The Butterfly Box (20 page)

He wrote a story for Federica about a mysterious girl who followed him about on his travels. ‘She must be an angel,’ he explained, ‘for her hair is long and flowing and the colour of clouds at sunrise. She’s beautiful, not only on the outside but on the inside, which is the most important and the most rare. I first saw her in a dream. My longing for her was so great that when I awoke she was sitting on the end of my bed, watching me with pale, luminous eyes filled with affection. And so she has accompanied me everywhere. Up the Himalayan mountains where yaks roam the snowy peaks down to the huge lakes of Kashmir where large exotic birds feast on flying fish, catching them in the air and carrying them off into the sky. She enjoys all the wonders of the world just like me. She makes me very happy. Now I realize, of course, after many days and nights travelling in her company, that she isn’t real at all, but imaginary. I realized only after I had tried to touch her and my arms went right through her, rather like a ghost. But she isn’t a ghost because I know she really lives in Polperro with her mother and brother Hal. So I don’t try to touch her any more, I just watch her and smile. She smiles back and that to me is the most miraculous part of all.’

Polperro

‘How’s Federica getting on at school these days? Better?’ asked Ingrid who was bent over her easel painting a portrait of Sam reading on the lawn. ‘Blast!’ she exclaimed hotly. ‘I’m so much better at painting birds.’

‘Fine,’ Molly replied absentmindedly, concentrating on the daisy chain she was making.

‘Oh, I am pleased. It can’t be easy moving to a new country and having to make friends all over again.’

‘She was very quiet at first, but Hester says she’s happier now. She’s more Hester’s friend,’ said Molly, who was a couple of years older and bored by their childish games.

‘The summer term is always much more fun anyway,’ said Ingrid, sitting back on her stool and exchanging her paintbrush for her cigarette that smoked in its elegant lilac holder on the table beside her. ‘Sam darling, don’t move a muscle,’ she instructed, putting the monocle to her eye and studying her painting in detail.

‘Mum, I haven’t moved for the last hour, why would I want to move now?’ said Sam, who was lying on his front reading Maupassant’s
Bel Ami
, unamused at being disturbed. Ingrid grinned at him from under the wide brim of her sunhat.

‘It’s a precaution, darling. I don’t want you to ruin my picture.’

‘Is it any good?’

‘Quite. But it would be better if you were a seagull or a hawk.’

‘Sorry,’ he replied and the beginning of a smile tickled the corners of his petulant mouth.

‘Federica fancies Sam,’ said Molly, putting down her daisy chain and patting Pushkin who lay panting beside her in the heat.

‘She’s got very good taste,’ said Ingrid, lifting her eyes over the easel and smiling at her son with pride.

‘What do you think, Sam?’

‘I simply don’t think, Molly,’ said Sam, irritated.

‘You seem to think about everything else,’ she said.

‘Perhaps, but I don’t think about Federica Campione.’

‘Darling, she’s a very sweet girl,’ Ingrid interrupted.

‘Exactly. A girl,’ said Sam. ‘If I fancied anyone she would be a woman, not a

girl’

At that moment Hester skipped out onto the lawn followed by Pebbles the Vietnamese pig and cradling a snuffling hedgehog in her arms. ‘I think Prickles is better now.' she announced. ‘He can walk again.'

‘Thank Heaven for that. Have you fed him?’ Ingrid asked, momentarily looking up from her work.

‘Yes. He drank all his milk. He’s still covered in fleas, though. Nuno says you shouldn’t have brought him into the house, he says he’s been scratching ever since.’

‘Your grandfather’s very impressionable. If you hadn’t told him about the fleas he wouldn’t be scratching.’

‘Fede’s coming for tea,’ said Hester.

‘Good.'

‘Her mother lets her bicycle now.’

‘About time too. She’s somewhat overprotective. Mind you,’ said Ingrid thoughtfully, her paintbrush poised, ‘after what that poor child has been through it’s hardly surprising.’

‘What has she been through?’ Hester asked innocently.

‘Well, she’s had to leave her home and start again in a new place,’ said In-grid.

‘She hasn’t seen her father since she left Chile,’ said Molly, plucking another daisy from the overgrown lawn. ‘I don’t believe she’s even received a letter from him. I bet he’s really horrid.’

