Being Bee

by Bateson, Catherine

  The result of all the talk was that Harley was invited to the dinner party too. I was kind of pleased about that. I didn’t think Harley should miss out. I thought about his tea bags and his sticky buns and I knew Harley would like to come to dinner.

  Jazzi moved in on a Friday and by the following Monday her stuff had found its way into all of our cupboards and on to all of our shelves. Her pictures hung next to our tree fern and creek photos. In Dad’s bedroom, her clothes hung next to his in the wardrobe. I crept down and looked. He’d crammed all his work clothes up one end while Jazzi’s skirts and dresses rustled roomily at the other.

  Only my room was a Jazzi-free zone, if you didn’t count that doll, sitting with her face to the wall in my cupboard. I wrote to Fifi and Lulu:

  Dear Fifi and Lulu

  It’s really scary, her stuff is everywhere. It’s not that I don’t like her stuff. She has much nicer mugs than we have. None of hers are chipped. She’s got a plate I like, too, with chooks on it. They have bright red tails and yellow beaks. She said I could use it anytime. But our lives have totally changed and Dad doesn’t seem to know that. He just keeps looking at her with this dopey grin while she makes them both tea in her teapot. Dad used to have tea bags. Now we have tea in a pot and she’ll teach me to make it. What’s wrong with tea bags anyway? I don’t get it.

  Love

  Bee (who feels mopey)

  They wrote back:

  Dear mopey Bee

  In Japan they have a beautiful tea ceremony and they use cups that are so thin you can see the shadow of your fingers through them. Perhaps J. just enjoys pouring tea from a pot? All change is scary. Like when you bought us from the pet shop we thought anything could happen. Who was this girl? we thought. Will she eat us? we wondered. Will we be happy? we asked each other. But we are and you might be too. The chook plate sounds rather nice. Are chooks anything like us? Have you ever seen a guinea pig plate?

  Love

  Fifi and Lulu (who would like some more celery, please)

  The Toasterpede

  Almost as soon as she’d moved in, Jazzi started cleaning. She picked me up from school on Wednesday and we went straight to the supermarket, but not to buy food. Jazzi piled her trolley high with cleaning products. There was carpet spotter, floor polish, bench cleaner, glass cleaner and mould buster.

  ‘We don’t need all this,’ I told her. ‘Honest, Jazzi, I wouldn’t waste your money. Dad and I have never cleaned that much.’

  ‘I know,’ she answered, rather grimly I thought, as she added furniture polish, ‘but we will, Beatrice. You and I will clean that poor house until it shines.’

  She actually looked pleased about it, as though she’d announced a holiday at the beach instead of a cleaning frenzy.

  ‘I don’t think I can help,’ I said. ‘I think I might be allergic to all this ... stuff. I think I come out in spots. That’s probably why we don’t do so much cleaning. So, Jazzi, I think we should just put it all back and buy some ice-cream instead.’

  Jazzi just snorted.

  ‘I just don’t see the point,’ I said later, when we’d lifted every last thing off the kitchen bench and she was spraying it viciously. ‘It’s not as if our food touches this. Why can’t we just wipe around the things?’

  ‘Beatrice, I know your breakfast toast was in direct contact with this bench this morning.’

  ‘Only for a minute, just until I remembered the plate. Shall I clean out the toaster then?’

  ‘Over the sink, please, and pull the crumb tray out. I’m sure that hasn’t been done for years.’

  A mountain of crumbs fell into the sink. And Jazzi was right, it had been a long time. There were a couple of raisins in it and we only had raisin toast in winter. I gave the toaster a little tap, just to make sure there weren’t more raisins sticking to the bottom and out fell something wriggly.

  I screamed and nearly dropped the toaster. ‘It’s alive!’

  ‘My heavens,’ Jazzi said peering at the thing, ‘it looks like a very hairy centipede. Quick, Beatrice, pop a glass over it. Don’t let it go down the plughole.’

  ‘You’re mad. I’m not touching it.’

