The Honey Queen (48 page)

‘It’s incredible,’ Frankie said now. ‘I never gave much thought to bees or honey before, but without them, the planet would be in such trouble. No pollination, no crops – disaster. How did I not know all this stuff?’

‘You didn’t have time,’ said Lillie simply. ‘You were doing so much, and now, you have time. The greatest gift of all.’

‘The second greatest gift,’ said Frankie quickly. ‘Emer and Alexei are home soon. Emer’s flying in on the tenth and she says she’s entirely broke, and needs a job
now
! While Alexei actually managed to save some money.’ Her face was soft as she talked about her beloved children. ‘I can’t wait for them to see what we’ve managed to do with the house and what you managed to do with Seth in the garden. I’ve told them they can take their pick of the upstairs rooms for the moment, and that once we’ve got round to doing all the painting – which is going to be slow – they can share the basement.’

It was a plan Seth had come up with.

‘The kids might be coming home,’ he told Frankie, ‘but it won’t ever be forever again, you know that?’

Frankie knew it.

‘I thought we could give them the basement, when we’ve beautified everything upstairs,’ he added.

They’d decided against spending Frankie’s settlement on painters and decorators. They’d do as much of the work as they could themselves. It would be their project, together.

Two rooms upstairs had already been stripped, sanded down and painted. Dessie, the landscape gardener in training, had found a guy who’d spent years on building sites but was now unemployed. Between them, they’d ripped down all the jerry-built partition walls, and stripped the wallpaper in all the other rooms. The old, thin doors had been replaced, the many damaged ceiling roses had been taken down and replaced with new ones.

Everything was ready to be painted.

‘Sorrento Villa is a beautiful house,’ said Lillie. ‘I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished, and I’m sorry I won’t be here to meet Emer and Alexei, but I’ll meet them when you all come to visit us in Melbourne. I’ve stayed long enough. I’m sure you thought I was never going home.’

‘No.’ Frankie hugged her sister-in-law. ‘I’m so glad you came, Lillie. You saved us, you know.’

‘You saved yourselves,’ Lillie said.

Frankie shook her head. ‘We couldn’t have done it without you. I don’t know what would have happened. You saved us, you soothed us all, Lillie.’

The two women held hands in the sunlight.

‘You’ve done so much around here – befriending people and taking care of us. You’re like a fairy godmother.’

‘I’m glad I’m flying home on a plane,’ said Lillie gently, ‘those broomsticks are hard on the old hips!’

And they both laughed.

From the plane the next day, Lillie looked out of the window at the fields beneath and thought how she’d miss this island that she could now call her second home. Ireland hadn’t simply allowed her to visit – like the people itself, it had grabbed her, squeezed her and then patted her back down.

She didn’t need to write emails to Doris any more, but she liked writing them. Besides, she’d be writing to Seth, Frankie and everyone in Redstone now. Opal would probably have her own email account any day, and Freya would want to write giant tracts of whatever came into her head.

Lillie had made her promise to keep her informed about everything, including the goings on at the bus stop.

‘Seanie and Ronnie will miss you,’ Freya said. ‘If they can keep off the cigarettes for a while to save money, they’re toying with the idea of flying out to Melbourne to see Australia next summer. I wouldn’t hold your breath, though. That’s a lot of Woodbines. When you’re sitting at the bus stop, you need a cigarette to give you a bit of heat – that’s what they say.’

‘You’ll be all right, Freya?’ Lillie had asked tenderly.

She wished Freya were nearer so she could be on hand to help her navigate the treacherous waters of youth. But then, knowing Freya, she could probably give classes in negotiating treacherous waters.

‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got Harry, remember?’

Harry was wonderful and every time she was with him, Freya fell a little more in love.

Opal and Ned had had a chat about her and said she was a bit young to have such a serious boyfriend, but Freya had countered it easily: ‘You already know that Harry’s a very responsible person,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t called the ambulance, Kaz could have died. And he’s a good guy. He’s the only person in his transition year who’s interested in veterinary medicine, and he’s arranged to spend the summer helping out in the local animal shelter. I might help too,’ she’d added.

‘Just no more pets,’ Ned had begged. ‘I’m sick of feeding cockroaches to that darned lizard!’

