Shadows & Tall Trees (4 page)

Honeybees coated
the hill
the tired leaves
the new earth

A heavy thump out on the porch woke him and he looked at the windows. Each seemed as though a face had just pulled away. He went outside into the muddled stillness and walked around the cabin twice. The stars were sprayed everywhere. The place had no foundation and he dug his way beneath it in a moment. There was a crawlspace of sorts and he wriggled inside and lay down. Black as absence. He felt something curl up beside him and he slept in its warmth, grateful.

A finger jabbed him in the ribs. The girl lay pressed against him, her face an inch from his. She licked his mouth with something too stiff to be a tongue.

He tried to scoot away and knocked his head against the underside of the cabin floor. Sunlight pried in nearly all the way around. He watched as Meli pawed at the dirt and plucked things out of it. “Hey,” she said, her face streaked with filth, “open your hand.”

“What do you want?”

“Just do it, open your hand.”

He held his palm out and she poured a stream of small objects onto it. Human teeth. He wasn’t about to count them but he thought there could be thirty or more. A full set.

“What the hell are these?” he said. “Why did you want me up here?” He tried to look away but couldn’t. His mouth watered at the smell of her.

Meli smiled and he saw she had no teeth of her own. “You don’t get it, do you?” she said, and laughed. Her speech was as strong and clear as his mother’s. “What do you think you’ve been reading? Come on, you’re a writer, we reached out to you in your own language. And in case you’re a visual learner, I hoped those pictures I took would help you along a little quicker. I had to come up here just because you’re so slow.”

“Are these yours?” He shook the teeth in his hand.

“Look, I know you had trouble with the stories.” She paused and inched toward him. Pushed her hand into his crotch. “Her style is a bit abstract, I guess. You do get that they were from Amanda, right? Dronning? Your mother is ready to make you in her image. Those are her teeth, remember? This is where she lived when she was a girl fresh across the ocean. She buried them here later. When she stopped needing them.”

“You don’t know me. That’s what I remember.” It was difficult not to push her down and climb onto her.

“Haven’t you ever wondered about your mom? I would’ve thought up a hundred stories in all these years. Did you know she got out of the home last night? They’re looking for her right now. If you put your battery back in you can listen to the voicemail.”

“My mom’s practically catatonic. She gave up on herself a long time ago and now she can hardly walk or string together a sentence.” He reached to slap away her hand but she started kneading him through his jeans.

“Call it sleeping, what she’s been doing all this time. It’s what the Queen does until the petals open. Where’d she go when you were a kid? It’s in the stories, dummy. Home to the old country, where she found her true husbands, her drones, and they fucked in fjords and fields beneath mountains different from these. She’d yearned for so long. Maybe that’s when she gave up on life and took on something else.”

Yearned, yes. Her fingers squeezed and everything he thought to say turned to vapour. A door slammed shut and the floor overhead gave a long stuttering creak.

“And maybe she came back with me in tow, her sprouting little girl. We purebreds have a quick gestation. A couple of years and I was menstruating. So I was able to watch you grow up. You don’t remember me keeping your dad company while Mother had gone inside herself to wait. The nights I slept over or the night I had a little too much to drink and his heart stopped beating for me.”

She slipped his belt open and unzipped him. He was moaning already, trying to tell her to stop it, wanting to claw his way out from under the cabin, get to the car and drive anywhere that was away. “Maybe now is our time,” she said. “Onanon, without an end, and I mean you, too,” and she took him into her burning mouth and he lay in the fading light and shuddered.

She climbed from under the cabin and left him still spurting into the dirt. He barely had the strength to tug his pants back up. When he emerged, the yard was empty and the sun had fallen behind the mountains. A bulging moon lifted. The teeth were still clenched in his hand. Biting his palm. He dropped them into a pocket and fastened his belt.

He took a step toward the cabin and stopped. His mother peered out at him from a grimy window. The pane lifted up and a long pale tube slipped beneath it where her mouth should have been. It tapered and petaled. The rest of her face followed, eyes opening wide into wet holes.

“Mom?” A liquid hum came from her as she wormed through the window. It took on a melody. He recalled the nurse outside her door and something stirred further back in his mind. “Mom?”

She folded down onto all fours and scrabbled across the porch. Adam ran to his car. He was behind the wheel when he realized the keys were in the cabin. His mother dropped onto the hood and placed her hands against the windshield. Long blackened fingers splayed on the glass.