‘You can’t call someone horrid when you don’t know them, Molly. Anyway, I don’t think he's intentionally horrid, just selfish and irresponsible.’

‘Poor Fede,’ Hester sighed. ‘She talks about her father all the time.’

‘I bet he doesn’t think about her ever, or her mother. Have they divorced?’ Molly asked dispassionately.

‘Goodness no!’ replied her mother, licking the end of her paintbrush. ‘They’ve just separated. I’m sure they’ll get back together in the end. I imagine it was hard for Helena living out there. It’s not England you know.’

‘Helena will probably fall in love with someone else,’ said Molly, relishing the idea of a scandal.

‘You’ve been reading too many romantic novels, darling,’ Ingrid laughed, shaking her head at her daughter with the same indulgence that had allowed all

her children to behave exactly as they pleased all their lives.

‘Hester.' said Molly. ‘Is or isn’t it true that Fede fancies Sam?’

‘Leave it, Molly.' said Sam, without looking up from his book. ‘Mum, if they don’t shut up I’m going to read in the orchard.’

Ingrid sighed. ‘Girls.’

‘Yes, it’s true. Ever since he rescued her from the ice,’ Hester replied, unable to resist her elder sister.

‘Girls, Sam is trying to read. I’m sure he’s very flattered that Federica has taken a shine to him, but really, he’s fifteen years old and has much more important things to think about than the infatuations of a six-year-old child.’

‘He should be grateful anyone fancies him at all.' added Molly, who always liked to have the last word. Sam ignored her and turned the page.

‘What glorious sunshine!’ exclaimed Nuno trotting out onto the lawn. “‘As night is withdrawn from these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May/” he said, surveying the tranquil scene before him.

‘Robert Bridges,
¹¹
Nightingales
¹¹
'
said Sam casually, turning another page of his book.

‘Quite right, dear boy,’ said Nuno, nodding his approval with the slow

inclination of his head as if he were on the stage.

‘You must be thinking of Italy, Nuno, weather in this country is usually foul whatever the month,’ said Molly sulkily.

‘Oh dear! Moody Molly is like a
grande nuvola
obscuring the sun. I simply cannot tolerate the whining of a capricious child.’ He sniffed. Molly rolled her eyes and smirked at Hester. ‘Don’t think I don’t see the silent communication between you and your accomplice,’ he added, glaring at them in mock anger. ‘You’ll both be shot at dawn. Now, Ingrid, let’s see your
opera d’arte
.’ He leant over his daughter’s shoulder and peered at the canvas with great self-importance. ‘Not bad, our Italian masters might not celebrate your achievements with a glass of Chateau Lafitte in Heaven but neither would they recoil in horror,’ he said slowly in the clipped Italian accent that he had cultivated over so many years he was now unable to speak without it. ‘There is no mistaking that it is Sam, my dear, only which end is his head and which end are his feet?’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Pa, go and scratch somewhere else,’ Ingrid sighed, inhaling her cigarette once again in a gesture of dismissal.

‘On that not so pretty subject I might add that animals with fleas are not

hygienic to have in the house. I am being driven mad by scratching and no amount of bathing will relieve me. The hedge pig has to go.’

‘Hester, you’ll have to let Prickles go,’ she sighed.

‘What an unimaginative name for a pet,’ said Nuno disapprovingly, straightening himself up. ‘With a name like that he’s not worthy of being invited into the house in any case.’

Federica was fast becoming a regular visitor to the Applebys’ rambling manor. At least her name was Italian so she was immediately embraced by Nuno who remarked that with a name like that she was not only ensured great beauty and charm but also a touch of mischief which, he added imperiously, was as vital as a dash of Tabasco to the most enticing spaghetti napoli.

Hester was thrilled to have found a new friend. She had always trailed behind her elder sister, Molly, who bossed her around because she was older and cleverer then dismissed her when she found better company at school. Federica made Hester feel important. She cycled eagerly up the lane to see her almost every day and gratefully allowed her to take the lead. They indulged in childish games without the inhibitions that crept in when Molly was around.

