For Competition 3384, since this issue appears on the first of the month, you were invited to submit a short story featuring someone who is a slave to superstition. Every corner of the country used to have its own folkloric behaviours that have now been forgotten (one wonders why salt and mirrors and magpies etc stuck). These days individuals who use ritual to ward off misfortune are told they have OCD. Anyway, I was sorry not to have room for John O’Byrne’s story of Michelangelo painting the ceiling; David Silverman’s in which a man is cured of his hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia; Joseph Houlihan’s memoir of his Irish mother – and Janine Beacham’s entry in which a wife asks her sailor husband: ‘Do you really intend to voyage on the Ides of March, with a friend named Jonah, a red-headed captain nicknamed Ahab, and a ship sporting 13 black sails?’ The John Lewis vouchers go to the following.
If he watches the race, Reginald’s selection, which must never run in grey silks, unless the day is rainy, won’t win. If, with Reginald staring intently instead at the lately emptied paddock, his selection still doesn’t win, it will have been because Reginald wasn’t sporting his lucky jacket. Or, jacket present and correct, the horse will fail because, before leaving home for the races that morning, Reginald – preoccupied by certain irregularities of track form evident in the 4.20 at Thirsk – selected for the day a far from fortuitous green handkerchief. Reginald’s methods for picking winners are robustly scientific; few know better Britain’s thoroughbreds, the equine dietary regimes favoured by their trainers or the career-impacting extramarital affairs of their jockeys. But, watermarked as they are by superstitions excusing their failure to oblige on supernatural grounds, I should not follow Reginald’s tips, which seem invariably to run from stall 13.
Adrian Fry
Obviously, I took precautions. The theatre cat was black, so had to go. Lighting riggers were instructed to place ladders so that they were never walked under. Umbrellas were left with the stage-doorkeeper so that none could be opened indoors. All dressing-room mirrors were guaranteed unbreakable. Some fool programmed our first preview for Friday 13th – schedule corrections were made promptly. I had a difficult moment when my co-star appeared on the first day of rehearsal with a brooch depicting a single magpie. She claimed it was lucky because her great-great-grandmother had worn it when saved from the Titanic, but I made my feelings clear. It was never worn again.
Thanks to such measures, our luck to a large degree held. True, the theatre burnt to ashes during the second week, but by then my performance as Macbeth had been seen by the Guardian critic, and praised as ‘fearless’.
George Simmers
‘It was the ladder, that’s for sure!’ She viewed her celestial surroundings. ‘Share your story,’ said the Almighty, reclining on a nearby cloud.
‘Well, Friday the 13th started badly with John passing me on the stairs. “It’s raining,” he said, opening his umbrella. “Don’t!” I shouted. “Not indoors, idiot!” After he left, I finished my boiled egg, piercing the bottom to let the devil out. Leaving the house I trotted along the pavement, avoiding the cracks, of course. A flap of wings! “Good morning, Mr Magpie,” I said nervously. A black cat moved in on the bird, crossing my path. Some say that’s lucky. Not me, so I leapt out of the way, realising too late I’d taken refuge under a ladder. Crash! My mind was in such turmoil over a shitload of ill omens, I never noticed the juggernaut. So here I am… God, don’t those blessed harp-players ever stop?’
Sylvia Fairley
People call him a slave to superstition, but in fact he isn’t. He’s a superstition conductor. This only applies to genuine superstitions. Not walking under ladders is merely common sense, and black cats, lucky or unlucky depending on where you live, are only ever interested in themselves. No, he realised his condition early, when he broke a mirror at age seven and did terribly at school until he was 14 (he failed English when he wrote an essay which regularly named the Scottish Play). Then he neglected to acknowledge a magpie properly, and a freak earthquake hit his hometown in Surrey. Now it is vital that if he spills some salt, he must throw it over his shoulder into the devil’s eyes. An unsung hero, he has kept Britain safe from diabolical interference for decades and will continue to do so just as long as he resides at Number 12A.
Brian Murdoch
It all started when I became addicted to counting magpies, a gateway drug that soon led to the hard stuff; knocking on wood and getting wasted on tree-lined streets, then a search for the ultimate high, a four-leaf clover. I was apprehended several times grovelling round in neighbours’ front gardens, but dismissed as a harmless attention seeker. And therein lay the germ of an idea. And my salvation. People are prepared to watch anything online these days, so the sight of me down on all fours in the local park, ignoring the ‘Keep off the grass’ signs and risking arrest in my quest for the elusive quadri-folium, quickly went viral. I’m now a live streamer and TikTok prankster with over two million followers globally. Not that I’ve found a four-leaf clover yet. Nor do I intend to. That’s the whole point. Follow me @Off Your Shamrocker.
Sue Pickard
The arrival of new shoes conjures an image of my mother who would crisply remind the recipient, no shoes on the table, for footwear on the Formica would damn the whole household to perdition. If you wore an onyx ring, Ma would narrow her eyes and mutter, ‘My dear – how terribly sad.’ Peacock feathers indoors bore the same ill omen, higher up the scale than failing to oust holly before Twelfth Night. White cats – Ma would drive miles to avoid Blofeld’s familiar. Bowing to the new moon and turning whatever silver coin the car-park jar might offer was compulsory. A gift of white flowers was unfortunate, and leaving a white cloth overnight on the table would almost certainly portend death in the family – explaining the hamster’s demise. Finding a fork and wishbone jammed in our old chimney stack was a high spot for Ma: such a sensible precaution.
Jane Newberry
No. 3387: Big bash
This year marks the centenary of the publication of both Mrs Dalloway and The Great Gatsby. You are invited to submit a passage in which one goes to the other’s party (150 words maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 12 February.
Comments