The Honey Queen (2 page)

The kitchen, with its verdant fern wallpaper, pots of Lillie’s beloved orchids on all surfaces, and the big old cream stove they’d had for thirty years, was her domain. She stood in it now and briefly wondered where the small tray was, where the tea glasses were. Shaken by the news that she had a brother, Lillie was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of loneliness. She and Sam had often talked of travelling to Ireland.

‘We could kiss the Blarney Stone and see if the Wicklow and Kerry Mountains are as beautiful as they say,’ Sam said.

‘As if you need to kiss any Blarney Stone,’ she’d teased back.

He’d known that she didn’t want to search for her birth family. That had been the dream of a younger woman.

I know it’s out of love, but why do people keep coming up with things to make me feel better, Sam?
she asked now, looking up.

She didn’t know where he was or if he heard her, but talking to him helped. She just wished he’d answer in some way.

Grief was a journey; she’d read that somewhere. A person didn’t get over it, they moved through it. One of the worst parts was not knowing where she was on the journey or if she was on it at all yet. The pain was still so bad. Perhaps she was still only at the entrance to the grief journey, buying her ticket, looking out at an endless plain in front of her where people were to be seen shuffling along in parallel lines, time slowed to a snail’s pace.

‘Mum—’ called Martin.

‘Hold your horses,’ she called back, finding the cheerful mother voice she’d always been able to summon. Her sons had their own lives and families. Mothers cared for their sons, they didn’t expect the sons to have to care for them.

She carried the tray of iced teas into the living room.

‘Show all the documents to me,’ she said, sitting between them on the big old couch with the plaid pattern. ‘A brother!’

Seth Green had immediately responded to Martin’s email. Martin printed out the reply and read it to her, but Lillie didn’t like this email business. She was a letter or a phone call person. How could you tell what sort of person was writing to you on a computer when you had no voice to listen to or no signature to consider? Seth was apparently happy to hear about her and that was just fine, but nonetheless she felt stubborn. Seth and Frankie could visit her if they wanted to. She was busy, she told her sons.

Then, a fortnight ago, Seth had sent a letter via Martin, the letter that nestled in her handbag and called to her so that she read and reread it many times a day.

Her adopted mother, Charlotte, the only mother she’d ever known, had often talked about Lillie’s background and all she knew of it. She’d told her how in 1940s Ireland illegitimate children and their mothers were so badly treated that most women were forced to give their babies away in tragic circumstances. A nun called Sister Bernard had been travelling to Melbourne to join the Blessed Mary Convent in Beaumaris and she’d taken baby Lillie with her for adoption. Mother Joseph, who was in charge of the convent, knew how much Charlotte and Bill wanted a baby after all the miscarriages, and so baby Lillie had come into their lives.

As Martin proudly handed over the letter to his mother, Lillie knew that he hadn’t considered the possibility that she might not want to see her birth family. She’d thought it wouldn’t bother her, but at that exact moment, she discovered that there was still a tiny place inside her that ached with the pain of rejection.

For two weeks she’d been carrying the letter in her handbag. This morning, just as she was about to drive to the park for a walk with Doris and Viletta, something had made Lillie open her handbag and take out the now worn letter one more time.

Her mother had often told her the Irish had a way with words and it was true. The letter was proof of that. Such warmth and such pure honesty all wrapped up together. And all from someone she had never met. Crazy though it seemed, it was as if this person thousands of miles away could see into her heart and understand the hopelessness inside. Lillie wondered again if it was partly written by Seth’s wife. Because whoever had written the letter had gotten through to her in a way that nobody else had since Sam’s death.

Please come … I may be speaking out of turn because I’ve never suffered the sort of bereavement you have, Lillie, but it might help?

She stood in the hall, lost in thought. Outside, the sun was blazing down. It hadn’t been the best summer but now that autumn had arrived, the heat was blistering. Nearly forty-two degrees on the beach the day before, according to the radio. Even as a child, Lillie had never been a beach bunny. Not for her the shorts, skimpy vests and thongs that her friends ran about in.

‘It’s your creamy Celtic skin,’ Charlotte would say lovingly, covering the young Lillie with white zinc sun cream.

Years later, as a married woman, Lillie had pretended irritation with Sam that he, despite also being of Celtic descent, was blessed with jet-black hair and skin that tanned mahogany.

