Return to Butterfly Island (7 page)

On an impulse China ran her finger along the fold between the pages, finding a slight roughness in the glued spine. Someone had torn out at least two pages! Well, if that didn’t prove the existence of the will, nothing would. Deciding to take the journal with her for safekeeping, China had a further look around the place, opening every cupboard in the room. Doors that she thought were just more wardrobe space revealed a marvelous surprise. On tightly packed shelves were row upon row of green-backed journals, all neatly labeled with the year on their spines.

Perspiring with sudden nerves, China ran her finger along the dates. Back and further back, down the years to the time her mother had taken her away from the island and the pair of them had seemingly vanished. Odd memories returned to China as she remembered going to Manchester University and then her first working years.
Tax forms always being wrongly addressed or calling her ‘Charlie’ or ‘Cherrie’. Mail always going astray, problems with anything she ever filled out that showed on databases.
She had always laughed at it all, calling it the ‘Curse of China’. But what if someone had been manipulating things behind the scenes?

She shook her head. Now she was in Frank Bellamy’s zone of conspiracy theories.

But as she reached the year she and her mother vanished, there was a space in the tightly packed volumes. Three consecutive years were missing. Three years packed with all that vital information, hiding the secret of what had made her mother flee Butterfly Island.

China swore again, something that was becoming a bad habit, looking to see if the books had been misfiled. She tried a third time with no luck.

McKriven
was the first word to manifest itself. Hiding the will’s existence she could understand, but why would he be so cruel as to steal the records of her childhood? Selecting the few volumes that might cover her birth, along with the current journal, she placed all the books safely in the backpack she’d brought with her for that purpose. Then, with a heavy heart, she went to see how the men were doing.
Three steps forward and two back,
she thought to herself.

It was then that she heard raised voices from up on the scaffolding and came back to reality with a bump. That voice shouting down the rest belonged to Donald Dart, and he was not sounding very happy.

Chapter 10

Exiting out of the back door of the square house took China into a battlefield. Handy Andy was squaring off against an enraged Donald whilst the other two builders shouted their encouragement from the safety of the scaffolding. The diminutive Andy was taunting a red-faced Donald, swinging practice punches all over the place, whilst Donald seemed to have reached that point where he was so angry he could no longer speak.

Providence lent a hand in the shape of a massive scruffy grey dog, as Morgan suddenly swept passed China and planted two large paws on Handy Andy’s chest. The odd-job man went down like a felled tree and the dog, having stopped the argument to his satisfaction, sat on top of this wire-haired opponent.

Jackie and Daniel dissolved into fits of laughter first, then China joined in and finally the confused and frustrated Donald.

“Honestly, I leave you boys alone for five minutes and it turns into the school playground all over again,” said China, still giggling at Andy’s plight, as Morgan refused to shift.

“Donald got hold of the wrong end of the stick, as usual. He thought we were starting to tear the place down for McKriven. We told him we wouldn’t touch work for that bugger for love nor money,” Jackie explained, swinging down off the scaffolding.

“I . . . kind of overreacted,” added Donald sheepishly.

“You don’t say? Morgan, leave our amateur boxer alone now. He’s going blue.”

Handy Andy was indeed going a funny colour with the weight of the massive dog on his chest. Obediently, Morgan trotted over to China’s side and sat down, but he kept a suspicious eye on all parties concerned. The animal did not like fighting or aggression of any kind and would always step in to stop it. It was just his way, and after years of protecting Aunt Beatrice he had already transferred his loyalty to China. She got the feeling he would protect her with his life.

Calming everyone down, she explained her plan to Douglas. After taking it all in he begrudgingly agreed it was a damn good idea. The job had always been far too much for just one man anyway, and if he was honest he enjoyed working alongside the others. After much huffing and puffing, he helped Andy to his feet and gave him a bear hug by way of saying sorry. It was a man thing.

It never ceased to amaze China how men struggled to express their true feelings. Only the very centered and the gay, like her friend Anthony, managed to connect to their inner selves. Then with Anthony, he usually went and spoiled things by going so over the top it was painful. She smiled for a moment, trying to imagine what Donald would think of Anthony—two totally different breeds of men. But two men who were now both in her life after all.

If she stayed here—big ‘if’ still—that would have to happen, even if she had to go back to Manchester and pack her friend in a box and post him to West Uist herself!

“So are we all happy, gentlemen?” she asked the team. There was a round of ‘Ayes’ and the work continued.

“You’re paying for this out of your own pocket?” Donald asked as he changed into his working overalls in the dusty kitchen.

China tried not to ogle as he stripped down to his boxer shorts, and failed miserably.