  Jazzi slammed a glass over The Thing and we both watched it move all its hairy legs wildly as it scurried around, trying to get out. Then Jazzi got a piece of card and slipped it quickly between The Hairy-legged Thing and the sink, flipped it up, knocked the card and The Thing was trapped in the bottom of the glass.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I backed away. How could Jazzi trap this thing but not want to hold Lulu or Fifi? She was plain weird.

  ‘I want to show your dad.’ Jazzi grinned at me and she looked younger. ‘This could be the last of the Toasterpedes, Beatrice. It may even be a new discovery. How many people do you know who have a Toasterpede? Let’s put him – or her – somewhere very safe. We don’t want to knock him over.’

  I had hoped that the Toasterpede would put Jazzi off her cleaning. After all, if that could live in our toaster, which was used every day, what could be at the bottom of the pantry? But nothing put Jazzi off.

  I had to do the cupboard doors while Jazzi scrubbed the microwave.

  ‘The problem with doing this,’ I said, ‘is that if I don’t do all of them the clean ones are going to look too clean.’

  ‘So you’ll do all of them.’ Jazzi had abandoned the scourer and was attacking the inside of the microwave with a small plastic picnic knife.

  ‘I suppose that could be the answer,’ I told her bottom which waggled from side to side as she jabbed around with the knife, ‘but I think my elbow is starting to ache.’

  ‘Just keep going, Beatrice.’

  There were stains that it almost hurt to remove, because they were part of my life. Like the bit of my last birthday cake when Dad dropped the chocolate he’d burnt in the microwave. I thought about mentioning to Jazzi that we weren’t just cleaning cupboards but cleaning out my memories, but her bottom looked too fierce.

  When I’d done the cupboards, we stacked the chairs on the kitchen table and Jazzi swept up, with me following with the dustpan and brush.

  ‘I think we’re doing this too soon. After all, Jazzi, you haven’t even cooked for the dinner party, so there’ll be more dropped things on the floor after that. Wouldn’t it be better to do the floors after the dinner party?’

  ‘I don’t drop things when I cook.’ Jazzi turned around so suddenly that the dustpan fell out of my hands. She pressed her lips together until they went white.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just that you startled me. Sorry. I’ll clean it up.’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  Jazzi had tucked her hair up in a purple bandana that went with her checked trousers. The back of her neck was all sweaty. She scrubbed the floor with a scrubbing brush, starting at the kitchen sink and working her way back, past the table and chairs and right to the hallway carpet. Some of the dark streaks on our lino tiles turned out to be dirt, but some were definitely part of the swirly pattern.

  She was going to do the fridge, but when we pulled out some old pineapple in an ancient tin, Jazzi shook her head.

  ‘We should recycle,’ she said, ‘but this is a biochemical hazard.’ And she marched it straight to the outside bin with some old jars of dubious jam.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she announced when she came back in. ‘I think we deserve a break, Beatrice. See if you can find anything nice in the freezer.’

  There were four chocolate ice-cream bars in the freezer. We ate two and watched TV while we waited for Dad to come home and admire our work.

  He thought the Toasterpede might be one of a kind, but we let it out into the front garden just in case there was another one lurking around.

  ‘Won’t it be a bit cold for it,’ I asked. ‘After all, it’s used to living in the toaster.’

  ‘I think if it can survive that, it must be pretty tough,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a clear night,’ Jazzi said, linking her arm through Dad’s a
nd looking up. ‘Look, Beatrice, can you see the Southern Cross?’

  ‘And the Saucepan,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that reminds me, Nick. Can I get rid of a couple of your saucepans? We simply don’t have room for them all and mine are copper-bottomed, much better for conducting heat.’

  ‘Anything you want, Jazzi.’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’

  I thought they were going to kiss then so I yawned loudly and went inside.

  Jazzi didn’t only clean for the big dinner. She spread cookbooks across the kitchen table and discussed different meals endlessly.

  ‘Can’t we just get pizza?’ I was sick of hearing about food I’d never heard of before.

  ‘You can’t go wrong with a roast,’ Dad said helpfully. ‘Everyone loves a roast.’

  ‘Harley doesn’t. He won’t eat anything that bleeds.’

  ‘Pizza doesn’t bleed,’ I said, ‘and you can get pineapple on the vegetarian if you ask.’

