The Death of Bees: A Novel

by Lisa O'Donnell

  “Is this why you want to save me?”

  “I want to help you, teach you. I am a teacher. I was a teacher.”

  “Then why are you selling drugs?”

  “They won’t let me teach and I won’t beg.”

  “You know the kids you want to teach, they get the drugs you supplied to Mick. They’re like Sabina.”

  “They are nothing like my Sabina. My girl came from good home. She cared for herself, we cared for her. She did good in school and had never been kissed. She liked to pretend she had a horse, girls in this country they want to pretend they are forty.”

  “Addiction is arbitrary. There are tons of junkies that come from good homes. You can color it any way you like. You supply drugs and it’s wrong, and worse than that you know it’s wrong.”

  “I want to live, what do you want from me?” he snaps.

  “I want to live too,” I tell him.

  “The Russians they have a saying: ‘The future belongs to him who knows how to wait!’ Why won’t you wait?”

  “There’s no waiting here, only surviving. You think I didn’t want a childhood?”

  “And so you fly from it with the speed of a little bee in your tiny golden pumps.” He was laughing at me again.

  “They’re the fashion,” I tell him. “Everyone’s wearing them. Not that you’d know anything about it in your cowboy boots.”

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  We ride fast on the way back and it creates a perfect breeze. It makes us laugh, we can’t help it. He looks back at me and tells me to catch up. I feel bad we talked like we did but a smile from Vlado reassures me that everything is going to be okay and I smile back.

  Vlado stays for dinner and Lennie is delighted. It has been a great day and though I think of Kirkland from time to time, I almost forget there’s an Izzy or a Gene.

  After we’ve eaten, Vlado asks a sulky Nelly to play something, preferring a new energy to adorn the garden, and with Bach’s help that’s exactly what she does, albeit reluctantly, God only knows what’s wrong with her now.

  Lennie

  He told her I was a queer and when she acted like she didn’t know I have to say I was a little taken aback.

  “You know about the boy in the park, don’t you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I know you know, Nelly,” I whisper. “You’ve heard them shout in the night and you must have seen the graffiti on the door.”

  Her face went as red as beetroot.

  “I made a mistake. A dreadful mistake and I can’t undo it now. I wish to God I could. Do you understand?” I ask.

  “I don’t want to hear.” She hushes me and puts her hands on her ears. I grab them from her head and grip tight.

  “I am a man who likes other men. I like to be with them sexually and I like to be with them romantically and Joseph who lived here with me for so many years, you remember Joseph, don’t you?”

  She shakes her head and won’t stop shaking it.

  “He was my lover and when he died my heart was broken. My heart is still broken.” I weep.

  She is suddenly silent and I let her go. I am exhausted.

  “I’m sorry, Lennie,” she cries and we hold one another.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay.” I stroke her hair.

  “I remember Joseph,” she whispers. “I remember him, Lennie.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Marnie

  It was raining hard when Robert T. Macdonald rolled down his window and told me to get into his car.

  “You’re soaked to the bone, lassie,” he says.

  “I don’t care. I’d catch pneumonia before I’d sit next to you.”

  “That’s not very nice,” he remarks.

  “You’re not very nice,” I remind him.

  “It’s not safe to be walking home on your own,” he says.

  “I know what you mean, all kinds of nut jobs spooking about.” I say this and stare at him.

  “I’ll follow you in the car.”

  “I don’t want you to follow me.”

  He ignores me and drives behind until I’m at Lennie’s house. As soon as I’m inside, the mobile rings. It’s Robert T. Macdonald. I send him to voice mail and then I listen to the message.

  “Just checking to see you got home safely,” he says and then click, he’s gone.

  When I tell Nelly she pales and tells me about the library. He wants all of us to go and look for Izzy. I make up my mind to go and talk to him. Nelly and I don’t need to look for Izzy. We know exactly where she is.

  Lennie

  A foot and right under the dining room table. Bobby brought it in from the garden. Obviously I thought it was the bone I got him from the butcher the other day but on closer examination I could see it wasn’t.

  I didn’t know what to do with it to be honest, I certainly didn’t want it on any of my clean surfaces and so I put it on the sofa with the plastic covering.

  When Vlado rings the doorbell looking for Marnie I think about chasing him but then I invite him in; I clearly need advice.

  “You won’t believe what the dog brought in,” I say and take him to the sofa.

  He comes in and of course he sees the foot.

  “So, what do you think of that then?” I say.

  “It is a foot,” he says.

  “I can see that,” I say.

  “Where did it come from?” he asks.

  I shrug my shoulders. “The dog must have brought it in.”

  “Where is the dog?” asks Vlado.

  “Out back.”

  We go to the garden and find Bobby sniffing at the flower beds with the lavender and running down the side of the girls’ house, but this time he brings someone’s limb. We can’t decide if it’s an arm or a leg. Further investigation is carried out and we find them. Izzy Macdonald and Eugene Doyle in a couple of shallow graves. I almost fainted.

  “What have they done?” I gasp.

  Vlado, as shocked as I am, sighs, and it’s a mighty sound.

  “I cannot be involved.” He turns to leave.

  “We have to help them,” I say.

