The Hive (13 page)

“No, really?” drawled Georgie, rolling her eyes. “From schools?” She made a snoring noise. “Must we?”

“All right, Georgie,” said Bea, smiling brightly. “How about work? Why don't we talk about
work?
”

Here we go, thought Georgie: now I'm for it. “Ah yes, Bea,” she replied, all enthusiasm. “Work. You yourself have a very interesting new job, I gather? Please, fill me in. I long to hear all about it.”

“It is actually
fascinating,
” said Bea to the table, “to be out in the world again. And
independent.
”

“I've always been out in the world,” protested Colette.

“We're so independent,” said Sharon and Jasmine.

“But don't you think someone as
clever
as Georgie would be happier back in the workplace? Remind us, Georgie”—Bea's eyes were feasting upon her. It was quite putting her off her duck—“what was it that you did that was so
terribly
clever?” Georgie scowled back. “The law? Is that what it was?”

“She was so high-powered,” squeaked Heather.

Wasn't I just?

“Quite brilliant at it.”

Yep. Hard to argue…

“And it was so interesting…”

Ah, thought Georgie. I ought to stop you right there. And tell you that it was all right. OK. Pretty interesting. Sometimes. And other times—which seemed to take longer, though perhaps they didn't—it was boring as hell. She looked down at her plate, tore at a bit of duck.

“Amazing.”
Bea gazed at Georgie while nibbling on a spear of endive. “And yet look at you now. Just vegetating at home with the children.” She shook her head in sorrow.

Georgie leaned over and took seconds, looking only at the table, avoiding all eyes. And I could stop you right there, too. And point out that in fact it is the opposite.

That her life now was one of pure, fine, distilled creativity. That everything she made—meals, gardens, babies, a home, a family—brought with it a depth of satisfaction she had never before known. And that while she was creating them she read more books, listened to more music and enjoyed more freedom to simply think than she had ever been able to do as a professional. She could just think whatever she wanted to think, whenever she wanted to think it. It was an amazing privilege, really. And Georgie felt cleverer now than she had ever felt before in her life. So clever, indeed, that she knew to keep shtum and eat up.

“
I
believe,” Bea continued, “that if you are qualified in something so
terribly high-powered
then you
should
carry on working? It's sort of
immoral
not to? If you've been
trained
to do something then you
ought
to just do it?”

Georgie took thirds. And thought of her time working as a trained lawyer. And the thousands of trained lawyers with years of experience up ahead of her. And the thousands of trained lawyers coming out of college crowding up behind. And that sensation, which had driven her quite close to bonkers at the time, of them all shuffling along in one lengthy, highly qualified queue that seemed to stretch pointlessly from cradle to grave.

“Now for dessert,” announced Colette, leaping to her feet.

And then the moment, the revelatory moment of her life, when she had held Kate in her arms for the first time, and looked down at that scrunched little face, into those worried eyes trying to make some sort of sense of the first images ever to flash before them. The moment when Georgie had thought: Ah. Here it is. Finally. Here's the one thing only I can do.

She got up and waved the packet of Marlboro Lights. “Just nipping outside to pollute your garden a bit more, if I may.”

“Now then.” Rachel parked Hamish in the hall and walked through to the kitchen. “How can I help?”

There was a pause, a wing-beat, while her words hovered in the air before Melissa replied.

“That's kind.” She smiled as she slipped her gardening jacket onto the back of a chair. “But I think I can
probably
rustle it up all on my very own. What sort do you like?” She opened the cupboard above the kettle. “Earl Grey? Builder's?”

“Hmm?”

Rachel was so lost, so absorbed in her new surroundings that she wasn't quite listening. Wow, was what she was thinking at that very moment. Wow, and: What a kitchen. A disproportionate amount of Rachel's professional life was taken up drawing kitchens—imagining them, designing them, inking out views of them which had to form together to make a coherent whole—because in her little corner cupboard of world literature, kitchens mattered. Kitchens were where the action was. They were to kids' books what the attic was to horror: the place to which, at some point, your hero—or your hero's wellies—had to go; the place where stuff could always be relied upon to happen.

