Harry and Hope

by Sarah Lean

  At the weekend, I taught Harry what I wanted him to do on Monday.

  Gently I taught him that tapping his right shoulder twice meant he had to go to the casot. Wherever we were. Slowly, he learned that he could follow me to school, and that when we got there, he had to walk to the casot by himself.

  Of course, Harry didn’t let me down.

  Each morning Mum packed me snacks and drinks and anything I might need for Harry, so that after school I could cycle to be with him.

  Soon he had work in the vineyards and I could leave him with the grape-pickers. I gave the money that Harry earned to old Monsieur Dubois the carpenter, to make alterations to the casot, to protect Harry from winter, which wasn’t so far away. I always brought him back to the shed by the house at night though. I couldn’t sleep if he wasn’t there.

  I loved that it was me Harry belonged to, as if I had also kept part of Frank that way.

  After they had finished grape picking, Harry got another job carrying stakes for the workers in the new vineyard. He didn’t seem to recognise that it was once his meadow. Maybe, like me, he had no choice but to give it up. As long as he had work some days he stayed quiet, and he was as sweet and gentle as ever.

  I wrote to Frank every week, told him about Harry, about me.

  He only wrote once more.

  Mumbai has changed a lot. Frank

  I wondered how a big city could change, I wondered if Frank ever would, but I guessed he’d moved on and my letters were in a pile behind some door. I sent more letters to him anyway, imagining that the growing mountain of words that he didn’t read was marking the spot where something had to be left behind, like the Massimo’s vineyard that got buried under the snow.

  Everything changes. Frank told me that. All the seasons, and even people, which meant we had to move on, like the grooves in the bark of the tree where the swing used to be.

  Up on the roof terrace one morning with Mum, I said, “I think only Canigou has stayed the same.”

  She said, “Maybe it’s just moving slower than the rest of us.”

  I liked that she said that. I wondered if she felt the mountain breathing slowly, very slowly, holding things the steadiest they could be.

  She watched that mountain for so long that I thought perhaps she had words inside her that needed to come out.

  “Frank always said ‘Spill’ when he knew I was thinking about all sorts of things and… and I’ve only just realised, but I think he said it because he really did want me to share things with him,” I said.

  “I’m happy to share anything with you.” She laughed. “Remember back in June, the Canigou flame?”

  “When they lit the bonfires all across the top of the mountains?”

  “Yes. In the morning, you could just see the red glow from the embers left there. Like a cherry on top of a cake.” She laughed again. “It reminds me of you.”

  Peter came back for holidays. We were like we’d always been, together, only some days we’d both choose our own things to do, and that was OK. He went skiing with his father while I wandered around the village looking for lonely dogs. I fed them sausages, scratched their heads and whispered things in their floppy ears. Bruno still paced around the Vilaros’ land, guarding the gate and wall of their field, but he got into the habit of following me too. That was OK with me because it made me think of Frank and how people sometimes just have to do things they can’t help doing, even if wasn’t OK with the Vilaros that Bruno kept doing a bunk.

  While the winter snow still glittered on Canigou, Madame Vilaro came to see me. She asked if she could borrow Harry to help her collect and carry things from their land. Their field and wild woodland (the shortcut to the casot), which Bruno was supposed to be guarding, didn’t have rows of fruit trees like everywhere else. It was sort of scrubby and woody.

  “What are you collecting?” I asked.

  “Truffles,” she said.

  So that’s what Bruno had been guarding. The expensive knobbly blackish things that people like the Massimos ate, grew in the soil beneath the trees. I liked Madame Vilaro very much for asking. Truffles were hard to find but they didn’t weigh much. She didn’t really need Harry to carry them for her.

  I asked her why she thought of Harry.

  “Peter Massimo asked me,” she said. And I knew Frank had always been right about him, that he would be kind to Harry.

  “Bruno’s not so good at guarding the truffles any more,” I said.

  Madame Vilaro said, “What can I do with a crazy dog like that?”

  I shrugged. I was getting to quite like Bruno.

  “Maybe he needs a friend,” I said. “Then he’d be happier staying put.”

  Spring. The cherry trees blossomed, and early one Saturday morning when I let Harry out of the shed and was about to take him over to the casot, I heard a dog barking in the village, a bark I didn’t recognise. Kind of hoarse and yelpy.

  I stuffed my pockets with everything I might need and asked Harry to come with me.

  It was still early as we walked into the village. Coffee and fresh bread smells filled the air, but very few people were about.

