Member Bio: Elizabeth Tyrrell
Elizabeth (Betty) has lived in Markham for over thirty years and retired in 1999 to devote time to painting, writing and travel, as well as to her five grandchildren. She has had several articles printed in the Markham Economist over the years, as well as an article published in ‘Our Canada’ magazine. She dabbles in painting, mostly acrylics, and donates most of her work to charities supporting breast cancer research and the CPFF (Canadian Pulminary Fibrosis Foundation). She also volunteers with the CNIB to record audio books for the sight impaired. In her spare time (what”s THAT?) she loves to travel, taking along her camera and sketch pad, as well as her writer’s notebook! Betty recently completed her first novel and is working on the second draft of a sequel.
Elizabeth Tyrrell is busy promoting her book, The Strangling Angel on both sides of the ‘pond.’ Her book is due for release in the UK at the end of April and she is lining up as many appearances and signings as possible prior to that date. The Strangling Angel is available at Amazon.com and at Blue Heron books in Uxbridge, ON.
Read Elizabeth’s interview at Open Book Ontario here:
http://www.openbookontario.com/news/writing_elizabeth_tyrrell
The Strangling Angel tells the story of a young girl’s harrowing journey across a famine-ravaged Ireland, after she witnesses her mother’s brutal murder at the hands of her father. It is a gripping tale of bravery; endurance; survival and love, with a healthy dash of humour along the way.
“Unforgettable. You made murder shiveringly inevitable.” Ruth Colombo, author of Sophia Writ Large
“Brilliant. Simply brilliant.” Joan Hall-Hovey, author of Nowhere to Hide and Chill Waters
“The dialogue flows with such realism, I felt I was in Ireland with them.” Joyce White, author of Writing and Selling Articles
You can find The Strangling Angel at www.amazon.com and www.elizabethtyrrell.com
Excerpt: The Strangling Angel
By Betty Tyrrell
Delia heard the screams when she was still a good distance from the cottage. She sat up and clawed at the long strands of hair that whipped into her face and winced in pain from kneeling too long in the wet grass. High above her, the gulls wheeled and dipped in a demented dance, at the mercy of the turbulent air currents that blew in from the Atlantic.
She heard the scream again and turned toward the sound. This time, there was no mistaking her mother’s cries, but there was an added desperation to the screams that turned Delia’s innards to ice. She knew her father was blindly intent on inflicting as much pain as he could: focused, systematic, and with a cold singularity of purpose that always replaced his initial anger and made him infinitely more dangerous. He would ignore her mother’s pleas for mercy and wouldn’t stop his punishing cruelty until he was satiated.
She dropped her creel, scattering the herbs and berries it had taken half the day to collect, and ran across the field, oblivious to the stinging nettles and the sharp stones that tore at her bare feet. She had to get to Mammy before her father did too much damage.
A startled crow flew out of the gorse and flapped its wings in her face. She fell and tore at the skirts that clung to her legs like seaweed, holding her back from the task she knew she must face and the punishment she would surely suffer for her interference.
She was weak from hunger and her progress was agonizingly slow. She felt as though she was wading through a sticky bog, as though nature conspired to keep her back, but she was close enough now to hear her father’s shouts. His voice was thick and slurred from too much drink, and the familiar filth filled the air with a diatribe of venom as he grunted like a pig, breathless from beating and berating her mother at the same time.
“You’ve refused me for the last time, my girl,” he roared. “You’re no more use to me than a heap o’ stinkin’ horse shite.”
As Delia reached the cottage, she stopped and leaned against the wall for support. Her lungs were on fire and she felt a crippling stitch in her side as she fought to slow her breathing.
“No! Please Dadda! No more!” she cried. Every foul name he called her mother caused her to cringe in shame and each insult was a dagger blade to her heart.
“You couldn’t give my children what they needed, but you won’ say no to me again, you useless friggin’ pelt. You mind me, and mind me well. You’ll open yer legs for me when I say so, and only when I say so!”
The top half of the door was open and she could hear the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh, in perfect time with her father’s grunts and fought a growing urge to be sick.
He had her mother bent, face down, over the table and was hard up against her, straddling her in the manner that always turned Delia’s stomach. It was the same posture she’d seen the animals in the field adopt whenever they rutted.
She was filled with a loathing so intense it made her gag, yet she couldn’t tear her eyes from him and gazed in morbid fascination at his hirsute back and pock-marked legs.
For a split second, she thought he looked almost comical as the loose flab of his buttocks wobbled with each thrust of his hips.
But he wasn’t just mounting her mother, he was beating her and Delia knew she dare not intervene. He rained down blow after blow in well-rehearsed, perfectly timed movements of lifting and swinging.
