Little Bee (11 page)

So,
it was astonishing to see all these new, beautiful shining cars parked outside
these big, perfect houses. I walked through many streets like this.

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.”