Butterflies

Chapter 1: London, June 2001

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Lily wasn’t asleep, and she sat up in bed. ‘God in heaven, what’s that?’

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

‘It must be the Station,’ said Toby, rolling over.

‘Don’t be daft. They’d phone.’

Lily rubbed her eyes, and the banging came again, a hammering which rattled the front door and boomed around the hall of their Victorian terrace.
Toby got out of bed. He was naked, and he struggled into a sweatshirt. ‘I’m going to find out what the hell’s going on.’ He grabbed his jeans, put them on and hurried from the bedroom, doing them up on the way.

Lily snatched a robe from the en suite, tied the sash, hurriedly jigged her hair into some sort of order, and followed. On the landing she could hear the rumpus going on below, and she checked to make sure that they’d shut the door to the bedroom shared by their two children. Toby was in the hall.
‘Where’s Lucia?’ She could hear a man’s voice, loud and angry, and there was more banging. ‘I know she’s here. Tell her to come out.’ Lily recognised the voice, a fierce and forceful tone used to giving orders and being obeyed.

‘Calm down,’ said Toby, opening the door. ‘For Christ’s sake, you’ll wake the whole street.’

‘And the girls,’ said Lily, halfway down the stairs.

‘Fuck the street!’ the caller shouted again. ‘Where’s Lucia? Where’s my wife?’

‘She’s not here,’ said Toby.

‘I don’t believe you!’
Toby stood back. ‘Come in and see for yourself.’

‘I bloody will.’ The man pushed past into the hall.

Lily, now at the foot of the stairs, folded her arms and gave the visitor a stern, policewoman’s stare. ‘What’s this all about, Harry? Do you know what the time is?’

‘I don’t fucking care what the fucking time is,’ Harry said. ‘I want Lucia.’

‘And Toby’s told you she’s not here. Now calm down or I’ll have you for causing an affray.’

Although Lily’s threat was hollow, it had the desired effect on Harry and he seemed to deflate slightly.

‘Mummy? What’s the matter?’ A small child stood at the top of the stairs. She held a bedraggled toy rabbit by one ear.

‘Now see what you’ve done,’ Lily snapped at Harry. She turned to the child. ‘It’s all right, sweetie,’ she called up the stairs. ‘It’s only your uncle Harry. He’s not staying. You pop back into bed and I’ll come and tuck you in as soon as he’s gone.’ She turned again to Harry and pointed to the door of the sitting room. ‘Go in there,’ she said firmly. ‘Go back to bed, Rosy,’ she called to the child. ‘Uncle Harry is going soon and then Daddy and I will come up.’

Rosy looked doubtful for a moment, before turning and going back towards her bedroom.

In the sitting room, Lily pointed to one of the couches. ‘Sit,’ she ordered. She stood facing Harry until his shoulders fell and he slowly sank. When he had settled Lily took her place in an armchair by the fireplace. Toby sat opposite. ‘Now, tell us what this is all about,’ said Lily, ‘and why you’re round here causing such a disturbance in the middle of the night. And it had better be good. You can count yourself lucky that you didn’t wake the youngest one.’

Harry stared at the carpet. ‘Lucia’s gone,’ he said, and now he sounded so deflated that Lily almost felt sorry for him. She and Toby knew that Lucia had gone, but neither of them was going to tell Harry that. ‘She’s left me.’

‘And what makes you think she’s here?’ said Lily.

'Well you’re her sister, aren’t you? If she’s not here I bet you know where she is.’

That was also true, but again Lily was not prepared to admit it.

‘Tell us about it,’ said Toby.

Faced again by a man, Harry’s bluster showed signs of returning and he made an effort to control himself. ‘I’ve been in Singapore,’ he said. ‘We’re setting up a new South-East Asia operation and I had to be there. I wasn’t due back till next week but I got a message from my mother. My father’s died.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lily and Toby said together.

‘We expected it,’ said Harry. ‘He had cancer. He was given six weeks to live six months ago. I got on the first flight back that I could. I tried to phone Lucia before I left but she didn’t answer. I got back to Heathrow earlier this evening, drove straight home, and found this.’ He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and held it out.

Lily recognised her sister’s handwriting. She read the note and then passed it to Toby.

‘All she says in the note is that she needs some time to sort herself out,’ said Lily. ‘Given what she’s been through, that’s not surprising. Why the big fuss?’

‘I thought you were saying that she’s left you,’ said Toby, returning the paper to Harry, ‘but she says here that she loves you and she’ll be back soon.’
Lily couldn’t think why her sister had written that, but she had. ‘So what’s the problem?’ she said.

‘The problem,’ said Harry, ‘is that I knew nothing about it. We’ve only spoken a couple of times while I’ve been in Singapore because of the time difference, but we’ve been exchanging texts every day. A few days ago she stopped answering me. She never mentioned that she was going away. Not a word. I’ve no idea where she’s gone. She never asked me if it was okay to go off like this.’

