Shooting Butterflies

by Marika Cobbold

  Grace’s grin widened. God he was corny, but still it felt good.

  ‘You’re special.’

  I’m dreaming, she thought.

  ‘This girl, Cherry, is travelling in Europe. She’s in Greece right now. Could you believe that, Greece?’

  ‘I’ve never been,’ Grace said. ‘Mrs Shield always yearned to go to Rhodes but my father refused to go because of the junta. He played Theodorakis records instead, but that just made Mrs Shield yearn more. “I will not compromise my principles because my wife wants a holiday in the sun,” he said.’

  ‘He was right.’ Jefferson sat up. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Cherry said she was going. It’s like there’s no consciousness.’

  Grace sat up too. ‘Jefferson.’ She took his rough boy’s hands in hers. ‘I bought fur … once. I never got to wear it but I might have if … if something hadn’t got in the way. So you see,’ she lowered her eyes, ‘I’m not … conscious either, not the way you mean it.’

  Jefferson looked back at her, his brow furrowed. ‘That’s different,’ he said finally, pulling a chunk of grass up by its roots. ‘It’s OK, Grace.’ He was smiling and she could feel his warm spearmint-gum breath. ‘You’re different.’ Grace did not ask him how, or why. Instead with a little sigh of contentment, she lay back down in the grass.

  A while later she took pictures of him asleep in the shade, resting on his front, one knee drawn up and his arms above his head. He was nineteen and perfect and she, who was eighteen, wept because, in her experience, that which was perfect came back to haunt you from the far side of loss. She knelt down and brushed her lips against the soft hollow of his young boy’s neck, tucking a lock of dark hair behind his ear. ‘Come, wolves and giant birds,’ she whispered, ‘come, storms and angry winds. I’m here and you can’t hurt him.’ The dappled light from the branches and leaves above formed shifting patterns across his sleeping form. She got to her feet and shot close to a roll of film.

  Grace and Jefferson were jumping, laughing and as naked as God had created them, into the cool water of the wide, lazy-flowing river that divided the town from the woods beyond. She twisted round in the water, dived and surfaced right by him, shaking the water from her hair, sending a cascade of droplets like a spinning wheel around her head. She dived again, swimming beneath him slinky as a seal, stretching her hand up and touching the soft slippery skin on the inside of his thighs. This time they surfaced together, wide-eyed and out of breath. Without a word they swam towards land. He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his hips and leant back against the bank, closing her eyes against the bright sun.

  ‘And Jefferson always such a good boy.’ Della Parker was complaining to her friend Jan Miller while they were in the queue at the mart. Della was shocked and she was angry and she didn’t mind who heard what she had to say, and that included Aunt Kathleen blushing by the cereal aisle. ‘You would think a person would be spared that kind of sight, practically in their own back yard and in the middle of the morning with the kindergarten walking by on their nature ramble. I tell you, it’s that girl. We’ve all heard about the way those Europeans carry on.’

  Aunt Kathleen had responded by saying loudly to her friend Susie, ‘It’s good to see the boy so happy. There was no end to his moping after that Cherry Jones went away.’

  But to Grace she said, ‘It’s not that I expect you young people to be angels, but did you have to be so … well … public about it?’

  Grace was too proud of her happiness to be embarrassed, although she was sorry to have upset Aunt Kathleen. She wanted to ask her if it was common to feel holy when you made love, but she did not know how to go about broaching the subject. She made a very pretty apology in the form of a photograph of the house framed with freshly picked roses. ‘I know the roses won’t last,’ she said. But Aunt Kathleen had already forgiven her. Grace was in far worse trouble with Jefferson’s mother. She too blamed Grace, that English girl with the unfortunate mother, and she told Kathleen all about it. ‘But I shall keep my opinion to myself, Kathleen. As Jim pointed out, the more you fuss the more they go their own way. No, Jim says let him go on seeing her – in a decent manner, of course – and it soon won’t seem so interesting. She leaves at the end of the summer, doesn’t she?’

