by Simon Brown
BUTTERFLY
CHAPTER 27
When the butterfly is ready to hatch out of its chrysalis, it releases hormones to soften the shell. The butterfly will push its way out of the chrysalis and cling to the chrysalis with its wings hanging down.
The butterfly will be unable to fly for several hours as it pumps fluid from its body into its crumpled wings to harden them. Then the butterfly will be ready for its first flight. The caterpillar has now turned into a butterfly.
In the morning I woke early. The house was silent and still. I turned on the bedside light, sat up in bed and picked up my writing pad. I shut my eyes and meditated until the impulse came.
I walk along a stony path, holding my father’s warm hand. The clouds blow across the night sky and the moon reveals herself. She is full, bright and shining. I can see the contours across her face. I look up at my father. He is looking at her too.
We turn off the track into a meadow of fresh grass. I can feel the moist soil, soft beneath my sandals. My father stops by a small oak and touches the new shoots at the end of a branch.
I want to run, so I pull him forwards. He trots beside me. I feel his strength. We run through a small wood and then I see the flames through the trees. As we get near I can see a shower of sparks fly high into the air.
We walk into the opening and I see so many people. My father talks to a man dressed in red fabric with a long stick. I feel excited. I see my friend on the other side of the fire. Her face lights up with an orange glow. I let my hand slip from my father’s and run round. She runs screaming. I chase her into the darkness.
We fall giggling. I look back at the fire. I can still see my father. He is with a group of people. He is talking. I love to watch my father when he cannot see me.
I like to run away, almost as far as I can, then run back, fast and jump so he catches me. The girl chases me round the fire and then I run up to my father and into his arms. He gives me an apple and I run to a big root. I sit and eat.
Now we are quiet. We all hold hands and stand looking up at the moon. I can feel a stone under my foot and roll it back and forth. My father stands on a fallen tree trunk and talks. People gather around him. He rests his hand on an old man. I run with my friend. We hide in the dark. We see women take food out from the ashes of the fire. We run back to feast. I like to watch and imitate. I want to dance like the woman near the twisted old tree.
We eat for a long time. Now I feel sleepy. My father makes a bed with leaves and grasses. He lays me down. Later I wake as he lifts me. I look into his eyes and he kisses me. On his shoulders I feel the rhythm of his pace. My fingers run through his hair. I kiss the top of his head. He is love.
I put the paper on my bedside table, slid down under my covers and shut my eyes. I tried to resist analysing the writing and just be aware of my emotions. There was a yearning inside me for something that was missing. Was it the love? I thought of my father and the love I felt from him. I wondered how Mateo felt growing up without that love in his life.
I could hear Dorothy padding around the flat. This was followed by the sound of her talking to Mateo. Had I forgiven him? How would I know? Was forgiveness a moral judgement or something I would feel? The more I understood Mateo the greater the empathy between us. Once I’d dressed, I walked out into the living room. I could hear Dorothy and Mateo in the kitchen. I heard Dorothy speak.
“Yes, I would like a cup of peppermint tea, please.”
Then I heard Mateo repeat it twice. I smiled to myself. Dorothy would have plenty to occupy herself. I joined them for breakfast. Mateo stood up and kissed me on both cheeks. I felt slightly uncomfortable. We said “Good morning,” and sat down. Dorothy looked at me.
“Did you try your writing today?”
“Yes. It was another unusual piece.”
“Could you read it to us?”
I brought back the sheet of paper and read it to them. Mateo spoke.
“Did you have a father like this, Amanda?”
“Not quite.”
“I want to know how life is with a father. I think woman can find father again with husband. Perhaps you find such a man.”
Was that the missing piece? I felt myself blush. Mateo looked away.
After breakfast we sat in the living room and Mateo told us about his life in Argentina. He had the ball in his hand again. Sometimes he tossed it high in the air so that, without any movement, it fell into his other hand. He grew up in Buenos Aries, in a small apartment. He remembered his father playing the guitar and singing. He thinks he worked in an art gallery or museum. It was an office job but he did not know what he did. He could not remember them arguing. His memories were of an idyllic family.
Then when he was about five he came home one day and found his mother crying on her bed. She would not say why. Ramon did not return that night. After several days he still did not come home. Then Mateo noticed his guitar had gone. His mother told him his father had left. She told him not to worry and that he would be back soon.
They waited and then Mateo’s mother became afraid that the military junta had taken him. She queued for information with mothers and wives at the end of the Dirty War but nothing came. Many men had disappeared. Sometimes just a rumour of being communist was enough. Every night they prayed for him.
After a year or more, Mateo came home and found his mother with her head in her hands. Next to her was a letter. He could not read many of the words, but he did recognise Barcelona. It was his favourite European football team. Later his mother told him his father was safe in Spain. He wanted to know when he would come back, but this made his mother cry again. When she calmed herself, Mateo said he wanted them to go to Barcelona. His mother said it would be too difficult. Mateo asked his mother to write a letter from him to his father but no replies came. His mother said the letter must have been lost in transit. Later she told him that Ramon was with someone else.
