THE LANTERN TALES – PILGRIMS
“Never open on a Tuesday night, midwinter.” That’s what the old man used to mumble into his belly while polishing glasses. A catchphrase, if you like. Thought about having it written on his headstone, but dodgy teens might have taken it as an invitation to look inside his coffin. He was right of course, about not opening, especially this winter just gone. My first without him.
There’d been a trickle of customers over the season, not enough to afford a chef as well as heating. So, I’d kept staffing down to me Mondays to Thursdays. Sort of liked it to be fair – just the sound of the elements huffing on the building, with me warm inside, brew in hand, memories for company.
I was having just such a moment in the armchair by the fire, picturing him stood there, polishing away, when we were rudely interrupted by a hammering on the door I’d bolted an hour previous. Many fists, overpowering the bully storm outside.
Now I’ve taken on a few drunks in my time, but even I knew to ignore that noise. I rushed around the bar and crouched. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the fists. They’d give up, come back in the morning if it was that important. It was times like this, when I could happily murder the old man… if I hadn’t done so already.
As I hid, staring at the rows of glasses, listening to that incessant noise, I got to thinking they must have seen me through the windows. Bill would go over there and yell that we were done for the night, that they could, sling their hooks. Tell me to go get the shotgun. I could see him smiling at me like it was a game.
Then came the voices, women, men… even a boy’s, all calling out, “Please!” like their lives depended on it. If I ignored them much longer, they’d wake the new neighbours, and those miserable bastards had already got us in trouble with the council last quiz night.
I straightened up, knees creaking like the Tin Man and went over to the ancient oak door.
“We’re closed,” I yelled.
“Please!” the voices begged. The wind howled down the chimney, breathing life into inglenook embers.
What the hell, punters were punters and it’s what Bill would have wanted. Kids never got left out in the cold, ever. I pulled back the bolts, top and bottom. The gang on the other side whispered their relief while I whispered my dread.
Tell you what I wasn’t expecting, six wet hikers and one black cat to tumble through the door, looking like survivors of an apocalypse. Backpacks and walking sticks clattered next to them. Only the cat glanced in my direction as it strolled over to the hearth to warm its wet fur.
“Welcome.” No one spoke. They just dripped all over my pub without an explanation. “Well, you’re a sorry looking bunch.”
They got up, still no words, just distrust on their faces. And what weird faces they were. There was a sickly looking priest hunched in a purple cassock; a teen boy in army gear; his older double, dressed like he should be off to work in the city; a proper Lolita, with spiders for eyelashes; an older lady who belonged in one of them historic TV shows – all bosom and lace; and a twenty-something woman who had to be a virgin hiker because there were still shopping tags dangling off her weatherproof jacket.
“Film crew down from London that got caught in the rain?” I ventured.
Still no words, just more staring.
“Come on, you lot, I was closing up.”
“Sorry to barge in. Know we look bad,” virgin hiker panted. “Not bad people, just in a bad way. Caught in the storm. Pilgrims. The first leg of the Via Francigena. Lost.” They were words alright but nothing I could make head nor tail of.
I looked at the cat, eyeing me as it licked its paws. Panther black, with a white fur tuxedo, a sly little smile – reminded me of some of my Bill’s old associates. Dry as I was I shivered like the rest of them. Outside the trees shivered too as if joining in.
“Have you towels, lovely?” asked the older lady, fat cheeks lifting into a red-apple grin. “For Boris.” The mention of Boris, whoever he was, made the others groan.
I backed away to the airing cupboard by the toilets, never taking my eyes off them and got out as many towels as I could carry. They were grabbed with grunts more than gratitude. As soon as she had one, the lady bounced on the balls of her feet and rushed over to the cat.
“What a fine mess I’ve got us into. Yes, I know I should have worn hiking gear, but I didn’t think you were serious about how hard it would be. That’s half my problem, never listen.” Her laugh belonged to someone thirty years younger. “My feet are sore; will you kiss them better later?” She rubbed the cat down and pressed her lips to his fur. When he started nuzzling her d-cups, I looked away.
