A Divine Intervention

When I was nine years old I thought St Dominic had it in for me. He lived on the wall of the bedroom I shared with my brother and I was terrified of him. It wasn’t that he was particularly scary looking, (with his pale skin and boyish demeanour he actually looked quite harmless,) but there was something in his eyes that reached into the pit of my stomach and made knots out of it, like he knew something about me that I didn’t. Nightly I pleaded with my grandmother to remove him but nightly she refused: St Dominic was a good man, she’d chuckle, and if I’d done nothing wrong I’d nothing to worry about.

I suggested changing rooms, but my brother couldn’t sleep alone and no other room was suitable. I threatened moving out, but my grandmother packed me a lunch and offered to give me a lift to the train station. In desperation, I even took one of my grandfather’s old golf clubs and tried to destroy St Dominic myself. I couldn't however, defeated in the end by his reproachful eyes and my own weak will.

Eventually however I conceived a way in which I fancied I could get rid of my tormentor and remain free from both guilt and suspicion. One rainy afternoon I coaxed my brother into a game of bedroom football, cleverly arranging it so that St Dominic would be directly in the line of fire should I fail to intercept his shot. My plan worked with surprising effectiveness, and within a few minutes, St Dominic was lying on the floor, his frame smashed to smithereens. My grandmother raced to the room and my brother tearfully admitted everything.
“Boys will be boys,” she sighed, eying me curiously as she picked up the fragments, but after mildly chastising us for playing football indoors, St Dominic was packed away without another word. I was free, or so I thought.

Many years later, when my grandmother passed away, the whole family – aunts, uncles, cousins and partners – gathered at her house to hear what she had bequeathed us in her will. I felt the usual unease I associate with events of this size, but nevertheless joined in as the family reminisced about my grandmother and the time we’d spent there. Such was the collective feeling of nostalgia, in fact, I even considered telling the story of St Dominic's accident all those years ago.

Before I could decide however, the executor called out my name and my inheritance was handed to me. To my horror, I discovered it was none other than St Dominic, completely refurbished and reframed! I felt sick - what distress and sorrow had my act caused the poor woman for her to deliver her revenge in this manner after all these years? As I held him aloft and looked into his eyes I once more felt the fear they had instilled in me, only this time I recognised as well the guilt and self-doubt that had always accompanied it! How, I wondered, was I going to dispose of him this time?

While these thoughts and others occupied my mind however, my wife had noticed something attached to the back of the frame. It was a note, written on yellowing paper, in my grandmother’s elegant hand:
"Dear Patrick,” it read, "Please do take good care of St Dominic when I’m gone. He always did remind me of you!”
“How sweet,” said my wife, admiring the painting, “I think we should hang it in the living room.”

I looked again at his sombre eyes, pale skin and worried expression, and agreed. After all, my grandmother always did have a wicked sense of humour!