Mateo dreamt of living in Barcelona. Every time he had a challenge in life, the solution was to move to Barcelona. He could not believe that once they got there, that his father would not want to be with them. As he grew older he wrote so many letters pleading for his father to take them to him. He begged his mother to move there. His mother told him they did not have enough money, that they needed connections for a visa and ultimately she did not want to live in a city where her Ramon was with another woman.
When Mateo became a teenager he heard stories about his father. At first he could not believe it. His uncle on his mother’s side confirmed that Ramon had an affair with a singer. He had promised his mother it was all over but the uncle never trusted Ramon. As the years passed he grew to hate his father. Then they heard he had married a rich English woman and moved to England. With this news his mother gave up. She lost weight, aged and eventually became ill with breast cancer. Mateo watched her die for seven years. She wanted to live long enough to see Mateo go to university. He studied literature and completed his military service.
Then a year ago at the beginning of spring his mother’s health worsened. He nursed her through to summer until she died. Mateo swore on his mother’s still-warm body that he would avenge her death. All he knew was that Ramon married Veronica Blake and moved near to London around ten years ago. He borrowed the money for a plane ticket and flew to London. He worked in cafés and kept asking people how to find a record of marriages. Finally the manager of a café in Soho steered him to the records office in Holborn. From there he found that they divorced five years later and that now his father’s name was Mathew Blake. More searching revealed that Mathew Blake was now married to Amanda Birch and he traced them to a house in Tewin near Welwyn Garden City. Mateo said he took the gun but he had not decided whether to scare him or kill him.
When he knocked on his father’s door in Tewin, Mathew did not recognise him. Mateo took his gun out and Mathew thought he was being robbed. He denied he had ever lived in Argentina. He swore he had no Spanish wife or any child. Mateo showed Mathew a picture of hi
m with his wife and son shortly before leaving Buenos Aries. Mathew’s face gave away his lies. That’s when Mateo knew he would pull the trigger. Whilst his father knelt on the carpet pleading for his life, Mateo took a pillow from the sofa, held it in front of his gun to muffle the shot and sent his father to finally join his mother.
“It was so slow. Like slow motion film.”
“Like a slow motion film,” Dorothy corrected him.
“Si, like a slow motion film.”
“So he was married to your mother all the time,” Dorothy mused.
It took me a while to take in Mateo’s story.
“Perhaps you could tell Mateo everything you know, Amanda.”
I told him about Ramon living in Barcelona with Montserrat and how he left her after a few years for Veronica. They came to England and married.
“He changed his name to Mathew, I suppose after you,” I added looking at Mateo.
I continued, describing how Mathew divorced Veronica and had a relationship with a woman called Clare, who later died of cancer. It struck me that so many of Mathew’s lovers had become ill. I told Mateo how Mathew and I met at tango classes. I described how we married and lived in Tewin. I kept my description factual and avoided describing Mathew as a husband.
I explained how after he was shot I found that he had taken out large loans against our home, whilst drawing out cash every Monday.
“Where is this money?” Mateo asked.
“It is all missing. I think he was about to leave me and had secretly moved the money so that he would not have to split it with me. It was essentially my money. I had inherited it after my mother died.”
“Why don’t you find it?” Mateo asked.
“I got some of it back from the building society and I’m not sure I really care anymore.”
Mateo looked surprised.
“But it is your money.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
Dorothy put her knitting down.
“You have the name on that card you found. If I was looking, I think I would try the blues club he played at. From your description of what Rosa told you in Barcelona, that might be where he would meet someone new.”
After breakfast we walked across Hampstead Heath to Kenwood House. Mateo demonstrated an impressive ability to throw his ball against a tree trunk in a way that it bounced back into his waiting open hand. Dorothy continued her theme, speaking softly.
“I wonder what would have happened if you had tried to understand your father rather than judge him.”
“He do same things anyway.”
“He might. The difference would be your reaction to him. You may not agree with his actions, or support them, but if you can try to understand them I suspect you would feel different. Maybe you would be better able to enjoy some aspects of your father rather than be so upset with the qualities you don’t like.”
“When I see what he does to my mother, this is not easy.”
Dorothy stopped and put her hand on Mateo’s shoulder.
“In my limited experience, we can only live our own lives. Your mother lived hers in a certain way. She chose to marry your father. She found qualities in him she could love. As you say she forgave many things. And ultimately she chose to wait for your father to return. Did she ask you to kill him when she died?”
“No.”
I could see Mateo’s face redden, his lower lip quiver and tears start to roll down his cheek.
“You can only live your life, Mateo. In your life you can choose. You can choose to judge or understand, you can choose to love or hate, you can choose to embrace or separate.”
