Little Bee

I laughed. “There are days when I would cheerfully swap lives with you, Clar.”

Clarissa turned to me. I noticed the very slight mark of foundation left on the windowpane where her forehead had been. It hovered like a light flesh-toned cloud over the bone-white spire of Christ Church Spitalfields.

“Oh Sarah,” said Clarissa. “We go too far back to let one another down. You’re the boss. Of course I’ll get you a feature on refugees, if you really want it. But I really don’t think you understand how quickly people’s eyes will glaze over. It isn’t an issue that affects anyone’s own life, that’s the problem.”

I felt a lurching vertigo and I took a step back from the glass.

“You’ll just have to find an angle,” I said shakily.

Clarissa stared at me. “You’re bereaved, Sarah. You’re not thinking straight. You’re not ready to be back at work yet.”

“You want my job, is that it Clar?”

She reddened. “You didn’t say that,” she said.

I sat down on the edge of the desk and massaged my temples with my thumbs.

“No, I didn’t. God. I’m so sorry. Anyway, maybe you should have my job. I’m losing the plot, I really am. I don’t see the point in it anymore.”

Clarissa sighed. “I don’t want your job, Sarah.”

She waved her long nails in the direction of the editorial floor.

“They’re still hungry for it, Sarah. Maybe you should move on and let one of them have the job.”

“Do you think they really deserve it?”

“Did we deserve it, at their age?”

“I don’t know, Clarissa. All I remember is how badly I wanted it. Didn’t it seem so thrilling, back then? I thought I could take on the world, I really did. Make real-life issues sexy. Be challenging, remember? The bloody name of our magazine, Clar. Remember why we chose it? Nixie, for heaven’s sake. We were going to bring them in with sex and then immerse them in the issues. We weren’t going to let anyone teach us how to run a magazine. We were going to teach them, remember? Whatever happened to us wanting that?”

“What happened to wanting, Sarah, was getting a few of the things we wanted.”

I smiled, and sat down at my desk. I scrolled through the mocked-up pages on Clarissa’s screen.

“These are actually pretty good,” I said.

“Of course they’re good, darling, I’ve been doing the exact same story every single month for ten years. Cosmetic surgery and sex toys I can do with my eyes closed.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes. Clarissa put her hand on my shoulder.

“But seriously, Sarah?”

“Mmm?”

“Please just give yourself a day to think about it, will you? The refugee piece, I mean. You’re in a state at the moment, with everything that’s happened. Why don’t you take tomorrow off, just to make sure you’re sure, and if you are sure then of course I’ll make it happen for you. But if you’re not sure, then let’s not throw away our careers over it right now, okay darling?”

I opened my eyes. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take a day.”

Clarissa sagged with relief. “Thank you, doll. Because it’s not so bad, what we do. Really. No one dies when we write about fashion.”

I looked out over the editorial floor and saw the girls watching me back: speculative, excited, predatory.

I took another half-empty train back to Kingston and arrived home at two in the afternoon. It was hot and hazy, with a stillness and a heaviness to the day. We needed some rain to break it.

Lawrence was in the kitchen when I got back home. I put the kettle on.

“Where’s Bee?”

“She’s in the garden.”

I looked out and saw her, lying on the grass, at the far end of the garden beside the laurel bush.

“She seem okay to you?”

He just shrugged.

“What is it? You two really haven’t hit it off, have you?”

“It’s not that,” said Lawrence.

“There’s a tension though, isn’t there? I can feel it.”

I realized I had stirred one of the tea bags until it burst. I drained the mug into the sink and started again.

Lawrence stood behind me and put his arms around my waist.

“It’s you who seems tense,” he said. “Is it work?”

I leaned my head backward onto his shoulder and sighed.

“Work was hideous,” I said. “I lasted forty minutes. I’m wondering if I should quit.”

He sighed into the back of my neck.

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew something like this was coming.”

I looked out at Little Bee, lying on her back, watching the hazy sky filling in with gray.

“Do you remember what it felt like to be her age? Or Charlie’s age? Do you remember back when you felt you could actually do something to make the world better?”

“You’re talking to the wrong man. I work for central government, remember? Actually doing something is the mistake we’re trained to avoid.”

“Stop it, Lawrence, I’m being serious.”

“Did I ever think I could change the world? Is that your question?”

“Yes.”

“A bit, maybe. When I first joined the civil service, I suppose I was quite idealistic.”

“When did it change?”

“When I realized we weren’t going to change the world. Certainly not if that involved implementing any computer systems. Round about lunchtime on the first day.”

I smiled and put my mouth close to Lawrence’s ear.