The Butterfly Box

by Santa Montefiore

  little money no one knew, but some said she was supported by an old man whose life she had saved by predicting an earthquake which would have killed him had he not left his house on her instructions.

  Estella returned home to sleep on her mother’s advice. Ramon was sitting in his study tapping his thoughts into a computer. The evening was calm and melancholic, flooding the coast in a soft, pink light. Estella decided not to tell him about Fortuna, although the books he wrote were filled with mysteries and magic. She feared he might think less of her. Fortune-telling was very much associated with the suspicions of the under-classes. She crept up behind him and wound her arms around his neck. He was pleased to see her and kissed the brown skin on her wrists.

  ‘Let’s walk along the beach, I need some air,’ he said, leading her out by the hand. They walked through the strange pink light and kissed against the rhythm of the sea. ‘I’ll miss you when I go tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ she replied and frowned.

  ‘You’re not still worrying about your dream, are you?’ he asked, kissing her forehead.

  ‘No, no,’ she lied. ‘I just wish you weren’t going.’

  ‘I’ll be in Santiago tomorrow night, I have to see my agent in the afternoon. I’ll fly out Thursday night. I’ll call you from Santiago and I’ll call you from the airport.’

  Then I’ll just wait,’ she sighed.

  ‘Yes. But I’ll think of you every minute and if you close your ears to the rest of the world you just might hear me sending you messages of love.’ He kissed her again, holding her tightly around her slim waist. Later, when he made love to her in the watery light of the moon that reflected off the sea and shimmered in through the window of their room, he tasted the roses on her skin and smelt the heavy scent of their intimacy and knew he would take them with him across the world and savour them when he was alone.

  The following day Estella and Ramoncito waved goodbye to Ramon and watched his car disappear up the hill in a cloud of glittering dust. Ramoncito then skipped off to school with his mochila on his back filled with books and a box of sandwiches, which Estella had made him for lunch. He turned to wave at his mother, who stood at the foot of the road, and blew her a kiss. She blew one back and then remained there a while, smiling with tenderness at the

  unguarded affection of her son which never ceased to amaze her.

  She hadn’t dreamed about death again. She had floated on the memories of Ramon’s lovemaking and had awoken with the radiant complexion of a satisfied woman. But she still felt fearful and because of that icy fear she decided to go with her mother and visit Fortuna.

  Pablo Rega watched them dig the grave. It was hot and the earth was hard and dry. He leant on the gravestone of Osvaldo Garcia Segundo and chewed on a piece of long grass while they toiled at the other end of the graveyard. ‘It’s a good position, that,’ he told Osvaldo. ‘Overlooking the sea, like you. Si, Señor, overlooking the sea is a prime spot. Imagine being stuffed back there without a view. I’d like to be here, where I can see the sea and the horizon. Gives one a feeling of space, of eternity. I like that. I’d like to be part of nature. What does it feel like, Osvaldo?’ He breathed in the scent of the dark green pine trees and waited for a reply, but Osvaldo had probably never been a man of words. ‘This place is getting pretty full,’ he continued. ‘Soon there won’t be any more room and they’ll have to start digging up old graves like yours. There’s a good chance I’ll be buried on top of you, then we can talk for eternity.’ He chuckled.

  Estella and her mother arrived by bus and walked directly to Fortuna’s small house, which stood just off the dusty road. There were no flowers or bushes, just dry sandy ground and rubbish, which Fortuna scattered around the house - not to ward off the evil spirits as people suspected but because she was too lazy to throw things into a bin. Her house smelt of rotting food and sour milk and Estella and her mother found themselves having to disguise their grimaces by smiling in order not to offend the old woman. Fortuna sat outside on a large wicker rocking-chair, watching the odd car pass by, humming old Negro spirituals her father had taught her as a child. When she saw Maria she laughed from her belly and enquired after Pablo Rega.

