady, Charles,’ she barked. The two of them froze, for a second, turning to face me – they could be twins, I realised, they were virtually identical, with their large, ruddy, moon-shaped faces, deep-set eyes, thin mouths. Ros dropped the comb she was holding, and it sent the bees crawling all over it flying everywhere, just as my father wrenched open the mud seal of the final tomb. Some were stuck in their own honey, some flew out of the combs, with a huge thrumming explosion of sound. Most landed on the floor, and then there was a noise even greater than before, and then chaos seemed to descend, as they rose up from everywhere, swarming around us all, in an angry roar.

  Mummy pushed Merry and Janey out of the door. ‘Go!’ she shouted. ‘Is that you, Joss?’

  ‘No, it’s me, Giles,’ came a voice, through the droning thunder, the flying black dots that zoomed everywhere.

  ‘You’re dressed the same,’ my mother said. ‘Like a pattern, like a pattern.’ She laughed, wildly. ‘Take them up to the house. Get them out of here. Now. Then come back.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course, Mrs Hunter –’

  I saw Janey and Merry disappear. ‘Right, you two,’ Mummy said, and she grabbed our arms. I could barely make out Joss – in his navy jacket and chinos he was, as Mummy said, identical to Nico and Guy, amidst the gloom and the chaos, and he was my twin. We gripped hands, staring at each other.

  It was seconds, of course, but it seemed to last for hours, huge, stretched-out gulps of time. I could hear Aunty Ros, screaming, plucking at her hair, her dress, pulling bees off her body, her mouth wide open, her face bright red. ‘Sylvia, you stupid woman,’ she barked. ‘Get back in, goddammit! Kitty and Joss have to stay! To watch it all! To taste the honey. You’re ruining it! You’re ruining it all!’

  ‘Kitty can’t stay, not now,’ my mother shouted. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? Good God! Wake up, the pair of you!’

  ‘Jesus, Sylvia,’ said my father, almost casually, and he yanked her away from the door.

  And I saw Mummy reach for him. She was much smaller than he and it was done in a split second. She could not overpower him, and the insects everywhere. With one hand, she shoved me and Joss outside again, despite Joss’s protests. She took my father’s forefinger in her other hand and bent it back, as far as she could. He howled, bending over.

  ‘Go,’ she said to us, and I saw her jaw, set as she turned to him. ‘I’m the Outsider,’ she said, quietly. ‘And I say who goes and who stays.’

  As my father yelled, batting away at the comb, I heard my aunt calling to him. ‘Is it nearly done, Charles?’

  ‘Just a little more. A little more . . .’ His voice shuddered.

  Outside, Joss and I stood, breathing deeply, as my mother emerged into the daylight.

  The first swarm was hovering by the terrace, as people scattered, screaming. The table and chairs were knocked to the ground, plants trampled.

  Sam Red appeared next to my mother. ‘Need me to do something, Mrs Hunter? Have you called the police, or whatever? Gran thinks you should – Are they still in there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘I’m afraid they don’t want to come out.’

  Sam put his hands on his hips. ‘They’re not settling anywhere. You should leave, Kitty, get inside or something. Listen, someone needs to get them out. What, do they think they’re immortal?’ He made to move forward, but Giles elbowed him aside.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll go in, get them. OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ said my mother. ‘I’m going to call 999. Thanks, Sam. Thank you ever so much, Giles. Get them out, and I’ll lock the door.’ She pinched my cheek. ‘All shall be well, my darling.’ She smiled, very quickly, and raced back up to the house.

  Giles was staring in at the chaos within the chapel, not moving. My father was screaming again. ‘I –’ he said. ‘I –’

  ‘No,’ Joss said, clearing his throat. ‘I should go in. He’s my father.’

  They were all around me, so loud, flying so close to my ear, my face, that I could feel the vibration of their bodies. A pain started in my leg, instant, like a forcefield, shielding my body, shielding me.

  ‘Great,’ said Sam Red, nodding. ‘They might listen to you. Hurry.’

  Giles looked at me, and smiled. The pain was worse. I backed away from him.

  ‘Someone, shut the damn door!’

  I closed my eyes, feeling Giles’s hands on my head, his thumbs jabbing into my mouth, the feeling of his hips agonisingly grinding against mine and I ran towards the drive, as a huge, black wave of pain twisted my chest, as if someone was tearing out my heart, squeezing it, clamping it. I couldn’t see. The others didn’t. They were running towards the chapel door to close it and someone – I think it was Merry – was shouting.

  Then I felt a cool hand on my shoulder.

  ‘You’re ill. You’ve been stung.’ I looked up, and Janey was standing next to me, wreath awry, her face pale and stained with tears. I nodded.

  ‘Oh Janey.’

  Her hand pressed against my forehead. The noise, the chaos receded. I found I could hardly breathe, and yet the touch of her skin was cold, soft, infinitely comforting. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I am,’ I said. I looked at the chapel, saw Mummy was back down there, locking the door shut. I saw her pat the old door, grimly, as she walked away with the key.

  ‘All done,’ she called. ‘Move away, everyone. Inside. Move!’

