Page 21 of Murder in the Winter Woods
Julia knew that she couldn’t possibly go, just as she knew that she would have to.
‘Julia, the Painters are our neighbours. Gladys is your friend. We have to visit her, because seeing a friend might make her feel just a little bit better.’
With trembling hands and tears welling behind her eyes, Julia nodded. She put on her coat.
‘Good girl. We have to do a hard thing because someone else has a much harder thing to bear. It’s what we do. We do what must be done.’
And so it was now, more than five decades later, with trembling hands and tears welling behind her eyes, Julia put on her coat. She walked across her lawn, out of her little gate, into Hester’s little gate, and across the neighbour’s lawn.
12
Hester was outside at the beehives, wandering around in a slow, vague sort of way, talking to herself. The morning was chilly, and she was wearing an ancient olive green winter coat and fleece-lined boots over pale blue pyjamas dotted with little cartoon daisies.
Julia felt awkward, disturbing her grieving neighbour in such an undignified outfit, and seemingly absorbed in whatever odd thing it was that she was doing. Julia hesitated, wondering if she should return to her own house and come back later. But in her moment of hesitation, Hester turned towards her and beckoned.
Julia walked over the damp grass. Hester put a finger to her lips and whispered: ‘Shhhh. I’m telling the bees.’ She turned back to the closest hive and laid her hands on its top, muttering in a low drone. Julia stood still, and in the morning quiet she could hear a soft hum from inside the bee box. Hester took what looked like a large black handkerchief or serviette from the pocket of her coat and draped it over the hive.
‘Bees, bees…’ came her droning voice, a little louder. ‘I come to you with sad news.’
Her voice dropped again, and Julia could no longer hear what she was saying, just the soothing, solemn tones. She felt asif she were witnessing a spell being cast, or some ancient ritual enacted. Something that shouldn’t be disturbed or questioned. Unless, perhaps, Hester had gone mad with grief, which seemed not impossible.
Minutes passed, her voice a low monotone. and Hester turned away from the boxes, leaving the black handkerchief in its place atop the hive. She walked slowly towards the house, Julia falling into step beside her.
‘You have to tell the bees when there’s important news in the family. Births and deaths particularly.’ Hester’s voice had lost its mystical crooning quality and now sounded quite matter-of-fact.
Julia nodded, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
‘Bees are part of the family, you know. They must be informed. I remember when my mum told them Dad had passed, she went out and broke the news. She was from the old school, Mum, she sang her message. And when my Violet was born, oh my, but weren’t the bees all a-buzz when I told them! Such a joyous occasion, and the honey that year was the richest and sweetest I’ve known. You can’t imagine.’ Hester’s eyes shone at the happy recollection, but only for a moment. Her face softened and sagged. ‘And now poor Matthew. The bees won’t be happy at all.Iwon’t be happy. It’s…It’s…’
‘It’s so awful Hester, just tragic,’ Julia said. ‘I’m so very sorry for your terrible loss.’
Hester stopped and wrung her hands together in a gesture of hopelessness and said simply: ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Julia put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Of course you don’t. You have experienced a life-changing, earth-shattering event. Nothing feels right, or real.’
‘That’s exactly it. I keep thinking I made a mistake. It can’t be right. He’ll walk in here, muttering about the latest argument he had with the vegans.’
Julia was struck dumb by the bizarre turn the conversation had taken. After a moment, she managed to ask, ‘The vegans?’
‘The vegans at the market. The ones selling the nut butters. They call themselves the Butter Nuts. They’ve been going on at us about the bees.’
‘The bees?’
Julia, it seemed, could only parrot the last two words of Hester’s sentences.
Hester frowned at Julia as if she was the one being obtuse. ‘The vegans at the market have been shouting at us about the bees. They say we’re exploiting them.Exploiting them!I’ve never heard such nonsense. Welovethe bees. We look after them.’
‘Ah, well. People do have some funny ideas, don’t they? But they shouldn’t shout at you, that’s not nice.’
‘The Butter Nuts are not nice people,’ Hester said. ‘They’re very shouty. One of them especially. Poppy, her name is.Poppy. I ask you. Such a pretty name for such an ugly person. She was always shouting and yelling and badgering us. It was likely her that did it.’
The conversation seemed to be veering in a strange direction, a direction Julia didn’t want to prolong, but she couldn’t help but ask: ‘Did what?’
‘Killed Matthew,’ said Hester, and she walked through the kitchen door, into her house.
Julia had only been inside Hester’s house once or twice, and each time she had found the experience distinctly odd. Their houses were two of three identical houses built in a short row, Julia’s at the end of the row, on the far right as viewed from the road, and Hester’s next door. They had once been the outbuildings of a big house, accommodation for servants orworkers. Each house had a small front garden onto the road, and a bigger garden behind, with a door out from the kitchen. The floorplan of each house was exactly the same – Hester’s front door was where Julia’s front door was, with Hester’s kitchen window overlooking her back garden just as Julia’s did hers – but the overall impression was completely different. Hester’s door was painted yellow, and through the window the four beehives could be spotted. Julia’s door was varnished wood, and her kitchen window looked onto her vegetable patch and her chicken run. Hester’s house was more rustic, Julia’s a little tidier. Their fridges were in different corners, but their kitchen tables were positioned in the same place.
It was there at Hester’s kitchen table that the two women were seated now, drinking big hot mugs of elderflower tea, generously sweetened with honey from the hives outside the window.
