The Butterfly Man Extract

Read an extract of The Butterfly Man - the award winning novel from Heather Rose - republished for its 20th anniversary.

Can a dying man maintain his deception when his mind begins to fail him?

On 7 November 1974, a young English nanny named Sandra Rivett was killed in London's West End. Her employer, Lord Lucan, was accused of her murder. It was widely assumed he had mistaken her for his wife. Lord Lucan disappeared the night Sandra Rivett died and has never been seen since.

Henry Kennedy lives on a mountain on the other side of the world. He is not who he says he is. Is he a murderer or a man who can never clear his name? And is he the only one with something to hide?

Read on for a sneak peek at The Butterfly Man.

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SEPTEMBER 1995

I wake to find a young woman sitting beside me.

She is Asian. Japanese. Chinese. I don’t know.

‘Hello, Henry,’ she says, smiling and taking my hand. I try to take it back but it doesn’t respond.

‘It’s Suki, Henry.’

She has on a red shirt. She has earrings too. Large Indian earrings that move and sparkle.

‘I’m sorry, young lady, but I am not Henry.’

She rubs the back of my hand. Mine looks awfully white and I can’t feel anything. I can see she is determined to be kind.

‘Where the dash am I?’ I ask, too tired to put much bite into it.

‘You’re at home in your own bed, Henry,’ the girl says.

Rain splatters across the windows. Trails of water bead and run down the glass. I don’t know the view. The sea is far away beyond a sort of forest. Clearly not England. Over the trees half a rainbow appears. The rain is easing. My mouth is parched and my lips are cracked. My teeth feel big in my mouth.

She helps me swallow a few mouthfuls of water from a glass. It’s awkward and she has to hold my head.

She says, ‘Now, how about a gin?’

‘Splendid,’ I reply. ‘Pink.’

She leans forward and whispers, ‘You’ve got ten minutes to go.’

She speaks like a colonial. Must be an Australian. Don’t know any Australians.

We both observe the bedside clock. 10:50.

‘Ah, yes,’ I concur. Never before eleven.

The girl reaches over and adjusts the buttons on the clock.

She turns it to face me. Now it says 11:03.

‘My how time flies . . .’ she remarks. ‘You’re a funny one. Lili says you never drank gin before.’

‘Before what?’ I ask but she is already gone. I can hear her footsteps descending a wooden stairway. I close my eyes. There is a bad ache coming on in my head. Can’t seem to

keep my eyes open. The girl has returned with a glass. Not crystal but a decent tumbler, nevertheless. She has mixed it well. The colour of the drink matches the two tablets she shows me.

‘You’re an addict,’ she says.

‘What’s this?’ I ask.

‘For the pain in your head, Henry. Here, I brought you a straw.’ She puts the tablets on my tongue. She slips the straw into my mouth. I gulp and swallow the tablets down. They are big and I nearly empty the tumbler. The sharp rush of effervescence is exquisite. It’s Gilbey’s. I’d bet my life on it. A black and white bird glides past very close to the glass. Its feathers are shining as if it has been cleaned and buffed.

‘Magpie,’ says Suki.

I look about me. There is a cream couch in the window. On my left there is a large wooden cabinet and a chest of drawers. A blue blanket is folded at the foot of the bed over a pale cream bedspread. I glimpse a bathroom beyond the bedroom.

‘Where am I?’ I say to the girl.

‘You’re home, Henry,’ she says. ‘In your own bed. We moved you back upstairs last weekend, just the way you wanted.’

‘Do I know you?’ I ask.

‘Of course you do. I’m Suki,’ she says. ‘Lili’s daughter.’

‘Lili?’ I say.

‘Lili,’ she says.

‘Who is Lili?’

‘You live here with her.’

She goes over and opens the cupboard. She fiddles with a stereo. Chopin fills the room. Nocturne in E. A rush of pictures come with it. A woman with the same black hair as this girl, tomatoes growing on vines in a garden, a yacht half built, this girl getting out of a car with a child by her side, a small boy with curly hair.

Something about the image gives me a sudden sharp pain.

‘What the dash is this?’ I ask.

‘I’m sorry. You usually love me to play it. Don’t be upset.’

