The Old Storyteller

Introduction

I usually listen to music while writing, often on youtube. Recently I have been listening a lot to what youtube classifies as modern bluegrass. I also listen to classical music and, as I'm sure you know, youtube decides for itself on mixes. I was listening to a modern American mix when up popped this duet from Handel's The Tempest. I switched screens to watch and as I watched I realised that the song (allowing for language shifts over the centuries) could be interpreted as a lover's growing disillusion dispelling the mists of uncritical love from the mind.

Whether that interpretation works for you or not the song itself is beautiful and worth a listen. My personal; preference is for the version with Amanda Forsyth and Thomas Cooley singing but there are many equally fine versions.

G.F. Handel 1685-1759 from The Tempest

"As steals the morn upon the night

and melts the shades away so

Truth does Fancy's charms dissolve

and rising reason puts to flight

the fumes that did the mind involve

Restoring intellectual day"

Words by Shakespeare, John Milton and Charles Jennens

CHAPTER ONE: "As steals the morn upon the night.."

Jacques

It was often one of the quiet pleasures following a hectic festival weekend for the group to relax around the fire and listen to Old Jacques. His stories were mostly of the voyageurs and trappers of the early days of exploration in North America. Old Jacques was in his late seventies or maybe in his eighties, no-one knew for sure, and his ancestors had been French voyageurs in North America since the late seventeenth century.

Jacques' parents died while he was still a toddler and he was raised by his grandparents who were born in what was now the century before last. It was his Papi (grandfather) who had told Jacques all the stories that his own Papi had told him. None of them before Jacques had learned to read and their memory skills were, by modern standards, incredible. They had the ability to map in their heads the minutest details of a thousand-mile journey and then pass those details on with exquisite accuracy. Jacques had proved countless times to the group that his own memory was of that advanced kind so his retelling of the tales carried immense conviction. The group knew they were listening to the unedited eyewitness accounts of those times and they always paid rapt attention to his tales.

This time however, he surprised them all.Jacques looked around the faces of the group, about forty strong. It was later than usual and the children had all been put to bed. Having seen that only adults were present he had decided to tell the story of this festival weekend just past.

"You folks all know that this is my favourite festival now because I don't have to travel to it. Most of you have dropped in on me at my cabin and know the view from my porch. What you might not realise is that, although one can see out from the porch across the prairie, it's actually very hard to notice the cabin at all. It is now so old and grey, and so many bushes and trees have grown up, that unless you know it's there you might well miss it. For a change my story starts at lunchtime this last Thursday."

He noticed some looks of surprise as they had never known him to tell an up-to-date yarn.

"Most of you would have been travelling up Friday evening but someone had arrived early. I was just sitting down to my lunchtime bread, cheese and beer when I saw a handsome couple setting themselves up for a picnic by the stream. Although they were on my land I wasn't bothered. They were a youngish couple but looked respectable so I paid them no mind for a while. Later, I was just coming back out onto the porch from getting a cup of coffee. From a standing height I could see them more clearly. The first thing I noticed was that neither were any longer wearing clothes. My eyes not being quite as good as they were and to shade them from the bright sunlight, I brought out my big old binoculars," he said with a grin.

A couple of rude but amiable comments came from the crowd.

"As I said, with them eyepieces right up to your eye, it shades your eyes from the burning sun. Well, the man was doing some converting of the heathen in that old missionary position and he must have been a powerful preacher because that girl was praising the Lord enthusiastically. So much so that she was soon in one of those hysterical fevers that one hears about at religious revivals. She was hooting and screaming and writhing around as if she was transfixed by the sword of the Lord and the Holy Spirit passing into her. My, she was definitely converted. Now this all took some time and I had been so moved myself by the spiritual experience that my darn coffee had gone cold."

Shouts of 'Shame', and 'Voyeur-geur' were two of the more polite contributions from the crowd.

