The Butterfly Box(2)

‘He’ll be here sometime before noon, his flight gets in at ten,’ she replied patiently. ‘There, sweetie, you look very handsome,’ she added, smoothing

back Hal’s black hair with a soft brush. He shook his head in protest and squealed before wriggling off the bed and running out onto the landing.

‘I put on my best dress for him,’ said Federica, following her mother down the stairs with buoyant footsteps.

‘So I see,’ she replied.

‘I’m going to help Lidia cook lunch today. We’re making Papa’s favourite dish.’

‘What’s that then?’

‘Pastel de choclo and we’re making him merengon de lucuma as a welcome home cake,’ said Federica, flicking her straight blonde hair offher shoulders so that it fell thickly down her back. She had pushed it off her forehead with a hair-band, which along with her small stature made her appear younger than her six years.

‘Papa’s coming home today,’ said Federica to Hal as she helped her mother lay the table.

‘Will he bring me a present?’ asked Hal, who at four years of age remembered his father only for the presents he gave.

‘Of course he will, sweetie. He always brings you presents,’ said Helena, placing a cup of cold milk in front of him. ‘Anyway, it’s Christmas so you’ll be getting loads of presents.’ Federica supervised Hal while he dipped his spoon into the tin of powdered chocolate and dropped it into his milk. She then grabbed the cloth from the sink to mop up the chocolate that hadn’t quite made it to the cup.

‘Fede, the croissants are ready, I can smell them beginning to burn,’ said Helena, lighting a cigarette. She looked anxiously at the clock on the wall and bit her lower lip. She knew she should take the children to the airport to pick him up as other mothers would. But she couldn’t face it. The awkward drive from Santiago airport to the coast, all the while making conversation as if everything was positively rosy. No, it would be much better to see him at home, the house was big, more space for them to lose each other in. How silly, she thought bitterly, they had lost each other a long time ago somewhere in the vast distances they had placed between themselves. Somewhere in the faraway lands and imaginary characters that seemed so much more important to Ramon than the people in his life who were real and who needed him. She had tried. She had really tried. But now she was empty inside and tired of being neglected.

Federica buttered a croissant and sipped her iced chocolate, chattering away to her brother with an excitement that made her voice rise in tone, irritating the raw nerves of her mother who stood by the window blowing smoke against the glass. Once they had been in love, but even hate was an expression of love, just a different face. Now Helena no longer hated him, that alone would have been a good enough reason to stay. But she felt indifference and it frightened her. Nothing could grow out of that. It was a barren emotion, as barren as the face of the moon.



Helena had made a life for herself in Chile because she had believed, as did her daughter later, that Ramon was God. He was certainly the most glamorous, handsome man Polperro had ever seen. Then his article had appeared in National Geographic with photographs of all the old smugglers’ caves and crumbling castles Helena had shown him, and yet somehow the photographs were suffused with a light that didn’t belong to Nature. There was something mystical about them that she couldn’t put her finger on. Every word he wrote sung out to her and stayed with her long after she had turned the last page. Now she recognized the magic as love, for it had followed them for the first six years, converting even the most mundane things, like filling the car up with petrol, into a magical experience. Their lovemaking had pertained to another plain far above the physical and she had believed that the power was within him and in him alone. Only after it had gone did she realize that the connection had been cut - like electricity, their ‘magic’ had been caused by the two of them and ceased the minute one of them felt disenchanted by it. Once it had gone it was gone for ever. That kind of sorcery is of high energy but low life span. At first they had travelled together, to the far corners of China, to the arid deserts of Egypt and the wet lakes of Sweden. When she became pregnant with Federica they returned to settle in Chile. Their ‘magic’ had followed them there too where the white powder coast and pastoral simplicity had enchanted her. But now it echoed with the emptiness she felt within her own being because the love that had filled it had drained away. There was no reason to stay. She was tired of pretending. She was tired of pretending to herself. She longed for the drizzly, verdant hills of her youth and her longing made her hand shake. She lit another cigarette and once more eyed the clock.