The Butterfly Box

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Hello,’ Molly responded, trying her best to sound normal. Her shoulders dropped. ‘Sam! What the hell are you doing calling me now? We’re in crisis, that’s why . . . What, now? Oh God! You’ll have to sleep in the sitting room,

  Federica’s in with Hester. . . it’s a long story, we’ll tell you when you arrive . . . Okay, see you in a minute.’ She hung up with a smile on her face. ‘One more for the party,’ she laughed. ‘Let’s get out another bottle of wine.’

  ‘Sam’s missed his flipping train,’ Molly announced, skipping through to the kitchen.

  ‘Well, that’s typical,’ Hester sighed. ‘He’s in a world of his own these days, ever since Nuno died.’

  ‘Poor Sam,’ said Federica. ‘He really loved Nuno, didn’t he?’

  ‘More than anyone else. More than Mum and Dad, I think,’ Molly said, returning with another Bordeaux. ‘You see, Nuno spent most of his time with Sam. He never had a son, and being the chauvinist that he was, he probably wished he had. So Sam was a kind of surrogate son for him. Dad gave him Nuno’s study to write in. God knows what he’s writing. But he spends all day locked away just like Dad. The only person allowed anywhere near him is Trotsky,’ she added, opening the bottle.

  ‘He should find a girlfriend,’ said Hester. ‘He used to have so many girlfriends.’

  That was when he had hair.’ Molly laughed unkindly.

  ‘He’s not Samson, Mol,’ Hester reproved in his defence. ‘I think he looks lovely with less hair. He doesn’t look pretty any more. He looks rugged and handsome.’

  Molly scrunched up her nose in distaste. ‘Each to their own, I suppose,’ she sniffed, blowing smoke out of her mouth in rings.

  ‘One thing I’ve learnt from Torquil,’ said Federica sadly, ‘looks can be deceptive. No one’s as beautiful as Torquil, or as selfish. I’d rather a plain outside and a beautiful inside.’

  Molly lowered her eyes, ashamed that she fancied him.

  When Sam arrived at the flat Federica was at once struck by the rapid deterioration of the young man who had once been golden-haired and glossy, like a handsome Greek statue. He shuffled in with his shoulders hunched, shivering with cold. His face was as grey as it had been at Nuno’s funeral and his eyes betrayed a certain weariness, for his longing had drained him of all enthusiasm and energy. When he saw her he smiled sheepishly, though he wanted to run to her and hold her against him. Federica recalled their awkward conversation

  at the funeral and smiled back, indicating that she had forgiven and forgotten. She stood up to greet him.

  He placed his hands on her upper arms. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked seriously.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ she replied, pulling away and nursing the bruises he had left on her skin. ‘I’ve left Torquil,’ she added, sitting down again on the carpet in front of the fire.

  ‘You’ve left Torquil?’ he repeated incredulously, turning away in case she saw the light return to his eyes and the joy curl his lips into a triumphant grin. ‘You’ve left Torquil?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s over,’ she stated.

  ‘We’re celebrating with wine,’ Molly added with glee.

  ‘I’d say we were commiserating with wine,’ said Hester. ‘Poor Fede’s really been through it.’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, taking off his coat and sitting on the sofa. He felt very hot. He struggled out of his father’s holey jersey and sat in his blue shirt with the cuffs undone and hanging loosely on his wrists.

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ she said, sipping the Bordeaux and feeling a lot better.

  ‘Mol, hand me a glass,’ he said, cheering up. ‘Fede, you’re so strong. I’m so proud of you. What you’ve done is the most difficult thing in the world. You’ve done it all by yourself.’

  ‘Not entirely,’ she replied. Sam looked away. ‘Let’s just say that my eyes have been opened. I suppose I’ve grown up a bit. I can’t believe I’ve been so blinkered and so weak. I’ve wasted four years of my life.’

  ‘Nothing is ever wasted, Fede, you’ve learned a great deal about human nature but above all about yourself,’ he said wisely. Then he changed the subject. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m going home. Mama and I are going to be a right pair.’

