The Death of Bees: A Novel

by Lisa O'Donnell

  I am at the top of the stairs when I see Marnie, and she certainly looks harassed.

  “What the ruddy hell is going on?” I ask.

  “Lennie went off his rocker and locked the Social out,” she replies.

  “Lennie is under the influence of alcohol and in no fit state to lock anyone out of anywhere. Where is he?”

  I continue down the stairs and find Kim playing with Bobby and drinking a bottle of beer while Lennie is in a tailspin over milk and tea.

  It was a shambles. The neighbors were gathered around a yellow ribbon while Robert T. Macdonald shuffled next to a social worker. There were policemen wherever you looked, all of them trying to find a way into Lennie’s house.

  “Open up or we’ll break through the door!” they yell.

  Lennie hides behind the sofa.

  “Gather yourself,” I tell him.

  “I will not,” he replies.

  “Open the door,” I command the room. “There’s no point to any of this.”

  Marnie appears from behind me.

  “If we open the door, Robert T. Macdonald gets us. Is that what you want?” she says.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake. He’s going to get us anyway. It’s over. We can’t stay in here forever. Sooner or later those doors will be opened. Don’t be fools.”

  “She’s right,” says Lennie, who has suddenly composed himself into an apparent state of sobriety.

  “Open the doors,” he says dully.

  Kim sighs. “Is that what you want, Marnie?” she asks.

  Marnie shakes her head and then breaks down in tears. I am immediately displeased. She is utterly aggravating. I let Kim do the comforting. I have no patience for it.

  “It won’t be for long, Marnie,” Kim says. “You’ll be sixteen in December and you can go where you like then.”

  “What about Nelly?” she sobs.

  “I can take care of myself,” I remind her and aggressively so. I sometimes wonder where the girl’s been this last year.

  “You think so?” Kim mocks.

  “I know so,” I say and very firmly.

  Without further ado the door is opened and Lennie is immediately approached by two policemen but instead of offering his wrists, he runs. I couldn’t believe it. He jumps over the sofa followed by a very excited dog, throws himself through the back door and into his garden. “I am a murderer,” he starts to yell, “I am a murderer!”

  “He’s drunk!” I yell out.

  “Did you hear what I said, Robert T. Macdonald? She’s gone. Your precious Izzy. And he’s gone, Gene Doyle, the most loathsome of the both of them. I killed them!” Lennie screams. He is on his knees, digging at his rosebushes; he is burrowing his hands into the dirt and pulling at it like a dog.

  “Won’t someone arrest me?” He laughs.

  Robert T. Macdonald rushes to Lennie’s side. He pulls at thorny rosebushes until his hands are thick with blood and earth. I am petrified while Marnie, her head in her hands, is stilled by dread.

  “There’s nothing here,” cries Robert T. Macdonald.

  “Dig deeper!” yells Lennie. “You’ll find her.” He laughs and gets to his feet. He is quickly handcuffed.

  “At the bottom of this garden,” Lennie announces to the yard, “I have two … two … two …” He trips on his words until he is lost to them and falls to the ground.

  It is a ruddy mess and there is nothing we can do to remedy the situation. We are in shadow while our flesh creeps closer to the truth.

  Someone yells for a doctor, someone calls for an ambulance, and then someone screams. It is Robert T. Macdonald and he’s holding a skull. We don’t know which one.

  Marnie

  Robert T. Macdonald paces the police corridors, all the time rubbing at his hands.

  The police tell us Lennie has a brain tumor and will die. They question us about our parents and ask how long they’ve been missing. They try to make sense of the last nine months but we can’t help them. The lies continue. It’s what Lennie would have wanted.

  “Confounded man,” says Nelly.

  “We knew he didn’t like them but we didn’t realize how much. He was always very nice to us,” I say.

  “He said he wanted to help us,” says Nelly.

  “Lennie fed us,” I say.

  “We thought they were in Turkey. Spain perhaps,” says Nelly.

  “We had no idea,” I say.

  “They were always abandoning us. It was their way,” says Nelly.

