Kitty stared at the phone in shock. He hung up on her, probably for the first time ever. He must have been so disgusted by her.
Kitty’s phone rang again and, assuming it was Steve to tell her their connection failed, she answered it immediately. It wasn’t.
‘Kitty, are you okay?’ Sally asked.
‘No.’
‘Where are you?’
‘BusÁras.’
‘Why?’
‘I was going to Kildare but I missed my bus.’
‘I’ll drive you.’
‘You don’t even know when I’m coming back.’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘Never.’
‘Perfect. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
Kitty had met Sally at a television presentation course five years previously. Sally was a meteorologist who had attained an honours degree in Mathematical Physics and, at the time, was working in Met Éireann and preparing to stretch her wings by moving into television weather presentations in the Irish language. Along with writing for Etcetera, Kitty, at that time, was preparing to make her move into television journalism after presenting a few small but successful shows on a small city channel. She had set her sights on bigger stories on a bigger network and was fine-tuning her presentation skills, which meant slowing down her speech and trying to stop looking so concerned or, in Steve’s words, constipated, when she was concentrating on remembering her words.
Sally arrived at BusÁras with the top down on her convertible, and her long blond hair tied back. Kitty quickly scuttled away from her hiding place by the vending machine with her head down and as much hair in front of her face as possible.
‘Everyone around me is reading the paper,’ Kitty explained, after embracing her friend. ‘I’m probably just being paranoid, though. I’m sure they’re not paying the slightest bit of attention to my story, they’re too busy reading about the earthquake. Aren’t they? Tell me they’re all reading about the earthquake.’
‘There was an earthquake?’ Sally asked without a hint of irony.
Kitty sighed. ‘Isn’t it your job to know about things like that?’
‘I don’t work weekends.’
‘Obviously not.’ Kitty looked up at the grey clouds they were headed towards. ‘Maybe you should put the roof up; it looks like it’s going to rain.’
Sally laughed as if she had the inside scoop, which she believed she had. ‘It’s not due to rain today.’
‘Thought it was your weekend off.’
‘I pay attention,’ she shrugged, and they laughed.
‘So, where are we going?’
‘Straffan, to a butterfly farm.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m interviewing the woman who runs it. Kind of. She doesn’t know she’s going to be interviewed yet.’
‘Be careful. Are you trying to get your own back?’
Kitty smiled but it faded quickly. ‘At least I won’t sleep with her for her story.’
Sally gasped. ‘You slept with him?’
Kitty covered her face in her hands and slid down the chair. ‘I’m a despicable human being.’
‘Not really, but you know you could have got some money for the story, or were you desperate for sex?’
Kitty laughed. ‘I’m kind of desperate for both.’
Sally gave her a sympathetic look and Kitty explained what had happened that night.
‘Have your parents called?’ she asked, after getting over her initial anger.
‘Yes. To tell me once again how embarrassed and ashamed they are of me. I just let Mum get it out of her system. It seems to help her to have a go at me but there’s nothing new there.’ She looked up at the sky as she felt a drop of rain fall on her face.
‘Did you feel that?’
‘What?’
‘Rain.’
‘It’s not going to rain today,’ Sally said confidently.
Ten minutes later they had to pull over by the side of the road while Sally manually closed the roof.
‘That’s unusual,’ Sally said, glancing up at the sky, and Kitty tried to hide her smile.
An hour and a quarter later they were fully updated on each other’s lives and they had reached the butterfly museum in Straffan. It was situated just outside the village: a charming house beside the museum with plenty of land stretching all around it. Open seven days a week during the summer months, it was composed of a tropical house with a bridge over a small pond, with butterflies fluttering all around them.
Kitty asked a young girl at the customer desk for Ambrose Nolan and was instead diverted to a bow-tie-wearing man named Eugene, who told her that Ambrose didn’t do tours. On learning Kitty was a member of the media he proceeded to take her and Sally on a personal tour of the museum, which was busy, on this reasonably good-weathered Sunday, with families and children. He was so jolly and full of such joie de vivre that Kitty couldn’t bring it upon herself to stop his excited chatter about the butterflies he seemed to love and know so well. He certainly was up with his knowledge of the various species, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was on a first-name basis with every butterfly in the tropical room.
‘Many of the tropical butterflies breed here so you will able to observe the entire life cycle of a butterfly,’ he explained as they stepped out to the tropical room. ‘Here you will see where they have laid eggs, caterpillars eat the food plants, then they become well-camouflaged pupae, and if you’re lucky you can watch a butterfly emerge from a pupa to start a new life with wings and set off on its first flight.’
Sally widened her eyes sarcastically at Kitty.
Kitty ignored her and looked around for Ambrose. ‘So you said Ambrose doesn’t do guided tours, but does Ambrose work here?’
‘Oh, indeed, Ambrose has been working here for the past … well, since she was a child. Her mother and father opened the museum and when Ambrose was old enough she helped run the family business. She has been instrumental in developing what was initially just a small museum into this great centre. She extended the museum, which used to be in what is now the gift shop, into this great big exhibition room, she introduced the café and picnic area, which as you can see was a marvellous idea, and five years ago she opened the tropical room. If it wasn’t for Ambrose, these facilities just simply wouldn’t be here today,’ he said proudly.
‘Is she here today?’ Kitty tried again.
‘She’s here every day,’ he laughed. ‘She lives next door but she doesn’t see visitors. Now let me bring you through to the museum and I can show you what we do in more detail. The framed butterflies are from surplus captive-bred butterflies; they are not collected in the wild,’ he explained seriously as he led them to the gallery.
Sally gave Kitty a withered look but Kitty prodded her and they followed him, while Kitty looked around for a way to get to the house next door.
The gallery consisted of dried butterflies exhibited in sealed timber frames with an internal mount and brass plate.
‘These are perfect specimens,’ Eugene explained, and a few customers drew nearer to them to listen to the talk. ‘They haven’t been altered in any way. Specimens last for fifty years but must not be hung in direct sunlight.