He fell from the car and fled into the trees. The hum grew. Something vast pulled at the air. His mother, he thought, singing the sky dark. Songs of home. He ran through limbs and the rising sound of birds screaming as they escaped with him.

Before long the land steepened and he came to the crook of the two hills, the cabin behind him and the far slope dipping down to the feet of the looming mountains. He saw bees dotting the ground at his feet. They had no wings. The sky was a blind expanse stretching from end to end of the earth. He gazed up at it and the stars were gone, whitish blurs in their place. As if they had been rubbed with pencil erasers.

Leaves crunched behind him as he watched the heavens flicker to violet, to orange, to the brown of rich soil. The moon broke open like a fruit and the sun was already coloring the jagged horizon again. Hands slipped around his waist and up under his shirt, barbed fingers tracing patterns on the skin of his belly. He struggled and the arms locked him in place.

Meli stepped up beside him. “Think of it as pollination,” she said, “instead of trying to wrap your head around the old human evolution bit. Every hive starts with one Queen. There will be many of us. You’ll get the hang of it when you feed. Look around you, the world is in bloom.” He watched her tongue slip from her mouth but it kept coming, a hollow, curved thing hanging past her chin and sucking at the air. Her eyes went black and he looked away, down to the ground covered with red and yellow and gold leaves and the sluggish bees trundling over and between them.

He felt his mother’s proboscis push into the base of his neck. Her humming song vibrated there and a sweet numbness spread. She caressed him and at last he was able to remember the nights she tucked him into her arms against her breast, until he fell into his childish dreams and God knew what she had done then.

“Mom,” he said, his tongue hardening against the roof of his mouth.

Now she was drinking him. Three of his teeth loosened and fell from the gums. He swallowed them. A groan slipped out and his mother turned him around to her and passed his fluids back into his mouth blended with her own. He again tilted his head to the sky. He looked everywhere for its stars but saw only a great paling lens. A jar lowering, a world going on and on.

I
’d been flattered when asked to be the godfather of little Ian Wheeler, of course, but I’d had certain misgivings. When I’d met up with Max in the pub, something we liked to do regularly back then, I’d tried to explain at least part of the problem. “Oh, don’t worry about the whole spiritual adviser nonsense,” said Max. “Lisa’s no more religious than I am; this is just to keep her parents happy.” So I caved in, and went along to the christening, and watched Ian get dipped into a font, and afterwards posed for photographs in which I must admit I passed myself off quite successfully as someone just as proud and doting as the actual father and mother.

But my real concern had nothing to do with any religious aspect, and more with the discomfort of shackling myself for life to a person I had no reason to believe I would ever necessarily like. I’d had enough problems when Max started dating Lisa—Max and I had been inseparable since school, and now suddenly I was supposed to welcome Lisa into the gang, and want to spend time with her, and chat to her, and buy lager and lime for her—and it wasn’t that I
disliked
Lisa, not as such, though she was a bit dull and she wore too much perfume and I had nothing to talk to her about and she had a face as dozy as a stupefied cow. It was more that she had barged her way into a special friendship, with full expectation that I’d not only tolerate the intrusion but welcome it. She never asked if I minded. She never apologized.

And so it was with little Ian. I’m not saying he was a bad child. It was simply that he was a child at all. I’d never been wild about children, not even when I had been one, and I had always been under the impression that Max had felt the same, and I’d felt rather surprised that he wanted one. Surprised and, yes, disappointed. But then, Max had done lots of things that had surprised me since he’d met Lisa. And my worst fears came to be realized. On the few occasions I went to visit, I would be presented before Ian, as if he were a prince, and every little new thing about him was pointed out to me as if I should be entranced—that he had teeth, or that he could walk, that he’d grown an inch taller—sometimes I was under the impression I was supposed to give the kid a round of applause, as if these weren’t all things that I myself had mastered with greater skill years ago! I just couldn’t warm to my godson. It seemed to me that he was constantly demanding attention, and I could put up with that if it was only his mother he was bothering, but all too often he’d pull the same stunts on Max. Still, I tried to be dutiful, and at Christmas and on birthdays I would send Ian a present. But is it any wonder he made me uncomfortable?—this infant who had crept into my life, though his birth was none of my doing, though his existence wasn’t my fault. With his strangely fat face and his cheeks always puffed out as if he were getting ready to cry. I played godfather the best I could, but I felt a fraud.

