Tickled by Thunder Fiction Contest Results

February 15, 1999

A.C.V. Lavery, North Vancouver, British Columbia -- The
Portrait (displayed below)
Second, Mimi Chen, Port Coquitlam, B.C., The Rose and The Lily;
Third, Stuart Bailey, Vancouver, B.C.; Pear;
Fourth, Christine G. Richardson, Hearst, Ont., The Twelfth Step;
Fifth, Jack Creek, West Hill, Ont., Child Power;
Sixth, D. Scott Ross, Campbell River, B.C., Something Different;
Seventh, Sara Henckel, Lakewood, CO, Before My Time Runs Out;
Eighth, Anna Best, Oliver, BC, Red Sandals;
Ninth, Richard Scarsbrook, Petrolia, Ont., Sandcastles, Waves;
Tenth, Sharon Helberg, Kelowna, B.C., A Second Opinion;
Eleventh, Barbara Olson, Nelson, B.C., The Mannequin’s Tears;
Twelfth, Helen Borrell, Vancouver, B.C., The Price and the Value;
Thirteenth, David Steinhardt, Hancock, Vermont, Driving Lessons.

Honourable Mention: Sharon Helberg, Kelowna, B.C., Gut Feeling; Charles Hill, Villa Rica, GA, Skippy; Kathy Ashby, Bracebridge, Ont., I Hung Up On the Municipal Councillor; Jaime Balsom, Picton, Ont., A Little Savior.

FIRST PLACE SHORT STORY
The Portrait
By A.C.V. Lavery
North Vancouver, British Columbia

It was a rather innocuous portrait, taken on its own merit, but once the legend had become known it took on grotesque proportions.

Oliver Plunkett had been a martyr for the cause, a religious man who had been beheaded for his troubles. ‘The Cause’ and ‘The Troubles’ are the euphemistic terms applied to anything you’re annoyed about in Ulster. You’ll find every kitchen counter rebel in a northern Irish household yelling nightly at the evening news broadcaster to ‘shut his gub’ and tell the real truth about why things are in a mess- ‘The Troubles.’

The portrait of this ‘saint’ (my family had recognized him as such, but The Pope had been somewhat slow to follow) hung up on the third landing – the one just before my room. The house itself was four storeys high, but narrow enough to accommodate only one room and a hall. The loft, where the children slept, because the sloping ceilings had wreaked havoc on many an adult, was high up, hot and claustrophobic.

To get there, my sister and I had to climb four flights of stairs and three landings – the last traversed directly under the gaze of Oliver Plunkett. At first I had thought him to be a woman. He had on some dandy garments of lace and velvet, and wore his hair in beautiful ringlets. But the record was soon to be set straight, as I was regaled of his story around what had been until then a cozy fire.

I was just a child, six years of age, when we moved into Granny’s house on Baltic Avenue, where the portrait hung. I had been taken away to Canada at much too young an age to remember anything about the place. So it was with brand new eyes that I became reacquainted with this holy terror.

My poor mixed-up ears had mistaken the Belfast twang of Gran-da for Nonga, and thereafter that’s how I referred to my Grampa. My ears had been mixed-up by the sudden shift in locale my family had been taking every few years.

I began life in the heart of Belfast city, county Antrim, a very pleasant area, across from ‘The Waterworks’ – a cleverly disguised hydro station, around which had been built a magnificent park, complete with ponds and waterfalls. It was here that my mother had taken me strolling, and here that I first heard the spoken word. Belfast Irish; creaky as a rusty gate.

From there I was whisked across the Atlantic, on an ocean liner, where I had my first birthday and retain my first memory – crying to be let off my mother’s knee and into the wading pool, where my sister was holding court with the other toddlers.

Catholics couldn’t find employment in Toronto in those days, so after years of trying to land a union job, my electrician father whisked us off to Northern Quebec. I hadn’t any idea that there were such creatures as different languages, so when a French girl approached me and garbled some nonsense at me, I had presumed she was making fun of me. So my first French words were ‘ferme la bouche’ (in other words, ‘shut your gub’), hurled in my toughest Bronx accent – garnered from watching too many Jimmy Cagney movies.