“So, maybe I try to understand my father?”
“I would not say you should. All I am saying is that your life may be different if you do. You may develop yourself differently through the challenge of trying to understand your father and out of that you will be different.”
“You think I made big mistake. Maybe you are right.”
Mateo wiped the tears from his face.
“It does not matter what I think. There are two things you can think about for yourself. The first is that we are creatures of habit. If you spent all this time hating your father and feeling resentful, then out of habit there is a risk that you will transfer that behaviour onto someone else; like you did with Amanda. Like poor William did with his family.”
“Si, I understand.”
Mateo threw his ball hard against a silver birch and was ready for the rebound with his hand held high above his head.
“The second thought is that it is not too late. You can still try to understand your father. You can still learn about him. You can talk to Amanda, Veronica and his relations in Barcelona. You can appreciate the whole man. Some things you might admire and respect, others not. Rather than focus on a few parts, embrace him as a complete person. Remember he was a baby once, strived for his mother’s attention, went through all his childhood challenges, coped with the struggles of becoming a teenager and became a man. What of his failures, disappointments and regrets?”
I felt this also carried a message for me. I had recently been focussed on all the things I disliked the most about Mathew. It made it easier for me to distance myself from him and his actions.
“Mateo, we could do some of this together if you like. I have been feeling very negative about Mathew for a while.”
“Si, I think I will need very much help. This is not easy, what you ask.”
Mateo bounced his ball on the ground.
“I think I will need a lot of help. You ask me to do something that is not easy,” Dorothy said emphasising the missing words.
Mateo repeated the sentence three times.
“A practical step would be to commit to resolving this peacefully, and send your gun to the police,” Dorothy said.
At home, Mateo wore some yellow washing up gloves and cleaned the gun. I found the address of a police station in Manchester and Mateo posted it from a post box in a residential street at the end of the Jubilee Line, where I hoped there would be no cameras.
The three of us agreed that Mateo could stay another night. That evening he walked to his bedsit to change and bring his wash bag. I wondered whether he would return but he arrived a few hours later wearing a more colourful maroon top and beige trousers.
I decided to take one day at a time. If I felt I could develop myself and the feeling of love inside me whilst Mateo was with us, I would continue. If his presence made it harder to be myself, then I would ask him to leave. I still felt unresolved about Mathew’s murder and whether I should let a judge and jury decide Mateo’s fate. At the same time my desire to hand him over was weakening.
I emailed Francesc to tell him I had met up with Mateo and that everything is now fine. I thanked him for his help and said that I might bring Mateo to Barcelona one day so he could get to know more of his father’s relations. Francesc replied within minutes to say he would forward my email to Josep and Rosa. I hoped this would prevent any further violence between Mateo and Mathew’s relations.
Mateo wanted to pursue Dorothy’s suggestion that we might find out more about Cristelle by visiting the blues club Mathew played at. I felt some resistance but accepted it would continue our understanding Mathew. I remembered the blues club was in Charlotte Street, London. I found it on the internet and noted that Wednesday was the jam night.
When the time came, Mateo and I took the tube to Goodge Street and found the club. The club had a long bar to the right with a seating area and stage at the back. There was a mezzanine floor above. Mateo wanted a lager and I ordered a sparkling water. We took our drinks upstairs and Mateo found a table at the front.
I learnt Mateo was twenty-one, fifteen years younger than me. I was just old enough to be his mother.
Different musician came and went playing a variety of blues songs. There were a few slow ballads and plenty of faster twelve-bar rhythms. Couples at the front were having fun jiving together.
I leant f
orward when I recognised the bearded, longhaired man who came to Mathew’s funeral, get up on stage. He slung his maroon guitar over his shoulder and when the musicians were ready sung a couple of songs. As soon as they finished Mateo and I walked towards the stage. We intercepted him on his way to the bar.
“Excuse me, I’m Amanda, Mathew Blake’s wife. We met at his funeral.”
The man looked surprised and then smiled, as he finally recognised me.
“Can we talk?”
I introduced Mateo and bought him a beer. I led him back to our table. I asked him to describe Mathew’s playing to Mateo. Jeff extolled about his style of play and his ability to improvise using a variety of scales. According to Jeff he was one of the highlights of any evening. Mateo listened intently.
“You can see Mathew on YouTube.” He wrote out the words to search under and gave the paper to Mateo.
I waited until a certain level of friendship had been established and then moved onto the subject of Cristelle. I took a deep breath.
“Jeff, Mathew told me a about a friend he met here called Cristelle. I was hoping to see her here. I need to give her some information. Can you help?”
I saw Jeff retract slightly.
“Cristelle used to sing. Pretty good. She left around the summer. Does she know about Mathew’s passing?”
“No, I don’t think so. Do you know how I can contact her?”
Jeff shrugged.
“You could see if she is on the club’s mailing list.”
“Did she ever mention where she was from?”
