The Beekeeper's Secret

by Josephine Moon

  ‘Do not be sorry. Not for a second. None of this is your fault.’

  Maria snorted. ‘Except for killing the priest.’

  Tansy barked out laughter. ‘Yes, except for that.’ Then she straightened her shoulders. ‘Are you ready? Let’s go.’

  As soon as they stepped out of the car and onto the ochre-painted concrete driveway, a volley of high-pitched barking assaulted Maria’s ears. On either side of the driveway were rose bushes, the leaves starting to look a little bedraggled, as was normal in winter, but still with a few orange and pink blooms bobbing in the sunshine, and a good shape to each bush. Enid must have a green thumb too, Maria thought, and the idea warmed her, that they might have this in common.

  Next door, young children ran around the front yard in sports clothes—soccer outfits, perhaps—and paused only brief ly to observe Maria and Tansy. The front door of Enid’s house opened; inside stood a man, muttering to the cinnamon-coloured flurries at his feet, telling them to be quiet. Finlay. It must be. Maria couldn’t stop the smile that sprang to her lips.

  He opened the door further, welcoming Tansy, and then stopped and stared at Maria. His jaw, which must once have been set and strong in his youth, seemed unsure of itself as his eyes slid back to Tansy and widened.

  Maria’s heart sank. ‘You didn’t know I was coming either,’ she said.

  ‘Dad, this is Maria,’ Tansy said, and then leaned forward to kiss Finlay’s cheek, effectively pushing him back into the house. Maria waited on the bristled doormat that proclaimed Welcome.

  Finlay found his manners. ‘Maria, please, come inside.’ He bent down stiffly and swept up one of the dogs, which was still emitting an occasional yap of discontent, stood aside for her to enter. She took a breath, and crossed the threshold.

  Tansy looked around the lounge room. ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘She’s just in the study, on the phone to Paula. She’ll be out in a moment, I’m sure.’ He put the dog down; both dogs moved to sniff Maria’s feet, and then, deciding she was safe, ran to Tansy to jump at her legs and lick her hands. Eventually, satisfied, they retired to their dog bed—a large tartan-covered oval basket near a glass cabinet—and curled up together.

  Maria stood clutching her handbag, watching Tansy for guidance. Her niece headed to the couch and beckoned Maria over too.

  ‘Yes, please make yourself comfortable,’ Finlay said, going to the open-plan kitchen nearby. ‘Would you both like some tea?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Tansy said.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Maria said, feeling it was the polite thing to do.

  Tansy asked her father a few questions, about his week and about the dogs, while he boiled the kettle and collected mugs.

  ‘Maria, how do you take your tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Black’s fine.’ Then she grappled with the clasp of her handbag. ‘I brought you some honey. Do you like honey?’

  ‘Sometimes on toast.’

  ‘Good, because this is wonderful honey. It comes from my own bees. I’m a beekeeper. I love the bees. They work so hard.’ She stood and offered the jar of amber-coloured nectar to Finlay. She was nervous, she realised, prattling on about bees. More nervous than she’d been confessing to George. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  ‘Most people don’t realise that bees ingest the nectar from the flowers and then take it back to the hive, where they regurgitate it and mix it with enzymes in their saliva, and this is the start of honey. But there’s such a high water content that it would ferment if left that way, so they have to fan it with their wings to evaporate most of the water.’

  Finlay was nodding, murmuring. He seemed interested. Of course he was interested. These were facts and people liked facts. Facts were solid ground. Neutral.

  ‘And they keep the hive at thirty-six degrees. Isn’t that amazing? They’re insects. Cold-blooded. Yet they know how to regulate temperature. It’s astounding.’

  Heavens. She should have done a decade or two of the rosary in the car on the way down to calm herself instead of reliving all that history. The past—it caused all sorts of difficulties. As did worrying about the future. That was why the Buddhists were so keen on meditation and training the mind to be nowhere else but in the present.

  Let go and let God.

