Here is the Beehive, Page 2

  O’Rafferty’s with Shebeen out back.

  I loved that place.’

  ‘I worked there!’ You half stood to announce this.

  ‘What a dive!’ I screeched,

  knowing your pride wasn’t about where you were from

  but who you were now,

  how different it all looked.

  And I was your witness. Rebecca your prize.

  ‘It’s all boarded up now, you know.

  To let. When I drive past

  I get sentimental for some reason.’

  ‘Do you live close to it?’ you asked.

  ‘Not far. Ally Pally. Still trying to escape North London.

  Well, I did leave for uni but came back.

  Remind me where you guys live.’

  Rebecca was tapping her teeth

  against the rim of her empty wine glass.

  ‘Hampstead Garden Suburb,’ she said sharply.

  When Tanya got bored of being ignored

  and eyeballed me,

  we made our excuses.

  ‘Christ, she’s dull,’ Tanya said, walking me to the bus stop.

  ‘He’s alright though.’

  ‘A bit of alright, you mean.

  And he likes you.

  Hampstead Garden Suburb though?

  Basically they’re from East Finchley. Tossers.’

  Undeterred by the time or my heels,

  I walked part of the way home,

  the whole length of Fortis Green

  until the balls of my feet throbbed,

  and, taking my shoes off in the hallway, I thought,

  Connor Mooney, I like you too.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ I say.

  ‘Anything important come up?’

  Tanya scampers out of her office looking horrified.

  ‘What’s with the burka?’

  ‘It’s from Cos.’

  ‘I didn’t know they sold burkas.’

  I pull off the tights and dump them in Helen’s bin.

  She is wearing earphones and hasn’t noticed my arrival.

  ‘I had a thing,’ I say.

  ‘Fair enough. But Graham was going mental.

  Apparently you missed an important client meeting.

  I said you had a migraine. He wasn’t buying it.’

  ‘I forgot we’d rearranged that.’

  Tanya has a look that is new:

  examining,

  almost benign.

  ‘Your roots need doing.

  You look like crap.’

  Helen unplugs herself, sees me.

  ‘You had about a million calls.

  Everyone seems to be dying.

  And you missed a client.’

  Those who loved you, or liked you,

  or with whom you were mildly acquainted,

  are gathered together while you burn.

  I have had to flee

  at the very moment you are vanishing,

  embrace invisibility again.

  Even my attendance at the funeral

  you would have judged a transgression –

  making myself real,

  getting

  too close

  to those you did everything to protect.

  ‘You’re not my boss, Helen, so drop the attitude, right?’

  I slam closed my office door.

  A minute later, Graham smashes it open.

  In his right hand, a half-eaten boiled egg.

  ‘Oh, afternoon, Ana.

  Delighted you’ve pootled into work.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll call them. I had something.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  He leans over my desk so I can see down his shirt,

  dark hair on white skin all the way to his waist.

  ‘Your phone was off.’

  ‘Yeah. As I said, sorry.’

  The egg stinks.

  Graham takes a bite, crumbled yolk sticking to his beard.

  ‘Look, do you fancy grabbing a coffee?’

  ‘No. No, I fucking well don’t, Graham.’

  He pushes the last of the egg into his mouth, turns,

  and giving me the finger for good measure,

  leaves.

  Witnessing the will took minutes.

  ‘I was hoping to discuss another matter.’

  I closed the door. ‘Go on.’

  I didn’t have to feign interest as I did with other clients.

  I wanted all you had.

  Tell me.

  And you did. About your grandfather’s house in Mullingar,

  how an uncle had commandeered it after his death

  and getting your share looked hopeless,

  unless I could help. Could I?

  ‘Well, I know a contentious cases solicitor in Dublin.

  I could give you his number.

  I can’t take the case myself.’

  A double-decker rattled by,

  passengers staring in like we were on exhibit.

  I’ve never understood the sort of people who sit upstairs.

  Even as a teenager I took cover down by the driver.

  Up there was a wild place

  for people not needing protection

  or who were spoiling for something.

  The office door opened and Tanya’s head appeared.

  ‘I thought you were free, sorry.

  I can’t make lunch. Friday fury.’

  She half recognised you and smiled. ‘Hi, there.’

  And we were alone again,

  though I forgot what we’d been discussing,

  peered at my notes.

  A family house. County Meath. Dublin lawyer.

  ‘Did your grandfather have a will?’

  ‘If you’re hungry, I’m about to grab a sandwich,’ you said.

  It was not a date.

  It was a sandwich.

  At four in the morning I finally disavow sleep –

  sit on the sofa in the dark,

  measuring the birdsong.

  Light attacks the sky

  behind the blind.

  I am not alert in the afternoons,

  head on my office desk,

  calls on hold.

