The Old Storyteller

She knew her husband and, though the man who had phoned had done his best, she knew that once the hook had been set Michael would work away at it. She couldn't see any realistic solution that would keep Michael from throwing her out once he found the truth so she did the cowardly thing and packed what she most needed in the short-term, ready to leave. She loaded the car and waited for her husband. When he didn't arrive by lunchtime she knew he was digging. It wouldn't be hard to find out who John was and once he knew that he would know that this had been going on for years. He wouldn't forgive that.

She was still in shock. Her despair and sorrow for Michael were there but she couldn't feel it. The emotion seemed suppressed like a fire banked for the night. She also knew that the fire and pain would break out when anything disturbed the coals.

She left a brief note.

I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. You are going to feel that that cannot be true. If it were, how could I have done what I have done? There is no explanation or excuse. I will only say that, to my everlasting sorrow, I found it was possible to love two men at the same time and that I was weak and selfish. I lied to both of you. I have asked your mother to collect the children from school. I will let you know where I end up so you can divorce me. Take care of the children as I know you would anyway and take care of yourself. There is no fault or blame, no falling short by you. It was all my own weakness. I can assure you of one thing. I will suffer.

She took her car and left. She had no destination in mind, no direction other than 'away'. She filled the tank and took out the maximum cash withdrawal from her two cards. That gave her a few hundred dollars and a five-hundred-mile range but she needed a job as fast as she could find one.

CHAPTER TWO" "...and melts the shades away.."

Michael

When I returned home her car was gone. I found the note. I had no idea how to react. My thoughts and feelings were all jumbled, overlayed; savage fury mixed with unutterable loss, hatred and love, memories of us and visions of them. How could anyone make sense of this? I sat in a chair in the dark all night, unsleeping. I couldn't be said to have been thinking for there was no rational process. Rather there were images, fantasies of the past and the future, of revenge, of reconquest.By morning I was a real mess. One thing I had realised during the night was that Old Jacques must have rung Bridie to warn her. I decided it would be better to talk to him face to face and that I also wanted to talk to her lover, John. Mother agreed to look after the kids until I had got my head together.

Old Jacques was as charming as ever. After I told him that Bridie had left me he was as open as could be. As I had suspected, he had phoned Bridie to explain what had happened. He was very upset to learn that he had inadvertently destroyed our marriage. He was a little more reticent on the subject of John and tried to probe me about my intentions.

"I am involved in this matter but I have no wish to be responsible for worse. What do you want to achieve from facing John?"

"I don't want to confront him. You may not believe me but I think I know what I'm doing. It would hurt me less if I felt that she had betrayed me with someone that was worthy of her. If I face him, I may never find out what I really want to know. Odd though it may sound, I want to become close to him without him knowing who I am. Only that way do I think I can get to know him well enough to judge. But to do that I need you to give me an in, a way to enter his orbit. After that it's up to me."

"Won't he recognise you?" asked Jacques.

"No, I don't think he will. I can't swear to it but I don't think she would have had him in our house where he could have seen a photo. I'm not the kind of guy who is ever in the paper or indeed ever really noticed."

"If you do get to know him well enough to make such a presumptuous judgement, what then?

"I'm not proposing to hand her over. She's her own person and makes her own decisions but I need to understand why she says she loves both of us. You think I'm not terrified here? She's left me, she's telling me she's going to suffer. I think she's basically a good person who has found herself in a shitty place. But she has put all of us in a shitty place as well and, now it seems to me that because I love her, because I am her husband, it is up to me to make this as much better as it can be. I have no idea yet how that can be done but one thing I am sure of. I need to know John to have any chance of making good decisions."

"Do you really think you can handle that, knowing that he has betrayed you, enjoyed your wife's most intimate life, maybe been a better lover, a more satisfying one? Maybe she has said things about you to him, things that would demean you if you knew about them. If you get too close maybe he will talk about her to you. Do you honestly think you could suck that all up with exploding?"

