A Story about a Picture

This story was written a good couple of years back. It features a small, strange community of all sorts of characters. This story I once read to a writers' collective and they were very supportive and encouraging about it, which was nice. They suggested that the characters should get their own stories as a sort of 'Mr Men for grown ups.' No real hidden meaning, just a pleasant yarn. I hope you like. About 3,000 words.

A Story about a Picture

This is a story. It is a story about a picture. Kind of. It’s more about people but the picture is important. You’ll see…

A little town on the Isle of Dogs was the home to a very small and unsociable collective. This town (its name is unimportant) had a population of no more than fifty people. It was so small that it didn’t have a local newspaper. It didn’t even have a roughly-put-together newsletter about the what was going on in the town. Besides its size, there were two other reasons for this:

First, despite being a very small and very exclusive community, the inhabitants were about as civil to each other as they were to outsiders. Each individual probably knew two or three other individuals and had no interest in knowing any more. Although most newsletters are silly follies that tell people the local trivialities they do not wish to know, this group of people did not find such indulgences desirable.

The other reason that there wasn’t a newsletter was because, due to the facts that the town was so small and that the people had no interest in interacting with each other, there were no town related events. No events meant no news meant no newsletter. And that’s the way people liked it.

However, despite the complete lack of community news, or indeed community, that didn’t mean that the town was above the absurdities of gossip. Various people would mention certain events they had seen or heard and the Chinese whispers would spread like wildfire - quickly out of control. You see, in a town so small and so loosely bound, the topics for gossip are always tediously tame. This obviously demands a lot of exaggeration and distortion to make the gossip worthwhile.

For example, Mr Welkins once left the town’s only pub (with a capacity to fit perhaps fifteen customers at a time) a little worse for wear. Upon his journey home, a full eighty meters away, he had a bit of a drunken stumble, jut managing to maintain his balance. By ten o’clock the next morning, it was said that Mr Welkins’ had not maintained his balance at all. In fact, (by eleven) it was common knowledge that Mr Welkins had collapsed in a drunken stupor, unable to keep his boozy body upright. By this time it was also common knowledge that it was because of trouble at home with Mrs Welkins, who had been overheard shouting at Mr Welkins a few weeks earlier. By the end of the day Mr Welkins was an extreme alcoholic, the town drunk, because his wife was an overbearing, rampant beast of a spouse. The reality, of course, was that Mr Welkins stopped finishing his nights in the pub with a whiskey nightcap and never lost his footing again. Meanwhile, Mrs Welkins had never shouted at Mr Welkins at all. She had merely shouted ‘Bastard!’ once after stubbing her toe. However, the rumours were in place and the reputations entrenched in the township’s minds.

Such are the dangers of little minds, desperate for bigger things to entertain them.

One day, the quietest and most solitary person of the town did something extraordinary. He put a picture on the sill of his front window facing outwards, ahead of the curtains. For everyone to see. In most circumstances this event would hardly merit the adjective ‘extraordinary’. However, in a town of few people (and there are few towns with fewer people), when you are known for being spectacularly unspectacular, this was an act of unparalleled radicalism. Mr Redford was the name of this individual and the picture was a painting of a little girl eating a banana. The background was indistinct, a garden or a park, definitely somewhere green. The girl was likewise forgettable, a cute little smile on her face but essentially an average little girl. The banana was curved, like a crescent moon and a mild yellow - in other words, it was a banana. The painter was clearly competent but hardly phenomenal and the picture did little to draw attention to itself.

Yet it did draw attention. A lady of the town, a widow known as Ms Haversham, spied the picture on the way to the shops to buy some sugar and eggs for a sponge cake. Ms Haversham made a sponge cake every week with the intention of giving a slice to the vicar of the church in the adjacent village; but Ms Haversham always finished the last slice before the Sunday service.

So, like clockwork, she left her house to take the two minute stroll to the local convenience shop to purchase the necessary items. However, Mr Redford’s bland building had been brightened up by a colourful picture ahead of its beige curtains. A green background, a red top, pale skin and light brown hair completed by a mellow-yellow banana. Her stride slowed as she came to grips with the change and eventually pulled to a halt.

For a few minutes, Ms Haversham stood, her eyes unthinkingly transfixed on the image in the window. No questions nor any attempt to comprehend the change occurred in her mind. She just tried to take in this confusing development. Eventually, she came round and she felt overwhelmed by the questions that came to her. Why had Mr Redford put the picture there? What did it mean? Who was the little girl? Why was she eating a banana? What was Mr Redford trying to say? Why did he decide to use this picture to express himself? As the questions burned and began to spread, Ms Haversham became consumed with curiosity.