  ‘I can’t decide between Italian – Harley could have cannelloni then, or something more Eastern fusion – a kind of soba noodle salad with ginger sauce and maybe some sushi.’

  ‘Italian sounds more ... filling,’ Dad said.

  ‘Pizza’s Italian,’ I said. ‘Couldn’t we have pizza? I miss pizza.’

  ‘Bee, put pizza right out of your head, okay. There will be no pizza on Saturday night.’

  The good thing about Jazzi living with us was that she called me Bee more than she used to.

  I helped her set the table on Saturday afternoon. She found a silver candelabra at the back of one of our cupboards and put it in the centre of the crisp white tablecloth. She’d bought flowers – expensive daisies that had to be wired by the florist so their pale pink heads didn’t droop.

  Each place was set with one of Jazzi’s old plates, and she used her cutlery, which matched and was smarter than ours, although stranger too, with odd big-bladed knives, and forks that had only three prongs. Her champagne flutes were dark red with spiralling stems.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I said after we’d folded her thick napkins into crowns and put them at everyone’s place. ‘It’s just beautiful.’

  She smiled at me and put her arm around my shoulders. ‘We’ve done well,’ she said.

  ‘Magnificent,’ Dad said coming up behind us and putting his arms around both of us. ‘I can’t remember the last time this table was extended. It must have been years ago, when your mother was alive, Bee, probably Christmas time. Lindy loved Christmas.’

  I wondered if Jazzi minded Dad mentioning Mum like that. It would be hard loving someone who had loved someone else before you. You’d know all the time that they’d loved the other person and missed them. You might feel second-best. Kind of the way I feel when Lucy plays with me and I know it’s only because Sally’s away sick.

  ‘It’s Jazzi’s dinner,’ I said to him when I could get him alone for a minute. ‘I don’t think you should talk about Mum.’

  ‘I didn’t talk about her, Bee.’

  ‘You did, Dad, you mentioned her. I don’t think you should tonight.’

  ‘I’m sure Jazzi didn’t mind, Bee. I doubt that she even noticed. I hardly noticed myself.’

  But Jazzi had noticed. I was certain of that. Sometimes Dad just didn’t pay quite enough attention.

  The dinner

  Just before seven o’clock, Jazzi lit the candles. She wore a silky top with flowers on it almost the exact pink of the daisies, and she’d brushed her hair up to a knot on the top of her head, combed her eyebrows and put on dark red glittery earrings. She’d persuaded Dad to change out of his weekend work-around-the-house clothes into a soft, dark blue shirt I’d never seen before. I felt drab beside them, still in my jeans and a t-shirt that was almost too small for me.

  ‘Come on, Bee,’ Jazzi said, looking me up and down. ‘Do you want me to do your hair?’

  ‘Well, okay, if you don’t pull it.’ Dad always pulled at it when he tried to brush out the knots and it hurt worse than almost anything.

  ‘I won’t. I’ll do it in little bunches and we’ll have a look through your wardrobe. I think I’ve seen a lovely skirt in there which would be just the thing for dinner.’

  I didn’t have time to wonder how she’d seen skirts in my wardrobe, because within seconds it seemed she’d brushed my hair, holding it at the roots the way you have to, and wound it into little balls above my ears. Then she’d found the skirt, one that Nanna had bought me that I’d forgotten about because it was for going out, and, without my having to ask her, turned her back while I slipped it on.

  ‘Hold on one moment, Bee, you just need something over that t-shirt. Wait here.’ And Jazzi vanished, leaving me to look at my hair in the mirror. It looked good. She’d just wound it around so that it looked like little shells. I was worried that it might fall out and shook my head fiercely a couple of times but the shells stayed put.

  ‘Here,’ Jazzi said, ‘I think this is just the extra touch your outfit needs, and then I’ve got this for your hair.’

  She threw a lacey poncho over my head. It was decorated with blue and pink velvet flowers at the front. I touched them and they were just as soft as they looked. The flower that went into one of my hair-shells was the same blue.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Jazzi said, ‘just beautiful. Look at that, Bee. You are gorgeous. And the blue matches your dad’s shirt. I just love it when things work like that, don’t you?’