“Well, you can’t stand around glaring. Tell me what I can do for you and be quick about it.”
“Your name please?” asked the man dressed for the City.
“Eloise.” Arms crossed.
“Francais?”
“Essex.” Arms crossed a little tighter.
“Is the owner here, Eloise?” He hit my name heavy in that way posh people do when addressing plebs. “We need to speak with him as a matter of urgency.”
“You’re looking at him.”
“I’m Theodore Inchiquin, and this is my son, Robert.” The boy’s fringe flopped into his downturned eyes as he was yanked in front of me.
“Thirsty, lad?” The cracked lips and pale skin made me say it. He nodded; Inchiquin clipped him around the ear.
“That’s what got us into this ruddy mess. Couldn’t even carry a few mobiles safely. Army my arse!”
Robert flinched from the verbal punches and I had a good mind to smack the sorry excuse for a father around his uptight face. Maybe the next time he did it, because judging from the way the kid mumbled that he wasn’t thirsty after all, there had been many times.
“It was the cat.” Robert had gumption under all that cowering.
“Utter tripe! You’re telling me an animal opened a sealed bag, undid a military grade water bottle and poured it all over six phones? Liar!”
I’d refer to him as Wanker from then on. Meanwhile, the cat sat there licking its paws and side-eyeing us.
“Perhaps we could be so bold as to enquire if there may be lodgings in your fine establishment?” whimpered the priest, as he tip-toed mud all over my nice clean floor. Creepy little Pardoner.
“Stop!” The group froze. “Shoes off, all of you. Leave them by the front door.” They obliged. “I’ve three rooms to rent upstairs, you can share, but by my count one of you will need to sleep down here on the couch by the fire.”
The older lady, who I discovered was called Poppy (course she was) demanded she be allowed to take it as she wanted to be close to her husband.
“Your what?”
“My husband, Boris.” She held up the cat, who allowed himself to be manhandled in a very un-catlike manner.
I’d seen some weird behaviour in my time but this woman, in her medieval wench get-up, jabbering away to her pet like it was a person, really threw me.
“Fine. Take the couch. The rest of you, follow me. It’s a hundred and fifty quid per room, per night.” It wasn’t, but I figured Wanker would consider that a small price to pay for creature comforts.
I was right, money was no object and he got out a shiny gold card to prove it. I told him to put away his wallet and his desperation until morning. It raised a smirk in the boy.
“There are cupboards in the rooms stuffed with my husband’s old clothes. He had a particular taste though, better warn you. Help yourself.”
“Can I check my Snapchat? It might have dried out?” said Lolita like her phone was a family member on life-support.
“What did your mother say?” simpered the priest. “No phone until France. You’re meant to be observing nature under my guidance, child.”
The look the girl gave him committed murder.
“No point, because Robert poured a litre of water over the lot,” said Wanker. “But we do need to call the police, as soon as we’re dry.”
Now this was a turn up and not a welcome one. I couldn’t have the fuzz sniffing around here.
“No, wait!” said virgin hiker. “Can’t we just regroup. Have a think. We don’t know he’s in trouble. He might be fine.”
“Who?” I asked as mildly as my panic would allow.
“The stranger”, “The weirdo”, “The maniac!” they all said.
“You lot on drugs?”
The cat meowed like it was laughing, Poppy laughed along with him before explaining, “No dearie, we’re well-meaning pilgrims. Some of us doing the full Road Through France to Rome. Storm came in, phones got wet, tempers got frayed, we got a little lost, the stranger helped. Huge, bearded and frankly terrifying.”
“He hardly spoke. Not words so much as sounds, almost like singing,” the priest chimed in. “He pointed us in your direction, joined us at first but then as we got closer, he got agitated, slipped and fell, we ran… and here we are.” He stroked the cross around his neck.
“Hurt how?”
“He fell… right over the cliff edge,” pouted Lolita.
“Who’s in charge?”
“I am,” said the girl guide and Wanker together.