Unfortunately, Ms Haversham was nowhere near as bright as she was nosey. So while these thoughts thrashed wildly in her head, she could not manage to make any leeway with solutions. She stood there quite still and alone for fifteen minutes until another individual arrived.

Mr Smith was walking down the street on his daily walk. He was retired and wealthy and he walked with a snooty air of importance because he believed that his age and wealth made him some sort of figurehead for the town. Mr Smith’s attitude was secretly recognised and ridiculed by the majority of its dwellers. As Mr Smith passed Ms Haversham standing as rigid as a statue, he felt slightly perturbed by her actions - or, rather, lack of them. His unease was expressed by a twitch of his moustache, an indicator that only his wife had learnt to notice. He stopped his walk for a few moments to see if she would realise she was being stared at or to see if she would start to move on again. After neither event happened, Mr Smith, who knew Ms Haversham only well enough to cordially address her in the street, began their first real conversation.

“Good day to you, Ms Haversham, Are you alright, dear?”

“Hmm? Oh!” Ms Haversham was mildly taken aback, as she was not really used to being spoken to, “Hello, Mr Smith. I was just looking at Mr Redford’s picture. I have no idea why he has put it there…” She trailed off back into her own thoughts.

Mr Smith looked towards Mr Redford’s house, raised an intrigued eyebrow and twitched his moustache.

“Well, what the blazes does he think he’s doing?” asked an exasperated Mr Smith. Although the painting did not offend him in the slightest, his inability to understand its purpose infuriated him. Like Ms Haversham, his intellect was lacking, superseded by his inflated sense of self-importance. “He’s trying to make bloody monkeys out of us!”

“Do you think?” asked Ms Haversham, quaintly curious. “Is that what the banana’s about?”

Mr Smith had not consciously made the connection but ran away with it in his furious frustration, “Yes! Bloody exactly! He’s saying we’re bloody bananas! He’s laughing at us, the swine! If we’re all monkeys, he’s a pig!” Mr Smith felt very proud of that line and considered himself witty as well as angry. Few people knew it, but Mr Smith had a very short but truly harmless temper.

Being such a quiet town, Mr Smith’s outrageous outburst drew a bit of attention. The Walker family came out of their house; Mr and Mrs Walker and their two children all walking towards the raving, elderly man. The Walkers were one of two families living in the town, all others being retired people either alone or in couples. Though the children were quite ordinary, they were reputed as being insolent hell-raisers - more victims to the town’s ludicrous gossip. Along with the Walkers, Mr Mulchett and Miss Jones left their quiet homes to discover the disruptions in the street.

Mr Walker, a friendly man (a manner that meant he was perceived as intrusive to the rest of the townsfolk), calmly inquired why Mr Smith was so worked up. Mr Smith explained that Mr Redford was attempting to goad and taunt his neighbours with an offensive piece of art. Mr Walker’s eyes followed Mr Smith’s accusatory finger to the uninteresting yet pleasant painting in Mr Redford’s window. The rest of the crowd followed suit and they all began to stare at the art piece.

After a few moments, Mr Walker - being a fairly rational man - let out a light-hearted chuckle. “Come on, Mr Smith,” he said, “that is hardly an offensive piece of art.”

“Well, why’s he put it there, then? He doesn’t like art does he? And even if he does, he should be bloody looking at it! Why is he exposing it like that?”

“True, it is a rather strange thing for Mr Redford to do,” Mr Walker admitted. Mrs Walker and her daughter were discussing the matter with the other neighbours who had come to view the spectacle, while the Walker’s son had run off to the Richards house to tell their son. The Richards family arrived a few minutes later, having picked up Mr and Mrs Welkins, Mr Clements and Mr and Mrs Bolton along the way. More and more people began to gather, intrigued and in awe. The audience outside Mr Redford’s house soon became one of the largest congregations the town had ever experienced.

It was without a doubt the loudest crowd the town had created for decades. This quiet, unsociable town was talking wildly and excitedly about Mr Redford’s unusual action and the possible logic behind the move. Ideas were diverse and confused, probably because people knew so little about Mr Redford. This enigma had now done something truly enigmatic.

Mr Walker said that Mr Redford’s motives were entirely his own and that people should not worry about this recent event. Mr Smith disagreed and was still raging about the subversive nature of the act. Meanwhile, everyone else disagreed with Mr Walker and considered the matter important but no one thought that Mr Smith had got it quite right either, including Mrs Smith who meekly tried to calm her husband’s mood. Mrs Walker and Miss Jones decided that he had obviously gone a bit mad due to his extreme isolation. Others thought that the picture must have had some particular meaning, that Mr Redford was expressing some personal idea.

