Finally, at the end of January she had returned to Estella’s beach house, pale-faced and grim, not knowing what she was going to say, only that she had to
say something. Estella noticed at once Mariana’s distress and burst into tears on the veranda.
‘Is it Ramon?’ she choked impulsively, staggering towards her, her eyes at once welling with despair. ‘Is he all right?’
Mariana was so moved by Estella’s tears that she embraced her. ‘Ramon is fine, Estella. It is you and my grandchild I’m worried about,’ she said, releasing her.
Estella stared at her with glassy eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I forgot myself.’
‘I knew already,’ Mariana replied kindly.
‘You’d better come in then.’
Mariana was no longer curious about the house or surprised by its size. She recognized Ramon’s typewriter on the desk and the first pages of a manuscript piled neatly beside it. Ramon had never been tidy, nor had Helena, but Estella kept the place as immaculate as she had kept Mariana’s house. Estella showed her into the sitting room, which was light and spacious with pale Venetian blinds drawn half way down the French doors to keep the room cool. She admired the elegance of Estella’s taste. The floor was covered with brightly woven
rugs from India, she had filled the room with large pots of geraniums and fairy roses and the bookshelf was a library of European writers, philosophers and biographers. Mariana noticed that Ramon had taken the most exquisite pictures of Estella and their son and placed them in silver frames on every surface. Wherever her eye rested she was able to follow her son’s travels around the world - a Brazilian balanganda in silver to induce fertility, a Greek icon of Saint Francis from a monk on Mount Athos and an African spear from a tribe he had befriended deep in the African jungle. Together Ramon and Estella had made a warm home for themselves.
Estella sat opposite, staring at Mariana with limpid eyes.
‘I’m not here to chastise you, Estella,’ she said, following her instincts, feeling her way. ‘I worry for you, that’s all.’
‘How did you find out?’ Estella asked boldly.
‘At Christmas when I visited you, I left forgetting to give you the gift I had brought, so I turned back.’
‘Oh,’ said Estella, nodding sadly.
‘I heard you call your child Ramoncito, then it all made sense.’
‘Yes.’
Mariana got up and walked over to where Estella sat uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa. She sat down next to her and looked at her with understanding. ‘I’m a woman too, I know what it is like to love a man. I love Ignacio. He’s difficult to say the least. But I love him in spite of his sometimes irksome nature. I know Ramon well enough to realize that it was he who seduced you. I don’t blame you. I pity you. I’ve watched his marriage disintegrate. Helena couldn’t cope with his wanderings. Can you?’
Estella’s face glowed like a rosy apple and she smiled the smile of a woman contented with her lot. ‘I love Ramon. He loves me. That is all that I ask. I don’t want to imprison him in the home. I just want his love. I’m happy, Señora. Happier than I've ever been.’
‘I believe you,’ she said, touching the young woman’s arm. ‘But, what do your parents think? He’s still married to Helena.’
The spring drained away from Estella’s face and it acquired an autumnal sadness. ‘They have disowned me,’ she stated simply, flatly, as if she had built an inner barrier of indifference in order to prevent herself from hurting any more. ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mariana. ‘If there’s anything I can do.’
‘No, no,’ Estella replied. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do.’
‘Have they seen your child?’
‘No.’
‘If they were to see him ..
‘They won’t come anywhere near the house.’
‘Do they know who the father is?’
‘They do, and they don’t care. My father wants Ramon to marry me . ..’
‘I see.’
‘I’m happy. They should be happy that I’m happy, but I bring disgrace on the family,’ she said and her eyes glistened against her will.
‘Why don’t you show them Ramoncito? Their hearts will soften, I promise you. He’s so adorable. He’s a little angel. Can I see him again?’
Estella showed Mariana into the little room where Ramoncito was quietly sleeping in the cool shadows. She ran a finger down his soft cheek and felt the emotion gather in her throat and in her eyes that stung with tears. ‘Take Ramoncito to see them,’ she said.
‘Shall I tell Ramon that you came?’
‘No,’ Mariana replied firmly. ‘It will be our secret. He will let me know in his own time. But if there is anything I can ever do for you, please don’t feel too
afraid to call me. You know where I am. I won’t impose on you any more.’
Estella touched Mariana’s hand and smiled. ‘I want you to come. I want Ramoncito to know his grandmother,’ she said and her lips trembled.
Mariana was too touched to reply. She nodded her head, swallowed hard and blinked away her gratitude.
The following evening Estella braced herself for the most difficult task of her life. She wrapped Ramoncito in a woollen shawl, packed enough food and clothes for a week and laid him on her parents’ doorstep with a note which said, simply, ‘l need your love.1 Then she turned and walked away. As she reached the bend in the road she almost repented and ran back to reclaim him, but she remembered Mariana’s words and continued up the track with a heart of lead but a mind hardened with resolve. After a suffocating couple of hours, during which time anxiety clawed at her conscience like a crow trying to scratch his way out, she could bear it no longer and hurried back along the coast to where her parents’ house nestled against the hillside.