She’d seen him use the same stroke many times whenever he chopped firewood, but now his leather belt was wrapped round his right fist and he was beating her mother about the head with the heavy metal buckle, while his other hand had stranglehold of her mother’s braid. It was twisted through his fat fingers and it trailed up his arm almost to the elbow.
Cetona
By Betty Tyrrell
It’s late afternoon and I could be lying in a hammock, strung between cypress trees, in the walled garden of a villa deep in the Tuscan hills.
In reality, I am balanced between two lawn chairs on the deck of my suburban home, drooling over a computer printout. In place of whispering breezes, the zip, zip of my neighbor’s grass trimmer intrudes upon my reverie.
Tantalizing images show an ancient stone farmhouse, bathed in the amber light of a late afternoon, far away in another continent. A hilltop terrace commands uninterrupted views of the verdant hills. Grapevines provide lush shade and the rustic table looks sturdy enough to seat a dozen of my closest friends for a leisurely al fresco dinner.
It’s approaching nine-thirty p.m. in Tuscany. A bewitching hour – when the aroma of freshly crushed cloves of garlic assault the nostrils, wafting on the moist evening air and copious amounts of local vino have worked magic, gradually mellowing the sourest of moods, leaving me in happy land. If the wife asked me to pay for a Donatella Versace outfit right now, I wouldn’t have the power or inclination to refuse.
“I wake and feel the fell of dark,” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins, but all I see is the golden Tuscan light; all I smell is Tuscan cooking; all I taste is the velvet, aromatic blush of wine on my tongue.
2
Was it De La Mare who wrote, “I must go down to the sea again?” No matter. I must go to the Italian hills again, where old-fashioned romance oozes from the pores of young studs and old men alike; where days are interminably long; where the sun dare not set a minute before its time and where, when dusk finally falls, the twilight air thickens with heady fragrances.
This time last month, I lounged among friends, sipping a generous glass of Pinot Grigio. We marveled at the night sky, alive with a trillion stars, a density only observed far away from city lights. The last time I saw such a sky was from the stern of a cruise ship.
When my wife calls me, it’s almost a purr, totally transformed from her usual no-nonsense, get-it-done approach. She too has turned to jelly after only a few days of this enchantment.
There are no traffic sounds. No emergency vehicles screaming down the highway. The silence is absolute. Someone has conspired to block out extraneous sound and light, and we are cocooned in a warm blanket of scented night air.
“Anyone feel like a hike into the town?” asks our energetic companion over breakfast next morning. Our eyes meet in a silent, conspiratorial ‘NO!’
Cetona is a place you must visit for a genuine taste of rural Italy. An exclusive little hill town, it has the reputation of being inhabited by the Italian elite. Armani has a home here and the expensive boutiques and chic restaurants reflect the tastes of the moneyed residents in the nearby foothills.
3
But it is possible to live like lords on a pauper’s salary. A trip to the local market provides an opportunity to hobnob with the rich and to lay on a feast fit for kings.
Funeral Fiasco
By Betty Tyrrell
Vera pulled the hood of her jacket over her head and stamped her feet in an effort to warm them. “Do we have to stand out here? I’m stiffer than the corpse in that coffin,” she said, nodding toward the hearse that had just pulled up outside the church. “Five more minutes of this and you’ll be attendin’ my funeral next week.”
A small procession followed the pallbearers, making their way from the funeral cars along a narrow path to the church door.”We can’t go in ahead of the mourners,” said her friend Margaret. “It’s disrespectful.”
They watched in silence as the group, led by Annie and her eldest son Tom, followed the simple coffin. A few people stepped forward to offer condolences and to shake hands with family members. “I wonder if she had him insured,” Vera said, sniffing loudly, ” ’cause from where I’m standing, it looks like a no-frills funeral to me. Only two cars, and they’re not even Coyne’s. My mother used to swear by Coyne. Nobody does a funeral like Mr. Coyne, she’d say. And I say he’s still the best in the business. And have you noticed there’s no sign of her brothers?” she said, digging Vera in the side. “There’s neither hide nor hair of them. No doubt they are propping up the bar in Paddy Boylan’s pub, drowning their sorrows in fine style, I’ll bet.”
They made their way into the tiny church and Margaret chose a pew near the back, which only irritated Vera more, since she couldn’t get a good look at the main players. It was one of those ugly, modern churches that had been built in the 60′s and behind the main altar was a massive crucifix cast in bronze. The figure of Christ was depicted as stick-like and emaciated,with legs as thin as cheese Twiglets.Vera had studied it the few times she’d attended the church, whenever she missed confession in her own parish. The Station of the Cross was just as ugly. ‘Recycled bicycles, that’s what they’re made from,’ thought Vera, and she said as much to Margaret, who clucked disapprovingly. “The artist who created them probably put his heart and soul into them,”whispered Margaret.
