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Not long ago I was invited out to dinner by a girl called Sally. I had only met Sally twice, and she was very, very beautiful. I was flattered. "She likes me," I thought. But I was in for a disappointment.
"I'm so sorry we asked you at such short notice," she said when I arrived, "but we suddenly realised there were going to be thirteen people at the table, so we just had to find somebody else."
A superstition. Thirteen. The unlucky number. Recently I came upon a little group of worried people, gathered round a man lying on the pavement beside a busy London road. They were waiting for an ambulance, because the man had been knocked down by a passing taxi. Apparently he had stepped off the pavement and into the street, to avoid walking under a ladder.
They say this superstition goes back to the days when the gallows were built on a platform. To get up on to the platform you had to climb a ladder. To pass under the shadow of that ladder was very unlucky ...
Other superstitions are not so easily explained. To see a black cat in England is lucky. But if you see a black cat in India, it is considered very unlucky. There too, if you are about to set out on a long journey, and someone sneezes, you shouldn't go.
Break a mirror—you will have seven years' bad luck. Find a four-leafed clover, you will have good luck. Just crazy superstitions, of course.
I have an African friend. One day he said to me: "If ever an African says to you that he is not superstitious, that man is a liar."
Perhaps that is true of all of us.
This is Lethbridge's description of a ghost near Hole House.
One of the first incidents happened near to our home in Devon. One Sunday morning my wife and I were standing on the hill and looking at Hole Mill, which belongs to Mrs. N. I sat down and admired the view. After a time I heard a motorbicycle start up and I saw the paperman riding off and, as I watched, I saw Mrs. N come out from behind the Mill. She was dressed in a bright blue sweater and had on dark blue tartan trousers and a scarf over her head. She looked up, saw me and waved. I waved back. At this moment a second figure appeared behind Mrs. N and perhaps a meter from her. She stood looking up at me. Mrs. N went back behind the Mill and the other woman followed. I did not know her. She looked about sixty-five to seventy years old, was taller than Mrs. N and rather thin. Her face appeared to be tanned and she had a pointed chin. She was dressed in a dark tweed coat and skirt and had something which looked like a light grey cardigan beneath her coat. Her skirt was long. She had a flat-crowned and wide-brimmed round hat on her head. The hat was black and had white flowers around it. She was, in fact, dressed as my aunts used to dress before the First World War. She didn't look like the sort of person who was likely to be staying at Hole Mill today. Later we were leaning over a gate, admiring some calves, when we saw Mrs. N alone. 'Oh,' said my wife, disappointed. 'We were expecting to see two of you.' 'How is that?' asked Mrs. N. 'I have only seen you and the paperman all morning.'
A journalist has a strange story to tell.
I've never been a superstitious person ... never believed in ghosts or things like that. But, two years ago, something happened which changed my attitude. I still can't explain it ... somehow I don't think I ever will be able to.
I was living in Frankfurt ... in Germany ... where I was a financial journalist. A very good friend ... one of my closest friends... we'd been at university together ... was coming over from England by car to see me. He was supposed to get there around six in the evening ... Saturday evening.
I was at home in my flat all that afternoon. At about three in the afternoon, the phone rang. But ... but when I answered it, there was nobody there ... on the other end, I mean. Nobody. The phone rang again just a few minutes later. Again, nobody was there ... I couldn't understand it. Just a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I was in the kitchen, making some coffee. I remember I was just pouring the boiling water through the filter when I heard the knock. I opened the door and there was my friend ... Roger, that was his name. Roger. He looked a bit ... strange ... pale ... and I said something like 'Roger, how did you get here so early?' He didn't answer ... he just smiled slightly ... he was a bit like that. He didn't say very much ... I mean, even when I'd known him before, he often came into my flat without saying very much. And ... well ... anyway, I said 'Come in' and went back to the kitchen to finish pouring the coffee. I spoke to him from the kitchen, but he didn't answer ... didn't say a word ... and I thought that was a bit ... strange ... even for Roger. So I looked round the door, into the next room, where I thought he was sitting ... and ... and he wasn't there. The door was still open. I thought for a moment that he'd gone down to the car to get his luggage ... and then I began to wonder where his girlfriend was. She was coming with him, you see, from England.
Well, then the phone rang again. This time there was somebody there. It was Roger's girlfriend, and she sounded ... hysterical ... At first I couldn't understand her. She was still in Belgium, several hundred kilometers away ... and she told me that she was in a hospital ... she and Roger had been involved in a car crash, and ... and Roger had just died ... on the operating table ... just a few minutes before.
It was early afternoon, and the beach was almost empty. It was getting hot now. Most of the tourists were still finishing their lunch back at the hotel, or taking their afternoon siesta in the air-conditioned comfort of their rooms. One or two Englishmen were still lying stretched out on the sand, determined to go home with a good suntan, and a few local children were splashing around in the clear shallow water. There was a large yacht moving slowly across the bay. The girl was on board. She was standing at the back of the boat, getting ready to dive. Jason put on his sunglasses and casually wandered down towards the sandy beach.
