To Catch a Butterfly Page 22

  “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Pleasure.” Marie stepped into the living room. “Oh, by the way, if Stevie calls give her my love. It’s funny you know, I can see Will in her sometimes, I know she’s not my own flesh and blood but she is still part of him. It must be hard, you know, Adam not being part of either of you. Still, I’d better be off.” She glanced around the lounge as she made her way to the front door.

  “How do you live with yourself Marie, You know, I could never quite work you out, but now I get it, you never wanted Stevie did you, and so you were cruel to her, I’ve seen the marks on her where you’ve hit her. How could you? How could you hit that little girl?”

  Marie swung round, “Fuck you! I never laid a finger on her, she was clumsy, always falling off of something or into something, how dare you accuse me of hitting her!” She stepped towards Beth.

  “My God, you can’t even admit it to yourself can you?” Beth held her stare, Marie stepped even closer. “What’s wrong Marie, don’t you like what you’re hearing? You gonna hit me are you? I’ll knock your fucking teeth out.” Beth smiled, a big exaggerated grin.

  Marie searched for a response. She had nothing.

  “Get out of my house. Don’t come back.” Beth looked past Marie to the front door, as if her nod towards it would make it spring open.

  And with that Marie left, leaving the front door open behind her. Beth waited until she was gone before slamming it shut.

  Beth had waited so long to have her say, tell Marie what she really thought, but there was no sense of satisfaction, no sense of justice. She felt angry at herself, she’d let herself down, brought her self down to Marie’s level. She sat on the arm of the sofa and looked around the room. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream out loud. She wanted to punch Marie’s grinning face. She counted to ten. And then to twenty. Deep breaths. She wasn’t worth it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE

  Catherine finally looked at Stevie. “You don’t need to go chasing around for your butterfly anymore. You’ve already caught it.” Catherine took a deep breath and Stevie stared at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My house is just there, please, walk with me.”

  Stevie hesitated, standing still as Catherine stood up and walked past her. “Why are we going to your house?” She asked, noticing that Catherine had left her book on the bench. She picked it up.

  “Because what I have to tell you shouldn’t be told here.” Catherine waited for her, dropping her cigarette and standing on it.

  “Who’s at your house?” Stevie asked, suspicious and totally confused about what was going on.

  “No-one, I live on my own.” Catherine suddenly thought of Scruffy Boy and tears welled up in her eyes, “I just live with my cat.” She said so quietly that Stevie didn’t hear her.

  As they walked out of the cemetery gates, Stevie felt an apprehension that made her heart pound, “How far is your house?” Her question, irrelevant, asked for the sake of asking. Her eyes fixed on Catherine.

  “It’s just around the corner, it’s that one, number thirty three.” Catherine pointed towards her window.

  They walked slowly, deliberately, Stevie watching Catherine all the while. She felt hesitant, who was this woman? Was she going to hurt her? Stevie felt anxiety rise inside of her, taking over her. But her curiosity was even greater, overwhelming. She followed Catherine up her pathway and into her front door. As Catherine walked towards the kitchen, Stevie glanced into the front room and noticed boxes piled against the wall. She carried on into the kitchen, and was greeted by a long haired old cat that pushed his head against her leg.

  “That’s my cat, Scruffy Boy.” Catherine stood by her kitchen table as she wiped away tears. “Please sit down. Can I get you anything, a coffee?”

  Stevie sat and Scruffy took that as his cue to jump on her knee.

  “No, I don’t want coffee, thank you, I just want to know what’s going on.” She instinctively and unconsciously stroked Scruffy’s head and he purred loudly before settling down.

  “What do you know already?” Catherine sat opposite her and lit another cigarette.

  Stevie looked at her, she was visibly distressed, she kept looking from Stevie to Scruffy Boy, her voice broke when she talked.

  “I only know what my family told me.” Stevie felt a calmness wash over her like a warm blanket, she was inexplicably at ease here, perhaps it was the feeling of Scruffy Boy kneading her legs in innocent pleasure.