Ramoncito was no longer on the doorstep. Terrified that he might have been taken by a stray dog or a thief she crept up to the window of the house, holding
her breath so as not to give herself away. At first, when she looked through the glass she saw nothing but an empty room. Then just when an inner sob began to choke her, Maria wandered into the room with the baby safely wrapped in her solid arms. She was smiling broadly and the tears were falling over her old cheeks in rivers of joy.
Pablo Rega sat on the grass next to his friend, Osvaldo Garcia Segundo, and began to talk, as he always did, with poetry and candour.
‘My old heart has softened, Osvaldo. Si, Señor, it has. Maria returned home to find Estella’s bastard on the doorstep. She had just left him there. Just like that. With a note. As if we’d be in any doubt as to who the child belonged to.’ He chuckled and shook his head, playing with the Virgin pendant that clung to his chest. ‘He’s very small, I was frightened to touch him until Maria placed him in my arms - for the love of God, Maria, I said, if I drop him the devil will take him. But she just laughed and cried again. His smile is mine, so Maria tells me, God bless the poor lamb if he resembles me. A lot of good that’ll do him! You’d be right to ask what I did. I should have sent him back to his mother. But Maria wouldn’t hear of it. There she was with the baby in her arms,
loving it as if it were her own, tears of joy running down her face. I’d be a monster to send him back. I’m not a monster, just a tired old man with little to live for but life. Ramoncito is another life, another transient life to suffer and die on this earth. What the devil is it all for? You know, Osvaldo, s/' Señor, you do. If you could speak from beyond the grave you’d probably give me a few pointers. Perhaps my old ears are too blocked with earthly concerns to hear you.’
Now Ramon sat in the car and watched the city trail off into verdant English countryside. He thought of Ramoncito, now six years old, almost the age Federica had been when he had waved her goodbye that hot January morning all those years ago. He looked back over the years and recalled how Ramoncito had healed the relationships between him and his mother, Estella and her parents. Pablo Rega was still suspicious of him, though. He had developed a
habit of nervously playing with the pendant around his neck in the same way that one would hold up a cross when faced with a vampire, but at least he loved his grandson and embraced his daughter as before. His own father was ignorant of the child who walked around, not more than four miles from his summer house, with his own blood pumping through his veins and his own genes set
to father a whole new generation some day. But Mariana had insisted he shouldn’t be told. It was their secret, between the three of them.
The right moment will come,’ she had told Ramon, ‘but let me tell him in my own good time.’ Six years had gone by and she still hadn’t told him. Ramon wondered whether she ever would.
Helena sent the children up to Toby’s cottage. ‘Ramon’s appeared. I don’t want him to see them,’ she told her brother over the telephone.
‘What? Ramon’s in England?’
‘Yes.’
‘My God,’ Toby exclaimed, sitting down. ‘After all this time, what’s he suddenly turned up for?’
‘To see the children, so he says.’
‘Just like that, out of the blue?’
‘I don’t want him to see the children,’ she repeated anxiously.
‘Is that wise?’ he asked uneasily. ‘He is their father, after all.’
‘Only biologically. I won’t let him come back and upset them. Fede’s getting on with things now. She’s happy. The last thing she needs is Ramon appearing
and promising her the world.’
‘Well, you’re right about that,’ he agreed.
‘I know I am.’
‘How will you get rid of him?’ Toby asked, envisaging Ramon staking out the house until their return.
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
‘I don’t think Arthur’s much of a match for Ramon.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of Arthur. I can get rid of him myself. Kill him with kindness,’ she said and laughed nervously.
‘You’ve got to be cool, Helena, and strong,’ he suggested encouragingly. ‘Don’t flare up and don’t let him walk all over you. You’re an independent woman now. You don’t need him. You’ve got on very well without him. Show him how you’ve changed. You’re not the woman he used to know, all right?’
Helena nodded to herself. ‘You’re right. If I show weakness he’ll use it against me.’
‘Exactly. You’re a force to be reckoned with. Pummel him into submission, he’s only human after all.’
Once she’d sent the children up to Toby’s house on their bicycles she bathed and dressed, trying to convince herself that the makeup and grooming was simply to show Ramon how she’d changed. But she knew the truth and it angered her that she still felt the need to impress him.
She waited in the garden, on the bench under the cherry tree where Polly usually sat surveying her borders and flowerbeds. As a child Helena had watched her plant that tree. How quickly it had grown. Rather like her children. She, too, marvelled at the rapid passing of time. Chile seemed like another life. A life shrouded in shadow because she had become frightened of looking back on it, frightened of missing it. She had made her choice so she had started another chapter, closing the old one for ever. When she heard the sound of wheels on gravel her heart accelerated, pumping the blood through her veins at an uncomfortable speed. Once again her past surfaced to torment her. She stood up shakily, resisting the urge to smoke and walked with forced calmness towards the garden gate.
