The Beekeeper's Secret Read online

  She’d mulled over her mother’s words in the car on the way home from Belle and Raj’s place that day; in the days following she kept the baby idea to herself, feeling foolish for even entertaining the thought when Dougal had been so clear from the start of their relationship that Leo would be his one and only child.

  But since that visit, Tansy had shown Dougal some pictures of Hamish on her phone, and he’d smiled and puffed with pride that he’d been the baby whisperer above everyone else. And she’d let the little seed of hope sit in her navel, forgetting it was there until the day when he said he needed to talk to her.

  Then it bloomed. He feels the same.

  Excitedly, she’d held his hand as they walked down the hill to Hastings Street and into a fine restaurant, where a classical guitarist serenaded the patrons from a corner of the al fresco section. Big green leaves of a fairy-lit tree hovered behind them. They couldn’t see the beach from where they were, but they could hear the waves crashing to the shore and feel the stickiness of the salt in the air on her skin.

  And it was while she was sipping merlot, her silk shawl pulled around her shoulders, waiting for Dougal to admit that he’d been silly to make that decision about not having any more children, and now that she was nearly thirty, and having seen Hamish, and realising he wasn’t getting any younger either, that he was wondering (he knew it would be a big ask, because she’d put so much thought into it in the first place, and he had explicitly said it was non-negotiable and she’d have to live with her decision forever, so she had to be sure) would she, maybe, consider having a baby, that she realised she couldn’t remember when she’d last had her period. But no sooner had the question wandered into her mind than Dougal dropped his news, bringing all thoughts to a screeching halt.

  ‘The company wants us to move to Canada for a year, maybe two.’

  She’d quickly swallowed her wine. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘The company wants me to go to Toronto for the next year or two as part of the engineering design team for a new medical university they’re building. It’s a fantastic opportunity,’ he’d said, as if knowing she wouldn’t be on board with the idea straight away.

  ‘Canada? As in snow and sub-freezing temperatures, on the other side of the world?’

  Too cold for babies, surely.

  The waiter returned with menus, placed them on the table and shook out the white linen napkins across their laps.

  ‘I know it’s a bit of a bombshell,’ Dougal went on, indicating the garlic bread to start them off. ‘And I know you’ll want time to think about it.’ He paused, as if hopeful she would cut him off and tell him that no, she didn’t need any time at all, she’d love to go. Excitement hovered around him like a halo. Corporate success was the thing he’d clung to in order to prove himself to his family after his early setback.

  ‘And what about Leo?’ she said. ‘Where will he go?’ Leo attended the University of the Sunshine Coast. His mother, Rebecca, lived in Brisbane. Leo had moved up here three years ago, from his mum’s place to his dad’s, to be closer to the uni.

  Dougal shrugged. ‘I figure he can stay in the apartment and look after it for us. It’s actually a lot easier for everyone if he does. We don’t want to have to look at selling or renting it out or selling cars and all our furniture and all that, putting things in storage and the like. This way, we can simply pack up our bags and go. Leo can drive us to the airport and pick us up again in a year or two’s time.’ He smiled, stuffing a hunk of garlic bread into his mouth.

  ‘Have you told him yet?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I wanted to talk to you first.’ Dougal reached out and took her hand. ‘We don’t need to decide right now. Let’s just enjoy a nice meal and go for a walk on the sand afterwards and then, when we get home . . .’ He trailed off and gave her a suggestive wink.

  ‘You’re a rogue.’ She laughed. ‘You’re quite frisky for your age, you know,’ she teased. Her tone was light but her heart was not.

  Now lying in bed, their evening completed, she knew she’d been wrong; Dougal didn’t want a baby. And yet she might be pregnant.

  2

  It should have been the sounds of the markets that filled Maria’s head: customers calling for half a kilo of prawns from the seafood van opposite; the delighted squeals of small children running across the grass with a bag full of bric-a-brac treasure; the sway and rustle of plastic shopping bags; dogs barking; and the squeaky wheels of wagons laden with potted plants. Instead, Fred Astaire’s voice, in scratchy, bumpy, old-vinyl sound, floated in Maria’s head as she wrapped up two jars of honey sugar body scrub—cheap as chips to make and a great little earner—in pink tissue paper and tied it with string.

  ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ was her parents’ favourite song. Her mother, Elyse, told the girls that she and their father, Thomas, would play the song on their record player during the war, sometimes when they were frightened and it felt as though the whole world would collapse. They would play it to give themselves hope. And sometimes they played it when they were upbeat and puffed up with national pride, perhaps after an exciting day when Pa had received a covert shipment of his carefully selected imported tea leaves, which he was employed to do on behalf of the tea control board. The tea had to make it through the trade routes infested by the Japanese navy in the Pacific, so it was cause for great national pride when it made it to the docks. Thomas would joke that the Germans and the Japs might be able to take a lot of things but they would never get their tea.

  And then years later, after Pa had died suddenly on the docks one summer—heatstroke, they said—her bereft and weary mother would play it alone in the lounge once Maria and her sisters were in bed. Maria and Enid shared a double bed in the shadow of the tall, dark wardrobe with the key always in the lock (except for the day that Enid lost it and the girls were told they weren’t allowed to leave the house until it was found again, which it was, thankfully, two days later, when all of them were ready to kill each other). The sisters would listen to Fred’s optimistic voice and curse out into the darkness that ‘they’ had taken it away from them. Their beloved father was gone.

  Now, Maria paused in her ruminations to say hello to a middle-aged couple who’d been hovering over some of the framed artwork at one end of her stall. Some months ago, she had picked up several books of old sheet music from an op shop and posted them to the orphanage for art projects. The children had screen-printed honeybees onto the paper, in various patterns and colours, and posted them back, and Trav had used some offcuts of wood from other jobs to build simple but sweet frames for them.

  ‘These are handmade by the children in the orphanage,’ Maria said helpfully, gesturing to the donation tin and the information leaflets.

  ‘Oh, how adorable,’ the woman said, quickly reaching for her purse to retrieve a five-dollar note and stuff it in the tin. Minutes later, they’d left with two matching bee artworks, some honey Dijon mustard and several of the lollipops Maria had made yesterday. Any sale from her stall was a gift that kept on giving, but Maria did especially love to see bee artworks get picked up. She hoped they would go on to inspire more people to think about bees, the work they did, and the crucial role they played in humanity’s survival.

  In her convent days, she’d been the head beekeeper. She had a way with the bees that no other sister had. Sister Frances was too heavy-footed, too impatient in her movements, too grumpy. The bees didn’t like grumpy people and didn’t trust anyone thumping around their homes. Frances was too much like a grizzly bear, Maria had often thought. Sister Celine was too timid. Such a mouse of a girl when she’d arrived on their doorstep, f leeing her troubled home. The convent was her refuge, but she had no confidence with the bees and would bolt if one landed on her.

  Father Peter claimed he was allergic to them and would swell up like a puffer fish if stung. But hardly anyone was truly allergic to bees. Everyone swelled to some degree when they were stung; it didn’t mean it was life-threatening. She
suspected it was simply a ploy on his part to avoid work. It was typical—so much like the bees. The female bees did all the work. The male bees sat around eating honey, getting fat and waiting to copulate. That was it. Male bees didn’t even build the wax house in which they lived. They didn’t even groom themselves.

  The sisters were the worker bees of the church, out there nursing, teaching, farming and whatever else they could do, donating their wages straight to the church. The only difference between the beehive and the church was that a queen sat at the top of the beehive and a man at the top of the church.

  Maria liked bees much better.

  She could never understand why people were afraid of them. A bee didn’t want to sting anyone; it would die if it did. A bee would only ever sting if it was under extreme threat, or to save the hive from an intruder, like a foreign insect, which they would then wrap up in propolis to quarantine it and prevent any possible spread of infection. The girls—the worker bees—had one aim in life only, and that was to serve, nurture and protect. What wasn’t to like about that? The bees were her inspiration. She’d lost a lot in her lifetime, and had accepted that life was far beyond her control, but if she could have one prayer answered it would be that the bees were the one thing that could never be taken away, not even after her secret was revealed.