“Well, I was… I’m Hattie.” She produced a dirty little hand for me to shake. Poor thing was quaking in her soggy socks. “Host for Life Journeys. My first job out of Uni. Medieval history. I had the not so bright idea of relying on an ancient map. I was trying to give you all an authentic experience. But he,” she pointed at Wanker, “is going to get me fired.”
“I need to be in Paris for a meeting tomorrow. Not going all the way to Rome. Some of us live in the real world.”
She seemed so deflated, I said, “Sounds like a good idea you had, to put them phones in a bag. Can’t enjoy a good walk in this TikTok, fast-paced world.”
Lolita sniffed as her derision caught a cold.
“Well, I suggest you worry about the stranger when you’re dry and have full bellies. No one is coming out in this storm. This is the countryside, not Mayfair.”
Nodded agreement was all I got. It was enough.
“So, who am I sharing with? I’m not getting naked in front of that paedo,” Lolita pointed at the Pardoner. He didn’t argue with the title. “Spiritual guide, my tits!”
“You haven’t stopped bullying him since Canterbury!” yelled Robert. “So he wears a dress and believes in a Santa in the sky –”
“Well, –” the priest tried to interject.
“You know what I mean Father. You’re into God. But you…” the boy pointed at the girl. “You’re just into yourself. If it hadn’t been for all that screaming the weirdo would never have slipped, he was only trying to stop you from falling after you strutted off.”
Had they made an agreement not to share? Is that why they gasped like characters in a bad panto? I’m all for not sharing.
“How do you know he’s dead?”
“Well Eloise,” said Wanker, “he made the sound you associate with falling to your death. Then all was quiet. We simply must call the police.”
“Not if you’re staying here, you’re not.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me Inchiquin. Not a fan of coppers. Got nothing to hide.” The bloody cheek of their raised eyebrows. “Just don’t like trouble. So, if you are in it and are going to bring it, you can do it outside my pub. If what you’re looking for is a hot bath, nice bowl of soup and a bed, then you can stay.”
No one argued with that. I assigned Hattie and Lolita one room, Wanker and his son another and the Pardoner got his own, so he could pick those long nails in private.
While they sorted themselves out, I lit up the kitchen and defrosted a batch of bacon and lentil soup. Odd as they were, the company made a change. Haven’t had much since I kicked Bill’s bucket.
He brought me all the way from everything I knew, the kids, the lot, and told me owning a pub in retirement would be ‘a blast’. Should have known it was a front. But that’s what we women do, bend for our men, or we lose them. The kids thought we were entering a second adolescence. I suppose we were. He always was a big kid. All the years, boozing it up, making all the wrong friends, spending our pensions on hops, high times and other things he swore we were leaving behind. The life-and-soul landlord.
I was under suspicion for months after he died until they finally let me alone.
It was nice to get the soup bowls and spoons out, to slice the bread, put butter on the table. I lit the candles in the private dining room, prepared everything just right for my guests. But when they trudged down ten minutes later, looking like embarrassed over-sized Elvis impersonators, my heart sank. He really was a fine man; they didn’t deserve to wear his threads. Only Lolita seemed to enjoy the sequins as she twirled around making imaginary videos of herself.
“Sit, sit!”
I’ve never seen a bunch of humans descend on food like this lot, all slurping and slopping in silence, rhinestones shimmering in candlelight. I’d heard of this pilgrimage Poppy had mentioned. The stretch from Canterbury to Dover. Thomas Becket, miracles and all that gubbins. All the rage now, these long walks. People going on them to find themselves, transformation and whatnot. But normally they looked the part, not parts in a play.
“So, who out of you lot are actual pilgrims?”
All I got was gulping and furtive glances. Outside the wind howled like wolves calling for their pack. Only the cat looked comfortable, perched on the highbacked chair like Henry the bloody VII.
The Pardoner cleared his throat and bowed his head like he was already walking into the Vatican.
“I am the proud owner of several passports.”
I could have told him I was too, but I didn’t think we were talking about the same thing.