  ‘Yes, we heard about that,’ said Hester. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘She’s a fool,’ Federica sighed. They all frowned at her sudden change of attitude, her opinion of her stepfather was well known.

  ‘I thought you despised Arthur?’ Molly interjected, flicking ash onto the carpet.

  ‘Let’s say I misunderstood him. Everything’s much clearer now,’ she grinned at Sam. ‘I owe him an apology. Someone else I didn’t listen to when I should have.’

  Sam acknowledged her with a small smile. ‘I’ll accompany you on the train if you like,’ he suggested.

  Federica nodded at him gratefully. ‘Would you?’ She sighed in relief. ‘I’d feel so much better. I’m terrified he’ll find me and try to drag me back.’

  ‘I’ll bloody kill him if he comes anywhere near you,’ he said, then chuckled for he didn’t want her to know that he really meant it.

  That night Federica and Sam barely slept. They sat up drinking and talking long after Flester and Molly had retired to bed. She unburdened her worries and her secrets to him and he listened with sympathy as he had done that day in the bluebells. ‘I wish I had had the courage to tell you that time we had lunch,’ she said.

  ‘You so nearly did.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What frightened you?’ he asked gently.

  She thought about it for a while, watching the golden flames of the gas fire springing cheerfully in the grate. ‘I didn’t realise I was unhappy,’ she said truthfully and shook her head in disbelief. ‘I know it sounds mad, but I couldn’t

  admit it to myself. I believed I loved him.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound mad at all.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and took her hand. ‘You weren’t wrong to love him. He was wrong to abuse your love.’

  She grinned at him fondly. ‘You understand everything so well.’

  ‘Not everything,’ he replied. ‘Just you.’

  The following morning Federica borrowed clothes from Hester. She was just pulling on a pair of jeans when Molly shrieked from the sitting room. ‘Oh God!’ she shouted. ‘God, God, God.’ They all ran to the window. ‘No, Fede, not you,’ she said, blocking her way. ‘He’s there! Waiting for you,’ she hissed. ‘He’s seen me looking.’

  Federica paced the room. Molly pulled the curtain back and peered out at the handsome man who stood beside his Porsche with his arms crossed miserably in front of him.

  ‘Shit, what am I going to do?’ she said nervously, biting her thumb again. Sam perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll book a cab and we’ll leave

  together,’ he stated decisively, picking up the telephone. ‘It’s simple.’

  ‘I don’t think I can face him.’

  ‘Of course you can. You had the strength to leave him, didn’t you?’ he insisted. ‘So you can find the strength to tell him it’s over.’

  ‘I don’t think I can.'

  ‘You can and you will,’ he said seriously. ‘Or I’ll do it for you.’

  ‘You’ve gone this far, Fede, you can’t back out now,’ Flester agreed.

  ‘.' certainly wouldn’t want to go home to a sodden carpet and a furious husband,’ Molly said. ‘However handsome he is.’

  Sam rolled his eyes and ordered the cab. ‘Just think about what you’d be going back to,’ he said carefully. He held his breath as she walked up and down the room, her hands on her hips, deliberating her next move. Then he added simply, ‘Fede, do you like the person you are when you’re with Torquil?’ She looked at him with fearful eyes and shook her head. ‘Well, cast her aside then and come with me.’ He stood up and took both her hands in his. ‘You know you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘But he loves
me,’ she protested weakly.

  Sam squeezed her hands. ‘No he doesn’t, Fede. He wants to possess you,

  like his car or his house. If he loved you he’d take pleasure in your freedom, in your growing confidence, in your successes. If he loved you he’d encourage you to make your own path in life. He’d have bought you a camera and paid for you to have lessons rather than buying you ridiculous shoes and handbags, like a doll for him to manipulate. You’re not a doll, Fede, you’re a person with your own ideas and your own personality. If you go back he’ll just sap you dry until you’re incapable of a single personal thought. Think about it.’

  She stood staring into his eyes knowing that he was right, because she had worked it out herself.

