Harry and Hope

by Sarah Lean

  “It’s Harry who has to be with Frank. Look at him. He’s the saddest and smallest he’s ever seemed. We have to put Harry and Frank back together.”

  “Where exactly are we going?”

  I pointed, the same direction as the sign on the main road.

  “The airport.”

  Peter went back to the car and spoke to Nonno. Nonno flapped his arms and shook his head and talked to Peter in Italian, until he called across, “Is OK, Hope. Bring donkey.”

  “We’ll follow the car. Me, you and Harry. Nonno knows a shortcut off the main road,” Peter said, so pleased that he was part of this, and I couldn’t think of any reason at all why I’d tried to leave him out.

  We left the tractor behind.

  Harry followed Peter and me into the scrubby patch of ground, cutting across fields and open areas, while Nonno stayed in the car and crawled along the quieter road nearby. Peter talked to distract us from the dust and the heat and the journey ahead.

  “What shall we do for our birthdays this year?” Peter said.

  Our birthdays were only five days apart, at the end of July.

  I knew what was coming next. We had the same conversation every year. I said, “Oh, I don’t know,” because I knew he already had an answer.

  “Nanu asked if you wanted to have your birthday at our house with me.”

  Having birthdays as close together as ours meant I was used to the Massimos being a kind of ready-made family when it came to having people celebrate around me. My mother wasn’t very good at organising things and was quite happy to let the wealthy Massimos make something of the day. Peter’s day, anyway, shared by me.

  “Can we say it’s Harry’s birthday as well?” I asked, thinking that after today I would never see him again. “That way we’ll always remember him.”

  Peter loved Harry and he probably would have liked to say he loved Harry as much as I did, but I knew he couldn’t have told his family that. His family, and some of the village people who worked on the land, didn’t think the same way about donkeys or dogs or any other animals the same way Frank and I did.

  The village was like a place from another time long ago, which was why Marianne liked it. It was a place you could stop when you had nowhere else to go. Where you could be an artist, be all of yourself, not have to keep up with things that changed.

  The air felt heavy and I wasn’t used to being out in the open like that, the heat fizzing and blurring the distance ahead of us. The mountainside was cooler, the view clearer. My legs seemed to be walking by themselves, my feet going forward, pulling me along with them, until the thought that Frank had left Harry behind on purpose made it too hard.

  “Peter, I need to stop a minute.”

  I sank down in the shade of some rocks.

  Harry stood in the blazing heat and I got up again to tap his rump gently, so he could choose the shade, pulling some of the hay from his bale and scattering it at his feet.

  “I left the water on the tractor.”

  I sank down beside Harry promising him we would find somewhere to drink, although I knew he could go for hours without water, but Peter ran off towards the car and opened the boot. He’d thought of everything.

  Sweat trickled down my face.

  “I’ve told you about Harry, how Frank rescued him from India,” I said. “Think about how far they had to come, I mean, thousands and thousands of miles, all the countries they went through to get here. It’s like a miracle or something, or like the world knows who makes good pairs, and it doesn’t matter how far apart they are, it finds a way to put them together.”

  “I told Nonno about where they’d travelled from. He said they were lucky to get here at all.”

  “So why did Frank do all that and then just leave Harry? You don’t just leave valuable things behind.”

  I imagined them, just like we were now, having come much further than we had today. I wondered exactly how much Harry had cost. I rested my face against his, felt the grind of his teeth and jaw as he chewed.

  People paid lots of money for Marianne’s paintings. It didn’t make sense to me, what the same amount of money meant to different people.

  “Frank would have given all his money for Harry. He did, didn’t he, Harry? Even if that was all he had. You wouldn’t understand, Peter.”

  Peter looked sort of sorry for not understanding. I mean, how could he understand when he had so much?

  I wanted this journey to be over. I wanted to go home and find everything as it had been yesterday.

  We walked on, Peter a little way behind, his head hanging as low as Harry’s. I didn’t realise how bad Peter would feel about what I said, and it made me feel bad to think I didn’t understand everything about him.

  Harry’s bale had loosened and was no longer holding together. Wisps left a trail behind us and at first I tried to gather the pieces up, but the hay prickled my arms and stuck to the sweat, and I soon let it drop and ignored what we were losing.

  Harry suddenly started to bray. Behind us, he’d stopped.

  “Harry, what’s wrong?” I said, running back.

  “Why’s he doing that?” Peter clamped his hands over his ears. “Does he need some more water?” He grabbed the bucket and tipped up the bottle he’d been holding all this time. Harry didn’t drink.

  “It isn’t water he wants, Peter.”

  At first I thought something had scared Harry, but it didn’t take me long to realise that it was nothing like that at all.

  “He only did this once before. Frank said he needed a job to do. That’s why he used to carry Frank’s tools.”

  I had to speak in the quiet moments between the noisy braying. I didn’t have a bag of tools and I wasn’t going to give Harry rocks to carry. That would have been wrong, not only because it was pointless (I was sure Harry would have known), but I also didn’t want to remind him of the bricks he’d had to carry. Harry had lost his hay, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t the same sound as before.

