The Hive (11 page)

“Of course,” she said to Heather, with sympathy. “Fine. The job. Understand. Totally.” She shrugged, spread her hands—a familiar Bea-like gesture. “The Job. Of course…”

“She’s having a lunch?” Bubba, Rachel was beginning to realize, did not do dissembling. She worked out her emotions like a well-trained Year 6 its maths: the workings-out all on display so that everyone knew exactly how she got the sum.

“
Bea?
Is having a
lunch?

“Bea is having
a lunch
…

“…and she hasn’t invited
me?
”

There were the workings-out: right there, all over her face.

“What a fucking
bitch.
”

Tick, thought Rachel. Correct. Got there quicker than I did. She jumped to her feet before anyone could stop her. “And while we’re on the subject, it doesn’t have to be the English Seaside in Winter Ball, you know. If you want a Paradise Beach Ball, you have it, girl. You just do whatever you like.” She flung on her jacket—“Great coffee, great fun, see you at school”—and broke through the door. Out in the gray High Street, she gulped down the damp air and turned her face up to the rain.

Georgie was propping herself up against the fence, her back to the school, her eyes on the car. The sight of Hamish snoozing in his car seat brought a lump to her throat. His long lashes flickered on his cheeks as he dreamed. Was there anything more beautiful on this earth than the rolling, folding, undulating, multitudinous chins of a well-fed, happy baby? A watery autumn light was making its way through the clouds and she willed it on. The garden could really do with a bit of sun. She sighed happily and pushed her hands deeper into her pockets. It was a while before she realized that Rachel was slumped beside her.

“Afternoon. What are you doing out here on the wrong side of the tracks?”

“Did you know Bea’s having a lunch after half-term?”

“Good afternoon. I’m fine. Thank you for asking. Yes, a very nice day…”

“Sorry. Hello. How are you? Etc., etc. And did you know? About Bea’s lunch? Her invitation-only sodding lunch?”

“Um, yeah.” She produced a packet of Marlboro Lights. With her thumb, she pushed one towards Rachel. “Not going though. Want a cigarette?”

“No. Ta. So you were invited? Bloody hell. You know what? Maybe I will.” She took one and bent towards Georgie for a light. “What did she invite you for?” She inhaled. “No offense.”

“None taken. Been asking myself the same question. Committee this, lunch that—wretched woman won’t leave me alone. Harassment, that’s what it is. Pure and simple. As a matter of fact, I’m considering a restraining order.”

“So you’re not going?”

“Why would I go, for God’s sake? You should have seen it, the invitation. It was all the same old, same old. That’s what’s wrong with this school: they never learn.” Georgie shook her head in despair. “Shocking punctuation, as usual—it was A Lunch for Mum apostrophe S.” Her fury was mounting. “And the emoticons. Littered with the buggers. Smiley faces, party blowers, the works.” She flicked her ash onto the grass verge. “One couldn’t be seen dead after that, of course.”

“You know, she used to be my friend. My best friend.”

Georgie gave a splutter of irritation. The corruption of the verb to juggle was one of her hates, poor punctuation another. But this was a top-of-the-pops pet hate—grown women describing other grown women as best friends. Mutton employing the semantics of lamb. It was like donning a rah-rah skirt and frilly panties. Or snogging in the street. Totally inappropriate behavior. She was, quite frankly, disappointed in Rachel of all people.

“One of my best friends. And this term, this term of all terms, when everything else has been falling apart around my ears, she has been a complete and utter cow to me.”

Georgie presumed that Bea’s sudden warmth towards her had something to do with this. It was a way of sending home the message that Rachel was properly, officially excluded. But she wasn’t going to demean either of them by standing outside school and discussing such a thing.

“Some of the more perceptive of us might not see that as so wildly out of character.”

“Well, I suppose I’ve never been on the wrong side of her before.”

“Course. As you were saying. Best friends…”

“It’s not been anything major, just one slight or little snub after another, so I wondered if I was just imagining it. But now…And it hurts, is the thing.” She coughed on the smoke. “She has hurt my feelings.”