  Finlay took the jar from her and thanked her. ‘Would you like some now in your tea?’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ she said, not knowing why, since she never had honey in her tea. It just seemed the thing to say. This was dreadful. It was all so stilted and awkward and overly polite and Tansy had just forced her on them and Enid hadn’t even made an appearance yet. Her heart began to pound. She clenched her hands together, knotting her fingers. She looked over at Tansy, desperate. But Tansy, with her elegant aqua scarf at her neck and her smooth, clear skin and her youthful optimism, had no idea that coming here had been a colossal error of judgement.

  ‘Tansy, I think maybe this was a mistake . . .’

  But it was too late. Enid had entered the room.

  Here we go.

  Tansy stood and faced Enid, who was on the other side of the couch. ‘Mum, hi.’

  But her mother didn’t respond. Her stocky body was rigid. Her face pale and stiff. Her eyes dark recesses beneath her brow. She was staring across the room at Maria.

  The dogs lifted their heads and watched Enid. And there were several full seconds of absolute stillness and silence, except for the rumbling kettle on the bench, nearing boiling point.

  Maria, who normally seemed so together and strong, looked small and vulnerable. Yet, seeing them both in the same room together, Tansy couldn’t help but notice the similarities between them. Maria was thinner, wiry from so many years of hard physical labour, while Enid had a rounded belly from bearing two babies. But around the eyes, the nose, the mouth, you could tell they were sisters. A mix of emotions swept across her mother’s face—apprehension, bewilderment, interest, fear.

  ‘M-Maria?’ Enid said, her voice stumbling in confusion. ‘Is that really you?’

  Maria nodded, and her eyes brightened with sudden emotion. Tansy’s heart soared—maybe this would be a beautiful reunion after all.

  But her mother hadn’t moved. She was still clutching the phone in her hand, and had brought it to her chest.

  ‘Mum, I hope it’s okay, I brought Maria down here today to see you because . . .’ Tansy trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence. ‘Come and sit down and have some tea. Please.’

  Enid looked at her now, as though she’d only just realised that her daughter was in the room. She nodded dumbly, and Tansy guided her to the couch. Shock was a good thing, perhaps. At least Enid hadn’t spontaneously combusted.

  ‘And Maria, please come and sit down too,’ Tansy said. Finlay returned to making the tea and Maria crept to the couch opposite.

  Tansy’s shoulders were stiff, waiting for the yelling. Maybe some more slapping.

  But then Enid began to talk, jumping straight to the deepest wound she’d carried for so long. ‘Why didn’t you come to Mum’s funeral?’ she asked, her voice thick with all the complex emotions that made up grief.

  Maria seemed to search for the right words, unaware that Finlay had placed a mug in front of her. ‘I wanted to punish myself,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t deserve to go. I’d ruined everything, for you, Mum, Florrie maybe. I’d stolen from the church because I thought I knew best.’ She broke down then, and Tansy rushed for a box of tissues and placed them beside her on the couch.

  Enid waited a moment, then spoke again. ‘What do you mean, you stole from the church?’

  Tansy held Maria’s hand and spoke for her, filling Enid in as best she could from what Maria had said in the car on the way down.

  Maria nodded to confirm the story. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘But how could we not know this?’

  ‘I bought silence by giving myself to the church.’

  ‘But that’s . . . I don’t understand.’
>
  Maria explained their mother’s reasoning.

  Enid shook her head, confounded. ‘I can’t believe she thought the church would have abandoned us.’

  Maria took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I’m saddened to say that I think she was right. The church was a much harsher place then than it is now. It had more power, more control over people’s lives. I’ve seen it do some awful things, firsthand.’

  Enid sat still, clearly stunned. Tansy could almost hear her idealistic notions of the church shattering around her. ‘But we thought you’d abandoned the family, chosen the convent over us. First when you joined the sisters and then when you didn’t come to the funeral. Like you thought you were better than us. That you didn’t care.’

  Maria shook her head. ‘There hasn’t been a day in my life I haven’t thought of you all.’

  Enid leaned back with her hand over her mouth, staring from Maria to Tansy. Then she sprang forward again. ‘But you’ve been out of the convent for years, haven’t you? Why didn’t you come and find us?’