  I let him bray for a while, and watched him carefully, like Frank had done before.

  “What are you doing?” Peter said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Are you going deaf? Can’t you hear him?”

  “I’m listening for something else.”

  “Like what?”

  I listened with my skin and my bones, like Frank told me to. To hear what words weren’t coming out into the world, to let Harry’s call go right into my ears and all the way inside, to see if I could make sense of it.

  “Bruno!”

  “Where?” Peter yelled over the din, spinning around and looking. “What do you mean? Bruno isn’t here.”

  “No! Remember Bruno and the avalanche. I don’t think he was talking to the mountain at all. He was talking to us, saying to stay with him so he could guard us, because that’s what he does best.”

  Harry brayed, but in between kept turning towards me and then looking towards the distance.

  “Is there another avalanche?” Peter threw his hands up just like Nonno. “Sometimes, Hope Malone, you make no sense at all.”

  “Not an avalanche.”

  Peter shaded his eyes as I pointed to the looming shape of an aeroplane above us, heading for the edgeless sky.

  “Harry didn’t know we were coming to the airport. I mean, he’s a donkey, he doesn’t know what an airport is.”

  “No, he doesn’t. But all the same…”

  What was it about Harry? What was it that made him the way he was? The noise meant something; I just couldn’t work out what. Even so, something changed inside. All I could think was that I had no choice but to keep going. There would be a second half to the story, but what?

  I couldn’t say what I was feeling when Harry turned and looked me in the eye. Maybe he’d never done that before because he didn’t need to, because before he’d been happy to go along with what he’d been asked to do. It seemed he wanted me to know something really important, but I couldn’t say out loud what I thou
ght he was trying to tell me, because it couldn’t be true. Did he really not want to leave?

  Up ahead in the distance, I saw Nonno had got out of his car and was waving to us from where he’d parked, pointing to the glass tunnel and stairs that went over the top of the road and into the airport.

  “Harry.” I knelt down and held his face. He stopped braying. “It’s OK. It’ll all be OK, I’ll be with you.”

  “Hope?” Peter looked left out. I didn’t want that either.

  “OK, we’re coming. Help me get Harry in the airport.”

  I tapped Harry’s shoulder again. He looked at me and I told him without saying it, that he had to come with me. This time he followed.

  I walked beside Harry, my arm over his neck, which Harry knew meant he had to stay right beside me, and we climbed the stairs with Peter going ahead, calling out, “It’s OK, Harry. It’s safe.”

  Some people with suitcases were coming in the opposite direction. Peter said sorry to them all and made like a traffic policeman, waving us through and getting everyone to flatten themselves against the sides because we were not about to stop for anyone.

  “Stand back,” Peter said. “Donkey coming through.”

  Harry seemed not to notice all the people and the noise, and for a minute I didn’t even notice them. It was just me and Harry. On a journey together.

  And then I felt panicked, and that feeling got bigger and bigger the closer we got to the airport’s glass entrance doors. We could see Nonno, his arms up as if he was cheering us on.

  “What do you want to do now?” Peter said.

  Just inside the door I could see screens spelling out destinations. Where was Frank going? It was a small airport but I realised it was going to be much harder to find him than I thought.

  Peter nudged me. Two security men in uniforms were walking quickly towards us, looking at Harry, one of them speaking into a radio.

  I held Harry’s ear and wished with everything I had that he would understand what I was trying to say, what I thought he was still waiting to hear.

  “G’night, Harry.” He hesitated. “G’night!” I smacked him gently on the bum, and he trotted away through the busy airport, ears pricked, skinny tail flicking.

  Crowds scattered quickly and a wide path opened up between Harry and the departure gate as he trotted through, as if he knew where he was going. I loved Harry right then more than ever, because he had the same sense of order I did.

  I couldn’t see Peter. The two security people rushed towards me. And Harry, he just kept going. Another security guard threw himself at the donkey, and Harry dodged to the side and the man slipped over on the floor.

  “Find Frank,” I whispered as if I had a telephone connection direct to Harry’s ears. “Find him, Harry!” For me, too.

  The fallen guard got up and he and two more people ran after Harry. A lady guard and one other stayed with me, asking me to come with them.

  “G’night Harry!” I shouted, in the hope that Harry knew what he was doing and not just running away from the people panicking around him.

  The alarm sounded as Harry’s harness buckles set off the metal detector, but Harry didn’t stop.

  I was led towards the information desk. Peter was already there speaking to the lady behind the desk, and I couldn’t hear a word the security people were saying to me because I was too busy watching for Harry, but my ears picked up the message on the speakers:

  “Passenger announcement. Would Frank Abernathy please come to the information desk, or make himself known to airport staff. Frank Abernathy, please make yourself known to any member of staff.”

  Through the glass walls of the corridor leading to the departure lounges I saw Harry, still trotting fast, his little spindly legs flicking backwards and forwards as he picked up speed. I’d never seen him run so fast. I didn’t even know he could.

