Little Bee

by Chris Cleave

  I walked all morning. The buildings got bigger and heavier. The streets got wider and busier. I stared at everything, and I did not mind the hunger in my stomach or the aching in my legs because I was amazed by each new wonder. Each time I saw something for the first time—a nearly naked girl on an advertising billboard, or a red double-decker bus, or a glittering building so tall it made you dizzy—the excitement in my stomach was so fierce it hurt. The noise was too much—the roar of the traffic and the shouting. Soon there were such crowds on the streets that it seemed I was nothing. I was pushed and bumped all over the pavements, and no one took any notice of me. I kept on walking as straight as I could, following one street and then another, and just as the buildings got so big it seemed they could not possibly stand up, and the noise got so loud it seemed as if my body would be shaken to pieces, I turned a corner and I gasped and ran across one last busy road, with car horns blasting and the drivers screaming, and I leaned over a low white stone wall and stared and stared, because there in front of me was the River Thames. Boats were pushing along through the muddy brown water, honking their horns under the bridges. All along the river to the left and the right, there were huge towers that rose high into the blue sky. Some were still being built, with huge yellow cranes moving above them. They even trained the birds of the air to help them build? Weh!

  I stayed there on the bank of the river and I stared and stared at these marvels. The sun shone out of the bright blue sky. It was warm, and a soft breeze blew along the bank of the river. I whispered to my sister Nkiruka, because it seemed to me that she was there in the flowing of the river and the blowing of the breeze.

  “Look at this place, sister. We are going to be all right here. There will be room for two girls like us in a country as fine as this. We are not going to suffer anymore.”

  I smiled, and I walked away down the embankment of the river, in the direction of the west. I knew that if I followed along the bank, I would get to Kingston—that is why they call it Kingston-upon-Thames. I wanted to get there as quick as I could, because now the crowds in London were starting to frighten me. In my village we never saw more than fifty people in one place. If you ever saw more than that, it meant that you had died and gone to the city of the spirits. That is where the dead go, to a city, to live together in their thousands because they do not need the space to grow their fields of cassava. When you are dead you are not hungry for cassava, only for company.

  A million people were all around me. Their faces hurried past. I looked and looked. I never saw the faces of my family but when you have lost everyone, you never lose the habit of looking. My sister, my mother, my father and my uncle. Every face I see, I am looking for them in it. If I did meet you then the first thing you would have noticed would have been my eyes staring at your face, as if they were trying to see someone else in you, as if they were desperate to make you into a ghost. If we did meet, I hope you did not take this personally.

  I hurried along the river embankment, through the crowds, through my memories, through this city of the dead. Once, beside a tall stone needle engraved with strange symbols, my legs burned and I needed to rest, so I stood still for a moment and the dead flowed around me, like the muddy brown Thames flowing around the pillar of a bridge.

  If I was telling this story to the girls from back home, I would have to explain to them how it was possible to be drowning in a river of people and also to feel so very, very alone. But truly, I do not think I would have the words.

  EARLY ON THE MORNING of Andrew’s funeral, before Little Bee arrived, I remember looking down from the bedroom window of our house in Kingston-upon-Thames. Out by the pond, Batman was poking at baddies with a plastic junior golf club, looking skinny and forlorn. I wondered if I should warm up some milk and make him a cup of something. I remember wondering if there was anything that could be put into a cup that would actually be of practical help. My mind was set in that crystalline, self-conscious state that comes with lack of sleep.

  Beyond our garden I could see the whole street’s back gardens, curving away like a bent green spine, with barbecues and faded plastic swings for vertebrae. Through the double glazing came the braying of a car alarm and the drone of planes climbing out of Heathrow. I pressed my nose against the glass and I thought: these bloody suburbs are purgatory. How did we all wash up here? How did so many of us end up so very far downwind?

  In the garden next door, on that morning of the funeral, my neighbor was hanging out his blue Y-fronts to dry. His cat was curling around his legs. In my bedroom the Today Programme was on the radio. John Humphrys said the FTSE was rather badly down.