  ‘Still talking to the dead?’ she asked. ‘Hasn’t someone told him that they can't hear him? They don’t hang around you know, they fly off into the world of spirits the moment they leave this godforsaken earth.’

  Maria ignored her and explained that her daughter had come to have her future read. Fortuna stopped rocking and sat up, her expression sliding into the serious guise of a wise woman conscious of the responsibility that came with

  her gift.

  She asked Estella to sit down and pull the chair up so that they faced one another with their knees almost touching. Maria flopped into another chair and pulled out her Hispanic fan. Fortuna took Estella’s trembling hands in her own soft fleshy hands that had never experienced a day’s hard labour and pressed the pads of Estella’s palms with her thumbs. She pulled her mouth into various strange shapes and closed her eyes, leaving her lashes to flutter about as if she had no control over them. Estella looked at her mother anxiously, but Maria nodded to her to concentrate and fanned herself in agitation.

  ‘You have never been so happy,' Fortuna said and Estella smiled, for it was true, she had never been so happy. ‘You have a son who will be a famous writer one day like his father.’ Estella blushed and grinned with pride. ‘He will channel his pain into poetry that will be read by millions.’ Estella’s smile disintegrated as the icy claws of fear once more scratched at her heart. Fortuna’s eyelids fluttered with more speed. Maria stopped fanning herself and stared at her with her mouth agape. ‘I see death,’ she said. Estella began to choke. ‘I can’t see the face, but it’s close. Very close.’ Fortuna opened her eyes as Estella pulled her hands away and heaved as her throat constricted, leaving

  barely any room for the air to reach her lungs. Her mother threw herself out of her chair with the agility of a much slimmer woman and thrust her daughter’s face down between her knees.

  ‘Breathe, Estella, breathe,’ she said as her daughter gasped and spluttered, fighting the fear that strangled her. Fortuna sat back in her chair and watched as mother and daughter struggled against the inevitability of her prediction. Finally, when Estella began to breathe again, her choking was replaced by deep sobs that wracked her entire being.

  ‘I don’t want him to die,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t want to lose him, he’s my life.’ Maria pulled her daughter into her large arms and attempted to comfort her, but there was nothing she could say. Fortuna had spoken.

  ‘Please tell me it is not Ramon,’ she begged, but Fortuna shook her head.

  ‘I cannot tell you because I do not know,’ she replied. ‘His face was not revealed to me. I can do no more.’

  ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ Maria asked in desperation.

  ‘Nothing. Fate is stronger than all of us.’

  Estella was determined to change the future. She told her mother that Ramon

  was leaving for Africa the following day and that if she could prevent him going she might save his life. Maria didn’t try to stop her. She knew she wouldn’t listen. She was too distressed to stay in Cachagua and wait for disaster to strike. She embraced her daughter at the bus station and reassured her that she would look after Ramoncito while she was away. ‘God go with you,’ she said. ‘May He protect you.’

  Estella cried all the way to Santiago. She sat with her head leaning against the window, replaying all her most treasured memories of Ramon as if he had died already. She closed her eyes and prayed until her silent prayers formed words on her tongue that she mumbled deliriously without realizing that the other passengers could hear her, but were too polite to ask her to be quiet. When she arrived in Santiago she took a taxi to his apartment. She rang the bell but there was no reply. She stood in the doorway of the apartment block and disintegrated once more into tears. She didn’t know what to do
or where to go. Perhaps she was too late. What if he was dead in his apartment? She collapsed onto the marble steps and put her head in her hands. When she felt a gentle tap on her shoulders she lifted her eyes expecting to see Ramon, only to be disappointed as the porter stood over her with a sympathetic expression

  etched onto his smooth brown face.

  ‘Are you all right, Señora?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m looking for Ramon Campione,’ she muttered.

  ‘Don Ramon?’ he said, frowning. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Estella Rega. I am . ..’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘I am his . .. his ...’

  ‘His wife?’ he said helpfully.

  ‘His...’