Lillie had grinned at Freya as they both thought about Harry. ‘He’s a good boy. He appreciates you.’

‘My cousins would stab him if he didn’t,’ Freya said, with a smile. It was nice to be able to say that about Meredith especially. It didn’t seem too long ago that the only person Meredith seemed likely to stab was Freya. But that was well behind them now. So far behind them, it seemed weird to remember it.

‘Meredith’s really changed,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Total transformation, really, like one of those corny TV shows where people dye their hair a different colour, get their eyes lifted and they’re different. ’Course, they’re not. That’s only surface. But Meredith is really different and I love the sound of her new plan. Before, she’d never have thought of running an artists’ retreat in the middle of nowhere. She’d die if she wasn’t within ten feet of a latte.’

‘What happened with the gallery was the best thing that ever happened to her, in my opinion,’ said Lillie.

‘Funny you should say that – Opal says exactly the same thing.’

Lillie nodded. ‘I once heard a businessman say that, for a business to work, first you had to survive two bankruptcies and a fire. Life’s a bit like that – if you can weather the storms, you come out a lot stronger than when you went in.’

‘She’s certainly going to have plenty of storms where she’s going,’ said Freya laughing. ‘The retreat is literally on the edge of a cliff in County Clare. And the nearest town is about twenty minutes away down a wild road, apparently.’

‘How did she find out about the job?’ asked Lillie.

‘This lady who sells vintage clothes, Angelique something or other, she told her about it. Angelique’s daughter runs it but she’s going to Canada for six months to work in a similar retreat, so she needs someone to take over the Clare one temporarily.’

‘Is she happy?’

Freya didn’t have to think about it. ‘Very. She’s in the clear when it comes to the whole Ponzi scheme. People know she had nothing to do with it, which has helped a lot, she said. Plus, she told me she’s going to start painting again when she’s there. I didn’t even know she used to paint, but she did. Says she stopped ’cos she didn’t think she’d make a career out of it.’

‘Creativity is a great soother,’ Lillie said. ‘Wish her well from me, and tell her there’s always a spot for her to stay in Melbourne if she’s ever in my part of the world.’

‘What about me and Harry?’ asked Freya cheekily.

Lillie laughed. ‘Don’t settle down too young, darling. You need to explore the world a bit, you know, before you settle for one man.’

Freya had hugged her then, and they’d both shed a few tears.

‘I won’t be gone for ever. You can email me and you can visit,’ Lillie said, searching her sleeve for a tissue.

‘You need to see your own family now,’ Freya said, snuffling.

She was, as ever, right. Lillie did need to see her family again. The great thing about travelling was knowing that you had somewhere you were sadly missed.

It turned out that Doris liked emailing too.

Viletta is dating a gentleman from poker night. She calls him a gentleman and for once, she’s not kidding. He holds doors open, stands up when she enters the room and insists on paying for dinner. He bought her a gardenia nosegay, as he calls it, for their second date.
A gardenia
. He didn’t say it was his dead wife’s favourite flower or his mother’s favourite flower or any of the other crazy remarks some men might make second time round – no, he saw a painting of a gardenia on Viletta’s kitchen wall and he thought they might be
her
favourite flowers. He’s a keeper, honey, I told her and she’s not talking about cougars any more. No, it’s all ‘the older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune’. I said: ‘Don’t let him hear you talk that way, Viletta, he might not like it,’ but she says he likes the way she talks.

Doris even had news of Lillie’s own granddaughter, Dyanne, who was apparently phoning the residence of Doris’s grandson, Lloyd, who was a respectable six months older than her. Doris’s daughter, Natalie, was thrilled with this because Lloyd’s last girlfriend had come from a family where not too much importance was placed on constant school attendance.

Your Dyanne comes round a lot, I hear, and she’s over the wanting to be famous phase, for the moment, anyhow. She and Lloyd are thinking of becoming political journalists – and no, I haven’t a clue where this idea came from. But it’s a step up from wanting to sing in front of a television audience and risk them voting you off the show on a whim.

We can’t wait to see you. Viletta says her gentleman has a friend for you, if you want him, but I said I didn’t think you would.

