The Death of Bees (24 page)
Authors: Lisa O'Donnell
Change and decay in all around I see,
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
“Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings . . .”
We have to get out of here.
H
e slapped me. He waited until she wasn't looking and slapped me.
“When I ask you to play then that's exactly what I expect from you. You have a gift but it is God's gift and you are obliged to share it.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He kisses my forehead and I don't cry.
When we drive to school everything is wet and gray. We pass tower blocks and cross motorways, nothing is warm. I watch him drive, his nose red and dripping from the rain, I watch Marnie fixated on her hair. I wonder about the vanished; about Mother and Father, about Grammy and Lennie. I try not to cry for them, I won't cry for them and so I reach for my book and read, I can't help it.
I
find her sulking in the cafeteria, gurgling milk like a little kid.
“All right?” I ask.
“What do you care?” she mumbles.
“I care a lot as a matter of fact.”
“What do you want?” she says and then plays with her sandwich.
“I can't stay at
his
house,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says.
“So what do you think?” I ask.
“About what?” she says.
“About getting the fuck out of here,” I say.
I expect resistance and fear. I expect excuses and reasons, what I don't expect are keys.
“Lennie's place in Firemore,” she says. “You should leave as soon as you can.”
“How long have you had these?”
“Lennie gave them to me.”
“We could have left ages ago, Nelly.”
“I want to stay. Give it a chance. Know some semblance of a family. I'm tired, Marnie. I'm so tired. I don't want to run.”
She started to cry. I put my arm around her.
“You have a family. I'm your family.”
“I thought you'd forgotten,” she says.
“I won't let anything happen to you. I swear. I'd kill him first.”
This certainly rattles her cage.
“Let's hope you don't have to.”
I hope the same, but only a little bit.
A
ll she has is a set of keys. It's ruddy ridiculous. However will we survive without money? I don't think Marnie has thought this through at all. I held them back for this very reason, but there has been much in our lives Marnie has not thought through and oh my, the trouble we have known on account of it, it beggars belief.
I wonder if I can live without school and libraries. I wonder what I can take with me. She says the clothes on my back. I wonder if there are cornflakes and Coke. There is so much one needs, especially when embracing new environments. How I love the cottage, but does she expect us to live on fish and grass? She is sixteen in one month and assures me we will know all kinds of freedoms.
“I'm legally able to take care of us, Nelly. It'll be okay,” she says. “Trust me.”
No one is to know of our whereabouts, not even Kim.
“I don't need threads so you're not to talk to anyone. Do you understand?”
I can't imagine who she'd think I'd talk to, given I have no friends to speak of. I only have Marnie.
T
his morning I shared a sneaky fag with Kim, it was to be our last and for a long time to come.
“You must be going mad in that fucker's house,” she says.
“I am,” I say.
She sighs for me.
“I couldn't do it, but I respect you can.”
But I can't, Kim, is what I want to say. I'm leaving and won't be back for a while and I'm going to miss you like crazy, you mad bitch.
I say nothing and stub out my fag with the toe of my shoe. It's like a dance I do. Kim follows suit and we say our good-byes for the day. I want to pull her back and hug her, I want to tell her I love her, but I can't. It would make no sense and she'd know something was up. I decide to walk her to the bus stop, knowing I'll be late for Robert T. Macdonald but I don't care. When Kim gets on the bus she makes a face through the window and I give her the finger. That was our good-bye. Kim licking a windowpane and me pissing my hole laughing at her.
Later I sneak into the back of the theater where Susie is singing in the school play. I make sure no one can see me, especially Susie. I don't go for the whole performance; I just want to see her and hear her sing one more time. I deserve a song from her, even if it wasn't for me.
T
here was no plan, we would simply leave in the night and catch a bus as far as Inverness. We were taking the dog. Marnie was reluctant but conceded it would have been Lennie's final wish that his Bobby stay with his girls, as opposed to a raving lunatic with a penchant for whiskey (and no glass according to Marnie).
I didn't pack much in my rucksack. They had to be small enough to fit under our beds. It wasn't a very big bag sadly and though I was able to squash a box of cornflakes into it and various undergarments, not to mention a few cans of Coke, Marnie was absolutely livid. She said they weren't essentials but I closed my ears and shook my head and not wanting to upset me any further she permitted me to take my nourishments, though she didn't talk to me for the rest of the day and complained of having to take extra things for me in her bag. What she didn't know is that I was also wearing five T-shirts and two jerseys. I was boiling.
A
nd so the rabid chitchat begins again. She wouldn't stop.
“Where are we going? How will we get there? How much is a ticket? How long is the journey? What will we eat? Can you fish? Lennie said to stay away from the mushrooms. Do you know how to light a fire? How will we do laundry? What about electricity or is it gas he has? I can't remember. Do we have milk?”
I could have screamed, but not wanting to ruffle her feathers I find an answer for her every concern.
She wanted to take everything including the pillow Izzy had suffocated Gene with. Sick. I said no and she let it go. She wanted to take her cornflakes, however, and cans of Coke for her ridiculous cereal. I hope to God they'd be easy to locate in Firemore. She'll have a fit if all we have is porridge. It was a little bit of a setback the demand for cornflakes and Coke; I thought she was getting over these things. She seems to have slowed down in recent weeks, bordering on being normal to tell the truth, it must be the stress of running away fueling the nuttiness in her. Maybe it's time to tell her about the money.
M
arnie has a bag of money, all of it tainted with misery and other people's undoings. I don't want to take it and urge her to leave it behind. She uses expletives and I am without words.
“We won't survive without cash. Hard cash.”
