The Beekeeper's Secret E-Book

Josephine Moon

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Maria knew about guilt. It was a stubborn, pervasive and toxic emotion, and incredibly difficult to shake. Especially if really, deep down, you didn't think you deserved to let it go. Maria spends her days tending to the bees of Honeybee Haven and creating wonderful honey products to fund children in need. A former nun, Maria's life has long been shaped by a shadowy secret and her own self-imposed penance for events in her past. The arrival of two letters, one pink, from nearby Noosa Heads, and one marked with a government crest, herald the shattering of Maria's peaceful existence. Before they were married, Tansy made a very serious deal with her husband, Dougall. With their elegant apartment and beachside lifestyle in Noosa, they have everything they agreed they wanted in life, so Tansy is going to ignore the feelings that might suggest she has changed her mind. On top of those not-really-there feelings, Dougall wants to move to Canada! Surprising and intriguing, The Beekeeper's Secret is an exploration of family in all its facets, and the astounding secrets we keep from those we love.

Leseprobe

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in Great Britain by Allen & Unwin in 2016

Copyright © Josephine Moon 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

The moral right of Josephine Moon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

Allen & Unwin

c/o Atlantic Books

Ormond House

26-27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

Phone: [phone]

Email:[email protected]

Web:www.allenandunwin.com/uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN 978 1 76029 196 9E-book ISBN 978 1 92557 552 1

Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney

Cover design and illustration: Kirby Armstrong

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

SIX MONTHS LATER

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For my sister, Amanda, who in 1981 was adamant she

would wear a lolly-pink dress to her first Holy Communion,

rather than a white dress, thereby forever being the

pink sheep in the formal group photo.

I so love your individual spirit.

And for my nan, Marie Joan, who came to our house early

in the afternoon before I made my first Holy Communion

and stood with me outside the kitchen in the sun and

brushed my just-washed hair until it was dry.

Such a precious memory.

1

Fridays at Honeybee Haven were the busiest day of the week for Maria. Guests were usually checking in to or out of the six cabins on the property. It was also the day before the Yandina markets, and rain, hail or shine, the Haven had a stall there each week. Consequently, almost as soon as Maria had finished breakfast, her small kit home was overrun with preparations.

Wafting from the oven was the mouth-watering smell of roasting almonds. Maria had coated them in honey from her beehives beyond the vegetable garden. She’d have to get the nuts out of the oven soon or they’d burn. Then, after sprinkling them with sea salt, she would pack them into sterilised recycled jars and label them for sale. Not to waste a single minute, she was making throat lozenge lollipops at the same time. Her hand hovered over the pot of boiling honey, the sugar thermometer indicating that the molten gold was ready to be spooned over the tops of the lollipop sticks waiting on the lined baking tray. The lollipops were always great sellers at this time of year, as temperatures began to drop and people prepared for flu season.

With her nose monitoring the roasting almonds behind her, Maria spun the honey into well-shaped circles on the sticks and left them to cool and set, then pirouetted around (as deftly as a seventy-three-year-old could) in her tiny kitchen to open the oven, snatch up the pot holders and extract the tray just in time. The smell was intoxicating, and it was all she could do to stop herself from popping one in her mouth and letting the flavour overwhelm her tastebuds, evoking an indulgent fantasy of a cosy fireplace and warm honey mead.

But stop herself she did. These almonds, just like the honey lollipops to be wrapped in cellophane and tied with pretty strings, and just like the pyramids of jars near the window that were filled with raw honey and fresh-picked herbs, were not hers. Everything she did here was for the children. Honeybee Haven was owned by Michaela’s Cambodian orphanage and was its prime source of income. Maria served here, just as she’d served during her years in the convent, right up until . . .

Stop.

She swatted away the memory like an annoying fly.

It wasn’t exactly an unwanted memory; she deserved to remember it. But it was distracting, and there was no time today to be anything other than completely focused. There was no time to be drawn back into the past.