‘Where am I? What on earth has happened to me?’

She walks over to me, leans forward and kisses me on the forehead. I can see she’s upset, but she smiles at me.

‘You had a bad turn last week. A stroke actually. You haven’t been yourself since then.’

I gaze at her dark eyes. She reminds me of someone but I can’t think whom.

‘Close your eyes. Just rest . . .’

And I do. Whatever she has given me has taken all the kick out of me. I feel it numbing the pain in my head. My arms, my legs, everything seems to be so heavy. I close my eyes and fall slowly like a feather on the wind.

I wake. A bedside clock says 3:17.

‘Hello?’ I call. My voice sounds feeble.

There are footsteps coming up a stairway. It’s a girl in a red shirt. She’s Asian. Japanese. Chinese. I don’t know. She says, ‘Hello, Henry’ as if we are old friends. She looks very young. Twenty-one. She offers me water through a straw.

‘Damn thirsty all right,’ I say. ‘Most kind.’

‘Did you sleep well?’ she asks.

‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name,’ I say.

‘Suki.’

‘Really? That’s most unusual. Are your parents foreign?’

‘Yes, Henry.’

We both stare out the window at the river far below.

‘It’s come out lovely now,’ she says. ‘You’d never know it. Not a cloud in the sky all the way down to the peninsula. Could almost see the surfers on Roaring Beach.’

‘Roaring Beach?’

‘Yes. That one way away in the distance.’ She turns and smiles at me, rearranges the tissues beside the bed and refills the water from a glass jug.

‘Lili will be back soon, Henry. She’s just picking up Charlie from school.’

‘I’m not Henry, you know.’

‘What makes you say that?’ the girl asks, straightening the covers and refolding a blue blanket at the foot of the bed.

I do not reply.

‘Pretty certain you are Henry Kennedy. You certainly look like him and you’re in his bed, just like you were yesterday and the day before that. You’ve lived up here for years. You even built this house.’

‘That’s preposterous! Don’t know the first thing about building. Look at these hands!’ I try to lift them up but only the left one will move. To my surprise it has calluses and scars and looks like a labourer’s hand, not my hand at all.

‘It’s okay,’ says Suki. ‘You’ve just forgotten. Sort of forgotten who you are.’

‘Oh no, I know exactly who I am, I can assure you. Been a frightful bother having to keep it to myself.’

She sits down beside me.

‘What’s your name, young lady?’

‘Suki.’

‘Suki. It’s a nice name once you get used to it.’

A wave of nausea runs through me and I go suddenly cold. A terrible ache is coming on in my head.

She reaches for a packet on the bedside table and flips two pink tablets from it.

‘What’s this then, eh?’

‘Morphine.’

‘I say, do I need it?’

‘Yes, you do. Doctor’s orders.’ And then she adds, ‘You’re very ill, Henry. You had a stroke nine days ago.’

‘Ah.’

She holds the cup and straw while I swallow down the tablets. I rest back into the pillows. She begins straightening the covers.

‘Is anyone about, Suki?’

‘No, we’re quite alone.’

‘They’re still looking for me. They’ll never stop.’

She smiles and sighs. ‘You’re very safe, Henry.’

‘Never safe. Must be vigilant. Never safe.’

‘Come then, who’s really lying in your bed? Not a criminal, I hope? Royalty? I always wanted to know someone famous.’

‘Not famous, dear girl. Notorious.’

‘Really? You? Why?’

‘I am Lord Lucan,’ I whisper desperately. ‘Yes, Lord Lucan! All these years. But they’ve never found me. You must make sure they don’t, Suki. You must keep watch.’

‘I will, Henry.’

Pulling a tissue from a box the girl wipes my mouth. She does not appear surprised.

‘Have I told you this before, young lady?’

‘Yes, Henry,’ she says, leaning forward and smoothing the sheet across me.

‘You tell me every afternoon.’

Extracted from The Butterfly Man by Heather Rose. Available now.

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The Butterfly Man

by Heather Rose

Can a dying man maintain his deception when his mind begins to fail him? A novel about transformation and deception, and the lengths to which we will go to protect the ones we love.

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