Free The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill Page B

by the looks of things, Peig had taken good care of it; it gleamed with polish. It took me right back, seeing it there, to the small sitting room in the castle. The mistress had the room all decorated in dark colors, what she called the “Moorish” style: mahogany and rosewood furniture, and the chairs stained dark with deep fringed red and black embroidered covers. There was a tall mirror over the fireplace, a torture to polish, and to the left of it the butterfly cabinet stood, just behind the door. I’d see her in there sometimes, when I was sent to putturf on the fire, or draw the curtains, or collect a tray. She liked to sew in there; a strange thing, that. She always mended her own clothes. She was at her most still in that room, with the light from the fire playing on the walls and her head bent over her work. You could see then what the master must have seen in her, what he must have loved. But it was all too rare for the rest of us, and for the children in particular. You can’t rear children on morsels of love.
    In Peig’s cottage, I put my thumb and finger on one of the little wooden pulls and did what I had never dared to do the whole time I was in the house: I pulled open a drawer of the cabinet. I was standing there with the diary in my hands when Conor ran into the room. Isn’t that a strange idea, Anna, that I knew your husband before you did? He was only a wee toot, and him up now the height of the spouting. He was a darling child, dark like his father and full of devilment, the two eyes shining like marbles in his head and that dimple that he still has, right in the middle of his chin. He had a wee truck in his hand, a red one, and he said to me, “Look out, Nanny, here comes Flash Gordon!” and he came straight at me with it, flying it like it was a rocket ship. I laughed and cried, “Help! Help!” and ducked out of his way. I slid the diary back into a drawer and Conor flew the truck over my head, the pair of us laughing, and then he came at me again and I took off with him on my heels, chasing me around the room. He made one big swoop with his arm, but his hand caught on the cabinet on the way past and a skelf came out of the wood and went right into the ball of his thumb, and his face changed, all of a sudden. Poor wee mite, he was trying to be brave but a tear came in his eye and I felt that bad; I should have had more sense, chasing round the room with him after me. I asked him to let me look and there was the piece of ebony, dark as a blackthorn, buried in his hand.
    I said: “Will you let me try and take it out?” and he nodded and bit his lip. I slid my thumbnail under the skelf and caught itwith my other nail and he screwed up his face but he stood steady, and I knew I had it—I could feel it between my fingers—and I caught it tight and pulled it right out.
    He looked at it, at the small dagger of wood with the spot of red on the end of it, and at the blood seeping out of the cut on his hand, and he said, “Can I keep it, Nanny?” and I said, “Yes,” and not a tear was shed. He still remembers that, I know, because he told me that day we were all on the beach.
    I asked Owen for the cabinet and Greta said it was an ugly thing and I was welcome to it. Owen put it into Shivers’s lorry and drove it round to the yellow house in Victoria Terrace himself, with the little black prison diary still tucked up inside. Look, Anna, in the corner there, can you see it, behind the door? I’ve used it as a kind of treasure chest: it houses all the things that matter to me, and all the things that I thought might matter to you and to Conor as well. It was the only thing I brought with me when I came back here. That’s a strange journey when you think of it: from here, to Peig’s, to your mother’s house and back here again. You can see where Conor took the bit out of the side of it, Anna—can you see there? To the left-hand side? So there you are, it has history for both of you: it’s only