When Ian was killed at the age of three, knocked down by a car (and safely within the speed limit, so the driver could hardly be blamed), I was, of course, horrified. The death of a child is a terrible thing, and I’m not a monster. But if a child was going to have to die, then I’m glad it was Ian.

Max and I had always been rather unlikely friends, or so I was told: at school he was more popular than I was, more sporty, more outgoing. I suspect people thought he was good for me, that’s what my mother said, and I resented that—I’d point out that, in spite of appearances, he was the one who had sought me out, who wanted to sit next to me in class, who waited to walk home with me. I’d been there for him when he failed his French O-levels, when he got dumped by the cricket first XI, when he first smoked, drank, snogged. I’d been best man at his wedding to Lisa, and I’d arranged a very nice stag night in a Greek restaurant, and given at the reception a speech that made everybody laugh. And I tried to be there for Max when Ian died. We’d meet up at the pub, at first it was just like the good old days! And I’d get in a round. How was he feeling? “Not so good, matey,” he’d say, and stare into the bottom of his pint. “Not so good.”

We drifted apart. And I’m sorry. I would have been a good friend if he had wanted me to be. But he didn’t want me to be.

Max and Lisa sold their house and moved up north. We exchanged Christmas cards for a couple of years. In the last one, Max told me they were moving again, this time overseas. He promised he would write to me with his new address. He didn’t.

One evening I was at home reading in my study when there was a phone call. “Hello? Is that you, John?” The number was withheld, and so I’m afraid I gave a rather stiff affirmation. “It’s Max. You remember, your old friend Max? Don’t you recognize me?”

And I did recognize him then, of course; he sounded like the old Max, the one who’d call me every evening and ask for help with his homework, the one who always had a trace of laughter in his voice.

He told me he was down in the city for a ‘work thing,’ and the firm had given him a hotel for the night. “Would you like to meet up on Thursday?” he said. “We could go to the pub. No problem if it’s too short notice. But we could go to the pub.”

It was rather short notice, to be fair, but I didn’t want to let Max down.

The pub was heaving with businessmen—it was just after the banks had shut, and the pub Max had chosen was right in the financial district. And I felt a sudden stab of discomfort—what if I couldn’t remember what Max looked like? What if I couldn’t tell him apart from all these other smart suits? (What if he couldn’t remember me?) But he’d arrived first, and he was guarding a small table in the corner, and I knew him at once, he really hadn’t changed a bit. He was standing up, and laughing, and gesticulating wildly to catch my attention. No, I was wrong—he
had
changed—a bit, just a bit, actually, as I got closer I could see he’d put on some weight, and his hair was grey. But I’m sure just the same could be said of me, I’m sure that’s true, I’m not as young as I was, though I try to keep myself trim, you know? I stuck out my hand for him to shake, and he laughed at that, he was laughing at everything. And he pulled me into a hug, and that was nice.

“What are you drinking?” was the first thing he said. “My round, I’ll get the drinks.”

We stayed rather late that night, and we had a lot of beer, and I suppose we got quite drunk. But that was all right. For a while we had to shout over the crowd to make ourselves heard, and that was a bit awkward, but pretty soon all the bankers began to go home to their wives and left us in peace. He asked me what I was up to these days, and I explained it the best I could, and my answers seemed to delight him and he laughed even more. I asked him how long he would be in England.

“Oh, we’ve moved back now,” he said. “Mum’s dying, I wanted to be close. Well, not too close. But the same country is good. Back over last year, sorry, should have been in touch.”

I told him that it didn’t matter, he was home now, he’d found me now—and I expressed some sympathy for his mother, I remember quite liking her, when I went to Max’s house she’d give me biscuits.

“We’ve got this lovely house in the countryside,” Max said. “A mansion, really. Almost a mansion. And the garden’s fantastic. Lisa has been designing that, but of course, no surprises there!” I wondered why it was no surprise, I wondered whether Lisa was famous for designing gardens, I supposed she might have been. It was the first time he’d mentioned Lisa, and I said I was glad they were still married.

We shared anecdotes about our schooldays, some of the ones Max told me I had no memory of whatsoever, so they were quite fresh and exciting. I asked him how Lisa was, and he said she was well. I didn’t bring up Ian at all, and I felt a bit bad about that—but then, Max didn’t bring up Ian either, and the evening was mercifully free of dead children.

I said I’d walk him back to his hotel.

