by Rachel Joyce
Wilf gazed at Harold but he wasn’t really listening. He said, ‘People keep asking if I’m your son.’ Harold smiled, suddenly tender. Turning again to the cocktail guests, he felt he and Wilf were linked in some way, as if, by being outsiders, they shared something bigger than in truth they had. They waved their farewells.
‘You’re too young to be my son,’ said Harold. He patted Wilf’s arm. ‘We’d better get a move on if we’re going to find somewhere to sleep.’
‘Good luck!’ called the guests. ‘Queenie will keep living!’
The dog was already at the gate, and all three walked at an easy pace. Their shadows were pillars against the road and the deepening air smelt sweet with elderflower and privet blossom. Wilf told Harold about his life; how he had tried many things, but been good at none of them. If it wasn’t for the Lord, he said, he would be in prison. Sometimes Harold listened, and sometimes he watched for bats, flitting through the dusk. He wondered if the young man would really accompany him all the way to Berwick, and what he would do about the dog. He wondered if David had ever tried God. Far away, the factories belched further cloud into the sky.
After only an hour, Wilf was clearly limping. They had barely covered half a mile.
‘Do you need to rest?’
‘I’m fine, Mr Fry.’ But he was hopping.
Harold searched for a sheltered spot and they stopped early. Wilf copied him, spreading out his sleeping bag beside a storm-felled elm. Plates of dryad’s saddle grew out of the dead trunk with mottled markings like feathers. Harold picked the fungi while Wilf jumped from one foot to the other, yelping and calling them gross. Afterwards he searched for fallen leafy branches and velvet pads of moss, which he layered in the earthed hole at the foot of the tree where its roots had ripped through. Harold had not taken such care over his sleeping place in days. As he worked, the dog followed, picking up stones and dropping them at his feet.
‘I’m not going to throw them,’ he warned, but once or twice he did.
Harold reminded Wilf to check his feet for blisters. It was important to take proper care; later he would show him how to drain the pus. ‘And can you light a fire, Wilf ?’
‘Can I shit, Mr Fry. Where’s your petrol?’
Harold explained again that he was walking without unnecessary baggage. He sent the boy off to look for more wood, while Harold ripped the fungi into rough slices with his fingernails. They were tougher than he would have liked, but he hoped they might impress. He cooked them over the fire in an old tin he carried in his rucksack especially for the purpose, with the pat of butter, and torn-up leaves of Jack-by-the-hedge. The air smelt of fried garlic.
‘Eat,’ he told Wilf, offering the tin.
‘What with?’
‘Your fingers. You can wipe them afterwards on my jacket if you want. Maybe tomorrow we’ll find potatoes.’
Wilf refused; he had a laugh that was like a shriek. ‘How do I know it’s not poisonous?’
‘I’m eating it. Look at me. And there’s nothing else tonight.’
Wilf posted a small corner between his teeth, and ate with his lips curled back as if he was afraid of being stung.
‘Shit,’ he kept squealing. ‘Shit.’ Harold laughed, and the boy ate more.
‘It doesn’t taste so bad,’ said Harold. ‘Does it?’
‘It tastes of fucking garlic. And mustard.’
‘That’s the leaves. Most wild food tastes bitter. You’ll get used to that. If it tastes of nothing, that’s nice. If it tastes good, that’s a treat. Maybe we’ll spot redcurrants. Or wild strawberries. If you get a really ripe one it’s like cheesecake.’
They sat with their knees hunched, watching the flames. Far behind them, Sheffield was a sulphuric glow on the horizon, and there were always cars if you listened hard enough, but he felt they were a long way from other people. Harold told the boy how he had learned to cook over the fire, and how he had taught himself about plant life from a small book he had acquired in Exeter. There were good fungi and bad ones, he said; you had to learn the difference. You had to be sure, for instance, that you didn’t pick sulphur tufts instead of branching oysters. Occasionally he leaned over the fire and blew on it, so that the embers bloomed red. Flicks of ash rose into the air, glowing briefly before melting into the dusk. The air was alive with crickets.
‘Don’t you get scared?’ said Wilf.
