Craic On

We have a backhouse between the main house and the shore. It was ramshackle and unused before. I had it done up into a self-contained house and a lot fo our quests now stay there. You may have seen it from the pier. It is the light pink one. It has a main room, a bedroom and a toilet / shower room.

Just after 10 o’clock on Tuesday morning, my father came into the main room of the house where I was working at my PC. He looked out the window and said “I don’t know whether my eyes are playing tricks or not but from the kitchen window I just saw a girl wearing a black bikini and with bare feet come out of our backhouse and she ran up the garden towards the lough.

“I thought she was going for a swim but when I got to the bottom of the garden she was nowhere to be seen”.

Path

As you may know there is a path at the bottom of our garden and if you go left you can go all the way round and onto the River Row and then back up town. I asked him if she went left or right. If she had gone left she must have gone to one of the houses there as a wall stops anyone going that way at the big white house. She could have clambered over the rocks of course.

I think that he was so taken aback that he didn’t know which way she went. I asked her what age she was. “About eighteen” he replied.

He sometimes opens the backhouse door in the morning to let the place air when there are no visitors there. Perhaps she had come into our garden looking for a dog or cat and had a quick look inside an opened backhouse door.

But no. He said that he hadn’t opened the backhouse door yet that day.

Stayed the night?

So, why was the girl there? Had she slept the night in our backhouse? Had she slept longer than she thought and tried to make her escape when she heard the back door of our main house opening? She wouldn’t have seen my father as he was in the kitchen and had seen her through the window.

She may have awakened late and heard activity and when she thought the coast was clear she may have made a run for it.

Maybe she was in a hurry to get away and was carrying her clothes with her. I asked my father that but he said that she definitely wasn’t.

So where were her clothes? They weren’t in the back house.

Perfume

There was a smell of perfume on the pillow and the bed looked slept in. However, my sister and her husband were staying there at the weekend and it may have been from my sister. I don’t know.

My father is 85 but still compos mentis (mostly) but even he wasn’t sure he could believe his eyes.

Where were her clothes? Had she come down to stay the night in our backhouse with just her bikini and no shoes or clothes? Why?

Ghost

Maybe she was a spectre, a vision, not real. Maybe she lived there a hundred years ago. After all my father could find no trace of here when he went to the bottom of the garden.

But my father was very definite about it. He couldn’t give any other description, e.g. colour of hair. He just said she came out of our back house dressed in just a bikini, with bare feet and was running down the garden towards the path and the water’s edge.

There doesn’t seem any logical explanation of it and we are all stumped. there was nothing stolen and it doesn’t sound like one for the garda – especially as my father has no description. I don’t think the garda are going to search the town for black bikinis.

If you have any theories let me know.