"Can I honestly say that I could? Maybe not, but I believe so and I believe it is worth trying. In any event I won't be going berserk on him. You would not be liable for mayhem and violence. The worst that can happen is that my own pain will be made worse but I know that and take the risk."

"What about your children. Who will look after them? Will they lose both their parents?" worried Jacques

"I'm planning on moving here. They are both too young for school and I will need a carer whether I am here or at home. In some ways being in a different environment may make it easier for them; a distraction from missing their mother."

"What about your work"

"I own a business which will run perfectly well without me being there. The current manager is great and I will be on the internet talking with him every week. Most of the staff spend most of their time working from home anyway now post-Covid."

"What about your wife. What are you going to tell her?"

"Nothing. She left the children with me and she knows they will be safe. It might even wake her up a bit if she doesn't' know where I am."

"So, a bit of payback as well then?"

"I'll leave an emergency contact number, a burner phone, just in case. I'm not a monster."

"How do you imagine you could get into John's orbit, even with my help?"

"As well as owning a business I am a very competent carpenter and I will be looking for work. According to the local paper he's a builder so our paths will cross but it would help if you oil the wheels a bit by spreading some good will amongst the locals. It will make things move quicker. Also, if you brief me a little on John, what he likes, his interest and so on that too will speed things up. Will you do it?"

"I think I will. I feel I have some responsibility here. I was against it to start with but you seem to have thought it out. The first thing I can easily do for you is find you both lodgings and a competent nanny, a retired nurse. She has a free wing in her too large house and not enough money to keep it up. If I recommend you she will snap you up. She lives in town and knows everybody. Are you quite sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

He picked up the phone.

"Hey Janice, how are you keeping?"

"That bad, huh?"

"Listen I've got some maybe good news if you're interested. I've got a friend here I've known for a while - a carpenter who is relocating here. He has two young kids less than school age and he needs lodgings and childcare. You interested?"

"O.K., I'll send him round for you to vet." He hung up the phone and looked at me quizzically.

"Thank you, Jacques. We never had this conversation; you're just helping someone you have known through the festival."

He nodded and wished me well.

The 'vetting' went well, the place was perfect and I moved in with the kids and all my tools two days later. I spent that afternoon and evening with my kids making sure they were good with Janice. The next day I dropped flyers I'd had made up with my new name into all the high street businesses and to a list of people Old Jacques had made out for me. For lunch I dropped into the same café - Merlin's - where I'd seen John. Old Jacques was there as arranged and he introduced me to the owner and some of the locals. We ordered the daily special and sat down to eat. Old Jacques had said John Mathieson was a regular and sure enough twenty minutes later he came in. Old Jacques waved him over and introduced me and we spoke briefly. There was no sign of recognition in his face and his manner was naturally easy.

The next two weeks I had picked up three good jobs that would fill my working time for most of a month but had yet to make much headway with John. I deliberately didn't go seeking him out but established a routine of going to the places where I knew he hung out. We saw each other a few times but I made no approach. Meanwhile the kids and Janice were getting on really well which relieved my mind of its second biggest worry. My biggest worry? Were the kids even mine? The affair clearly spanned the birth of both of my children. The DNA results were due back any day now.

In the third week I was lunching at Merlin's as usual when John came over and asked if he could join me.

"Hi, Mike. I was wondering if you had time for working with me on a job?"

***********

Bridie

She had fled like a coward; shamed, frightened, guilty. She had driven three hundred miles west then lucked into a waitressing job at a bar. Not a bad one, mostly moderately well-off manual workers and low to mid-level office workers (mainly female), a scattering of nurses, paramedics, and a few cops. Not enough to make it a cop bar, thank God. Dave the boss was cool. Calm, easy going but tough enough for the job and very protective of his staff. Didn't seem to have a racist or sexist bone in his body which was damned unusual in any barkeep.

