The Boy Who Was Afraid of Butterflies - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Running the Gauntlet

The sweat is already prickling at the back of my neck. Even as I saunter, as slowly as I dare, past the brown-tinged whiteness of the fading lilac in the corner of the front garden, I know they will be there. When I looked out of my bedroom window this morning, peering beneath the net curtains into the sunstreaked shadows of our tiny front lawn and privet hedge, then gazed up at the unblemished blue above, I groaned to myself because I knew I would have no escape, I’d have to run the gauntlet. Summer exacts its penalty. Even to this day, I love dark clouds and rain bespattered windows.

I’ve reached the solid wooden gate now, but place my hands not on the latch, but on the smooth unpainted surface, while my eyes search the sentinel rows of scarlet dahlias bordered by clumps of purple aubretia that line the flower beds either side of the asphalt path that stretches into infinity the ten yards or so between where I stand and the dark green door.

At first it looks all clear. Then, as I stare in disbelief and hope, I can see them winking at me as they lay basking in the sun, their gaudy wings camouflaged in the scarlet petals. I see the movement now, the opening and closing like the flexing of tiny muscles, the odd jerky twitches as a small tortoiseshell turns its body to absorb the sun’s rays, or see me better. The deceiving sense of calm, shattered suddenly as a bevy of fluttering insects scramble haphazardly a foot or so into the heavy air, then daintily alight again, tickling the dahlias’ stamens.

There are more than I thought at first. I feel sick with fear as I stare mesmerised at the eyes of a peacock butterfly which is spread-eagled on the nearest plant. They are the worst of all. Tortoiseshells, red admirals, peacocks. I can just about stand cabbage whites as long as they stay in their clumps of nettles.

Someone is coming up the road. It is no good, I’m not ready yet to commit myself to the headlong plunge, nor do I wish for my discomfiture to be observed. I turn on my heels and make as if to walk back home, pretending I’ve already carrying out grandma’s first shopping errand to the grocer at the corner. I drag my feet, hands deep in the pockets of my grey flannel shorts, muttering to myself, trying not to look the approaching figure in the eye. It is alright. It is no-one I know.

As soon as the woman has passed, I halt and wait for her to get far enough away, so that I will not be heard when I turn round and retrace my steps. I pray she won’t look back; perhaps she’d think I was following her. Better that than the real explanation. I’m back at the gate again, staring at the familiar green door of the pre-war stolid brick-built council house. For some reason grandma always keeps it locked, we only ever use the back door which is round the side of the house opposite grandpa’s runner beans. Once I can get past that door I’m safe; the vegetables take over from the flowers.

I try to count the waiting butterflies, but each time I’m nearly through, a couple flutter into the air and settle somewhere I’ve not yet covered, and I lose count again. I want to wait until all are settled, drowsy, so that I can catch them unawares, be past them before they realise. Then I see a tortoiseshell is opening itself on the bare pathway where I need to run. What can it find there of interest? I check that no-one is in sight now, before scrabbling at the foot of the little brick wall to pick sticks from the hedge and stones from the crumbling earth. I clutch my armoury, and still making sure that no-one is watching me, I begin to throw the stones at the basking butterfly. It takes three spattering the path before it takes fright and hops a foot or so to the nearest clump of aubretia, as if mocking me to dare to move it on again.

Is all quiet enough now to take the plunge? Let me test! I throw a couple of my sticks along the path. The first time nothing stirs, but at the second, one of the peacocks rears up in alarm, but it will not go away; the idiot insect only moves in the end to the adjacent bloom, still vulnerable to my antics. I throw another stick and hold my breath, willing nothing to move. I put my finger on the catch, and like a burglar, surreptitiously release the mechanism, and try to open the gate wide enough to slip through without creaking hinges giving me away. I dare not turn my back, so as I stand there, eagle-eyed for the slightest movement, I fumble with my fingers behind my back to close the latch, thus trapping myself with no escape now.

I pull my socks up as near to my knees as I can get them without pulling the threads into a hole, and turn my school blazer lapels up round my throat, leaving as little of my bare skin exposed as possible. Then, feeling sick and gasping for breath, I shut my eyes as tightly as I can and summon every nerve end and run, blindly, panic-stricken, whilst the sunlight flickers on my eyelids causing red and orange shooting stars that I flail at as if they were butterflies hammering at my brain. I crash into the green door, as usual, insensitive to the bruises, and rebound instinctively to the left, simultaneously opening my eyes in relief, looking over my shoulder to see the whirling kaleidoscopic wings beating in rhythmic disarray where I have bisected them.

As soon as I round the corner, I lean on the door of the coal-house, exhausted, trembling, trying to regain my poise, my equilibrium, before bursting in the back door and greeting my grandmother with all the nonchalance a ten year old can muster.

Let me interrupt here. Perhaps we need some more information. Let us look for a moment through the eyes of the woman who was passing by. When she turned the corner of the little road, with its rows of terraced houses crowding the pavement on one side and the between-the-wars semis set back in their proudly cultivated gardens on the other, all she saw was the lone figure of the boy. He was hanging over the gate and her first reaction was that he was up to no good. Then as she got closer, she realised from his clothing that he was not a young tear-away from the estate, but was a well-brought up, even timid, child.

