LITMIR.BIZ

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a bit,’ Alice explained. ‘It’s too noisy and I didn’t know anyone to talk to properly. Is that what you did?’ she asked as the girl glanced sharply at her.

      The child nodded.

      ‘The thing is, I don’t want to go back yet,’ said Alice. ‘And I can’t think of anywhere else to hide. Do you mind if I sit next to you, just for a little while? I won’t talk if you don’t want to. I hate it when people talk to me when I’m trying to be quiet.’

      There was a flash of recognition in the girl’s watchful eyes, and, while she didn’t exactly agree, she didn’t say no either, and as Alice went over she shifted along the step to make room for her. Encouraged, Alice settled next to her, drawing her knees up to mirror the child’s posture.

      A strangely companionable silence settled round them. In the distance, Alice could hear the buzz of party conversation, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter, and the squeals and shrieks and splashes from the pool, but they seemed to be coming from a long way away, far from the dark, drowsy green world of the kitchen garden where there was only the squawk of a passing raucous bird and the low-level hum of insects to break the hot quiet.

      She was glad of the chance to settle her nerves. Meeting Will again had left her jangled and distressed, and it was hard to disentangle her feelings about him from all the hurt and confusion she had felt since Tony had left. Between them, they had left her feeling utterly wretched.

      If only she could rewind time and do things differently, this afternoon at least, Alice thought miserably. Seeing Will hadn’t been at all the way she had imagined. He wasn’t the man she had imagined him to be. If she had become brittle and superficial, he had grown hard and bitter. The young man with the humorous eyes and the reassuring steadiness had gone for good. Now that she knew what he had become, she couldn’t even dream of him the way he had been.

      The realisation that the Will she had loved was lost for ever felt like a bereavement. Alice’s throat worked, and she pressed her lips hard together to stop herself crying.

      There was no point in this, she told herself. She was upset because it was Tony’s wedding day, but that was no excuse. She had behaved badly. She had been defensive and unsympathetic and rude. No wonder Will hadn’t liked her. Now he had obviously left the party without saying goodbye, and she might not have another chance to say that she was sorry.

      It was no use trying to tell herself that she didn’t care. Here in the quiet garden with her restful companion she could acknowledge that she did.

      ‘There’s the butterfly again.’ The little girl broke the silence in hushed tones, and they both sat very still as the butterfly alighted on an upturned bucket. It was so big that it seemed almost clumsy, its wings so heavy that it blundered from perch to perch, flapping slowly through the hot air as if barely able to keep itself aloft.

      The child’s eyes were huge as she watched it. ‘I’ve never seen such a big butterfly before!’

      She obviously hadn’t been on the island that long, Alice reflected, although she could probably have told that anyway from her pale skin.

      ‘When I was a little girl I lived in Guyana,’ Alice said. ‘That’s in South America, and it was hot and humid, like this. Our house was on the edge of the jungle, and the garden was full of butterflies—blue ones and green ones and yellow ones, and butterflies with stripes and spots and weird patterns. Some of them were enormous.’

      ‘Bigger than that one?’

      ‘Much bigger.’ Alice spread out her fingers to demonstrate the wing span. ‘Like this.’

      The girl’s eyes widened further as she looked from the butterfly to Alice’s hand and back again, clearly trying to imagine a garden full of such creatures.

      ‘It must have been pretty,’ she commented.

      ‘They were beautiful,’ Alice remembered almost in surprise. Funny, she hadn’t thought about the garden in Guyana for years. ‘I used to sit on the verandah steps, just like we’re doing now, and watch them for hours.’

      The little girl looked solemn. ‘Didn’t you have any friends?’

      ‘Not then,’ said Alice. ‘It was very isolated where we lived, and I didn’t know many other children. I used to pretend that the butterflies were my friends.’

      How odd to remember that now, after all these years! She smiled, not unkindly, at her younger self.

      ‘I imagined that they were fairies in disguise,’ she confided to her small companion. It was strange how she felt more comfortable sitting here with the child than she had in the thick of a party thrown especially for her. Alice had never been a particularly maternal type, but she felt a strong sense of affinity with this quiet, plain little girl with her dark, wary eyes.

      ‘Fairies?’ the child breathed, riveted.

      ‘At night I thought their beautiful wings would turn into silk robes and gorgeously coloured dresses.’ Somehow it didn’t sound silly in this dark, tropical garden. ‘You know the sound the insects make when it’s dark here?’

      The girl nodded but her mouth turned down slightly. ‘I don’t like it. It’s loud.’

      ‘It was loud in Guyana, too,’ said Alice. ‘I used to think it was frightening, and then my father told me one night that it was just the sound of all the insects having a great party!’

      Her father had been good at nonsense like that. He’d told the young Alice extravagant stories, embellishing them until they were more and more absurd, and she had struggled to know how much to believe. She ought to remember the good times more often, Alice thought with a sudden pang. It wasn’t often that she thought of her childhood with affection, but it hadn’t been all bad.

      ‘So after that, whenever I couldn’t sleep because it was too hot, I’d lie there listening to the noise and imagine the butterflies talking and laughing and dancing all night.’

      She laughed softly, but the little girl looked struck. ‘I was a bit frightened by the noise too,’ she confessed. ‘But now I’ll think about them having a party like you said, and it won’t seem so strange.’

      ‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ Alice reassured her, and then nudged her, pointing silently as the butterfly came lumbering through the air towards them again. They both held their breath as it came closer and closer, fluttering indecisively for what seemed like ages before it settled at last on Alice’s foot.

      The child’s eyes widened in delight as she noticed for the first time that Alice’s shoes were decorated with tiny fabric butterflies, their beads and sequins catching the light, and she put a hand to her mouth to smother a giggle.

      ‘He likes your shoes,’ she whispered. ‘Do you think he knows those butterflies aren’t real?’

      Alice considered. ‘I’m not sure. Probably not. He doesn’t look like a very clever butterfly, does he?’

      A laugh escaped through the rather grubby little fingers, rousing the butterfly to flight once more, but Alice didn’t mind. It was such a pleasure to see the small, serious face lighten with a real smile. She guessed it didn’t happen very often and her heart constricted with a kind of pity. A little girl like this should be laughing and smiling all the time.

      ‘I like your shoes,’ she said to Alice, who stretched out her legs so that they could both admire them.

      ‘I like them too,’ she agreed. ‘But somebody told me today that they were silly.’ Her face darkened as she remembered Will’s comment.

      ‘I don’t think they’re stupid. I think they’re really nice.’

      ‘Well, thank you.’ Alice was ridiculously heartened by her approval. She peered down at the small feet next to her. ‘What are yours like?’

      ‘They’re just shoes,’ the child said without enthusiasm.

      Alice could

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