Why did you lie to me

Paula's story

Chapter One

There were four hundred and eighty-three people living in St. Martin-sur-Flumes — 483-and-a-half if you counted Patrice and Marcel’s new baby — and Mademoiselle Dinde knew everything worth knowing about every one of them. If there was anything Mademoiselle Dinde didn’t know, the priest knew it. And if there was something neither of those two knew, then, well, it probably wasn’t worth knowing.

It was early Friday morning, and Mademoiselle Dinde was humming a little tune as she misted her prize hydrangeas in her front garden. The tune was Clair de Lune, and during the difficult parts of the melody, she would break off and coo to her blooms. She believed her cooing was integral to their growth, much more integral than those arduous passages of Debussy that she had never quite been able to master.

Isabelle Dinde was a vigorous 89 years old, and because she had never married, she insisted on being called mademoiselle. Her rose-draped cottage was on the Grande Rue, which led from the village gates directly to the weekly market in the church square. She always managed to be in her small front garden with her watering can on Fridays at 8 a.m., which was later than she usually tended to her plants. All decent people should be out of bed and into their day by 7 a.m., she believed. But by waiting until 8 on Fridays, she was able to see most of the comings and goings on market day. Not that she was interested in the least.

All morning, vendors had been passing her cottage, heading to the square laden with their wares. The baker. The cheesemaker. The florist. The bookseller. The monk with his religious tracts, which were free but somehow never brought him any interest. Unlike the fishmonger, who sold more poisson each week than Jesus fed to the multitudes in the second miracle. The monk decided he must pray harder for customers, and, perhaps ask the mayor’s office if he could take the stall next to the fishmonger.

The air was thick with the scent of lavender, sweetened with a hint of coming scandal.

Madame Claudette Bois, whose husband of 30 years had up and disappeared one day several years ago, by happenstance on the same day that the police chief’s 25-year-old daughter also vanished, walked briskly past Mademoiselle Dinde’s cottage, nodded briefly to the old woman, and continued into the square. She stopped at each vendor’s booth to sniff here, squeeze there, squint here, savor there. No one in the village would think of contradicting this village matriarch, and that included the vendors, who swore to her that their produce, their croissants, their roses were first-rate, the freshest, the finest.

As she strode up to the cheesemaker’s booth to inspect the fromages on offer, she noticed a peculiar absence: Where was the huge wheel of the spectacular Camembert that usually had pride of place front and center, the cheese she was planning to buy for a special family lunch on Sunday?

“Alors. Monsieur Bardot,” she began, as the cheesemaker looked up from his packaging of a purchase, and, wiping his hands on his apron, turned expectantly to Madame Bois. “Oui, madame?” he asked. “Where is my Camembert, monsieur?” Claudette asked, an imperious note creeping into her none-too-quiet voice. “What is the meaning of this? I ordered it last week, and you said it would be here for me. Have you put it away for me? Or, perhaps you have sold it to someone else?”

Mais, non, madame,” Bardot said. “It is right there, in the front, as always.” And the big man reached across the display to pick up the large wooden box. Which was no longer there.

“Ah, putain!” Bardot cried. “C’est incroyable! It was there 10 minutes ago, I swear it.”

Claudette nodded, and a note sounding vaguely of triumph crept into her voice. “There is a thief loose in the village, preying on the market,” she declared. “I will alert the gendarmes, I will tell the mayor’s office, I will call the newspaper!”

One could not call Claudette’s voice soft at this point, and the disturbance caused Mademoiselle Dinde to abandon her hydrangeas and head into the square, where people were already gathered around the cheesemaker’s booth. The dramatically outraged Claudette inspired outrage among the others. “A theft! Of cheese! Mon Dieu!” one man cried. “In our little village,” an elderly woman moaned. “This must be stopped!” Claudette trilled, as shocked villagers rallied around her, muttering to each other in disbelief.

“Oh, madame, perhaps we should not be too hasty,” Bardot murmured to Claudette.  “Perhaps the thief was hungry.”

“Hunger is one thing,” sniffed Claudette. “Theft is another. We are French. We have rules for consumption."

 Just then, the priest appeared from around the corner, holding an empty wooden box, a box that had just moments before contained a very large wheel of Camembert.  “I am so very sorry,” he whispered to the cheesemaker. “My cat has learned to lift the latch on the door, and he escaped this morning. I found this near his bed. And he is looking very satisfied, indeed, monsieur, if that is any small consolation.”