  She would go to Canada. How could she not? That was what you did when you were married, wasn’t it? But uprooting herself from this life here on the coast was such an enormous concept that it didn’t fit into her head properly yet. Besides which, this morning Tansy had some other mental tidying to do. Getting rid of any fantasies about babies was the first thing. She gave herself a stern talking-to in the mirror while simultaneously pulling her dark shoulder-length curls into a small, low pony and chewing on a toothbrush, toothpaste leaking out the corner of her mouth.

  She’d just got caught up in the romance of seeing her husband in the role of a father, that was all. She and Dougal shared a wonderful love. It was surely natural to occasionally fantasise about expanding that love into something even greater than the two of them. In their early months of dating, in that heady, lust-filled time, it sometimes felt as though there was simply too much love just for the two of them. It seemed almost selfish to keep it all to themselves. That was the trap. It had to be. That was when people leapt recklessly into the world of baby making. But then reality struck, and there was no turning back. Look at her life now. It was beyond wonderful.

  She spat the toothpaste into the sink and rinsed.

  R u up?

  Speaking of reality, here it was. Belle, up early as usual.

  Yes, on my way out. How are you?

  Belle and Raj lived two and a half hours away inland, an exhausting drive along a snaking one-lane highway through cattle country. For the past four months, since Hamish had arrived, texting had been Tansy’s prime form of communication with her childhood best friend. There was just never a good time to call when someone had a newborn, let alone one with reflux who screamed incessantly. Except when Dougal had him in the baby carrier, rubbing his downy head and whispering to him . . .

  Stop it, she told herself. Or you’ll have to eat Brussels sprouts.

  Eating Brussels sprouts was Tansy’s way of punishing herself when she’d done something bad—like, in this case, coveting someone else’s baby. And it was a valid punishment, because not only did Brussels sprouts taste disgusting but they gave her serious wind too, and that was never pleasant for anyone.

  Tansy had made Belle promise to text regularly, even if she had nothing to say.

  It was a complete schlock of a night, Hamish screaming for most of it. Belle, who had always sworn like a sailor, was now making a supreme effort to give up cursing in front of her baby. Schlock was her substitute for the other s-word (and happened to have almost the same meaning). One and a half hours sleep last night. That is all.

  Sorry, lovely. I hear it gets better xxx

  I hope so xxx

  Tansy had been meaning to send Belle a care package for weeks now. She fished in her handbag for a pen and a petrol receipt and wrote a note to herself to do that. The other person she needed to make more of an effort with was Rose. Her sister had been MIA for months, barely coming to the surface for an occasional text. Tansy sent her a message now.

  I’m heading out to go to church with the olds. Want to come? Would be great to see you xx

  Then, tucking the receipt into her money purse, she picked up her keys and left Dougal and Leo sleeping, as she always did on her monthly Sunday trips to Brisbane.

  The drive down the highway was smooth and swift and she arrived at her parents’ home in the northern suburb of Alderley ahead of time. The two yapping poodles met her at the front door, which she opened with her key, and she pushed past their leaping front paws to the cool tiled interior.

  ‘Hello?’ she said to the empty lounge room.

  ‘Tansy?’ Enid called.

  ‘Yes, it’s me.’ She knelt down to scruff the cinnamon-coloured dogs scrambling for affection. ‘Hello, boys, how’s the world treating you?’

  Enid appeared from around the corner, dressed in tailored blush-pink pants and a white blouse, carrying a cardigan over her arm in case of a chill, and smelling of Chanel perfume, which always made Tansy’s nose twitch. ‘You’re early,’ she said observationally, coming to kiss and hug her daughter.

  ‘Good run down. How are you?’ Tansy asked, casting her eyes across to the kitchen, which was unusually neat and tidy for a Sunday morning, when bacon and eggs was the norm.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ Enid said.