  Yes, but I have lost my husband. I said it out loud, while a trapped fly flew feebly at the windowpane. I said: My husband is dead, I’m afraid. My husband, Andrew O’Rourke, the celebrated columnist, has taken his own life. And I feel …

  Actually I didn’t know how I felt. We don’t have a grown-up language for grief. Daytime shows do it much better. I knew I ought to feel devastated, of course. My life had fallen apart. Isn’t that the phrase? But Andrew had been dead nearly a whole week now and here I still was, dry-eyed, with the whole house reeking of gin and lilies. Still trying to feel appropriately sad. Still drilling down through the memories of my short, mixed life with poor Andrew. Searching for the capstone, the memory which when cracked would release some symptom of anguish. Tears, perhaps, under unbelievable pressure. All of this would have been easier on daytime TV: My life entered a vicious downhill spiral, Trisha. I couldn’t imagine getting through the day without him.

  It was exhausting, prospecting for grief like this, unsure if grief was even there to be found. Perhaps it was just too soon. For the moment I felt more pity for a trapped fly that buzzed against the window. I opened the latch and out it flew, vulnerable and weak, back in the game.

  On the other side of the glass, the day smelled of summer. My neighbor had shuffled along his washing line, three feet to the left. He’d finished pegging Y-fronts. Now he was on to socks. His washing hung like prayer flags, petitioning daytime gods: I seem to have moved to the suburbs, I’m afraid. Can anything be done?

  A thought of escape presented itself, rascalish and unannounced. I could simply leave, right now, couldn’t I? I could take Charlie, my credit card and my favorite pink shoes and we could all get on a plane together. The house and the job and the grief would all shrink to a point behind me. I remember realizing, with a guilty thrill, that there was no longer one single reason for me to be here—far from the center of my heart, cast away here in its suburbs.

  But life is not inclined to let any of us escape. That was the moment I heard a knock at the door. I opened the door to Little Bee, and for the longest time I simply stared at her. Neither of us spoke. After a few moments I let her in and I sat her down on the sofa. Black girl in a red-and-white Hawaiian shirt, stained by the Surrey clay. Sofa from Habitat. Memories from hell.

  —I don’t know what to say. I thought you must be dead.

  —I am not dead, Sarah. Maybe it would be better if I was.

  —Don’t say that. You look very tired. You need some rest, I should think.

  There was a silence that went on too long.

  —Yes. You are right. I need some rest.

  —How on earth did you … I mean, how did you survive? How did you get here?

  —I walked.

  —From Nigeria?

  —Please. I am very tired.

  —Oh. Yes. Of course. Yes. Would you like a cup of, you know …

  I didn’t wait for the answer. I fled. I left Little Bee sitting on the sofa, propped up on the John Lewis cushions, and I ran upstairs. I closed my eyes and rolled my forehead against the cool glass of the bedroom window. I dialed someone. A friend. More than a friend, actually. That’s what Lawrence was.

  “What is it?” said Lawrence.

  “You sound cross.”

  “Oh. Sarah. It’s you. God I’m sorry. I thought you were the nanny. She’s late. And the baby�
�s just been sick on my tie. Shit.”

  “Something’s happened, Lawrence.”

  “What?”

  “Someone’s turned up I really wasn’t expecting.”

  “Funerals are always like that. All the old skeletons come theatrically out of their closets. You can’t keep the bastards away.”

  “Yes of course, but this is more than that. It’s, it’s …”

  I stammered away and fell silent.

  “Sorry Sarah, I know this sounds awful, but I’m in a terrible rush here. Is it something I can actually help with?”

  I pressed my flushed face against the cold glass. “Sorry. I’m a bit confused.”

  “It’s the funeral. You’re going to feel a bit scatty, aren’t you? I’m sorry, but there’s no way around that. I wish you’d let me come. How are you feeling about it all?”

  “About the funeral?”

  “About the whole situation.”

  I sighed.

  “I don’t feel anything. I feel numb.”

  “Oh Sarah.”