"I warmed up my coffee and when I came out again the girl was kneeling on all fours with her butt in the air and he was turning his sword into a ploughshare doing his best to till that well fertilised field. They were both facing away from me so while I could see his back I could hardly see her at all. This man had stamina that's for sure and it was many a minute before they both collapsed on the ground. Up to then I hadn't had much of a look at either of them but now they both stood up and for the first time I saw them clearly. I knew the man, John, because he's a local fellow so I studied the girl. Well, you might be thinking that I would be gazing at her delicious body but that wasn't what first caught my eye."

Old Jacques paused and studied the crowd. There were a lot of grins even from the women.

"What first caught my eye was her hair," he said. "I have never in my life seen such a glory as her hair. It was red-gold, thick, wavy and lustrous."

He had been about to carry on with his description of that wonderful hair but he had heard a sharp intake of breath from many in the crowd and he saw one or two look around towards the back of the crowd. They seemed to be glancing at a cold-eyed man at the back but they quickly faced the front again. The silence which followed that sudden gasp from the crowd was no longer the silence of a crowd enjoying a story with all the usual slight rustles and murmurs. It was now a still heavy silence and he began to fear he had made a grave error in his subject matter. Still, stopping now would only serve to underline any problem that there might be.

"I have never seen such hair. It was as if a every strand was shot with a different highlight of gold, of auburn, of red. It swept up from her forehead in a curling wave and spilled all down her back."

I paused for a moment to see if the cold-eyed man would leave but he sat quite still, his face still.

"The couple hugged and kissed, stroking each other. It looked as if he would shortly be ready for round three but suddenly it seemed as though they had heard or seen something and they swiftly dressed and left."

Still looking at the cold-eyed man he was wondering what to do or say next and then had a sudden inspiration.

"Most of you won't know because you're not local but on the Thursday night, before the festival, there is a party for the locals. It's not publicised and outsiders are neither invited nor welcome unless they are a guest. It's a chance for the local folk to let their hair down, test their outfits for the weekend and have a blast without all the fuss, botheration and crowds of the festival. Of course, all the locals will be working to earn money when the crowds arrive so this is their chance to have fun."

He paused for a sip of beer to freshen his throat. He feared he was destroying a relationship. Was the damage done or could he save things?

"I always go into town for the party and the townsfolk are kind enough to give me a seat on the balcony of the Town Hall. I can't really stand around for long these days and one sure gets a good view from up there. I didn't see John but there was this red-haired girl making a major impression. She obviously had had more than a few drinks. She wasn't wearing much, just a very brief tie up cover for her tits and a pair of cut down shorts tight enough to show all her other assets. The local band was playing and she was dancing in and out of the crowd stopping for a kiss here and there and a quick grope of some man's pride. For the first hour she was pretty visible most of the time but then started disappearing for a while, usually with a man. I kind of figured that, having been so thoroughly converted, she was now proselytising, herself."

The group got the point, but it didn't raise a chuckle like before.

"Gradually," he continued, "there was less dancing as she seemed to be moving more stiffly but the disappearances continued. I certainly saw her take eight men around the back and there may have been more. The final time she re-emerged, the deputy had to take her in because she had lost all her clothing. While the locals' party is pretty free and easy it takes place on the public street unlike the festival which is on private ground. Nudity which would be routinely permitted there wasn't allowed in public. I never saw her at the festival and she wasn't a local so must have been visiting."

A voice called from the back and I saw it was the cold-eyed man.

"Apart from the hair, was there anything else distinctive about her?"

"There sure was. She had a big old tattoo right on her backside and her shorts were so short one could see it clearly. Everyone in town will have seen it."

Suddenly there was a huge release of tension and the murmurs of the crowd started up again, smiles appeared and the cold-eyed man transformed into a smiling, genial, fellow. Jacques could see he was working his way over toward him. With any luck he was bringing a beer. He was and he took a grateful sip.