“To start with. I’ve had a few crazy ideas on how to raise some revenue if Aunt Bea really did leave nothing.” Then she told Donald about the missing pages in her aunt’s journal and the mislaid volumes.

“I saw her reading those books constantly when I was here. Maybe they’re in another room.”

“But if she was bedridden unless you carried her downstairs to ride in the buggy to church, or your aunt brought her meals, she had no need or the means to leave her room.”

“Funny you should mention Kirk. Even when she was at her worse, just a day before she died, she got me to take her to the church so she could say her prayers. Sat alone in that old freezing place in her pew as usual for almost an hour. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had caught a chill there.”

“It probably didn’t help. Am I OK to leave you in charge of this lot for a few hours. I have to get my laptop up and running and do a little research, if the Wi-Fi connection at Bellamy’s is working.”

“What about?”

She tapped the side of her nose, mysteriously. “All good stuff, Donald. Trust me.”

“I do.” He reached forward and pulled her too him. “Out of everyone I’ve ever known, I trust you.” They kissed just once in the kitchen, before Morgan began a low growl and they had to put some air between each other.

“Balmy dog! You’ll have to learn the difference between violence and passion!”

Morgan just wagged his tail and panted at her.

“Passion, eh? Is that what we’ve got, wee China Stuart?” Donald asked as he zipped up his overalls, ready to do some work.

“Getting there, if we can just find an ‘off’ switch for that temper of yours. Why do you fly off the handle all the time? It’s like being with a different person when you’re like that.”

Donald seemed to think long and hard for a moment, as if he were wrestling with his inner demons. “When I was a bairn, all I wanted to be was a fisherman like my da. He took me out to sea when I was three and I never wanted anything else. So I got my wish. The job is not what it used to be but we get by with reduced quotas and the like, just. But I remember being my happiest when I was running through the fields with a little wild-haired girl holding on to my hand, as we scared up the butterflies into the sky.”

“Like a living carpet,” she recalled, smiling at him.

“I wanted those days to last forever, but they didn’t. You went away, and I didn’t understand why.” He paused. “It was like a piece of me was missing as I grew up. Things I wanted to tell you at the end of the day that I never could. Conversations we never had. So I grew up resenting that you’d left me behind. After all these years and several, some, relationships, I’ve still a ball of this rage inside of me that I can’t get out.”

There was a silence between them. China didn’t know what to say.

“When you leave again . . .”

“If.”

“If. Such an innocent little word, that. Full of hopes and promises. Like when you ask your da to do something and he says, ‘Later’, you sort of know later is never going to come around.”

“Well ‘if’ is here now. I still don’t know why my mother had to get away . . . had to run. I always thought it was Aunt Bea’s fault, that she hated my mum for living when her nephew, my dad, Campbell Stuart died. But the little bit I’ve just read in her journal seems to show she still had a great affection for mum. That she wanted to find the two of us again. I have to put the past straight in my head before I can move forward, Donald, whether it’s here or back in Manchester. Then we’ll see where passion can take us.”

He nodded, letting that sink in, then went to join the others up on the scaffolding.
Did he understand? Did she really understand?
Life had taken one of its usual 180-degree turns and she hoped and prayed the pair of them would survive it.

“Prayed. Look at what this place is doing to me, Morgan. I’m turning all religious.”

The dog, unsurprisingly enough, said nothing in return. It was getting close to his mid-afternoon snack and he’d missed his dinner.

Saying bye to the team, she let Morgan lead her back down the hill at a fair pace. Away on the horizon, the sky was taking on a darker hue. Clouds were building up in the east and the storm, although a few days off, was on its way.

Getting back to The Cuckoo Inn, China helped behind the bar whilst Mrs. Baxter had a break, then she fed the ravenous Wolfhound and finally she went back out to the wooden table and benches at the front of the pub with her laptop, pen, and paper. She had set herself a task.

Given one smallish island, what could be done to earn money from it? What sort of people would be interested in visiting the place? Wildlife enthusiasts? The sixteen different species of butterfly alone were of some value. Then there was the shark fishing, all manner of water-sports; these made a start. Given the right incentives, what companies could be attracted to the island, raising the population, providing more jobs to keep the teenagers in work and halt the gradual migration of young families off the island and to the cities in search of work?

Then there was the historical value. The marshes to the west of the island had evidence of early human population as far back as four thousand years ago. The solitary standing stone on the peak of
Aon
hill; who had placed it there and why? Then the marvelous Grange itself on the taller
Dhà
hill and the Kirk out on the treacherous eastern cliffs.

Using the skills she had learned in the advertising agency and treating Butterfly Island like a marketable product, she began to formulate several avenues that were worth exploring. It was about then that Irene appeared at the table, with James McKriven’s proposal folder in one slightly sweating hand.

