15. A Planned Family Meeting

Plans for the next day.

STELLA‘S AUTUMN

15. A Planned Family Meeting

It didn’t take long for most of the dozen or so passengers that had alighted from the coach to disperse their separate ways, some in a couple of taxis and other in cars that had been parked safely in the depot until their owners arrived back home.

Leaving Stella with Percival, Donna with a reluctant Tony and Peter talking in the dark when they were all that remained.

“I’m off,” grunted Peter, “now that I’m sure you are safely home, mum. If all of you feel like sorting this mess out you know where I live, and I’ll be in tomorrow. It’s not my turn to do a Saturday surgery.”

“What about us?” almost wailed Donna, no longer the over-confident woman she had been for most of the week.

Peter slipped her a card. “This is my address,” he told her, and then he passed her a wicked grin, and “sister,” he added.

Meanwhile, Percy had loaded their bags onto the crowded back seat of his three-wheeled car and was ready to drive off before the safety gates automatically closed.

“Come in, quickly,” he said, and off he went. Peter’s own car was parked a little way down the road, not inside the gates, and somehow Tony managed to avoid the closing gates as he left the depot not far behind them.

“So you have a sister, son of mine,” grinned Stella, and then, “and you lover of mine,” she said to Percy, “have an ever growing family of erstwhile strangers.”

“I knew that Jane had produced a sprog,” muttered Percy, “not the perfect thing for a clergyman to confess to, but you know when you and I made love how important it was, to both of us I hope. I was soon to go off to University and you were behind a shop counter, the most beautiful woman in my world. Then I was accused of drink and drugs and goodness knows what with Jane, and sent away to get what they called ‘cured’ in the wretched Saint Cardew’s, and it was there that Jane found me in my room and, well, I’ve told you the rest.”

“Not that it’s easy to believe,” murmured Stella, “a woman actually removing your trousers without your say so. Not an easy thing to believe at all.”

Percy shook his head. “I don’t believe it either,” he confessed, “and I should guess that either consciously or unconsciously I was complicit somehow because before I really knew what was happening she was all over me. And whatever her motive, she was in a hurry. Remember, her dad was the college Principal and he was probably with the head monk at Saint Cardew’s at the time, and likely to go in search of her at any moment.”

“If anyone else was telling me I’d call it a tall story, but because it’s you… well, you never used to tell lies to me, at least I don’t think you did, and I want to believe you,” she said quietly.

“I tell you what, we’ll go to your, no our son Peter’s place tomorrow and hope that the Donna woman turns up to clear the air,” he said quietly, “until then, well, nothing’s changed has it, I still love you…”

“And for my sins it seems that I still love you despite a half century when you could have been up to anything you liked,” she told him.

“But I wasn’t,” he whispered, concentrating on the road as the weather took a dip and it started tp rain, his elderly windscreen wipers only just making the road visible. “Here we go,” he muttered, and slowly and safely made their way home.

“Fancy coffee?” she asked when he had put his little car away

“No caffeine for me,” he replied, “I need to sleep when I go to bed!”

“Only sleep?” she teased, “with me, a desirable octogenarian, mere inches away from you?”

“You mean, away from a septuagenarian on the cusp of being eighty?” he replied.

“A young man once told me that age is only a number,” she smiled.

“Oh did he? What do young men know about growing old?”

“Well, I was twenty-two and you were the young man,” she laughed, “and I’ve remembered it down all the years.”

“And then I went away,” he sighed, “the most stupid thing I’ve ever done. I could have lived a much happier life if I’d stayed with you and decided not to join the church but, I don’t know, become a dustman.”

“A refeuse collecting agent, you mean,” she laughed. “Come on if you don’t want any caffeine, let’s see what that whisky you bought from duty free is like, and then have an early night.

“Early? It gone one in the morning already!” he protested, “but I’ll join you in a wee dram if you like.”

He opened one of the bottles, poured two small measures, and handed one to Stella.

“Was Jane as awful as you made out?” she asked after taking a sip and pulling an approving face.

“Worse,” he replied, “she had only one thing on her mind. All she wanted was to get pregnant, probably because she knew it would hurt her father’s career if she was seen walking round the place with an ever-growing tummy. And, what’s more, I reckon that she’d already picked me out as a potential father. She had a go at the party or whatever it was in college when I was caught with a spliff in my hand, and then at the so-called retreat where I was supposed to be cured of… nothing. Look, Stell, she was a dreadful woman.”

“As is her daughter,” yawned Stella, “come on, Percy, I’m almost asleep as we talk. Leave it until tomorrow and beddy-byes.”

“Okay,” he agreed, “come on then.”

They drained their glasses and wearily made their way up stairs. They were both too tired to say much more, and they undressed wearily and climbed into bed, each not not even noticing that the other was naked.

© Peter Rogerson 22.07.23

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