16. New Understandings

Tony arrives to put Donna's opinions to the others.

STELLA‘S AUTUMN

16. New Understandings

Next morning, after a somewhat minimal breakfast, Stella and Percival made their way to the house that Peter shared with wife Miriam. The twins had both left home, Mack to a medical school intending to follow his father into the world of medicine and Bella to a veterinary college where she prepared for a life caring for the well-being of animals of all kinds. So when they arrived there was only the twosome, Peter and Miriam there to greet them.

“I wonder if my, er, half sister will do us the courtesy of join us?” murmured Peter. “When I researched her I got an unfortunate impression, from her own social media, that she was one who is out for what she can get. And for some reason she seems to thinks that she is owed the Earth!”

“We just had a marvellous holiday in France and she did her best to recruit as many of the other passengers as she could with the intention of claiming a refund from Jimsons,” said Stella. “The silly woman, and she is silly, thought we ought to have been shown around the original caves at Lascaux, even though they were deteriorating due to too many people breathing in there until they were closed to tourists in the sixties and have been preserved since then. Anyway, I was convinced that Lascaux Four is a perfect atmospheric copy of the real thing and we all found it educational, didn’t we Percy?”

“It told me a lot about our ancestors,” agreed Percy, “and led me to start wondering if what I had learned from the Bible might not always be quite right.”

“As a vicar?” sked Miriam, “what might have been the turning point as far as you were concerned?”

“Well, we send a lot of time teaching the youngsters at Sunday Schools about Adam and Eve and if the images we saw in Lascaux are really based on art drawn seventeen thousand years ago could the artists see thousand of years into their futures? Because if we follow the biblical account of the creation and the first man and the first woman and the garden of Eden and the generations that are documented in the Old Testament… then the two don’t match at all, really.”

“You only have to look at pictures of Adam and Eve to know that,” smiled Stella, “because they’ve got belly buttons, and they wouldn’t have those if they were created in the way the biblical book Genesis says they were.”

The conversation came to a sudden end when the front door was knocked.

“This must be them,” decided Stella, “I’ll let them in if you like.”

“No, I’ll go,” said Peter, “I ought to be the one to greet my own sister.”

“Half sister,” corrected Stella.

“Half sister, then,” he grinned, and beat his mother to the door quite easily. But when he opened it, expecting to see Donna scowling at him it was Tony.

“I’ve left her,” he said, “I thought you ought to know.”

Peter’s eyes flickered. “You’ve left Donna?” he asked, “why?”

“Because she’s the most inufiating person on this planet even if I can’t help loving her,” he replied, “but for my own sanity…”

“You poor man,” said Stella, “come on in and we won’t gainsay you. I’m old enough to know that very few people are perfect and I’m pretty sure the number I could share my life with can be counted on the fingers of one hand when four have been amputated.”

“She’s always got to be right,” explained Tony, joining what was becoming a throng in the living room. “She won’t stand it if even I disagree with her, and she can be infuriating. That business about the French caves. She was adamant we should have been shown the originals even though the brochure said that we weren’t going to. But then, she’s always got her eyes on money. We don’t have much, you know, every job I’ve had she’s got in the way… but I love her. I see a thousand faults, and I love her.”

“That was quite a speech, brother-in-law,” murmured Peter.

“I don’t know why I came to your house. I suppose I wanted to make excuses for Donna, though from last night I’m not with her any more. But last night, when we got home, was the last straw…”

“Why… “ asked Stella, “I mean, I understand that some people can be infuriating, but last night?”

“It was your son,” muttered Tony, “when she discovered he was older than her. It destroyed the one constant belief she’s always claimed to have.

“Really?” asked Peter.

“Really,” almost wept Tony, “you see, she’s always had it in her head that her mother, the woman who was probably more crazy than she is, chose a lover because she wanted one who was as virgin as she was. She told me so, more than once, in truth until I was getting tired of the sound of her voice. She believed her parents were both virgins when she was conceived, and then it turns out she’s got an older half-brother. See what I mean?”

“But why?” asked Miriam, frowning, “what difference does it make? Surely a man can have the wildest sex life under the sun and still produce the wherewithal to father a daughter…”

“But not a perfect daughter,” explained Tony, “and she wanted the world to know she was perfect.”

“Then she had an odd way of going about it,” grunted Stella, “the nonsense she cme oout with while we were on our way home from a lovely holiday.”

“She just wanted everyone to believe that she was the second coming of Jesus,” said Tony, shaking his head sadly, “and that only she could save the world. And to be that she not only needed a virgin mother but a virgin father as well.”

“You do know that’s insane, don’t you?” asked Percy, “I mean, the true qualities of Jesus had nothing to do with the morality of his mother! That was a story added later, when he had a group of believers around him wanting a back-story, if you like. And it was borrowed from other religions, the notion of a virgin birth.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to regret being a clergyman because it seems I’ve been responsible along with other men of the cloth for spreading a myth.”

“I tell you what,” said Stella wearily, “if you don’t mind, Miriam, but let’s have a nice cup of tea and try to forget all the gobbledegook surrounding a two thousand year old story and instead relish the memories of a seventeen thousand year old group of artists and the walls they drew their magic on. I’ve got some photographs.”

“Tea?” asked Tony, “if Donna were here it would be something a heck of a lot stronger than tea!”

“No it wouldn‘t!” came a new voice from the doorway. It was Donna, and nobody had heard her arrive. “A nice cup of tea would go down very well. Very well indeed.” Then she turned to face and be close to Tony. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I couldn’t help listening in to your conversation from behind this door and maybe I’ve got a few things to think about.”

“I brought a bottle of duty free whiskey with me if you like,” put in Percy, “I’ll fetch it from my car if you feel like a dram. Call it the water of truth if you like, and I’ll certainly drink to that.”

“Percy,” smiled Stella, “what a wonderful idea! The water of real truth. Like the Lascaux paintings, a world of nature as the artist saw it, beautifully recaptured to teach us all a lesson.”

“Then I’ll fetch it,” nodded Percy.

“And can I stay?” asked Donna, “please.”

© Peter Rogerson 23.07.23

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