Butterfly Song

by Terri Janke

  ‘She is very sick, and growing sicker,’ he had written in his file the previous month. This month Francesca did not answer the door. He did not know what to do. His feet scuffed at the mat. It moved to reveal the key. He let himself in.

  Inside it was dark. On the bed he saw Francesca. She was lying there motionless – alive, yes, but very weak. Francesca barely had a pulse. She was fading away, dying from something.

  The funny little man ran to the telephone booth on the corner. He dialled 000. Then he dialled the office. ‘Contact her next of kin. Someone will need to look after the children.’

  When he returned to the Plata home the two children were sitting on the bed by their mother. Lily looked up. ‘Will Mummy be all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the funny little man.

  ‘Tally.’ Francesca whispered in the boy’s ear. Tally grabbed the pearl-shell butterfly from the dresser. He placed it in her hands.

  The ambulance came and parked out the front.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ called Lily. ‘Where is my mother going?’

  ‘To the hospital,’ said the funny little man. Two men wheeled the stretcher in. Francesca was not moving.

  ‘I want to go with Mummy.’

  The children watched as their mother’s face disappeared behind the ambulance doors. The funny little man stood to watch the ambulance pull away.

  Tally faced him. ‘You shouldn’t have called them.’

  Aunty Sugar arrived and comforted the children. ‘We’ll visit her later at the hospital,’ she said. Then, to the funny little man: ‘I’ll take them over to my place.’

  ‘I’ll have to write a report,’ he said, ‘and if anything happens to Francesca, I can’t say what will result.’

  ‘Shame on you for talking like that in front of the children.’ Aunty Sugar moved away from the funny little man.

  wingless flight

  Cairns, 1954

  For two nights Francesca lay in a bed on the verandah of the hospital by the sea. In her hand she held the butterfly Kit had carved for her before he left the island. It was a symbol of their love. The love itself was eternal. Kit slept by her side every night. He soothed her through the strong pain. She was praying for no more pain. She was holding onto the pearl-shell butterfly. She wanted to fly with him. She wanted to slip into wingless flight.

  He was singing his song, their song. She remembered the words. When she looked up, she could see butterflies dancing. When she held out her hands, she could feel the shell envelop her.

  She was praying for her two children, Lily and Talford. She was praying they would have a happy life. She was praying they would live on and have children, and that their children would have children. She was praying for their strength. If she could not have her own strength, she would pray for theirs to carry on.

  She could hear Kit’s voice and the magnificence of wings. She lifted up her arms.

  ‘My dear Kit, I have missed you so.’

  the good doctor

  Cairns, 1954

  Doctor Hilton Nash looked up from the Courier-Mail. ‘Petrov Espionage Inquiry’ ran the headline.

  Friday mornings were busy; the nurse was not sympathetic. ‘Got time to read the paper?’ she said.

  ‘It’s the only decent Queensland paper and it only comes here once a week.’

  The nurse noted the red marks around Doctor Nash’s collar. She was suspicious, they were probably love bites. ‘What’s that on your neck?’ she said.

  ‘Tropical tyrants,’ he said. ‘Left me with no sleep.’

  ‘Yes, and the mosquitoes can be quite bad too.’ The nurse pushed a folder into his arms.

  ‘What’s to be done today?’ Doctor Nash checked the ward journal and tapped his pen on the side of the desk.

  ‘There’re a few people with kidney complaints. Renal.’ She looked the doctor in the eye and twisted her lips in thought.

  He was not impressed. She’d probably been reading too many doctors’ reports. Perhaps she’d been deciphering their notes, and now she was trying to speak their secret language. He reached for the folder and scrawled with his pen, making each word smaller and less legible.

  ‘Francesca Plata, the Islander woman, is on the verandah and needs urgent attention.’ The nurse was beside him.

  He read the file. ‘Pyelitis, inflamed kidney, haematuria. There’s not much we can do – her kidneys have failed. Morphine.’ He pronounced it slowly. His head was still throbbing from too much wine the night before.