Georgie felt like asking for her ciggie back. It was an investment in the conversation, a cigarette, and she expected some sort of decent return. You never got this sort of drivel and nonsense from Jo, that was for sure, but she wasn’t around again this afternoon. She was having to work more and more hours at the care home and harder and harder in the house while that pillock Steve lay around being “depressed.” Georgie was missing her. You could always have a laugh with our Joanna.

“I would dearly love to get my own back on her somehow. Just bring her down a peg or two, you know what I mean?”

Aha. This, thought Georgie, is more like it. She flicked her ash over her shoulder and squinted into the middle distance. “Hmmm. Well. You could just do us all a favor and thump her one, of course…”

Heather joined them, clearly distraught. “Rachel, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I should never have blurted it out like that, about the, you know, the…”

“Bea’s lunch. You can say it, Heather. I’m not going to top myself. It’s fine. Really. I need to work anyway. Haven’t got time for all this lunching about.”

Georgie was studying Heather intently, her head to one side.

“You are good. Thanks, Rach. To tell you the truth,” Heather leaned in towards them, dropped her voice, “I’m quite worried about it all, personally.”

Georgie, still staring, walked around Heather, picking up a few strands of hair at the back. Heather bravely carried on.

“I’m worried that Bea’s taking on too much at the moment. What with, you know…” Heather’s eyes were following Georgie nervously.

“The lunch?” offered Rachel.

“Yes, the lunch and the…”

“The job?”

“The job. Yes. Georgie, what are you doing? Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Well, the most extraordinary thing has happened, Heth. It took me a while to recognize you, to tell the truth. You’ve gone blond. It’s very rare, that. Sudden-onset blondness. Did you catch it from hanging out with Bea so much, do you think? Are highlights contagious?”

“Stop it. You’re being mean. Colette did it. And Bea just said it looked really nice, so there.” She turned back to Rachel. “Anyway. Back to the, you know…”

“The Lunch,” Georgie intoned in her Archbishop of Canterbury voice.

“Yes. Thing is, Bea has asked Colette to bring a dessert! I mean, that’s not like Bea, is it?”

Georgie gave a low whistle. “What, you think it’s, like, a cry for help?” She made the nee-naw sound of a siren. Hamish, still in his car seat, opened one bright eye. “Should we stage an intervention?”

Rachel laughed. “It’s not like her, though. Heather’s right. It’s weird how she’s being with this ball. Normally she would have organized the table decorations by now and had us all folding the napkins into the shape of exotic wildfowl of the less-developed nations—”

“Oh my God,” swooned Heather. “Do you remember that time she did those birds of paradise?”

“Please,” said Georgie, irritably.

“—but she just seems, sort of, detached. She’s never given up control of anything in her life before.”

“Mmmm. Ve-ry interesting.” Georgie became thoughtful. “It’s Descartes, innit?”

“Oh, is it?” Heather looked eagerly around, her Welcome-to-St.-Ambrose smile already in place.

“Yeah. Well, no. Not driving into the car park right now, it’s not. I meant, Bea’s behavior…Oh, never mind. Hey. Look over there! There’s someone really thin in yoga pants. Heather, don’t waste your time with us. Off you go.”

And Heather went skipping off.

“My point was,” Georgie turned back to Rachel, “that Bea is in control of everything. That is exactly who Bea is. It is her id. The essence of her Bea-ness. She is the Woman Who Controls Everything. Ergo, if she stops so doing, then is she still Bea? Eh?”

Georgie was enjoying herself—bit of amateur philosophizing before the kids come out, what could be nicer? She noticed that Rachel was smiling, too.

“You know what?” Rachel seemed to perk up. “I think you may just have given me a berrrilliant idea!”