Mr Mulchett, a very eco-conscious individual, believed the message was one about the significance of nature because the child was happy in a serene green environment and eating untainted, natural produce. “It’s to highlight man’s role within, and as a part of, nature,” Mr Mulchett had said.

Mr and Mrs Bolton, being grandparents that rarely saw their beloved grandchildren, thought that the picture was meant to show the innocence and joy of childhood. They considered the sweet smile and the idyllic nature of the painting to highlight the happiness of youth, both the child’s happiness and the happiness children give to others.

Mr Samson who had been a single man all of his forty-five years and who ran the pub, saw the opposite message to the Bolton’s. Being a man with a negative frame of mind who never had much time for children, Mr Samson said that the imperfections in the artwork showed that the message was that this vision of childhood was wrong. He argued that the awkward dimensions in the little girl’s face were intentional distortions to show that people’s views - people like the Boltons - were likewise distorted.

Mr Fraudian was a shamed psychoanalyst who had come to the island to escape a lot of the hassle he was getting in the various university journals on psychology. He saw a distinct, perverse message in Mr Redford’s picture. He said that the picture was laden with innuendo and was clearly advocating paedophilia. He said the banana was the most blatant metaphor for a penis he had ever seen. (At this point, Mr Clements - who had always considered himself a comedian - commented that if Mr Fraudian’s willy was yellow and curved in such a manner he should go see Dr Aquinas. A few people tittered but Mr Fraudian ignored the taunt and continued). He said the smile on the girl’s face suggested that she wanted to perform the act of fellatio and, what’s more, the green background and the red top revealed that it was considered respectively natural and desirable.

Mr Welkins said that there was definitely a point to all this but he was damned if he knew what was going on. Everyone was unsurprised at this as they thought that Mr Welkins was a clueless waster who was probably too blind-drunk to even see the details of the picture. Mr Welkins hadn’t actually had a drink for about four days and although his wife agreed with him, everyone thought that Mr Welkins would probably face the fiery wrath of Mrs Welkins later.

Meanwhile, during all this calamity, the Walker children and the Richards boy found much humour in the hysteria.

Ms Haversham discovered the painting at about half-past ten. The crowd were still arguing by four o’clock, with Miss Jones and Mrs Walker preparing sandwiches and tea for the throng so the conversations could be continued. However, by four, Mr Walker, who had been trying to get people to go about their day, found his patience had run their course. “Right,” he declared loudly to hush the manic chattering, “I will go ask Mr Redford exactly why he put it there and what he was trying to achieve. Okay, everyone?”

The crowd cheered. “Let’s put an end to this bloody scandal!” added Mr Smith. Mr Walker nodded, walked through Mr Redford’s gate and headed towards the front door. Everyone else huddled towards the gate, keeping their distance but getting close enough to hear what Mr Redford had to say for himself.

Knock-knock-knock, Mr Walker rapped on the door. Moments later Mr Redford opened the door, a warm smile on his face. “Oh… hello. What can I do you for?” Mr Redford was a fairly young-looking sixty seven year old. Being a highly elusive character, this was the first time Mr Walker had really seen him and he noted how approachable the old man appeared.

“Hello, Mr Redford,” Mr Walker began before hesitating. ‘How best to approach this question after all the chaos?’ he thought. In the end, he decided to ask it casually, “My friends and I were wondering why you put that picture up in your window?”

Mr Redford looked beyond Mr Walker and his wrinkled eyes widened at the sight of the swarm. “My picture? How do you know that I’ve put a picture up?”

“Because it’s right bloody there!” Mr Smith yelled from the crowd. Mr Redford couldn’t see who spoke but spotted a finger sticking out of the group toward his window. He turned and saw the picture of the girl.

“Oh dear me!” Mr Redford declared, “I’m sorry, I must have placed the picture facing outwards without thinking. I’ve been in the garden all day and that would be why I hadn’t noticed…”

“Yes, but what does it mean?” asked Mr Bolton.

“Mean? It doesn’t mean anything…”

Mr Redford then explained that his granddaughter was doing an art A’ Level. She had felt that this picture was not quite up to standard for her portfolio and so she was going to throw it away. It is a picture of her younger sister and Mr Redford, being the sentimental chap he was, asked his granddaughter if he could have it. It then became known to everyone that Mr Redford was not really a man that hid himself away. Instead he was merely away a lot, unknown to everyone else, visiting family. As all this was explained the crowd ‘ooohed’ and ‘aaahed’ their way to realisation that the whole incident was merely a giant misunderstanding.

The crowd joked and laughed in a way they had never done before and many new friendships were made that day. Due to the slightest error, the town had experienced a wild panic that went beyond all proportions of sensibility. After all the speculation and debate, people realised the real value of communication.

Because…sometimes…a picture is just a picture.

And…sometimes…a story is just a story.