  The nurse stopped folding washers and hand-towels and went to get the morphine. She drew it into a hypodermic needle.

  Doctor Nash was leaning on the side of the bench. ‘Nurse, before I go, can you get me an aspirin.’

  ‘Sure you don’t need some of this?’ She tapped the needle as she handed it to him.

  He went to the verandah where the coloured woman, Francesca Plata, lay. He was thinking about the article in the paper. Communists were a threat. The doctor had had mates at university who were members of the party. He reached for the coloured woman’s hand. It was cold. She was holding something warm in them. It was a butterfly. Made out of the most unusual pearl shell.

  Doctor Nash walked to the edge of the verandah and held the pearl shell to the sun. The colours swam and sparkled like ocean water. He had read about how the natives made primitive artefacts, and that they were often sought after for ethnographic reasons. This was an unusual piece of jewellery. It aroused his curiosity.

  The nurse was at Francesca’s bedside, file in hand.

  ‘Nurse, we’re too late. This woman’s gone.’

  The nurse checked Francesca for a pulse. At the door, an orderly called, ‘We need you in Ward A, Doctor Nash, an emergency.’

  Doctor Nash put the pearl shell in his pocket. It slipped deep into his white doctor’s coat as he turned and left.

  two reasons for dying

  Cairns, 1992

  I sit in the park opposite the Cairns City Council building. The certificate is in a brown envelope. A woman with a thick accent phoned me to let me know it was ready to collect. I open the envelope, read the name on the death certificate. Two reasons for death are listed: 1. pyelitis (three months); 2. renal failure (one day).

  This photocopy of the certificate lists the date, the hospital, and the address where my grandmother lived. Her name is given in full: Francesca Dominica Plata. At the bottom, her two children are named: Talford (11), Lily (8). My eyes scan the document quickly, to the end of the page. I stop at the verification section, open-mouthed. The doctor verifying death was Doctor Hilton Nash.

  Later, back at the house, I show the certificate to my mother and Uncle Tally. It hurts to watch my mother’s face as she reads.

  ‘So my mother was in Doctor Nash’s care when she died in that hospital. That’s how he got the pearl shell.’ She wipes her eyes.

  Uncle Tally stands looking out the window. ‘I remember getting it for her before she went to hospital. I put it in her hand. We didn’t get it back after she died.’ He turns suddenly to face me. ‘Is that proof enough?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Doctor Nash is dead. If we had some other testimony… I mean, if there’s another person who isn’t a member of the family who could verify that the butterfly went to the hospital on the day Francesca died …’

  My mother reads out a name on the death certificate. ‘Stanley Woods.’

  Uncle Tally and Mum look at each other and then say together, ‘The funny little man.’

  ‘Who is Stanley Woods?’ I ask.

  The next few days pass slowly. I keep looking in the library. Searching for records on Stanley Woods. Who was this funny little man?

  aunty sugar and the goat

  Gordonvale, 1992

  Some people in Gordonvale claim that the mill is the centre of the universe. Aunty Sugar lives in a house opposite the mill and attests to this theory with great spirit. ‘The wettest place on the map,’ says Aunty Sugar of Gordonvale. She has
lived here since the Second World War ended.

  Mum and I enter the front yard. There is a faraway smell of burning cane. It reminds me of when I was a kid. Sugar is sweet and so are you. The last line of a children’s rhyme. I remember chanting that line many times while swinging, skipping and running in the schoolyard.

  Aunty’s house is an old Queenslander. In the lounge room she has a rectangular fish tank that lights up one corner with a purplish glow. Two rainbow fish swim in a pack of guppies. There is a turtle shell on the wall and little ornaments all around. On the shelves are frames of half-smiling people. From the coffee table an array of fluffy animals stare up at me. A snow dome holds pride of place on top of the TV set.

  ‘We bought this house after many years of your Uncle Tom working in the fields,’ Aunty Sugar says to me. ‘It had no underneath, but when your mum and Uncle Tally came to stay with us we made a downstairs.’