“I have trodden the road of Sigeric the Serious twice before, and whilst the journey is arduous, it is one of deep contemplation and –”
“Murder,” piped up Lolita, who smiled down at her empty bowl, like the cat who’d finished the cream.
Speaking of the cat, Poppy paid equal attention to Boris and her food, encouraging him to lap up pet mulch while apologising that he couldn’t digest what we were having.
Hattie sat at the other end of the table despondent as a street urchin, hardly touching her soup. Poor girl, she was way over her head with this lot. Robert was going in for seconds. The Pardoner played with his cross and begged forgiveness for not saying Grace, and Wanker stared at the ceiling as if the mosaic of naked nymphs might give him the strength to endure the company he was forced to keep.
“So, just the Pardoner then. How come you are travelling together and how did you get here? I’m a bit off the beaten track.”
“It started with an invite,” a few of them said.
Chairs scraped back on the stone floor in synch. Well, how’s that for a conversation starter? Suddenly there was back and forth about what each one had said: The Wanker was invited via LinkedIn to meet an investor in Paris, under the condition he walked rather than flew. And while he found it odd, he had agreed because, “the investor and I have been in email contact, it’s all perfectly legit. And while I absolutely don’t need the money, who doesn’t want more money? Robert’s mother, my ex, arranged for him to do a two-week outdoor survival course,” he scoffed, “something to do with bonding with my son. But we’re fine aren’t we big chap?”
Robert focused on his soup.
Lolita bragged that once in Rome an influencer was going to make her famous. Her invite was from a stranger on Insta.
“My mother is under some culty spell from that man.” The Pardoner blushed. “The message said I would only get the gig if I did this stupid walk, did a YouTube video on the way,” she rolled her eyes in Robert’s direction, “and since Father Mark has done it twice already, she practically gave him a blowjob to be my chaperone.”
The Pardoner spat his soup across the table.
“That is not what happened child. I was invited by the Pope himself to receive special vestments. The letter stated it. It was mere coincidence that your lovely mother was looking for a guide.”
Lolita used dipped her forefinger into her soup and drew an emoji face of projectile vomiting on one of my napkins.
“And how about you Robert? Did you get a letter, or were you dragged along by Aladdin over there?” I asked.
Robert was quiet for a moment, playing with his spoon as if it might do the talking for him.
“Spit it out for God’s sake. Such an attention seeker,” Wanker announced.
The monkey brain in the young man’s skull was bouncing up and down demanding to be let loose. You could see it in his eyes. If Wanker had still been in his suit he’d have had a fork in his eye, but because he was wearing a white rhinestone tasselled leather jacket he looked like a fool, and that probably saved him his sight. I quietly thanked Bill.
Robert looked at his father. “Actually, I got an invite too, to join the Foreign Legion. All I had to do was put up with your bullshit for a few days, dump you in France with your avarice for company, and then I could go on with this lot and meet with a recruiter. I lied about the course, found it online, was never going to go. But you and Mum didn’t bother to check.” And with that he picked up his spoon and got back to eating like he was in the mess tent of his future. There were years of eating alone in that young man’s body language.
Hattie told us it was odd, because she also got a letter, popped through the front door inviting her to a telephone interview. She’d been out of work since graduating and was so strapped for cash she’d agreed but she’d never so much as walked around a park before.
Poppy had stayed quiet during the sharing, a look of innocence on her face that could convince a jury, but not me.
“Poppy?” I asked.
She dropped her spoon; lentils landed on Bill’s blue velvet flares.
“Butter fingers,” she giggled. No one else laughed.
“What did your letter say?” asked Wanker.
“I didn’t get one. Boris and I just wanted an adventure. But maybe you all got one because you live in the same town and hardly even notice each other.” Her face changed a little, a conniving fox.
“Inconceivable!” barked Wanker. “My son and I have never laid eyes on you people before.”
“She’s right, though,” said Hattie. “I have seen you before. You nearly ran me over in your Range Rover last week.”
There was embarrassed coughing at this revelation. So much for community spirit.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in church?” said the Pardoner to this his reluctant congregation.