I had also taken to doing Elvis impressions with an iron frying pan for a guitar, twanging out some Tennessee tones, to my mother’s everlasting consternation. She was thoroughly miserable in rural Quebec, and I was simply trying to cheer her up. Dad got to go to the Air Force base and speak English every day, and my sister and I were rapidly losing our mother tongue. Only poor unilingual Ma had no conversational outlet. Not speaking, with either tongue or hands, is a horrifying punishment to inflict upon any true-blooded Irish person.

It was more than she could bear, so we headed back to Belfast, pronto. Now here I was, Tennessee twang, Bronx slang, French roll, and English Canadian nasal pitch trying hard to decipher the speech patterns of my own relatives – they simply thought I was being a cheeky cat, making them repeat all the time. “Do you not speak English?” my Auntie Moya had railed at me.’ Which one?!’, I’d thought in frustration, but never had the courage to vocalize. Instead, my six-year-old brain had decided: ‘very well, I will go through life saying everything wrong and the embarrassment will fall on your heads for not having raised me right.’

Nonga was great! He never corrected me, despite the horrible name with which I’d saddled him. And he loved to tell me stories. He would sit me up on his lap, and I would play with the three-and-a-half fingers he had on his left hand (a hook at the ship yards had relieved him of half of one). He and I’d been great pals, until he told me the story of Oliver Plunkett.

Being an incredibly curious kid, I’d asked him to describe the beheading – I hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant. Nonga did so with relish, down to the last pulpy detail. He held the stump of his ring finger up in a graphic illustration of what was left above poor Oliver’s shoulders. The blade had sliced through blood and bones and sinew. This eighteenth century Irish hero had lead a rebellion against the British forces in our country, and had been tried and condemned for his troubles. Nonga said his spirit still roamed the glens.

My stomach had seemed to somehow roam into my bowels as he was speaking. I looked down at my own tiny body. I’d have made an easy target for a beheading, with my disproportionately large skull – one which had earned me the nickname of ‘Punkin Head.’ Nonga slid me to the floor to retrieve his evening tea, and I lay immobilized in front of the fireplace.

I was terrified at the thought of being sent off to bed. I began to rock back and forth and count the bricks in the floor to keep my mind off the massacre. “Sweet Mother of God,” Moya intoned, “Are you not in bed yet?” Oh Lord! Anybody else I could have successfully ignored, but Moya was the house gestapo. She reached for the broom, and I had a weighty decision to make – who to face? Moya or the martyr?

I edged slowly toward the stairs. “Get outta m’ sight, before I sweep ya’ into the coal bin,” she threatened. “Ach Moya, will ya’ leave the girl alone?” Ma had come to my rescue. I grinned at her. “Go on up to bed, nar,” she added – so much for Ma.

I began to crawl on my hands and knees like a cat – anything to slow the dreaded encounter. Moya’s impatience burst forth, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Well, when you’re hit with all three you know the jig is up. I practically galloped up the next two flights. I stood still on the second landing weighing my chances of getting caught sleeping out here, until I remembered that this was where, years earlier when Da was dating Ma, he had seen a ghost.

There was nothing for it but to brave on… I began reciting Hail Mary’s quite audibly. But it was no use. The eyes had fixated on me. No matter where I moved they followed me. I ducked down to the carpet and crawled on my belly, thinking I’d outwitted him, but when I looked up, there they were. And this time, I was sure of it, they were frowning. I let out a yell that could have been heard back in Quebec.

I was frozen on the carpet when my Da reached me. He’d thought I’d fallen and hurt myself, and I let him believe that so he’d take me the rest of the way to bed. But after he’d tucked me in and sang a wee song to me, I felt safe enough to confess. He tried to hide his amusement, but failed miserably, and I was quite affronted. When he saw that I was seriously disturbed by the event, he marched out and removed the portrait.

That portrait had hung so long on the landing that the wallpaper underneath was a startlingly bright square. It still looked as though there was a picture hanging there. So it took Granny and Moya a few days to notice the disappearance of their beloved saint. When they finally did all hell broke loose.

Moya stopped short of questioning my father’s ancestry. (‘Course, Nonga told me later that she used to date Da before he spied Ma, and Moya was now exacting her revenge.) She marched straight into my parent’s bedroom, retrieved the portrait from under their bed and hung it back in its ‘rightful’ place.

