Tell it to the Bees (15 page)

Venus shell. Found by Charles Weekes, Frampton

beach, August 24th, 1953

Bit of bombed fireplace. Found by Charles Weekes,

October 1954

Brittle star starfish. Found by Charles Weekes,

Frampton beach, August 17th, 1953

Though he knew exactly where he had found things, Charlie had made up some of the dates. He took Lydia to his room to show her, holding her hand as if she were the child.

‘Dad told me how the starfish would grow a new leg if it lost one. The shell was in the high tideline and you didn't like the smell because the seaweed was hot with the sun,' he said. ‘And there were millions of sand-hoppers jumping, every step you took.' He looked up to see if his mother remembered, but he couldn't tell.

In that early summertime, with his mother as she was and his father not there, the balance of Charlie's life shifted too, and he spent longer in the park, and longer in the doctor's garden, sometimes coming home only when the light was almost gone from the day. He told himself that his mother knew where he was and that she'd said he could be out this late. But he knew that she hadn't, and that she hadn't noticed him gone.

In the garden Charlie was mostly on his own. He was happy like this. With the bees he was sure and clear in his actions and they were always calm with him. He wore his bee suit and veil, but after a while he left off the gauntlets. They made him clumsy and somehow he could see more
clearly when his hands had their proper touch. He was stung a few more times, but he took it for a badge of honour, like Roger Race in his
Boys' Book of the World
.

Charlie told the bees what he was doing at home – the shelf with his precious things – and he told them that his mother wasn't happy. He didn't say very much about it. But it was important that he let them know. He didn't want them flying off because he had kept silent.

The bees were busy. Charlie watched them return to the hives heavy and slow with nectar, their wings beating a lower note, and so many in the air, even in the late afternoon, that it carried a low drone he could hear almost down to the pond.

‘If the weather stays sweet, there'll be a strong honey-flow now,' Dr Markham had told him. ‘Good for all our jam jars, Charlie.'

So he took pride in the bees' labour, encouraging them in whispers as they returned with their pockets full.

Mostly Dr Markham wasn't there. She was doctoring people, he supposed. But occasionally she'd come down the garden to look at the hives. One time she stood close up and sniffed like a dog, nose held high.

‘They're still bringing in clover,' she said, and he'd sniffed to see what she meant.

A week later she'd done the same again. ‘Smell, Charlie. They're getting in the lime now.' He'd sniffed and nodded, because if you stood near the hives in the evening, you could smell the honey, and it changed week by week as the bees found different flowers to suck. When early evening came, he'd stand close to hear the bees fanning the combs, and he'd wrinkle his nose to sniff the honey air.

Some afternoons Dr Markham would call down the garden to him to come and have tea and then they'd sit on the terrace steps on big, faded cushions that smelled old and drink perfumed tea from mugs.

At first, Charlie felt awkward. It was odd to see a grown-up sitting on the steps, not on a chair. Aunt Pam would never dream of it, or his mother much, unless they were at the seaside maybe. But he became used to it and then enjoyed telling her what he'd noticed. Sometimes they talked about the seaside, or the war.

She usually asked after his mother at these times, and he usually said she was a bit under the weather, which seemed to make Dr Markham smile. Sometimes she had Mrs Sandringham wrap up a piece of cake for him to take home, or she would cut some flowers. But she didn't ask him more questions, which he was glad of.

He knew she had called on his mother, but then she was a doctor and though his mother didn't seem to be ill exactly, she didn't seem well either. Not her usual self. That's what she would say if it was one of their neighbours. He understood why Dr Markham would visit her; he simply couldn't imagine what they'd find to talk about.

Getting to and from the factory wasn't so bad. Lydia pushed the pedals hard and fast.

‘Cycle really quickly and don't look around you. Once you're here, we'll look after you,' Dot said.

So she kept her eyes on the road and set up a race with herself, a best time to reach the factory gates in.

‘I might have passed him on the street and not known. I might have passed him with –'

‘Don't. Don't think about it.' Dot took Lydia's hand, shaking it with each word. ‘You're better off without him. You've known that a good while.'

