Chris Cleave - Little Bee

Lawrence shook his head, slowly. “But whatever’s going to happen to you is going to happen eventually, whether I do anything or not. This isn’t your country. They’ll come for you, I promise you they will. They come for all of you in the end.”

“You could hide me.”

“Yeah right, like they hid Anne Frank in the attic. Look how that worked out for her.”

“Who is Anne Frank?”

Lawrence closed his eyes and folded his hands behind his neck, and sighed.

“Another girl who wasn’t my problem,” he said.

I felt a rage exploding inside me, so fierce that it made my eyeballs hurt. I banged my hand down on the table and his eyes snapped open wide.

“Sarah would hate you, if you told the police about me!”

“Sarah wouldn’t know. I’ve seen how the immigration people work. They would come for you in the night. You wouldn’t have time to tell Sarah. You wouldn’t get to say a word.”

I stood up. “I would find a way. I would find a way to tell her what you had done. And I would find a way to tell your wife too. I would break both of your lives, Lawrence. Your family life and your secret life.”

Lawrence looked surprised. He stood up and walked around the kitchen. He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah,” he said, “I really think you would.”

“I would. Please do not imagine I would forgive you, Lawrence. I would make sure I hurt you.”

Lawrence looked out at the garden. “Oh,” he said.

I waited. After a long time he said, “It’s funny. I’ve been lying awake all night thinking what to do about you. I thought about what would be best for Sarah, and what would be best for me. I honestly didn’t even think about what you’d do. I suppose I should have. I just assumed you wouldn’t be so switched on. When Sarah talked about you I was imagining, I don’t know…not someone like you, anyway.”

“I have been in your country two years. I learned your language and I learned your rules. I am more like you than me now.”

Lawrence laughed down his nose again. “I really don’t think you’re anything like me,” he said.

He sat down at the kitchen table again, and held his head in his hands. “I’m a shit,” he said. “I’m a loser, and you’ve got me over a barrel.”

He looked up at me. “You won’t really tell Linda, will you?”

His eyes were exhausted. I sighed and sat down opposite him.

“We should be friends, Lawrence.”

He laughed. “I’ve just admitted to you that I’d sell you down the river if I could. You’re the brave little refugee girl, and I’m the selfish bastard. I think our roles here are pretty clearly delineated, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “I am selfish too, you know.”

“No, you’re really not.”

“Now you think I’m a sweet little girl, do you? In your mind you still don’t think I really exist. It does not occur to you that I can be clever, like a white person. That I can be selfish, like a white person.”

I realized I was so angry I was shouting. Lawrence just laughed at me.

“Selfish! You? Took the last biscuit out of the tin, did you? Left the top off Sarah’s toothpaste?”

“I left Sarah’s husband hanging in the air,” I said.

Lawrence stared at me. “What?”

I swallowed more tea, but it was too cold now and I put the mug down on the table. The light in the kitchen was cooling too. I watched the glow fade from all the objects in the room, and I felt the cold flow into my bones. All of the anger went out of me.

“Lawrence?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe it is better that I go somewhere else.”

“Stop. Wait. What did you just tell me?”

“Maybe you were right. Maybe it is better for Sarah and better for Charlie and better for you if I am not here. I could just run away. I am good at running, Lawrence.”

“Shut up,” said Lawrence quietly. He gripped my wrist.

“Stop it! That hurts!”

“Then tell me what you’ve done.”

“I do not want to tell you. I am frightened now.”

“Me too. Talk.”

I held on to the edge of the table and I breathed in and out against my fear. “Sarah said it was strange that I came on the day of Andrew’s funeral.”

“Yes?”

“It was not a coincidence.”

Lawrence let go of my arm and he stood up quickly and he put his hands on the back of his neck. He went to the kitchen window and stared out for a long time. Then he turned back to me. “What happened?” he whispered.

“I don’t think I should tell you. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was angry.”

“Tell me.”

I looked down at the backs of my hands. I realized that I did want to tell someone, and I knew I could never tell Sarah. I looked up at him.

“I telephoned Andrew on the morning they let me out of the immigration detention center. I told him I was coming.”

“Is that all?”

“Then I walked here from the immigration detention center. I came in two days. I hid in the garden.” I pointed through the window. “There,” I said, “behind that bush where the cat is. Then I waited. I did not know what I wanted to do. I think I wanted to say thank you to Sarah for saving me, but also I wanted to punish Andrew for letting my sister be killed. And I did not know how to do either of these things, so I waited. I waited for two days and two nights and I did not have anything to eat, so I came out when it was dark and I ate the seeds from the bird feeder and I drank the water from the tap on the outside of the house. In the daytime I watched through the windows of the house, and I listened when they came out into the garden. I saw how Andrew talked to Sarah and Charlie. He was terrible. He was angry all the time. He would not play with Charlie. When Sarah talked, he just shrugged his shoulders or he shouted at her. But when he was alone, he did not stop shrugging or shouting. He would stand all alone at the end of the garden and talk to himself, and sometimes he would shout at himself, or hit himself on the head with the side of his fist, like this. He cried a lot. Sometimes he would fall down to his knees in the garden and weep for an hour. This is when I realized he was full of evil spirits.”

“He was clinically depressed. It was very hard for Sarah.”

“I think it was very hard for him too. I watched him for a long time. One time when he was weeping I watched him too hard and I forgot to hide myself, and he looked up and he saw me. I thought, Oh no, now this is it, Little Bee. But Andrew did not come toward me. He stared at me and he said, Oh Jesus, you are not real, you are not there, just get out of my fucking head. And then he closed his eyes tight and he rubbed them, and while he was doing this I hid myself back behind the bush. When he opened his eyes he looked again where I had just been, but he did not see me. Then he went back to talking to himself.”

“He thought he was hallucinating you? Poor bastard.”

“Yes, but I did not feel sorry for him at first. It was only later. On the third day he came out into the garden again, when Sarah was at work and Charlie was at the nursery. He was drunk, I think. His words were coming out slow and twisted.”

“That would have been his medication,” said Lawrence. His face had gone very white now, and he was still staring at me with his eyes very bright. “Go on,” he said.

“It was still early in the morning. Andrew started shouting. He said, Come out, come out, what do you want? I did not say anything. Please, he said. I know you are a ghost. What do you want to make you go away? I stepped out from behind the laurel bush and he took one step back. I am not a ghost, I said. He started hitting himself on the side of the head. He said, You are not real, you are in my head, you are not there. He closed his eyes and he shook his head. While he had his eyes closed I walked right up to him, close enough to touch. When he opened his eyes and saw how close I was, he screamed and he ran inside the house. I felt sorry for him then. I followed him into the house. Please listen, I said. I am not a ghost. I came because I do not know anyone else. Then he said, Touch me. Prove you are not a ghost. So I moved closer and I put my hand on his hand. When he felt my hand, he closed his eyes for a long time and then he opened them again. I walked up the stairs and he walked in front of me. He walked up the stairs backward. He was screaming. Get out! Get out! He ran into his workroom, his study, and he closed the door. So I stood outside the door and I shouted, Do not be afraid of me! I am only a human being! There was a very long silence, so I went away.”