  “We didn’t know.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “We didn’t know.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Good golly, we didn’t know.”

  Eventually we convince them and we are released into the custody of Robert T. Macdonald. It’s a really shitty day.

  Nelly

  I fear death, I have always feared death. It comes like a gale and never with permission. I would meet it again today.

  It wasn’t hard to get away. I said I needed the bathroom but this was simply a diversion, for I was out the door and on a bus to the Western Hospital within minutes. I felt bad leaving Marnie behind, but I had no choice. I needed to see my friend. He is my home.

  Marnie

  They weren’t sure what happened to Gene and Izzy. Obviously we knew they’d been killed. Gene by Izzy’s hand and Izzy by her own, but I suppose you can’t tell that from a decomposed body after a while. I wondered if Vlado had been involved because Lennie would never have been able to move the bodies on his own. I hoped he had been. It was a weird kind of comfort imagining Vlado knowing the truth. I hated lying to him.

  They decided Gene’s body had been dragged through our house across our garden and into Lennie’s garden. They also said Lennie’s offer to help us in the absence of our parents was a manipulative ploy to cover his tracks, although someone else suggested he perhaps felt guilty. Nelly and I were the only ones who knew the truth. Lennie had saved us.

  When it came down to it no one really cared why Lennie killed Izzy or Gene. Lennie was dying and there was nothing to be done about it. Robert T. Macdonald was livid; he sought justice and would never know it, and I was glad, he didn’t deserve to know it. If Izzy’s fate was the fault of anyone, it was his and deep down he knew it.

  I cried when their bodies were discovered and not because I was relieved, although I was, I cried because I felt sad for Izzy and Gene. Even in death their lives were deemed worthless and it made me feel kind of worthless. They made me after all, and when I told Kim she went radge on me.

  “You’re the most valuable thing in my life and Nelly’s. You talk shite like that again I’ll smack you.”

  Kim’s parents once again came to our rescue with the offer of a home, but the Social Work Department boked at the idea and decided Robert T. Macdonald, as a blood relative, would be a more suitable guardian. It didn’t matter when we squawked about his violent past; it was the future everyone was focusing on. The past was dead.

  Nelly

  When I get to the hospital there’s a damned police officer standing outside Lennie’s room and good golly I didn’t know what to do with myself and so I started to cry.

  “What’s up, hen?” said the officer.

  “I must see the brute,” I say.

  “And who are you?”

  “He murdered my parents,” I whisper and not without shame. I felt discomfort whenever forced to blame Lennie for a crime I knew he had not committed. According to Marnie, Izzy was to blame, which was a relief because I always thought Marnie had carried out the unfortunate deed.

  “He’s conked out on the bed, sweetheart. No point,” the officer tells me.

  “I have things I simply must say to him. I shan’t rest if I don’t.”

  “Right,” said the officer, a little baffled by the request.

  “I beg of you,” I say.

  He looks around the corridor. It is empty and so he lets me into Lennie’s room.

>   “Five minutes,” he says.

  “You’re a sport,” I tell him.

  “That’s right, hen. A sport.”

  Lennie

  There is no drifting. I am weary and I am kicking. I see shadows and know voices. I feel strangers. They creep closer. I am lifted into foreign arms and taste ice cream. It is rich and it is warm. I am returned to the gloom and scream for the roses. I don’t tell her she is safe. I don’t say that it’s over. I tell her something far. I tell her something hidden. I hope it finds her well. I ask for someone who is late and I hurt for the dog. I feel soft and glad. I feel ready and able. I think of you until the rainbow pales.

  Marnie

  She’d run off and Robert T. Macdonald was furious. He knew exactly where she’d gone and meant to drag her from his side. I spend the journey to the hospital convincing him she has Stockholm syndrome. He seems taken by the idea. When we get to the Western he instructs me to fetch her. He waits downstairs in the lobby.

  “I’ll kill him if I see him,” he says.

