by Kate Hardy
He wasn’t going to cut off his nose to spite his face. ‘Yes, please.’
‘It’s black, no sugar,’ she warned. ‘I never quite got out of my student habits.’
‘That’s fine. Coffee’s coffee,’ he said.
She took a backpack from the back seat, removed a metal flask and two cups, and poured them both a coffee.
‘Thanks. Butterflies on your cups?’ he asked as she fitted a silicone lid to a cup and handed it to him.
‘Of course.’ She changed into her hiking boots, put the backpack on her shoulder and slung a camera round her neck. ‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’ The coffee was already making him feel more human. He followed her down a narrow path; the ground felt a bit spongy to walk on, and there were fronded grasses everywhere he looked. But what he’d expected to see was absent.
‘There aren’t any butterflies,’ he said, knowing he sounded accusatory and a bit like a spoiled child denied a promised treat, but not being able to stop himself.
‘They’re probably skulking around in the reeds,’ she said. ‘Wait until we get further in. The reserve managers have cut some paths through the fen so we’ll get a decent view of the milk parsley, but at the same time the really vulnerable plants aren’t in danger of being trampled on.’
He could follow that line of thinking. ‘So paths need to be cut in a re-wilded garden?’
‘Absolutely. These are wetlands, so they’re not quite what Rosemary had in mind—but there’s a specific butterfly I want you to see here,’ she said.
There was a stream running alongside them, he noticed, and a small bridge; as they drew closer, a large swan waddled out of the reeds and sat in the middle of the bridge, staring at them.
‘Looks as if we’re going to have to wait for a bit,’ she said.
‘We can’t just walk past the swan?’
She shook her head. ‘My guess is his mate and his cygnets are somewhere nearby. He’s likely to be a bit protective. Let’s give him some space,’ she said. ‘Look—there’s a Painted Lady and a Peacock.’ She gestured to the purple flowers lining the route, and he could see butterflies resting on the plant with their wings outstretched.
And then, all of a sudden, he could hear a kind of peeping noise.
‘Cue the cygnets,’ she said with a smile.
The swan stood up and started to walk over the bridge, his movements slow and deliberate.
‘Let’s follow him,’ she suggested.
The peeping noise grew stronger; the swan veered off to the side, shaking his tail as he stepped towards a large pool. And then he glided majestically across the water towards another swan and a bevy of cygnets, whose peeping noises grew even louder.
‘I love this.’ Alice took Hugo’s free hand and squeezed it. ‘You can just hear them yelling, “Hurry up, Dad, we’re going exploring!”, can’t you?’
He would never have thought of that if he’d been on his own; but now she’d said it he could almost hear it. ‘Yes. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.’ And now she was holding his hand it felt as if she was leading him into an enchanted landscape. Part of him was skittish—he hadn’t expected to hold hands with anyone again—but part of him felt as if he was being drawn back to life. Step by step. Noticing tiny details he’d blanked out before.
He stared at the swans and their cygnets, entranced as they glided to the other side of the pool and then filed out of the water again, the adults walking at each end of the line with the cygnets protected between them. ‘That’s such a privilege.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Then her eyes widened as she clearly realised that she was still holding his hand. ‘Sorry. I tend to get a bit carried away when I see things like this.’
‘It’s fine.’ But how crazy was it that he actually missed her holding his hand when she took her fingers away from his?
They carried on through the marshes, with Alice pointing out various butterflies. It was a long time since Hugo had seen that many butterflies in a single place, and it amazed him. The birds were singing; the sun was bright and warm; and, even though there had been other cars in the field where she’d parked, they hadn’t seen another human since they’d arrived. It felt a bit as if they were wandering through some kind of magical oasis.
‘I think I’m going to have to cheat a tiny bit,’ she said, ‘because there’s one particular butterfly I really, really want you to see. We’re right at the start of first brood, and the weather’s almost perfect, but I’m not taking any chances. I don’t want you to miss this.’ She took the backpack from her shoulder and removed a bunch of sweet williams, which she placed carefully on the ground.