  Aunt Kathleen thought that Gene McGraw, in spite of her cosy small-town ways, was a frightening woman. She tried to warn Grace, but love had turned the girl, if not blind, then deaf. But it seemed that a week later Mrs McGraw too had forgiven her. Jefferson had organised a picnic for just the two of them. He turned up, looking slightly embarrassed, with a coolbox and a red and blue picnic rug. He’d brought cans of Coke and even some candy-coloured chocolate buttons because he remembered that she had told him she missed Smarties. There were sandwiches and some cookies his mother had baked specially. It was that which made Grace think she was forgiven. After all, why make cookies for someone you don’t like? Who cared what the oldies thought, said Jefferson, and anyway his mother blamed what had happened more on the 1960s than on Grace. Mrs McGraw blamed most things on the 1960s and wished with religious fervour that the entire decade could just be rubbed out as if it had never been. She herself remained firmly in the 1950s, with her gingham apron and her neat blonde curls.

  Jefferson and Grace unpacked their basket by the pond at the edge of the woods. The air vibrated with heat, the stagnant water was covered in soft green suds whipped up by the tiny insects scuttling along its surface. Even insects stayed close to home in this heat.

  Once they had eaten they lay down in the shade, only the tips of their fingers touching for now. The air smelt clean. Every now and then, just as they began to say the heat was getting too much, the wind listened and, eager to please, stirred up a faint breeze to cool them down. This was a good moment to be alive.

  And that, as far as Grace was concerned, was the trouble. Good times were made to pass. Happiness existed to keep the pain alive. She grabbed her camera and sat up.

  When he was little, Finn had a box of treasures. It was really just an old cardboard shoebox with some discarded buttons, a few pieces of coloured glass polished smooth by the sea, a nugget of golden amber with a tiny insect trapped for eternity, a dried seahorse, some fool’s gold, bits and pieces. Finn used to show his treasures to people if he really liked them and when he felt sad he would go and look through the box to cheer himself up. Grace had tried to make up her own, but though she ended up with a nicer shoebox and much the same kind of bits inside, she could not help feeling that it was just an old box filled with tat. Years later, when sorting through her albums of photographs, good times pinned down like butterflies on the page, she remembered Finn’s box of treasures and thought that finally she had her own.

  ‘Enough.’ Jefferson pulled a face like an awkward schoolboy and raised his hand to shield his eyes. She looked at him sitting in the tall grass, tousle-haired, a sullen pout to his mouth. ‘No one sees exactly what I see.’ She pointed the lens at him and pressed the shutter. ‘There; you’re mine.’ She smiled as, now she had her picture, the anxiety melted away.

  When everything was tidied up and stowed away, he pulled her close, smiling down at her, blue-eyed, wild-haired, and kissed her. She thought she might faint with love. He released her, looking up at the sky. ‘It’s cooling down a bit. What about a walk? There’s this place I want you to see.’

  To Grace it felt hot enough for the devil to sunbathe, but she said she would love a walk; the longer the better she added, never knowing when to draw the line. They wandered further into the great woods; he told her they stretched all the way to Canada. The buzzing of insects got louder and Grace admired their manners. They seemed to understand that they were best heard and not felt, because they didn’t bother either of them, not even for a seat on an arm or neck. Above, the branches of the trees reached towards each other tangling and entwining, letting in just enough of the sunshine to cover her and Jefferson in a veil of soft green light. From a distance came the chuckling of wate
r running across the stones of a nearby stream. Grace let go of his hand and ran towards the sound. She stumbled on a half-buried twig and, as she straightened up, a cascade of tiny yellow butterflies rose, a spray of colour on the faint breeze, hovered, then fluttered off into the deeper recess of the woods.

  ‘I used to come here all the time when I was a kid,’ Jefferson said. ‘I imagined I was the only person in the world who could get here; that the place existed just for me and vanished the moment I left.’ He grinned at her as if he was a little embarrassed at this earlier, dumber version of himself.

  ‘Like Brigadoon,’ she said.

  ‘Brigawhat?’

  ‘A Scottish village that appeared and disappeared just for Gene Kelly.’

  ‘Really?’