Ramon hardly recognized Helena. She had cut her hair short. It was paler, thicker, and her skin had recovered that lucid quality he had found so enchanting the first time he met her. Her pale eyes shone with health and she smiled
serenely. He had expected her to demand that he leave, but she greeted him with the affability of an old friend, catching him off guard and throwing all his plans awry. Helena noticed he was lost for words and growing in confidence she invited him to join her in the garden for a drink.
‘You look well,’ he said when they were both seated under the cherry tree with glasses of Polly’s homemade elderflower juice. Helena thanked him and looked at his lined face and long greying hair. He resembled an ageing lion. He was still awesome and compelling. He was still king of the jungle, just not her jungle any more. His hesitation exposed his weakness and sensing it immediately she grabbed the opportunity to take control. To her amazement she was no longer afraid of him.
‘You look well too. Older,’ she said with a malicious smile, ‘but still handsome.'
‘Thank you,' he said and frowned. ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ she laughed, but she was careful not to reveal undertones of bitterness. ‘You're not cut out for fatherhood, Ramon. But don’t torment yourself. We’ve done very nicely without you. In fact, I should thank you. You liberated us from the rut we had dug for ourselves in Chile. We’re
very happy here,’ she said and looked at him steadily.
He noticed she wasn’t smoking and her hand wasn’t shaking. He felt uncomfortable. ‘I’ve been a hopeless father,’ he conceded. ‘But I love them.’
‘In your own way, I’m sure you do. They love you too. They love the memory of you. But they’ve survived without you.’
‘I see,’ he said in a tone that sounded more like a deep groan. He leant forward and rested his elbows on his knees. ‘Fede doesn’t want you to marry Arthur.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t want anyone to replace you.’
‘She wrote asking me to prevent it.’
‘How will you do that?’ she asked and smiled with confidence, as if she regarded his sudden peacekeeping mission as a source of amusement.
‘I don’t know. I came to talk to you, that’s all,’ he said, sitting back and looking at her with solicitous eyes. He drained his glass.
‘Look, I’m tremendously fond of Arthur. He’s good to me. He’s always there for me. You never were, Ramon. But I don’t blame you. I chose you and I chose to leave you. It’s that simple. Now I want to marry Arthur and Fede will just have to live with it.’
‘She doesn’t want to leave Polperro,’ he said.
‘I know but we can’t always have what we want.’
‘Hasn’t she been uprooted enough?’
‘You’re one to talk,’ she retorted curtly, restraining her anger. ‘If it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have uprooted in the first place.’
‘If I remember, I didn’t want you to leave.’
‘But you refused to change. I had no choice.’ Helena’s cheeks stung crimson betraying for a moment her inner fury. She turned her face away and poured more juice, aware that if she showed the smallest sign of vulnerability, he would pounce and she’d be lost.
‘Do you love this Arthur?’ he asked.
‘I’m very fond of him,’ she replied.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Don’t tell me you don’t have some poor, neglected woman tucked away somewhere in Chile,’ she replied defensively, avoiding answering his question.
He smirked and nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’
Helena was stunned by his honest reply in spite of the fact that she knew he would have found someone in the seven years that they had been apart, it was
inevitable. She wanted to ask what she was like, whether she was patient and submissive, whether she minded his long absences like she had. But she resisted the temptation.
‘Well, you know what it’s like then. When you care for someone,’ she replied, swallowing her disappointment while outwardly smiling at her husband.
Ramon watched her impenetrable coolness and wondered whether Arthur had given her the confidence to be so self-assured. She had been like that when he had first fallen in love with her. Had he really worn her down like a beautiful rug?
‘So, do you want a divorce?’ he asked, biting the inside of his cheeks apprehensively.
‘Yes,’ she replied, ignoring the small voice inside her head, which begged her to hold onto him.
‘Then you sha
ll have it.’
She nodded stiffly. ‘Thank you.’
‘What will you do about Fede?’
‘Why do you care?’ she snapped in exasperation, suddenly letting slip her carefully cultivated composure. ‘You neglect her for seven years then suddenly
turn up because of a letter she wrote you? You have no right to even ask how she is, or Hal. They are nothing to you now. They don’t belong to you. If you cared you would have been there when Fede fell off her bike, when she was teased at school because she was the only child without a father, or. . . or. . . when Hal awoke with nightmares or the normal doubts that children suffer from. But you weren’t. You know you weren’t. Why don’t you go back to your woman in Chile and forget about us? You’ve had no problem forgetting us for the last seven years. For God’s sake, Ramon,’ she exclaimed, raising her voice until it quivered with anger and hurt. ‘You’ve let us all down badly. Very badly. I want you to go.’
Ramon didn’t want to leave her. She had changed. Gone was the neurotic, stifling woman who clung to him like ivy, refusing to allow him space to breathe. Helena had grown into a woman who knew her mind and had the strength of character to execute her wishes. He knew Arthur was behind it and he was curious to see for himself the man who had succeeded where he had failed. But Helena looked at him steadily with eyes of stone. Her argument was strong and he knew he was unable to manipulate her like he had always done in the past. She no longer feared him.
The Butterfly Box Page 28
