9
Sylvia Mulqueen had turned sixty in early December, and one of her birthday presents to herself, she’d announced to Wolfgang and his father that evening three weeks ago, was a release from the annual obligation of cooking them a roast dinner at Christmas. They had cold ham and salad instead. For dessert there was tinned fruit and ice-cream in place of the usual boiled Christmas pudding with custard. Wolfgang enjoyed the break from tradition. It meant far fewer dishes to wash and dry afterwards, and he didn’t have to spend the remainder of the afternoon lying round feeling bloated and sleepy. He went for a ride instead.
His parents had bought him a new mountain bike for Christmas. It had front and rear suspension and disc brakes – the same model (probably the same bike) he had seen in the window of Gleeson’s Cycles a month earlier and mentioned, perhaps more than once, to his mother. As soon as the dishes were finished, Wolfgang strapped on his collecting bag and helmet, and pedalled out into the back lane.
Since finding the black wing, he’d had five days to think about the road to Maryborough and the most likely butterfly habitats between the two towns. There were at least five stretches of unfarmed bush and scrubland that he could remember. The most likely of these was Sheepwash Creek, about twelve kilometres from New Lourdes. Stretches of the narrow waterway were heavily overgrown. Wolfgang knew this from experience – he’d gone collecting there with his father two or three years earlier. If the black butterfly was indeed a new species, it must have come from an extremely localised colony to have remained undetected for so long. The key to finding it was to discover its host plants – the specialised diet of its caterpillars – and the overgrown banks of Sheepwash Creek seemed a good place to start looking.
It wasn’t a particularly hot day for that time of year; a brisk south-westerly wind kept the temperature down to a comfortable twenty-six or twenty-seven degrees. But Wolfgang cursed the wind. Not only did it make the ride slow and tiring – it was blowing directly into his face – but it would inhibit his chances of finding anything. Butterflies are shy of the wind, more likely to be sheltering on a day such as this than going about their normal butterfly business. Too bad. Today was Wolfgang’s first opportunity to go looking for the black butterfly and he didn’t have another day off until next Tuesday or Wednesday.
He hid the bicycle in a mallee thicket and spent two sweaty, unproductive hours pushing through the scratchy understorey along the banks of the creek. He had been right about the wind – there were no butterflies about. There were plenty of flies though; they kept up a constant assault on his eyes and nostrils and mouth. By five o’clock he’d had enough. He was hot, scratched and extremely thirsty, having carelessly left his water bottle clipped to his bicycle. Packing away his collapsible butterfly net, Wolfgang began making his way back towards the road.
Rather than follow the overgrown creek bank, where progress was slow and often difficult, he made the return journey through the open farmland that bordered the creek. It was an easy walk over the brown stubbly grass and, despite having to cross three fences and a concrete irrigation channel, it took him less than thirty minutes to get back to his bicycle. The water bottle had been in the sun for most of the afternoon but its contents still tasted delicious. A small green and yellow bird, a honeyeater of some kind, alighted on an acacia branch less than three metres away.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Wolfgang toasted it.
As he clipped on his helmet, Wolfgang wondered how his friends were spending Christmas day. Mark Cowan was camping with his family down at Ocean Grove. Steve Taylor would be playing backyard cricket with his father, his uncle and his four cousins who came across each year from Shepparton. And me? Wolfgang thought. I’m out in the bush talking to honeyeaters. Still, it was better than sitting in front of the television all afternoon with his geriatric parents watching Miracle on 34th Street. Better than being blind.
‘How could I have said that?’ he groaned, scaring away the honeyeater.
Audrey had pretended not to hear. But he had seen the involuntary tightening of the muscles around her mouth. And the way her sightless blue eyes – the same aqua blue as the pool on a sunny day – had narrowed slightly, as though angered or hurt. Probably both.
‘Thanks for coming round,’ she’d said, closing the door on him almost before he was all the way out.
The butterfly flew across the road only metres in front of him. Wolfgang braked so hard he nearly went over the handlebars. His new bicycle had good brakes. He swerved across the road’s gravel shoulder and went bumping down through a weed-choked gutter in pursuit. He pulled up at the fence. The butterfly had gone straight through the wires and into the paddock beyond. Already it was fifteen metres away, zigzagging low across the yellowed grass. It was one of the smaller browns, impossible to say which. Wolfgang laid his bike on the ground and swung himself across the creaking fence. There were several horses in the paddock and a farmhouse through some trees, but these were details Wolfgang barely registered as he ran after the butterfly. He shrugged off his backpack as he ran, pulled out his net and let the backpack fall to the ground. Still running, he unwrapped the nylon mesh from its circular wire frame and let out the telescopic aluminium shaft. Ahead of him, the butterfly slowed and circled a tall scotch thistle. Wolfgang slowed, too. Holding the net two-handed, he made a detour around the butterfly and approached it from downwind. It shot straight up as he came close, but Wolfgang had anticipated the move and swung the net in a quick arc.
‘Got you!’ he said, triumphant.
Breathing heavily from the chase, Wolfgang retraced his steps to his discarded backpack and crouched to examine his prize. It was a female shouldered brown, a rare visitor this far north of the Divide. Perhaps the wind had brought it to him, a Christmas gift. Thank you, baby Jesus! The afternoon hadn’t been wasted, after all.
Wolfgang heard the approach of hooves as he carefully transferred the butterfly to his killing jar. Only when the lid was closed did he look up. Four horses, three chestnuts and one grey, stood in a semicircle watching him. They were only ten metres away; they looked huge. Wolfgang picked some grass for them as he waited for the butterfly to die, but the horses were shy of him and backed away when he approached. He tossed the grass in their direction and returned to his collecting equipment. He realised he was still wearing his helmet.
When the butterfly was dead, Wolfgang transferred it to his field box with a pair of forceps, gently flattened its wings, then used a pin to secure it to the box’s cork lining. Beautiful.
He already had two female shouldered browns at home, but both were from his father’s collection. This was his own. They were always more special when you’d collected them yourself.
Collected. He thought of Audrey again. I should have apologised.
The horses followed him back to the fence. They seemed skittish. It was unnerving hearing their hooves and loud breathing behind him. Wolfgang was relieved to put the barrier of the fence between him and them. He pulled up a clump of long grass from the roadside ditch and this time one of the chestnuts dared to come close enough to pull it out of his hands with its mobile black lips.
I’ll see her tomorrow, Wolfgang thought. I’ll apologise then.