Harry and Hope

by Sarah Lean

  Peter looked all around the drive. The trailer was gone. It had been gone for months. But I didn’t want him to be right about why that was.

  “How are we going to take Harry with us?” Peter said.

  “We’ll find Frank first,” I said, agreeing with him in words. “Meet me here in the morning. Ten o’clock. And don’t be late.”

  But I had no intention of waiting for Peter.

  All night I stayed on the bench beside Harry, trying to figure out how to find Frank, hardly sleeping at all. Marianne came out to see if I was ok, but I didn’t tell her my plan. She didn’t know what to say to me anyway, except to ask if I was warm enough.

  I asked her if Frank had said where he was going, but her reply – “Travelling, I didn’t ask where,”– disappointed me more than she would ever know.

  “Didn’t you want to know?” I asked.

  “You don’t understand,” Marianne sighed. “It didn’t matter to him where, he just can’t help moving on. We’re not together any more, Hope, which means he didn’t have to tell me.”

  “Didn’t he say anything, like he was going back to Australia?”

  “He’s more likely to have told you than me,” she said quietly.

  I hated that he didn’t have to tell me either.

  I decided that somebody in the village must have information and the first part of my plan would be to find out who.

  Early the next morning, as soon as the sun peeked over the mountain, I went to the guesthouse and checked everything, looking for any tiny trace that Frank might have left. Nothing. No clues to where he might have headed. All his old papers burned. The only thing I could think was that wherever he was going, he’d need money to get there.

  I took down the canvas board acting as the wall of Harry’s stable and led him to the meadow. He was as sweet and gentle as ever again.

  “You’d better eat plenty, Harry. You’re going to need it. You’re going travelling again. I’ll be back soon.”

  His ears twitched. Did he know what I meant?

  I ran up to the village. The bank hadn’t opened yet. I held my hand over my eyes and peered in the window. Somebody was inside so I knocked hard until he came to the narrow window at the side.

  “It’s urgent,” I shouted. “I need some help.”

  Monsieur Albert, the bank manager, came out into the foyer.

  “Please, Monsieur Albert. It’s really important. Open up!”

  The door clunked and clicked as it was unlocked and Monsieur Albert poked his head out.

  “What’s so important at this hour?”

  “I wouldn’t ask and I know you probably can’t tell me because of security or whatever, but it’s a matter of… of international importance that I find Frank.”

  “Frank? Ah, you mean Monsieur Abernathy?”

  “Did he come and see you recently?”

  “I personally closed the account and told him how truly sorry I was that he felt the need to withdraw all of his money at once but, as you know, Frank is a man of few words.”

  I let how final that sounded sink in.

  “Did he say where he was going?” I said.

  “It’s not my business to pry.”

  “Did he say anything? Anything that might give a clue as to where he’s gone? You see I have to find him. He left something behind, something extremely important.”

  Monsieur Albert folded his arms. “But I don’t know, not exactly.”

  “You do know something though? We can’t let Frank go without… without this thing.” I was unwilling to say it was Harry, guessing that the bank manager wouldn’t understand. “Please, it really is the most important thing to Frank ever.”

  Monsieur Albert unfolded his arms and straightened his jacket.

  “I happened to see that after he left the bank… just coming outside for some fresh air, you understand?”

  “Yes, what did you happen to see?”

  He twiddled his thumbs. “He went to Soleil Travel.”

  “Thank you!” I was already running down the street.

  Frank had taken all his money. He could have gone anywhere in the world, twice around it probably.

  Another locked door, but I found a space between the holiday posters and notices to peer in the travel agents, knocking on the window until a lady came out from the back with a cup of coffee in her hand.

  She spoke through the glass door after looking at her watch.

  “We’re not open for another ten minutes.”

  “I need to talk to you about Frank. It’s urgent.”

  She unbolted the door and came outside.

  “You know Frank? Frank the carpenter? He did some work for you.”

  “I’d hoped he would come and fix the shelves at home for me too. I’ll have to ask Monsieur Dubois now, but he’s not as young as he used to be.”

  “So you know he’s gone?”

  “Monsieur Dubois?”

  “Frank!”

  “Oh, yes. He bought a ticket two days ago. Is he really going this time? He cancelled his flight earlier this year at the last minute.”

  “After the avalanche,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth as if I couldn’t stop them. Had it really only been the avalanche that stopped him going?

  “When is his flight?”

  She looked at her watch again. “Two o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Which airport?”

  The airport was almost twenty minutes’ drive away. Too far to walk. Even though Peter had said he was going to ask his grandfather to drive us, it was much more important that I take Harry. Frank surely didn’t mean to leave him behind.

  The Vilaros’ tractor was parked in the gateway of the vineyard. Peter and I had learned to drive it years ago. If Peter was with me, he wouldn’t have let me take the tractor, so it was good I’d gone without him. Nothing, nobody, was going to stop me putting Harry and Frank back together. It was the only thing that made sense now.

  I drove the tractor up to the meadow, not too close to the house in case Marianne heard, although I didn’t actually think she would try to stop me. I collected a few things, and when I came back outside Marianne was stood on the studio balcony.