“Have you got a lesbian?”

But even her fertile imagination and graceful pen had not come up with a kitchen quite as, well, as kitchenly as this one. It was painted a shade of ocher that shone with a warm, golden glow. The entire back wall was taken up with a dresser on which black-on-white crockery obediently lined up, like maids in a stately home ready for service. There were a couple of eye-level cupboards, and Rachel always went for open shelving where possible. But even they could be forgiven, as they had glass doors revealing tasteful contents—she could see pleasantly arranged homemade jam and chutneys, jars of local honey. It was all, to Rachel, a wonderful sight: not trendy, not frightful antique-y, but a perfectly timeless hymn to domestic virtue in which anybody—Mrs. Bridges, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle, Nigella—would feel at home.

Rachel, sitting at the large oak table in a reverie, suddenly remembered herself. “Sorry. Miles away. I meant herb tea. If you have one, that is.”

Melissa turned around from the kettle and grinned as she passed a cup to Rachel. “What did you think I thought it was? A sexual orientation or something?”

Rachel giggled, delighted. Hello, she thought. I knew I'd like her.

“Mmmm. Mint. Lovely.”

Rachel smacked her lips and reached for a biscuit. The warmth of the kitchen, Melissa's hospitality, the depth of Hamish's slumber, all combined to make her feel unnaturally relaxed; drunk almost. She put her feet up on the next chair and leaned back.

“So what brought you to these parts then? You're new round here, I take it.”

Melissa blew across the top of her cup and nodded. “Well, a good opportunity opened up for my work down here. Also my husband has to fly a lot for his new job, so we needed to be nearer the airport if we ever want to see him. Which, as it happens, we rather do.”

“That's nice,” said Rachel, taking another biscuit. “My husband's flown off altogether.”

Melissa looked at her steadily over the lip of her cup. “How did it go with your kids the other day? With their dad?”

“Oh, I dunno.” She rubbed at her neck. There was a muscle right at the back there that had been in almost permanent spasm since the day Chris moved out. “They don't really say much when they get back. He's going the wrong way about it all, if you ask me. Always late, always rushed, always a different day of the week. And he just drags them round neutral territories—football stadiums, cinemas, Pizza Expresses—when all they really want to do is hang out at home and be normal. But there we go. If he screws it up with them, that's his lookout, isn't it?”

“Absolutely!” said Melissa supportively. “Let him get on with it.” Then she got up, went over to the sink and, with her back to the room, in the voice of one thinking aloud, said, “Oh. Except—I suppose—they are your children too.”

“Yeah.” Rachel sipped her tea. “True. That is the other side. No point me worrying away about how to keep them together if all he's going to do is blow them apart.”

“Must be so hard.” Melissa was bent into the dishwasher. “No longer a couple, and yet co-parents forever.”

Rachel swallowed. There seemed to be a lot to take in in Melissa's kitchen. And she'd had too many biscuits. It was hard to digest them all at once.

Preparation time:
honestly, minutes. Everyone thinks soufflés are so hard, but, really, I knock them up just like that.

Cooking time:
I don't even know. Pop them in and they will rise.

Note:
I promise you, all men love this one.

“Well. Just look at this,” said Bea warmly. “I think we have our winner! Colette, this looks
amazing.
”

Heather looked down at her perfect, puffy little individual soufflé and felt her gut twist as it tried to process all that duck. Winner? She didn't know there was going to be a winner.

“I think we all did our best,” said Sharon.

“Of course you did. You've all been fantastic. Such a help. Do you know?” She smiled around at them all. Her teeth were so even and white. “I just don't think I could have managed all this without you.” And they smiled back at her.

“Not for us, thanks, Colette.” Sharon and Jasmine each held up a hand. “I mustn't.”

Heather was just picking up her spoon, on the verge of digging in—she couldn't deny it looked delicious—when a chorus started to spring up around the table.