Maria’s assistant, Petrice—employed through an agency that matched people with disabilities to jobs—had been here early this morning to make breakfast for the guests, allowing Maria to clock several industrious hours in her kitchen. Now, most of her market wares were ready to pack into the Haven’s car to drive down the mountain in the dark tomorrow morning. She still had to whip some honey into a luxuriously thick cream spread, but for a brief change of scenery, she began the long walk down the steps to the letterbox at the gate of the property. She’d long ago made her peace with the one hundred and twenty-four handmade earth treads in the side of the hill. At first they’d been daunting; she wasn’t young, after all. But as soon as she’d made the mental commitment to love each step, to love the burning in her thighs and the acceleration of her heart as she ascended them, to appreciate that these steps were keeping her fit and strong for the work she had to do and the service she could offer, they’d become her friends. Each one had its own story to share and wore down in different ways, and she kept a watchful eye over them, mending them as needed.

She paused at the wide, circular rest area halfway down, with the life-size statue of Saint Ambrose, patron saint of bees, in the centre. It was a nicely humble statue of Ambrose, who so often was depicted in his pompous gown and pointy bishop’s hat. In this one he wore the simple robes of a monk and bees had settled on his shoulders and arms.

The statue had been a gift from a well-off Sydney gentleman who’d struck up a friendship with Maria over many visits over many years. He’d been taken with the multi-faith nature of Honeybee Haven. There were the obvious Buddhist influences, such as the six ‘Tara’ cabins, each named for a different form of the Buddhist deity Tara, their colours representing various virtues. Maria was particularly fond of Blue Tara, known for transmuting anger. Maria had had to do a lot of that in her life. The colour blue was also associated with Mary, whom Maria loved very much. She’d collected many small figurines of Mother Mary from the markets and contributed them to the Haven. Over the years, visitors had gifted their own symbols of faith and prayer—Hindu statues in the gardens, a copy of Sanskrit writings, a Jewish Menorah, prayer beads and other tokens of devotion. Honeybee Haven prided itself on inclusion.

Maria stopped before Saint Ambrose not so much because she needed a break, although of course it was good to check her pace and make sure she wasn’t rushing—she’d be no use to anyone if she ended up in a heap at the bottom of the hill. She paused here simply because she appreciated the view. A mix of eucalyptus and rainforest trees sprawled out before her, cascading down towards the town of Eudlo at the foot of the mountain, and continuing all the way to the expanse of blue ocean on the horizon. It was silent here, except for the leaves rocking in the autumn breeze and the happy chitter-chatter of birds. Gazing out, she raised an age-spotted hand to shield her eyes from the late morning sun, and smiled. Honeybee Haven was as close to a home as she’d ever had.

Continuing down the hill, she listed in her head all the things she needed to do when she got back to the top. Firstly, she needed to check on the bees. It had been chilly this morning, so they would have slept in, but now that the day was warming up they’d be getting out and about and in a good mood. She had a hive to open today, and it was ill advised to do so if the weather was poor. Cold, grumpy bees did not take kindly to having their home taken apart. A couple of midweek visitors would be checking out of Red Tara. Petrice would be cleaning the cabin and washing the linen for the group arriving on Monday—a corporate team-bonding trip. Maria would have to do an inventory of the pantry and what was doing well in the garden to know what supplies to pick up tomorrow afternoon when she’d finished at the markets. Her handyman, Trav, was coming today to do a few odd jobs, so she’d also have to show him what needed doing.

On the last stretch of the steps now, she began to plan the next week’s meals. She had requests for food that was gluten free, dairy free, paleo, vegetarian and vegan. Personally, she thought all of this fuss over food these days was rather indulgent, but if it kept customers happy and made the charity money, then so be it.

Finally reaching the letterbox, she flipped up the bright yellow backside of a large metal bumblebee and withdrew a fistful of envelopes. There was nothing unusual in that; Maria preferred paper correspondence. Of course she used email for work purposes, but only because she had to. When she’d left the convent, the world had been on the precipice of the great internet revolution. She’d hidden overseas for several years, working with non-government organisations in some of the poorest countries of the world. Then, twelve years ago, she’d come here.

