"The Brightest Inventions Under Heaven."

"The Nature of Love Revealed."

" Tea and Therapy."

"A Bird in the Bus."

Ghosts & Frightened Friars

By Ross Eldridge
   

I can no longer resist these notes: They have been on a recycled envelope for months. There is—this being England—a hotel in nearby Alnmouth, on the village’s one regular street, that has a three-ghost rating. The hotel has been featured on television, and is said to be a good place to experience spirits. I had dinner in that hotel twice, in their South Central Asian dining room. No ghosts were seated with me, or near me. The Maitre D’ shook my hand as I went into the lobby, he was being cautious. The owners of The Schooner want real money—pounds and definitely not euros— and the most a ghost can pay with is a tatty map for a buried treasure. I think I can make out a trail and a box full of doubloons on my place-mat, barkeep. It’s all yours!  Forget that, Captain Kiddo. This three-ghost hotel wants hard cash or a card: Hiring and housing spirits doesn’t come cheap. It’s all unionized now. Pay up! Isn’t that the way? And so that goes.

A quick one on the Friary of St Francis: A huge manor on the highest point within Alnmouth. On my daily walks when staying at the Bridge End, I noticed lots of Royal Mail vehicles going in and out of the Friary’s gates. Eventually, I saw a friar going into the village store. Brown robe, that looked prickly, and coarse enough. A heavy cord round the waist which had a cross dangling from it. Nice. New sandals completed things. Mind you, he was wearing a watch. The friar pretty much looked as if he’d hopped out of an illuminated mediaeval manuscript. When he came out of the store, carrying a newspaper, I smiled and offered: “Good morning.” He returned the nod and remark and, to my horror, sat next to me on the bench I’d claimed. You have to make small talk—and I’ve done hours of non-stop talk driving across the Mojave Desert—and started by saying:
  
“Friary of St Francis isn’t it?”  That’s original.
  
“Indeed it is.” Affirmative and a regular English accent, what a relief: He might have been Eastern European with that holy man get-up.
  
“An old order, I read about it in grammar school. Brown robes, hoods, yellow cords. Sandals.” I’m showing off.
  
“That’s quite correct.”
  
I figured he was my age. His newspaper was the Telegraph, not one of those with big-bare-breasted women on page three. “You must have lots of animals up there in that huge building of yours.”
  
“No, none at all. They are not permitted. Actually, we put milk out for a stray cat sometimes. It certainly doesn’t come inside.”
  
“And St Francis? The beasts?”
  
“Yes… and no.” He got to his feet and headed up the hill to his Friary.
  
I wondered where he kept his coins for the newspaper, no obvious lumps in his garments. Maybe a bum-bag as they call them here. I didn’t want to look that closely.
  
Another day I decided to walk to the Friary—up its driveway—in light rain. The road went wandering up the hill. I came across a life sized statue that must have been the Patron Saint of Construction Workers. The statue was holding a ruler and a mallet; I think it was a ruler. Perhaps a wand. Definitely a mallet, you don’t see them on statues very often.
  
And up I walked and saw a nice little grotto to my right, a rocky overhang that formed a cave. Inside the cave a very small—compared to the Construction Worker—winged statue of what I always call a Cupid. You’d think it right off a Valentine’s card.
  
Climbing some more, I reached a gravelled parking area in front of the Friary’s massive entrance. Several upscale cars were parked near the bottom of the stairs, stairs leading up to a very large, solid door. No signs of life. I walked over to the door, knowing I could not see in it, and realized the ground floor windows were well out of my reach without a tall ladder.
  
At the side of the door, a handwritten note under a bit of plastic read: “Please ring.”  I didn’t look for a white rabbit. I pushed the bell. Somewhere inside I made out a thumping noise. Then there was silence. Those cars in the parking bays were hardly suitable for your average monk or friar to drive, bearing in mind the priestly get-ups, and any restrictions or impressions to do with vows of poverty.
  
The doors opened. Standing there, looking incredibly frightened was the friar from the village shop.
  
“Good morning…again…I wondered if anyone was home up here…and could people drop by for a prayer…or something like that…out of the rain…I’ll be well behaved.” I’m rambling. I’m in the Mojave Desert heading for Las Vegas. Manic, they call it.
  
“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t really operate like that. Rather, people come to this Friary on retreats. Another friar and I just keep watch here.”
  
“Like a bed and breakfast with lots of prayers? Bring a dressing gown?”
  
By then, the poor friar was backing inside, pushing the door closed.
  
“Not really.”
  
He looked well fed. Do they get food delivered by the Royal Mail?
  
“I’m so sorry to have bothered you,” I offered, as he closed the door: Thump! Rumble! Click! And I wondered whether his stray cat was around and friendly. Perhaps it lived in the grotto of the chubby, winged Cupid. Then—in a flash of brilliant thinking—I wondered if his St Francis was not the Assisi monk of fame, but some other St Francis. Can the big statue of the builder be some other patron saint with the name?
  
And I walked back down the hill in heavier rain. And a Royal Mail van passed me going up. And I nodded, as one does to be friendly.