"I wish you'd have mentioned that tattoo a mite earlier," he said. "I was getting worried there for a while."

Jacques excused himself by explaining that at first she was on her back with the man on top of her and then when she had her ass in the air he was between me and her and then when she stood up she was facing him.

"Was it your wife or your girlfriend you thought I was describing?"

"My wife of ten years and mother of my two children. For a while there I was staring into an abyss. I love them all but I couldn't have stayed with a wife who cheated on me like that."

I asked his name, (Michael Winters), and where he came from and shook his hand.

"You had me worried too," Jacques said. "I think I'll stick to stories of yesteryear from now on."

The next morning everyone had left. He knew it would take the man several hours to reach home so he looked up the number and rang it. A pleasant-sounding lady answered. Jacques introduced himself and told her where he lived and that he had met her husband last night.

She sounded polite but puzzled as to why he was ringing her.

"Mrs Winters, I live out in an old shack on the prairie by a stream. On the final night after the festival I always tell a tale or two around the fire. Usually they are historical tales of the old west but last night I told the story of what I had seen from my porch on Thursday."

There was complete silence for a while and then she asked, "Did my husband hear your story?"

"Yes, he did and when I described your glorious hair he became very grim. I continued the story of everything I had seen and the crowd obviously recognized your description and were shocked. But then I carried on to talk about the party the locals have that night in Lentfield and how this red haired girl, high as a kite, was working the crowd and was taking men round the back for sex. Superficially, from a distance, a description of her could sound like you and when your husband asked if the girl had any distinguishing features I told the truth - that she a big tattoo on her ass. Everyone suddenly smiled and relaxed and your husband came up to me and told me how shaken and terrified he had been when he thought I was describing you. "

"Why are telling me?"

"I knew the girl in town wasn't the one I had seen earlier. Your husband loves you and it would destroy your marriage if he knew. I realised half-way through my story that I was in the process of destroying a relationship and I didn't want that on my conscience. Which is why I carried on the story about the antics of the red-haired girl with the tattoo. I was hoping that by telling you, by showing you how close to disaster you had come, you might draw back from destroying it yourself. It could still happen if he ever comes back here and asks questions about the red-haired girl at the town party. I've lied by omission but I won't lie any further."

She thanked me politely for my call but there was nothing in her voice to tell me what she felt or might do and that worried me.

***************

Michael

The festival had been fun but I missed Bridie and had been in two minds whether to skip Old Jacques' story hour and head home. With the late running of the festival and the three-hour drive ahead, I decided it would be better to stay overnight. Besides Old Jacques usually made me laugh with his stories as he had a very irreverent attitude and a glib tongue.It surprised me that he was telling a yarn about this week but he was definitely making me laugh with his description of the sexy couple on his land until suddenly it was not funny at all.

Bridie is a lovely woman with one outstanding feature, her glorious hair. It wouldn't be fair to call it red because of the gold within. In fact, Old Jacques had captured it pretty well with his description. I don't think there was any doubt amongst the many in the group that knew her that he might be describing my wife.

I tried to keep calm, but I know my face set hard. The pain - no, not mere pain - the agony was so intense that I thought for a moment I would either vomit or faint but I held it together as best I could. Everything was made worse by how people who knew us were turning round to look at me. There was a heavy silence as Jacques continued with his story. This was proving to be a truly public humiliation.

Jacques too, although he didn't know either my wife or I, was obviously picking up on the strained atmosphere and I thought for a moment he would stop. I am glad he didn't because he carried on his tale into the later events of that day and the red-haired whore in town. Once he mentioned the 'big-assed' tattoo, all our friends relaxed and the atmosphere returned to normal. I went up to Jacques and he asked me if it was my wife or girlfriend I had been worried about. I told him it was my wife and how relieved I was about the tattoo. I think he believed me.

