Butterfly's Shadow by Lee Langley Page B

advice, but as he reached the entrance, a woman appeared in the doorway – a vision in yellow, an impossible sight: a girl who should be safely far away in Oregon stood before him as though materialising from his wild thoughts. She laughed delightedly at his astonishment.
    ‘Surprise!’ she cried, opening her arms wide like a self-presenting conjuror.
    He folded her in an extravagant welcoming hug and saw, over her shoulder, Sharpless watching them, bleak faced. Once again Pinkerton felt sweat break out on his body.
    And Sharpless, seeing his niece flinging herself into the arms of a man he despised, felt incredulity melt into something like horror. Was Nancy, like Cho-Cho, to become a womanbetrayed? He felt a sinking of the heart, a taste of the pain that lay ahead.
    The afternoon aged into the evening and a tray of tea brought in by a servant was removed untouched, to be replaced by another, steaming hot, which cooled untouched in its turn. Nancy, huddled in the consul’s oversized wooden chair, tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Pinkerton had finally run out of words and the silence lengthened. She looked at the two men appraisingly, as though considering their relative merits. Her uncle seemed to have shrunk into himself; he looked old, the long face gaunt and drawn; Pinkerton sat very straight, naval cap tucked under his arm, as though facing an examining board – which in a way he was.
    Nancy said slowly, her voice drained of expression, ‘So. You have a child.’
    He nodded.
    ‘Did you not know this before?’
    ‘Not exactly . . .’
    She frowned in puzzlement. ‘How could you not know exactly , Ben? Either you know you have a child or you don’t.’
    He had been uncertain, he said. He tried to explain the difficulties: the naval life, moving about from place to place, communication chancy . . . It sounded thin, even to his ears.
    Nancy attempted to keep to the facts that could be established. The certainties of this messy affair.
    ‘So the child’s mother died.’
    ‘Well, no.’
    ‘ No ?’
    Sharpless saw a steeliness enter his niece’s face, an expression he had seen in his sister. She leaned forward, hands gripping the arms of her chair.
    ‘You have a wife ?’
    Haltingly, he tried to build a picture for her of how it had been. A man, lonely, far from home. The local custom. A wifehere was not for always. It was . . . what was it? The words filled his mouth like fur balls in a cat’s throat; he coughed, tried to swallow. ‘It was a mistake. But it happened.’
    A spasm of disgust. She glanced carefully about the room, as though assessing the framed prints on the walls.
    Pinkerton’s ruddy complexion had drained into greyness. He looked and sounded like a sick man as he fumbled his way through a thicket of words: he knew it was impossible for Nancy to condone what had happened. He did not expect her to forgive him; nothing could make up for what he had done. He was the worst of men. All he could attempt now was to do what was right for the child. But he wanted her to know that she mattered more to him than the world—
    Nancy stood up briskly.
    ‘I’m going back to the ship now.’ She addressed Sharpless, her voice as mechanical as a railroad station announcement:
    ‘Will you get a rickshaw for me, please?’
    ‘Wait!’ It was almost a shout. Pinkerton added, quietly, ‘Please. Hear me out.’
    Sharpless stood up. ‘I’ll leave you—’
    But Nancy, in a quiet, dead voice, asked him to stay.
    And Pinkerton talked on, sentence after stumbling sentence, his words filling the room like a thickening gas.
    He said desperately, ‘It’s not the kid’s fault. He’s my son and I can’t just abandon him. I want to give him a life, I reckon it would be the Christian thing to do. It would be asking too much of you, I know that. But – can we talk? Please? ’
    After a while Sharpless found it hard to breathe. He reached for a fragile cup of cold tea and drained it. He sensed Nancy’s