  ‘Okay, let’s do it,’ she said firmly. ‘But when we leave the house I want to talk to him,’ she insisted. Then when she noticed Sam’s eyebrows rise in objection she added hastily, ‘I need to tell him myself. I need to prove to myself that I can do it.’

  Twenty minutes later when Sam and Federica descended the steps which led onto the pavement, Torquil ran up to her and threw his arms around her. Sam immediately tried to separate them. ‘Leave us alone!’ Torquil growled. There followed a brief tussle during which Federica managed to wriggle free.

  ‘Go away, Torquil!’ she shouted. ‘It’s over.’ Then she noticed his dejected face, his bloodshot eyes and his shoulders, which stooped pitifully.

  ‘I haven’t slept all night. I’ve been so worried,’ he explained, raising his palms to the sky. ‘You could have let me know where you were. I thought you’d been abducted.’

  Federica turned to Sam. ‘Wait for me in the cab,’ she instructed. With a suspended heart Sam walked away from her. He stood by the car ready to intercede if she needed him, but he hoped she wouldn’t need him. She had to learn not to need anyone, not her father, not her husband, not anyone. Once she had mastered that she’d be ready to love properly. He didn’t mind how long it took, he’d wait for her.

  ‘That photograph was taken years ago, little one. Didn’t you notice it was old?’ Torquil argued, reaching out for her. But Federica stepped back, putting her hands up to keep him at a distance. ‘Come on, sweetness, I’m not having an affair. I love you. I’m lost without you. We’re good together.’

  ‘It’s over, Torquil,’ she replied, shaking her head.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Federica. You’re angry, I understand. Let’s just go home and talk this through sensibly. Don’t throw what we have away. It’s so special,’

  he implored, casting his eyes over at Sam who stood by protectively.

  ‘Don’t call me “little one”. I hate it,’ she snapped, suddenly empowered by Torquil’s vulnerability. ‘I’m not coming home.’

  Torquil tried to ignore the defiant tone in her voice. ‘It’s not what you think, damn it!’ he snarled, repressing his frustration with gritted teeth. ‘So I made a mistake keeping that photograph, are you going to punish me for a little mistake? What’s important is that I love you. Love is about forgiveness, goddammit.’

  ‘Love is about trust,’ she replied coldly.

  ‘Then trust me when I tell you I’m not having an affair. Lucia’s an old friend, that photograph was a joke.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Do you believe me when I tell you I love you,’ he pleaded with her.

  ‘You don’t love me, Torquil. You want to possess me, like your car, or your house. I’m like a doll, you dress me, you take me out every now and then to play with me, but you don’t love me. If you did you’d let me make my own decisions.’ Federica began to feel light in the head with the swelling of her confidence.

  Torquil was stunned. She had never spoken like that before. He breathed in through his nose like a seething bull, unable to control his growing anger. ‘What are you going to?’ he said quietly, narrowing his eyes aggressively. ‘A provincial town on the coast? Back to your neurotic mother or your bourgeois grandparents?’ Then he nodded in Sam’s direction and added cuttingly, ‘Or to a family of eccentrics?’ Sam suppressed his smile. ‘I can give you everything you want.’

  Federica straightened herself up boldly. ‘What? A few more handbags, a few more pairs of shoes? Please, Torquil, don’t patronize me. You’re hollow inside and I don’t want to be with you any more. We’ll communicate through lawyers and don’t try to follow me, because, you know what? Sam’s family eccentricities are contagious and you wouldn’t want to catch them like I have, would you?’

  ‘You’ll regret this for the rest of your life. I won’t take you back. You’ll be sorry,’ he shouted as she walked to where Sam waited for her by the open door of the cab. He smiled at her with pride as she climbed in, then he followed her and closed the door behind him. When he looked up at the window to Molly and Hester’s flat their happy faces grinned at him from behind the glass.

  Hester put her thumb up and nodded.

  Torquil drove away, the wheels of his Porsche skidding and leaving two black stripes on the tarmac that steamed in fury.

  Federica collapsed into the seat, suddenly aware of her trembling hands and legs.