  “I’m just waiting for the undertaker now. I’m slightly nervous, maybe. That’s all. Like waiting at the dentist’s.”

  “Right,” said Lawrence, carefully.

  A pause. In the background, the sound of Lawrence’s children squabbling at the breakfast table. I realized I couldn’t tell Lawrence about Little Bee turning up. Not now. It suddenly didn’t seem fair, to add it to his list of problems. Late for work, baby sick on tie, tardy nanny … oh, and now a presumed-dead Nigerian girl, resurrected on his mistress’s sofa. I didn’t think I could do that to him. Because this is the thing, with being lovers. It isn’t like being married. To remain in the game, one has to be considerate. One has to acknowledge a certain right-to-life of the other. So I stayed silent. I listened to Lawrence taking a deep breath, on the edge of exasperation.

  “So what’s confusing you? Is it that you’re not feeling anything much and you think you should be?”

  “It’s my husband’s funeral. I should be sad, at least.”

  “You’re in control of yourself. You’re not a gusher. Celebrate that.”

  “I can’t cry for Andrew. I keep thinking about that day in Africa. On the beach.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought we agreed it was best that you forget all that. What happened, happened. We agreed that you were just going to move on, didn’t we. Hmm?”

  I pressed my left hand flat against the windowpane and stared at the stump of my lost finger.

  “I don’t think moving on is going to work anymore, Lawrence. I don’t think I can just continue to deny what happened. I don’t think I’ll be able to. I …”

  My voice trailed off.

  “Sarah? Deep breaths.”

  I opened my eyes. Outside, Batman was still poking fiercely at the pond. The Today Programme scolded away on the radio. Next door the neighbor had finished pegging his washing and now he simply stood there, eyes half-closed. Soon he would move on to a new task: the percolation of coffee, perhaps, or the application of replacement twine to the spool of a string trimmer. Small problems. Neat problems.

  “Now that Andrew’s, well, gone, Lawrence. Do you think you and I will be …”

  A pause on the other end of the phone. Then Lawrence—careful Lawrence—noncommittal.

  “Andrew didn’t stop us while he was alive,” he said. “Do you see any reason to change things now?”

  I sighed again.

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes?”

  “Just focus on today for now, will you? Focus on the funeral, hold it together, get through today. Stop smearing that fucking toast on the computer!”

  “Lawrence?”

  “Sorry. That was the baby. He’s got a piece of buttered toast and he’s wiping it all over … sorry, have to go.”

  Lawrence hung up. I turned from the window and sat on the bed. I waited. I was putting off having to go downstairs and deal with Little Bee. Instead of moving I watched myself, in the mirror, as a widow. I tried to find some physical sign of Andrew’s passing. No extra line on the forehead? No darkening of the skin under the eyes? Really? Nothing?

  How calm my eyes were, since that day on the beach in Africa. When there has been a loss so fundamental I suppose that to lose just one more thing—a finger, perhaps, or a husband—is of absolutely no consequence at all. In the mirror my green eyes were placid—as still as a body of water that is either very deep, or very shallow.

  Why couldn’t I cry? Soon I would have to go and face a church full of mourners. I rubbed my eyes, harder than our beauty experts advise. I needed to show red eyes to the mourners, at least. I needed to show them that I had cared for Andrew, truly cared for him. Even if, since Africa, I hadn’t really bought the idea of love as a permanent thing, measurable in self-administered surveys, present if you answered mostly B. So I gouged my thumbs into the skin beneath my lashes. If I couldn’t show the world grief, at least I would show the world what it did to your eyes.

  Finally I went downstairs and stared at Little Bee. She was still sitting there on the sofa, her eyes closed, her head propped on the cushions. I coughed, and she snapped awake. Brown eyes, orange patterned silk cushions. She blinked at me and I stared at her, with the mud still caking her trainers. I felt nothing.

  “Why did you come here?” I said.

  “I did not have any other place to go. The only people I know in this country are you and Andrew.”

  “You hardly know us. We met, that’s all.”

  Little Bee shrugged.

