Holiday Butterflies

Upload Music Files – Embed Audio – holiday butterflies

The clicking of Mum’s white plastic platform boots on the flagstones behind me was suddenly drowned out by an announcement: The arrival of the 10.45 from Bristol. Despite her near naked state, in lime green hot pants and a t-shirt, Mum was huffing and puffing in the August heat. Carrying the blue canvas suitcase in her left hand and clamping a half-smoked Embassy number 6 between the fingers of her right, we paused at the entrance to the tube. A clattering train far underground sent a sirocco of dusty, oily air up the escalator to expel us into the vaulted vastness of City Station.

“Vee,” said Mum craftily, “you’ve got the letter, what does it say?”

A blanket of cloud had insulated the airless city that morning and I had decided to carry my furry brown duffle coat on my arm. It was far too big to go in the case, but I daren’t leave it behind because it was on the kit list. I pulled a crumpled typewritten page from my pocket, and scanned it.

“Saturday, August 7th, 11 am, Platform 3, City Station.”

We both looked up from the letter none the wiser. Rooted to the spot we surveyed the great cathedral interior of City Station. It felt as if we were in a great oven, baking in the summer heat and marinating in diesel fumes. I tracked across from the ticket office queue, crossing the expanse of the paved forecourt. A couple of pigeons picked at a cigarette butt and then hopped deftly away from the marauding feet of travellers heading for Platform 7. I studied the large white painted numbers on the blackboards by the entrance to each platform.

Mum nudged me and pointed. “Must be over there,” she explained. “Look, all those kids gathered together.”

Intuition beats logic again.

A teeming throng of children and adults congregated on the far side of the station, just under a blackboard sign pinned to the wall, chalked in a neat, copperplate hand writing, read:

Children’s Holiday Fund. Registered charity 2091358.

As we trotted over to the growing crowd, a lone butterfly landed on Mum’s lime green shoulder, bright orange wings patched with brown and white. Mum stopped for a moment and held out her finger to the displaced creature, which looked more fragile than usual in this palace of relentless power and speed. The butterfly grabbed at her finger eagerly and folded its wings to display a couple of white-ringed blue spots that looked uncannily like eyes. A sudden turbulence from the departure of a train whisked it up into a whirlwind, depositing it out of our sight.

“Oh, poor thing,” whispered Mum, “and so beautiful. Hope the pigeons don’t get it.”

I looked around in alarm. The only pigeons I could see at ground level were still pecking at the same cigarette end, as if unaware the butterfly could be bird food.

A stocky, middle aged woman in a grey tweed skirt and lacy white blouse greeted me and consulted a clipboard. I noticed she wore a handwritten cardboard badge labelled Mrs. E Skipper, Marshal.

She asked abruptly, in a posh voice like a mouthful of pebbles in cream.

“Name?”

“Vanessah Cardioo,” I barked, defensively over-emphasising my City brogue.

She ticked her clipboard, and turned to Mum.

“Parent?”

“Yes, I’m her mother,” replied Mum in her best telephone voice. “Mrs. Cynthia Cardew.”

“Sign here,” she ordered, handing Mum the clipboard and pen. Mum scribbled something convincing and Mrs. Skipper swapped the clipboard for two labels and some string.

“That’s one for there, and one for there,” she indicated my suitcase and coat to my mother with a look that didn’t expect much.

“Ruby!” she called over to a slim, smiling woman with long dark hair, blue slacks and a thin cotton blouse. “This is one of yours.”

She bent down to me. “Ruby will sort you out,” she promised before turning away and checking in other children.

I looked down at Mum’s hands gently tying the label to my coat and noticed the beads of bruising around her wrists. I gave her a thin smile of sympathy, and reached out to stroke the silky flick of her peroxide bob. She forced a smile to her pale pink glossed lips, a sentiment that did not reach her mascara-caked deep blue eyes.

“Have to get that watch strap fixed,” she explained unconvincingly. I nodded and pretended I didn’t know. I gave her a quick cuddle. She winced so I let go.

“Where are you going this year, love?” Mum asked gently.

“Mrs Iris Brown, Honeydew Farm, Gloucestershire,” I read from the suitcase label.

“Look after yourself, Mum,” I whispered.

“I’ll be alright, love,” she responded quietly. “I’m gonna stay at your nan’s for a few days. Try and sort things out.”

“Vanessa Cardew!” The Ruby woman’s bellow shattered the moment.

Mum gave me a tight hug and a huge kiss on the forehead before walking back toward the tube, dabbing at her eyes so as not to smudge her make up.

I joined the other kids with Ruby, whose badge read Mrs. R Heath, Marshal. I smiled, thinking of western films with Clint Eastwood or Yul Brinner. The noise and smell of diesel intensified and we were directed towards a train revving up on platform 3. We tumbled aboard the last two carriages. The labels stuck to the windows read ‘Reserved for CHF.’