  Security guards were chasing him, arms out, trying to steer his course. But Harry ducked and swayed and they couldn’t hold on to him.

  “Go, Harry!” Peter shouted from right by my side.

  I recognised his sheepskin jacket first, then his hat, his travelling bag, his long slow stride. Frank was coming along the glass corridor straight towards Harry.

  I wriggled free of the lady and ran because I couldn’t help myself wanting to be part of Frank and Harry. I followed the path Harry had left between the passengers that had stopped to turn towards the running donkey.

  I wanted to throw myself at Frank but I couldn’t. At the end of a long journey when you’ve just kept travelling because you have to, all you really want to do is stop. Maybe that’s why Frank had stayed with us. So he could stop and let Harry know they were both where they should be.

  “Harry and Hope,” Frank said softly as he dropped his bag and met us.

  He spoke to the security men who had now surrounded us and asked them to give us a moment.

  “You can’t go,” I said at last. “Not without Harry.”

  Frank crouched, patted Harry’s neck, slowly ran his hand down his smooth grey nose.

  “I’m sorry, we should have talked… I should have told you that Harry wants to stay with you.”

  “But he came here to be with you.”

  “Because you asked him to.”

  A moment passed. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “But he doesn’t understand. I can’t make him go in his shed without you there to say goodnight to him. He won’t go.”

  Frank smiled a sigh; a brightness was in his eyes.

  “Don’t you know yet that he won’t ever let you go?”

  “Me?”

  The security guards were impatient to have us move, but Frank spoke firmly to them and then told me that we didn’t have much time.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Travelling.”

  “What for? Why?”

  “There’s something in me. I can’t change that.”

  “Everything and everyone can change. You told me that.”

  He looked away, frowned, but he had no answer. This one thing he’d been so sure of. How come everything could change except him?

  “In the beginning, I stayed for Harry. But then… well, you made the world seem simple for me, and I liked that too. But the world according to Hope Malone has grown big enough for both of you now.”

  He held my hands, looked at them, then at Harry.

  “I looked all over the world, all the way from India to France, for someone for Harry, and I couldn’t find anyone else I’d trust to leave him with.” His voice was quiet until now. Firmly he said, “Harry didn’t give up hope…” He turned away from what he was about to say. “He didn’t need to. You were with us all that time. One day, I hope that will make sense in your world too.”

  I held on to Frank, knowing this time that nothing would change his mind. Somehow the hurt soothed, just a little, as I chose to let him go.

  “I’ll still love you, wherever you are.”

  I let the words out into the world that I hadn’t been able to say before. To let him know how much he meant, whoever he was to me and me to him, because deep down I knew I couldn’t choose for him what he did, no matter what. I was just his girlfriend’s – ex-girlfriend’s – daughter. There isn’t a word for who I was to him because it’s not a real thing. Just something I made, we made, in our world.

  “Won’t you miss anyone?” I whispered.

  He wiped my tears with a big rough thumb.

  “My girl and my donkey,” he said. My girl.

  “Write to me,” I said.

  “You know I’m not much for writing.”

  “A postcard, anything. You don’t have to write many words, just send some so I know where you are.”

  He smiled, checked the clock up high on the wall and walked backwards away from us.

  “There’ll always be a part of me left here.”

  “But will I see you again?” I whispered.

  “G’night, Harry,” he said, before turning i
nto the corridor and leaving me and Harry for good.

  Peter, Harry and I sat down in the shade of a tree outside the airport. I wondered if Harry had any idea what had just happened as I watched the plane flying Frank away. I told Harry again, “g’night, Harry. Frank said g’night.”

  I thought if I kept saying it he’d understand it meant goodbye. Or I would. I wasn’t sure how much more there was to know about Harry, not after what Frank told me. Had Harry found Frank at the airport for himself? Or had he found him for me?

  Nonno was patiently waiting outside the airport in his car to see what we would do. There was still the journey home to make, a journey I hadn’t even thought about for Harry, and now he had the added weight, of being without Frank, to carry home. Right then, Harry seemed really young. I was only twelve but I had to look after him by myself now. That meant I also had to make choices for him too. Maybe that’s what Frank had been trying to teach me all along. That even if I live in my own world of stupid questions and ideas, it doesn’t mean I’m not strong enough for Harry to rely on me too.

  I looked at Peter, who was staring straight ahead at Nonno’s car. “Even if you say I was wrong about coming, I’m not going to care,” I told him.

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “It’s what you were thinking.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “What are you thinking, then?

  “Actually, that you’re brave.” He turned to face me. “Coming to find Frank, that was harder than just staying at home and being upset.”

  I liked that he said that and it reminded me that I still had my best friend here with me.

  “Peter, will you do me a favour?”

  “Of course.”

  “Go home with Nonno.”

  “What?” Peter jumped up. “What about you and Harry?”

  “I have to make a choice for Harry now. He has to understand that I’m going to look after him, just like Frank would have. And I want to do this by myself.”

  “Nonno isn’t going to let you do that.”

  “Then explain to him, Peter. Tell him why it’s so important to me.”

  “Explain to me first.”