‘It doesn't help,' Lydia said. ‘Not at all.'

Dot was as good as her word and in the factory Lydia was one of a crowd. She had her own barricade, joking and joshing, daring any other woman to shout out after her down the corridor.

‘But you need to get out a bit,' Dot said as they walked towards the cafeteria. ‘I know what's up, but it must have been weeks by now and you still shut in there. Let's have a trip. Next Sunday, a few of us girls. Take the bus into the countryside. Or walk out a way along the river maybe. Take some cake, tea in a Thermos. Or even go in all together for a bottle of port.'

She nudged Lydia, but Lydia shook her head.

‘Not yet, Dot,' she said, and Dot turned away, her shoulders rigid with exasperation.

‘You don't know what's good for you, love.'

‘I've got Charlie,' Lydia said. ‘And I've been to the library a lot.'

‘The library. It isn't books are going to keep you company. It's summertime. The sun's out and you're shut in. Look how pale you are. It'd be good for you, get some sun on your face. That won't cost you.'

‘I don't want to go out with the girls. Not even with cake and port.'

‘Charlie's only a boy. You don't want to be weighing him down, do you?'

‘What makes you think I am?' Lydia said. ‘I'm not saying anything to him.'

They reached the cafeteria queue and Dot dropped her voice.

‘Saying, not saying, doesn't matter. It's that his dad has upped and left. That's what's happened to him, whatever you're doing. He's a boy and probably doing what boys do.'

‘Which is?' Lydia said, her voice raised and angry. The woman in front shifted slightly and she felt herself blush. Dirty linen, she thought. ‘Which is?' she said again, more quietly.

‘Which is keeping to himself and keeping that self busy. I'll bet you he's out of the house more than ever, and when
he's in, nearly doesn't come out of his room. I bet he's dead quiet. More than usual.'

Lydia shrugged. ‘Doesn't mean I want him to be,' she said.

‘No, but you're moping in there every time he puts his head up. You'll make him feel it's his fault, you're not careful.'

‘Robert's been back a few times,' Lydia said.

‘What for?'

‘What do you mean, what for? We've been man and wife the last ten years.'

‘Probably to pick up his clean underpants.'

The woman in front snorted.

‘Dot!' Lydia said, shocked. ‘Now you keep your voice down,' she added, then a giggle caught her and suddenly the two of them were convulsed over their dinner trays.

‘Look, Lydia,' Dot said when they had calmed, her voice close, quiet. ‘I'm only down once in the week with Paul to the Crown for a quick one. A half a lager, a game of bar billiards. But twice in as many weeks there he's been, at a corner table.'

They were up to the front now, Dot first; and it was trays on the counter for cauliflower cheese and a slice of ham, or beef and salad.

‘Looks all right today,' Dot said and, getting no reply, she looked back.

Lydia stood motionless, tray still down by her side, staring at the vat of cauliflower. On the other side of the counter, the ladling woman waited.

‘What are you having?' Dot said.

‘Was he with –?'

‘Let's get our dinner and sit down,' Dot said.

‘Was he?' Lydia said, her voice dangerously thin.

Dot reached and took Lydia's tray.

‘The cauliflower, thanks,' she said to the woman. ‘Come
on, love. There's plenty here are happy to hear us, but we're holding up the queue.'

Dot found them seats at the end of one table.

‘Don't know any of this lot,' she said. ‘They won't be wanting to listen in.'

‘Robert's stopped paying into the rent,' Lydia said, shaking salt over her cauliflower in angry jabs.

‘God, Lydia! What are you going to do?'

‘I don't know.'

‘The man's a bastard. Is he giving you anything for groceries, that kind of thing?'

Lydia shook her head.

‘Can your family help out?'

Another shake.

‘You can take him to the court.'

Lydia set the salt cellar down hard.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘Who do you know who's managed that? Name me one.'

‘But you can do it. I heard someone say so.'

‘It's not women like us that manage it.'

