Black Butterfly Read Free Page B

though.
    Christmas Box– you didn’t see that one coming, did you? The product of too much Montrachet and a broken axle on the road to Zagreb, he was an indiscretion that didn’t even have the excuse of being youthful. One really doesn’t expect bundles to turn up on one’s doorstep on frosty Yuletide Eves, when the heat is in the very sod and one is entertaining a plumber’s mate in the pantry (I bat for both the First and Second Eleven, if you recall). But that’s exactly what had happened. Several urgent tugs–at the doorbell, you understand–summoned me to the front door and I’d grumpily left off the plumb-bob. In the snow outside I found a tiny child with a gently snubbed nose and the brightest boot-button eyes. Tied to his toe was a scribbled shipping label in the clumsy hand of the Zagrebian temptress, explaining all.
    I’d done the decent thing–for once in my life–and given the brat my name, plus another in honour of the season (I was never going to call him Noel, was I?), then packed him off to some ancient boarding school for his betterment. On high days and holidays, I was obliged to take him out for an airing.
    Despite my best efforts at succouring his artistic soul, Christmas had sat glumly through various exhibitions and museum trips, only brightening at the prospect of a knee-grazing trip to the park. I fear that, like his mother, he had an unhealthy interest in outdoor pursuits.
    The little squib was forever complaining that everything was awfully boring and why couldn’t we go and see some racing cars down at Brooklands or something? Finally, in a kind of desperate parental funk, I had enrolled the lad in the Scouts.
    Well, that’s not strictly accurate. For, with National Servicewinding down and Teddy Boys slashing up the upholstery in crumbling picture-houses, the dib-dib-dibbers had been reborn as the grandly titled ‘New Scout Movement’. The great unwashed had seized on this with fervour, gleefully stuffing thousands of their grisly offspring into camps where they could expend all their pent-up energy washing Morris Travellers and helping veterans of El Alamein across the road. Its Honorary Chairman was the much-loved Lord Battenburg and it was a real force for good, according to the Daily Mail –although that’s rarely a happy sign.
    To me it all sounded horribly healthy and well-intentioned but then, as you may know, I had a depraved childhood.
    For some unfathomable reason, the whole summer knees-up was set to kick off on one of those queer little islands that squat in the outer reaches of the Thames. Christmas and I motored through Town and then headed south through Richmond until we came to a crumbling wooden footbridge that connected the mainland to the island.
    The bruised sky threatened thunder.
    Christmas, looking like a little lead soldier in his navy-blue coat, stomped boldly over the bridge and past scrubby outcrops of leafless bushes. We then crossed a second, more substantial bridge, over a weir, where water thundered down in plumes.
    ‘Come on , Daddy,’ mewled Christmas. ‘We’ll be late. Miss ffawthawte says that punctuality is a virtue.’
    ‘Oh, does she now?’ I grumbled. I was already conjuring visions of flyblown church halls and pallid youths in vests doing physical jerks. Which is not nearly as much fun as jerkingphysical youths in vests, pallid or otherwise. ‘I’m sure whatever wonders they have in store, they’ll keep. And who is this Miss…what did you say she was called?’
    ‘Miss ffawthawte,’ piped the boy. ‘You know . She’s the one who got me started.’
    ‘I thought I was the one who got you started.’
    ‘You just signed the forms.’
    ‘So I did.’ With a heavy heart and not in the least interested, I pushed open a sagging wooden gate marked Private .
    Beyond lay a broad meadow, dotted with pyramid-shaped tents and small wooden houses, jetties leading from each to the river. The pathway was overhung by weeping willows. From