H
ey, I only just noticed: you're in civvies.” Rachel took in what Heather was wearing: all new, if she wasn't mistaken. All new, and not quite right. She could see what was happening here: there had clearly been a half-term shopping trip and Heather had been taken in hand by either Bea or her gang. The new blond hair, the lip gloss, the skinny jeans tucked into the boots, should, Rachel understood, all add up to the Bea effect. And yet, of course, they didn't. They couldn't. Although her strenuous new fitness regime had slimmed her down a little, this new Heather was still, very recognizably, the old homely Heather. It was like Rubens trying to do a Degas ballerina. Rachel longed to tell her to stop, to save her from that coven, to save her from herself. Getting into a synchronized stride, she mumbled, “Um. Er. Nice earrings.”

The girls were up ahead, balancing along the curb as if it were a tightrope across Niagara Falls. Rachel was nervous about them falling into the school-run traffic, and yet Heather—the woman who had once tried to get felt pens banned in school because of their obvious and terrifying fatal properties—seemed to be blithely unaware.

“Bea texted last night that there'd be no time for exercise today, and she was right, of course.” She gave a little shudder of excitement. “The lunch.”

Rachel had one ear on the girls. There was something going on there.

“Whoever falls in first has to talk to her first.”

“Bagsy not me!”

She would quiz Poppy later. She was more interested in Heather this morning. For once.

“Big day.” Rachel nodded encouragingly. “Big day. So did you follow through with my suggestion?”

“I did.” Heather's face was glowing. “I'm doing the starter.”

“Excellent.”

“Step on a crack,” Rachel heard her daughter's little voice, “and you break her back!”

“Stepped on it!” She heard Maisie shout in triumph and both girls giggling. This was not like these two at all…But back to more important matters.

“And what did you decide on?”

“Filet de canard avec sauce de raisin et des pines kernel thingies et tempura des endives et with, um, er, cauliflower dumplings.” Heather was beaming with pride.

“Golly.”

“I know! I think I first saw it on
Come Dine with Me.
”

“Hmmm. Did it win?”

“No, but they said it was ‘way overcomplicated' and ‘a collision of cuisines.'”

They were at school now and Heather went running straight off. She'd spotted Bea, who was, Rachel noticed, in her Pilates pants. But of course. Everyone else was doing her cooking for her. So she had plenty of time to exercise this morning.

Rachel kissed Poppy good-bye, turned to get on with her own day and smiled quietly to herself. It was like art, she thought. Those rare but magical minutes of pure creation that make up for the miserable hours, days and years of trying to be an artist. When you start painting one thing and by some chemical reaction beyond your own control something else quite wonderful is born. When a picture you hadn't thought of is just brought down somehow by the process of painting itself. When you find yourself making something you never even suspected was lurking in the blind spot of your own mind's eye.

OK, this was not as good. But it was quite good. She had just had the little idea that if everybody took something for Bea's lunch, then Bea herself would not be doing anything towards Bea's lunch and that would remove from Bea the oxygen of being at the center of all operations. It was an amusing, harmless prank, and an exercise in crowd psychology. Nothing more. But here was dear old Heather, elevating it into something much more dramatic. She had rendered it extraordinary. And with a bit of luck, it sounded like she could poison the whole bloody lot of them.

“Christ! What's happened? Lemme guess. Chris's intern got genital warts? Bea's come home to find Tony dressed in ladies' underwear?”

“Hi, George. Wotcha, Hamish. No. Not as far as I know, anyway. Why?”

“There's an actual smile on your face for once. And you know, for those of us on Rachel Mason Misery Watch, it has been rather a long time since we logged one of those in our little book…” She patted her pockets. “Lemme just find a pen…”

“Oh, it's just that it's The Bea Lunch today. And at last my Dick Dastardly plan is to be put into action.” Rachel laughed like Muttley, then her face fell again. “Only trouble is, I won't be there to see it happen.” She stopped. “Here, Geo-orge?”

“Nope,” said Georgie firmly and carried on moving.

“But would you? Change your mind and go?”

“No,” she threw back over her shoulder.

“Pleee-ease?”

“No-ooo,” she singsonged, dancing towards the car park.

“For me?”