Michaela had built up the business and then holidayed in Cambodia, seen the dire situation there, and decided to come back briefly to employ a manager for Honeybee Haven, renouncing everything that was easy about Australia in order to serve others, making it her life’s work. Maria had liked her immediately. Michaela had been desperate for someone like Maria—someone with a broad skill set and no family commitments, and no desire to earn much money, motivated by service rather than status. It had been a win for them both.

These days, Maria used email to communicate with Michaela about the property. But she had never bothered to create a personal account—there was no one to write to. And whenever she had to fill in a form she just ignored the section that asked for an email address. She didn’t have a mobile phone either. It just kept things a lot simpler. Most of her correspondence came via actual letters, which had the added benefit of keeping her at arm’s length from the world. In any case, it was rare for anyone to write to her personally.

But today there were two envelopes in the bunch that caught her attention. One was a lovely pink with careful, obviously female handwriting on the front. It was addressed to her by name: Maria Lindsey, Manager, Honeybee Haven. The sender’s name, written on the back, was Tansy Butterfield, from a unit in Noosa Heads. Only an hour away. Intrigued, Maria dug her ridged thumbnail under the flap and tore it open, pulling out a handwritten note on matching pink paper. A brightly coloured business card fluttered to the ground and she picked it up. It identified Tansy as a Children’s Bedroom Decorator, and listed her contact details.

‘What’s this?’ she asked the air around her. ‘Someone canvassing for a job?’

But she began to read anyway, and to her astonishment, the woman introduced herself as her niece, twenty-nine years old and the second daughter of Maria’s sister Enid.

Heavenly Father.

Maria hadn’t seen Enid since the day their mother had dropped Maria, then sixteen years old, at the tall gates of the convent in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, a sprinkler spitting water across the green lawn. She could remember her younger sisters sitting in the back seat of the Holden, Enid’s face dark and furious, while Florrie’s was tear-stained, her bottom lip trembling.

Maria leaned back against a large boulder beside the letterbox. Tansy went on to explain that she’d managed to find Maria online as the manager at Honeybee Haven and had been delighted to discover that her aunt was living so close by.

Maria’s heart gave a loud knock against her chest. Was she that easy to find? She’d thought she was hidden away up here on the mountain, able to tend to her work, make money to serve the children in Cambodia, and live out her days in relative peace and quiet. But now this Tansy girl had tracked her down and wanted to meet her.

Maria took a breath of the cool air and refolded the note, stuffing it back into its envelope along with the business card, and returned it to the pile of letters to be considered later.

To distract herself, she opened the other letter that had caught her attention. Also addressed to her by name, it looked official, marked with a special government crest.

She read it, then read it again.

Her mind went blank. She couldn’t conjure a single thought. All she could do at that moment was stare straight ahead at the magpie sitting in a low branch of a tree, its head cocked to the side and its sharp beady eyes scanning the ground in search of prey. She felt coldness seep through to her bones from the boulder behind her. And she heard one of her girls buzzing somewhere nearby in search of pollen and nectar.

She managed to push herself away from the boulder, but there she stayed, her feet unwilling to move from the spot. She read the letter again.

Ian Tully.

Through concerted practice, she’d managed to edit him into the background, drape him in shadows.

Now it seemed that what they said was true, that the past would indeed always catch up with you—especially if you had something to hide.

And that no good deed ever went unpunished.

If Dougal hadn’t thrown this huge announcement at her, Tansy might never have realised that her period was late. She was terribly forgetful for someone her age. Still in her twenties. But only just. A whisker away from crossing over into the very-mature thirties. She still hadn’t come to terms with that. It sounded so grown up. Like she should have it all together. Which she did, didn’t she? A great husband, and a perfect home, their apartment overlooking Noosa National Park, the famous Main Beach (recently recognised as one of the world’s most iconic surfing beaches, right up there with Waikiki and Malibu, thank you very much . . . not that it mattered to her, because she didn’t swim in the ocean) and Hastings Street. To describe their postcode as enviable was an understatement of great magnitude. That was all evidence of having it together, surely?