 Mademoiselle Dinde let loose a small smile. As a cat lover herself, the case of the Camembert Cat Caper was the most entertaining thing that had happened in St.-Martin-sur-Flumes in quite some time. Most of the villagers dispersed almost immediately, but Mademoiselle Dinde and a few others lingered, indulging their palates with an order of a round of local Epoisses or a wedge of excellent tomme de Pyrenees. The wronged Claudette suppressed a tiny grin as she loudly asked Monsieur Bardot if he would be able to provide another wheel of his superb Camembert in time for her Sunday luncheon. “Bien sur, madame, but of course, of course,” Bardot said, as he accepted coins from the contrite priest’s purse.

After all, the villagers could forgive a theft if the thief, like the priest’s cat, was a connoisseur.

 

Annemarie's story

Why Did You Lie to Me?

You told me angelica (which I loved) was candied celery - so that I would eat celery - it did not taste like angelica.

You told me that I would see you soon when you put me on the train to go to my first school - it was 3 months!

You told me it wouldn't hurt when you dug the jigger from foot - it did - a LOT,

You said the fairies would give me 6d. for each tooth I lost - they may be magic but they never found the hidden drawer where I had put the teeth. (I did when I was 22 and the fairies don't give backpay.)

You said you would write a note so I didn't have to eat swedes or turnips. You never wrote the note and I ate, or put in my skirt pocket, swedes and turnips for 7 years at boarding school.

You said I looked lovely in my tulip fairy costume - not after the crepe was drenched in orange juice and fell apart leaving me in my knickers and all the other kids started laughing

You told us the meal was roast chicken - it was the shape of Snugglebug, our pet duck who was frightened of water and couldn't swim.

For my first job  you said 'it was just an interview, just be calm' - I wrote my birthdate wrongly and it was announced to all the interviewees " where is Annemarie Page - you say you are 7 months old." - I was not calm , I was very embarrassed and became red.

They said I could have braces, you told me I should be pleased with the teeth God gave me, so no braces. 1, God didn't give them to me, my parents did. 2. My parents would have let me have braces.

You told me it was easy to hop up into the attic - yes but I waited two hours for help to get down.

You told me childbirth was easy...oh! Oh! Oh! What a lie!

You told me I could easily give a talk to your women's group. I said I was hopeless at that sort of thing. Afterwards you said " Oh , you meant it."

'Go on,'  you said, 'it's fun and you'll love it;  it's the highest slide in the water park.' A 5-minute climb and no turning back, I could see into another country. Down I was pushed and ended up drowned with the biggest wedgie ...and I was red AGAIN.

You said I would love golf and gave me 3 lessons for Christmas. I didn't... but the long lunches and the people are great.

You told me we'd queued 3 times and the bobsleigh ride would be such fun...it wasn't; I was traumatised so was youth gripped by my legs?

You said I looked good in that tangerine swimsuit I bought for our Italian holiday. Well, maybe but not when we won the botcha and a bottle of cava was sprayed over us - the costume became transparent. I became red...again.

 

Oh, why did you  lie to me?

_________________________________________________-

Jackie

The  sixteen year old girl watched as her mother filled a suitcase with clothes, photos and various bits of her personal items.   Puzzled she asked her mother where she was going.   Oh don’t worry I’m just going away for a few weeks – it’s the school holidays soon and if you like you can join me later on.     But it was the end of May, graduation day was coming and mother going away meant that she wouldn’t be there for the big day.   She said nothing and waved goodbye.   After a few weeks the young girl received a letter saying everything was fine and that if she liked she could get herself a plane ticket and go to be with her mother.     Arriving in the UK from the USA she was met by her mothers family and on the way to the north of England on that long car journey she learnt that in fact her mother was in hospital in a special palliative care hospital;  Not really understanding what it was until her father arrived unexpectedly in the country that her parents told her the truth.  Her mother had an incurable blood disease called leukaemia and wouldn’t recover.  

Why did you lie to me?  She sobbed I’m quite capable of knowing about life at my age she argued why didn’t you tell me about my mothers illness.    It wasn’t really a lie you see we just thought it best to let you live as happily as possible and thought that a 16 year old wasn’t able to take in that kind of information.      We were  protecting you and we thought once you knew you would fail your exams and ruin your future.   So it wasn’t a lie.

I was brought up as a Catholic and a lie was a black mark on your soul.    Confession of even the smallest most insignificant lie (white lie) was expected.   Absolution after confession was a relief and a special prayer to God expected.        To me, now, this is an excessive behavior which has made me move away from Catholicism.

Which led me to research what is a lie and a white lie.   I found out that in general lying is a normal human behavior almost everyone lies occasionally.  But there can be a loss of trust if the lie is discovered and damage to relationships.

   The 16 year old girls parents were acting on being protective and so therefore not telling her about her mother was not really a lie or a bad thing.  

Whether it truly benefits someone depends on the situation, and in many cases, the long-term costs outweigh the short term.