Honey(8)
“Anyway, you a student here?” Richardson turns abruptly to Yrsa.
The sudden attention knocks her off-balance.
“PhD.”
“You don’t look old enough.” He laughs, again.
Nina doesn’t look old enough either.
“What field?” he asks.
“Sociology.”
“Oh yes, my apologies, we have met. You’re looking at the impact of aid in Western Africa.”
“Not me.”
“Apologies again then.”
Finn coughs, he seems unsure how to proceed with this social interaction. Yrsa wants Richardson alone.
She looks to Finn, keeping her tone sweet. “I’ve got to get going soon, if you wanted to give me those questions to look over?”
“I could email them to you?” he suggests.
“I don’t have a computer.” A blatant lie, but one she figures Finn will be too awkward to confront. “If you did have a printout?” A smile.
“Right, yes, I do actually. Just in my room. It’s not far, I can just grab them for you.” He stands whilst trying to get out a number of sorrys and thank-yous. She waits for Finn to turn the corner, looks back at Richardson.
She thinks of Nina’s knickers next to the frying pan. “You should know that I kno—”
“?’Scuse me, I think that’ll be the wife.” His phone.
His fucking phone. Before Yrsa can get a word out he’s up, iPhone on speaker, pacing by the flowers, all darling this and darling that.
How dare he. She lost expensive sushi—and one of the few people she likes in the department today—because of him. Yrsa looks away from him, watches a bee collect pollen, stem to stem.
She’ll bet he’s taken Nina’s best research. She’ll bet he’ll stand up there at lectures, conferences, presenting it as his own. Not only did he get the girl, but he got her brightest thoughts too.
The bee, smelling for sugar, flies to the edge of the Sanpellegrino.
“All right darling, see you then.” Richardson heads back to the table. “Yep, got that, yep.” He rolls his eyes at Yrsa and turns away. “No, I can pick up the wine.”
Well, if nothing else, she could give him a sting.
She knocks the bee into his lemonade.
* * *
“But Mum.”
“Come away, sweetheart.”
“But Mum, she’s got it all down her jumper.”
“Leave the lady alone. Come on.” The woman firmly redirects her child.
Because, would you look at that, she does have it down her jumper: small rolling dollops of strawberry ice cream. It’s delicious. A shame to waste it on cashmere.
The child, against her mother’s pull, looks back at Yrsa.
Because, would you look at that, it’s not only dripping down her jumper but running down her wrists, pink and sweet, patterning the pavement.
It really is the most sensational sunset. Orange popcorn clouds perch atop King’s Chapel. The parade dashed in cherry light.
She bought the ice cream because she wasn’t sure what to do after. Walking back along Trumpington Street she wasn’t sure what was an appropriate next action, when she saw the ice cream line. It felt wrong for the coldness of the evening and, therefore, perfectly, wonderfully, right.
But she’s forgotten to eat it because she can’t stop replaying over—
—and over—
His choking.
It had reminded her of something.
Was it—
Orange peel? Puckered, putrefying.
Like squeezing the fruit between your fingers.
It had taken her by surprise at first, as he sat there and took that sip sip sip of his Sanpellegrino. She wasn’t sure if she’d drowned the bee. If its stinger would still be intact to sting!
When out flailed a tongue and a dead bee and the rasping. The lips blubbering for air or words or both. Like wind. Electrifying.
He’d thrown his phone at her to—she imagined—call an ambulance. Seek out an EpiPen.
For he was baby-like, helpless and needing help—but grotesque. So grotesque it was hard to look away. Like an animal eating itself. A swollen half face.
She’d stared at the phone, peaceful on the grass, and then looked around at the garden, the windows, was anyone coming? Was anyone watching the inflating, inflated man scratching at his neck?
No one.
Oh, she’d wanted to sing to him then because it was over.
No adrenaline.
No resurrection.
Arteries, veins, capillaries. Popping! An orchestra of justice.
He’d lunged at her—that had been shocking. Exciting. The theatrics of the wheezing man. The red-hot raspberry of his face.
She takes a large mouthful of ice cream. Pulls the sweetness between her teeth
replaying over—
—and over—
his collapse. The heavy thud of flesh on grass—of eyes marbling—and her getting down on her knees to join him there. A hand on his head. She’d stroked his hair and watched. Listened. For the symphony to end.
For stillness.
She cracks her teeth through the cone. Licking ice cream off her thumb.
Because only when she was sure did she roll him over and—placing her hands over his chest—cry for help. Playing the stupid, silly, distraught woman.