Dot's face crunched with frustration. ‘You don't think, do you? Don't look ahead. It's fine, dancing when the sun's shining. You can dance the socks off anyone. But things have been going this way for quite a while. You knew where Robert was heading and even if you hoped he wasn't, you should have made some plans. Done something. Got a blinking umbrella. Or at least gone to look for one. You can't just not do anything, not think about it,' Dot said.

‘Was he with her?' Lydia said. ‘In the pub?'

‘Course he was. Buying her bloody Martinis, what's more, on your bloody rent money. So now I'll tell you one thing about her and only one. She's not a looker. Not compared to you.'

Lydia picked at her food, pushing it this way and that.
She had no appetite. A thousand thoughts, a thousand questions rushed her mind.

‘You don't eat, you won't be strong enough to sort things out, look after your boy,' Dot said.

So Lydia ate, willed the food down, swallowed against the hard lump of her life.

The two friends had got up to leave, when Pam came upon them, mouth gritted in a smile, netted hair swinging like a club, elbows braced, ready for battle.

‘Lydia,' she said, nodding.

Lydia didn't reply.

‘Hello, Pam,' Dot said.

Pam stared at her. ‘I've come to speak to Lydia. There's no need for you to listen in.'

Dot looked at her friend, then sat down. She wasn't going anywhere.

Turning a shoulder to Dot, Pam began her speech. Lydia watched her. Pam's stance reminded her so strongly of Robert, it was all she could do not to exclaim.

It's in the jut of her jaw, she thought, or maybe the way she has of standing, as if she's about to leap up on a wall.

By the time Lydia was listening again, Pam had almost finished up, leaning in so close that Lydia could hear the slight adjustment of her teeth as she spat out the words.

‘… but it's been long enough now,' was all Lydia heard, and then Pam paused as if inviting Lydia to respond. Dot rolled her eyes.

‘You had the beef salad, didn't you?' Dot said.

‘What?' Pam said.

‘The beef salad. You ate it for dinner.'

‘What?' Pam said again.

‘Pickled onions do leave such a strong aftertaste,' Dot said.

‘Were you listening to me?' Pam said.

‘You said it was long enough now for something,' Lydia said with a shrug.

‘You should be thinking of the family at a time like this,' Pam said. ‘Not only of yourself. It's very embarrassing for all of us. There's your son, and your duty as a wife.'

‘
My
duty?' Lydia said, her voice incredulous. ‘Do you know what your sacred brother has been getting up to? For years? Was that his duty?'

The words had come out unexpectedly. She'd never before let herself think about the reality of what Robert had been doing, but as she spoke she realized the terrible truth of all his infidelities, all his betrayals.

‘Lydia?' Dot said.

‘There's conjugal rights,' Pam said. ‘Men don't just up and leave their wives.'

Lydia took a long breath. Different answers tumbled through her head.

‘Tell that to Robert,' she said finally. She turned and walked away, not waiting for Dot, not caring, suddenly not able to bear any of it.

Dot caught her up at the end of the day and they walked back into the town together.

‘She was furious,' Dot said. ‘She didn't know what had got into you. Said you'd never said anything like that before. She said: “I don't see why she had to shout at me like that.”'

Lydia laughed at Dot's imitation, but her voice was bitter.

‘The woman is a monster,' she said. ‘She has her reasons, losing her parents to one war and her husband to another. But even so. I've petted her and stroked her and sidled up to her for years. Listened to her lies about my husband. Now I don't have to any longer.'

The two women walked slowly, enjoying the light and
easy warmth of the late afternoon sun. Around them, hundreds of others, released by the same bell, made their way home, beginning to siphon off now to left and right as they walked through the town. Men, women, boys in overalls, and girls not long out of school. The girls with their headscarves ripped off, hair and gossip tumbled round their heads in clouds of permanent wave. They ran along the pavements, past Lydia and Dot, like colts, like sirens, like animals pent too long, jostling and laughing, shouting and whispering, mouths behind hands and their sweet voices littering the air.

‘My Dave mentioned Annie last night,' Dot said. ‘I meant to say.'