One of the other girls' roommates was moving out and then she had a bed, no longer sleeping in the car. Thank God for heavily tinted windows. Good choices in parking spots and those dark windows had kept her safe but she was glad to be under a roof - for easy peeing if nothing else. Her new roommate, Donna, was fairly active on the dating scene. In fact the whole bar was a constantly rotating sexual cauldron, the mix of randy (and handy) blokes and equally randy office girls kept the pheromone level soaring. Bottle that and you would be rich.

She was always cheerful and polite in her refusals and made no enemies though she wondered why, given the state of her marriage, she wasn't tempted. Only one guy had overstepped the mark and Dave had dealt firmly with that. Maybe a few more weeks of listening to Donna's enthusiastic couplings inches from her head, would sap her determination. She was suffering as she knew she would. Mostly missing Michael, though the stray thought of John's hard lean body would enter her mind during the banging and moaning from the room next door.

Her kids? Did she miss them? Well, she clearly was not much of a mother for leaving them in the first place, she thought. Perhaps an even worse one for neither knowing nor caring who their father was. She sometimes wondered if there was either something wrong with her or maybe just some part missing that other people seemed to have. Still the thing about missing parts is, because they're missing, you don't miss them.

It was as if she wasn't learning more about herself, she was just finding there was less to know about. It was a puzzle. She was certainly no closer to working out a path either to the future or the past. Nevertheless, she would sometimes wake up thinking of the children and lie awake for hours. Gradually she learned to use yoga techniques to drive the memories back.

After two months, having heard nothing either from or about Michael, she took a couple of days off. She decided to drive back and just secretly observe to make sure all was well with him and her children. She had had no intention of speaking to them but when she arrived one early evening and saw all the lights on and people moving around, she was suddenly overcome by such a tempest of longing that, without second-guessing herself, she marched up to the door and rang the bell.

She was taken aback to find a youngish woman opening the door.

"Oh, are you the nanny?" Bridie asked hesitantly.

"I'm sorry. Who were you looking for?" asked the puzzled woman.

"I wanted to see my children and speak to my husband," said Bridie, equally puzzled.

"I'm afraid I don't know the previous owners at all but I'm sure our lawyers would have their details."

Bridie reeled in shock muttering "no, oh God no".

"You're upset. Why don't you come in and sit down for a moment and have something to drink?"

Bridie found she couldn't move. The woman called up to her husband and, taking Bridie's arm brought her into the house and sat her down at an unfamiliar kitchen table. The husband came down to find a stunningly beautiful stranger with enormous, haunted eyes, tears streaming down her face, seated at his kitchen table. He cast an anguished glance of enquiry at his wife.

"Hans, this woman is looking for her children and her husband".

Turning to Bridie she asked, "Did this used to be your home? What happened?"

Bridie broke down completely, her head on the table, howling in misery. Hans rushed to get her a glass of brandy and his wife, Brigitta, helped to raise her head and put the glass to her lips. Gradually Bridie gained control and began to apologise.

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to behave so stupidly. I just realised I have lost everything. My husband, my children, even my home." Fresh tears started to pour down her cheeks but she angrily brushed them away.

"I'll be fine. I must go now," she said and started to get to her feet.

Brigitta firmly pushed her down.

"No. You will eat with us and tell us your story and we will see if we can help."

Brigitta was so firm and so clearly taking charge that Bridie just let it happen. Soon they were eating and with the food Bridie gained some strength. When she realised that the woman was also named after Brigid or Brid, (the Gaelic Goddess of fire, (and thus smiths) healing, fertility, and poetry amongst other things), she felt a connection. She talked over dinner and felt calmer for having had an audience. She had told no-one at the bar her story which perhaps had been a mistake.

She didn't tell all the details, just that her husband had found out she had cheated and she had run away without talking to him. She explained that she had left him a letter and that she had moved away, got a job and a shared flat. She had been missing them so badly she had driven by, not meaning to stop. Then she had seen the warm lights and people inside, and had felt so full of longing, that she had rung the bell.

