He wasn’t a man of many words. He wasn’t a man of many smiles or adventures. In fact, he wasn’t a man of many anything’s. I remember as a child we would run after him or about him, to see if we could evoke a smile on his wooden face. But nothing. Not then. Not ever. At night when everyone would go carousing about town, drinking and causing chaos, I would see him in his study listening to Mozart’s fifth symphony. It was always Mozart’s fifth symphony. A symphony that couldn’t suit him less " I thought. Until I heard his story.
     It happened one day, it was quite by accident. It was actually completely by accident but as I have often remarked since then, fate has ways which we don’t in dealing with things, and I was just one of those ways. You see Mr. Jepson was never born to be a man of few words.
    We were returning after the harvest, the evening of celebrations we always called it, and as was custom we danced in the streets to the sweet youthful melody of our own voices. All of a sudden I was sailing through the air; I was on the wings of hummingbirds that broke once they saw what lay in my path. I landed right on top of Mr. Jepson. Poor Mr. Jepson who was pulling, or rather heaving, a bag out alongside himself. Poor Mr. Jepson who did not, in anyway, see it coming.  I was splayed amongst the bag’s contents on the ground. He did not smile. He did not speak. He just offered me his hand and helped me up; once I was face to face with him something went off in his eyes, like a clock. His time was running backwards and for a moment I saw into his mind. A mind full of sorrow and hardships but just as quickly as it had opened up it closed and his world was lost to me forever.

“I am so sorry, sir,” I said half-bowing half-making ready to help him pick up the thousands and thousands of photographs?

I reached for one; it was of a beautiful young girl her eyes seemed to be alight with the fire of youth and innocence, she smiled as if not for the camera but the person behind the camera and the rest of the world. Suddenly his grabbed the photo, fell on his knees and rigorously shoved everything in the bag again. I bent down once more to help but he shoved me away.

“Get away, leave me, go!” He tried to shout but his voice was like a dry river bank, so unused to words that it sounded rather like an urgent whisper. And maybe it was but I was too young to understand it back then.

He shoved me back once more and I left, half in joy half in agony. The next day I returned to his house. Something about him interested me, something about his house, about his voice... about those pictures. He didn’t allow me to come in, he never even looked at me, just continued listening to Mozart’s fifth symphony while I stood outside and waited and waited and waited. Until one day. The day he opened the door and let me into his world. Everywhere were pictures and memories, I was soon to learn, of the girl I had seen. This was Mr. Jepson’s story, I realized, this girl was Mr. Jepson’s story.

“Who is she?” I croaked.

“A girl I loved long ago,” he answered and for the first time I understood his deep sorrow. His eyes were no longer a mystery.

All through summer I helped him. I cooked for him, I cleaned for him, I listened to Mozart with him, I read to him and sometimes I would play piano for him. Often, his friends from his days in the army visited. They would sit for hours in his lounge laughing too loudly and talking too softly. And always, always when I entered they would give me these strange looks. In my youthful ignorance I mistook it for looks of admiration. And then one day he disappeared. The man of few words disappeared. The man who had been a mystery to everyone except me - a poor orphan.

It was years later when I saw him again. I was married and had a daughter, we had moved to London only a few months ago. A lady, now grey like him, graced him and when she turned to me I knew exactly who she was. The girl from the pictures.

“Mr. Jepson,” I smiled. “It is me.”

He smiled. “My dear, I believe it is time you met your Mother.”

He wasn’t a man of many words. He wasn’t a man of many smiles or adventures. But he was a man with many stories and many secrets.