  It had always been Marianne’s idea that I should do what I want. I had loads of freedom and she never understood why I didn’t use it. Well, I would use it now.

  “What are you doing with the tractor?”

  “I’m… being creative,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  I ran down to the meadow. I knew what I had to do with Harry. I saddled him up with his felt pads, buckled his leather belt, and tied on a small bale of hay and his plastic pail.

  “I can’t walk beside you because it’s too far for me,” I said. “So you’re going to have to trot to keep up. It’s a long way, but I know how strong you are and that you can do it.” Harry didn’t look me in the eye as I stroked his nose and kissed him. I’d spent so much time with Harry, training him and getting him to trust me, and I felt I knew what was inside that barrel belly, inside his skin and bones. The other half of us. Frank. “When Frank sees you, he’ll remember who should be together.”

  “Hope!” my mother called, running towards us. “Where are you going?”

  “Travelling.”

  “What do you mean, travelling?”

  I tapped Harry’s shoulder twice, climbed up on the tractor, put the water bottle beside the seat and turned on the engine.

  “There’s something Harry and I have to do.”

  “At least take Peter with you,” Marianne said. I guessed she knew what I was doing, but she didn’t say.

  “We can’t wait for him. We don’t have time.”

  “What shall I tell him?”

  “Tell him… tell him Harry needs a new home. He’ll understand.”

  Harry and I set off down the track, the tractor rattling and spitting up dust, Harry trotting quickly behind me.

  We’d gone five kilometres (which I knew because of the sign poin
ting back up the hill) and were at the junction where you either went further down the mountain or off down a side track towards another vineyard on the lower slopes. I looked over my shoulder for about the hundredth time to see Harry behind me, head down as always, patiently trotting behind or waiting for the tractor to move on. I felt he knew exactly where we were going.

  The heat was wriggling off the tarmac as the sun climbed and baked the olive trees and soil. It smelled like one great big kitchen, like one great big pie, full of flavour.

  We turned down the mountain. The road was steep and windy, a little wider, but not much. Not many cars came up here, usually only people who lived in the villages or worked in the vineyards. I looked back and Harry was still trotting behind, bits of not-so-tightly bound hay flapping at the sides of the small bale on his back. As we went around a hairpin bend, we met a coach coming towards us. I slammed my foot down to stop. We couldn’t pass.

  People were peering out of the tinted windows. The driver threw his hands up, flicking his wrists towards me to tell me to reverse back up. But I couldn’t get the gearstick into reverse. I got off the tractor and asked Harry to follow me back to a narrow verge, where I left him in the shade. I went back to the tractor and got some water and put it into his pail.

  The driver got out of the cab.

  “Are you going to move?” he said.

  “Just give me a minute.” Truth was, I wanted to give Harry a break, but I was also stalling because I didn’t think I’d be able to reverse uphill.

  “I have a schedule,” the driver said, tapping his watch.

  “So do I, but the donkey needs to rest a minute.”

  Some people got off the coach, muttering in English. A mother and her child went over to pat Harry. Harry looked over to me, as if he was asking, Will they be kind to me?

  “All right, Harry,” I said. “They won’t hurt you.”

  The mother moved the pail of water nearer to Harry but he didn’t drink.

  I got back up on the tractor. It was much hotter down the mountainside than further up, and already the heat was beginning to sting my face and shoulders and rattle me. And no matter how hard I crunched the gears, all I got was a loud revving from the engine and a grinding sound from the gearbox.

  “Should you be driving?” the driver said. “What are you doing driving a tractor down here? Is it allowed on this road?” Several people were talking about whether the tractor was illegally on the road and whether a girl should be driving.

  Then I heard someone say, “It’s cruel, making a donkey work like that.”

  The words settled in my stomach and added to the frustration of not being able to reverse the tractor. Sweat ran down my hairline and my neck.

  “Look at the creature’s heavy load,” a woman said. “Poor donkey.”

  Frank had always told me that pity was the last thing Harry needed. However sorry Frank had felt for Harry, he never once let his donkey give in to what had happened to him in India.

  “He needs something to carry,” Frank told me once.

  I remembered the time a few weeks after they’d arrived, when I’d gone to fetch Frank from where he was working to come down to the meadow because Harry wouldn’t stop braying. He was stopped still, his neck and back sagging between his cries, as if he still carried his heavy bricks.

  That noise wasn’t something I could ignore.

  “What’s wrong with him, Frank?” I’d said. “Is he hurt? Why is he crying? What’s wrong? We need to help him.”

  “We will.”

  Frank didn’t say anything else. He’d leaned against a fence post, watching. Only once did Harry turn towards Frank, almost looking him in the eye that one time. Harry turned his back, his voice getting hoarser and coarser as time went on.

  “He needs something else to carry,” was all Frank said in the end.

  Harry was given the job of carrying Frank’s tools when he had carpentry work in the village, or helping out around the place. Harry never cried again.