‘You’re only pretending you’ve got Irish blood,’ she’d tease. ‘You came from Sicily, no question.’

Not a freckle had ever dusted his strong, handsome face and the only time his tan faded was as he lay wasting away in the hospital bed. His skin turned a dull sepia colour, as if dying leached everything from a person.

‘I’m sorry, love. I don’t want to leave you and the kids, the grandkids …’

Those had been almost the last words he’d spoken to her and she treasured the memory.

Lillie had struggled to find words to comfort him. Then it had come to her, a gift to the dying, the only thing she could give him: ‘We all love you so much, Sam, but it’s the right time to go, it’s safe for you to go. We don’t want you to suffer any more.’

Saying it and meaning it were two entirely different things. In her breaking heart, Lillie didn’t want Sam to die. She could now understand people who kept loved ones alive for years even when they were in a vegetative state from which there was no return. The parting was so final.

But people sometimes needed to be told to go. One of the hospice nurses had explained that to her. Strong people like Sam, who had fiercely protected their families all their lives, found it hard to leave.

‘They worry there’s nobody there to take care of you all,’ the nurse had said. ‘You need to tell him it’s OK to go.’

And Lillie had.

When Sam had been dying, the hours seemed to fly past because she knew they were his last.

Since then, time had slowed to a snail’s pace …

Now, standing in the hall, she rubbed her eyes furiously as more tears arrived. She was so tired of crying.

Her cell phone pinged on the hall table with a text message.

Are you coming walking today? I did my stretches and will seize up if we don’t start soon. I am leaning over our park bench and will be stuck like this. Doris xx

Lillie smiled as she put her hat on and grabbed a pair of sunnies from the table at the door. Doris could always cheer her up.

As soon as she rounded the corner at the community centre at the Moysey Walk, she saw Viletta and Doris gossiping happily as they half-heartedly did stretches ahead of their walk – five miles today.

It was a beautiful trail to walk. The girls had been walking along the beach, local parks and now, along the Moysey Walk for nigh on twenty years, long before everyone and their granny began extolling the virtues of walking. Today, autumn leaves were beginning to fall from the trees, and to their left, lay the glittering sea below. ‘Hi, girls,’ Lillie said, glad that her sunnies were hiding her eyes.

Hearing the faint catch in Lillie’s voice, Doris looked at her shrewdly. ‘You’ve just missed a gang of young rugby guys jogging,’ she announced, keeping her tone upbeat. ‘Viletta told them they had great muscle definition and they all went red.’

Viletta laughed. ‘I could be a cougar,’ she said with a put-on sniff. ‘They’re the hot thing in Hollywood – young blokes wanting older women.’

‘Older
rich
women, honey,’ said Doris, and Lillie joined in the laughter this time.

They walked two or three times a week, fitting it in between their chores and pursuits. Viletta, the oldest of the trio at sixty-nine, was a yoga buff and nobody seeing her in her walking sweats and simple T-shirt would imagine she was a grandmother of five. Her hair, she liked to joke, was the giveaway – pure white and falling poker straight down her back; she kept it tied in a knot for the walk. Doris, tall with salt-and-pepper hair and a tendency to roundness, regularly complained she wasn’t as fit as Viletta, who set the pace.

‘You get toned blokes in yoga classes and I get knee injections in the surgery,’ Doris would say in mock outrage. And Viletta would smile at the notion. She hadn’t looked at a man since her husband had died more than fifteen years before, for all her talk of cougars.

Lillie liked to amuse herself considering how the three of them must appear to strangers on their rambles: Viletta would appear to be the trainer, a lean, tanned woman urging her two more curvy friends on.

Though she didn’t have Viletta’s toned muscles, she didn’t look like a woman in her mid-sixties. That was most likely down to the hair, she reckoned: even a few greys in her thick strawberry blonde curls couldn’t diminish its warmth. Her Irish inheritance coming through. In the mirror she saw her face had become thinner since Sam’s death and underneath her iris-blue eyes were faint violet shadows. She hadn’t used make-up to hide them: vanity seemed so futile in the wake of her loss.

They were halfway into the walk and had settled into their regular rhythm when Doris managed to get herself beside Lillie, a few paces behind Viletta, who was storming ahead as usual.

‘You look a bit down, Lillie,’ she said conversationally. ‘Everything OK?’