As she approached him, he turned guiltily from whatever he was staring at, and began to walk towards her. He was a small lad, too small for his age, she thought, too formally dressed for a Saturday. He was wearing black lace-up shoes, long grey socks neatly turned over just below the knees; short, pressed grey flannel trousers, a navy blue blazer over which the collar of his crisp white shirt was turned, immaculate, unboylike. His head seemed almost too large for his body; perhaps it was the effect of his enormous deep brown eyes, which sought to avoid hers as soon as he realised she was looking at him. When he passed her, his head resolutely cast down, she saw only the mass of black glossy bryl-creemed hair, and the rebellious tuft which stuck straight up from his crown, defying all efforts of his mother to tame it. She didn’t know him. She thought no more about him. She didn’t turn back to see him hesitate and retrace his awkward steps, nor wonder why.

Every Saturday I spend the morning with my grandparents. I help grandpa in the back garden, tying back the beans, or picking the fruit from the neatly groomed trees that grandma wants to stew for dessert. I sometimes slip across the road to the little grocery to buy something that grandma may have forgotten, as long as it’s not a hot summer day when I’d have to run the gauntlet of the butterflies again - I’d make any excuse to avoid that. More often than not I accompany her to the main street where we stock up at the Co-op and everyone she meets she knows, and long boring conversations ensue, but at least it’s putting off the time when we return to the house and I have to cover up my panic hiding behind her skirts, using her as a sort of summer snow-plough. I carry the heavy basket of vegetables for her, my last bastion if the enemy gets through the defences.

I help grandma prepare the midday meal. Because I object to lumpy custard - I was a very fussy boy - she lets me stir the sauce and crush the powder, pretending not to notice when I lick the spoon of its yellow liquid, before the foaming milk is poured on.

Once a month, in the afternoon, we catch a red double-decker bus to shop in Kingston. I have no idea what she buys, but we always have an ice-cream from the big silver machine in Woolworths. I watch fascinated as the girl curls the cone so that the soft creamy substance spirals preposterously like the castle turrets in the book which is one of my prize possessions. I go up and down the escalator in the big department store, but the best treat of all is the clothing store near the bus station, where the ceiling is criss-crossed by wires, with cylindrical containers whizzing about making curious plopping noises, and the pipes disappearing into the floor, where the assistant puts the metal cylinder with our money. When she opens the little latch, there is a noisy rushing sound, and as soon as she inserts the container it disappears at once with a very satisfying ‘whoompf’. I wait in anticipation, yet it still surprises me every time. Without warning, there is a sudden sharp retort and clatter, and the metal cylinder shoots out from its tube to the terminal on the counter. The assistant extracts the change, and I dawdle as we make our way from the dim interior towards the sunlight, wanting to see just one more rocket catapult across the high wire, like a noisy shooting star.

On the afternoons we stay at grandma’s home, if I am not in the garden, or holding down a piece of wood in the shed while grandpa is sawing off a length to mend the fence, I will be sitting on the edge of an armchair, poring over my favourite book which is kept here to keep me amused. It is a thick book, with hard navy blue covers, on which is embossed the title ‘1001 Wonders of the World’. It belonged to my father and on the flyleaf, in fading brown ink, is the copperplate inscription, ‘To Jack Maidment, for achieving 100% in the Scripture Examination, East Molesey Methodist Church, 1924’. My favourite section, which I return to again and again, is the illustrated chapter on scientific wonders, and amid the telescopes and airships, there is a picture of the latest and greatest technology of the railways, the Great Western steam locomotive, ‘Caerphilly Castle’, with its caption that says it is the most powerful locomotive in Great Britain.

The problem is that to find this section of the book, I have to leaf through the previous chapter which is about the insect kingdom, and the book inevitably seems to open at the colour plate of outsize tropical butterflies, some in real life proportions. I can scarcely bear to touch the page, for the illustrations are so vivid on the glossy paper that they seem to leap out at me and I turn the pages over in unseemly haste, sometimes nearly tearing the paper in my panic. Near the back of the book is another chapter which has a curious effect on me. Great waterfalls of the world - Niagara, Victoria, Reichenbach, the Angel Falls - I know their names by heart, but as I look at the black and white photographs, my eyes seem to see movement in the water and I feel dizzy as though I have vertigo. I will grow out of this, just as if it is a childhood allergy. My other phobia will never go away.

My grandma wishes I would play with other children of my own age. When she sends me to the grocers, she knows that the owner’s ten year old daughter, Esmée, will most likely be helping her father behind the counter. But I don’t take any notice of her or show any inclination to want the company of other children.

Once grandma tackled me. “Why don’t you see if Esmée could play with you?”

“No, I don’t want to,” I replied morosely.

“Why ever not?”

“Her nose is always running and she doesn’t use her handkerchief, she uses her sleeve.”

I was a fastidious little boy.