  Aunty Sugar pours us a cool drink. ‘Many Islanders came to this area to work in the fields. Some went back but many stayed here. Many married with the local coloured people.’

  I take the copy of Francesca’s death certificate out of my bag and show it to Aunty Sugar. She shakes her head. ‘I can’t read without my glasses, dear girl.’

  ‘It says she died of kidney failure. She died at the Cairns Base Hospital,’ I say.

  Aunty Sugar clicks her tongue between her teeth. ‘She was so young. Too young to die of kidney disease.’

  ‘Aunty Sugar, what do you know about that man listed as the witness, Stanley Woods?’

  ‘Mr Woods worked for the government, the welfare mob. He was there the day she went to hospital.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ my mother asks.

  ‘He’s at the Mercy Hostel out at Earlville,’ says Aunty Sugar.

  ‘Stanley Woods is alive?’ I am so excited. If he’s alive, I can go and interview him and get his testimony.

  ‘Well, he’s alive but he’s been in care for a long time. If you go see him, better take him some mango chutney. It’s your Uncle Tom’s recipe, you know, God bless his soul.’

  Aunty Sugar’s neighbour, a solid South Sea Islander woman, comes over waving her hands in the air. ‘Billy’s got out of the yard,’ she says.

  ‘Tarena,’ says Aunty Sugar, ‘you come and help me find him.’

  I follow her out the back. We look in the yard. Billy’s not there. We look in the bushes. He’s not there. We look under the house and in the downstairs bedrooms. We go out onto the street.

  ‘There’s the silly old goat,’ yells Aunty Sugar. We run down the bitumen road. There are potholes and I can see squashed cane toads with spattered gizzards, now dried like cardboard.

  ‘He’s in the sugarcane,’ she yells.

  When I reach the edge of the field, Aunty Sugar is already in the sugarcane. Her floral dress is brightly visible between the green stalks. She is chasing Billy with a stick. His horned head sways in annoyance. The stick connects with his horns and she steers him out of the sugarcane.

  ‘Damn stupid goat,’ she yells, ‘get back in that yard!’

  The animal’s feet clop along the road, like a scarlet woman in high-heels. ‘Go that way.’ Aunty points with one hand. She is holding up the skirt of her dress with the other.

  I chase the goat to the end of the street, past a poinciana tree and an old rusting tractor. Out of breath, I stand at the side of the road, panting. Sweat pours down my face.

  Aunty Sugar comes up behind me, waving her free hand in the air. ‘That’s the house.’

  I look at the rusty shell of a house with overgrown creepers on the verandah. ‘Huh?’ I say.

  ‘That’s the house where your grandparents lived.’

  All that is left are rusted downpipes and a corrugated-iron roof. Children are playing in the front yard.

  Aunty Sugar makes us a strong cup of tea. Mum sips hers, although I know she’d probably prefer something stronger.

  ‘I was looking through the old boxes the other day,’ Aunty Sugar tells Mum. ‘I found a whole lot of stuff that used to belong to your mother. It should belong to you now.’ She gives Mum a shoebox. ‘Here, you take it.’

  Mum places the box on her lap. She pulls out a small black notebook. ‘I remember this,’ she says. ‘My mother used to write important dates and things in here.’ She flicks through the pages. ‘Here, look, it’s the date Kit died. And here, the dates that Tally and I were born.’

  She lifts up a large brown envelope. Inside are old postcards, telegrams and some photographs. We search through them. Then Mum finds it. A photo of Francesca, all dressed up like she’s going to a wedding.

  ‘It’s the butterfly!’ shouts my mother. ‘Look – around her neck!’

  I am so excited. My mother pats my back as she hands the photo to me. Francesca is looking unsmiling into the camera. The butterfly rests on her breastbone. It is unmistakably the same butterfly that was in the newspaper, that is in the jeweller’s shop. The same wings, the same pearl head.

  ‘That’s fantastic.’ In my elation it’s all I can say.

  Aunty Sugar takes the photo carefully and studies it. ‘I remember that day now. It was somebody’s wedding. Maybe even mine. She looks a bit like you,’ she says to me, holding the photo next to my face.