"We moved in three weeks ago, but I know the owner had left before that. We were cash buyers and his lawyer took our first offer. It was all very quick. We never met him. Does he have any relatives or friends here that you know? They may be able to tell you where he went."

"His mother won't speak to me but, yes there are friends. I'll try tomorrow. Thank you again for the meal and your kindness."

They pressed her to stay but realised it would be torture to her. She slept the night in her car outside her old home and spent the day telephoning friends. No-one knew where he was, only that he had left, probably only a few days after she had. She tried his old lawyer but he could only tell her that, as the house was his prior to their marriage, he had taken all the house sale price in cash and disappeared. Michael's mother, as she knew, wouldn't tell her anything only that he had picked up the children and left. Bridie could tell that she was worried too and felt sure that even his mother didn't know where he had gone. His office would only say that he had taken indeterminate leave of absence and they had no idea where he was.

The only thing she could think of to do was to leave her address and that of the bar with all her friends, his lawyer and his mother and hope that he would contact her. She drove back west utterly miserable, suffering far more than she had even imagined she could.

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

John

Mike and he had been working together for a couple of weeks and had worked very well together. Mike seemed somewhat tense on occasion to begin with but had relaxed into a casual and easy friendship. They had even gone drinking the first weekend and John found that they had much in common. The second weekend, Mike had invited him round, with some others, for a barbecue and he had met Mike's children briefly before they were put to bed. John was beginning to think that he had found the business partner he had been looking for but wanted to know a little bit more about him before he suggested that they team up full-time.

The following Friday he invited Mike round to his place.

"I can't offer you any entertainment, or even good cooking," he said with a smile when Mike turned up, "but I wanted to chat with you about the future. I take it Janice is looking after your kids?"

"Yep, they love her and she's great with them. I have the best of both worlds, lovely kids well-loved and looked after without any of the strain of having a wife."

"I take it your marriage had problems? I wasn't sure if you were widowed or divorced but your comment suggests the latter."

This was the opening Mike had been carefully working towards.

"She cheated on me - not just once, but over a long period. In fact, I am still not sure if my kids are mine even."

This wasn't true. The DNA results had come through a fortnight earlier. Sam, the elder, was not his but Henrietta was. What a complete fuck-up his life was.

"You haven't had them tested?" John asked.

"No," lied Michael, " I don't want to know. They are mine wherever they came from. Their mother abandoned them and left, leaving them explicitly in my care. How do you think it would help if I found one or both of them weren't mine? In fact, the worst might be to find one was and one wasn't. How would that affect the way I dealt with them? Would I love one more? Would I always be looking for signs that someone else's genes were making them behave differently? I think you can see the problems."

John felt more and more aghast as he thought about the problem. Thank God he was single and didn't have any kids. He said as much as he went to get two more beers. It was a good thing he wasn't looking at Mike when he said it. He would not have missed the glare of rage that crossed Mike's face.John came back with the beer.

"If you want to talk about it I'm happy to listen but I won't push you if you would rather not."

"Actually, if it doesn't bother you, it's quite a relief to have someone to talk to. It's been a pretty lonely time."

"Are you still in touch with her?

"Nope. She left without talking to me or leaving any address. I have no idea where she is, and I have never heard from her."

"Christ, that's cold. She's had no contact with her kids either?"

"Nothing. No birthday presents, no cards - zip."

"Whoa. Does that make it harder or easier for you?

"Some of both. For the kids I think it's better. They are very young and not being constantly disrupted by a person who is no longer in their lives. For me? I'm not sure anything is good for me. I loved her. I probably still do. No, correction. I know I still do. But instead of heartful love, it's heartache love. Not the same thing at all. What about you? Single and happy or single and missing out on love?"

"I fell madly in love years ago, but I can't have her."

"Married was she? Wouldn't leave her husband?"

"Pretty much like that yeah."

"Pity it wasn't my wife. At least one of us would be happy now!"