This action infuriated my father, who was a firm believer in the right to privacy. Moya had entered his domain without consent, so they were no longer on speaking terms. I, of course, refused to go upstairs and was reluctantly allowed to sleep in the parlour. It was considered a dangerous thing to do in lieu of the fact that every time the pub on the corner was bombed our windows cracked in response. But I felt as brave as old Oliver.

Moya never missed an opportunity to say, “It’s no wonder the way she is, with a father like that.” Granny was simmering too; the effrontery of some stranger coming into her home and removing sacred objects! Somehow, in all the confusion, the portrait had managed to become anointed.

Granny phoned long distance to Germany, where my uncle (Father Padraig) was stationed. He was my mother’s baby brother, and, as most baby brothers in Irish Catholic households, had long ago joined the priesthood. He was serving as a chaplain with the American forces. Moya used to love riding through the army checkpoints around Ulster with him, just to watch the soldiers become meekly respectful as he flashed the identification of a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Airforce. Nonga said her face would teach anybody the meaning of the word smug.

Padraig suggested a compromise; move the portrait down to the landing outside Granny’s door. That wasn’t good enough for me. I’d still have to pass it every night. So Uncle Pod suggested that someone accompany me up the stairs every night. No one was moved to volunteer the eight flights that scheme would have entailed. And anyway, I had a secret wish to stay put and brave a bomb at the Hole-in-the-Wall.

(Da liked to stop in at the Hole once in awhile for a game of darts with the boys. To escape the tension I’d created I started to accompany him. Moya was horrified. She was a ‘Pioneer’ (an abstainer), and had earlier argued with my father on that score. After a month of wrangling, they’d agreed that he was not to bring ‘drink’ into the house, or snackered mates, but he could – in private – partake at the pub.)

Uncle Pod asked to speak with me. “Listen love,” he began, “You don’t have to be afraid of him. He was a good man, and now he’s just watching over you… like an archangel.” They’d tried that archangel one on me before when they’d sent me off to kindergarten. All I’d met was a towering black monster, face pinched into miles of mournful garments, with rattling wooden crosses all over. They’d called her a nun, but I knew different. I had refused to go there too.

We were at an impasse. And Uncle Pod was suddenly called away to duty, leaving us with his blessings for a quick solution. Nonga thought we should paint the eyes shut, and I was all for it, but Moya nearly asphyxiated on the idea. “Don’t you be encouraging her,” she spouted, “It was you put the idea in her head in the first place.” Now there were three of us in Trouble.

The Moyality Squad (as Nonga called Granny and aunti Moya) called in the local priest, a man who had known the family through three generations. (Da had discreetly disappeared, but it wasn’t hard to imagine where to.) Father O’Hare sat me down in the scullery and shooed the others out. They all peered through the open door, from the next room, like a crowd of new fathers.

“Nar daughter, do you know what this is I’m holding?” he asked. It was one of those fat wand-things with holes in the top to sprinkle holy water all over you.

“Yup,” I replied – liking this little test and the fact that my relatives would see how smart I was.

“Do you know what it does?” was his next question.

“Makes everything holy,” was my swift reply, and I grinned through the door to make sure they’d all heard it.

“That’s right,” he confirmed. I glowed with self-satisfaction. “And I’m going to go up those stairs and sprinkle it on Oliver himself, so I am.” He smirked and stole some of my self-satisfaction. I had an inkling at this point that this might not have been a test. “Would you like to come up with me?”

Ah-ha, there was the catch. “No, father, I would not.” I told him politely. There were rumblings from the parlour. Granny was aghast. I had confronted a priest.

“Shall I bring it down then?” he asked, and winked over his shoulder at Granny. She was instantly placated.

“I’ll fetch it, Father,” Moya interjected, stealing the stolen satisfaction for herself and making for the stairs.

“Nar, Angela, you’re not going to let your poor old auntie Moya go all the way up those stairs by herself, are you?” Ma crooned.

I knew this wasn’t a question, just a clever way grown-ups had of commanding. So I rose dutifully from my chair. Everyone was grinning those puckery, smug grins and nodding their heads encouragingly at me. Moya wasn’t pleased by this turn of events, nor, I suspected, by Ma’s description of her. She glared at me, cocked an eyebrow – indicating that I should follow – then turned and marched down the hall to the foot of the stairs.