‘When I was a boy, my parents didn’t want me. Then, later on in my life, I met my wife and we had a child. That went wrong too. Since I have been out in the open, it seems there’s less to be afraid of.’ He wished David could hear.
Later, as Harold wiped the cooking tin with a piece of newspaper and returned it to his rucksack, the boy amused himself with throwing a stone into the undergrowth for the dog. It yelped wildly and scurried into the darkness, returning with the stone and posting it at Wilf’s feet. It occurred to Harold how much he had grown used to both solitude and silence.
They lay in their sleeping bags, and Wilf asked if they might pray. Harold said, ‘I have no objection to other people doing it; but if you don’t mind, I won’t join in.’
Wilf clenched his hands into a ball, and screwed his eyes closed. With his nails so ragged, the skin at his fingertips looked too tender. He bowed his head, like a child, and whispered words that Harold did not care to overhear. Harold hoped there was someone, or something, apart from himself, listening. There was a trace of light left in the sky as they drifted into sleep. The cloud was low, and the air hung still; he was sure it wouldn’t rain.
Despite his prayers, Wilf woke crying out in the night, and shivering. Harold took him in his arms but the boy was covered in sweat. He worried he had been wrong about the fungus, although he hadn’t made a mistake so far.
‘What’s that noise?’ Wilf shuddered.
‘Just foxes. Maybe dogs. And sheep too. I can definitely hear sheep.’
‘We didn’t pass any sheep.’
‘No. But you hear more of what is around at night. You get used to that quickly. Don’t worry. Nothing will hurt you.’
He rubbed his back and coaxed him to sleep, the way Maureen used to do with David when he got the frights after his Lake District holiday. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ he repeated, just the way she would. He wished he had found a better place for Wilf’s first night; there had been an unlocked glass summerhouse a few evenings back, and Harold had slept in comfort on a wicker sofa. Even underneath a bridge would have been better than this, although there was always the worry of attracting attention.
‘It’s fucking freaky,’ said Wilf. His teeth were knocking. Harold pulled out Queenie’s knitted beret and fitted it over the boy’s head.
‘I used to have bad dreams but they stopped as I walked. It will be the same for you.’
For the first time in weeks, Harold did not sleep that night. He sat watching over the boy, remembering the past, and asking himself why David had made the choices he had; whether Harold should have seen the seeds of them right from the beginning. Would it have been the same, if David had had a different father? It was a long while since such questions had troubled him. The dog lay at his side.
As dawn came, the moon glowed pale yellow in the morning light, surrendering to the sun. They walked through dew with the pink feathery tips of sedge and ribwort brushing wet and cold against their legs. Droplets hung from the stems like gems and spider webs were downy puffs between the blades of grass. The rising sun shone so low and bright that the shapes and colours ahead of them lost their clarity and it was like walking into mist. He showed Wilf the flattened path their feet had made on the verge. ‘That’s us,’ he said.
Wilf’s new trainers continued to trouble him and the lack of sleep slowed Harold. In the course of the following two days they made it only as far as Wakefield, but he felt unable to leave the young man behind. The panic attacks, or nightmares, continued. Wilf insisted he had been bad in the past, and that the Lord would save him.
Harold was less
sure. The boy was painfully underweight, and prone to mood swings. One minute he was running ahead, racing the dog to find its stone; the next he could barely speak. Harold distracted Wilf by telling him all that he had taught himself about hedgerow plants, and the sky. He pointed out the difference between the low-combed stratus clouds and the tall cirrus clouds that moved high above like boulders. He showed Wilf how, by observing shadows and textures around him, he could deduce his direction. A plant, for instance, that showed a thicker growth on one side was obviously receiving more sunlight there. They could tell from this that the plant was south-facing, and that they must head in the opposite direction. Wilf appeared to learn greedily, although sometimes he would ask a question that suggested he had not been concentrating at all. They sat beneath the poplar and listened to its leaves rattling in the wind.
‘The trembling tree,’ said Harold. ‘You can spot it easily. It shakes so hard that from a distance it looks as if it’s covered in little lights.’
