Little Bee

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.”

“Thank you. I’ll just get my son and my…well. My friend.”

I watched the undertaker ignoring the smell of gin on my breath. He looked back at me. There was a small scar on his forehead. His nose was flattened and skewed. His face registered nothing. It was as blank as my mind.

“Take all the time you need, madam.”