Laurie King - The Language of Bees

“I am merely asking-”

“-me of doing something-”

“-how you came-”

“-to my wife? To-”

“-to bear signs-”

“-my child?”

“-of violence.”

“How could you believe that I would harm either of them?”

“I did not say that I so believe. Damian, think: I do not know you. Circumstances have made us virtual strangers. Were you a stranger in fact, come to me saying that his wife and child had vanished yet he didn't want to go to the police, that is the first question that I should have to ask.”

“Did I kill my wife, you mean?”

“Did you?”

“You think I would have come to you-you, of all men-for help, if I had done that myself? For God's sake, man, I'm a painter, not an actor!”

“You are the child of two performers, a man and a woman practiced in easy deception and assumed faces. I put it to you again: Did you harm your wife?”

“No! No, no, no, for God's sake you have to believe me. I would not harm Yolanda, I would not touch a hair on Estelle's precious head, not if I was drunk or insane with drugs I would not. I would sooner-I'd sooner cut off the hand I paint with than use it to hurt either of them.”

“Very well.”

“You believe me?”

“I do not think I'm yet decrepit enough that I cannot hear truth in a man's vow.”

“Thank God for that.”

“So how did you come by the scratch on your face?”

“Your orchard wants grazing.”

“I'm sorry?”

“The trees around your house. They would benefit from having a cow turned loose in there from time to time, to prune the lower branches. That was what Mother used to do in France, so they didn't poke one's ruddy eye out when one decided to take a stroll through the garden in the moonlight.”

“I see. I apologise for my neglect, I have been away-what? Why are you laughing?”

“Oh, it's-it just hit me, how your audience would react if they could hear us talking about pruning apples.”

“ My audience? How do you think your admirers would react were I to photograph The Addler, master of Surrealism, sitting in an overstuffed chair wearing a Victorian smoking-gown and puffing on one of his father's ancient clay pipes?”

“I should think they would find it the very definition of Surreal.”

“Ah, Damian. Your laugh…”

“What about my laugh?”

“It reminds me of your mother.”

“Do you wish the lights left on again?”

“Yes please.”

“May I turn off the one overhead?”

“Here, let me. You don't mind?”

“They are electric, we won't suffocate.”

“I shouldn't bet on that.”

“If you can make it through the night, we shall go elsewhere tomorrow. A place with a window.”

“I'll live.”

“Damian?”

“Hmm?”

“I suggest that we part our ways tomorrow, temporarily.”

“Why?”

“The places I need to go, it may be good if you do not have to see them. To have them linked in your mind with your wife…

“Damian? Are you asleep?”

“Why should I link these places with Yolanda? Simply because I was living in a bordello when I met her?”

“Damian, there is no such thing as a willing child prostitute.”

“Huh. You guessed. About Yolanda.”

“I do not guess. I hypothesise, I put forth a theory, and I receive confirmation. As, indeed, I have now done.”

“Yes. Well. I'm sorry I didn't tell you.”

“It is hardly astonishing, that a man would not care to reveal the darker details of his wife's past.”

“It was ugly. It's left her more fragile, more vulnerable, than one would suspect. But you're right, I didn't want her past or her… susceptibilities to be in front of your eyes, the first time you met her.”

“Drugs?”

“Not in a long time.”

“You are certain?”

“I would know.”

“What else are you not telling me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are concealing something about your wife.”

“There's nothing.”

“I don't believe that.”

“Nothing you need to know. Nothing that would explain her disappearance.”

“That is a conclusion you need to leave to me.”

“I'm not telling you any more. You don't need to know.”

“Damian-”

“No! God, I should have gone back to Shanghai months ago.”

“Are you about to go storming out again tonight? Because I have to say, both concealing information and abandoning the investigation slow matters down considerably. Why don't you have a drink instead?”

“Are you always such a cold-hearted bastard? What did my mother ever see in you?”

“I often wondered that myself. Now, is that light sufficient?”

“Yes.”

“I still think it best that you not accompany me tomorrow. You do not need to have those raw images before your own eyes the next time she stands in front of you.”

“I'm beginning to wonder if we will find her.”

“We will find her in the end.”

“Christ, I almost believe you. But no, I will go with you.”

“As you wish.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Damian.”

BY THURSDAY MORNING, MY SOLITUDE WAS MORE A fact than an unexpected gift. I cooked myself an egg, which turned out as leathery as the toast although not quite as comprehensively burnt, then spent half an hour chipping the débris from the fry-pan, wondering all the while that no laboratory experiment had ever blown up in my face in the way a simple meal did. Cooking was nothing but chemistry, wasn't it? Why could I not perform as efficiently over a cook-stove as I did a Bunsen burner?

The pan would not deceive Mrs Hudson, so I would have to take another pass at its surface before she returned, but at least the smoke had cleared. I latched the windows and put on my boots.

I had decided during the night that there was no reason I should leave the abandoned hive's honey to be raided by human or insect thieves, and that a day's hard labour would do me good. It was righteous good will, not boredom-how could I be bored, in this place?-that had me loading up the hand-cart and trundling it across the dewy grass to the far-off hive.

The laden frames had been heavy enough one at a time, but together, they weighed a young ton. Plus that, I had neglected to bring gloves, which meant that when I reached the garden shed again, hours later, my palms were raw and my back ached with fighting the cart over the uneven ground. I staggered to the house, gulping three glasses of cool water at the kitchen sink and letting the tap run across my hot face. I chipped off a hunk of ice from the block in the ice-box to cool a fourth glass, and took it outside to the shade of the apple tree. This time the busy bees were less companions than they were haughty reminders of a job ahead. I scowled at the workers.

“If Holmes isn't back to deal with you lot, you'll just have to keep packing the nectar in until the place bursts,” I told them.

They answered not.

After a while, I returned to the house to fetch Holmes' strong magnifying glass. I could have waited until the cool of the evening, which on a day like this would still be plenty warm to encourage the flow of honey, but I wanted light to study the evidence in the comb. Before attacking each frame, I carried it into the sun to study with the glass, hoping for a clue to the hive's aberrant behaviour. I found none. The earlier frames were neatly filled, side to side; when I had finished examining each one, I took it back into the shed and ran the hot knife over its comb, setting it into place in Holmes' homemade, hand-cranked centrifuge.