He told Wilf about the people he had met at the beginning, and others who had more recently crossed his path. There was a woman living in a straw house, and a couple who drove a goat in their car, and a retired dentist who travelled six miles a day to fetch fresh water from a natural spring. ‘He told me about it. He said we all should accept what the earth gives freely. It is an act of grace, he said. Since then I always make a point of stopping to drink from a spring.’
It was only in saying these things that Harold realized how far he had come. He took pleasure in heating water, a little at a time, in a can for Wilf over a candle, and picking the blossom from the lime tree to make tea. He showed him you could eat ox-eye daisies, pineapple weed, toadflax and sweet hop shoots, if you wanted. He felt he was doing everything for David that he hadn’t in fact done. There was so much he wanted Wilf to see.
‘These are vetch pods. They’re sweet, but not good if you have too much. Mind you, nor is vodka.’ Wilf held the tiny pod and took one nibbling mouthful, before spitting it out.
‘I’d rather have vodka, Mr Fry.’
Harold pretended he hadn’t heard. They hunkered down on a bank, waiting for a goose to lay an egg. The boy danced and screamed as it emerged, wet and white and huge against the grass. ‘Oh fuck, that’s so rank. It came right out of her arse. Shall I throw something?’
‘At the goose? No. Throw a stone for the dog.’
‘I’d rather hit the goose.’
Harold ushered Wilf away, and pretended he hadn’t heard that either.
They talked about Queenie Hennessy, and the small kindnesses she had shown. He described how she could sing backwards, and always liked a riddle. ‘I don’t think anyone else knew those things about her,’ he said. ‘We told one another things we probably didn’t tell other people. It’s easier when you’re travelling.’ He showed the presents he carried for her in his rucksack. The boy particularly liked the paperweight from Exeter Cathedral that glittered when he tipped it upside down. Sometimes Harold found Wilf had taken it from his rucksack and was playing with it, and had to remind him to take care. In turn, Wilf produced further souvenirs. A piece of flint, a spotted guinea-fowl feather, a stone hooped with rings. Once he produced a small garden gnome with a fishing rod that he promised he had found in a bin. Another time he appeared with three pints of milk, insisting they were going free. Harold warned him not to rush as he drank, but the boy did and was sick after ten minutes.
There were so many offerings, Harold had to leave them behind when Wilf wasn’t looking, taking care to hide them from the dog, who was inclined to retrieve the pebbles at least and return them to Harold’s feet. Sometimes the boy turned to shout about something new he had found, and Harold’s heart flipped over. It could so easily be David.
22
Harold and the Pilgrims
Dear Queenie, There has been a surprising turn of events. So many people ask after you. Best wishes, Harold.
PS. A kind woman at the post office has not charged me for the stamp. She also sends her regards.
ON HAROLD’S FORTY-SEVENTH day of walking, he was joined by a middle-aged woman and a father of two. Kate explained she had recently suffered great pain but wished to leave it behind. She was a small woman, dressed in black, who marched with her chin thrust out and slightly upwards, as if she were struggling to see beyond the brim of a floppy hat. Sweat beaded her hairline, and wet half-moons hung beneath her armpits.
‘She’s fat,’ said Wilf.
‘I don’t think you should say that.’
‘She’s still fat.’
The man called himself Rich, short for Richard; surname Lion. He had been in finance but had got out of the business in his mid thirties. Since then, he had been ‘winging it’. Reading about Harold’s journey had filled him with a hope he had not experienced since he was a child. He had packed only a few necessaries and set off. He was a tall man, like Harold, with an assertive voice that had an adenoidal ring. He wore professional boots, camouflage trousers, and a kangaroo-leather bush hat that he had bought online. He carried with him a tent, a sleeping bag and a Swiss Army knife for emergencies.
‘To be honest with you,’ he confided, ‘I made a big mess of my life. I got made redundant, and after that I had a bit of a breakdown. My wife left me, and took the kids.’ He struck the ground with the sharp blade of his knife. ‘It’s the boys, Harold. I miss them so much. I want them to see I can do something. You know? I want them to be proud of me. Have you thought about going cross-country?’
