My heart suddenly stopped as my eyes focussed, there standing in the way of the protruding light from the kitchen stood the outline of a little boy. He was completely inanimate as if he was waiting for something. My chair fell backwards with the shock but I managed to leap out of it, my eyes remaining fixed on the image in the hallway. As I blinked the boy had gone and it took several long, drawn out seconds before I dare approach the hallway, telling myself it wasn’t there. When I did so I was right, it wasn’t there. I breathed out, I rubbed my eyes and I shook my head, what the fuck was all that about?
There were a couple of boxes in the hallway, I forgot about them, a smaller one on top of a larger one, some of my Gran’s stuff. She had been sent to an elderly home for people with dementia and my father was passing on some of her stuff onto me. I never wanted any of it really but he was so insistent that we had to take some of it I just agreed. Given a few weeks and I would slowly dispose of it to charity shops and the tip. For now though I couldn’t even be bothered to look through it. The whole thing was getting on my tits somewhat to be honest, it may have been the very reason I had been thinking about Gran quite a lot.
I kicked the boxes in frustration, the bloody things could have looked, at that angle like a small boy, with a little assistance from a fucked up and tired mind I suppose. I began to find amusement in the whole occurrence, glad she was not here. Rachel would have been splitting her sides in laughter again. She just loved to prey on my weaker moments. I guess things were getting to me. I was enjoying a moment in the spotlight, not concerning myself with what Gran was going through.
Gran had not been well for a long time now. She could not recall what day it was. Anything that had happened in the last five years was a total loss to her memory though she recalled her past as if it happened yesterday. She was a confused old lady that claimed to me on the phone that she was doing the gardening but really we all knew she sat in that chair and did nothing but stare into empty space all day. It was too dangerous for her to be in that house alone, she forgets even to eat, that is why she was rushed into hospital and now she would never go back to her home.
I liked to think once at the home she might quite like it, she might even find a friend. Although when she was still coherent enough to joke and fool around she would often say “You’re not going to get me in no old peoples home!” And we all feared how she would react.
My father though was too preoccupied with the decades upon decades of rubbish and stuff she had built up in her house. From garage to loft the place was awash with general mess, junk and clutter that would have to be sorted before the Council came to overcharge us for the pleasure of disposing of it themselves. This is why, much to Rachel’s dismay, the hallway was blocked up with untold amounts of the stuff.
I went to get a drink, it sure was getting to me but now knowing the song did not ease my mind at all. It really had no impact on the creepiness of the whole memory. I sipped my drink then I thought, I had not been thinking outside the box, always the singer, always thinking about the song. The song was not the issue here, perhaps it was the painting. It was that picture that she held me up to that was haunting my mind, why, when I imagined the boy standing there that was him!
I ran back to computer desk and tapped up Goggle again, typed the crying boy painting and boy had I stumbled on something I didn’t expect. Wikipedia had an entry entitled, “The Crying Boy.” It told of a mass produced print by an Italian painter Bruno Amadio also known as Giovanni Bragolin, from the 1950s onwards they were quite popular; this must be it, I thought. What shocked me was a drop down box that read “Curse.” It would seem that in 1985 the crappy tabloid newspaper the Sun run a story that a fireman from Yorkshire reported a number of these prints were the only thing that survived a series of house fires. Stating that no firefighter would have a copy of the picture in his house the newspaper went to town on the scoop, creating an urban myth and even organised mass bonfires of the paintings sent in by readers.
Further down the Wikipedia page it claimed that TV writer, comedian Karl Pilkington made reference to the curse on The Ricky Gervais Show, dismissing the event as “Bollocks.” In a similar light it explained that another British writer Steve Punt researched the myth for a Radio 4 broadcast in which he deduced that the prints were coated with a fire repellent and so the string would burn first causing the painting to land face down to the floor. A slightly better conclusion than bollocks I thought, urban myths are usually hoaxes but the stories come from somewhere, there has to be an area of logic lying at its root. So I clicked on the artist’s name to find out more about him. Wikipedia did not have much to say. Bruno Amadio, or Bragolin as he was better known, born 1911, died in 1981 (just a few years before the start of the myth) was trained in Venice and produced a series of “crying boy,” paintings. It went on to say that claims that he fled to Spain after the war to paint the children in a local orphanage which subsequently burned down were unconfirmed.
So perhaps the newspaper created this myth or perhaps it had heard of it and found it would be a good story, whatever way around it was certainly eerie, the kind of eerie feeling I got from the painting as a child and the kind of feeling I received just a moment a go when I thought I saw the young boy from the painting watching me from the hallway. I shivered in my chair, I am usually sceptical about ghostly stories but this was putting me on edge. Beads of perspiration dripped down my brow and I wiped them off, forced my head away from the screen and picked up my drink of water. I gulped it down and came to my senses, don’t be such a twat I kept telling myself. This was some hoax made up to sell newspapers.