“No one ever sees me,” whispered Hattie.
“Well, you’re all quite visible now in my dead husband’s karaoke outfits.”
How the thaw warmed my cockles, as they enquired after him, laughed at my stories of the big man. Until they remembered this was not a friendly gathering but a necessary evil until they could return to their lives.
“More important than the letters and where we live, what about the man who fell off the cliff?” piped up Lolita. “We can’t just sit here laughing. A man is dead out there.”
They were not friends, they were failed pilgrims, lured here by mysterious promises and now they shared a secret. I could save them from worrying about it with a quick and unbelievable explanation. Normally I could talk travellers down, do a bit of hypnosis, make them forget. But all six of them? It was never going to work.
“I agree that is a problem, but the letters are just as odd, who sent them?” said Robert. “Who would know we all wanted something and would be prepared to walk to Rome to get it. And why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“That would be me,” said Poppy, calm as a Bond villain. “Well, Boris had the idea. He’s the ideas man.” She lifted one of her cat’s front paws and tapped his head with it. “He felt you would all benefit from a good ramble. I told him it was a bad idea to meddle, but he was a CEO for thirty years, not so good at hearing no, are you my king?” She leant over and kissed her pet square on the mouth.
“Dear god!” bolted up Wanker, his chair hitting the ground. “You have crossed a line!” he told Poppy, and then to me he asked, “Were you in on this too?”
The cat chose that moment to cough up a fur ball onto the dining room table. Nonplussed, Poppy cleared it away with one of my napkins.
“I demand an explanation!”
“It’s simple,” Poppy said. “You see, cats have a way of seeing things we don’t. Time on their hands to just sit and stare. No one notices a cat. He’d been watching you for a long time. Would come home after a day about town and chew my ear off with all your troubles. He knew you’d all come for selfish reasons.”
She took a break from her confession to whisper something to the cat whose claws appeared and retracted like knives under her caress. After some time of what looked like negotiation, the cat nodded and Poppy spoke up.
“For instance, young man,” she pointed at Robert, “He wants you to know that he fought in war and it is not the romantic adventure your story books tell you. War left him a mess. Used to wake up in the night screaming. Until he met me. Isn’t that right, Mr fat paws?” The cat climbed onto Poppy’s lap and kissed her cheek.
They were all too stunned to speak. I know what grief looks like, the madness that sets in, the lengths you will go to find peace.
Poppy was on a roll. “And you with the plastic on your lashes and fillers in your lips,” a chubby finger pointing at Lolita, “you are lonely in a new way us oldies can’t compute. Pardon my pun. Look at you, everything works, all your cells are vital, you could do anything with your life, but you spend your days trying to get a hunch like the Pardoner there, constantly scrolling on your phone. You never notice what is in front of you, including young Robert here, who watches you walk to school each day as if you are the Mona Lisa made flesh. I could go on, but it doesn’t matter now. Our plan was ruined by that woman’s husband.”
They all glared at me.
“Now, hold on a minute, my man rescued you lot from the storm and sent you here for shelter. I can’t control his theatrics. I need a real drink.”
“Well, I for one have had enough of this deception. You two females are patently deranged. Please direct me to your landline, I am calling the police,” Wanker’s affronted sequined jacket was shaking so much it turned the ceiling into a disco ball.
There was nothing for it. I couldn’t have coppers sniffing around, looking in the nooks and crannies where other people’s belongings were yet to be collected. Bill’s associates had been good to me, but they wouldn’t look kindly on their stash disappearing. I walked over to the antique cupboard in the corner, rummaged around behind the bags of candles and old cutlery and pulled out Bill’s shotgun. I brandished it in a non-specific way, so no one felt targeted. It wasn’t even loaded, but that didn’t stop them cowering. When a window rattled in the wind, Wanker ducked under the table like he’d been shot.
“No one is calling the police. You lot are going to sit there, nice and polite. You’re going to make small talk and behave, is that understood?” I took their silence as agreement. “Now… I need more liquor.” I took the gun with me.