  “No, you have to call the police. I cannot stay.”

  “But they’d get into so much trouble. And for these two shits it’s hardly worth the bother.”

  He sighs again.

  “Then what will we do, Lennie? Tell me,” asks Vlado and with anger in his voice.

  “Whatever we must,” I reply.

  Marnie

  He was drunk and at the back of the bus, slurping booze from a brown paper bag.

  “Marnie baby!” he yells.

  “Sandy,” I say.

  “Cute dog,” he goes.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Bobby’s tail wags and his entire backside sways from left to right, causing a breeze of activity around my legs. I took him when Lennie wasn’t looking and it was my intention to go as far as Drymen and let the dog go. He was constantly in our yard and it was making Nelly and me very nervous. We actually considered poisoning him, but he’s such a sweet dog we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it, losing him in the middle of nowhere was the only alternative.

  “What happened to your face?” I ask Sandy. It was black and blue.

  “Your grandpa threw me out on my ear, didn’t he. Found out about my checkered past as a rent boy and told me to leave.”

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  “Wish I was.” He takes another slug.

  “Where you going to stay?” I ask.

  “With my ma. She’s impressed by my recent acquaintance with God and hopes to nurture it. It’s a bed, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” I say.

  “So where you going with the dog?” he asks.

  “Taking it for a walk.”

  “Where?” he asks.

  “Drymen.”

  “Drymen’s fucking miles away, Marnie.”

  “Thought he could do with a change of scenery.”


  That’s when Bobby found his way to Sandy’s legs. Bobby was all over him, and Sandy being Sandy liked it.

  “Nice wee thing, isn’t he?” he says.

  “Yeah, he is.” I give Bobby a wee pat and he licks my hand. I feel terrible about that because I know I’m about to lose him in the middle of nowhere.

  “Want some of this?” Sandy asks Bobby, pouring booze into the cup of his hand.

  “Don’t, Sandy,” I say.

  “What you talking about?”

  Bobby laps it up and I get the guilts, but then I think a drunken dog might be easier to lose than a sober one and he certainly liked the drink.

  “All right,” I say. “But just a wee bit.”

  Bobby drinks like a pro.

  “Good boy,” says Sandy.

  “You’re mad,” I tell him.

  He rings the bell. “This is my stop.”

  He finishes his bottle and then rolls it under the seat. It rattles from side to side. Then he smells his breath against the palm of his hand.

  “Can you smell the drink off me?” he asks.

  “A wee bit,” I say. “Get some mints,” I advise.

  “I will,” he agrees.

  “Hope everything works out with your ma,” I say.

  “Hope so.”

  He pats Bobby. “Good luck, wee man,” he says, and I feel bad again because I know I’m about to abandon Bobby in a place called Drymen and that’s exactly what I do. Obviously I worried about what would happen to him. I worried he’d starve, but what could I do? There was too much at stake and he just wouldn’t leave the garden alone. I had no choice and so I let him go and cried all the way home. I couldn’t help it.

  Lennie

  Breakfast was quite the affair this morning. There were the usual requests for milk to be passed and Coke for cornflakes. Marnie also had a cup of tea and some toast, which I was very pleased about, I love to see the girl eat, but all the time I am thinking, How on earth did your parents end up under the flower beds? And you want to ask but you daren’t.

  “All right, Lennie?” says Marnie.

  “Fine, love. And you?”

  “No more than usual.”

  And there it was. Right there. I don’t know how I could have missed it. Watching their earnest little faces digging into cereals and breads I return to the shadows they carry in their eyes and reflect on the long gazes they have shared, a gentle hand quietly urging silence upon a shoulder, a cough to interrupt a careless thought hastily replaced with another. I think of their walks by the sea, the quiet arguments and the uncomfortable glances across the dinner table. Mostly I think of them keeping this secret all this time and the burden they have walked with every single day since they have lived here. I think on the parents and wonder what on earth they could have done to end up dead and buried in their own garden but in my soul I know whatever it might have been, they deserved it.

  I want to help the girls and I want to shout it out loud but as I am silent on the matter of my own grave I will be silent on the matter of the graves they have kept hidden in their garden.

  Marnie

  He was polishing the altar and arsing about with flower arrangements. I wanted it to be a quick trip so I didn’t beat about the bush.

  “If you want to go and look for Izzy that’s fine but we’re not coming with you. We don’t care where she is. So leave us alone.”

  I turned on my heel, but as I’m walking away I can hear footsteps moving fast behind me, suddenly he has me by the shoulders and he’s pushing me against the wall.

  “Who the bloody hell do you think you are, little miss, eh? You think you can come in here and tell me what’s what, you cheeky little …”

  He loosens his grip, but my lips have whitened and I am visibly afraid.

  “You don’t decide anything from now on. I do.”

  He lets go of me and walks to the altar, he kneels and then crosses himself. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

  Lennie

  The police found her in Vlado’s apartment washing dishes. Turns out he’s an illegal immigrant supplying drugs and perhaps responsible for the ice cream vendor’s disappearance. I had no idea. Obviously they questioned her but realizing she was of little use to them they sent her on her way.