With that in mind I set out to prove it, realising that the Wikipedia site held no actual pictures of the painting in question. So, I did an image search for Bragolin crying boy and waited in anticipation and maybe a bit of anxiety too, to see that painting again, the blond little boy, head slightly turned and a tear in his eye. I think that I can remember it well; I spent so much time looking up at it hanging on my Gran’s wall. She would hold me up, tell me it was me and in turn I would wonder why he was crying, what had happened to him, was he hurt or was he just sad? With the mutual upset in both our hearts could we help each other out? It all seemed so vivid in my mind, the thoughts that boy may have been punished in an archaic fashion was a more mature concept that I would not have contemplated as a toddler at the time. This could be true, though. Maybe he was naughty, maybe, just maybe he…. no shut up, I thought to myself, started a fire.
My mind was racing to a possible root to this puzzle, the possibilities thriving through my head. I was sure that painting was spooky, always have done and now, well, it seems I was not alone. I checked the hallway, nothing out there but a load of cardboard boxes. I flicked around to face the screen of the laptop; there were lots of image results of a particular painting of a little boy crying, I looked at it hard, wracking my brain, ordering it to remember. For as long as I stared at the results on the screen none of them stared back at me, the painting stirred no familiarity. Good I thought, easing my dread, it was not that painting; it was not cursed. Unless my memory is not serving me well. Possible, I thought, possible, I guess to get confirmation I need to actually see the painting.
3.
I slumped down on that sofa; she squeezed up a bit to allow me room. “Did you get anywhere?” she asked in her graceful purr.
“Well, we jammed for a bit, didn’t come up with much, well, nothing to top the last album,” I complained. It was bothering me; we had so long to produce those songs, years of back cataloguing and finding the best of the best. Now the pressure was on, we had thwarted all of our finest work on the first album and the fans were dripping for more. I wanted to propose cover versions, but although that went down well in the live shows, people wanted fresh material for an album and Harry, the record label’s executive was only too keen to point this out. It was just a shame that Daniel, our manager never seemed to be around these days for his input.
It was botheri
ng me I will admit, plenty enough to distract me from the weird thoughts I’d been having about Gran’s old house. I paused on that thought, wondered how she was doing in that home, it cannot be easy for her; I’d have to bite the bullet and visit her. You can bet your bottom dollar that my brother had already done this and my cousins too. I was always the one that distanced myself from my family, I was always the black sheep.
“You’ll think of something,” she reassured me, reaching for the remote control for the TV and channel-hopping. Just then there was a knock at the door. I went to get it. It was my father, white van man. He loved that white van, it kept him busy. It was parked right outside, backed up on the driveway and it gave me reason to sigh.
“I’ve got some more stuff from your Gran’s house; I need to store it somewhere. The rubbish she’s got is unbelievable,” he complained, wiping his feet as he invited himself in. He stood slightly shorter than me, his hair greying so much faster than I recall. He tipped his glasses on the edge of his nose, “is Rachel in?” he inquired. It sounded innocent enough but I suspect he knows that she doesn’t like all this clutter and would be frustrated by his arrival.
Without giving time to answer she popped her head around the corner and with a fake enthusiasm she welcomed my father, “Oh hi, Bob, how are you?”
“Oh fine love,” he smiled. I knew he would melt in her presence, he always did. Secretly he had a thing for her, I knew that. He always praised me for finding such a nice girl as Rachel but behind closed doors he was at the mercy of my mother who would not see Rachel in the same passion. No one was good enough for me, her little baby and her forked tongue often exposed her true feelings for Rachel. A bitter feeling was always hidden in a phoney set of manners whereby both of them peaked over its top to shoot daggers at each other. It bugged me but I knew it was not Rachel’s fault; my mum is over protective and had no fear of letting people know.
I could see her scanning the van, to make sure mother was not around. With my father she got on, times were so much easier between them when mother was absent. Although this time it was only part way to avoiding her frustrations as she duly noted my father’s van of which he had already returned to, opening his back doors to show an array of furniture and boxes.
“It’s not much,” he muttered, “keep what you need but let me know what you are getting rid of.”
I sighed. One look at Rachel’s face told it all. He bellowed his request that I come and give him a hand. I touched my hand on her shoulder, “don’t worry,” I pleaded, “we can get shot of it soon, the guy has nowhere to store it all.”
“I’m not bothered!” she whispered at me, but I knew that that wasn’t true. I would be getting in it the neck as soon as my father departed. She was cold to my parents, she was distant to me recently; something else was on her mind. I was not so unexperienced to notice that change in a female. I didn’t want to ask; perhaps I would hear a truth that I didn’t want to hear.
We unloaded some more boxes; I took to wondering what had happened to the painting. Mixed emotions came over me; firstly I did not want that creepy thing in my flat but I was intrigued, I wanted to see it. I cast my fears away, the whole thing was an urban myth and as for the painting, well, I doubted it was even the same one anyway. The hallucination of the boy in the hallway, well, that was a product of my own self-mutilation of my brain cells. Heck, I was in the music business, indulgence in drink and a few soft drugs was virtually written into the contract.