“No, nor me.”

“I really shouldn't.”

“I daren't.”

“Well I bloody will.” Georgie was back at the table, smelling of smoke. “Pass one over here, Colette. In fact I can probably manage a couple more…”

One by one, ramekins were pushed in front of Georgie until they formed a little circle around her, cutting her off from the rest of the table. She set to, silently, methodically demolishing.

“I'd love one, but I am so bloody huge. I don't know what's happening to me,” said Jasmine, who Heather thought looked a bit like a twig.

“I'm worse, look!” Sharon had taken up her shirt and was holding a layer of epidermis up to the table.

“My arse,” Colette stood up and turned her back to the table, “has never, ever been this size before.” She wiggled it to demonstrate. “Is there a disease, do you think, when your arse just, like, takes on a life of its own? Like giantarseitis or something?”

“Don't! Bigbumorrhoea,” shrieked Jasmine, jumping to her feet.

Heather licked her chocolatey spoon and smiled. Suddenly the lunch had come alive. It helped that Georgie was now occupied with all her soufflés and had stopped scowling. But it wasn't just that. There was a new joyfulness in the room. Everyone was jumping up and down and shrieking and giggling. They were all united. They were as one. They were all in that boat that she liked so much, and pulling away, together. It was just adorable to watch.

Someone found a tape measure and they took turns standing up on the table to establish exactly how enormous their hips and waists actually were. Heather thought it was so funny. Each person was desperate to prove that she was the fattest and yet they were all tiny weeny little things. Georgie couldn't join in, because she was skinny as can be, and anyway, Georgie never joined in anything. She just wasn't a joiner-​​​​​​
inner.
And Clover was still sitting there too, which was interesting because Clover wasn't the slimmest. So that was weird. Perhaps she just wasn't a joiner-​​
inner
either. Well Heather jolly well was. Or longed to be, anyway. She leapt to her feet and onto the table.

“I'm fattest! Bet you! Bet I'm bigger than all of you put together.”

Colette looked over at Bea, who shrugged, then nodded. She stretched out the tape measure, wrapped it around Heather's hips and snapped it back.

“Er. Um. Well. Yes. You are.”

Heather smiled triumphantly around the table.

“See?” she trilled. “Told you!”

And yet nobody congratulated her. Or said anything. Or even looked at her. They weren't all together anymore. No longer as one. They were all finding their chairs again, sitting back down in silence. The joy had flown out of the room. Heather was not quite sure what had happened. She knew it had something to do with actually being fat instead of not being fat. Even though she wasn't even fat. Was she? She was struggling to make any sense of any of it, but this much Heather knew: she was out of that boat, and—splash—back in the cold and wet and hanging on for dear life.

She clambered down from the table, slunk back to her seat and cast around the table in search of some emotional support.
Geo
rgie, she noticed, full of soufflé, was fast asleep like a digesting python.

“Now then,” said Bea. “Who had volunteered for coffees? I can't remember the list…Oh heavens. Look. Is that the time? Girls, girls, girls! We're due back at school any minute. And help! Look at the state of this kitchen!” She laughed happily, sitting still.

“I'm not due to pick up till four-forty-five,” said Heather. “Maisie has judo this afternoon. Can I help?”

“Oh, Heather. You are a
complete star.
” Bea stood, and put her hands on Heather's shoulders. “
God,
how I love this girl.” A new sense of well-being flowed through Heather. Any discomfort she had felt from the unfortunate tape-measure business just faded away. It was a bit like that moment in church, when you are at the communion rail and the vicar puts her hands upon you. Even if you're not totally convinced of the whole God thingummy, you somehow always do feel a bit better for it. Or Heather did, anyway. And that was how she felt right then: Bea had laid her hands upon her. And she was blessèd.

“If you've finished before I get back, just pull the front door to, would you?” Bea stopped, hand over mouth and gave a panicked little squeak. “I nearly forgot! The money! Remember, ladies, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Can I trust you all to put your lovely cash in the pot on the way out?”