  At the side of the road, a group of the passengers gathered around Harry. It was a tour bus, the sign on the front window advertising a trip to the vineyard. They were English tourists, wearing too many clothes and smelling of sun cream and sweet drinks.

  “Have we got any apples in the picnic basket?” a pale, round man, with sweat patches on the armpits of his T-shirt, said to his wife and son. “Poor thing. What’s there to eat around here? Look. Hardly anything. Give him a sandwich.”

  I didn’t say anything. Not just because Harry and I really had no time for this, but also because I realised that all these people now reaching out and patting Harry had just arrived on this mountainside and in this country, for a week of sunshine and sightseeing, and they only knew a little bit of the story of Harry. They didn’t know him like I did. They just looked at the load on his back and a girl making him carry it down the steep mountain road, and decided it was wrong. They couldn’t see that Harry needed to do something useful. To stop him feeling sorry for himself.

  “The poor donkey bites,” I lied, because I wanted the tourists to move away from Harry and take their sympathy with them. The son of the sweaty round man pulled his hand and the sandwich away quickly.

  “And he kicks,” I said, and soon the passengers were re-boarding the coach, muttering things that didn’t matter to me and Harry.

  I yanked the gearstick until it finally crunched into reverse.

  The tractor groaned as the tread of the tyres dug in, and I backed it into the layby.

  The driver wiped away the sweat on his forehead as the coach inched past, almost touching the rusty arches of the back tractor wheels.

  It was the first time I knew for sure that the mountain was my home. Harry and I were about to leave the place where we’d been safe and cared for. The place we knew and fitted with. The first half of the story that we’d gotten used to.

  The second half of the story: well, I had no idea how it was going to end, because already deep down I knew I couldn’t put things back together how I wanted. Not how I really wanted it to end, like it had begun, with all of us coming together.

  At the bottom of the mountain road, the junction split north or south for the airport. Fast traffic whizzed by on the main road and blew dust showers over us, the wind catching bits of the hay on Harry’s back and pulling them loose.

  We were leaving the mountainside. Meadow, vineyards, plane trees, roofs. Canigou.

  I looked back, at the landscape, people and animals that I knew fitted around me.

  Marianne once took me to a gallery in London to see her paintings. Under the high ceilings she had ten huge canvasses, each a different view of the mountain, painted in Marianne’s own way. I’d never seen her paintings like that before, without the jumble of things around them in her studio that had the marks of her paint on everything, so that you could hardly tell what was a painting and what was just paint.

  Staring up, it had been like sitting too close to a cinema screen when everything seems to be rushing past too quickly to see exactly what’s happening. I think that’s what she wanted people to feel. You could see how she’d brushed, like she was furious with the way the things that covered the mountain changed so quickly. But you could also see that the mountain was still there behind the wild brush strokes of reds and yellows and blues, colours that she told me were there but I couldn’t see. Behind all the colours, the background to it all, between the thin strokes of the brushes, was the safe, dark rock of Canigou.

  I remember thinking I live there.

  With Canigou behind me, the rest of the world spread out along the busy road leading to cities and the airport. It all looked much bigger than I remembered. It was like standing on the top of the waterfall and not feeling tall enough to jump. Not without Peter. I wasn’t sure I could have jumped if he hadn’t been there.

  I couldn’t see how we could travel on that main road. Not a girl, a tractor and a donkey. Not us by ourselves.

  “Harry?” His ears t
urned forward. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  I climbed down and sat on the running board and held out my hands. Harry came over and leaned on me.

  “I don’t know if I’m big enough yet, Harry.” He must have heard what was in my voice. He nuzzled in closer, as if he was trying to make us into one strong thing.

  Sometimes you’ve been so busy just trying to make things stay the same that you don’t notice you’ve actually gone and stolen someone’s tractor and made a donkey follow you and not thought it would be more sensible to bring someone else with you to help. And that you will have to go back home all by yourself.

  “What will I do without you too, Harry?”

  I knew Harry was old. Frank said you could tell by his worn, wonky brown teeth. Sitting there with his head on my lap it felt like he was only a little child that I had to take back to where he belonged. We were the same. Feeling small and unprotected without the person who came along and rescued us, and made everything feel safe.

  “Hope!”

  I didn’t know who I expected to see calling my name, but I should have guessed Peter would have come after me. I wasn’t really thinking right at all without Frank there.

  Nonno pulled up his car beside us and Peter jumped out.

  “Didn’t think I’d let you go without me, did you?”

  I shook my head, not because the answer was no. Sometimes I was just amazed what he’d do for me.

  He sat down, shuffling me up to make room.

  “We found you because Monsieur Vilaro came over to say somebody stole his tractor. I guessed it was you and you’d come this way. But Nonno made it all right with Monsieur Vilaro, and you’re not in trouble, and somebody will come down to take the tractor back.”

  “There isn’t any other way off the mountain, Peter.”

  I leaned on him as he scratched Harry’s forehead.

  “Nonno will take us wherever you want to go, Hope.” Peter and Nonno were two special flavours together too.

  I couldn’t have done it on my own, but there would be no point if I couldn’t take Harry.