6. Talk of Ancient Times

Percival comes up with an idea from their past

STELLA‘S AUTUMN

6. Talk of Ancient Times

Percival pulled his car into a lay-by not so far from Stella’s home, and sighed audibly to himself even though there was nobody anywhere close to him to hear him.

He lived with Dickie, pastor of a private school, in an attic room for which he paid what, to him, was an exorbitant rent. But, he told himself, beggars can’t be choosers and he was very much a beggar thse days despite an illustrious past in the church until his world had been driven apart.

By the time he was seventy things had started to go very wrong. A young woman (well, fiftyish was young to him) had waved her breasts at him by wearing a skimpy top with little in the way of support under it and when he had bobbed safely out of the way of what seemed to be a deliberate onslaught with them she actually contrived to publically accuse him of grabbing hold of them. It was all a lie, of course, but the sort of lie that can stick.

And this one really did stick and when he told the Bishop in an enquiry that it was quite a temptation, but one that he had in no way yielded to and certainly not done what she insisted he had tried to do, he was eased out of his church, his age being the feeble excuse given publically. And when the police became involved then the accusation went viral in the way such sordid matters can. Then he was on the verge of being taken to court over the matter and might have even faced a prison sentence until it transpired that the woman had made several similar accusations in the past, mostly of police officers, that he was told he had nothing to answer to. But it all came too late, and it was Dickie who came to his rescue by making an uncomfortable attic bedroom available to him.

Dickie was a decent man but not the sort to entertain Percival, who at that time was more preoccupied with religious texts than the trivia that seemed to fill his friend’s head, and he spent a great dal of lonely contemplation in the attic.

The end of that particular story was that he often found himself sleeping in his car, a geriatric Reliant that sported three wheels, which meant that when he changed the tyres he never needed to pay for four.

It was dark and had been for a good hour when he finally decided that there was really only one option open to him. So he started the elderly car and pulled away from the lay-by. There was something he needed to put to Stella, something that needed to be put right, and he needed to do it straight away.

So he found himself a spot on the road immediately outside Stella’s house, swtched off his engine and fought to pluck up his own courage.

The front door to the house was hardly ever locked, and it wasn’t this time, which made him breathe a sigh of relief. He pushed it open, and walked in.

It was now or never.

“I just thought I ought to pop in for a moment, babe…” he called from the foot of her stairs, hoping that his voice had a sufficiently familiar cadence to it to interest her almost forgotten passions.

There was a lengthy silence, then some shuffling, and Stella appeared at the top of the stairs dressed only in the flimsiest nightie, and she scowled at him. ”What do you want now?” she demanded.

“I want to slide back through the years,” he said, and very slowly and deliberately he removed his clerical collar. “I want you to remember me as the youth I was rather than the boring and possibly uninspiring vicar I became. I have been a fool with my life and I need to put things right before I die.”

She laughed at him, a short critical laugh.

“Remember that I know you’re a couple of years younger than me, and I’m not dying any time soon,” she said. Then her demeanour changed. “You’d best come up here, then,” she said, “but be warned: no hanky panky. But before you come turn the key in the lock. If Peter comes back as he might he’ll have to knock.”

To Percival this was a sign that he must be partly forgiven even though he knew that an absence from her life of fifty years wouldn’t be easy for her to either forget or forgive him for. But, maybe it was a start.

So he turned to the front door, turned the key to lock it, and started creeping up the stairs towards her.

“Slowly,” she called to him when he was half way up. “I was in bed, and I plan to return to it because I feel like getting a good night’s sleep. And if anyone, anyone mark you, reckons they can disturb my plans they’ve got another think coming!”

“I don’t,” he murmured, “I just need to tell you one thing and then I’ll shut up.”

“Go on,” she invited him.

“What? Here? Half way up your stairs?”

“Why not? It’s a clean and honest space and I can hear you quite clearly.”

“Oh.” He paused and looked around “My legs are’t what they were,” he said sadly, “but I think I can stand long enough to tell you how sorry I am that I let myself get distracted at the cost of almost forgetting you.”

“Go on,” she invited, neither enjoying his preamble nor properly understanding it.

“Well, can you remember what we were talking about before I lost control of myself and we did you know what, and a son was born of it.”

“Can I remember? I’m not an elephant, you know, but I can remember our mutual moment of passion and it’s probably because I was probably almost certainly bored that I submitted to your charms.”

“You were bored?”

“I can’t remember. I said probably.”

“Well, I might be wrong but I thought I might have been suggesting it was a shame that some of the best artwork by our prehistoric ancestors was being hidden away because it might be damaged by too many visitors huffing and puffing in admiration.”

“That rings a distant bell. So what of it? I’m losing my beauty sleep, remember.”

“All right. Correct me if I’m wrong., but didn’t I suggest we should go there and check them out?”

“What? Closed caves? Locked and barred?”

“I must have meant the area. Get a taste of the past. It’s part of France in the Dordogne region, and I was wanting to take you there on holiday.”

“And what did I say when you suggested such a thing?”

“You said it was too far, and what about the Lake District here?”

“See.”

“The thing is, the clever French have created an exact replica of the original really ancient caves, and I want to go there to soak up the atmosphere of a long time ago and do it while I still live and breathe. And tomorrow I’m going to Jimson’s, the local coach people, because they’ve got a week’s trip to see that part of France, and I want to pay for two seats.”

“Really?”

“That is, oif you’ve got a passport.”

“To go to France?”

“To go to a lovely part of France, including a conducted tour of the replica ancient caves and the really old artwork carefully recreated for the visitor to see.”

“I need to think. Come on up and I might just let you share my nice double bed if you promise to be a good boy.”

“You will?”

“Because I’m both tired and interested. We’ll talk about it in the morning. If you haven’t done me the courtesy of bringing you jim-jams you’ll have to sleep in your pants!”

“In your bed, babe?”

“Yes. In my bed. Because I really am tired.”

“Okay, babe. They’re pink boxers.”

“Pink? Urgh! Take them off then, but behave.”

© Peter Rogerson 06.07.23

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