The Butterfly Box(79)

‘I’m here now,' he replied.

‘You’re here now, but gone tomorrow. I had given up on you. It was easier to give up. Now you’re back I don’t know where I am any more.’ She folded her arms in front of her obstinately.

Ramon shrugged his shoulders and sighed. There was simply no point in arguing with her. He watched her rigid features; the bitter line of her mouth, the pinched skin and frozen eyes and remembered why he had let her go. ‘What more can I say? I’m sorry,’ he ventured in an attempt to alter her expression.

Her lips twitched as she pondered her next move. ‘I don’t want Fede to hear us arguing again,’ she said. ‘Let’s go for a walk and discuss this calmly.’

They walked up the lane, through a mossy wooden gate and into the field and woods beyond. Helena lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the icy air where it floated on the cold like fog. Ramon was dismayed to find that Helena hadn’t changed at all in the months that they had been apart. She was just as unhappy as ever. She hadn’t even bothered to wash her hair for church. He was disappointed. He sensed a strange feeling of deja v\a along with those familiar contractions in his gut, that summoned him away.

‘So how long will you be staying?’ she asked as they walked up the field, their boots scrunching into the melting snow.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Ramon replied, struggling against the impulse to return as quickly as possible to the serene and untroubled home Estella had forged for

him.

‘Nothing’s changed, has it?’ she sighed. ‘Well, I’ll tell you how long you’ll stay, a week, perhaps ten days, then we’ll begin to bore you and you’ll be off again.’

‘You and the children never bored me,’ said Ramon seriously.

‘No?’ she retorted grimly. ‘Well, that’s what it felt like.’

‘Look, Helena. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I wanted to surprise you,’ he said, placing his large hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off ‘Fede was pleased to see me,’ he added and smiled a small, pensive smile.

‘Of course she was. But you haven’t been around for the past eleven months wiping her tears. Not a day has gone by when she hasn’t thought that perhaps, just maybe, today will be the day Papa turns up. What sort of a childhood is that, Ramon? If you just wrote regularly, kept in touch, let her know your plans then she wouldn’t live in such an uncertain world. It makes her very insecure, you know, and I suffer with her.’ Her voice dripped with bitterness.

‘I’ll try,’ he conceded.

‘And what about Hal?’ she continued. ‘It’s as if he doesn’t exist. You write to Fede but not to him. He’s your son and he needs you just as much as Fede

does. More so, because he’s never experienced your affection like she has.’



‘You’re right,’ he said simply. ‘You’re right about everything. I haven’t come here to fight with you.’

Helena blinked in surprise and kept her eyes fixed on the snow-laden trees in front of them. She hadn’t expected him to be so compliant.

They walked up the path until they came to the high cliffs which cut straight down to the sea. Helena led him to a small iron bench where she often came to sit alone and gaze out over the waters. There, the view that stretched out before her into the mists of infinity would take her soul back to the sweet days of her past before acrimony had seeped in to sour it. Now she sat down and surveyed the frosty sky and icy clouds with the man whose love had once been as intense as the sun. Once more the horizon dragged her spirits out of the shadows of her unhappiness and she remembered how it had been then. She felt her heart thaw in the midst of such splendour, in the midst of such vivid memories. She burrowed in her coat pocket for her cigarettes and lighter. With a shaking hand she lit one. She felt Ramon’s overbearing presence and the desire to cry. How did it all go so dreadfully wrong?

‘So, how are your parents?’ she asked after a while, placing a hand on her aching temple.

‘Well. They’re in Cachagua.’

‘I miss Cachagua,’ she said quietly, almost as if she were talking to herself. She didn’t look at him but continued to stare out over her memories. ‘I miss the heat, the sea, the smells. I never thought I would miss it, but I do.’

‘That’s the trouble with loving two countries, you always want to be in the one you’re not in. It gives one too much choice,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to have the choice.’

‘Your life must be very hard indeed, you have the whole world to choose from,’ she said and chuckled resentfully.