  She went on to tell Catherine about her life growing up on the Island with Marie and Will, she spoke openly and honestly, she told her about her family and how they had kept the secret from her, then her journey here. Catherine listened to every word, smoking cigarette after cigarette. When Stevie had finished, she got up. “I’m going to show you something.” She went into the front room and returned with a box, which she placed on the table. Scruffy Boy immediately found that too enticing and jumped from Stevie’s knee, where he had slept for the two hours she had talked for. He pushed his face against the dusty cardboard. Stevie smiled, she adored cats. She adored all animals, and even with this bizarre situation she found herself in, Scruffy Boy made it real, made it seem somewhat normal. Two women talking across a kitchen table.

  Catherine lifted out a pile of photographs and sifted through them, before handing one to Stevie. Stevie took it from her and looked at it. It was a black and white picture of a tall woman, with short dark hair, leaning against a tree, smiling. The woman’s chiselled features were set around warm, bright eyes. She was dressed in dark trousers and a white cotton shirt with short sleeves. She looked so happy. But there was something about the picture that didn’t look right, something out of place. Stevie frowned, trying to work it out.

  “Who is this?” She eventually asked, surprised to see tears streaming down Catherine’s face.

  “Me.” Catherine said, “That was me, it was taken almost twenty years ago.”

  “Why have you shown me this, I don’t understand?” Stevie looked at the picture again.

  “You will, but you have to let me tell you everything, and then the picture will make sense to you.”

  Stevie sighed, putting the picture down on the table. “Alright.” She said, “I’m listening.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  May 1978.

  Helen Samuels held up the small round mirror and showed her last client of the day the result of two hours pampering.

  “Very nice.” Phyllis Crop managed a smile, “I’m going to miss you doing my hair, I prefer you to Nancy, she never does the top right and I was never keen on her manner.” She stood up, brushing herself down, “Maybe the prices will go down now that she won’t have to pay you a wage.”

  Helen smiled politely, she had worked at ‘Nancy’s salon’ for six years but the business was struggling and Nancy was letting Helen go. The salon was situated down a side street and although the old regulars were faithful visitors, it attracted no passing trade and there weren’t enough clients to warrant two hairdressers. Helen had been distraught at first; this was her daily escape from her husband Frank. Just to be out of the house gave her reprieve from his bullying and violent outbursts. It was the one thing in Helen’s life that he didn’t control. It had been a customer that had suggested to Helen that she started up on her own, a mobile hairdresser. The initial problem was that Frank would never allow Helen to have her own car. The second problem was that Frank would not allow her to visit men in their homes, so if he did allow her to do it, she could only have female clients. She would have to get the bus from client to client, Frank owned a Landrover, but he needed that for ‘business’. Frank’s business was buying and selling scrap metal, handling stolen goods, odd jobs and wheeling and dealing in anything he could get his hands on. Helen had learned not to ask when he came home with a wallet full of fivers, or when he carried ominous boxes from the Landrover to the shed that stood leaking in the back yard.

  They lived in a three bed
room house on several acres of land, set back from the main road. If you didn’t know it was there, you would drive right by. Frank liked it like that, he could conduct his business away from prying eyes, store his ‘stock’ away and live out of the eye and earshot of interfering neighbours. The house was left to him by his mother and he had enjoyed life without the worry of a mortgage hanging over him. Bought and paid for. The place was forever requiring maintenance, a leak in the roof, damp in the back bedroom, which he would sort out when he was ‘fucking ready’. It was his house after all.

