The Bee Sting

by Paul Murray

It was confusing. Elaine and Cass had always agreed that the only reason Sarah Jane Hinchy knew things was to make herself seem interesting. Yet what if the things she knew actually were interesting?

A moment later the photo duly arrives with Imelda’s hair like a bird’s nest Dickie looking like he’s about to have a stroke Cass with a face on her of purest Misery and Maurice and the Mayor beaming in the midst of them like they’re paying a visit to a mental hospital

It was all right for them to pat him on the back and say it wasn’t his fault That didn’t mean they wanted him thinking it They’d had their dreams dashed by this liúdramán They wanted him to be sorry Inconsolable They wanted sackcloth and ashes

It must be a shock when your whole life is in books to find out you have actually done something in the world for real

He wanted to be the boy that everyone liked But he was very clever and very complicated and you can’t be clever and complicated and have everyone like you That is just not how it works

That is the mercy of this part of the world The roads have that many twists and turns You never have to go far to disappear

he’d seen them look disdainfully at his shoes (Dubarry) and his jeans (Wrangler) – which were expensive, but nevertheless, apparently, wrong – or perhaps they were right, but on him only highlighted his own intrinsic, essential wrongness?

it was like drinking lightning, very slowly, from a wine glass.

Dickie had never especially liked having a body. No: he hated having a body. He wasn’t keen on his face either, but considered it only a minor-key prelude to the crashing debacle beneath his clothes.

We’re all different, but we all think everyone else is the same, he said. If they taught us that in school, I feel like the world would be a much happier place.

She spent money furiously, compulsively. It was as if she didn’t quite believe in it and had to spend it to prove to herself it was real – which in turn made her worry that it was all gone, so she had to spend more to prove that it wasn’t. They were rich now, but she never seemed able to accept it, that this was her life. Instead, wealth was a disguise that had to be continually renewed.

Once you take off your mask, it’s like all the other masks become transparent, and you can see that beneath our individual quirks and weirdnesses, we’re the same. We are the same in being different, in feeling bad about being different. Or to put it another way, we are all different expressions of the same vulnerability and need. That’s what binds us together.

You ought to be worried about him but there isn’t room in your head Your mind is like one big pile of Jenga bricks and if it gets one good prod the whole thing will come tumbling down.