“You see this thing here?” Georgie stopped and pointed to Hamish, who looked up at her with a genuine interest. “This is what the government calls a ‘preschooler.' It is called that because it does not go to school. It hangs around its parent or its designated carer nearly all day long. But do I complain? I do not. Because you know what I call it? I call it a get-out-of-jail-free card. For it is my excuse to do nothing with you lot in the daytime at all. Get it? And that is why, when it does go to school, I am going to have to produce yet another one. To keep you all off my back.” She growled—she did actually growl—picked up Hamish and started to walk off.

“Hamish?” Rachel ran after them and changed her mode of attack. “Do you want to spend the day with Auntie Rachel, sweetheart? Shall we get out all Josh's old cars and make a garage? Would you like that, love?” Hamish swung with a casual grace from one set of arms to the other, like a baby monkey in a tree.

“Go on,” said Rachel to Georgie from over the baby's head. “You know it'll be a laugh. In its own horrible, gothic sort of way.”

“You know what you are, don't you? You're a right saddo.”

“Yup.”

“And a loser.”

“Mebbe.”

“And a no-mates.”

“Ah, no.” Rachel held up a warning finger. “That is the one thing I am not.” She put her spare arm around Georgie and walked her towards the car park. “I am, in fact, perfectly sociable. I've got my mate Hammy here. And, Georgina Martin,” she gave her shoulder a squeeze, “admit it: I've got you.”

Heather drew up outside Bea's large, detached house and turned off the ignition. The purr of her hybrid engine gave way to the flat quiet of the cul-de-sac, but she didn't move at once. She was just going to sit there on her own for a little while, enjoy the moment. It seemed almost impossible that the girls had been in the same class for the past five years—Maisie had always adored Scarlett—and yet Heather had never actually been to Bea's house before this very day. Of course, she knew it from the outside—although this was the first time she had seen the new carport—because she had often driven past. Well, just once or twice. Even though it was in a cul-de-sac. And even though it was right at the very cul itself. It wasn't that she was a stalker or anything. But she did seem to spend quite a lot of her day thinking, wondering, about the Stuart family in general, and she merely wanted to get a bit of concrete detail on the exact sort of residence in which to picture them. That was all. No big deal.

The Building of the Carport had been a major issue in Bea's life a while back, Heather remembered. It was last spring term because it was when cycling proficiency was on, and she always managed to stand quite near to Bea during those lessons, if she got there early enough, and could hear a lot of the chat about the builders and so on. Bea had, if she had picked it up correctly, doubts about the cost of it all and what it did to the line of their house. It was nice for Heather to get a good look now, having been told—well, having overheard—so much on the subject. She bent slightly, to look under the driver's mirror for a better view. Hmm. She wasn't sure she was a carport fan in general or, indeed, a fan of this carport in particular. They'd had a nice little herbaceous bed there before; she remembered admiring the peonies and making a mental note to track down the variety so that she could—well, not copy exactly, but just get some too. It did though give the Stuarts' house the illusion of being the biggest in the street. Hey ho. Had Bea asked for her opinion at the time, Heather might have rustled one up. But Bea had not asked for her opinion. Because, back then—back in her own personal dark age—Bea had not even known Heather's name.

Well, that was then, this was now. And here she was, with a backseat covered with the components of the world's most fancy starter, about to go into Bea's kitchen and cook lunch for her and all her friends. Heather almost had to pinch herself. How far had she come?

One thing about taking on such a complicated recipe was that Heather had to get going pretty early. And she was, she noticed with satisfaction as she got out of the car, the first. So it would be just her and Bea for a bit then, she thought, as she bent in to gather up all the crates and boxes and cool-bags. Just her and Bea—she shut the car door with her foot. Just her and Bea in Bea's kitchen—she adjusted the weight of her heavy load, tossed her new hair and staggered down the path to the white front door. Mates together. Just hanging out and shooting the breeze.