Doris had known Lillie long enough to realize the effort required to maintain a smile on her face, a smile that would disintegrate the moment somebody put on their
Poor dear, lost her husband
voice or showed pity. Which was why Doris talked to her friend the way she’d always talked to her, in the same warm, vibrant tones.

‘I’ve been thinking about my brother in Ireland …’ began Lillie.

Beside her, she could sense Doris relax.

‘I’m going to Ireland to visit him and to find out about my birth mother,’ she said. There, it was done: she’d decided.

When Doris grabbed her and hugged her tightly, Lillie was so surprised she almost lost her balance.

‘I’m so glad!’ shrieked Doris, never one for volume control. ‘It’s exactly what you need. Oh, honey, I’m so glad!’

Lillie relaxed into her friend’s embrace. It felt lovely to be held. There were fewer people to do that these days. Her sons weren’t huggers, not the way Sam had been. Her hugs now came from her grandchildren. From Martin’s daughter, Dyanne, and from Shane, Evan’s seven-year-old, who held her tight and told her she was the best nanny in the world.

‘If I’d known you wanted to be rid of me that much, I’d have gone ages ago,’ she teased Doris when they separated.

‘Witch!’ said Doris, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m happy for you, Lillie. There’s no secret recipe for getting through what you’re getting through, but doing something different might add another ingredient to the pot, so to speak.’

Lillie nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking it over and over. Sam and I had talked about visiting Ireland, but I don’t think I’d ever have done it by myself at my age. But now Martin’s so excited about finding Seth and Dyanne’s desperately hoping the Irish relatives are rich so she can stay with them when she goes off on her big trip.’

Both women smiled. Dyanne was the same age as Doris’s grandson, Lloyd. Many amused conversations were had about their grandchildren, who were both going through an ‘I want to be famous’ phase, when they weren’t too preoccupied with ‘Can I have an advance on my pocket money?’

‘Are you stopping for a rest?’ Viletta called back to them.

‘No,’ yelled Doris, and they started walking again. ‘It’s going to be tough, Lillie, you realize that? You’ll be alone on a very emotional trip.’

Lillie nodded. She could rely on Doris for utter honesty.

‘I’m going to be fine,’ she said, and gave her friend a smile.

For the first time since Sam died, Doris caught a glimpse of peace in her friend’s iris-blue eyes.

‘Sam will be with me,’ Lillie added, touching one hand to her chest above her heart. Then her lips quirked in a smile like the Lillie of old. ‘I’m ordering him to come!’

F
rankie Green woke bathed in cold sweat. The bedroom was dark and she felt so disorientated that for a moment she almost didn’t know where she was.

Her phone lay on her bedside table and she fumbled for it, pressing the button so that the screen lit up. With light, she managed to find her glasses and look at the time.

Two fifteen.

Oh hell, she thought. She had a hectic day ahead, she hadn’t been able to get to sleep for ages and now she was awake again.

Beside her, Seth was a long mound under the duvet, sleeping soundly, which was infinitely annoying.
He
didn’t have to get up in the morning.

Which wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself, as she did so often these days as a sort of guilty afterthought. He hadn’t joyfully decided to retire and let her continue working, he’d been made redundant three months ago and hated it. Yet, it
felt
like his fault that he could sleep late while she – now the major earner – had to haul herself out of bed come rain or shine.

Pushing back the duvet, she went into the horrible, poky bathroom she swore she would never get used to, shivering as the cool night air hit her soaked cotton pyjamas.

In the bathroom’s cold light, a tired, white-faced woman stared back at her from the mirror: dark hair plastered to her skull, face sheeny with damp, nightclothes sticking like a second skin.

She looked as if she’d been running through a rainforest for days. She looked – Frankie realized the correct word with misery – old.

Somehow, while she’d been busy trying to raise two children, run the Human Resources department of Dutton Insurance and be a wife to Seth Green, age had crept up on her. She’d been so busy working, doing school runs and making vast meals to freeze, checking homework diaries and worrying about exam results, mopping up teenage tears and making rare date nights with her husband, that the blur of her thirties had morphed into her forties and suddenly, here she was, forty-nine. Calcium, collagen, oestrogen –
everything
was leaching out of her. Soon all that would remain would be a dried-out husk and if she stood still long enough, she’d be stuffed in a museum as an example of tinder-dry womankind. Even her marriage felt dried out and empty. That was the worst thing and she couldn’t bear to think about it.