The Butterfly Box(81)

‘I moved the children to England for me, but ironically they are the ones who enjoy it. Not me. I wonder, I don’t know, I wonder...’ She hesitated.

‘What?’ he asked quietly.

‘I wonder, oh God, Ramon, I can hardly say it.’



‘Say it. You’ll feel a hell of a lot better if you do.'

‘Have I made a huge mistake?’

Ramon stopped massaging her shoulders. She sat up and turned to face him. He looked at her with dark, impenetrable eyes and she felt herself slowly closing up again with inhibition and shame.

‘Have you made a mistake?’ he asked seriously, thinking of Estella and hoping she wasn’t suddenly going to change her mind.

‘I don’t know whether I’ve made a mistake leaving Chile. I miss it. Perhaps it’s nothing more than nostalgia,’ she added dismissively.



‘Perhaps,’ he agreed thoughtfully.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you need to give it a chance here,’ he said. ‘You need to throw yourself into it like Fede has.'

‘It’s much easier for children. They just get on with things and don’t brood.’

‘Look,’ he said. ‘It was your choice, Helena. I never asked you to leave. I didn’t want you to. But I understood why you did and I support your choice. I think you are encountering the same problems here as the ones you faced in

Chile. You’re a mother on her own who’s dedicated her life to her children. I think you’ll find if you dedicate some of that time to you your feelings might change. You’re young, you’re good-looking.’ She blushed and turned her face away. ‘You need to find a hobby, something that takes you out of yourself and out of the home.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said, feeling happier. ‘You know, we haven’t talked like this for years.’

‘I know. We were too busy resenting each other, we now know where we both stand.’

She looked at his diffident profile as he stared out across the sea. Then lowered her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘We do.’

Federica was so happy to have her father back that she was unable to sleep. Her parents slept in different bedrooms, but she didn’t mind. She was grateful that he was there at all. Jake and Polly accepted his sudden arrival once they saw how he and Helena got on much better than they had predicted. There were no fights, no tantrums, no bitter comments, no tears. Helena washed her hair, applied makeup and even bought herself some new outfits in town. They

disappeared every day as a family. They went for walks along the beach with the children, explored ruined castles and hidden caves. In fact, they did all the things that they had done ten years before when they had first met. The only difference was that they didn’t kiss and they didn’t laugh quite as much. But Helena was less resentful and Ramon more attentive to her needs. She no longer felt numb inside but regained her awareness. Her indifference had, after all, been nothing more than a rebellion of the senses, a stagnation of the heart. As her anger dissolved she discovered she cared. While they retraced the paths of their courtship she began to find the man she had fallen in love with behind those dense eyes and her spirit stirred for him again.

Ingrid was enchanted by the swarthy foreigner who had suddenly appeared in their midst. He had come for lunch on Boxing Day with Helena and the children and entertained her with stories which he recounted in his thick accent and foreign intonation. She wished she spoke Spanish because she would have bought every book he’d ever written. But he charmed her none the less with stories he invented off the top of his head and tales of his adventures that he embellished with his rich imagination until he had captivated the attention

of the whole table, even the lofty Sam who was usually bored by the men his mother suddenly ‘took shines to’.

The weeks that ensued were punctuated with invitations to Pickthistle Manor. Helena felt herself swelling with pride as Ramon dazzled everyone with his presence and his uniqueness. The atmosphere was charged with a rare energy when he was present and no one felt it more than his wife.

‘Why you’re the other side of the world from this delightful young man is beyond me,’ Nuno said to Helena one day over lunch.

‘Oh, Nuno, it’s not that simple. You don’t have to live with him,’ she laughed.

‘No one else will have me besides Ingrid so it’s not an option,’ he replied, looking down at her loftily with intelligent blue eyes. ‘Sometimes one realizes what one has lost when it is too late. I hope, my dear, that you won’t suffer the same fate.’

‘He’s here for the children, not for me,’ she said coolly. But she looked across the table at Ramon’s animated face and wished he had come for her. She wished he could just bury his pride and beg her to come back to him. She