He looked at her, surprised. ‘Are butterflies super-attracted to these flowers, then?’
‘Yup,’ she said, coming over to stand next to him. ‘The caterpillars only eat milk parsley—which is why the fenland in this part of the country is the main habitat for them—but the butterflies just love them. It’s a combination of the scent and the nectar.’ She smiled. ‘And now, we wait. I probably should’ve warned you that there’s a bit of waiting around on field trips.’
Hugo, who absolutely loathed wasting time, was a little surprised to discover that he didn’t actually mind waiting around with Alice. Time didn’t seem to be important when he was with her. It felt as if he was in a different place, somewhere much more carefree than his usual regimented life.
And then he saw it flying gracefully over the reeds before it landed on the bunch of flowers: a butterfly the size of his palm, creamy yellow and black, with a dark blue line and two red spots on the lower pair of wings, which curved down like a swallow’s tail.
‘That’s incredible,’ he whispered.
‘An English Swallowtail,’ she whispered back. ‘Papilio machaon. You only find them here in England in the Norfolk Broads.’
She’d brought him here to see a rare butterfly. The biggest butterfly he’d ever seen flying. And all of a sudden he got why she loved the creatures so much. He was spellbound by it.
Spellbound by her.
Not that he was going to let himself think too much about that. He didn’t feel ready for this.
She’d taken the camera out of its case and was taking photographs of the butterfly; Hugo’s attention was caught between them both, the concentration and the joy on Alice’s face and the sheer beauty of the butterfly.
Once the butterfly had taken its fill of the nectar from the sweet williams, it flew off again.
‘That,’ he said, ‘was stunning. I know you said you only find them around here, but is it possible to get them to breed in London?’
‘Not native ones. They’d have to be imported,’ she said, ‘and they’d need to live in a butterfly house.’
She didn’t say anything more. Hugo realised she was letting the butterflies make the case for her.
‘And look there,’ she said.
He followed where she was pointing, to the gorgeous turquoise insects darting about. ‘Dragonflies?’
‘Damselflies,’ she said with a smile. ‘If we’re lucky, we’ll get to see some rare dragonflies as well.’
He was entranced by the whole thing. She was right: it was definitely worth the early start. And, best of all, on the way back to the car they saw some more Swallowtails flying across the fen and landing on a patch of yellow flag irises.
‘That,’ he said, ‘was amazing.’
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it. The first time you see a Swallowtail is a bit special.’ She smiled at him. ‘And now we’re going north. Not wetlands, this time—I want you to see the kind of wildflower meadow that I think would work with Rosemary’s plans.’
‘Bring it on,’ he said.
* * *
That smile gave Alice hope that the butterflies were convincing Hugo to give the project a chance.
Yet, at the same
time, his smile worried her because it made her heart feel as if it had done a backflip. Nearly all the men she’d fallen for in the past had hurt her—letting her think they wanted her for who she was, yet then they’d wanted to change her. She wasn’t posh enough, wasn’t girly enough, was too nerdy...
What you looked like shouldn’t matter. But, in Hugo’s world, it did. And Hugo himself was a fashion plate, with his designer shoes and sharp suits; it was so obvious that she’d be setting herself up for yet another crack in her heart, if she let herself fall for him. She didn’t want to take that risk. It would be much more sensible to keep things strictly business between them and avoid the heartache in the first place. As for the way he made her stomach feel as if it swooped, the way her skin prickled with awareness whenever he accidentally brushed against her—she’d just have to ignore it.
It was an hour’s drive to their next site and she kept the conversation light on the way. As she drove into the nearest village, Hugo’s stomach rumbled audibly.
‘Is that a hint you want to stop for lunch?’ she asked.
He winced. ‘Sorry. We had an early start. I only had time for a banana for breakfast.’
‘If you’d said,’ she told him, ‘we could’ve stopped on the way for a bacon sandwich.’