“Well, I just hope he didn’t have the nerve to charge money for them,” Vera said. “They look like bloody famine victims.”
Margaret was horrified and glared at her. “Will you please stop swearing and remember where we are, or we’ll have no luck.”
“I’m the one who’s swearing, so I don’t know what you’re worried about,” Vera said, but Margaret was determined to have the last word.
“I’ll be guilty by association,” she said. “So SHUT UP!”
A suitably chastened Vera applied herself to studying the mourners. The church was almost full, partly because the service included a Requiem Mass, which gave the parishioners an extra opportunity to recieve Holy Communion. She caught a glimpse of Annie sitting between Tom and her daughter, Madalen. She looked quite composed and appeared to be listening intently to Father Joe, the celebrant priest who was on loan from nearby St. Anthony’s. A couple of pews in front sat a very elegant woman wearing a smart grey suit and a long fuschia scarf which was thrown casually over one shoulder. From the back she was the spitting image of Annie. “That’s got to be Annie’s sister,” whispered Vera. “She’s the model of her.”
“It’ll be Sara then. She looks as though she’s got a few bob, and I know Sara married into money and is supposed to be well placed,” Margaret replied, gripping the pew tightly as she rose stiffly from her kneeling position. As she spoke,the woman edged her way quickly to the end of the pew and with a quick curtsey to the altar, she hurried from the church. There was a discernible fidgeting among the mourners and two men wearing light green overalls and carrying what appeared to be tool bags, headed into the sacristy and closed the door noisily behind them. This time, it was Margaret who made the first comment. “WHAT is going on?” she murmured. “This service is turning into more of a farce than a funeral.”
The priest had reached a crucial part of the mass that meant complete silence and another painful kneeling session for Margaret, who was regretting not having worn her tensor bandage. As soon as the congregation began to line up for Communion, another two mourners left and, convinced by now that there was some sort of crisis,Vera and Margaret made their way smartly out of the church the moment the service ended.
Outside, the freezing rain had stopped and they waited in line until Annie suddenly spotted them and steered them off to one side. “Thank God you’re here,” she said. “I need your help. Our Bill’s been taken to hospital. He collapsed at the back of the church just before the service started and we have to go straight to the crematorium. Can you drive down to the hospital and find out how he is?”
“Where did they take him?” asked Margaret, already pulling out her car keys.
“God help him–they’ve taken him to The Royal,” replied Annie. She was becoming more and more flustered and started to back away. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you both at the reception later. We’re meeting at St. Anthony’s club.”
“Well,” Vera said, after a departing Annie, “That’s one strike against the poor old bugger. Fat chance he has of coming out of the Royal.”
Margaret had just about had enough of her. “Don’t be so bloody negative, Vera. Can’t you see Annie’s got enough to contend with?”
The Royal was a red brick Victorian building in the centre of the city, and they had to circle several times looking for a parking spot. On the fourth lap, Margaret spotted a space in the disabled section and was about to turn into it when Vera said, “Don’t bother. I forgot to bring my disability sticker with me.”
She avoided looking at Margaret, who was staring, open mouthed at her. “What’s the point in having a special pass if you never use it?”
Vera had the grace to squirm a little. “I forgot OK? We left the house in a hurry this morning, remember? Anyway, we agreed to keep it for emergencies and if we’re caught displaying an outdated pass, who’s gonna be fined? Me–that’s who! Your hands will be squeaky clean.”
“Don’t you think this qualifies as an emergency, Vera?” Margaret said, fuming. “That poor man may be breathing his last, his family are collecting his brother-in-law’s ashes, and you’re worried about a measly parking ticket?”
Margaret reversed into the space but Vera wouldn’t give up. “Let’s hope the car is still here when we get back,” she said, “because they won’t even bother with a ticket–they’ll tow it away, and if they do, you can pay me half the cost of retrieving it.”
The Royal was crowded and the recption desk deserted so they made their way straight to the ICU and spoke to a staff member at the nurse’s station. She was reluctant to give them any information until Margaret told her they were cousins and explained the absence of his wife and immediate family. The nurse would only say that he was comfortable and they couldn’t say any more until they’d completed some tests. “You can’t see him right now because the doctor is with him. In any case, he won’t be allowed visitors until he is stabilized.”
Neither of them spoke during the drive to the funeral reception. As they entered the hall, the murmur of subdued conversation floated from the main hall and the lobby was filled with wreaths and bouquets retrieved from the crematorium.
