Like Father by Nick Gifford Read Free Book Online Page B

the same part of the bench over and over, as if trying to get rid of a stubborn mark. “She had a life before,” she said softly. “She had a life before but she made it a mess. Splitting the family up with her friends and with her ‘having a life’.”
    Danny turned and headed for the door. Oma had always blamed his mother for what had happened. She had always blamed his mother’s ... friendship with Chris Waller. She seemed to be blind to what her own son had done as a result, though. To her, it would always be Val’s fault that the family had split up.
    “Danny? Don’t rush off. Don’t be cross with old Oma Schmidt. I am a foolish old woman, no more. I am only thinking of the family.”
    He stopped.
    Instead, he went to check the plants he’d potted on a few days earlier. The tomatoes were okay, planted directly in the soil with plastic collars around them, but snails had been after the peppers. He’d need to top up the beer traps.
    “I saw you with your freundin ,” said Oma, in a playful tone.
    His German was patchy, but he was pretty sure that meant ‘girlfriend’. He said nothing.
    “Does she have a name?”
    “Cassie,” said Danny. It felt awkward, talking about her like this.
    “Is she a nice girl?”
    He was hardly going to say “no”... He shrugged, said nothing.
    “You be good, Danny. You be careful of where she might lead.”
    ~
    “There. That’s it. Just put it there, Danny. That’s right.”
    Danny dropped the plywood beehive on an open patch of grass, then shifted it to the left a little so that it was stable.
    Little Rick was halfway up a step ladder, wedged into the branches of an apple tree in the Hope Springs orchard. He had his beekeeper’s hat and gloves on, but no other protective clothing, despite the seething mass of honey bees wrapped around the trunk of the tree, little more than a couple of metres away.
    “Right,” he said. “Now you need to take the roof and the crown board off.”
    Danny lifted the roof and placed it back in the wheelbarrow Rick had used to move the hive from his store. Beneath it was a flat board with some ventilation holes. He removed this too. In the next level down there was some old honeycomb, the cells still capped over with wax.
    Rick reached a hand over, close to the swarm, and encouraged some of the bees to crawl onto his glove.
    Slowly, he backed down the steps. He held his hand inside the open hive and the two of them watched as some of the bees crawled onto the frames of honeycomb, while one or two lifted heavily from his glove and flew back up into the tree.
    “They’re dopey when they’re swarming,” said Rick. “Everyone gets hot and bothered about swarms, but the bees are usually so stuffed full of honey that they can’t actually get themselves into position to sting, even if they wanted to.”
    Danny glanced up at the chaotic bundle of bees in the tree. He could understand people getting bothered about something like that.
    Once the last bee had left his hand, Rick stepped back and dropped the gloves and then his hat into the barrow. He took the crown board and positioned it on top of the open hive, and then the roof. Then he kneeled down before the hive and adjusted the position slightly.
    “We can move the hive once they’re settled in,” he said. “Have you ever seen a swarm moving into its new home? It’s quite a sight to see.”
    “Where’s this one going to go?” Danny asked.
    “I don’t know yet,” said Rick. “I need to check my spreadsheet. I’ve got it all worked out to the finest detail against a plan of the grounds and the surrounding gardens and fields. I try to get the positioning exactly right, so the hives aren’t competing with each other. You have to pay attention to detail, don’t you?”
    One of the bees had found its way down through the brood chambers and out to the entrance block. It sat there in the sunlight for a few seconds, and then lifted into the spring air. Danny watched it fly away,