  Frank’s father had died when Frank was a boy and he had lived with his mother until her death. It was four months after she died that he met Helen. He was enjoying a game of poker in the local pub with some of his ‘business associates’ and Helen was in there with her best friend, Amy Smith, they had both worked at the ‘Blue Bird Café’ and become good friends, Helen qualified as a hairdresser some six years before and had managed to get employment at ‘Laurel’s hairdressing salon’, by the seafront. She stayed in touch with Amy and they often spent Saturday nights at the King’s Arms pub. Frank noticed Helen sitting alone while Amy got the drinks in, she was beautiful. Her shoulder length light brown hair hung comfortably around her face. Her skin was clear and fresh, she wore blue jeans and a cheesecloth top, she was 27. He smiled at her and she smiled back. He was 35, tall, slim and muscular with green eyes and a cheeky grin. He had drinks sent to their table and after losing his hand of poker, he made his way over. He spent the evening ignoring Amy, who sat, quietly, while Frank charmed Helen with his talk of running his own business. It was January 16th 1970. They were married in the July and Helen moved into his house.

  The first few months kept Helen busy, making the house more homely, Frank worked long hours, often coming home too tired to want to engage in conversation. He would eat his dinner, drink his beer and demand that Helen kept him satisfied in the bedroom. He controlled the finances, he controlled where they went, who they socialised with and he controlled her. Completely. She never saw Amy again, she never wore the clothes she used to wear and her make up was thrown in the dustbin.

  “You don’t need that shit on your face.” Frank would tell her, “You’re a looker without it.” His idea of a compliment.

  He ground her down, wore her out, slapped her across the face if she looked at him the wrong way, made her cook dinner and then throw it in the bin in front of her if it didn’t ‘look right on the plate’. She would lie in bed, praying that he was too drunk to want sex, but he would wake her in the early hours and do what he wished, Helen lay there while he lay on top of her, fucking her. Then he would push himself off and go back to sleep.

  Then he would come home with flowers for her. Make her a cup of tea and say he was sorry. And so it went on, month after month, year after year. Helen hid her miserable life away from her parents as best she could; she hid her sadness from them as well as she hid her bruises.

  But they knew their daughter, their beautiful bubbly daughter who had a wicked sense of humour and who was warm and kind. They saw the changes in her; the excuses why she couldn’t visit them, even though they lived not a stone’s throw away. They rarely visited her, Frank made them feel very unwelcome and they never wanted to upset him, for it would be Helen that would pay for it. They begged her to leave, but she wouldn’t, moving in with her parents wouldn’t keep her safe from him.

  Helen came home one afternoon with a tiny kitten, one of four that had been found abandoned by the local newsagent; this was the last one looking for a home. Helen adored it and it adored her, and that was the problem. She came home from work one evening to find it gone, she searched everywhere. It was when she took the rubbish out to the back yard later that evening that she saw it. Hanging by its neck from the washing pole.

  She had been married for almost eight years and as she carefully untied her dead kitten and buried her under the pear tree, she knew she had married a monster. And yet, she stayed. Frank hated cats, said they served no purpose in life, and he hated how much attention Helen lavished on it. When she confronted him about what he had done, he made it clear. “If you ever bring a fucking cat to my house again, I’ll cut it’s fucking throat.”

  “I’ll be seeing you then.” Phyliss Crop snapped her purse shut and placed the exact money on the counter. No tip. And left the salon. Helen watched her walk down the road, little chicken steps, her bag hugged tightly to her chest. Strange woman, Helen thought. She was about to lock the doors when a figure appeared in the doorway.

  “Are you closing?” Catherine Stone smiled down at Helen, who couldn’t help but smile back. She remembered this woman coming into the salon some months before; she remembered them laughing and the woman leaving her a very decent tip. She had said something about going away to France, if Helen recalled correctly.

  “Yes, I am, but I could book you in for tomorrow.” Helen beckoned her in, “Come in, I’ll just get the book.” She said, locking the door behind Catherine.

  “So that’s how you keep your customers is it, locking them in?” Catherine looked at Helen who turned and smiled.

  “Yep, I’m afraid so.” Helen walked round behind the counter and flicked open the page of the appointment book, running her finger down the empty page. “We could squeeze you in anytime between nine and four.” She quipped, tapping her pencil on the counter.

  Catherine grinned at Helen, holding her look for a moment. Helen looked down, “Nine o’clock it is then.” She flushed. “What’s the name?” She asked, pencil at the ready.