  And at night here you are,

  pacing,

  chasing me,

  the muddy-booted

  freeholder of my sanity.

  You couldn’t leave because Rebecca.

  You couldn’t leave because Rebecca’s pain.

  You couldn’t leave because Rebecca’s pain versus my pain.

  You couldn’t leave because.

  You couldn’t leave.

  You couldn’t.

  You. You. You.

  My neighbour’s alarm rings through the wall.

  She is a nurse.

  Slim. Polish.

  Polite when she hands over misdelivered mail.

  Sometimes I want to ask her if she has access to medicine.

  A van idles.

  The nurse’s alarm reminds her to

  get up get up get up.

  Light movement.

  You couldn’t leave because my pain didn’t matter.

  And now look at what you’ve done.

  To everyone.

  Mr Young is a new client.

  The lines in his forehead seem new too.

  ‘I have to be able to do something

  about my wife going nuts

  and taking him to some posh clinic in London

  where it’s not just leaflets

  but drugs they’re giving him.

  And then I have to pay for a therapist

  who won’t listen.

  I mean,

  listens to my wife spouting neo-liberal bullshit,

  but not to me when I beg him to veto the pills.

  Look, I don’t mind buying my son Oil of sodding Olay

  or even calling him Jet.

  I call him Jet.

  But if they think I’ll sit on my hands

  like a cockless cunt

  while they bur
y my son

  like he was never even born,

  they have another think coming.

  I’m paying for bras.

  I mean, he’s twelve years old for fuck’s sake.

  He believed in Santa Claus until he was nine

  and three years later I should trust him with this?

  ‘I’m not a fascist, which is what my wife’s saying.

  I voted to remain.’

  He slams his hand against his knee

  and stares at the hardback books behind me.

  He is crying.

  ‘It can’t be legal.

  The father has to have a word or two to say

  before they meddle with his body.’

  ‘What would you like me to do?’ I ask.

  ‘Disinherit him.

  I need a will that says he gets nothing if he’s a she.

  Chemically and physically, I mean.’

  ‘You think disinheriting your child will stop this?’

  ‘Here we go.

  What’s happening in the world?

  I don’t understand anything any more.’

  This is a man who loves.

  I lean forward to be closer to him.

  ‘Mr Young. I think counselling

  would be the best thing for your family.

  Maybe we could talk in a few months.’

  He stands. Pushes the chair away.

  He is sobbing now, hardly able to inhale.

  ‘Yup. Yeah. OK. Helpful. Thank you.

  Liberal hearts unite, right?

  Might have known.

  Could have guessed from your

  fucking haircut.’

  I touch the ends of my hair.

  It is dry. Needs a conditioning treatment.

  His own is long, tied up into a messy man-bun.

  He charges from the office and Helen replaces him.

  She is chewing on something. ‘You alright?’

  ‘Don’t invoice him for that meeting.’

  I rest my forehead on the desk.

  ‘Can I have tea?’

  ‘Why was he so upset?’

  ‘He can’t control people,’ I tell her.

  ‘Don’t put too much milk into it.’

  I dragged Tanya to the Bald Faced Stag

  every Friday for three weeks

  until you reappeared.

  You didn’t see me

  from your stool,

  chatting easily with the barman.

  I stood by you. Ordered loudly.

  ‘It’s you,’ you said.

  ‘It appears so,’ I agreed.

  ‘I thought about heading to O’Rafferty’s

  but I hear the bar staff aren’t up to much these days.’

  It was the closest to flirting I’d ever been

  but it worked,

  made you smirk

  and offer me a drink.

  ‘I need help with a legal problem,’ you said,

  a couple of hours later

  when Tanya had gone home in a sulk.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Make an appointment or I’ll have to invoice you.’

  ‘I paid for the drinks.’

  ‘Meet me in Gertie Browne’s next Friday

  and I’ll answer anything you like.’

  The bar was noisy

  but there was silence suddenly

  between us.

  I was trying to arrange something.

  But it wasn’t the kind of thing I did,

  wasn’t the sort of woman I was.

  I wanted to explain, to say,

  I don’t know what’s happening to me.

  You examined your glass,

  ‘I’ll make an appointment.’

  ‘What was your question?’

  I tried to be light.

  It was too late.

  You were leaving,

  going home to Rebecca

  and her chic interiors.

  To your boys.

  ‘I have so many questions, Ana,’ you said.

  Apart from the computer screens,

  my office is in darkness.

  The phone rings. It’s Nora.

  In the background, screaming.

  ‘Ana. You never called me back.’

  ‘I was just finishing off at work.’

  ‘You’re still there?

  I guess that’s how you afford posh wellies.’

  If I didn’t know Nora better

  I would mistake her tone for concern.

  ‘What do you want?’