  Maria wiped her nose and took a deep breath, then blew it out steadily. ‘I wanted to hide away,’ she said slowly. ‘I thought I didn’t deserve a family. I’d done something bad and needed to . . .’ she searched for the right word, ‘repent. I needed to show God that I knew what I’d done was very serious and that I was willing to spend the rest of my life atoning for it.’

  Enid shook her head, confused and even sceptical. ‘I don’t understand. Didn’t you pay for taking the money with your service to the church?’

  ‘Yes, but there was something else.’

  Tansy held her breath, waiting.

  ‘Back in the seventies, I made a choice to help some children. But to do that, I committed a crime.’

  Enid laughed, incredulous. ‘Another crime? More stealing?’ She was getting nervous, Tansy could tell, sensing something bigger and more appalling was to come.

  ‘I got away with this second crime.’ Maria’s voice was steady now. She’d told this story so many times it almost felt like safe territory. ‘But I knew I still needed to pay for my actions. So I stayed on as a sister in order to serve the people who needed me, even though I’d lost all respect for the church. I stayed for another twenty years.’ She paused.

  ‘That’s why you stayed,’ Tansy said, satisfied to finally know the answer.

  ‘Twenty years was the term I thought fitting for my crime,’ Maria said, continuing to address Enid. ‘When that time was up, I left. But I couldn’t face you or Florrie. I just wanted to keep helping people until I died, alone.’

  ‘Twenty years?’ Enid’s face scrunched up in bewilderment. ‘But that’s ridiculous. The only people who serve twenty years in jail are murderers.’ She laughed again, thinly. ‘And you’re not a murderer, are you?’

  Tansy and Maria exchanged a glance. Finlay sat frozen in his chair, watching.

  Enid’s face fell. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes, dear, I’m sorry to say I am.’

  They talked late into the evening and ordered home-delivered pizzas and garlic bread. There were tears from everyone, even Finlay, as hundreds of questions were answered and decades of lost time and memories were explained and shared. Enid took the news of the murder better than Tansy had thought she might—but perhaps she was just too overwhelmed to process it fully. They all agreed that they were much too tired to phone Florrie and try to explain, but that it should happen first thing tomorrow. Enid apologised profusely to Tansy for slapping her and begged her forgiveness. And then, when all the words had finally dried up, and everyone was wrung out completely, Enid made up the guest bedroom and insisted that Tansy and Maria stay the night, which they did, gratefully, sleeping side by side in the queen ensemble. Maria snored. And Tansy dreamed, truly peaceful for the first night in weeks.

  34

  The next morning, Maria tentatively asked if Enid would be going to church.

  ‘I think I might skip it just this once. These are rather extraordinary circumstances,’ she said, glancing at Finlay and passing the milk to Maria to pour on her porridge. ‘Do you have to get back up the mountain straight away?’ she asked, a hint of insecurity in her voice.

  ‘No, for once. I have my assistant, Petrice, looking after the group. And they’re all leaving today so I’m sure she can manage to get them fed and out the door. I can help with the washing and cleaning when I get home.’

  ‘Would you like to stay another day?’ Enid said. ‘I could ask Florrie to come down from the coast, and we could tell her everything—together this time, so it’s not as difficult for you.’

  Over her cereal bowl, Tansy listened, glowing with pleasure.

  ‘Tansy? Do you need to get going?’ her mother asked. ‘Because Florrie could always drive Maria home later today.’

  Tansy hesitated, unsure whether they were all ready to be left alone together so early in their reunion. They were on their best behaviour now, but what if it all went sour quickly? And what if Florrie didn’t take the news as well as Enid had?

  ‘It’s okay.’ Maria smiled at her as if reading her mind. ‘I’d like to stay. I almost never take a day off and, as Enid says, there are rather extraordinary circumstances right now.’

  ‘Alright, if you’re sure. But just call me if you need me.’

  ‘Oh, stop fussing,’ Enid said. ‘She’s a grown woman.’

  ‘Okay then,’ Tansy agreed, and departed soon after, leaving the women to explore Enid’s garden together while continuing to talk about the past.