  I’d never thought of clothes working before. They either fitted or they didn’t. Or you liked them or you didn’t – although often I wasn’t really sure if I liked something until someone else did. Or it would turn out that I liked something wrong – like the dress with the sash that I begged Nanna to buy and Sally laughed at so I couldn’t ever wear it.

  But when I went back out to the table all set up in the dining nook, the wired daisies with their big faces, the glasses glittering in the candlelight and Dad opening a bottle of wine to breathe while Jazzi put a basket of bread on the table, I thought I knew what she meant. For just those moments we could have been a family in a film.

  Then the new doorbell pealed out and our guests arrived.

  Nanna and Stan were first, of course. Stan had combed his moustache so it draped neatly around his mouth. Nanna had lipstick on and I hoped she’d only kiss me lightly so I wouldn’t have to scrub it off.

  ‘Doesn’t your hair look lovely, Bee, and what a pretty poncho. Jazzi, that pink suits you. How are you, my dear? Nick, you’re looking relaxed!’ Nanna bustled through. ‘I wasn’t sure what to bring, Jazzi, so in the end I just brought this. A silly hostess gift, I know, quite ridiculous really, but there you are. I thought you might like it.’

  ‘Oh, my god, Patricia. A knitting magazine. How wonderful.’

  ‘It’s the latest from America,’ Nanna said. ‘Sorry, Nick dear, but Stan brought wine, of course.’

  ‘I did. Good wine, Nick. Good wine to go with the good food this delightful girl will have cooked for us.’

  The doorbell went again and this time I opened it as Jazzi and Nanna were still flipping through the pages oohing and aahing and Dad and Stan were talking about wine.

  ‘Hello, darling Beatrice.’ Rowena, Jazzi’s best friend, was standing at the door.

  ‘It’s Bee,’ I said. If Jazzi was going to be living here, her best friend had better know the right thing to call me.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Jazzi always says Beatrice.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m retraining her,’ I whispered. I liked Rowena. She had short, spikey hair and wore smudged dark eyeliner so she looked like an exotic panda. She was a textile artist and sold her stuff, and sometimes Jazzi’s dolls, at markets. Sam loomed behind her.

  ‘Bee,’ he said. ‘Yes, I thought it was. That’s what your Dad always calls you.’

  Sam was a teacher. They’re trained to listen for that kind of thing, so I wasn’t surprised.

  Then Uncle Rob arrived with Aunty Maree and everyone crowded into the dinin
g nook exclaiming over the flowers and what everyone else was wearing and Dad and Stan poured wine and I had lemonade.

  ‘Well,’ Uncle Rob said when we all had our glasses filled, ‘I think we should have a toast: To Nick and Jazzi – health, happiness and love.’

  ‘We can’t toast yet,’ I said. ‘Harley’s not here.’

  ‘Who’s Harley?’

  ‘My brother,’ Jazzi said not looking at anyone.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother, Jazzi,’ Rowena said and I could tell she was upset.

  ‘We don’t see each other very often,’ Jazzi said. ‘You’ll know why. If he shows up.’

  Just as she said that, the front door pealed again.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Jazzi said quickly. ‘You all sit down at the table.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Rowena said looking around us all. ‘I thought she was an only child. I’ve known Jazzi for nearly seven years and I didn’t know she had a brother.’

  ‘Ssh,’ Sam said, ‘it’s okay.’

  ‘Everyone,’ Jazzi said, ‘this is Harley. Harley...’

  ‘This is Everyone. Hello, Everyone. I hope I’m not late. I’ll sit here, thanks Jasmine, I like to be able to see out.’ He pulled out the seat next to me, sat down and then almost immediately got up again. ‘Did Everyone see my t-shirt?’

  His t-shirt was black and had the word ‘Neurotic’ written right across it in old-fashioned curly writing.

  ‘Yes,’ Uncle Rob said, ‘they’re a band of some sort, aren’t they?’

  ‘It’s a mental condition,’ Harley corrected him. ‘I just want you to know that I don’t have it. It’s not what I have. In case anyone was wondering.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ Sam said, ‘but I think most people are a bit neurotic, aren’t they?’