  I thought of Giles’s twisted smile, his curious light-blue eyes, the certainty that he knew he could do it to me again. I swallowed, letting my mind play over ten, twenty different scenarios. I could see everything, the pain making everything ultra-real, like a light shining into all my thoughts – suddenly, everything was clear.

  I paused, for a moment, breathing hard. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

  ‘Now? Kitty, we can’t go, not now.’

  ‘Why not? We were always going to slip away. Isn’t now a better time than any? In fact – don’t we have to go now? I do, anyway. It’s not safe.’ I thought of Giles’s calm, mocking face. Of my aunt and father, melding together as one. Of Mummy, stumbling as my father pushed her away, the touch of her fingers on my cheek. ‘I’ve left my father a note. On the hall table. Below the Reverend. I don’t want to stay.’ I blinked. ‘I – I can’t stay any longer.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I grabbed her hand. ‘Please. Let’s go, Janey. Let’s just drive, shall we? Like we promised?’

  Everywhere, all around, peo
ple were yelling. I covered my ears. Beeswax candles, branches and crystal champagne glasses lay cracked and broken on the lawn, in a trail leading to the chapel. Above us, the sky was darkening, and I saw two black clouds of bees. The first was still swooping in circles above the house as the remaining guests retreated inside, the sound of crumpling glass and screaming, absolute primal terror everywhere.

  I looked up and saw the second swarm was floating away towards the woods, back to where they’d originally come from, all those centuries ago. And then I saw Mummy, ushering everyone away from the chapel, moving people out of the way.

  ‘Where’s – where’s Joss?’

  ‘He’s out. Mummy said so. Isn’t that him?’ A dark figure, hand running through hair, was racing towards the house. ‘Look, Janey, you can’t go back and say goodbye, not now. OK?’

  ‘Course not,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . .’

  We’d reached the car. I could smell the brake fluid from other cars hanging in the air. And more thunder. Behind us, up on the moor, there was still some blue sky, edged with lemon.

  Janey stared at me, brushing a couple of bees out of the way. ‘Kitty, are you sure you want to do this?’

  ‘I think so.’ Another wave of hot, blinding pain convulsed me. My fingers were numb, my limbs heavy. ‘Open the door, and help me in, then you drive for a bit.’

  Our bags had been packed for days. My rucksack had the documents, both passports, the cash we had carefully assembled. We’d even laid in some travel sweets, the sugary pastel-coloured squares caked in icing sugar, bought at the post office and now resting in the glovebox. As Janey carefully bumped us down the driveway, I looked in the wing mirror, but no one was watching. As we turned out into the road, I heard the sound of an ambulance, then saw it, coming towards us. But it zoomed straight past, another emergency, somewhere else, and then we were on the main road. How strange, I remember thinking. There are other emergencies.

  We drove in silence for a while, winding higher and higher up along narrow lanes. Occasionally I would point towards a turning, and Janey would take it, calmly. The sky was darker than ever, but still it didn’t rain. Out to sea, you could see the storm. Once, lightning cracked overhead. The windows were open, to let what fresh air there was in.

  ‘I – I feel a bit better,’ I said, after a minute or two.

  ‘Are you sure, Kitty?’ Janey waggled the gear stick, biting her lip and looking in the rear-view mirror. ‘Was it just that one sting? Do you think it’s not too bad?’

  ‘It’s my leg, so it’s further from my heart.’ I stared out at the grey sea, the occasional drop of rain on the windscreen mixing with bird shit and the dust of summer.

  ‘Why didn’t you ever just tell them you couldn’t do the Collecting? That it’s too dangerous for you?’

  ‘I – I’ve tried. I don’t know.’ I shifted in the seat. ‘I felt it was evidence, deep down, that my father is right. I’ve always felt that.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘That I’m against the family in some way. That I’m betraying us.’

  She shook her head, vehemently.

  ‘But that’s not your fault, Kitty! None of it is.’

  ‘Oh, I know. Mummy’s been saying for years we should get Buckfast bees, and my father always ignores her. They’re placid and easy. These guys aren’t. They’re European dark bees, I think.’ I rubbed my head. ‘But my father doesn’t care, nor does Ros. Remember, my aunt died in there. They saw it happen. Their father wouldn’t get rid of them. They believe all the stories, honestly, that they and the bees are their survival, that they need each other. So the bees have to come first.’ Her mouth fell open – she had forgotten. ‘Aunty Ros was cross when it happened. She clearly thought I was making a fuss because I didn’t want to do it. I think that was the first time I realised –’

  ‘What?’

  I shrugged. ‘How screwed up it is.’

  Janey nodded. ‘Oh yes. Yes, Kitty.’ She turned, and the car swerved.

  ‘Hey. Steady on.’

  ‘Wow, I’m so sorry.’ Janey grabbed my hand. She took a deep, ragged breath.

  ‘I – can we do this? This is pretty wild.’

  ‘We can’t go back,’ I said, and I nodded. ‘You know I can’t go back. I’d rather die than stay there.’

  I turned on the radio. It was Kirsty MacColl, ‘Days’. I smiled. I didn’t need to look at Janey. It was perfect.