Lillie had laughed out loud at that one. She had Sam, she didn’t need another man. And she had a new family, a very extended one, at that. There were so many people in Redstone who felt like family now. Seth and Frankie, of course, Freya, Opal, Peggy who was so thrilled about her forthcoming baby, and her new man, David, and of course Bobbi and Ned. The whole place felt like a second home. She’d come to Ireland looking for her past and she’d found some of that, had understood a bit more of what would have made a young girl give up a baby many years ago.

I hope you’ve met Sam, Jennifer. I thought it was his idea to come on this trip, but now I think that perhaps you had a hand in it?

You were a great mother to Seth and you couldn’t be a mother to me, not then. I hope you’re happy now in the hereafter with the people you love. I hope it’s full of light and happiness, all the cats and dogs people have ever lost, and hives for the people who kept bees on earth. I’ll come one day, but not yet.

There was no answer, but then, even when she talked to Sam, there never was. Still, Lillie was sure her words were heard all right. She felt it inside.

But the most important part of her trip hadn’t been about the past at all, strangely. It been about the future and what was yet to come in her life, the next stage in her life, as Bobbi wisely called it.

Lillie settled into her seat and let the stewardess give her another glass of that delicious orange juice.

Martin and Evan had insisted on flying her home in the luxurious front of the plane.

‘I can’t let you,’ she’d begun on Skype one night, and then Frankie had stuck her head round the door and said, ‘You will, you mad woman! Think of DVT. They love you, let them spoil you!’

Frankie was different these days too. She’d abandoned her glamorous work clothes for tatty old jeans and ancient shirts of Seth’s, overseeing the work in the house or else heading off for her beekeeping course.

Seth was like a man who’d been given some of that royal honey Frankie had been telling them about.

‘It’s the most important part of the worker bees’ job to provide this for the queen bee. It helps her grow and lay new babies.’

Frankie had her head buried in that big bee book most nights.

The Gentle Beekeeper
it was called, by Iseult Cloud.

‘You could write your own book when you’re finished,’ Lillie said thoughtfully, ‘all about being a beginner beekeeper and how you came into it through redundancy.’

Frankie’s eyes gleamed. ‘I do love that idea,’ she said, ‘but right now, I’m working towards getting the house sorted for us.’ She shot a glance of pure love at Seth. ‘And I want to enter the Honey Queen competition. It’ll take me another couple of years to get to the point where my honey is ready, but I really want to do it.’

‘Isn’t she amazing?’ Seth said proudly. ‘My honey queen.’

Lillie didn’t mind leaving at all. She’d be back soon enough and, besides, they were all doing fabulously on their own. She could happily fly off and leave them.

W
hen the phone rang one evening in the small bungalow in Portlaoise, Kathleen Barry jumped at the noise. Nobody rang the house at this hour of the day. Tommy’s pals talked to him on his mobile and none of Kathleen’s friends even had the number.

Women cackling on the phone annoyed him, he said.

She’d been about to pour his tea after he’d finished a feed of dinner: shepherd’s pie topped with a cloud of fluffy mashed potato, which had been lumpy, he’d said irritably.

‘Make decent tea, now. Not that weak slop you like.’

‘I’ll be back in a minute to pour the tea out,’ she said, hurrying into the hall where the phone sat on the old telephone table-and-seat arrangement that nobody had any more.

Even more anxiety than usual was flooding Kathleen’s shattered system because unexpected phone calls were always bad news. Peggy only rang on her mother’s mobile – she knew better than to call the house. This had to be bad news.

‘Yes,’ she said faintly into the phone.

‘Is that Kathleen Barry?’ said a strangely accented voice.

Kathleen gripped the edge of the old table.

‘Is it Peggy? What’s happened? Has she been hurt?’

All the fears Kathleen usually kept tightly inside her tumbled out now. She had to lever herself on to the seat in case her legs gave way and she fell.

‘Peggy’s fine,’ said the voice. ‘Honestly, Mrs Barry, she’s fine, I promise you. My name is Fifi and I work with her in the shop. Peggy’s told me all about you.’

Unexpectedly, tears came into Kathleen’s tired, unmade-up eyes. Peggy had told this strange woman all about her. There were so many people in Peggy’s life and yet Kathleen knew none of them.