THE WAY THINGS ARE

Few relish holidaying alone. I met Freida, who did, at a mutual cousin’s home in Ireland, who was thrilled I was living among Greeks. A love of Greek and Roman intellectual heritage had drawn her to a university colleague, her now her ex-fiancé. Her Greek was superior to mine but her accent, dominated by Boston-Irish-heritage vowels would have puzzled the ancients she loved more than my accented Kypriaka.

She decided after the break up, to go alone to a small hotel for a week in August in a serenely beautiful lakeside village. Three friendly, older women Hilda, Pat and Jean, shared her breakfast table, most of the visitors were older than her. She walked and swam and had brought two good books, determined to forget her cheating ex.

Returning from a swim one afternoon, Freida saw the trio seated around a Ouija board. Hilda called her to join them. Freida’s practical side had little time for the supernatural. Hilda smiled, ‘Come on, dear, it’s just a bit of fun.’

Later, in her room, Freida sat on the bed, bewildered. When she placed her finger on the glass it buzzed incoherently around the alphabet, the women gasped dramatically. Freida relaxed; she was being had. Deciding to play along, she asked a question in Greek, nothing. Then Latin, convinced her companions didn’t speak either language.

To her amazement, ‘Who’s there?’ had received a rush of words. The urgency of the brief exchange distressed her so much she excused herself. Later, Hilda had gently knocked on her door apologetically asking if they could talk. Freida invited her in.

Hilda said the friends had sensed Freida was sad and they had wanted to offer companionship. She didn’t want to divulge the real reason for the sitting because she didn’t expect anything to happen, nothing ever had – till then. Tearfully, Hilda explained that Kevin, her brother, a priest who enjoyed a winter swim, had suffered a heart attack in the lake and drowned.

‘When you started speaking Latin, and getting answers, I knew it had to be him.’ Hilda, a staunch Roman Catholic, had come every year since he died, tormented that he couldn’t find eternal peace because his body was never recovered and given Christian burial.

An elderly lone man fishing onshore had seen Kevin swim far out, realised he was in difficulty when he saw him flail the water, but by the time he came back with help, Kevin was gone. ‘What did he say, please tell me.’

Freida took Hilda’s hands in hers, ‘I would have spoken to you when I got over the shock but it scared the life out of me. I’ve never done anything like that before.’ Kevin said he would find his peace when Hilda found hers. Freida smiled wryly at us. ‘I’m here with a group, I’ll never holiday alone again!’

My cousin had told her that I had had some inexplicable experiences after my husband’s death. Our cousin had also known strange occurrences after the death of a loved one. ‘I had to tell somebody who won’t think I’m crazy; I never had time for any of that stuff. It was so unsettling, but I think I gave her closure.’

I offered Freida a snippet of Latin recalled from a Catholic upbringing of hearing Mass in Latin and singing hymns in it. ‘Beati pacifici.’ Blessed are the peacemakers. Sure, I told her, people think those with a sixth sense are crazy, but you gave a bereaved woman peace of mind. Where’s the crazy in that?’