Harry calls Mural #41 the best kept-secret in Chemainus. For one thing, it’s off the beaten path. Most tourists who come to look at Mural Town’s walls disembark from their buses at Waterwheel Square, wend their way through Uptown, then follow the trail that takes you through Waterwheel Park to Maple Lane and Old Town.
They sometimes miss the seniors’ centre farther north on Willow Street. That’s where The Outdoor Gathering is located.
And when they do see the painting on the southeasterly wall of the seniors’ centre, they don’t realize it is, in fact, a portal. The rest of the mural unfurls down the length of a lane behind the centre. A little note lets visitors know there’s more out back, but it’s easily missed.
Those who do venture down that narrow, shady lane might have trouble taking in the entire picture. You can’t stand back far enough to get a complete view of The Outdoor Gathering; instead, you have to walk along, close to the wall, putting it together like a filmstrip as you go.
“It’s sort of like reading a book,” Harry says. “You have to remember what went on before to make sense of what follows.”
Then there’s the stories within the story, ‘the mural’s third dimension’, as he calls it. Most will recognize the 19th-century clothes and Victorian mannerisms of the people in that painting. Some might even feel constrained by the corsets, jackets, and attitudes of folks who could be passable representations of their own ancestors. Embarrassed, they might shake their heads in wonder at the erect postures of a polite society, convinced its version of rectitude had somehow ‘tamed the savage within’ human nature, earning it a place of preeminence in the rankings of earthly civilizations.
But for Harry, the mural stirs up memories, not abstract notions of history. He recognizes the canes, horseshoes, umbrellas, tea cups, and all of the appurtenances in that mural as his own memorabilia, things that define who he really is and whence he came—the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.
‘Gazing’ for the first time at the Willow Street panel of Mural #41, Harry asked himself who the people in that family portrait were and how they might have been related to him. He sat there in his walker for a long time, watching the children skipping and running toward their holiday outing; the parents, with their special girl between them, looking back as if surprised by someone coming up from behind.
No answer came that day, as dusk’s shadows cut ever more deeply into the image. But, limping home, leaning a bit more heavily than usual onto the grips of his walker, Harry couldn’t help feeling a deep connection to that scene.
~~~
“Why so glum?” Bernice wanted to know when he flopped disconsolately into his armchair by the hearth. “You look like the man who’s lost his million-dollar lottery ticket.”
“Something like that,” he grumped.
“Can I help?”
He shook his head sadly. “Not unless you can tell me how I’m related to the folks in that painting on the front of the seniors’ center. Stared at the thing all afternoon, and I have a feeling I know them, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how.
Bernice scrunched her brows, thinking. “As I recall, that’s a picture of a family walking along a forest trail, headed for a community get-together. An ‘outdoor gathering’,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Have you followed through to the other side?”
“You’re not getting all religious on me, are you?”
“I mean the other side of the mural, doughhead, the one in the lane off Willow Street.”
“Haven’t got that far.”
“Well, isn’t that like trying to read a book without opening its cover?”
“Could be,” he admitted. “But something tells me the story’s about that particular family. So I wanted to get to know them first.”
“Knowing where folks are headed can give you a pretty good idea as to what they might be thinking on their way, eh?” Bernice said. “That mural in the lane is about a picnic, as I recall, an event that took place a good half-century or so before you or I were born.”
Harry supposed so. He nodded, watching as Bernice looked up at the fireplace mantle, followed her gaze as she reached through the collection of photos and knickknacks, and took down a framed, sepia-toned image of his great-aunt, Harriet Phipps, which had been looking disapprovingly at a figurine of a wild bagpiper, labelled ‘The Skirling Scott’.
“Funny how a picture can sit up above your hearth for decades without you noticing it,” Bernice said. “When was the last time you looked at this one, of your great aunt Harriet? She would have been a young woman in those days, I imagine.”
She handed him the photo. He studied it intently, remembering his great aunt as a wizened ancient, rocking contentedly by the hearth or on the verandah of the family farm… when she wasn’t busy getting in the way, that is, trying to help out in the vegetable garden or kitchen.
“Take that with you next time you go look at that mural,” Bernice advised.
“Why?”
“Think of it as a memento, a visual cue.”
Why not? he agreed. The photo, in its tiny ornate frame, would be small enough to fit in his jacket pocket. He put it aside on the end table. “I’ll take this with me tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe she’ll reveal some of her secrets.”
Bernice patted his forearm. “Since when do you believe in the ghosts of your ancestors talking to you out of photos?” she asked. “Never known you to be superstitious.”
“If a fellah can go inside a mural, I reckon it’s no great leap for him to start yakking with the family portraits, eh?” he laughed.
Bernice joined in, giving his arm a squeeze.
Next: The Picnic – Part 2