I followed obediently, tight ropes of anxiety knotting in my stomach. I found it hard to breath. Oliver’s black eyes came bubbling up through the stump of his neck and bore a hole through my memory.

To get to the foot of the stairs, you had to walk past the parlour and the front door, then turn sharply to the right. Moya turned sharply right; I bolted out the front door. I was halfway down the street from the Hole when I heard Father O’Hare’s voice yelling, “Come back here ya’ wee devil, have you no manners?”

I looked around and saw heads pop out from behind curtains all along Baltic Avenue. Granny was in the doorway looking mortified. This slowed me to a halt. I would have gone back too, had a voice, connected to a body relieving itself in the alley next to the Hole, not urged me on to “Stand your ground, wee rebel.”

The whole scene suddenly changed in my mind and became part of a Cagney movie. I was flooded with excitement, heart pumping, and in my best Bronx I blurted out, “Ah, shaddup.” There was a sharp intake of breath the length and breadth of the street. The houses themselves leaned visibly back from the pavement. I knew I had entered the forbidden zone.

For a week afterward I was ostracized by the entire neighbourhood. Other children weren’t allowed to play with me. And my own family wasn’t speaking to me – with the exception of Da and Nonga. But even they informed me that I had gone too far and would have to apologize. Their approval was all I wanted, so I would have agreed to anything.

It was decided that I should be taken before the entire congregation and Father O’Hare, at Mass next Sunday, and make a clean sweep of it. Until then, I was to say the rosary nightly and pray for forgiveness from all concerned.

The day of judgement arrived far too soon for my liking. It was one thing to sing for Ma, quite another to address a congregation. A hush fell over the crowd as my family entered and filtered off into pews on either side of me. I stood alone in the centre aisle, Father O’Hare glaring down at me from the altar.

With my head bowed, I slipped a panicky glance at Nonga. He nodded me on benevolently in the direction of the pulpit. As I proceeded toward the inevitable, I remembered a movie I had seen of Joan of Arc; walking bravely to her doom down the silent corridors of Notre Dame, footsteps echoing off the marble columns. Slipping into her character, I held my head high as I took the steps to the pyre.

I turned and saw only the English heretics who wished to burn me at the stake, and I gazed at them scornfully, until I caught Nonga rolling his eyes. Moya seemed gripped with terror at the thought of what would spill from my lips, and sat forward in her seat.

Father O’Hare, who was standing behind me and had no idea why forty pair of eyes were fixated so intently upon me, cleared his throat in impatience.

“I wish to ask the forgiveness of all those I’ve offended,” I said – Nonga and I had rehearsed this scene many times, and at this point, I was to turn to the priest, “and especially you, Father.”

He showed his pleasure at being singled out – as Nonga said he would, and smiling at the congregation replied, “Take your seat, child, all is forgiven.”

On the ride home, I was once again everybody’s favourite. I was terribly proud of myself as well, and feeling quite cocky, announced to the family that I was ready to take on Oliver Plunkett himself.

We arrived at Granny’s door only to be met by Wee Bridgit. (Two of my aunties were named Bridgit, so we had added descriptions to their names in order to tell them apart. One was really a great-aunt, small and wizened. The other was a large, breezy woman who threatened to ‘cut you in two’ if you called her Big Bridgit – so she was known as Aunt Bridgit Kearney.)

Once we were all safely inside, Wee Bridgit informed us that she had received a phone call from Uncle Pod saying how homesick he was, and how much he would love to have a token of remembrance sent to him from his mother’s house. So he’d asked for the portrait of Oliver Plunkett. Everyone was jubilant at such a swift end to our troubles.

I saw my opportunity and raced up the stairs, two at a time. Once on the landing, I closed my eyes and groped my way forward along the bannister. When I got to the end, I reached out in front of me. My fingers connected with cold, smooth, ghostly strokes of paint. Shivers passed themselves in a mad scramble up and down my spine. With a monumental effort of will, I popped my eyes open and found myself staring directly at his throat. And there wasn’t a mark to be seen.

“Nothing,” I mumbled to myself.

“What’s keepin’ ya’, girl?”

“Nothing,” I yelled. “I’m just saying goodbye, is all.”

I raced back down the stairs and handed the portrait over to me Da. As he passed it out the front door to where Wee Bridgit was waiting, Oliver grinned a goodbye.

I was sure of it.

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