The Butterfly Heart (3 page)

Dad
went up north today, so he wasn’t home for supper, and I wonder if Mum deliberately chooses these times to give us lectures. This one started at supper because Madillo made a speech about being older than me and how that meant she should always get her food first. She did come out first – that bit is true – but identical twins are really only two people by accident. One egg splits and two embryos grow instead of one. So technically she is not older.

Whenever Mum gets an opportunity to tell us how lucky we are, she takes it. So she leapt in. “Madillo, instead of wanting to be first in the queue, you should be grateful for your mere existence.”

That silenced both of us. I could have expected the usual “millions of children wouldn’t mind
when
they got food as long as they got something…” But not this.

“If you were horses…” Mum went on. “Well, if
I
was a horse that had fallen pregnant with twins, the vet would be called and one of the eggs would be pinched to death. One of
you
.”

“Pinched to death? I’ve never heard of that.” I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“Yes. Pinched. So it withers away. And the mare –
me
, in this case – is left with only one foal. One of
you
, in other words.”

“Well, that’d only be if you were a tame horse,” Madillo said. “If you were wild, there’d be no vet to call and then both of us would be born. Then I might demand to get food first.”

“Or you’d both die, taking me along with you. And, on the subject of existence, what if one of you had disappeared? It’s a phenomenon, you know: the Phenomenon of the Disappearing Twin.” Mum announces things like that as if they are just daily occurrences, twins disappearing all over the place, never to be seen again.

“In humans or horses?” I said.

“I’m talking humans here, Bul-Boo,” she said. “Twins can show up on a scan and then, by the time of the next scan, one of them has disappeared. There is evidence to suggest that it disappears into the other twin. If that had happened in your case, either one of you could have ended up with a tiny pre-human embedded somewhere in your body.”

Mum sat back and started eating again, as if she had just had a perfectly normal conversation. I could have lived my whole life quite happily without knowing any of these facts.

“Is there a Phenomenon of the Disappearing Triplet?” Madillo asked.

“There is.”

“I have always had a feeling there was someone else in my life… I wonder where she’s embedded? Maybe in my shoulder. I think I’ll call her Mary.”

For pretty obvious reasons both Madillo and I like simple names: Mary, Anna, Emily – they all sound good to us. If we had names like that, no one would ever ask us, “Now, dear, how do you spell that?”

“What makes you think she’s in your shoulder and not mine?” I asked.

“I feel her presence, a small tingling presence.” This was all said in perfect Madillo style, whispery with a “no further discussion” kind of sound to it.

“Madillo, don’t talk nonsense,” Mum said, as if it hadn’t been her who had planted the idea in the first place.

This got me thinking about being a twin. It is almost all good being a twin, mainly because I always have someone to talk to. There are a few downsides, like being referred to as “the twins”, as if that explains everything. (We do have names; we are not, as Dr Seuss might have had us, Twin One and Twin Two; we are, in fact, very different from each other.) But I am glad Madillo is my twin, even though I didn’t have much choice about it. And I am glad that Mum and Dad are not horses, because knowing my luck I would have been the one to have been pinched.

I decided that after supper I would ask Madillo about Winifred, to see whether she had noticed her strange behaviour too. So when we had done the washing-up and were left in the kitchen – that’s where we do our homework – I asked if she had noticed anything strange about Winifred recently. Madillo leant forward. “Strange? What kind of strange?” she said.

“Well, she doesn’t put her hand up any more, she’s been late for school … and I think she’s getting thinner. I can see it in her face.”

Madillo closed her eyes briefly. “Probably spirit possession. What else could it be, with those symptoms? That must be it. Come to think of it, her eyes have been looking a bit odd recently…”

All this from someone who had not noticed anything until I pointed it out! Madillo sat back, waiting for me to agree with her.

Generally, agreeing is the best thing to do with Madillo. The easy route would have been to nod and say something like “Mmm, it could be… You never know”, as if spirit possession was one of a normal range of possibilities. I do not usually take the easy route. So I raised my left eyebrow and said, “Really?” to give her the opportunity to expand. She needed no second invitation.

“Well, three things have happened, according to you, in the space of a week: she’s stopped putting up her hand, she was late and she’s getting thinner. Have you noticed what she actually does when Sister asks a question?”

“She just sits there with her head down,” I answered.

“I think if you looked a little closer, you might see a silent struggle going on between her and her spirit occupier. You’d probably see her trying to put her hand up but not being able to. I think her spirit is evil…”

Madillo was in full swing now.

“That’s rubbish and you know it,” I said, knowing I would be ignored.

“And her face getting thinner? You have some other explanation for that, Bul-Boo?”

“Weight loss? Tapeworm? Worry?” I said. “Three million reasons that would be better than yours.”

She shook her head and said solemnly, “No, I think the spirit is eating away at her.”

It seemed like a good time to end the conversation. Evil spirits aren’t really my thing, and no matter what I said, nothing would change my sister’s mind anyway.

I
didn’t think about the Kongamato much last night because my head was too full of Winifred. I was remembering the time Madillo and I became friends with her.

It was after we discovered that she also knew the Snake Man, Ifwafwa. One day in class we were doing English and Sister asked us to make up a story about trees. I couldn’t think of anything but Madillo was the first to volunteer. It’s quite something to watch Madillo tell a story because she’s pretty dramatic about it.

She went and stood at the front of the class, even though she could have stayed at her desk. And then she started.

“This is my story of the Kondanamwali – the tree that eats maidens. It is the biggest baobab tree known to humans, and it stands proudly in the Kafue National Park. Once upon a time four beautiful girls lived in the shade of this tree, and lo and behold, it fell in love with them.”