So I asked the question as a few more boxes removed showed a huge, art deco styled wardrobe behind it. “Dad, you remember that painting Gran had on her wall?”
“The fairy castle one? Yeah, it’s in one of the boxes I bought round the other day; thought Rachel might like it.”
“No, not that one,” I explained, knowing full well that she would like no such thing, “the boy,” I quivered slightly when I said it, “the crying boy.”
Dad stopped and gave it some thought, you could hear the rusty cogs turning, “Oh that, not sure if I gave it to you or your brother now.”
He started back up, handing me some bin liners loaded with cushions, “I remember,” I reminisced, “Gran holding me up to the picture and singing me a song when I was sad.”
He stopped for longer now, recalling the occurrence too. He wiped some sweat away from his brow and grinned, “Ha-ha, you remember that?!”
“Of course, just,” I added. “Dad, do you ever recall the curse of that, or a similar painting in the newspaper?”
He laughed harder, “you what?!”
Flustered with his response I tried to continue, “I was reading somewhere that the Sun ran a number of stories in the 1980s claiming that paintings of a boy crying had a curse, the artist drew them in an orphanage which burnt down and so a number of house fires in Britain were blamed on the painting, it was the only thing that didn’t burn.”
He looked confused, did not even cast his mind back, “nope,” he said, “never read that crap newspaper,” and he went back to lugging stuff out of his van.
The whole massive wardrobe came out of that van next, I had the heavy end. I noted that it wasn’t the one from Great Grandfather’s room, the one with the spare leg. I was thankful for this, for although the man passed away twenty years ago I suspected that the leg still remained inside. Hopefully, I thought, he has bundled that one off at my brothers. This, I recalled was the one from the spare room, where my brother and I slept when we stayed over.
Memories can be selective, we patch out the bad times. Gran talked of the war years as if they were all having the time of their lives. We all know there were horrific events happening and life was hard. She chose to forget all that; she concentrated on how they made the most of it, the better times. We don’t ask them about the realities of it, the hard parts, we know they happened but we want them to be happy with their memories.
However the blotted out memories can be triggered, this much I have learned now I come to look at that wardrobe, now left crowding up my bedroom and frustrating both me an Rachel. Now, as I lay in my bed, staring at it a memory found its way to my consciousness, making it impossible to sleep.
We had bunk beds in that spare room, my older brother claimed to top deck which probably had my mother’s influence. She would have been cautious that I, a mere six year old would roll out in my sleep and fall. Just like tonight I could not hope to sleep for I had noticed on the door of the wardrobe a frightening looking bug sat, looking at me, ready to pounce if I so much as closed my eyes for a second. It was a huge, black oval shaped beast like a beetle but five times the size of any beetle I had ever seen. It was still, frozen in time, waiting for the right moment to creep its way over and, well, I couldn’t fathom its intentions but I suspected it was not going to be very nice.
I pondered this over and over, it will eat me right here and now or will it drag me back to its den first? Why did it not move? Why did it not even flinch? It just perched there, on that wardrobe, checking me out, sizing me up. I was overcome with fear, if that thing moved just once I would scream out, I would cry but it didn’t, it just sat there, waiting. I refused to sleep, I could not rouse my brother who was fast asleep; he would only laugh at me, mock me and then go back off. I wanted to be sure, I wanted it to move, just slightly, just enough to confirm my suspicions that it was a bug. It did not, it stayed that way until exhaustion got the better of me and I guess I passed out. I thought I had stayed awake all night at the time but looking back on it I must have dozed off. I was petrified all night until the morning light drew sunlight through the gap in the curtains and I was brave enough to get out of bed and approach the object, now suspicious that it was not what I thought it was. What, then, was it? I sauntered over and took a closer look. It was the decoration around the keyhole, a bit of art deco brass, faded through the years to look black. I ran my fingers over it, felt its cold metallic surface, the ripples of its intricate pattern.
I had fooled myself and even at such a tender age I was emb
arrassed to admit it. The bug was nothing more than a mixture of a simple object and my overactive imagination. I told no one of this story, not when I woke up and never since. I had blocked it away from my own memory for so long but now, as I looked upon that wardrobe with adult eyes, I scanned over the suspect keyhole and it gave me butterflies in the very pit of my stomach. I could not stop staring at that keyhole, trying to imagine it as a giant beetle, trying to shape it in my mind. I managed it, it did look like a beetle in the dark and as crazy as it may seem I found myself unable to sleep while it possessed my room.
This is fucking stupid! I remarked under my breath so not to wake Rachel who was sound asleep next to me. I sat up and looked at her, a gorgeous bronze leg protruded out of the sheet. She was so beautiful, beautiful enough to find a replacement for me quite easy if I went cuckoo. I wondered of my sanity but when I heard a whimper I jumped in shock, could that confirm it? It must have been Rachel, but she was still, showing no signs of dreaming, no rapid eye movement and no expression at all. I could hear the whimper again, like a, dare I say it, a small child, crying.
Tales of Worrow Volume II Page 2