They clambered down the cliffs to the hidden bays and coves where they would find caves to hide in and share secrets. The sea was different in England, dark and murky, filled with seaweed and smelling strongly of salt and ozone. But Hester showed Federica how to love it, how to build castles in the thick sand and how to find shrimps and crabs in the many rock pools that collected during the high tides. They built a raft for the lake, fashioned fishing rods out of sticks and toasted marshmallows on the fires they were only allowed to build if supervised by an adult. As winter thawed into spring and the days lengthened and warmed, their friendship blossomed with the apple trees.

Sam had O levels to take at school. He didn’t do much work. He didn’t need to. He was by far the cleverest boy in the school and looked on most of the other children as either slow or just plain stupid. He rarely read the books he was supposed to, preferring to read nineteenth-century French authors such as Zola, Dumas and Balzac that his grandfather Nuno gave him. He still managed, somehow, to come top of every class, even maths, which he didn’t consider himself very good at. With sandy blond hair, large intelligent grey eyes and a smile that curled up at the corners, he was charismatic and arrogant. He

knew he was different from everyone else.

So Federica fancied him. He had smiled to himself in amusement and then forgotten all about it. Most girls fancied him. What other boys failed to realize was that girls liked boys who excelled. Whether they excelled on the games field or in the classroom, it didn’t matter. Girls wanted boys who were commanding and confident. Boys who shone.

Sam shone. He didn’t enjoy football or rugby - he hated group activities. He was good at tennis but only played singles. Doubles bored him. He liked to run around and get as exhausted as possible. He bored easily of girls, too. He wasn’t unkind. In fact, when he liked a girl he was romantic, phoning them and writing to them. His intentions were always good. But rather like a new book, once he had read it he moved on to the next.

His mother told him that his behaviour was only natural in a young man of his age. ‘Sow your wild oats, darling,’ she said, ‘one day when they’re tamed oats you’ll be glad that you did.’ Nuno said that women weren’t worth wasting his time on and gave him more books to read. “‘Alas! The love of women! It is known to be a lovely and a fearful thing,”’ he said, to which Sam dutifully replied, ‘Byron, “Don
Juan
His father, on the odd occasion that he emerged

out of his philosophy books, advised him to go for the more mature woman, as there was nothing more unattractive than a man who didn’t understand the complexities of the female body; an older woman would teach him the art of good love.

So Sam was determined to find an older woman. The girls he knew were far too young to hope for anything more than a kiss. A kiss was fine, up to a point. He had now reached that point. The point where his loins ached with a longing that was beginning to distract him from his schoolwork and drag his mind off his much-beloved nineteenth-century French literature. He found himself thinking about sex at the most inopportune moments, like in a car or on a train, usually when he wasn’t alone to indulge in his private fantasies. If he didn’t find a woman soon he’d go out of his mind with frustration.

Federica had spent the morning with her Uncle Toby and his friend Julian in his boat,
The Helena.
The sea was as calm as a lake allowing them to sail for miles with the help of a firm but warm southerly wind that sent the boat slicing through the surface like the fin of a shark. Federica liked her uncle very much. He had taken her to his cottage and shown her his collection of insects. He

had explained to her how ants built their hills and how hard they worked, like a little army of very disciplined soldiers, carrying pieces of food, sometimes twice their size, back to their nest. They had hidden in bushes at night to watch the foxes and badgers and he had built her a tree house in his parents’ garden so that she could wait for the rabbits to steal into the kitchen garden and nibble on Polly’s cabbages. In April when they had found an abandoned baby blackbird who had most probably fallen out of its nest they had immediately driven up to the Applebys’ manor to give it to Ingrid to nurse back to health. Toby and Federica had visited every day to check on its progress. Federica had been too shy to visit on her own, especially as she was afraid she might find herself alone with Sam and not know what to say. He wasn’t in the least bit interested in her. Why would he be? She was a child. But she couldn’t stop thinking of him. The bird had been promptly christened Blackie, another unoriginal name for Nuno to complain about, and no amount of coaxing would encourage it to fly away. ‘Life’s much too good!’ said Nuno as little Blackie perched on a coffee cup in the sitting room and ate breadcrumbs out of an adoring Hester’s hand. After that Hester had insisted Federica visit every day. She had been reluctant at first, but soon her desire to belong far exceeded her awkwardness and she found herself cycling up the lane daily for afternoon tea.