  She took both his hands as if inviting him to dance. ‘No, no, not really.’

  It was coming to the woods, this part especially, that had made him decide to dedicate his life to the care of animals. His father and his uncle were lawyers and his grandfather had been one too, so he was set to break with a family tradition.

  ‘It’s the most beautiful place I know and yet all around animals are suffering with no one to help them. When the bluebells come out in the spring, it seems all the more obscene. I found a raccoon once, with its hind legs crushed. He had dragged himself along to die by the stream, one small raccoon paw feebly whisking the water. I’ve seen a fox caught up in a snare. It had chewed through the flesh and bone of its own leg to try to get free. That’s when I stopped pretending the woods were mine.’ He shook his head slowly and Grace thought she saw him blink away a tear. She thought he had cub eyes; wide, slanted, watchful. ‘I tell you, he was so tiny he wouldn’t even have made a decent-size collar.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Grace took a step back, her hands in the air.

  ‘I plan to earn my money tending to rich people’s pets and then for the rest of the time I’ll make it known that anyone can bring in sick and injured wild animals for free treatment.’

  She cradled his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes. ‘I think that’s a good plan.’

  He kissed her, a slow sure-of-itself kiss. ‘I knew you’d understand,’ he said. ‘I knew that you would be the girl who understood.’

  He was as beautiful inside as he was out and she loved him; so what was there to understand? She wandered off, kicking her feet, rolling her neck, shaking out her arms; she was so full of love she had to shake some of it off before it became too much to bear.

  ‘These six weeks have been the longest of my life,’ Grace said to Jefferson.

  ‘Don’t you say that when you’re bored or something?’ They were lying side by side on the musty mouse-nibbled mattress stored in the Singletons’ attic.

  Grace turned her head. ‘Don’t play the coquette with me; you know perfectly well what I mean.’

  Jefferson rolled on top of her, pinning her down. ‘No, I don’t. You have witch’s eyes and soft lips, and you don’t make a lot of sense.’

  ‘I do.’ She wriggled free and sat up. ‘I’m known for making sense. At school my essays were praised for it. Grace’s essays are very clear, they said. I’ll be doing English at Cambridge. You have to make sense for that. So they say.’

  ‘You’re better with a camera. So what was it you were telling me so clearly?’

  ‘Just that days filled with significance weigh heavy in the scales of time.’ She bent down and kissed his rough tanned cheek. ‘Oh, and I love you.’ Turning pink, he failed to meet her eyes. She frowned. ‘Don’t you want me to love you?’

  He got to his feet and pulled on his T-shirt. ‘Sure, I want you to. It’s a bit intense, that’s all. I’m not used to it, girls being up-front like that. But it’s cool. I like it.’

  ‘That’s big of you. But don’t worry; right now I don’t even like you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Not clear enough?’

  ‘Not five seconds after you told me you loved me.’

  ‘So I changed my mind when you didn’t love me back. I don’t take rejection well.’

  ‘I didn’t reject you. It’s a big thing, that’s all.’

  ‘And maybe I mistook good sex for love.’ Grace zipped up her jeans.

  ‘Are you saying that’s all this is about, just sex?’

  Grace settled herself cross-legged on the floor a few inches away from him. She leant forward and looked into his eyes. ‘There’s nothing “just sex” about it.’ But next thing she had thrown herself face down on the mattress. He heard her muffled voice. ‘Shit, I’m so embarrassed. Shit, shit, shit. Why do I say these things?’

  She felt his hand on her shoulder. He was smiling and the look in his eyes was as tender as if she had been an injured cub. ‘You’re funny, Grace. But kinda nice too.’

  Jefferson was playing his father at tennis in spite of the heat. When he saw Grace approach he stopped halfway through his serve and grinned and waved. ‘Here comes my girl.’

  ‘Are we playing or not?’ his father called across the net.

  ‘I’ll have him beat in no time,’ Jefferson assured her. ‘Then we’ll go for a swim.’