The truth was that I didn't believe him. He had been very quick to spot the tension and I had seen him pause and consider what to say. Although the expression flitted very quickly across his face, I had been sure he was about to lie. When he started talking about the red-haired girl in town I noted very carefully his words; 'there was this red-haired girl'. I am sure he was being careful to tread a path between truth and lies in his words but I was positive that his purpose was to deceive. The more natural phrase would have been perhaps, 'I saw her later in town', or maybe 'I saw that red-haired girl again in town'.

He had been very careful to state, I am sure truthfully, that when she was under the man, when he was doing her doggy style and when she stood up facing him, he had had no chance to see her bottom. What he never said was 'I saw she had a tattoo.'. Not much to go on, you might say, but I was confident that Jacques was trying to make sure everything he said was true - just not all the truth. An honest man doing his best to be honest while trying not to break up a marriage.

My first impulse, to grab him by the throat and force the truth out of him, I suppressed. The people who knew my wife and I, having first been shocked and horrified, were now laughingly relieved. My private hell was no longer a public humiliation. It was better to keep it that way.

The next morning I left but instead of going home, went into Lentfield the local town. I sat in the café in the centre of town nursing a coffee while trying to listen to the conversations for clues. For a while that proved a dry hole but then this tall, good-looking guy came in and sat at the counter. He was clearly a local because his drink appeared without him ordering. He just sat there drinking his coffee and reading the local paper when a man at the table next to me called out.

"Hey John. When are you coming round to fix my leak? I thought you were doing it last week?"

The guy at the counter, John I supposed, looked up, smiling and said, "Yeah I was but something came up."

"A better offer, hey?" said the man.

A dreamy expression came over John's face and he said, "Oh yeah, that's the truth," and smiled that peculiarly possessive smile men have when they've bagged a special prey.

The man couldn't mistake it either and said, "Who was she, John?", and laughed. By now most of the customers and the staff had cottoned on to the conversation and there was a deal of joshing and joking. John was being teased and questioned but wasn't giving anything away, except for the blush.

He quickly finished off his coffee and laughingly fled. I had seen that coming and had left a few moments before and was in my car when he came out and climbed into his pick-up. I wasn't sure whether he was going to work or going home but I snapped a couple of pictures of him and then followed him a little way behind. He went out of town but there was just enough traffic on the road for me to discreetly follow. It seemed to be a work call when he stopped since he got his tools out before going up to the house.

I wasn't disappointed as I was sure that in a small town like this I would find him somewhere in the archives of the local rag he had just been reading. That proved the easiest piece of detecting ever done. I picked up a copy of the current paper and had only flipped over a few pages when I saw his photograph, obligingly with his name right below.

John Mathieson, winning a medal at the State athletics event. Local builder, jack of all trades, single. There too was a possible answer to the question that had been puzzling me all night; how did his and Bridie's paths cross? Apparently, he had been a volunteer children's athletic coach in our town, up until three years ago. It began to look as if this was a long-standing relationship.

I couldn't stand it. I had to find a dark corner where I could curl up and cry. It was hours before I could face the drive home and I still had no idea how to face Bridie.

**************

Bridie

She hung up the phone still shocked. She had been so calm, she was sure the man thought she didn't care. The truth was the exact opposite. She cared so much that she was almost paralysed. For five years she and John had had a blissful, if secret, relationship. She didn't know if it is true for all cheaters, male or female, but she had never once thought of the consequences when it started. She was blinded by the excitement, the thrill, the desire. She would never be able to say to her husband 'it was just sex' because it was more - much more. She had fallen utterly in lust with John. So much so that she had wanted his child. She lied to him too, saying that she was on the pill. She had let the dice roll as to whether it would be John or Michael who fathered her children. Even though she knew she would lose both of them if it ever came out it was knowledge tucked away in a corner. The longer the affair continued the less likely it seemed. She never felt the reality of it, of the pain that she would cause them and herself if it was discovered. She never even checked whose children she had borne.