“It's not right, Marnie. It's not right,” I tell her.
“What's not right?” she says.
“You know very well.”
“Yes I know, but what do you know?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.”
“You sure?” she says. “You can say it you know.
Drug money
. D-R-U-G-S.”
“I don't want to know.”
“You never want to know anything real, do you? And to think you were doing so well recently. Thought you were finally growing up.”
“It's not right,” I say.
“You know what's not right, starving. We have to take this money.”
“I don't want to,” I say.
“Think of it this way. This is every penny and every pound Izzy and Gene stole from us to buy drugs. We're just taking it back and with a little bit of interest. It's fair, Nelly.”
“I'm not sure,” I say.
“Think of what we can buy with this money. Safety and security. You want to send it back to the dealers to buy more drugs and hurt more people like you and me or do you want to take it and start a new life somewhere else?”
When she put it like that there was no arguing with her. Morally it is wrong but ethically it is correct and so the money comes with us and I've never seen so much of it in my life.
W
e've come a long way, Nelly and I, but sometimes I forget what a giant fanny my sister can be. She wanted to leave the money behind. She wants to go to Firemore and catch fish and eat leaves. She wants to grow cucumbers and tomatoes and in these climates. She is the world's greatest plum. I want to slap her but I don't. I need her focused on getting out of here and not afraid of her sister smacking her face in.
Robert T. Macdonald continues to make my life hell and on our last weekend together he takes us to the cemetery where Izzy and Gene are buried. The tombstone is ready and he wants us to stand in front of it and cry. We are thinking of nothing except getting away. The tombstone is bullshit and implies Gene and Izzy were married. He even changes her name to Gene's name. It's so wrong. The marble tells the story of two people who are “Dearly missed,” who are “Beloved” and who have been “Taken but not forgotten.” I want to spit at it, just like they do in the movies. Nelly starts to cry but she's hushed by Robert T. Macdonald.
“No tears please. Just play something nice.”
She doesn't want to but she has to and gives us a little Bach, but he hates it and asks her to choose something more celestial and so she plays “Amazing Grace” as best she can. He is close to tears and I realize he likes to grieve. This is a place where he can actually be a father to Izzy because all he has to do is show up with flowers and twine and when people pass him by and see him digging around the grave they won't know any difference. They'll glance across the tomb and feel pity for a man who lost his daughter three times and they really shouldn't.
W
e crept slowly down the stairs and crossed the living room to the front door. Fortunately the stairs don't creak and so we were spared the amplified noises one imagines when one is making a break for it. The only real noise was coming from the rain outside and how it rattled at the windows. I felt positively tormented.
The room was deathly cold and I was suddenly worried I didn't have enough clothes with me and so I decided Marnie was right and returned the cornflakes and Coke to the kitchen, I would need at least another pair of jeans and some tops. I went back to my room.
“Where the fuck are you going?” whispers Marnie.
“I won't be a minute,” I tell her and so I return to my room and fill my bag with more appropriate attire. I go back downstairs to where an irate Marnie awaits me.
“Are you with me or not?” she asks.
“Why, with you of course,” I say.
Our escape was within our reach and as we crept closer to our dream it seemed impossible we would find it behind a closed door and down a lane, on a bus and then on a train. It just felt too easy and I was filled with trepidation.
I
reach quickly for the key hanging in the lock and frantically push at the door handle. It opens and we are free to leave, until I knock into Robert T. Macdonald, standing stiff across the threshold. He pushes me backward. I stumble to the floor. Nelly rushes to my side while he slams the door into its frame. The room shakes.
He drags me to my feet and shoves me onto a nearby chair. Nelly doesn't need to be pushed, she finds her own chair.
“You think I'm an idiot, don't you?” He is looking at me.
We shake our heads. We are afraid.
“You think I didn't know about this? About the money in the bag?”
I pale.
“I see you, Miss Marnie. I see you,” he whispers.
“What about you, Nelly? You think I'm stupid?”
She shakes her head.
“Go up to your room,” he instructs us. She doesn't want to.
“Get up to your fucking room!” he screams. She runs.
I am still and wait eagerly for a lecture, but he doesn't reach for a bible, not this time, he reaches for the cuffs at the end of his sleeves and pulls them over his elbows. He cracks his knuckles and moves closer to the chair. He grabs me by the collar and then tautens his arm like an elastic band, ready to throw his fist into my face, and were it not for Mick standing behind him and pushing a gun into the back of his head that's exactly what he would have done.
I
sat at the top of the stairs and good golly it was the ice cream vendor and holding a gun of all things. Fortunately he went straight for Robert T. Macdonald and I have to say I was rather relieved.
“Help me with him,” he says to Marnie. She was only too delighted.
“What do you want me to do?” Marnie asks.
“Tie him up with this.” He throws her a rope.
It must have been very empowering tying Robert T. Macdonald up and with an ice cream vendor waving a gun in his face. She must have been thrilled to bits. I know I was. Marnie finds some masking tape. The captive was babbling all kinds of threats and warnings. It was imperative he be silenced. He might alert the ice cream vendor to my presence for example and that wouldn't do at all.
Once she was done the ice cream vendor became rather serious.
“Marnie,” he says. “I'm only going to ask you this one more time. Where's my money?”
“I don't know. I told you.”
He fired a bullet into the wall above her head. It was a confounded muddle.
“Gene and Izzy are dead!” she screamed. “They could have moved it anywhere.” She really wanted that money and would die before handing it over to a cad selling ice cream and all kinds of confectionery. It was quite the pickle.
He points the gun at Robert T. Macdonald, who starts to whimper.