  I have my teeth in a claim that

  Rogers & Cowell negligently prepared a will

  and now their client’s kids are fuming,

  heirlooms passed on to a stepmother,

  known to the deceased for less than two months

  and with a penchant, apparently,

  for old men with clattering coughs.

  ‘Can you get that baker you know

  to make a cake for Fiona’s party?

  She wants a cat on it.’

  ‘Bit of a tight turnaround, but I’ll text her.’

  ‘Seriously, go home.

  You’re there late every night.

  You aren’t shagging one of the partners, are you?

  Do you lot get written consent before banging each other?

  Just in case.’

  Nora has always been funny.

  When we were children, she was unkind,

  stealing my sweets with a wink,

  pinching me for the remote.

  I’d laugh

  at the easy way she had of getting what she wanted

  by making cruelty a joke.

  ‘I’ve got to finish this.’

  ‘Go home,’ she repeats. ‘And get me a cat cake.

  You’re paying for it though. I’m skint.’

  Done with Rogers & Cowell,

  I draft a codicil for Mr Ward’s will

  to prevent his drug-addled third son

  from inheriting a penny.

  These bitter legacies

  are not virtuous work.

  They are moral judgement

  that turn on a whim.

  And then I am Googling you

  like I did in the early days,

  as though photos used by the media after your death

  can tell me more about your life than you did.

  You didn’t tell me enough.

  And I assumed twenty per cent of what you said was a lie

  intended to protect me.

  Mr Ward’s third son will not get

  the house or the money or the vintage clocks.

  Mr Ward’s third son,

  at his father’s funeral,

  will be calculating how much ketamine he’ll

  buy with the proceeds from the family home.

  He will get nothing.

  But for now

  he gets to keep taking his drugs.

  Rogers & Cowell are insured.

  A claim against them gives me no dilemma.

  Everything is a compromise.

  One question: what is the payoff?

  I tried to look busy,

  prepping for court with papers and a soft-leaded pencil

  instead of idly waiting.

  We were meeting at Gertie Browne’s

  instead of in the office to discuss trusts for your boys.

  ‘You OK for a drink?’

  You snuck up somehow from behind,

  though I’d chosen a chair by the window

  so I’d spot you,

  wouldn’t be startled.

  I was riveted by a drunk pissing

  in a disused telephone box outside.

  Not busy.

  Simply waiting,

  tapping my foot to Sally MacLennane.

  ‘I got a sparkling water,’ I said,

  wondering if it sounded too sensible.

  You loosened your scarf, rubbed away the day from your face.

  ‘I might get a Guinness,’ you said, almost a
pologetically.

  ‘You should. They usually have Tayto too.’

  ‘God, I haven’t eaten Tayto for years.

  I’ll get two packets.

  And something stronger for you.

  I can’t drink alone at lunchtime.’

  I hoped that meant we would be there a while.

  And we were.

  We were there a very long time.

  I miss the freckles on your shoulders,

  the wispy tufts of hair there

  and the clean, soapy smell of you.

  Helen shuffles into my office

  eating a toasted crumpet,

  butter dripping on to the carpet.

  ‘That weirdo called again yesterday.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one using mystics to find his brother’s will.’

  ‘Never put him through.’

  The phone rings in reception.

  She bites into the crumpet

  and chews with her mouth open,

  ignoring the ringing.

  ‘I made an appointment for you with Rebecca Taylor,

  wife of Callum Mooney.’

  ‘His name was Connor.’

  ‘Yeah. She said she didn’t know

  why she hadn’t received your calls before.’

  Perhaps because I never made a call,

  petrified to talk to her.

  Face-to-face?

  I want it. I don’t want it.

  ‘Are you going to clean up that butter?’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Helen scurries out.

  I check my online diary.

  2 p.m.

  Next Thursday.

  I have one week to prepare for Rebecca.

  Typically, I am gift-buying at the last minute,

  scrounging around a garden centre

  for something suitable to give my seven-year-old niece Fiona.

  They have cactuses, bushes, shrubs, trees, fruit, spades, gnomes

  and wind-chimes that would nicely nettle Nora.

  If I were feeling generous I’d buy a fountain,

  a fat Buddha with water

  trickling down his tummy,

  serenity until moss begins to grow

  and the useless thing stops working –

  fit for a skip.

  People who own fountains

  must have little else

  to distract them.

  I saunter along the rows of roses,

  blooms almost consumed by summer,

  thorns their lingering adornment,

  and find myself surrounded by fencing,

  latticed and bamboo –

  ways to divide people.

  A robin whistles from the top of

  a squat olive tree.

  ‘What?’ I say aloud. ‘What do you want?’

  I buy birdseed and a feeder.

  Nora will be cheesed off.

  But then, when is she not?

  On a flight back from a St Patrick’s weekend in Cork with Nora,

  both of us stinging with hangovers,