“You should come and stay,” he said to me as we walked the streets. He hung on to my arm. It was raining, and Max didn’t seem to notice, and I didn’t care. “Come and stay this weekend. It’d be lovely to see you properly. And I know Lisa would just love to have you.” Before I knew it he was all over me with practical details—the best train I could catch, that they’d pick me up from the station. I said I wasn’t available the next weekend, I was too busy—I wasn’t as it happens, but I still didn’t want him to think he could just swan his way back into my life and be instantly forgiven. I promised to come up the weekend after.

Now, I am aware that I don’t come out of the following story too well. I can’t pretend I understand more than a fraction of what happened when I visited Max, so I’ll just tell it the best I can, warts and all. And I think you’ll accept that the circumstances were very strange, and perhaps, to an extent, extenuating.

Max met me at the station in his car. I asked if it were a new car, and he smiled, and said it was. Then we drove to his house through the rolling countryside, and he talked about his new car all the way. He’d said that he lived somewhere conveniently situated for occasional commutes into London, but I’m glad I hadn’t got a taxi, as the drive was half an hour at least.

Lisa was standing in the driveway to welcome us. I wondered how long she had been standing there. I had been concerned she might remember that I had often shown her a very slight resentment, but she gave no indication of it. She smiled widely enough when I got out of the car, she opened her arms a little in what might have been the beginnings of a hug. I didn’t risk it, I offered her my hand. She accepted the hand, laid hers in mine like it was a delicacy, gave a little curtsey, tittered. I still didn’t like her very much.

I had to admit, she looked better than I’d expected. Some women grow into their faces, do you know what I mean? They just age well, their eyes take on a certain wisdom, maybe, they just look a bit more dignified. (Whereas I have never known that to be true of men—we just get older: flabbier or bonier, it’s never better.) I had always likened Lisa to a cow, and it wasn’t as if she had totally thrown that bovine quality off, but the fleshier parts of her face that I had once dismissed as pure farmyard now had a certain lustre. She was beautiful. There was a beauty to her. That’s what it was, and I was surprised to see it.

At first I couldn’t see why Max had referred to his house as a mansion. It wasn’t especially grand at all—bigger than my house in the city, of course, but you’d expect that in the sticks. They showed me their kitchen, and the stone AGA that took up half of the space. They showed me the lounge, the too—big dining table, the too—big fireplace. I made the right sort of approving noises, and Max beamed with pride as if I were his favourite schoolmaster giving him a good report card.

“Let me show John the garden!” said Lisa. “Quickly, before the light fades!” And she was excited, impatient.

And now I understood why Max had used the word ‘mansion.’ Because though the house was unremarkable, the gardens at the back were huge. “It’s just shy of two acres,” boasted Max, and I could well believe it
,
it seemed to stretch off into the distance, I couldn’t see an end to it. But it wasn’t merely the size that was impressive—on its own, the size was an anomaly, a vast tract of land that had no business attaching itself to a house so small, like tiny Britain owning the whole of India. What struck me was the design of the thing, that it was truly
designed
, there was honest to God method in the placing of all those shrubs and hedges, the garden was laid out before us like a fully composed work of art. Even in the winter, the flowers not yet in bloom and the grass looking somewhat sorry for itself, the sight still took my breath away.

“I did all the landscaping myself,” said Lisa. “It was a hobby.” We walked on pebbled paths underneath archways of green fern. One day the paths would lead to big beds of flowers. ”I’ve planted three thousand bulbs of grape hyacinth,” Lisa told me, “and, behind that, three thousand of species tulip—so, in the spring, there’ll be this sea of blue crashing on to a shore of yellows, and reds, and greens! You’ll have to come back in the spring.” And every archway opened out to another little garden, different flowers seeded, but placed in ever winding patterns; there was topiary, there was even a faux maze: the design was intricate enough, I could see, but the hedges were still four feet tall, only a little child could have got lost in there.

And then, through another archway, and Lisa and Max led me to a pond. There was no water in the pond yet, this was still a work in progress. And, standing in the middle of the pond, raised high on a plinth, a statue of an angel—grey, stone, a fountain spout sticking out of its open mouth.

The wings were furled, somewhat apologetically even, as if the angel wasn’t sure how to use them. Its face was of a young cherub, and I stared at it, trying to identify it—it seemed familiar, and I wondered what painting I’d seen that had inspired it, was it Raphael, maybe, or Michelangelo?

“It’s Ian,” said Max helpfully. And I had a bit of a shock at that. But now I could see it, of course—the infant hands, body, feet; the strangely fat face; those puffed out cheeks he had always had, now puffed out in anticipation he’d be gushing forth a jet of water.