  Belle phoned while she was driving, and Tansy took the call on her hands-free device. ‘What’s happened? How are you? How’s Hamish?’

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ Belle said, sounding infinitely more relaxed and happy than Tansy had heard her in a long time. ‘I took Hamish back to our doctor and asked for a referral to a specialist, and he gave me the usual rubbish about him eventually growing out of it and so on. But then he weighed him and because Hamish had actually lost weight, he finally took it seriously.’

  Tansy tsked, indicating and moving into the overtaking lane to pass a heavily loaded Kombi van crawling along with its windows down and the long hair of its passengers streaking out into the wind. ‘Why do they have to wait until things are so bad before they’ll do something?’

  ‘Still, he was reluctant to give me a referral, saying the specialist would want to do an endoscopy with a general anaesthetic and it likely wouldn’t show anything anyway. I was crazy mad at this point and just kept firing questions—could we change the reflux medication he was on, could we try another formula, and so on. And then he reached into the cupboard behind him and pulled out a different tin of hypoallergenic formula—the best one you can get; it has to be prescribed by a gastric surgeon. But he had the sample so he said, “Here, try that. But I don’t think it will help.”

  ‘I took it anyway, and because Hamish had refused everything all morning, I made up a bottle in the car and he refused it of course, because he’s just so scared to eat now, but then, I don’t know if he could smell it or what, but he tried it, and I swear I didn’t breathe for three minutes, but he kept going. He drained the bottle and has been eating like a horse ever since.’

  ‘What a relief. So is that it then? Will he just stay on that?’

  ‘I’ll have to go back to the GP tomorrow. I guess we’ll still need a referral to the surgeon, because he’s the only one that can prescribe it.’

  ‘That’s frustrating. But still, what an amazing turnaround.’ In the background, Hamish began to kick up a fuss.

  ‘Oh, here we go again,’ Belle said, and Tansy could hear the grin in her voice. ‘My bubba is hungry.’

  Tansy cheered. ‘You better go then. And keep me posted.’

  She ended the call with a smile; things were on the up for Belle. Not only that, her mother and Maria, somewhat unbelievably, were getting on and rebuilding some sort of relationship. Florrie would be joining them today and, hopefully, the reconciliation would continue smoothl
y.

  On top of that, she’d also found Maria a good lawyer, who gave Tansy a sense of hope that somehow it might all be okay. Maybe Maria would only have to go to jail for a short time. Maybe the judge would suspend her sentence due to her age and on account of her lifelong service to the community. There was always hope.

  Jordan and Katarina had uncertain times ahead but, fortunately, a strong relationship to fall back on. She was sad to think of Rose and Sam heading for a divorce; Sam had always been a quiet but reliable presence in her family’s life and Tansy would miss him. And of course her mother and father still had some things to work through too, but she was feeling optimistic about that now as well. Leo was leaving uni, but at least he had left his options open and could always go back, and Dougal would come to terms with that eventually.

  Dougal.

  With over an hour to go up the highway, there was a lot of time to reflect on Dougal’s offer. She didn’t want to lose him. Whatever they chose to do, her marriage was her highest priority.

  But she did want a baby. Deep down, she knew it. Yes, she could have a wonderful life without one. But to have the chance? It suddenly struck her, with both dispiriting and amusing clarity, that maybe she’d become a children’s bedroom designer because she wanted to live out that fantasy. Huh. Maybe she was getting some wisdom along with turning thirty.

  One thing was for sure, it was impossible for her and Dougal to sort this out when they were on opposite sides of the world. And if he was magnanimous enough to make this choice for her, for their marriage, then at the very least she should be booking a flight to Canada as soon as possible. She needed to be with him. She didn’t want to go to Toronto, but then she was pretty sure that, despite what he’d said, Dougal didn’t want a baby.

  When they’d made their vows in St Columba’s they’d promised to cherish each other above all else. Everything else had to come second to that—locations, children, her parents, her aunt, and the throes of a legal crisis. Their marriage came first.

  So it was decided. As soon as she got home to the apartment, lovely and warm from absorbing the morning’s beaming winter sunshine, she booked her flight. She would leave in a week.