  Grace was fine with waiting. More than fine. Watching him do his thing was relaxing. She could just sit there and enjoy their love, enjoy being near him but not right up there having to worry about sustaining the miracle. It was hard work being in love. So it was a rest, just sitting back and watching him, knowing that, like the ball he batted over the net, he would return to her. His shiny hair curled damp with sweat was held in place by a white towelling band, just like the one Björn Borg wore. And like Björn Borg his shoulders were wide and thin at the same time and his legs were strong and lean. His father was panting and red-faced.

  I know parts of him that his parents don’t know, she thought. That’s grown-up love.

  Jefferson had guessed right; the game was over in no time. ‘How many pictures did you take down there?’ he asked as he joined her, towelling himself, wiping the sweat from his eyes.

  She pulled him close. ‘Love’s funny,’ she said, ‘the way it makes you positively like things you’d run a mile from usually, like sweat and saliva and all manner of bodily fluids.’

  ‘Nothing weird about it. It’s natural. It’s when we’re in love that we’re most like other animals and that’s the kind of stuff they go for.’

  * * *

  On their way to the river Grace spotted a tiny bird in the middle of the road. ‘Look how sweet he is,’ Grace said at first. Then she saw the wing trailing on the ground as the bird tried to move to safety. They were right up close now and the bird, having taken a faltering step, gave up and just sat there resigned, its round eyes unblinking. Its feathers were scruffy as if it had just had a bath, but there was no water in sight; the dry spell had seen to that. Jefferson knelt down close. His voice was a soft whisper. ‘You are in a bad way, little guy, aren’t you?’ He looked up at Grace. ‘His wing’s broken.’

  Grace blinked. ‘That’s awful. What shall we do? Shall we take it to the vet?’

  ‘There’s nothing a vet can do, not for a tiny wild bird like this one.’

  Grace took a step back. ‘But he can’t move. We can’t just leave him sitting there waiting for a cat or a car to come along.’

  ‘No, we can’t.’ Jefferson reached out and scooped the bird up into his hands. He bent low as if whispering. Grace, almost without thinking, went for her camera. It was the sight of the tall boy cradling the injured bird in his rough hands. Through the lens she saw Jefferson grip the bird’s neck with both hands and twist. She lowered the camera, hands shaking, heart pounding, and said, ‘You killed it!’

  Jefferson looked up at her, the whites of his eyes shot through with red, the dead bird in his left hand, cradled against his midriff. He drew in his breath and wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. ‘And what were you going to do about it? Take its picture?’ He walked over to the side of the road and scraped a shallow grave in the dry dirt.
When the bird was covered with soil and twigs he got up and took Grace’s hand, blinking at her in the strong light. ‘Let’s go swim.’

  One step to the left of wrong; that’s how the world seemed to Grace. The weather didn’t help. For weeks it had been so dry that you were scared to light a match in case you set the air on fire. There were constant warnings on the news for people to take care with anything flammable, never to flick cigarette butts from car windows or even think about grilling hot dogs in the woods; then, overnight, it turned humid and after that not a day or night went by without it pouring with rain. Aunt Kathleen said the humidity was turning people a little crazy. Two old-timers from the nursing home had all but killed each other in a fight over a woman friend. Children were scrapping in the playground. Next thing, a woman Kathleen played bridge with on the first Wednesday of every month had run off with the local baseball coach, leaving her poor husband with nothing but a brief note of goodbye and a freezer full of TV dinners for one.

  So was it the humidity that had got to Jefferson? He had made excuses not to meet a couple of times now, leaving it so late on each occasion that Grace was all ready and waiting in the hall, teeth brushed, hair freshly washed, by the time the phone rang with him cancelling.

  When they did spend time together she might as well have been sitting there dragging her nails up and down a blackboard the way he twitched and frowned. When she snuggled close he acted embarrassed rather than loving, although if she looked up at him at those moments there was a kind of smile on his face. When she asked if something was wrong, he said, ‘No.’

  ‘I’d die for you, do you know that?’ she said early one evening as they were parting outside the Singletons’ gate.

  He took her hands and his cheeks and ears turned pink. ‘You shouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Why?’

  He pulled her close. ‘You give too much away,’ he muttered against her shoulder. ‘It scares people.’