The bees, Alec thought. Where are they? He’d discovered them last spring. Never more than one or two at a time. Their abdomens shone glossily, green or blue, depending if they moved in light or shade. They laboured over dust and stones before burrowing into soil, legs caked in pollen.
“Some sort of native species,” he’d said to Alison weeks ago. He even told her during the ad break, so there was a better chance she’d listen. “Smaller than European bees. They live underground.”
Now he wondered if they’d survived as he pushed a broom through the house. The waters, almost treacle, swirled ahead. Bow waves formed, rippling out the front door and down the path. Drifts of mud heaped up. Some clotted with dust and hair. Inside the front door Alec saw how high waters had reached in the hallway, spindly lines like graphs down the length of walls. Veils of cobwebs hung in ceiling corners where spiders climbed as the flood peaked.
Alec heard Alison working in the kitchen. She’d questioned whether they’d ever cook another meal in there. Gas jets probably blocked. Now the pantry stood emptied, jars splintered in a box following a raging sweep of her arm, glass clinking together before smashing into shards inside the box. A few years ago he would have comforted her, talked her down, voice level and soothing. But now he left her alone, probably brooding in the spaces where gravies and hot caramel sauce once simmered.
Alec watched the skies. Clouds scudded past, showers skittering, wisping across horizons like brush strokes. The rain’s warmth surprised him as he shovelled mud off the front path. He’d smelt it approaching, mangroves at low tide and river silt odours. Sun broke through between shoals of black clouds. Humidity thickened.