  I find her on a chair outside Lennie’s room. She is eating crisps and sipping Coke. I expect to find her in hysterics but she’s not. She’s just chewing and slurping at her drink. It’s annoying. I ask for Lennie and she says he’s asleep. I say I want to see him and tell the officer I need to confront the man who murdered my parents, but I don’t get a chance to confront Lennie about anything because the nurse in his room emerges and tells the policeman that Lennie has died.

  Nelly

  Birds keep chirping and music keeps playing. Life continues as another life ebbs away.

  We have seen death before, Marnie and I, a mountain of ice melting over time, drops of water freezing at your core reminding you every day of that which has vanished, but the despair we know today is a sadness sailing sorrow through every bone and knuckle.

  There is no moment in which we say good-bye, there is no finality as he slips into peacefulness, he simply leaves us, and though I seek courage when he passes I am weakened by tears, but I must hide them for he leaves us a lie to conceal, a lie he sent to save us.

  Marnie

  Their funeral was a joke and no expense spared. He had two cherrywood caskets with gold crosses carved onto the lids. Then he had them buried together and planned an ornate tombstone with words like Beloved and Dearest engraved on marble. I would have laughed, but I was too sad and not for Gene and Izzy, but for Lennie. His funeral had been the previous day. Kim went because I asked her to. At first she couldn’t understand why I needed her to attend the funeral of the man who had murdered my parents but when I told her I needed closure she bought it and went along. She said the priest gave a brief Mass to an empty graveside. She said his coffin had one wreath of flowers. Nelly and I sent it anonymously—a circle of roses. She said there were no pallbearers and that strangers lowered him into the ground. She said she didn’t stand by the grave and hid by the trees. She didn’t want anyone to see her.

  It wasn’t fair we couldn’t go to Lennie’s grave but this is how it had to be and how Lennie himself wished it to be. Maybe one day when no one was looking we could stand by his tomb and thank him for all the wonderful things he had done for us but not on this day, on this day we were being forced to sit through the service of two parents who had neglected and abused us. It was sick.

  Robert T. Macdonald said a few words mostly about himself and his regrets as a father. He went on about how he wished he had been there for his daughter and how he wished he had known Eugene. That made me laugh. Robert T. Macdonald would have flipped his lid if he’d known Gene. Susie was hysterical of course, it was nauseating. She suggested she sing a song, and Robert T. Macdonald allowed it. It was a beautiful song. It made me sick. Then he did a verse about death and how it was in the next room, I stopped listening around about then, the man was giving me the dry boke.

  When we are finally moved into his home, it smells of bleach and reminds me of death. He is pleased to see Nelly and carries her violin case. He feigns a smile for me and carries nothing. He enthuses over the dog and gets down on his knees and practically snogs him. Bobby wags his tail and jumps all over him. They are immediate friends. The dog knows no loyalty. Robert T. Macdonald makes us something to eat, and though Nelly is hungry, I am not. He gives us a list of daily chores, they include laundry and hoovering and walking the dog. Nelly says nothing and helps herself to more of his lumpy custard. I shove my list to the side of my plate, wishing I could shove it somewhere else. I want to see Kim so badly but he says it is late and tells us we have school in the morning and we are sent to bed. Sent.

  Nelly

  Robert T. Macdonald cries in the nighttime. He cries for a daughter he’ll never know and I feel rather badly for his tears. Marnie is without sympathy and I don’t quite care for her attitude. His daughter was also our mother, was she not?

  We are not to mention life on Hazelhurst, but Marnie insists we have possessions to retrieve from Lennie’s home. Robert T. Macdonald is enraged and refuses.

  “You are not to enter that monster’s home, do you understand? I will replace whatever is needed. Clear?”

  I am clear, Marnie is not. When she offers a “But …” he throws a glass at the wall.

  “I said, clear?”

  Marnie nods and then skulks from the room.

  Truth be told I feel bothered he has called Lennie a monster and then I remember it is the cost of the new reality we are living: Lennie is a murderer and we are the innocent and orphaned.

  “Apologies, Grandfather. Marnie isn’t thinking as one should right now.”

  He tells me to make ready for dinner. We are having steak pies from a tin. I know it won’t taste good and make plans to take over his kitchen.