As the newly formed party made their way to Leeds, there were discussions about the route. Rich suggested they should avoid cities and make for the moors. Kate felt they should continue along the A61. What did Harold think, they asked? Uncomfortable with conflict, Harold suggested they were both good ideas, as long as they got to Berwick. He had been alone for so long he found it tiring to be constantly in the company of others. Their questions and their enthusiasm both moved and slowed him. But since they had chosen to walk with him and support Queenie’s cause, he also felt responsible for them, as if he had asked them to join, and, as a con sequence, must listen to their different needs and secure their safe passage. Wilf sulked at Harold’s side, hands dug in his pockets, complaining his trainers were too small. Harold had the feeling he used to have with David, wishing he could be more companionable, and fearing that his insecurity might look like arrogance. It took over an hour to find somewhere everyone agreed they’d be comfortable enough to sleep.
Within two days, Rich had a problem with Kate. It wasn’t anything she had said exactly, he told Harold; it was more her manner. She behaved as if she thought she was better simply because she had arrived thirty minutes earlier. ‘And you know what?’ said Rich. He was beginning to shout. Harold didn’t know. He just felt got at. ‘She drove here.’ On reaching Harrogate, Kate suggested they should visit the Royal Baths to freshen up. Rich sneered but conceded he could do with spare blades for his knife. Not wanting either, Harold sat in the municipal gardens where he was approached by several well-wishers, asking for news of Queenie. Wilf seemed to disappear.
By the time the group reconvened, a young widower whose wife had died of cancer was sitting beside Harold. The man explained he wished to accompany them and that in order to gather further public support for Queenie, he would like to do it in a gorilla suit. Before Harold could dissuade him, Wilf reappeared; although he seemed to have difficulty negotiating his passage along the pavement.
‘Jesus wept,’ said Rich.
They made their way slowly. Twice Wilf fell. It also transpired that the gorilla man could only be fed through a straw, and was prone to waves of grief accelerated by heat exhaustion. After half a mile, Harold suggested they should stop for the night.
He lit the camp fire and reminded himself it had taken at least a few days to find his own rhythm. It would be unkind to abandon them, when they had sought him out and made such a commitment to Queenie. He even wondered if her chances of survival would be greater, the more pe
ople there were who believed in her and kept walking.
From this point, others joined. They came for a day, maybe two. If it was sunny, there could be a crowd. Campaigners, ramblers, families, dropouts, tourists, musicians. There were banners, camp fires, debates, physical warm-ups and music. People talked movingly about the loved ones they had lost to cancer; and also the things they regretted from their past. The greater the numbers, the slower they became. Not only must they accommodate the less experienced walkers, but they must also feed them. There were roast potatoes, garlic on sticks, beetroot in foil. Rich had a book about natural foraging and insisted on making hogweed fritters. The daily mileage dropped further. Sometimes it was no more than three.
Despite its slowness, the group seemed sure of itself in a way that was new to Harold. They told themselves they were no longer an assortment of torsos and feet and heads and hearts but one single energy, bound by Queenie Hennessy. The walk had been an idea inside himself for so long that when other people pledged their belief in it he was touched. More. He knew it could work. If he had known before, he knew it now in a deeper way. They put up tents, unrolled sleeping bags and slept beneath the sky. They promised Queenie would live. To their left curved the dark peaks of Keighley Moor.
Within only a few days, however, tensions began to develop. Kate had no time for Rich. He was an egomaniac, she said. In return he called her a bitter cow. Then, during the course of one evening, both the gorilla man and a visiting student slept with the same primary-school teacher, and Rich’s attempts to resolve the animosity threatened to end in a punch-up. Wilf could not stop trying to convert fellow walkers to God, or asking for prayers to be said for Queenie, and this led to further aggravation. When an amateur walking group pitched up for the night there were more disagreements: some argued that tents were not in the true spirit of Harold’s journey, some wanted to avoid roads altogether and head towards the more challenging Pennine Way. And what about roadkill? asked Rich, sparking off another round. Harold listened with growing unease. He didn’t mind where people slept, or how they walked. He didn’t mind what they ate. He simply wanted to get to Berwick.