‘Your butterflies distracted me.’
‘They’ll do that,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘Look, there’s a pub just up here. Let’s stop and grab some lunch.’
She insisted on paying for their paninis and coffee, on the grounds that he’d bought the pizza earlier in the week, then drove them out of the village.
‘So this is somewhere else in the middle of nowhere?’ he asked wryly.
‘That’s why it’s called a field trip.’ Though then Alice made the mistake of looking at him, and the expression in his eyes caused her pulse to jolt again. Worse still, she noticed the curve of his mouth. How easy it would be to reach out and run a fingertip along his lower lip...
She pulled herself together with an effort, parked the car on the verge of a narrow country road, then led him down a track between two high hedges.
‘It’s as if that little brown butterfly’s leading us,’ he said.
‘It’s a Ringlet—Aphantopus hyperantus,’ she said.
‘Named after the little circles on its wings?’
She smiled. ‘Absolutely.’
At the end of the track, they reached a stile with an information board next to it.
‘This place is an Iron Age fort?’ he asked, sounding surprised.
‘It’s the best-preserved Iron Age fort in East Anglia,’ she said, ‘and it’s home to a lot of butterflies. This place always blows my students’ minds, so I hoped you’d like it.’
‘Are we actually allowed to walk among this?’
‘We are indeed.’ She indicated the people walking along the top of the massive circular earthwork; others were halfway down the steep slopes with cameras, bending down and clearly taking photographs of butterflies. ‘Come and take a look.’
They made their way to the top of the outer circle. ‘The wind’s got up a bit, so the butterflies will be looking for sheltered spots,’ she said. ‘We might see more on the slopes than we do up here.’
‘So all the flowers on the slopes and down in the middle of the rings are wildflowers?’ he asked.
‘And grasses,’ she said. ‘There are some rare orchids here, but you’ll find the common flowers here as well—red clover, oxeye daisies, that sort of thing. And this is pretty much how I’d see Rosemary’s re-wilded garden looking.’
‘All different colours,’ he said, ‘like a kind of kaleidoscope. I can see that working.’ He frowned. ‘What’s the shimmery stuff?’
‘Butterflies,’ she said. ‘Stand still for a moment and watch.’ Though she found herself looking at Hugo rather than at the butterflies; she enjoyed seeing the expression on his face change as he realised that there were lots of butterflies on the wing, just above ground level. She loved the way he’d clearly just realised how magical their surroundings were, the way his eyes lit up with pleasure as he worked out exactly what he was seeing.
‘Blue butterflies,’ he said. ‘Just what you promised me.’
‘Not quite as spectacular as the Morphos in Viola’s collection,’ she said, ‘but I adore the Chalk Hill Blues. The females are actually more brown than blue, but they both have all these pretty circles on their underwings.’
‘To make them look more like leaves if a bird happens to be passing?’ he asked.
So he’d actually been paying attention to what she’d told him, and remembered it? Funny how that made her feel warm inside. ‘Yes.’
To stop herself doing anything stupid—like holding his hand again—she took her camera out of its case and snapped a few pictures of the butterflies. They wandered round the hill fort, walking on the slopes as well as the top, and every so often Hugo stopped to watch the butterflies, looking entranced.
‘I can’t remember the last time I saw a blue butterfly,’ he said. ‘Or quite as many butterflies in one place. They’re beautiful. Thank you for bringing me here.’
‘My pleasure,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I can take you to some reserves nearer London, next time. I just wanted to show you these two places today.’
‘I’m glad you did. It’s been a while since...’ He stopped.
She said nothing, giving him the space to talk, and eventually he said, ‘Since I’ve been anywhere that made me feel this light of heart.’
The butterflies, the landscape—or sharing it with her? Though she didn’t quite dare ask him, because she didn’t want him to turn back into the grouchy, suspicious man she’d first met.
‘So what made you choose to study butterflies?’ he asked.