Also, she had a career. Okay, maybe not a career, but a business. Definitely a business, as a children’s bedroom decorator, a job she loved. Then again, if she was honest, which she did like to be (forgetful she might be, but dishonest she was not), as far as businesses went, it was more of a hobby, and could probably be legally classified as such by the tax office. But still, it was her hobby. All hers. One she’d worked hard to get off the ground, stubbornly refusing to take any advice or guidance from Dougal, who was well established in the corporate world. She liked to believe she was finally gaining some momentum here on the Sunshine Coast. And she probably would be if she remembered to organise some proper advertising in a glossy magazine or something.

And that brought her back to the forgetfulness and Dougal’s big announcement.

Yesterday afternoon, her husband had told her he was taking her out to dinner in Hastings Street tonight, which wasn’t unusual except that he’d said there was something important he wanted to talk to her about. She’d had a day to wonder what it might be and slowly but steadily decided that he’d changed his mind, after seven years of marriage, and decided that he did in fact want a baby. She was turning thirty, a number guaranteed to make people think about Time Running Out. Her best friend, Belle, and her husband, Raj, had a four-month-old baby and when they’d visited them two months ago Dougal had been clearly clucky.

His eyes had gone all soft and romantic like they did sometimes when he was feeling particularly in love with her. He’d been the only one who’d been able to settle Hamish that day, holding the baby on his nicely shaped chest in the baby carrier for nearly an hour, Hamish nuzzled in under his chin, snoozing away in his fluffy romper suit. Dougal was a total natural with babies, she’d discovered. She longed to zip back in time to when Dougal’s grown son, Leo, had been a baby, just so she could see that look of tenderness on Dougal’s face and absorb the misty, wafty, loving glow.

At the end of the visit, Tansy had had the creeping suspicion that she’d been wrong to make such a huge decision about her future in her early twenties, agreeing not to have children, a thought that was both alarming and mortifying. Her mother and sister had told her she’d regret it and she’d stubbornly ignored them.

‘Why?’ Tansy had argued, as only a naive twenty-something could. ‘Because I’m a woman?’

‘No,’ her mother had countered. ‘Because you are full of love to give.’

She’d mulled over her mother’s words in the car on the way home from Belle and Raj’s place that day; in the days following she kept the baby idea to herself, feeling foolish for even entertaining the thought when Dougal had been so clear from the start of their relationship that Leo would be his one and only child.

But since that visit, Tansy had shown Dougal some pictures of Hamish on her phone, and he’d smiled and puffed with pride that he’d been the baby whisperer above everyone else. And she’d let the little seed of hope sit in her navel, forgetting it was there until the day when he said he needed to talk to her.

Then it bloomed. He feels the same.

Excitedly, she’d held his hand as they walked down the hill to Hastings Street and into a fine restaurant, where a classical guitarist serenaded the patrons from a corner of the al fresco section. Big green leaves of a fairy-lit tree hovered behind them. They couldn’t see the beach from where they were, but they could hear the waves crashing to the shore and feel the stickiness of the salt in the air on her skin.

And it was while she was sipping merlot, her silk shawl pulled around her shoulders, waiting for Dougal to admit that he’d been silly to make that decision about not having any more children, and now that she was nearly thirty, and having seen Hamish, and realising he wasn’t getting any younger either, that he was wondering (he knew it would be a big ask, because she’d put so much thought into it in the first place, and he had explicitly said it was non-negotiable and she’d have to live with her decision forever, so she had to be sure) would she, maybe, consider having a baby, that she realised she couldn’t remember when she’d last had her period. But no sooner had the question wandered into her mind than Dougal dropped his news, bringing all thoughts to a screeching halt.