  I hummed the first four notes, softly, tapping the dashboard, smelling the wet air, and she joined in, and for that moment, climbing up away from the house, we were free, and everything was worth it. All of it.

  I began to feel the most unlikely thing; I felt hope. We had done it. We had got away.

  ‘What about your family?’ said Janey. ‘I mean, what will you tell them?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I left a note, remember,’ I said. ‘They’ll shrug their shoulders and tell everyone I ran away and that you’ve gone with me. Typical Kitty. I can see it. My father won’t come after me. He knows I could get him sent to prison for what he did to Mummy. And the fake Queen Anne giltwood mirror he sold Lady Lowther two years ago for two thousand pounds that he bought in a junk shop. He’ll stay silent. They all will.’

  ‘Will you miss them?’

  One is one and all alone, and evermore shall be so . . .

  ‘Miss them . . .’ I paused. For a second, I wondered about Mummy. Ordering me out, marshalling the others away from the chapel, taking charge. ‘Don’t know,’ I said.

  I turned the music up as loud as I could and sang, and all the time pain was making my vision fold up and in on itself, so the world seemed to be melting at the edges, like celluloid burning up. My arms ached, my ears, my nose . . . the tingling of my lips hurt more every second, as did the rasp in my throat which was like something alive, scraping away, something active. I pressed my hands to my face, to cool myself down and found my fingers were puffy – they did not look like mine, part of my own body.

  A tractor came towards us, slightly too close, and Janey stared ahead, concentrating for a few valuable seconds. It gave me time to think, to clear my head. Something my English teacher used to quote came back to me, even as my heart was cramping, clenching with venomous pain. ‘The long divorce of steel falls on me,’ I murmured. Dr Lovibond had said it at my interview, staring intently at me.

  ‘You know the quotation.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Does your mother ever talk about her? Your grandmother?’

  ‘No – not really.’

  ‘The long divorce of steel. It came for her,’ he’d said, blinking intently at me. ‘For both of them.’

  I looked down suddenly, feeling an itch on my sleeve. There were two bees, one on my arm, one in the tiered lace ruffle of my dress.

  Suddenly I was tired. I watched one, its abdomen bumping gently on the dress as it crawled across the layered material towards my skin, towards its own death.

  And then I had a flash of realisation; I saw that this was what was meant to happen.

  Sometimes you get lucky: this was one of those times. Strange to talk about luck, when everything is ending. But it had been luck that had brought her there that summer: Janey had come to free me, we were two halves, as one. Through her, I could disappear, and I could live on, and up till that precise moment I’d been stumbling along making plans for our escape, with no real idea of what came next.

  Then, with the wind moving away from us, howling down the wooded combe and out to sea again, I felt it and I looked down, lucky enough to watch as the creature raised its abdomen, as the barbed sting slid into my body. Like a needle, coated in fire, pushing into me.

  If it was the end for the Hunters it was the end for me. Not Janey. She must be the one to get out of this, to pull free.

  ‘Turn up here, towards the Vane Stones,’ I said.

  ‘Here? OK.’

  There was no one around, up on top of the moor. The sun was setting on the last day of August. Below us, the ba
y, the windswept trees of the ancient woods, and the yellowing grass, dry with the end of summer. Across the Bristol Channel the lights of Wales were starting to flicker. Clouds scudded across the sky, their shadows licking the land, and I could see rain falling out to sea, in silver-flecked showers. And there was sunshine, in patches, shining like gold treasure in the water. It was ever-changing, this view, always something new.

  I stared straight ahead.

  ‘So we’re booked on the ferry leaving Plymouth later tonight,’ I said. ‘We’ll be in Roscoff at breakfast.’

  Janey nodded. ‘I’ve got my bag. Your rucksack has all the documents . . . passport, money, sandwiches. I think we’re OK.’

  I took a deep breath as piercing pain seized my heart, my lungs, seemed to grip at the back of my head. I wanted to savour the last precious seconds of us, together.

  ‘I know I let you down before,’ Janey said. ‘I’m sorry. But now we’re doing it. We’re having the adventure.’ She smiled, a proper smile, her thin, soulful face lighting up. She was beautiful. ‘Don’t you agree?’ And she turned to me and saw my expression. ‘Kitty? Are you OK?’ I turned from her, just slightly, and put my hand up to my face as if shielding my eyes from the sun. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I cleared my throat. ‘Change of plan. I think it’s time we parted ways. Do you want to keep the mix tape?’

  ‘Why?’ she said, laughing. ‘Are you off?’

  ‘Ha.’ I opened the car door. ‘Yes, basically.’

  ‘Don’t joke, Kitty.’

  I reached down, digging around in the detritus of the car, and took my backpack, and threw it towards her. ‘Here. Take it. Look, I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go travelling. Not with you. I just needed to get away.’

  Janey laughed. ‘Don’t we all.’ But there was a puckered frown between her eyes. ‘This isn’t funny, Kitty. Are you – are you OK? Can you see? Is there any more pain?’

  ‘Oh Lord. Please,’ I said, taking a stick of Wrigley’s and breaking it up on my tongue. ‘Please, Janey – don’t be clingy, will you?’

  She stared at me.