  “Catherine Stone.”

  “Is it for a wash and cut or..?” Helen looked up, unsure of herself for a second; she felt butterflies in her stomach and had no idea why.

  “Yes, a wash and cut will be fine.” Catherine watched as Helen pencilled it in.

  “That will be with Nancy.” Helen said.

  “Oh, I’d rather it was you, it’s just that I liked the way you cut it before.”

  “I won’t be here tomorrow, this is my last day, but Nancy is very good.” Again, Helen held Catherine’s gaze.

  “That’s a real shame.” Catherine leaned forward slightly “I really wanted you to do it.”

  Helen paused for a moment, “Look, I shouldn’t really do this, but I’m setting up on my own, mobile hairdressing, I could come to your house, do it there. It’s just I feel bad, I don’t want Nancy to think I’m stealing her customers.”

  Catherine looked at the empty appointments book, “It doesn’t appear that Nancy has any customers for you to steal, does it?” She smiled again. She was tall and very attractive with strong features, she wore expensive clothes and wore a simple gold ring on her little finger. She had slight lines around her eyes which were more prominent when she smiled. She had a warm voice and a warm manner about her.

  Catherine wrote down her address and phone number and slid it across the counter. “I’ll wait to hear from you then.” She said.

  “Ok, I’ll give you a ring in the next couple of days.”

  The next day, Helen telephoned her and arranged to go over the day after. She arrived twenty minutes early, she was yet to get used to the bus timetables. Catherine answered the door, welcoming her in. The rooms in the house were large, full of big sofas and paintings hung on every wall, but were otherwise sparse. Helen followed Catherine through to the kitchen.

  “Can I get you a coffee, or tea?”

  “Coffee would be lovely, you have a really beautiful home.”

  “Thank you, it’s a bit big for me really, but I like the area and the parks are lovely to walk through. I’m only renting it while I’m in England, I spend a lot time travelling for my work.” Catherine pulled out a chair and Helen sat, placing her bag on the floor.

  “What do you do?” Helen asked, feeling very at ease, certainly more at ease here than she did in her own home. But then that wasn’t difficult.

  “I’m an artist.” Catherine held up the sugar bowl, “Sugar?”

  “No thank you, a
n artist? that’s brilliant, what sort of things do you paint?”

  “Landscapes, animals, people, pretty much anything.” Catherine emptied out a plateful of biscuits and placed them in the middle of the kitchen table. “Please, help yourself, don’t be polite, there’s plenty more if we finish these off.” She winked at Helen and dived in.

  They sat talking for an hour; Catherine was Helen’s first and only client that day. She had managed to line up a couple more towards the end of the week and hoped to build up her clientele, but Frank did not permit her to have too many, he had only just accepted that she was going into other people’s houses. Didn’t want his wife chatting to strangers about his business. As if she would dare.

  “Well, I’d better get on with your hair, I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.” Helen reached down for her bag.

  “I’ll just go and wash it, I won’t be long.” Catherine made her way upstairs, leaving Helen to take in some of Catherine’s art work.

  Five minutes later, Helen turned a chair around and after putting a towel around her shoulders she started with her very first customer. It felt good.

  “Have you always had short hair?” She asked running her fingers through it, checking it was even.

  “Yes, I prefer it shorter, easier to manage.” Catherine looked into her eyes as Helen crouched in front of her, checking the sides. Butterflies again flitting around in Helen’s stomach.

  “You’re all done.” Helen stood up, removed the towel and brushed hair from Catherine’s neck. “Have you got a broom, I’ll just sweep this up.”

  “No, you won’t, I’ll sort that out.” Catherine ran her hand through it, “It feels good.” She said.

  “Would you like to check the back?” Helen asked.

  “No, it’s okay I trust you.” She stood up, smiling.

  She paid Helen and made another appointment for three weeks later.

  As Helen sat on the bus home, she thought about Catherine, her home, how comfortable she’d felt sitting talking to her and she did everything she could to ignore the feelings she was having, dismissing them as nerves.