  “Perhaps I can help,” I suggest.

  “To do what?” he grumps.

  “You have eggs?” I ask.

  “Tons,” he says.

  “Then you are in good hands,” I assure him.

  We must move on and we must make this work. The past is the past and Robert T. Macdonald’s regrets are tenfold. Whether she likes it or not he is our family and with a little cooperation from all of us it’s possible we can all get along. It’s imperative, for we have nowhere else to go.

  Marnie

  Every morning Robert T. Macdonald makes us tidy our beds and not like we used to by throwing our duvets on top, but with straight smooth angling. It’s like living in a barracks.

  I have porridge for breakfast. Nelly has her cornflakes and Coke. Television is limited to one hour and he makes us go to church every Sunday. We have to wear skirts, but when he sees my mini he has a fit and takes me to Oxfam where he buys me something long, flowery, and ugly. I hate him.

  Nelly is quick to fall into line and is eager to please. It’s like she’s developed some kind of amnesia and forgotten what a nut her “gramps” actually is.

  He gives Nelly the room he originally planned for Izzy and lets Nelly decorate it herself. He gives her money for whatever she wants while forcing me to live among the pinks and cartoon characters in a room he meant for both of us.

  “It’s best you have your own place,” he tells Nelly. “Away from bad influences.”

  He says this good and loud and obviously for my benefit. I play deaf while Nelly doesn’t even flinch. She’s said nothing since we got here and it worries me.

  A midnight escape to a nightclub ends in tears for me when I accidentally return through his bedroom window, falling on his head smelling of alcohol and fags. He goes crazy and pushes me to my knees and makes me say the Lord’s Prayer at five in the morning. I am too drunk to refuse him, although I stutter over the part about “Forgive us our trespasses” because I went to a Protestant school and we say “Forgive us our debtors,” so our words collide but he doesn’t correct me and we get to Amen without too much fussing. The next morning I wake to hammering. He has put a lock on the outside of my door.

  “You’re going to sit in here for the rest of the day,” he spits.
>
  “No way,” I say.

  He went right up to my face then. “While you’re in my house you’re going to do as you’re told, you nasty little witch.”

  “I’m nearly sixteen, you can’t keep me here forever.”

  “But I don’t want to keep you forever. I don’t want to keep you at all.” He laughed. “I can’t wait till you’re sixteen. Sooner you’re out of your sister’s life the better.”

  It was the one thing I hadn’t considered: he didn’t want me at all. He wanted Nelly, malleable and afraid. She was to be his family and as soon as he got the chance he was going to erase me.

  Later that night Nelly came to the locked door.

  “Please, Marnie,” she whispers, “don’t misbehave. He’ll separate us for sure. I know he will. Do it for me. He’s not as bad as you think.”

  Nelly working for Team Macdonald was more than I could handle and so I told her to fuck off and that’s exactly what she did.

  Nelly

  Why must she be so difficult? It might not be much of a home, but it is better than no home and I am tired of running. If she’d only accept his ways, life would be so much easier. How he berated her for escaping and in the middle of the night and how he rages. He is a tempest in particular moods and knows no calm. I miss Lennie but I do my utmost not to compare them, sure it would lead to more misery, and so I try to fit into Gramps’s world as best I can. I could be here a very long time, with or without Marnie. It’s a dreadful state of affairs. If she could just toe the line and if not for herself, then for me. He’s not so bad once you get used to him. He can be very accommodating so long as everything else is running as it should. Dinner eaten by 5:30. Homework finished by 6:30 and clothes ironed and ready for the following day by seven. Television till 7:30, bed and prayers at eight. Marnie cannot abide him. She’s never done homework in her life, has never needed to do homework. As for her clothes he chooses what she wears, and you can only imagine his choices. Marnie keeps her clothes at Kim’s and changes as soon as she gets to school. Gramps says Marnie’s been running amok for too long now. Perhaps he is right. He says Marnie is a negative influence and will drag me down. He tells me how proud he is of my gifts and my manners.