Aunt Bea’s funeral had been on a Friday, so today the school was closed and Irene had had time to recover from the Wake. But the folder had sat there by her bed as her boyfriend, Jackie, had risen early to get ready to meet China up at the Grange as arranged.

“What’s that doing here?” he had asked about the folder.

“Just something I said I’d do,” she had replied from under the bed covers.

Irene had missed China by minutes that morning, and the folder was hidden under her coat whilst she helped Mrs. Baxter with Saturday dinners in the pub. Having nodded to China as she returned from the Grange to grab a sandwich, she eventually screwed up her courage to do McKriven’s dirty work for him.

“Hi.” She smiled stiffly. “How’s the head?”

“Better than it was this morning,” China said, scribbling down another few notes. “I met your Jackie today, he seems really great.”

“He is, for putting up with me and my endless tales of which kid tried flushing our school newts down the loo this week. Did that job for him work out OK this morning?”

China stopped writing, shut her laptop, and explained the emergency plan to repair the roof of the Grange before the forecasted storm.

“Sounds a great idea. Plus I’ll have Jackie to keep me warm for the next few nights. Bonus.”

Again, her enthusiasm for the new project to save the Grange bubbling up inside of her, China was tempted to babble on and tell Irene a lot more. It was times like this that she missed Anthony being her sounding board, and the mobile reception was still iffy. But there was something about the schoolteacher’s manner and that ominous-looking folder that put her on her guard.

“What’s this, then?” she finally came out with, nodding towards the folder.

“My pound of flesh.” Irene sighed, pushing the thing across the bleached wooden table so that it rested against her laptop. “I promised James I’d show it to you. It’s that not-so-secret proposal he made with Beatrice to buy a large chunk of Stuart land and what his plans for the Grange were.”

China opened it pensively. It was a complex document, with a DVD tucked inside the folder lip and the all important copy of the contract prepared for her aunt to sign. Only now he was after
her
signature, and using Irene as some sort of go-between.

“So Aunt Bea hadn’t signed it after all. Good for her. This seems a heavy read. I really don’t feel comfortable looking at it without Mr. McGregor being with me.”

Irene held up her hands in agreement. “I understand, I really do. I had a peep at it last night when I was in my cups and it looked very complicated. Douglas McGregor’s gone butterfly hunting for the day in the marshes. He’ll be back when he’s hungry. It’s his passion and we lose him for days when he gets over to West Uist at this time of year.” She rose as if to leave, but China stopped her.

“Why are you being McKriven’s messenger? I thought most of the islanders hated his guts?”

“They do.
I
do, but he’d been buying up old debts and creating new ones to curry friends, so certain people, like myself, are in his pocket. There, I’ve told you. Can’t say I like it, but what options have I got?”

“The more I hear about James McKriven, the less I like him. It’s as if he’s playing chess with people’s lives. All these tiny, secretive moves adding up to a very complicated, very lucrative, end-game.”

“Who knows what goes on in that head of his? Without boring you with the details, I’m not the only one who he’s got over a financial barrel.”

Taking a big chance, China quietly told the school teacher about the missing pages in her aunt’s journal.

“The swine! He’s been spreading tattletales about Biddy Baxter, hinting that she’s off her head and she imagined this missing will.” Irene appeared outraged, her beaten-down demeanor now driven out by anger.

“I gathered as much. But what puzzles me is, if James had found the will he would have just destroyed it and never mentioned it again. The fact that he’s going to all this trouble to convince people it doesn’t exist, and that Mrs. Baxter is lying, suggests to me he hasn’t found it at all. But where would my aunt have hidden it?” asked China.

The two women batted ideas backwards and forwards on that conundrum whilst the afternoon wore on. When Mrs. Baxter brought them a couple of shandies out to quench their thirst, Irene patted the bench seat next to her. “Just listen to this, Biddy. China, tell her about the missing pages.”

As China’s tale unfolded again, it was Mrs. Baxter’s turn to bristle with anger.

“I knew it. I knew that little beggar had a key. He must have searched that house top to bottom searching for that will, then when he couldn’t find it, removed the one piece of evidence that proved it exists. I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I next clap eyes on him!”

“Just keep this between ourselves. Knowledge is power, ladies! I’ve not even told Donald. He’d only go ballistic again anyway.”

“And how are you two getting along?” Mrs. Baxter couldn’t help herself asking.

“OK. It’s like talking to two different people at the moment. The eight-year-old inside of him still blames me for leaving him behind, even though the adult is beginning to realize I had nothing to do with the idea. I was only six at the time! Mum told me we were going on an adventure holiday. I thought we’d be coming back after two weeks, but the holiday kind of went on indefinitely and we moved from here to there, wherever she could pick up casual work I guess.”