  ‘If you are his wife I can tell you where he is,’ he said kindly, grinning at her crookedly.

  ‘I am his wife,’ she said firmly, wiping the tears off her face with a white pahuelo.

  ‘He’s at a meeting. He left over an hour ago, but I will call you a taxi and he will take you to him.’ Estella pulled a grateful smile. ‘That’s better,’ said the porter. ‘You’re too pretty to be so sad.’ Then he watched her climb into the taxi he hailed for her and disappear into the traffic.

  Ramon stood up. ‘I’m off to Africa tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll be away three

  weeks.’

  ‘That’s a short visit for you,’ his agent commented, smiling knowingly.

  ‘Well, I don’t have much reason to stay away these days.’ He chuckled.

  ‘You mean to say that this woman you’ve been hiding away all these years has captured your heart?’

  ‘You ask too many questions, Vicente.’

  ‘I know I’m right. I can tell from your writing. There’s love all over the pages.’

  Ramon laughed and picked up his case. Then there’s even less reason to go away.’

  ‘But you’ll go anyway.’

  ‘I always do.’

  ‘Call me when you get back.’

  Ramon closed the door behind him and stepped into the lift. He thought about what Vicente had said to him, ‘there’s love all over the pages’, and he smiled to himself as he thought of Estella and Ramoncito. Then he glanced at his reflection in the mirror. He wasn’t getting any younger. He was already greying around the temples and, looking at his physique, he wasn’t getting any thinner

  either. He cocked his head to one side and rubbed his chin ponderously. ‘I should make an honest woman out of Estella,’ he thought, ‘I should have married her years ago.’

  When he opened the door into the busy street he stopped a moment, stunned to see a woman who looked exactly like Estella on the other side of the road. She was looking to her left and right in confusion with swollen red eyes that darted about like a terrified animal unused to the traffic. He blinked a few times before he realized that she was in fact Estella and he shouted at her. She heard her name and raised her eyes. She smiled with relief when she saw him and lifted her hand to greet him. ‘Ramon!’ she cried with happiness, and placing her hand over her mouth she blinked away tears of joy. Then she stepped out into the road.

  ‘Estella, no!’ he shouted, but it was too late. The sparks from the truck spat into the air as the wheels screeched to a sudden halt in an attempt to avoid the woman who walked blindly out in front of it. Ramon dropped his case and ran across the road, which shuddered to a halt as drivers leapt out of their cars to see what had happened. When Ramon saw the broken body of Estella lying inert at the foot of the vehicle he threw himself upon her with trembling hands,

  desperate to find a pulse.

  Talk to me, Estella, talk to me,’ he pleaded, pressing his face against hers, whispering into her ear. ‘Say something, my love, something. Please don't die.’

  But she didn’t move. He gazed down at her pale face in shock and noticed that she still had traces of a small smile in the gentle curve of her lips. He placed a finger on them, willing her to breathe. But there was not a breath left in her. There was nothing he could do to bring her back. He lifted her shattered body into his arms and pressed it against his heart, then sobbed loudly from the core of his being as he realized that he had killed her.

  ‘Who was she?’ someone asked.

  ‘My wife,’ he wailed and rocked back and forth dementedly.

  Ramon took the woman he had loved as he had loved none other back to her home in Zapallar. Maria had slipped into a deadly fever when she heard the news and lay in a trance, her ears deafened to the desperate pleas of Pablo Re-ga who held a candlelight vigil by her bed, silently bargaining with God. Mariana went immediately to their house and embraced them both for she had grown to love their daughter as her own. Only Ramoncito remained dry-eyed

  and composed. Mariana explained to her grandson that his mother had gone to live with Jesus and that she was looking down on him and loving him from Heaven. But Ramoncito just nodded and put his arms around her in order to give comfort. Mariana was confused. His maturity perturbed her. But she didn’t hear the breaking of his heart or the crying out of his soul in mute despair.

