Tryst In The Tale

A Tryst In The Tale 

No sex please, this is the nineteenth century, barely a week into the last decade.  The reign of Queen Victorian, may she live forever and it seems she will.  Even seeing “bare” written on the page was likely to agitate a chap, make him wish for a secluded place and, as it were, a touch of privacy.

Seclusion seemed a rude awaking away from the street where young Hercules walked back from a language lesson.  Learning Latin, but it was all Greek to him, wandering past the cafes where men sat and committed genteel suicide by drinking pastis and smoking gauloises.  Like many towns along a southern coast, Torquay was a sophisticated place.

Not that Hercules was much worried about privacy or piracy, seclusion or inclusion, he had a head full of declensions that refused to form neat patterns.  Why don’t we talk in numbers he wondered one could then zero on clarity. 

Across a cloudy lane, Bagatelle Café to one side and The Petted Shoe on the other, puff-puff, quaff-quaff, Hercules glimpsed an intriguing woman.  Nothing to supercharge synapses and this was a time when church attendance was at its zenith – as was brothel visitation.  Well, if you are to repent, you need to collect a few peccadillos first.  So before you could say “spat or spittle” Hercules approached the winsome lass, whimsically lacking a pick up line.  “Do you have a match?”

“Unrecognised sexism and unconscious racism,” came the reply – this was clearly a woman au fait with what bawdy fisherfolk would call “normative behaviour in contemporary society.”

The town, originally called “Tor Key” – an ancient Cornish phrase meaning “hills and lochs” – was built on chastity, greed and fish.  Under their clothes, the good-folk wore clothes.  Nonetheless, there was frisson between the two young people introducing themselves, neither of whom could ignore they were of different gender persuasions.

“It’s alright,” Hercules the geek stammered. “I don’t smoke.”

“It’s alright,” the woman replied. “I rarely ignite.”

Hercules looked up, as if reminding himself who he was, “I am paged as Hercules, allow me to allow you to introduce yourself.”

“Miss … ”

“Yes?”

“No, miss that that dog crap you were about to step on.”

“Ah, thank you,” Hercules said while swivelling his hips with such alacrity his new-found companion could not help but think of other ways suppleness might prove satisfying.

And so they walked and so they chatted and what could be more natural than one arm slipping through another, zeroing down on one inescapable conclusion.  Never two without foreplay as the Latin masters liked to teach their bored students.  Just to check if they were if they were asleep.  It never failed.  They always were.

Tor-Key. From the ancient Nabatean language meaning, “Petra gets so hot at this time of year, let us holiday in Antalya.”

And what could be more natural than one hand slipping from the small of a back to the beck of a calling from loins buried under layers of cloth, baptismal robes given at birth and never to be taken off lest the tattoo “never tell your da he isn’t” is revealed.

It was a Tor-keynsian custom that made economic sense, keeping the home wheels spinning.

“Miss,” she repeated although he felt more or less on target.

“Miss,” she, never two without the third, said again and he thought “shi ... ” just as she finally revealed her name.

“Miss Marple.” A bashful smile. “But you can call me Miss Marple.”

“What is your first name?”

“Miss.”

“Ahhh.”

“If it was spelled with an R, it would be Riss,” her timbre shivering while adding, “you’re not the scaliest fish in the net are you?”

But Torquay was a strange place, ghosts rubbing shanks with flesh and bloody smelly people, days spent amongst ropes and seaweed adds a piquancy to sweat.  The town bustled through the nineteenth century as Victoria was forced to reign for decades until her face matched that of countless statues across the land.  She preferred the postage stamps visaging her image and took secret pleasure sticking them across her mirror then pretending, when preening, that she had compound eyes.

Miss Marple reckoned that Hercules had, “more arms than the Hecantonchires” as the roughly-ready creel-pot weavers put it. All Greek to Hercules whose arms had meanwhile guided Miss Marple whose whiles had led Hercy (as he thought his landlady called him – actually, she was afflicted with chronic hiccups) down lane and vennel, dark passages leading to darker until a door was reached, a coded knock tympanied.  

“Yes?”

“Global warming,” Hercules murmured the clandestine invocation learned from a comatose shape in the street too drunk to know who had stumbled over him. “It’s such a ridiculous thought, no-one would ever say it,” the inebriant had belched sourly.

And so it was that Hercules and Miss Marple entered a hidden door, went to reception to be greeted with, “Mr and Mrs Smith. What are your names for the register?” then staggered to their dalliance then rallied and did it again. And never two without a third and four playfully greeted dawn.

All this is common knowledge.  Easily checked at the local public library (£5 – but it was always a rebellious town, just pat your pockets and say, “I seem only to have Euros,” and it won’t cost a bean.  Which was lucky since I was beanless when visiting).

But there is a twist in the tryst that brings a tale that few speak of.  A love child appeared nine months later. September 1890.  Agatha, men so old they were born with beards and sea-boots, recalled the name.  “She was left at The Home For Waifs, Strays, And The Criminally Insane,” a particularly decrepit fellow mentioned (although I did like his “My Other Persona Is Kipper The Ripper” t-shirt.  Style and the south coast go together).

Whatever happened to that child?  She probably had a routine life, eat, sleep, drink, stick postage stamps on mirrors, but I have a Holmsean instinct there’s a story there somewhere.  If you know anything, let me know.  Knock on the door, say the password.  Ask for Sprat the Jack.  I’ll buy the first round.  Thanks.