This will earn me some Brownie points, thought Rachel as she pushed Hamish up the drive. She never “popped in” on her mother. Ever. In fact, she never “popped in” on anyone at all. Didn't believe in it. It was, without being too grand about it, an article of personal faith: if God had meant us to go “popping in” on each other all the time, He would never have gone to the bother of creating the lockable front door, would He? Needless to say, her mother was a devout observer of the opposite persuasion—practically the patron saint of the popping in, and the “Go on then,” and the “Just a quick cup.” It was this sort of profound religious conflict, indeed, that had given relations between them that piquant Arab/Israeli-with-a-twist-of-Northern-Ireland flavor they had been so enjoying these past few months. “Well this,” she murmured to the top of Hamish's head, “is by way of a peace mission. Just look on and learn, my boy. Look. And. Learn.”

“We can just squeeze by,” she smiled at a man busy hammering the fence, and maneuvered the pushchair down the side of the house and through to the back garden. “Mind the ladder! You don't want any more bad luck!” called Bea's dad cheerfully, from up near the guttering. “Rachel!” Her mother looked up from the flower bed, on which she was spreading old newspapers. “What on earth are you doing here?” She seemed surprised but not, noticed Rachel, overtly pleased.

“Just thought I'd pop in.” Rachel forced out the last two words without gagging.

“Whatever for?” She was more than not pleased: she was quite cross.

And, put on the spot like that, Rachel couldn't quite recall. “Um. Well. We were just out for a walk and—um—wondered if you wanted—er—help?” She looked around Old Ma Howard's Organic Homestead, a.k.a. the garden of 32 Webster Close, and saw it was already full of helpers—loads of them, everywhere, all quite ancient but busy hoeing and tilling and planting and building. It looked, this afternoon, almost picturesque—the very model of an early agrarian commune. Where was Brueghel when you needed him?

“Doh. I don't need any help,” scoffed her mum, creaking up on her feet. “Quite self-sufficient round here, thank you very much.”

Clearly. “What about your bees? Shall we do them while I'm here?”

“Oh, honestly, Rachel, you're far too late for them. I shut them up weeks ago.” She picked up a trowel and a trug.

“Shut them up?” Rachel looked towards the end of the garden, where the hives were. “Do they hibernate then?”

“Hmm? Noh.” Her mum's “noh,” like her “doh,” was riven with contempt. “Course not. But the hive has to be shut up properly for the winter, or it won't make it through. It's danger time for them.”

Rachel rocked Hamish's buggy rhythmically, deep in thought. All those bees, so full of life, so full of themselves just a few weeks ago. And now it was danger time for them. “Why? What danger?”

“The winter. It's one big danger.” Her mum threw the words over her shoulder as she worked. “Cold. Disease. Death. And the wet. The wet is the worst thing for bees. If the rain gets in, it's a killer. So now they're all clustering together in there, huddled around their queen, keeping her going. Keeping everything going. How're you doing,” she called over the garden, “on the compost?”

Rachel's gaze was riveted on the hives. Extraordinary. Just three white boxes, that's all they looked like, three very ordinary white boxes. And yet inside a heroic Darwinian struggle to survive.

“But, Mum. If you don't open them up, how will you know whether or not they have made it through?”

“We won't. Not until the spring. And even then, we won't know at once if the queen has made it. You can't really tell if a queen has died until it all starts up again. But then it's pretty obvious.” She pulled up some carrots and shook off the earth. “Because then it's chaos.”

“Is it?” asked Rachel doubtfully. “Then why don't they just get a new queen?”

“A new queen?” Her mother stomped down the path in the veg patch. “A new queen?” She tutted and raised her eyes to the sky. “Like it's the easiest thing in the world?” She called over to Bea's dad: “Did you hear that one, Graham? Get a new queen!”

“Can be done, though,” admitted Graham, lining up his hammer with a nail. “You can even just send off for one, you know.”

“Huh!” Her mother was now thoroughly irritated. “Course you can. Money can buy you anything. But your bees aren't going to accept her just like that, are they? They'll choose the queen they want and there's not much we can do about it.” She straightened up and took in her daughter properly for the first time. “Oh,
Rachel.
” She pointed the carrots at Hamish and adopted her now-what-have-you-gone-and-done voice. “That's not
your
baby.”