Little Bee (29 page)

I
said, “It is only water.”

Charlie
was pulling my hand. He wanted to play, so we went down some stone steps that
were slimy with some green river plant, down to a thin strip of yellow sand at
the edge of the river. There were other children down there too, wearing just
their underwear in the hot sun, building sand castles with their mothers and
their fathers. We built sand castles too. We built towers and bridges. We built
roads, railway lines, and schools. Then we built a hospital for injured
superheroes and a hospital for sick bats, because Charlie said his city needed
these things. Charlie was concentrating very hard. I said to him,
Do
you want
to take off your Batman costume?
But he shook his head.

“I
am worried about you. You will be exhausted by this heat. Come on, aren’t you
too hot in your costume?”

“Yes
but if I is not in mine costume then I is not Batman.”

“Do
you need to be Batman all the time?”

Charlie
nodded. “Yes, because if I is not Batman
all the time
then mine Daddy dies.”

Charlie
looked down at the sand. He squeezed his fists so tight that I could see the
small white bones of his knuckles through the skin.

“Charlie,”
I said. “You think your daddy died because you were not Batman?”

Charlie
looked up. Through the dark eye holes of his bat mask, I could see the tears in
his eyes.

“I
was at mine nursery,” he said. “That’s when the baddies got mine Daddy.”

His
lip trembled. I pulled him toward me and I held him while he cried. I stared
over his shoulder at the cold black drainage tunnels that disappeared into the
tall stone wall of the river embankment. I stared into the black mouth of one
of them, as wide as my shoulders across, but all I could see was Andrew
spinning slowly round on the electrical cord with his eyes watching me each
time he revolved. The look in his eyes was the look of those black tunnels:
there was no end to them.

“Listen
Charlie,” I said. “Your daddy did not die because you were not there. It is not
your fault. Do you understand? You are a good boy, Charlie. It is not your
fault at all.”

Charlie
pulled himself out of my arms and looked at me.

“Why
did mine Daddy die?”

I
thought about it.

“The
baddies got him, Charlie. But they are not the sort of baddies Batman can
fight. They are the sort of baddies that your daddy had to fight in his heart
and I have to fight in my heart. They are baddies from inside.”

Charlie
nodded. “Is there lots?”

“Of what?”

“Of baddies from inside?”

I
looked at the dark tunnels, and I shivered.

“Everyone
has them,” I said.

“Will
we beat them?”

I
nodded. “Of course we will.”

“And
they won’t get me, will they?”

I
smiled. “No, Charlie, I don’t think those baddies will ever get you.”

“And
they won’t get you either, will they?”

I
sighed.

“Charlie,
there are no baddies here by the river. We are on an adventure, okay? Maybe you
can take one day off from being Batman.”

Charlie
frowned, as if this was another trick of his enemies.

“Batman
is
always
Batman,” he said.

I
laughed, and we went back to building the city out of sand. I put a big handful
on top of a pile that Charlie said was a multistory Batmobile park.

“Sometimes
I wish I could take one day off from being Little Bee,” I said.

Charlie
looked up at me. A drop of sweat fell from inside his bat mask. “Why?”

“Well,
you see, it was hard to become Little Bee. I had to go through a lot of things.
They kept me in prison and I had to train myself to think in a certain way, and
to be strong, and to speak your language the way you people speak it. It is
even an effort now just to keep it going. Because inside, you know, I am only a
village girl. I would like to be a village girl again and do the things that
village girls do. I would like to laugh and smile at the boys. I would like to
do foolish things when the moon is full. And most of all, you know, I would
like to use my real name.”

Charlie
paused with his spade in the air.

“But
Little Bee
is
yours real name,” he said.

I
shook my head.
“Mmm-mmm.
Little Bee is only my
superhero name. I have a real name too, like you have
Charlie.
”

Charlie
stared.

“What
is yours real
name
?” he said.

“I
will tell you my real name if you will take off your Batman costume.”

Charlie
frowned. “Actually I have to keep mine Batman costume on forever,” he said.

I
smiled. “Okay, Batman.
Maybe another time.”

Charlie
started to build a sand wall between the wilderness and the suburbs of his
city.

“Mmm,”
he said.

After
a while Lawrence came down the green steps and walked up to us.

“I’ll
take over here,” he said. “Go up and see if you can talk some sense into Sarah,
will you?”

“Why,
what is wrong? Why didn’t she come down here with you?”

Lawrence
held his hands out with the palms upward, and he sent air upward out of his
mouth so that his hair blew. “Just go and see her, will you?” he said.

I
walked up the steps. Sarah was still standing by the railings.

“That
bloody
man,” she said when she saw me.

“Lawrence?”

“Sometimes
I’m not so sure I wouldn’t be better off without him. Oh, I don’t mean that, of
course I don’t.
But honestly.
Don’t I have the right
to talk about Andrew?”

“You
were arguing?”

Sarah
sighed.

“Lawrence
still isn’t happy about you being around. It’s putting him on edge.”

“What
did you say, about Andrew?”

Sarah
looked out across the river.

“I
told him I was sorting out Andrew’s office last night. You know, looking
through his files. I just wanted to see what bills I’m meant to pay now, check
we don’t owe money on any of our cards, that sort of thing.”