‘My grandad used to take me to the park on a Sunday afternoon and show me all the butterflies on the plants there, whether they were the cultivated lavender in the posh bit or the wildflowers by the hedges,’ she said. ‘He died when I was ten. I was torn between studying botany and lepidoptery, but I think he would’ve been pleased about my career choice.’ She glanced at him. ‘What about you? Why architecture?’
‘I guess, like a lot of kids, I liked building things with toy bricks. I spent hours and hours creating things. And then I noticed the way things were built, whenever I went out. I loved the Natural History Museum—but it wasn’t just because of the dinosaurs or the big blue whale. I liked the shape of the building and the windows, and the colours of the bricks.’ He smiled. ‘Rosemary took me to Kew when I was about ten, and I fell in love with the Palm House. It’s all the light. That’s why I like working with glass.’
Alice really didn’t understand what made Hugo Grey tick. But maybe this was her chance to get to know him better. ‘What’s your favourite thing you’ve designed?’ she asked.
‘The project I’ve been working on in Scotland for the last year,’ he said. ‘It’s a country house on the buildings at risk register.’
‘So you like restoring old buildings rather than designing new ones?’
‘A mixture of the two,’ he said. ‘But this one was a bit special. There’s a glass dome in the centre of the main hall—sadly, there were only a few fragments of the original glass left, but at least we had some photographs to work with. And there’s an amazing spiral staircase beneath the dome.’
The tone of his voice made Alice feel sure that Hugo felt the same way about staircases and glass domes as she did about butterflies. So maybe they weren’t quite as far apart as she’d thought.
‘So that’s what you specialise in? Domes and staircases?’
‘Glass and staircases,’ he said. ‘Some historic, some modern.’
He was surprisingly easy to talk to, now she’d got him onto his favourite subject. She really enjoyed the drive home, to the point where she didn’t want the day to end. When she final
ly parked in his road, it shocked her that she actually felt a lurch of sheer disappointment that their trip was over.
Maybe he felt the same, because he said, ‘Would you like to come in for a coffee?’
She did—and, at the same time, she didn’t. Getting close to him made her feel twitchy. She opened her mouth to make a polite excuse, and was surprised to find herself saying, ‘That’d be nice.’
From the outside, his house was a Victorian redbrick terrace, with large windows and a front door with a very fancy arch of glass above it. Inside, the house was startlingly modern and minimalist, with the walls painted a soft dove-grey and the flooring pale wood. The hallway had a flight of stairs leading off it; and a door to the left led to an enormous living room with an old-fashioned fireplace, a sofa and a desk with a drawing table. Though there was no artwork of any description on the walls, she noticed, just a very workmanlike clock. No bookshelves, either; or maybe all his shelves were hidden in a clever architectural way.
He shepherded her into a kitchen with white marble worktops, dark grey wooden cupboards and rectangular white tiles on the walls; the lighting was very modern, almost industrial. At the far end of the room there was a dining table and chairs; but what caught her eye was the entire wall of glass looking out onto the garden.
‘That’s spectacular,’ she said. ‘Was it like this when you bought it?’
‘No. I opened it up,’ he said. ‘The glass doors fold inwards, so in summer you can open up the whole wall and step straight from the house to the garden.’
She loved the idea of it; though the garden was as minimal as the house, with a stone patio containing a bistro table and a couple of chairs, a square lawn mown very short indeed, and that was it. No shrubs. No herbaceous border. Not even a pot containing a plant of some kind. There wasn’t a flower in sight.
‘It’s lovely,’ she said, meaning that it could be lovely if he put a bit of effort in. Though maybe, as an architect, he saw the building rather than its surroundings. Given how minimalist the house was, the garden matched it. Though in her view that garden was all wrong. If it were hers, she’d fill it with roses. There would be herbs and shrubs to attract butterflies and bees. And there would most definitely be a wild patch at the end, with cornflowers and poppies and clover and vetch. Maybe a tiny pond. It would be glorious.