‘The company wants us to move to Canada for a year, maybe two.’

She’d quickly swallowed her wine. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘The company wants me to go to Toronto for the next year or two as part of the engineering design team for a new medical university they’re building. It’s a fantastic opportunity,’ he’d said, as if knowing she wouldn’t be on board with the idea straight away.

‘Canada? As in snow and sub-freezing temperatures, on the other side of the world?’

Too cold for babies, surely.

The waiter returned with menus, placed them on the table and shook out the white linen napkins across their laps.

‘I know it’s a bit of a bombshell,’ Dougal went on, indicating the garlic bread to start them off. ‘And I know you’ll want time to think about it.’ He paused, as if hopeful she would cut him off and tell him that no, she didn’t need any time at all, she’d love to go. Excitement hovered around him like a halo. Corporate success was the thing he’d clung to in order to prove himself to his family after his early setback.

‘And what about Leo?’ she said. ‘Where will he go?’ Leo attended the University of the Sunshine Coast. His mother, Rebecca, lived in Brisbane. Leo had moved up here three years ago, from his mum’s place to his dad’s, to be closer to the uni.

Dougal shrugged. ‘I figure he can stay in the apartment and look after it for us. It’s actually a lot easier for everyone if he does. We don’t want to have to look at selling or renting it out or selling cars and all our furniture and all that, putting things in storage and the like. This way, we can simply pack up our bags and go. Leo can drive us to the airport and pick us up again in a year or two’s time.’ He smiled, stuffing a hunk of garlic bread into his mouth.

‘Have you told him yet?’ she asked.

‘No. I wanted to talk to you first.’ Dougal reached out and took her hand. ‘We don’t need to decide right now. Let’s just enjoy a nice meal and go for a walk on the sand afterwards and then, when we get home . . .’ He trailed off and gave her a suggestive wink.

‘You’re a rogue.’ She laughed. ‘You’re quite frisky for your age, you know,’ she teased. Her tone was light but her heart was not.

Now lying in bed, their evening completed, she knew she’d been wrong; Dougal didn’t want a baby. And yet she might be pregnant.

2

It should have been the sounds of the markets that filled Maria’s head: customers calling for half a kilo of prawns from the seafood van opposite; the delighted squeals of small children running across the grass with a bag full of bric-a-brac treasure; the sway and rustle of plastic shopping bags; dogs barking; and the squeaky wheels of wagons laden with potted plants. Instead, Fred Astaire’s voice, in scratchy, bumpy, old-vinyl sound, floated in Maria’s head as she wrapped up two jars of honey sugar body scrub—cheap as chips to make and a great little earner—in pink tissue paper and tied it with string.

‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ was her parents’ favourite song. Her mother, Elyse, told the girls that she and their father, Thomas, would play the song on their record player during the war, sometimes when they were frightened and it felt as though the whole world would collapse. They would play it to give themselves hope. And sometimes they played it when they were upbeat and puffed up with national pride, perhaps after an exciting day when Pa had received a covert shipment of his carefully selected imported tea leaves, which he was employed to do on behalf of the tea control board. The tea had to make it through the trade routes infested by the Japanese navy in the Pacific, so it was cause for great national pride when it made it to the docks. Thomas would joke that the Germans and the Japs might be able to take a lot of things but they would never get their tea.

And then years later, after Pa had died suddenly on the docks one summer—heatstroke, they said—her bereft and weary mother would play it alone in the lounge once Maria and her sisters were in bed. Maria and Enid shared a double bed in the shadow of the tall, dark wardrobe with the key always in the lock (except for the day that Enid lost it and the girls were told they weren’t allowed to leave the house until it was found again, which it was, thankfully, two days later, when all of them were ready to kill each other). The sisters would listen to Fred’s optimistic voice and curse out into the darkness that ‘they’ taken it away from them. Their beloved father was gone.