Poppy was probably in there telling them all about Bill out there on the Downs, trapped at the location of his ‘suicide’, because it turns out some souls do get stuck where their bodies end up. I should defend his behaviour, but he brought it on himself, well, on me. Anger, my old pal, kept me warm like a pulled-up pair of socks. At least now they could stop worrying they’d killed someone. I’d go up there and have a word with him tomorrow, but for now I had a grieving widow and her ‘talking’ pussy to contend with.
I kept out of it for a bit, couldn’t face the questions. Standing outside the door listening – wine in one hand, shotgun in the other – I could see Wanker had taken off his jacket and he let out a belly laugh, as Poppy held court, apologising for the phone ‘antics’. They looked like little kids, enthralled. I suppose I’d be, if I hadn’t seen it all.
“Go on, ask him anything, he says he’s ‘happy to oblige’.”
“What colour is my Mum’s front door?” asked Lolita.
Poppy leant down to the cat and came back up quickly.
“‘That’s a trick question,’ he says, ‘there are two front doors, the outer that awful clear weatherproof and the inner is Victorian, multiple colours.’”
Lolita whooped with amusement, actually looking her age for once. At least they weren’t at each other’s throats now. Lolita followed with another – why destroy their phones? Poppy didn’t need to confer with her pet on this one.
“He says he thought if there were no Insta moments you might all live in this one. That was the whole point of this ruse.”
Lolita practically purred her understanding. Robert glanced in her direction. She caught it with a sultry stare, like she’d spotted a rare moth she might take home and keep in a glass jar.
When I walked back in and plonked down the plonk, all I got were wary stares, like I was the bad guy. I put the gun on the table and raised a glass.
“Well, Poppy, aren’t you clever? Had me fooled. I thought you were just mental.”
“They all do dearie.”
What a penetrating stare she had.
We drank into the night. I let them have a little of my Bill’s story, how he’d taken himself off rather than face the hospice. I left out that I’d given him the final push he needed. How I nearly went down after him because I couldn’t be his ‘brave girl’ for the kids. I was still mad at him, every day, every bloody drink I poured for punters who asked after the ‘Elvis landlord’ they’d heard so much about. His associates told me there was no need to stop their arrangement. I would’ve said no but the petrol canister and lighter they were carrying during their condolences visit kept my mouth nice and shut.
“Come with us?” Poppy asked.
“On the pilgrimage? Thanks all the same,” I slurred, “but I have a business to run.”
The cheek of the sympathy on their faces.
“You know the point of pilgrimage?” piped up the Pardoner. “It is to lose yourself in the act of walking. People have walked the route from Canterbury to Rome for all manner of reasons, but the one they all share is the desire to escape their everyday lives in an activity where anxiety is useless. There’s something to be said for ancient rituals. Over a thousand years. Can you even imagine what a thousand years of walking looks like?”
The young ones, who hadn’t known much change except the swap of bikes and parks for bedrooms and headsets, furrowed their brows.
“Everyone should see what their made of in this life,” the Pardoner told the wax puddles on the tabletop.
The moment was heavy, I could hear the cogs working, until – “Just to be clear, there’s no investor in Paris is there?” asked Wanker.
“No dearie, we just knew money over family would get you on board.”
“Harsh but fair.” The sigh that left that man’s body filled the room. “Maybe we should go with them son, all the way to Rome. A boys’ trip. What d’ya say?”
“Not sure. Little late for bonding.” But the kid didn’t mean it, I could tell by the way his mouth stayed open – a bird waiting for worms.
The cat sat there, taking it all in, sly and smiling.
“Boris had a word with your Bill before he jumped,” said Poppy.
“Oh yeah, and what did he have to say for himself?” I asked her pet. The cat was probably just a cat and the woman just a nut-bag stalker, but I had a ghost for a husband, so anything was possible.
“He thinks you need to start a new chapter, like you always wanted. And he said to pass on that you should have written on his headstone, ‘Never open on a Tuesday night, midwinter.’”
(With thanks to @thelanterninn – and video by @thomasdelfs)