  “You and Andrew are the only ones I met,” she said.

  “Andrew is dead. We are going to bury him this morning.”

  Little Bee just blinked at me, glazedly.

  “Do you understand?” I said. “My husband died. We are going to have a funeral. It’s a kind of ceremony. In a church. It’s what we do in this country.”

  Little Bee nodded.

  “I know what you do in this country,” she said.

  There was something in her voice—so old, so tired—that terrified me. That was when the door knocker sounded again and Charlie answered the door to the undertaker and called down the hallway, Mummy, it’s Bruce Wayne!

  “Run out and play in the garden, darling.”

  “But Mummy! I want to see Bruce Wayne.”

  “Please, darling. Just go.”

  When I came to the door, the undertaker glanced at the stump of my finger. People generally do, but rarely with that professional gaze that notes: Left hand, second finger, first and second phalanx, yes, we could fix that with a wax prosthetic, a slender one, with a light Caucasian flesh tone, and we could use Kryolan foundation to cover the join, and we could fold the right hand over the left in the coffin, and Bob would be your mother’s brother, madam.

  I was thinking, Clever undertaker. If only I was dead, you could make a whole woman out of me.

  “My deepest condolences, madam. We are ready for you whenever you feel ready to come.”

  “Thank you. I’ll just get my son and my … well. My friend.”

  I watched the undertaker ignoring the smell of gin on my breath. He looked back at me. There was a small scar on his forehead. His nose was flattened and skewed. His face registered nothing. It was as blank as my mind.

  “Take all the time you need, madam.”

  I went out into the back garden. Batman was digging away at something under the roses. I went over to him. He had a trowel and he was lifting a dandelion, pulling its root to the tip. Our resident robin was hungry and he watched from six yards away. Batman raised the dandelion from the soil and brought it close to examine its root. Kneeling, he looked up at me.

  “Is this a weed, Mummy?” he said.

  “Yes darling. Next time, if you’re not sure, ask before you dig it up.”

  Batman shrugged.

  “Shall I put it in the wild patch?” he said.

  I nodded, and Batman carried the dandelion over to a
small part of the garden where Andrew had given a home to such rascals, in the hope that they would attract butterflies and bees. In our small garden I have made a wild place to remind me of chaos, Andrew once wrote in his column. Our modern lives are too ordered, too antiseptic.

  That had been before Africa.

  Batman bedded in the dandelion among the nettles.

  “Mummy, is weeds baddies?”

  I said that it depended if you were a boy or a butterfly. Batman rolled his eyes, like a newsman interviewing an equivocating politician. I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Who is that woman on the sofa, Mummy?”

  “Her name is Little Bee.”

  “That’s a funny name.”

  “Not if you’re a bee.”

  “But she isn’t a bee.”

  “No. She’s a person. She’s from a country called Nigeria.”

  “Mmm. Is she a goody?”

  I stood up straight.

  “We have to go now darling,” I said. “The undertaker is here to collect us.”

  “Bruce Wayne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is we going to the bat cave?”

  “Are we going to the bat cave.”

  “Are we?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Hmm. I is coming in a minute.”

  I felt the perspiration starting on my back. I had on a gray woolen suit and a hat that was not black but a late-evening nod to it. It didn’t scorn tradition, but nor had it entirely submitted to darkness. Folded up over the hat was a black veil, ready to bring down when the right moment came. I hoped someone would tell me when that was.

  I wore navy-blue gloves, which were borderline dark enough for a funeral. The middle finger of the left hand glove was truncated and stitched. I’d done it two nights earlier, as soon as I was drunk enough to bear it, in a merciful hour between insobriety and incapacity. The glove’s severed finger was still lying on my sewing table. It was hard to throw away.

  In my suit pocket was my phone, set to quiet mode in case I forgot to do it later. I also had a ten-pound note ready for the collection, in case there was a collection. It seemed unlikely at a funeral, but I wasn’t sure. (And if there was a collection, was ten pounds about right? Five seemed ridiculously mean; twenty obscenely flashy.)