‘Does she need your permission?’ said Lily quietly.

Harry didn’t respond, but Lily could tell that he thought she did. ‘Why doesn’t she say where she’s gone?’ he said.

‘Perhaps she doesn’t want you to know,’ said Lily. ‘Perhaps that’s part of sorting herself out. She wants to be left alone.’

‘But I’m her husband,’ Harry snapped. ‘For fuck’s sake, I have a right to know where she is.’

‘Have you?’ said Lily.

‘Of course I have. But I might have expected that you’d be on her side,’ Harry grunted.

The elephant in the room was how Lucia had found the money to go anywhere at all, because Harry kept her desperately short of cash. All three of them knew that and Lily waited for Harry to own up to it, but he said nothing.

‘This is a waste of bloody time,’ said Harry. He stood, rather uncertainly. The fire of his anger had faded and now he seemed just tired, and lost. ‘If you two aren’t prepared to help, I’m going.’

Lily examined him and narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you been drinking?’ she asked.

Harry’s face registered affront. ‘I had a drink or two on the plane. So what?’

‘And since?’

‘I had a quick one at home when I found the note.’ He turned to Toby. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘And you drove here?’ said Lily.

The point dawned on Harry and he became defensive. ‘Yes, but I’m fine.’

‘Keys,’ said Lily, standing up and holding out her hand.

Harry couldn’t believe it. ‘What? Are you serious?’

‘I’m deadly serious. Give me your car keys. Either you can get a taxi home or you can kip down in our spare room, but if you try to drive now, the second you’re in your car I’ll tip off my colleagues at the nick and you’ll be breathalysed before you can say shitfaced.’

Harry looked angry again and shook his head. ‘I have to drive north tomorrow to sort out the funeral.’

Lily didn’t respond and remained in front of Harry with her hand out. Harry knew there could be no argument. He gave Lily his car keys.

‘I’ll get a cab,’ he said. He went to the front door. ‘I’ll be back for my car in the morning.’ Toby opened the door and Harry marched through. ‘This isn’t over,’ he said, as he stumbled down the steps to the pavement.

No, thought Lily, it’s not.

Chapter 2: Somerset, Easter 1991 (ten years earlier)
Lucia Porter pursed her lips as she tried to get her picture right. She was working on a watercolour of an iris in a simple vase. Like all the classes at St Ursula’s Convent School for Girls, the art group was small. It contained only one other girl who was working at a table which, in line with the school’s policy of making casual chatter difficult and preferably impossible, had been placed at the far end of the room. She was busy with a different iris in another vase. The teacher, Sister Rosamund, had left them to it. She often did that, absenting herself for much of the lesson and returning just before its end smelling of cigarette smoke.

The other girl’s name was Miriam. She came from Nigeria, and her blackness was in startling contrast to her white uniform blouse and to the pale Lucia. Miriam’s skin wasn’t simply black, it was jet, with a rich lustre that Lucia found mesmerising. There were no black people in the part of Dorset where her parents lived, and she had never before seen anyone like this fascinating girl. With no access to radio, television or newspapers, girls at St Ursula’s knew little of what went on in the world outside the confines of the school. Despite this Lucia had heard news of the release of Nelson Mandela from a South African jail. She knew about apartheid and it horrified her. How could it be that people were partitioned, judged, and discriminated against by something as trivial as the colour of their skin?

Lucia glanced at Miriam. As she did so the other girl smiled, showing teeth of an astonishing whiteness, then got up and went to the window, where a butterfly was beating its wings against the glass. She opened the window and guided it with her hand towards fresh air and freedom. The kindness of the gesture touched Lucia. It was such a small thing to do for a fragile, fleeting thing. If Miriam hadn’t chanced to see the creature it would have died, battering itself in its panic to get out until its energy ebbed and its life failed.

Neither of the girls spoke because both knew that Sister Rosamund had not gone far, and that if she heard any conversation she would reappear in the room and they would be punished. The Mother Superior believed that silence led to contemplation, and contemplation led to holiness.
Lucia’s iris was proving troublesome and she inspected what she’d done. She’d captured the curl of the petals and the way they combined with the flower and the stem in the shape of a cross, but conveying the texture was proving tricky. She would have liked to start again, but Sister Rosamund allowed only one sheet of art paper per lesson; to do otherwise would be to encourage waste, and waste led to profligacy. She sighed. Should she turn it over and use the other side? Better not. She hadn’t heard Sister Rosamund proclaim any edict against that, but there probably was one.
The A Level offering at St Ursula’s was limited. Lucia didn’t enjoy Mathematics, so that was out. The lab was basic and only suitable for elementary studies, so the only science offered was Biology. Lucia wished she’d been allowed to take that because she liked plants and flowers, but the subjects chosen for her to accompany Art were History, English Literature, and Latin. She was told that this quartet formed a satisfactory ensemble worthy of study. Art was her favourite.