Pushing and shoving into empty compartments and chattering excitedly, we helped each other stow our regulation one suitcase and one handbag on the overhead racks. I lobbed my blue canvas case onto the rack, and was startled by a flash of orange and brown. The butterfly was spread on my case, unmoving. I left it, feeling too chicken to take a closer look.

The train pulled slowly out of City Station and I looked up at blue sky between towering walls of Victorian red brick. We gathered speed and like V.I.P visitors cruised through stations without stopping. The world I inhabited was slipping away and I stopped looking back. I started craving forward motion as if I was trying to escape a monster in a dream.

Ruby checked and double-checked our details. We discussed our destinations and scoured each others labels for clues.

“I’m going to Honeydew Farm,” I announced to a tall girl with dark auburn plaits and sparkling brown eyes sitting next to me. “I hope that means a real farm.”

The plait girl gave me a puzzled look.

“You know,” I explained, “with animals and tractors and stuff.” I read plait girl’s name on her label.

“Where you going, Carol?”

She indicated towards the young, stocky boy sitting next to her, his hair shaved short on the back and sides.

“Me and me brother Harry are going to stay with Dr K Brown in Gloucester,” she said in a broad city twang.

“Look!” called Harry, “brown animals eating grass.”

We all gave a cheer and gathered around the window.

“They’re bulls,” announced a shaggy-haired blonde boy with a knowledgeable air.

“They’re not,” argued Carol, “they’re horses, you can see their tails.”

“And that one’s pooing all over the ground!” announced Harry to everyone’s disgust and delight.

Ruby intervened.

“Please sit down children, someone will get hurt.” As she closed the compartment door to continue patrolling, she added, “they’re Jersey cows. That’s where milk comes from.”

We thought about this for a second, took another look and emitted a collective, “Eeeyuck!”

As I became more acclimatised to green fields, my thoughts turned to the end of my journey. I wondered what Mrs. Iris Brown would be like. The previous year, I had stayed in a wealthy grocer’s house. On the second day of my visit the grocer’s wife took me to the doctor convinced that a small dose of City Head Lice was the end of the world. She spent the rest of the holiday in bed with a migraine. This year I was prepared; I’d packed a nit comb.

A girl had to have some privacy. It wasn’t easy when everyone knew you, your family name, your past and your present and pitied you for it. Wasn’t much you could do about that when you were a kid. That was the problem. Once you had seen something better your whole life felt wrong. Scrutinising your home, your friends and relatives and comparing them to Mrs. Iris Brown was a hiding to nothing. But the idea of not knowing was terrifying. With a shiver, I anticipated the feeling of dread that I knew without fail, would consume me on the return journey.

The butterfly flapped around the compartment. The other children ducked and shooed it away. It flew straight towards me and flopped down on the back of my hand. I studied it closely as it rubbed one of its front legs over its antenna and flapped its wings slowly. It had the air of someone who had just ran for the bus and was now composing themselves. It turned and opened its wings to the window, as if gathering energy from the light.

“Ooer, watch out it doesn’t poo on your hand!” exclaimed Harry. The other children laughed, but they too had that city child’s instinctive aversion to any wild creature and watched from a distance.

I stood and tried to open the window to let it out, but I wasn’t tall enough. Carol stood on the seat and tried too, but the window was too stiff for her skinny fingers. I stopped again and marvelled at the delicate insect, and wondered why it was clinging to my hand with such tenacity.

At each station, children were ushered off by Ruby and introduced to their hosts. Carol and Henry went with a tall, handsome looking man and a lady with a smile that seemed to split her face into two halves. They smiled back at me and waved, excited and genuinely happy.

I gave them a wave as the train pulled out of the station and hoped I’d be as lucky.

“Vanessa,” Ruby urged, “get your things ready.”

She went to collect all the children for the next stop and I was alone in the compartment. The butterfly fluttered from my hand and landed on the window above my head. It started flapping frantically, beating itself against the window, rising up to collide with the compartment ceiling and dropping senseless, only to rouse and try again. I climbed on the seat to open the window but it was stuck. I felt panic rise from my toes to my stomach.

“The butterfly,” I screamed, “she’ll die. Help her or she’ll die!”

“Vanessa, what’s going on?” Ruby flung herself into the compartment just in time to catch me as I slipped off the seat and spouted huge tears.

“The butterfly!” I urged between sobs, “she wants to be free, can’t you see, she just wants to be free.”

Ruby pulled on the slider of the window and as it opened the butterfly was caught in the slipstream of the train. We watched as it re-orientated itself and sailed off over the fields.

“Come on, dry your eyes and get your things,” said Ruby, “we’re here.”

As soon as I saw Mrs. Iris Brown I knew everything was going to be okay. She was thin in a strong and wiry sort of way, with long auburn hair and blue eyes.

“Vanessa, I’ve been looking forward to your visit,” she said “I hope you enjoy it.” She took my suitcase. “Here, let me put this in the van for you. Hungry?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said and I drew in an excited breath as I noticed the writing printed on the side of the van:

Honeydew Butterfly Farm.

Read more: Short Story: Holiday Butterflies | Shortbread