The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read Read Free Page B

how to deal with – and even, in a way, resented. And so they fussed over him, his refusal to eat, his red eyes, the flesh withering on his frame; they took him endless cups of tea, coffee, hot water with lemon, but otherwise could not face his anguished, embarrassing love, and the fear on his face, his openness to grief.
    The end was agony, though perhaps it was more so for them, for their mother seemed unaware of it all now. She had slipped down out of reach.
    It lasted for hours. There was a false alarm. The doctor came. Next she rallied, and even seemed about to wake briefly, before drowning again.
    They had both gone to sleep, Nita on the sewing-room sofa under a quilt, Kay in the kitchen rocking chair, slumped awkwardly across her arm. But some change woke them and they both went into the hall,looking at one another in terror, scarcely believing, icy calm. They went up the stairs without speaking.
    Afterwards, and for the rest of their lives, the picture was branded on their minds and the branding marks became deeper and darker and more ineradicable with everything that happened. So that what might have been a tender, fading memory became a bitter scar. Their father was kneeling beside the bed. He had her hand between both of his and clutched to his breast, and his tears were splashing down onto it and running over it. Every few minutes a groan came from him, a harsh, raw sound which appalled them.
    The lamp was on, tipped away from her face and the golden-yellow curtains she had chosen for their cheerful brightness during the day were now dull topaz. The bedside table was a litter of bottles and pots of medicines.
    Her breathing was hoarse, as if her chest was a gravel bed through which water was trying to strain. Now and then it heaved up and collapsed down again. But the rest of her body was almost flat to the bed, almost a part of it. She was so thin, the bedclothes were scarcely lifted.
    Nita felt for Kay’s hand and pressed until it hurt,though neither of them was aware of it. Their father was still bent over the figure on the bed, still holding, holding on.
    And then, shocking them, everything stopped. There was a rasping breath, and after it, nothing, simply nothing at all, and the world stopped turning and waited, though what was being waited for they could not have told.
    That split second fell like a drop of balm in the tumult of her dying and their distress, so that long afterwards each of them would try to recall it for comfort. But almost at once it was driven out by the cataract of grief and rage that poured from their father. The bellow of pain that horrified them so that in the end they fled down to the sitting room, and held each other and wept, but quietly, and with a restraint and dignity that was shared and unspoken.
    There was to be a funeral tea, though not many would come. She had outlived most of her relatives and had needed few friends, their family unit had been so tight, yielding her all she had wanted.
    But those who did come must be properly entertained.
    Nita and Kay arrived back before the rest to prepare, though the work had been done by Mrs Willis and her daughter.
    The hall was cool. Nita, standing in front of the mirror to take off her hat and tidy her hair, caught her sister’s eye. They were exhausted. The whole day, like the whole week, seemed unreal, something they had floated through. Their father had wept uncontrollably in the church, and at the graveside bent forward so far, as the coffin was lowered, that they had half-feared he was about to pitch himself in after it.
    Behind Nita, Kay’s face was pinched, the eye sockets bruise-coloured. There was everything to say. There was nothing to say. The clock ticked.
    She will never hear it tick again, Nita thought.
    For a second, then, the truth found an entrance and a response, but there was no time, the cars had returned, there were footsteps on the path, voices. The truth retreated again.
    They turned, faces composed. Nita