2. Short story: “Scar”
THE LIFE OF A SEVENTY-PERCENTER
Short story: “Scar”
Some memories torture us and we use devices to get them under control. Even when there is forgiveness, there is no forgetting.
Renë Decartes famously said “I think, therefore I am”, and it doesn’t require much of the insight of a philosopher to realise that he was correct. I am in the end no more than the sum of my thoughts, and the secret of life seems to lie in taking control of our thoughts, to use them in constructing something positive out of all events, whether satisfying events or disappointing events. What matters is how they impact upon the soul. There is a Proverb that says,”He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls”, so we take our thoughts captive so that they in turn don’t plunder us! . So at a much later stage, I put the event in which I accidentally scarred a little girl into a romanticised short story in my ‘Wednesday Coffee Club’ series. I changed some of the details, but Llewellen would recognise herself straight away — one doesn’t forget something like that.
Should Llewellen by some remote chance happen across my blog and read this, I would be so very happy if she would contact me. If not, I say to her, ‘Bless you, Llewellen. I hope that life has been very good to you”.
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Short Story.
“Scar.”
“Hello Scar,” Tammy called as I walked into the coffee shop, “over here!”
I waved at her and made my way through the tables to where they were keeping a place for me — ‘they’ being Tammy and Maurie, Rita and Tom, Clare, and Penny. As I took one of the two empty chairs at the table, Rita said, “you on your own? Where’s Brad — you haven’t dumped him, have you?”
I didn’t say anything until I had settled myself into my chair and the waitress had taken my order for coffee. The eight of us met here, in what we called our ‘Wednesday Coffee Club’ every week — on Wednesday, of course, because, as we used to say, “That’s Wednesday finished — now it’s downhill all the way to the weekend!”
“Well?” asked Tammy.
“If you call it dumping, then, yes, I suppose I have dumped Brad. We’re not seeing each other any more.”
Clare said: “Shame — he is really such a nice guy. We all thought you had finally found Mr. Right. What happened?”
I was glad my coffee arrived, because it gave me time to think about my answer. I absolutely did not know why I had broken up with Brad.
Tammy, Rita, Clare, Penny and I had been friends for several years; almost since we first started working. I hardly recollect how we came together, but we did, and we did things together. Boys had come, and boys had gone; some had stayed for a little longer, and one or two, like Maurie, had stayed to marry into our circle. Poor Penny had been married, but now was single again after she found out that her hero was cheating on her. Rita had her Tom, so Clare and I were the ones who never seemed to be able to commit ourselves to any serious relationship. Clare was just too very pretty and too fussy, we all thought, and as for me, I don’t really know what the others thought, but I think I was just too self-conscious — mainly because of my scar.
That’s where my nickname comes from, the scar on my forehead just above, and parallel to, my left eyebrow. Not that it sticks out all that much, but I think it does, so I have developed the habit of stroking it with my finger when I’m deep in thought, which calls attention to it. So it’s my fault that others even notice it. But I don’t mind the nickname ‘Scar’, but every now and then it does bring memories of how it comes to be there — but more about that later.
In the meantime, I had to explain about Brad and me.
“Brad is really nice,” I said, “and we get on very well. But I’m just not ready to commit myself, while he is. Brad has asked me several time to marry him, but I always evade the issue; I just squeeze his hand and say ‘We’ll see’. Now I can see that he is becoming doubtful himself, so we agreed to part for a while.”
“Really, Scar, you’re impossible!” Tammy exclaimed. “What are you looking for? Here we are all ready to settle for Mr. Right — but you want Mr. Perfect? There’s no such person, and in the meantime you’re not getting any younger — how old are you, twenty-nine?”
Tammy didn’t mean it in a nasty way, and she was right — I would soon turn thirty, actually — and she was quite serious. I sat wondering if she hadn’t hit the nail squarely on the head. What was I looking for? Brad wasn’t the first nice man I had let slip through my fingers, and I began to fear that he wouldn’t be the last.
Coffee over, I left the rest of the Club and moved to the front to pay — we always go ‘dutch’ as the saying goes — and while standing there waiting for my change, this man, whom I had noticed sitting by himself at a table when I arrived, crowded past behind me, bumping my hat and sending it down over my eyes. I should explain that I always wear a hat with a floppy brim — it’s because of that scar again! I imagine the brim will hide it from view. Anyway, he bumped it, and I thought he may have done it on purpose, particularly since he had stared at me when Tammy called to me when I came in. Guys have some very unsubtle ways of getting to speak to girls! He apologized most profusely, and stood back to let me pass through the door.
In my apartment, I looked at myself a long time in the mirror, thinking ‘What is it about men and me? What will it take to make me happy with a relationship? I could see, without feeling vain, that I was pretty enough without being a ravishing beauty like Clare, so I had no reason to feel inferior or self-conscious, except for the scar. I traced it with my finger as I looked at myself. It happened a long time ago — I was only three or four at the time but I can vaguely remember it happening, and my parents filled me in on the details. We were on holiday at a guest farm. There was a boy there, perhaps four or five years older than me. He was hitting the the brick wall of the cattle shed with the back of an axe. I came up behind him, and next thing I was standing screaming with blood running down my face! I had come up too close, and the axe caught me on the back-swing. Fortunately, as my parents always tell me, the axe was very blunt otherwise it would have split my skull open. As it was it only cut the skin, but the amount of bleeding made it look like I was about to die! The boy was completely terrified, but it absolutely wasn’t his fault. He and I became firm friends after that, and he was so sweet to me during the rest of the holiday.
So here I am, scarred for life, and waiting for Mr Perfect to come and rescue me! I sighed, took my hat off, turned away from the mirror, and settled into my favourite chair to forget about the world and men for a while.
On Wednesday I went to the Coffee Club as usual, and the first thing I saw as I walked in the door, was the clumsy man, sitting on his own, smiling at me and nodding his head in greeting, as if we were long-time buddies! I gave a brief smile in his direction as I threaded my way through the tables to where the Club was gathered. He was there the next week, and the next, and by now he would rise to to say hello, and I would walk right past his table as if I was being drawn by a magnet! He was slowly luring me and I was falling for it! The Club members could see what was happening, and began to tease me — “Who is he, Scar? Maybe he is Mr. Perfect come to fetch you?”
It wasn’t too long before he was sitting with us at our table in the vacant chair which they always left next to me. He knew me as Scar, but I did not even know his name! And now I had to introduce him to the others.
“Sorry, I don’t know your name, so I can’t introduce you!” This was a bit embarrassing!
“It’s Jamie — Jamie Jennings.” So I introduced him all round the table, and then I started to say “My friends call me Scar, but my name —-”, but he interrupted me.
“I know who you are,” he said, looking straight into me eyes, “you are Llewellen, and I know how you got your scar. I put it there!”
There was an amazed silence all around the table, actually the whole coffee shop seemed to have stopped to listen. Then it was Clare who burst out, breaking the silence and the tension — “You branded her?!”
Jamie was looking at me tenderly, sorrowfully, twinklingly all at once. “Yes. I put my mark on her so no one could claim her but me.” As he spoke his hand was reaching out to take mine under the table. He gave it a long, hard squeeze, and I squeezed his in return, and the others were staring at us with tears running down their cheeks. I hadn’t known, but he was what I had been waiting for all my life.
The End.