You can see what I mean about the drama. She loves phrases like “lo and behold”, and her tale was accompanied by hand-waving and crouching and whispering. Pretty impressive, I have to admit – you wouldn’t catch me doing that for anything.

Madillo looked around the class. “Yes, it fell in love with all four of them at the same time. Smitten with a terrible love. When they grew up, the four young maidens decided one night to leave the tree and go off in search of husbands. The tree heard them planning this; it heard their giggles and became wildly jealous. The night before they planned to leave, there was a raging thunderstorm. No one had ever seen or heard anything like it. The lightning flashed and darted and the thunder terrified the young maidens. They cowered by the trunk of the giant tree.

“This suited the tree very well and it opened up its great trunk and swallowed them. They had no idea where they were. All they knew was that suddenly they were dry, they couldn’t hear the thunder and it was dark all about them. They clung to one another in terror as they slowly realized that they were inside the tree. There was no escape.

“And there they have been ever since. On stormy nights you can hear them crying inside the tree – people who live there are afraid to go near it. That is one of the reasons why you should never seek shelter under a tree when there is lightning.” Madillo paused and looked at Winifred, who was sitting next to me, right at the front of the classroom. “Would you go near it, Winifred?”

Winifred was smiling. “No, Madillo. Why would I? I don’t want to be swallowed by a tree.”

Madillo turned back to the class, clapped her hands and bowed. “So, Sister, that is my story of a tree.”

Sister Leonisa isn’t usually free with praise, but she did say a grudging well done to Madillo. At that point Winifred – who I did not know very well yet – whispered in my ear, “I know that story; the Snake Man told it to me.”

So that was why she had been smiling: she’d known it wasn’t Madillo’s story. At breaktime I told this to Madillo, who blushed a little but then ran off to talk to Winifred.

When the Snake Man told us that story, I remember asking him why he didn’t go and get the maidens out, because – as far as I can see – he is afraid of nothing. He just smiled. That’s what he does when he doesn’t feel like answering you.

It was from that day that Madillo and I really started to get to know Winifred. Before it had mainly been just the two of us, and sometimes Fred – but he’s really a home friend. We get on with the others in the class, but it’s hard to make new friends, because – well, we have each other and often that is enough. Sometimes too much. But now we have Winifred. She has made school more interesting, and it’s funny that our two best friends are both Freds, in different ways.

Winifred has also made us like PE a little more than we did. Not a whole lot more – I don’t think that will ever happen – but a little. Madillo and I don’t really like PE. It’s not because we’re lazy, it’s just that things like netball don’t really excite us. Madillo hates that you have to stand still when you have the ball. Also, if you’re not one of the best in the team then the others don’t really pass it to you, which is especially boring. Winifred changed all that. She is one of the best at netball, so she always has the ball, and when she gets it she passes it to us. Because she does that, the others now do it as well, as if they imagine that we’re good because Winifred thinks so. So we’re trying to get a bit better, just so we don’t let her down.

When I got to school this morning, I decided I had to speak to her. It was worse than ever. Her eyes were all puffed up and red – she had definitely been crying. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look so sad.

Winifred is full Zambian, not half-and-half like me and Madillo. Dad says I mustn’t say half-and-half, I must say I am a two hundred per cent child – one hundred per cent Bemba and one hundred per cent Irish. But that’s too long and there’s nothing wrong with half-and-half, because added together two halves make a whole, just a more interesting one. Winifred is Bemba-speaking, even though a lot of people in Lusaka speak Nyanja. Her dad, who is dead now, came from the Northern Province, like our dad. I suppose her mum did as well. She is still alive, thank goodness. I wouldn’t like to think of Winifred being an orphan. They live in Kalingalinga, which is not far from us.

Their house has two rooms, and in it live Winifred and her mother as well as the uncle that she hates and some other children who are related to her – but I don’t know them. I cannot bear to think what it would be like if Dad died and then an uncle came and took his place. And my dad’s brothers are actually nice. Winifred says her uncle has a very loud voice and drinks a lot of beer.

I don’t know how she manages to arrive at school every day so neat and tidy or get her homework done when she lives in such a crowded house. And still she gets nothing wrong. When I said this to Madillo earlier, she reminded me that this was before the evil spirit took over her body and mind. By this stage the evil spirit had acquired a name – Minuminu, which in Bemba means “blind snake”. In Madillo’s imagination I am sure it even has a mother and father and a couple of brothers and sisters. They are probably, in her mind, sitting down at a table inside Winifred having a nice cup of tea. Madillo has no limits.

Anyway, when the bell rang for breaktime I asked Winifred if she would come and sit with me. She nodded but then said, “Don’t start asking me questions, Bul-Boo. Not today.” So that was my talking plan gone. I was relieved in a way, because I didn’t really know how to ask her what was wrong without seeming nosy.

We live about a mile away from Winifred, on Twin Palms Road. The palms around there are called “pregnant palms” (not their Latin name, but a good description as they all have a bulge in the middle). Coconut palms might have been more exciting, but Zambia is pretty far from the sea and they prefer the sea air. At least that is what Dad says. He often talks about plants that way, as if they are people. I close my eyes sometimes and imagine the pregnant palms making their clumsy way down the road, bending their heads towards one another as they chat about their cousins enjoying the sea air so far away.

Our house has many more than two rooms – I would have to count them up in my head to work out the right number. And we have a garden. When Winifred comes here she loves being in the garden and says she would like just one of the big trees to be transplanted into her yard, then she could sit under it in the afternoons, sheltered from the sun, and do her homework. When she comes over to us we never spend any time inside. Mum makes us food and we spread a blanket outside so we can eat there, under the shade of the flame tree. That is Winifred’s favourite one.