  ‘Have you heard from Rose this morning?’ Tansy asked, checking her phone to find no reply.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I sent her a message to see if she wanted to come, that’s all.’ Tansy shrugged, disappointed but not surprised. ‘What’s Dad doing?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Finlay said, his veiny legs showing beneath shorts, a tuft of white chest hair sprouting at the neck of his shirt. He certainly wasn’t dressed for church. Gardening, more like it. Beside Tansy, Enid stiffened ever so slightly.

  Tansy looked from one to the other, trying to read them. ‘Are you both ready?’

  ‘Your dad’s not coming today,’ Enid said, gathering her handbag and stuffing extra tissues inside.

  ‘Got a headache, love,’ he said, coming to greet Tansy properly. ‘Think I’ll take it easy today.’

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Tansy said, assessing the colour of his cheeks (as ruddy as ever) and the clarity of his hazel eyes (all good), holding onto his arm a little longer than necessary. For most of her life she’d had morbid thoughts of losing her parents. It was just what happened when you were born as a ‘surprise’ fourteen years after your sister, when your mum was forty-one and thought that she was done. By the time you were ten and could understand some medical terminology, it was easy to see that your parents were on the wrong side of the lifespan and you might lose them at a young age. Even her sister, at forty-four, seemed a generation ahead of her. She could never catch up to them, always that gap behind, racing to grasp what was already gone. Most likely, she would be living her life with her parents gone for more time than she’d had them.

  It was one particular bout of melancholic navel-gazing along these lines that had prompted her to try to track down her estranged aunt before she died. Tansy wanted to know all of her family and thought her mother should reconnect with her sister before it was too late.

  ‘Yes, yes, fine,’ Finlay said. ‘I just need a lie-in this morning. Old age catching up with me.’

  ‘Could you please take out the rubbish before you go back to bed?’ Enid asked him.

  ‘No problem.’

  Tansy was uncomfortably aware of the stiffness between them and the chilliness of the room, the silence of the street outside. They’d obviously had a fight, something that didn’t happen often but was of course inevitable if you’d been married for nearly fifty years.

  ‘Thank y
ou,’ Enid said. ‘Okay, Tansy, let’s go.’

  St Columba’s church in Wilston was a hundred-year-old brick building, in the traditional shape of pitched roof and high domed ceiling, with pillars, narrow stained-glass windows, big heavy wooden doors, a choir loft and amazing acoustics. There were hardly any of these old churches these days, but they had infinitely more spirit than any modern building. Tansy’s family had been coming here for as long as she could remember and, now that she thought about it, probably longer than that. She’d never thought to ask. She loved to watch the light streaming through the high windows and down onto the marble flooring of the apse and altar, framed by the curved whitewashed sacristy at the rear.

  The church still had wooden pews, with padded kneelers, and had a strong smell of wood polish and old dust about it, something else Tansy loved. She felt herself relax the moment she stepped inside. Today, Enid led the way to a pew on the right side of the aisle, under a station of the cross, and they took their seats with the soothing clunk and creak of wood as people shuffled around.

  Tansy took the hymnbook her mother passed her and flicked through it, noting songs she knew well and songs she loved, as well as some that should long ago have been retired. She rubbed a thumb along the curved edge of the pew in front of her, appreciating its smoothly worn surface, and reflected on how much this building had been a part of her life.

  She had been baptised here, and apparently ‘screamed blue murder’ when the priest poured water on her bald head, so much so that the congregation couldn’t even hear the priest’s next words and he’d had to take a break until she stopped crying and nestled, hiccupping, on her father’s shoulder. At eight, she’d made her first Holy Communion, in her white dress and veil. After the mass, she’d received a gift of a framed picture of Jesus with the glowing Sacred Heart, and at home they’d had a family-sized block of Cadbury chocolate to share. The same year, she also made her first Reconciliation, where she’d fearfully confessed her sin of forgetting to feed the guinea pigs, forcing her mother to do it instead, and Father Dennis had been so kind and told her he was certain she hadn’t meant to make more work for her mother and that if she would like to say a Hail Mary he was sure she would be just fine.