  ‘Except she’s having a bad-hair day. Why isn’t she smiling?’ I ask.

  ‘It wasn’t the fashion then,’ says Mum.

  I imagine Francesca strolling down Grafton Street in the days before sunglasses, the sun causing her to frown. I wonder if the humidity made her sweaty and itchy, the way it makes me.

  ‘She used to go to church every day,’ says my mother. ‘She would take us kids with her some days. We walked all the way from town. She always held the butterfly during church. She had such strong faith.’

  ‘That explains why you’re so religious,’ I laugh.

  ‘I used to be once upon a time. I don’t go to church any more, but I still pray.’

  Back at Mum’s house, I examine the photo again. ‘Tell me about Nanna Francesca,’ I ask my mother.

  ‘She liked Christmas-time and stars. Mum was always telling us stories about the stars. She would sing too.’ My mother begins to hum.

  ‘Did she have a will?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That means she died intestate.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just a legal term meaning she died without a will. What happened to all her things?’

  ‘I don’t know. We went to live with Aunty Sugar. We didn’t talk about it. When I turned twenty-one I got a letter from the government telling me I had some money. Fifteen pounds I think I got, not much.’ There are tears in her eyes. ‘A lot of that I tried to forget, and push back. I didn’t want you kids to ever feel as lonely as I did then.’

  ‘That’s what you did,’ I say as I hug her. ‘We were very happy kids and you are a great mother.’

  That night, I plan my arguments to put to the court. Surely we have strong evidence now to prove that the butterfly belonged to Francesca. At the very least, we should be able to show that the Nashes’ title is defective. But there is still one more lead to follow.

  mercy hostel

  Cairns, 1992

  Aunty Sugar was right. Not about Gordonvale being the centre of the universe, but about Stanley Woods. He lives in an old folk’s home now. He has no family. He never married. But he’s been a good citizen. A funny little man.

  I wait in the foyer of the hostel. The curled edges of the mat look like wallaby ears. Ears that have suffered and turned scruffy from ticks or lice. Seeing the curl makes me think of my sore ears as a kid. The ticking of the clock keeps my thoughts evenly spaced. I hope he agrees to help me with the case. Maybe he knows about the pearl shell. He was such a thorough bureaucrat. If he spent time visiting Francesca, surely he must have seen it? Tick – what will I say? Tock – what will he say? Maybe it’s absurd to think he will remember anything after nearly forty years.

  ‘You can
go in now,’ says the woman behind the counter. As I rise, my dress sticks to the backs of my legs.

  Mr Woods is sitting on the verandah with his back to the sun. He is a small man with shrunken shoulders and no neck. His hair is white and his eyes are little more than slits.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say. He does not answer. He does not even look up.

  ‘He doesn’t talk much,’ says the nurse.

  ‘What do you mean? I want to interview him for a case I’m working on.’

  ‘He hasn’t really spoken for three years. He can’t see either.’

  My heart falls. My witness is a blind mute. Why didn’t Aunty Sugar tell me this? I want to turn around and run.

  ‘He doesn’t get many visitors,’ the nurse says.

  ‘Can I stay for a minute?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I sit on the yellow vinyl chair. I have practised what to say to this man to enlist him to give evidence, how I might frame the questions and what he might say back to me. But now I am to receive nothing. Had I really thought it was going to be easy? I don’t know why the tension is mounting in this dilapidated room at the Mercy Hostel.

  Who is this man? I don’t know what I expected to find. Maybe someone who would say, Yes, you’ve come to the right place, here’s your proof. But he doesn’t speak, so I will never know. The lines on his hands are faint and unreadable.

  I don’t know why I think I can run this case. I’m not sure why I’m here. As I leave, I look at Mr Woods’ face, searching for something that might tell what it was like to have known my grandmother.

  The wind stirs through the palm trees. The weather report says it will be overcast for the rest of the week, and that this summer has been one of the coolest in ten years. I don’t mind the rain. I don’t mind at all.