  Of course I didn’t expect Vlado to show up here. I gave him a right telling off.

  “Selling drugs,” I exclaimed.

  “Supplying drugs,” he said.

  “And what difference does that make?”

  He wasn’t sure, I could tell from his face.

  “I must live,” he whispered.

  “I’m disgusted,” I told him.

  “You are disgusted? A man who picks up boys in parks.”

  “He was a prostitute.”

  “And what difference does that make?”

  Not a great deal, I realized.

  “We are in this together,” he reminded me. “You have forgotten what we have done?”

  Of course I hadn’t. We had come together for the girls. We had come together to protect them and that meant protecting Vlado and so I gave him whatever money I had on me, my car, and a place to hide.

  Marnie will have a fit when she hears Vlado’s gone. He meant the world to her. She loved him, but he can’t stay.

  I like to think I’ve helped these girls somewhat. I like to think they know it. It makes my conscience clean for all the wrongs I’ve done in this life, a little clean. Oh Joseph, God has punished me hard for what I’ve done in this world and for what I’ve loved and I fear hell more than any man I know.

  Marnie

  He left it on the fridge. My wages for the week and a letter telling me he’d fucked off, that’s when the police arrived. They let me keep my salary but took the letter. Pigs are like that.

  Dear Marnie

  I have an emergency in my life and I must go.

  You are very young Marnie and it is precious to be young, it slips away from you soon enough and I wish not you should regret lost days, it brings many tears.

  Love to you Marnie, love to Nelly and all my respects to Lennie.

  Vlado

  Another one for the absent people file. I’m going to run out of space soon.

  Nelly

  When Lennie poured a cup of tea last Wednesday he didn’t stop when he got to the rim like a normal person might, he kept pouring until it was all over the table. One had to grab his hand.

  “Oh my goodness, look what I’ve done here,” he said.

  I mean it’s only tea good golly, but how he burns and loses things. I haven’t had a decent meal in days.

  Marnie

  When I went back to his flat the door was open. The pigs hadn’t even closed it behind them. The whole apartment was a tip. They had ripped it apart. Picture frames on the floor, books off the shelves, and dishes everywhere. I didn’t know where to start and wondered why I was bothering. I suppose I hoped he’d be back or maybe I was looking for something to tell me where he went. Mostly I wanted to tell him I’d passed my exams. He definitely knew he was leaving because the picture frames were empty. Most of his clothes and a pair of tanned cowboy boots remained in the wardrobe. I felt bad for him then because he loved the tan ones, but it also meant he was wearing the black and I don’t know why but it made me feel better knowing what he was wearing.

  After I tidy up I empty the bins into the rubbish bags but when I get to the one by his bed I find it is full of crumpled papers. I open them up and discover they are various drafts of the letter he left for me. In one letter he wrote I reminded him of his daughter and he loved me very much. He decided against this draft and bounced it into the bin. In another draft he told me I was a “precious” and a “special” girl. He decided against this version also. He had written almost five different letters before deciding on the one he enclosed with my wages. All of them containing words like character, beauty, and valuable. I kept them all. I have them all. I search the flat desperately for a picture of Vlado and find
nothing and it makes me sad because I never took any. I try to remember the last time I saw him and think of him on his bike by the Clyde laughing at nothing in particular. In my mind I snap this image and store it in my memory. It’s where I keep everyone who’s important to me.

  Lennie

  Tending your grave is no easy feat. I bring scissors and twine. A bucket and a trowel. I bring a bouquet for your birthday. I have purchased a plot by your side and will call you beloved on my gravestone.

  I worry for the girls. My girls. I worry for their future, but I have stayed long enough and the gloom creeps closer. I have no fight in me anymore and I am weary, but I must remain able, the girls need me and there is much to put in place. I can only hope it is enough and that my girls can stay strong a little while longer. Courage is what is needed now, courage and stealth, for there is much to fight for and much to let go.

  Marnie

  Impossible to imagine that a man who liked women as Gene did should have adopted a taste for young girls. Even harder to imagine was Izzy loving a man like that, but she did, and when we were wee girls so did Nelly and I. How could we not? We were children, it’s what we knew.

  I remember one time coming home early from school a few weeks before Gene came into my room and I found them dancing. Izzy, slow. Gene, gentle. I suppose I was looking at the thing they were before the tearing, when she was a princess and he was a prince, defying the Furies to be together. Watching them love amidst the candles I could imagine the first moment their gaze fell upon each other and the first time they kissed. It made me understand their desperate clinging to one another. It also left me bitter being confronted by their love, for beyond it, the drugs and the hate and the infidelity, I saw an impossible reach for something else, something that had passed them. Until Gene died that is.

  Thinking on Izzy clutching at Gene’s cold dead body unlocked something inside me. A curiosity of sorts. I remember her breaking her heart, and though I despised her for it I couldn’t quite fathom where this burst of love might have come from because she certainly didn’t express such feelings while they lived. Remembering her grief I fully experienced what must have been an intense incomprehensible love once upon a time, but after years of abuse and hate how could she have summoned it to her side and so vehemently? Why had she summoned it? It was in that moment I realized the truth. Nelly had not suffocated Gene. Izzy had.