  As Fortuna had predicted, millions would feel his suffering in the words he would write in the future. But for the moment he was unable to comprehend his own grief or know how to express it.

  Ramon arrived shrunken and grey with the body of his beloved Estella. He allowed himself to be comforted in the familiar bosom of his mother and then straightened himself up to be strong for his son. When Maria saw Ramon she blinked out of her trance and told them all of Fortuna’s prediction. Ramon shook his head. ‘She died instead of me,’ he said sadly.

  ‘She died because it was her time,’ said Maria. ‘That’s why Fortuna couldn’t see her face.’

  When Ignacio Campione knocked on the door of Pablo Rega’s house the small party of mourners looked at each other in surprise. He walked in with the stride of a man no longer able to play ignorant.

  ‘I’m sorry, son,’ he said, pulling Ramon’s large frame into his arms. Ramon blinked at his mother in confusion over Ignacio’s shoulder. Mariana shrugged and wiped away her tears. ‘You don’t really believe I’m that stupid,’ he said, patting his son on his back. For once Ramon didn’t know what to say. He buried his face in his father’s neck and sobbed.

  Estella was buried on the top of the hill overlooking the sea, in the shade of a tall green pine tree. Pablo Rega later apologized to Osvaldo Garcia Segundo because he would from that moment on speak only to his daughter. Unlike Osvaldo, Estella talked back. He could hear her voice in the rise and fall of the tides and feel her breath in the wind that always smelt of roses.

  Ramon looked out over the horizon and reflected on his misguided acts of selfishness that had ruined so many lives. He thought about what he had loved and lost. Then he looked down at his eleven-year-old son. Ramoncito glanced up at him and smiled. In his smile Ramon saw the smile of Federica and the

  tears of Hal, the frustration of Helena and the unconditional love of Estella and he swallowed his regret as if it were a ball of nails in his throat. He placed his hand on the brave shoulder of his son and vowed that he would make up for his negligence by loving Ramoncito, by being there for him, by changing his ways as Helena had once begged him to.

  He threw a single red rose onto the coffin, then walked away a different man.

  Chapter 32

  Polperro

  Helena, Jake and Polly sat helplessly watching the television for news of the crash. A number had been given out for worried relatives, but they were still pulling bodies out of the wreckage and had no news of Toby and Julian. Arthur sped over from the office and Hal was picked up from school. Polly’s kitchen vibrated with the resonance of their grief. All Jake’s model boats lay in scattered abandon, like matchsticks, over the floors and table as he had thrown them all to the ground in a sudden fit of anger and remorse. Polly tried to reach out to him, to give him her hand, as he spiralled into a dark pit where his stubbornness and prejudice laughed at him mockingly, but he didn’t take it. He was too ashamed.
Too disgusted that he had allowed his intolerance to obscure the value of life.

  Sure that Toby was dead and unable to face the rest of the family, Jake stalked out of the house to walk on the cliffs. He strode across the winter grass and allowed tears of self-loathing to sting his face. The bitter wind caused his eyes to burn but he hurried on blindly as if by walking fast he might leave his

  despair behind him.

  He recalled Toby as a little boy. The times he had taken him out on his boat, the times they had sat in silence watching the seagulls and the shoals of fish just beneath the surface. He remembered how he had laughed when Toby had begged him to return to the water a large trout they had just caught. He had teased him, holding the fish in his hands and waving it about in front of the child’s tormented face. He winced at the recollection, like so many other recollections. Toby had always known the value of life. He had known it better than anyone.

  Then he remembered the times when father and son had been so close they had both believed that nothing could come between them. Toby had helped him glue together his model boats well into the night. They had told each other stories, they had laughed and they had worked together in the familiar silence of the very intimate. There had been a time when Toby had told him everything.

  But Julian had arrived and it had all changed.

  Jake sat on a cold rock and looked out onto the rough horizon where the waves collided with each other, drawing foam like blood. He searched his tormented soul to find the root of his prejudice. It wasn’t just Toby’s