She
looked at me. “The thing is, it turns out Andrew didn’t stop thinking about
what happened on the beach. I thought he’d put it out of his mind, but he
hadn’t. He was researching it. There must have been two dozen folders in his
office. Stuff about Nigeria.
About the oil wars, and the
atrocities.
And…well, I had no idea how many of you ended up in the UK
after what happened to your villages. Andrew had a whole binder full of
documents about asylum and detention.”

“Did
you read it?”

Sarah
chewed her lip. “Not all of it. He had enough in there to read for a month. And
he had his own notes attached to each document. It was very meticulous.
Very Andrew.
There was so much detail in there. I only read
a couple of papers, but it was enough to see where he was going with it all. I
read an inspectors’ report about the immigration detention centers. How long
did you say they kept you in that place, Bee?”

“Two
years.”

“Oh Bee.
I had no idea how hellish they are. I was
imagining, I don’t know, a sort of high-security hotel, I suppose. Is it true
they keep it deliberately cold in there? Is it true you have to apply in
writing if you just need a paracetamol?”

I
smiled. “If you are planning to have a headache, you need to apply twenty-four
hours in advance.”

Sarah
sighed. “So it is true, then. Andrew highlighted this one passage that said,
We
find the
humiliating procedures excessive. We do not see how anyone could abuse an
excess of sanitary towels.
Did you really have to apply for them too?”

I
nodded. “They would only give them to us one at a time. You had to fill in a
form.”

Sarah
twisted her hands together on the top bar of the iron railings. “The thing is,”
she said, “I think I know why Andrew highlighted that passage. I mean, people
would skim-read the barred windows and the perimeter fence. But if you really
wanted to bring it home, you’d show how a girl has to apply in writing for
Kotex Ultra.
Right?”

She
stopped, and she looked down to where Lawrence and Charlie were laughing and
kicking sand at each other. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I think
Andrew was planning a book,” she said. “That’s what I told Lawrence.”

I
looked up at Sarah.

“That
is why he was angry?”

Sarah
nodded. “I said I thought maybe I should carry on Andrew’s work. You know, read
through his notes. Find out a bit more about the detention centers. Maybe even,
I don’t know, write the book myself.”

“You
said all that to Lawrence?”

“That’s
when he went ballistic.” Sarah sighed. “I think he’s jealous of Andrew.”

We
stood and looked out over the river for a long time. A breeze had started to
blow. It was not much, but enough to darken the smooth surface of the river.
Now,
I thought. I gripped my hands onto the railings and
tried to make the courage of the city flow into my bones again.

“Sarah,”
I said. “I want to tell you my feelings about Lawrence.”

She
looked at me sharply.

“I
know what you’re going to tell me. You’ll tell me he cares more about himself
than he cares about me. You’ll tell me to watch out for him. And I’ll tell you
that’s just what men are like, but you’re too young to know it yet, and so you
and I will argue too, and then I really will be utterly miserable. So don’t say
it, okay?”

I
shook my head.

“Please,
Sarah.”

“I
don’t want to hear it. I’ve chosen Lawrence. I’m thirty-two, Bee. If I want to
make a stable life for Charlie, I have to start
sticking
with my choices. I didn’t stick with Andrew, and now I know I should have. But
now there’s Lawrence. And he isn’t perfect, you’re right. But I can’t just keep
walking away.” Sarah took a deep and shaking breath. “At some point you just
have to have to turn around and face your life head-on.”

She
looked at me for a long time, and then she held on to me and we hugged each
other tight.

“Oh
Bee,” said Sarah.

We
stood and held each other like that, and after we had been quiet for a long
time Sarah stood up straight and swept back her hair.

“Go
down and play with Charlie and Lawrence,” she said. “I have to make a phone
call.”

I
looked at Sarah and she smiled at me, and I walked back down the steps to the
place Lawrence and Charlie were playing. They were picking up the small round
stones from the edge of the mud and throwing them into the river. When I came
close, Charlie carried on throwing stones and Lawrence turned to me.

“Did
you talk her out of it?” he said.

“Out of what?”

“Her book.
She had some idea she was going to finish a
book Andrew was writing. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Yes.
She told me. I did not talk her out of the book but I did not talk her out of
you either.”

Lawrence
grinned. “Good girl. See? We’re going to get along after all. Is she still
upset? Why hasn’t she come down here with you?”

“She
is making a phone call.”

“Fair enough.”

We
stood there for a moment, looking at each other.

“You
still think I’m a bastard, don’t you?”

I
shrugged.

“I’m
not,” said Lawrence. “I’ll even help you, if you help me.”

“What
help do you need from me?”

“You
could just go, Little Bee. Couldn’t you?
Quietly and without
fuss.”

“I
already thought about that.”

“So
what’s stopping you?
Money?
I can give you money.”

I
looked down at my shoes and then I looked back up. “You will pay me to go
away?”

“Don’t
make it sound like that. It isn’t easy to get started in this country without
money for food and rent. I don’t want to put you on
the
streets, that’s
all.”

He
was still holding a stone in his hand and I took it from between his fingers. It
was warm and smooth and I turned it around and around in my hands, polishing it
with the moisture in my palms.

I
said, “What is your wife’s name?”

Lawrence
looked at his hands. “Linda.”

“And your children?”