Lucia was making better progress with the iris and was in the process of adding the finishing touches when the door opened, and Sister Rosamund returned. Following her was Sister Faustina. That was surprising and unnerving. Sister Faustina’s responsibility was discipline, one she discharged with moody inconsistency. Her punishments were erratic and ranged from, for the older girls, a tongue lashing to, for the younger ones, the enthusiastic application of the tawse which hung on a strap behind her study door. Every punishment would be followed by a penance, usually some Hail Marys and a household chore, in the kitchen or the gardens if Sister Faustina was feeling mellow, in the toilets if she were not. Lucia was certain that she had done nothing wrong. Had Miriam? She held her breath as Sister Faustina’s sweeping glance took in both girls before she appeared to reach a decision and came to Lucia’s table.

She stood behind her for a moment, studied her work, sniffed, and then said briskly, ‘Reverend Mother requires you. Follow me. Quickly now.’

Lucia’s stomach lurched. Interviews with the Reverend Mother, the Principal of St Ursula’s, were rare. She didn’t know what she’d done, but it must be bad. Miriam glanced at her sympathetically. Sister Faustina turned and walked out into the empty corridor. She didn’t look back to check that Lucia was following. She knew she would be.

As Lucia hurried after the nun, she wondered what she could have done to result in an interview with Mother Superior. The rules at St Ursula’s were simple: keep to yourself, talk as little as possible, remain within the school buildings, do what the nuns demanded, and work hard. As far as Lucia could recall, she was clear on all those counts.

The door to Mother Superior’s office was shut. Sister Faustina tapped on it firmly, waited for an answer, opened it, and propelled Lucia ahead of her into where a formidable figure in black sat at a large desk. Lucia had only been in the room once before. It was spacious but sombre, with dark furnishings and book-lined walls. As well as the desk, there were two hard chairs and against one wall a pair of kneelers. A crucifix hung above them, and beside that a painting of a young woman wearing a crown and a blue cloak, surrounded by a vast army of female faces.

Lucia knew this picture. It was of St Ursula herself, and the girls had been told her story many times. It was a lesson in the importance of chastity and devotion. Ursula, the tale went, had been a princess, the daughter of a Romano-British king. Her father promised her in marriage to a continental noble who was a pagan, but she declared that before she would accept this betrothal, she must undertake a pan-European pilgrimage. She set out for Rome, accompanied by eleven thousand virgins she had brought with her from Britain. They reached Cologne and found it besieged by Huns. Ursula and her party were captured, and the virgins beheaded. An arrow killed Ursula, and the artist had shown it piercing the Saint’s breast. Another copy of the same picture hung on the wall in the Library, and Lucia had spent some time studying it and trying to untangle some of its puzzles, such as why, in depicting such a brutal killing, the artist had shown not a trace of blood. She had been unable to discover who that was, but thought that the painting most likely originated in the 15th Century.

Lucia had become so lost in these thoughts that they drove out the trepidation she’d felt when she entered the room, and Mother Superior’s voice snatched her back to reality.

‘I have had a communication from your mother.’ The woman paused and fingered a gold cross on a chain around her neck. ‘It concerns your father,’ she continued. ‘He suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital. He did not survive. He has passed on.’

The abruptness of the statement was like a slap, and Lucia felt the room sway. It was the last thing she had expected. She couldn’t believe it. Her father was not a strong man, but he had gone about his work on their smallholding with wiry determination. He worked every day, rain or shine, labouring in the fresh air. He retired and rose early. He didn’t smoke and rarely drank. He was quiet and seldom said much, but he was always there. He couldn’t be dead. She could find no words to respond to this ghastly news.

The Reverend Mother spoke again. ‘It is the will of Our Lord, and you must accept it as such. Your father has been summoned to His Kingdom, and he is with Him now. His trials on earth are over. It is a matter for rejoicing. Your father is at peace, and you must respond to your loss through prayer and hard work.’

Lucia still couldn’t take it in. What would happen now? Who would tend the land, deal with the chickens, milk the goat? Who would do the odd jobs around the house? She should go home to help her mother. The term was nearly over, and she could make up any schoolwork she missed. But there was another shock.

‘You will understand,’ said Reverend Mother, ‘that this has been a source of great distress for your mother. At such times there are many matters to address, and she has much to deal with. She has therefore requested that you do not return to your home at the end of term but remain here at St Ursula’s. I have told her that is acceptable, and arrangements will be made for you to stay with us over Easter, until the new term begins.’