  ‘Any more of those, Gov?’ asked the cabbie, who had watched the confrontation with relish. ‘That's better than EastEnders, that is.’

  To Paddington Station, please,’ said Sam, putting his arm around Federica’s shoulders.

  She allowed him to gather her up as she quietly reflected on the last four years of her life with relief and regret.

  Federica returned to much celebrating, because not only was it Christmas, but everyone was delighted to have her back again. Ingrid now admitted that she had thought Torquil a ‘ghastly man’ while Toby and Julian confessed that they had only remembered where they had seen him when it was too late to do anything about it. ‘He was arrogant and self-satisfied then,’ they said. ‘We really let you down, Fede.’

  Helena was delighted that someone else was as miserable as she was and accompanied her daughter on long walks along the cliffs, lamenting Arthur’s painful silence. ‘I’ve lost him, Fede. He won’t even talk to me,’ she whined.

  Jake and Polly gathered her up like they had gathered up her mother. Suddenly the family united in the drama. Polly cooked large vegetable lasagnes and bread and butter puddings and all seven of them sat about the table, surrounded by Jake’s model boats which now hung suspended from the ceiling so they couldn’t be knocked onto the floor by clumsy elbows and hands, drinking large glasses of wine and Polly’s elderflower juice, carrying on four conversations at once.

  Federica moved straight back in with Toby and Julian and Rasta, who she’d take out on her long walks with her mother. She helped Toby decorate the rooms for Christmas and Julian took her into town to shop for presents. ‘I don’t have a bean,’ she said, thinking of the mountains of beans she had left in London.

  ‘I do,’ said Julian happily, ‘and you can have as many as you like.’

  She spent as much time at Pickthistle Manor as she did at Toby and Julian’s. The squirrel in Sam’s sweater drawer had woken up before time, so Ingrid had

  managed to secure his nest on the top of the Christmas tree, but a family of mice had somehow found their way under Sam’s bed so he had to sleep in one of the spare rooms so as not to disturb them. The two families celebrated Christmas with drinks parties and lunch parties that continued long after the festival was over and the New Year had been toasted in with champagne and embraces.

  When Sam hugged Federica he kissed her cheek affectionately and said, This will be your year, Fede. You’ll see.’

  She hoped he was right.

  Torquil sent her long letters in an attempt to win her back. He wrote about his deep love for her and his regret that he had ever laid eyes on Lucia. ‘Everything I did was for you, because I wanted to protect you. I’m only guilty of caring too much,’ he wrote. At first Federica read them, then as they got increasingly repetitive and pitiful she simply destroyed them unopened. However, one line lingered in her thoug
hts: ‘I’m only guilty of caring too much.’ Said by the deceiving Torquil it was nothing more than an empty sentence; however, applied to Arthur it was given a whole new meaning.

  Federica felt desperately sorry for Arthur, so forgotten amid the destruction of her own marriage. She knew her mother was hard to live with, but she also knew that she desperately cared. After all, she had listened to Helena’s soliloquies of remorse during their long walks on the cliffs. It was time to intervene.

  When Arthur saw Federica at his door he initially felt sick with disappointment. He had thought it was Helena. But then his surprise turned to amazement. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve come to apologize, Arthur,’ she replied. He remained in the frame of the door with his mouth agape. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course. Of course,’ he stammered, standing aside to let her pass. She walked into the kitchen and took her coat off ‘Please sit down, here, let me take this for you,’ he said, draping it over the back of one of the chairs. ‘Tea?’

  ‘Yes, please, it’s freezing,’ she said, rubbing her pink hands together.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘By taxi.’

  ‘Does your mother know you’re here?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  He handed her a cup of tea then sat down opposite her. Federica added milk and watched as it disappeared into the brew.

  ‘I’ve left Torquil,’ she stated simply.

  ‘Right,’ Arthur replied with care.

  ‘I should have listened to you.’

  ‘No you shouldn’t,’ he said quickly, disarmed by her sudden change in attitude. ‘It was none of my business.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ she insisted. ‘You’re my stepfather.’