A Lost Half Century

After fifty years....

It was the sort of time of the year when any sensible person would stay indoors in order to stay out of the horrendous weather It was either siling it down with rain or snow, or doing a bit of both, and that, combined with a biting wind, made the world outside a very unpleasant place to be.

But Mattie was out there, wearing an old coat, one that had seen better days before the odd tear and hole had appeared in it, and it felt cold as packed ice.

It wasn’t that she was a remnant of a past age when women of her generation had been discarded like old rags, their usefulness over and consequently they were unwanted even by their husbands. No, her lodger, Peter was at home and was no doubt waiting for her to push through the door, shivering and complaining about how cold she was and ready to pour her a warming measure from her favourite bottle.

No, it wasn’t that at all, but she had a personal task to complete, and that was almost more important than enjoying sandwiches and tea with a warm man and sipping from a fragrant glass.

She had to find Max.

It was becoming an obsession. She had known Max, how long ago had it been? It was shocking to think it, but it must have been half a century ago, in the halcyon years when anything had seemed possible, and most things were. And he had been desperate to fulfill her assumed desires, all of them, every sweat-stained night of them when they dared to be together, glorious in their passionate and tenderly intimate closeness.

And then, out of the blue and without so much as an excuse, he had vanished. The house where he had lived was emptied and she’d actually wept as she watched the furniture van, loaded and doubtless carrying at least one pair of her knickers, pull away.

And leaving her alone and almost mourning for a lad who couldn’t possibly be dead. Or could he? Of course not! He had written to her almost immediately and tried to explain that he ha was sure she could see that the two of them would never be truly compatible in the long term, and anyway, she liked a sweet drop of nectar (or maybe several) from a favourite bottle and he was tee-total. And, mysteriously, what about his calling?

Half a century! She’d been married during those years, twice if the truth was to be told, both liaisons painful mistakes that had fortunately not added to the human gene pool and been cast to the winds of her personal history, best forgotten even though they were both very occasionally remembered, though not with even a smidgen of sadness. And then, recently, there was Peter, a lodger who needed a roof over his head, and that was all.

No: any sadness in her heart had always been due to Max.

And here she was, mooching along the same roads they had walked hand-in-hand together. And where daringly they had contrived mischievously and outrageously to join together in lust. And the truth had been that more then once had they been actually seen.

That memory made her grin as she walked alone and cold. The old woman who had caught a glimpse of she and her teenage beau misbeahaving round a corner they thought would make them invisible, and Max had his whatsit out of his shorts and was actually waving it for her to see and exclaim her horror.

“Filthy beasts!” she had squawked, “you both ought to be locked up!”

She had walked this way quite often, past Saint Moira’s little church and even smiled to herself when she caught sight of the board outside, because in fading paint at the bottom it read the name of a visiting clergywoman the Reverend Maxine Peters. Max and Maxine. But it was Max she found herself remembering and sometimes, at the dead of night in her lonely bed found herself remembering precious moments from half a century ago and wishing she could peel away the years.

“I once knew a lass,” a voice whispered, the words from nowhere almost obliterated by a biting gust of wind and unexpected because she hadn’t seen the speaker or been aware that there was anyone anywhere near her in the cold.

She spun round and it was a clergywoman, dressed in her surplice and obviously prepared for some kind of religious service, yet there was nobody else in sight.

“Pardon?” asked Mattie, pausing and staring at the self-righteous face of the other.

“When I was a child,” the woman said, sighing, “I thought that I was in love and made the terrible mistake of believing that all there was to life was love!”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’ve got your faith, or at least it looks like that from the uniform you’re wearing.”

“He…. I mean she, was special” sighed the clergywoman. “We knew all about what it was like to swear eternal love to each other… a love that we had in spades.”

“I once had a true love,” sighed Mattie, an image from her past trying to form in her mind, but not quite succeeding. Then, on an impulse, she added, “he’ll be dead now, I suppose. I haven’t heard from him in fifty years! And that’s a painfully long time, but memories persist to torment me…”

“That’s it!” agreed the other, moving closer to her, “and those memories can’t half torment a woman! You see, I had a calling and suddenly, over night, had to move to a college where I could earn my collar… I had to do it. I had no choice. My father knew the Bishop and that had to be that…”

“My man just upped and went,” sighed Mattie, “and even though my whole life has been touched by memories of him and the wonderful things we did together during the few months when we could, I really hope he’s well. Probably the master of his own family and even with grand kids giggling on his knee…”

“I’ve officiated at many weddings and joined many a couple together in holy wedlock,” sighed the clergywoman, “I’ve wished them well and genuinely hoped for them to have the sort of happiness I’d known in my teens. I even did the stupidest of things… But no! That’s my secret!”

Mattie sighed. “I suppose we all have secrets,” she sighed, “I live with a lovely man, Peter he’s called, but we’re not married even though some people think we are, but he’s my lodger. I dared say you, being what you are, wouldn’t approve?”

“I was too young when I changed my life,” sighed the Reverend Maxine Peters, “and I made one big decision that turned me from the mourning creature that I thought that I was into the woman you see before you…”

“We can all make mistakes,” sighed Mattie, almost understanding.

“Come into the parsonage, will you?” asked the vicar, “there’s something I’d like you to see. An image, a photograph that haunts me still. Maybe a cup of tea? It’s very cold out here and the ice is getting to my undercarriage!”

Mattie could have refused, could have mumbled something about having to get home, Peter would be waiting, but something inside her, curiosity, maybe, bade he follow the unhappy vicar into her home.

And it was there that she got the shock of her life one that shook her heart until it pounded. For on a wall in the cosy parlour where she was led there hung a large monochrome picture of herself. She knew it straight away because she had a smaller version of it in a photograph album.

She stopped dead and looked at the other woman who spoke quietly.

“You are Mattie, aren’t you?” the asked.

Yes she was! But Mattie was shocked almost beyond believing that this was happening.

“That’s my name,” she replied, looking more than confused.

“Please hear me out,” pleaded the other, “Ypu see, I suppose I had some sort of breakdown, and it rossed my mind that if I couldn’t have Mattie then I could become her! And before I decided to become a woman I was Max, and I wish I’d never become Maxine,” almost whispered the other. “Will you ever be able to find it in your heart to forgive me? Let me show you...””

It was then that a marriage of relief and love and hope all conspired to surround Mattie in a fog of confusion as she watched the clergywoman slowly begin to shed her clothing almost carelessly until all that remained was a very masculine pair of boxer shorts which seemed very much at odds with the person nervously undressing in front of her.

“Darling angel,” the almost naked trembling clergywoman said in a marginally lower voice, and it was instantly very clear that it was a man who was speaking, “please?”

Mattie steadied herself, and then, “my love…” she breathed.

© Peter Rogerson 28.03.25

xxx