“I think that’s a terrible thing to do, removing flowers from the crem. It’s like robbing from the dead. Why buy them in the first place if you have intentions of taking them back? Better to make a donation to charity than to make a false show of giving flowers.” Margaret ignored Vera and scanned the room looking for Bill’s wife Rita, while Vera headed to the bar and ordered two glasses of wine. The waitress told her the first round was free and she smiled to herself. ‘Margaret will have to pay for the next one; serves her right for being such a complainer.’ She found an empty table near the buffet and filled two plates with an assortment of sausage rolls, miniature sandwiches and potato chips. She’d finished her own plate and was about to start on Margaret’s when a voice behind her said, “Vera Walsh, as I live and breathe. You haven’t changed a bit. What’s your secret?”
Before she even turned, Vera recognized the voice. Sara Moss had been in Vera’s class at school until Vera had passed the eleven plus exam and moved to the local grammar. Sara had failed and had been filled with envy and jealousy ever since. “Strange to see you here Sara. I didn’t think you were a friend of the family–or are you just fond of funerals in general?”
“I was looking for a chance to show off my new winter coat, if you must know, and I knew Annie’s fella long before she managed to hook him. You might say I knew him really well, if you get my drift.”
“I get your drift all right, Sara Moss, and it smells of rotten manure. You’re rancid from the inside out. Now that we’ve all seen the coat, why don’t you go home and put it back in the wardrobe with the mothballs; better yet, take it back to the store and get your money back.”
“You always were a stuck up cow, Vera. The minute you put on that grammar school uniform it went to your head, but it’s about the only thing that did. You’re still as thick as two short planks, for all your fancy schooling.”
“Do me a favour Sara. Go and sit among the flowers in the lobby before the stench of you makes me sick.”
Sara lunged, and Margaret stepped between them–not a moment too soon. “Fancy letting Sara Moss get to you like that,” she said to Vera. “You know she’s a trouble causer. Keep out of her way. She’ll be gone once she’s filled her belly and had a good look around.”
Why was it that weddings and funerals always brought out the worst in people? Almost every one she’d attended, and she’d been to more than she cared to remember, resulted in some form of altercation. Her own wedding had been no exception, with her family seated on one side of the reception hall and her husband’s on the other, just as they had been in the church. Mind you, HER family had been a bit better behaved. It had become obvious what her husband’s family was like when the photographer asked them to gather for a group photograph on the church steps. Her mother had made a loud comment at the time, loud enough for her new mother-in-law to hear and bad enough to cause a rift between the two families that only widened over the years. “You’d think someone was giving gold bars away for free,” she had remarked.
Margaret was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness, not just for the deceased and his family, but for the needless estrangement among her own. It was all such a terrible waste, and a great disservice to her children, who might never get to know their paternal cousins. “Right, Vera. I’ve had enough and I’m bone tired. Let’s go home.”
They said their goodbyes and headed out into the early evening traffic. Cars in the main street were at a standstill. An accident had narrowed the road down to a single lane and it was apparent the delay would be a lengthy one. “We might as well turn into Hughe’s store. They’re having a closing down sale and the bargains are great, according to our Cissie.”
Margaret knew there was no point in protesting and besides, Vera was right, they might as well get out of the traffic until it eased a bit. They browsed the department store half-heartedly, buying bits and pieces neither of them needed, until they found themselves in cosmetics. Margaret was engrossed in trying various lipsticks when someone tapped her on the shoulder and said in a loud, officious voice. “Excuse me madam, but do you have any intention of purchasing a lipstick?” She swung around guiltily and came face to face with Vera, who was wearing the most hideous wig in the gaudiest shade of red. Around her neck was a purple mohair scarf and on her hands she wore canary yellow mittens. Her lips were painted to twice their normal size in a bright orange shade and she swung a massive handbag back and forth in one hand whilst the other held an imaginary cigarette.
The two friends dissolved into peals of laughter. “My God! You look like a dog’s dinner. Have you no taste at all?” sputtered Margaret. Vera played along, feigning an expression of mock horror on her painted face.
“Madam,” she said in a haughty tone, “I’ll have you know my tastes are very simple. I only buy the best.”
Both friends were doubled over with laughter when the assistant arrived on the scene and pointed out that the wigs were ‘only to be tried on with staff members present to assist.’ They barely made it to the toilets in time and practically fell into the cubicles. “Did you see her face?” Margaret asked. “It was enough to stop the Town Hall clock.”
“She looked worse than Annie’s fella–and he’s been dead for a week,” Vera said, which sent them into fresh spasms of laughter. Both women staggered from the stalls only to find themselves face to face with the assistant. They flew out of the washroom without washing their hands and didn’t stop until they were outside in the parking lot.
“Oh Vera, you can be a real tonic at times. I really needed that laugh.”
“You and me both, Margaret,” Vera said, smiling. “It’s been quite a day and I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink. Your place or mine?”