  Harry seemed to know better than me where the sound was coming from as we walked through the centre of the village. We stopped and listened. Harry turned towards Rue St Pierre, a cobbled alleyway off the square, and we looked down there before hearing the bark again. On the next road further along, we found the dog.

  I didn’t recognise her. She had three legs, the back left one missing right from the top. She was kind of like a hound, with drooping ears, a long nose and amber eyes. Her fur was mottled with darker brown spots. I suspected if she’d had a bath she would have actually been much paler.

  Harry’s skinny tail swished and his ears went up when the dog looked towards us. The dog had no collar and was sniffing around doorsteps. She shied away from us.

  “Don’t worry, Harry. She doesn’t know we’re going to be kind to her yet.”

  We followed her for a bit, Harry snatching at the verges and the bushes while the dog kept looking back at us. I had some sausage and half my croissant from home. When I unwrapped them, the dog sniffed the air. I broke off some chunks and threw them closer to her. She walked slowly over, nose to the ground, holding herself quite low, her eyes still watching me.

  She snatched up the sausage, hopped back a little as if she was afraid I might try to take the sausage away again, as if her three legs might not be fast enough to get away if she needed to.

  I liked her straight away.

  “You’re just perfect,” I said. “Isn’t she, Harry? Not for us though.”

  I turned and walked away, throwing more sausage behind me, Harry trotting by my side. Eventually we came out at Rue Allieri where there was a bench, and I sat down. Harry wandered over to the grass and the dog watched me from a distance.

  Bruno, the wandering guard dog, popped out of nowhere like he usually did now, every time I was around.

  I had no idea if the dogs already knew each other. They circled around each other for a bit, sniffing each other, tails held high. There were hackles and growls when I threw more food. Harry moved away. The dogs didn’t seem that interested in him though, excited as they were to meet and share the sausage.

  Harry was looking down the valley, nose twitching, and he seemed to want to go, so I walked beside him, my arm around his neck to spend some time with him at the casot. I looked back at the new dog, her ears up, watching us go.

  “We’ll take it slowly with her, Harry,” I whispered into his ear. “But I think Bruno is going to be kind to her, don’t you?”

  Harry seemed to be in a hurry.

  “OK, I’m coming,” I said, running to catch up.

  Bruno followed us down the track to Madame Vilaro’s land, to the old kennel where he slept. As I walked away, trying to keep up with Harry, Bruno barked and howled at me. Probably wanting more croissant, I thought.

  “All gone, Bruno.” I turned back to show him my empty poc
kets and saw, coming down the lane, slowly and shyly, the three-legged dog. Bruno wasn’t talking to me at all. Sometimes a dog knows what’s what right away. I watched while they greeted each other again and wondered if she’d stay, and decided to bring them a blanket to sleep on tomorrow.

  “We should give you a name,” I said.

  “Bruno and…” I thought for a minute. “Bruno and... Sylvie.”

  I’d heard that somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where. Probably in one of those books that Peter read.

  I was happy that they had each other. That made complete sense to me.

  “Bruno and Sylvie,” I said again. “I think they might both be good guard dogs if they’ve got each other, don’t you, Harry?”

  But Harry wasn’t beside me. He was trotting down the lane, picking up speed, bony legs and tail flicking.

  Dust flowers bloomed along the track, kicked up by a jeep and trailer coming our way.

  I’d only ever seen Harry run like that once before, and the distance between him and the jeep closed in seconds.

  I saw Frank through the dusty windscreen. And I was running to him too.

  It was as if I’d been out for another day of adventure and come home and here he was. Like he’d been here just a minute ago.

  He was out of the jeep, his arms open, and there wasn’t anything to say because you don’t need to when you have everything you want.

  “How’s my girl?” he whispered, not letting go.

  I still had no word for what Frank was to me, but I felt it like a mixture of what I felt for my mother, and my friend Peter, and my other half, Harry.

  “Thought I’d visit for a while, if that’s OK with you?” he said.

  Of course the answer was, “Yes, yes! Always.”

  Harry was kicking at the door of the trailer. I felt the sharp sting of Harry wanting to get back in the trailer so he could go travelling with Frank again. Until I heard something else. A donkey braying. Inside the trailer.

  I looked to Frank for answers and he said, “There’s a bit more to Harry’s story. I didn’t think you were ready to hear before.”

  Harry breathed through the thin gap in the trailer door.

  “Who’s in there?” I said.

  “Donkey’s aren’t stubborn, Harry least of all,” Frank said, as he opened the lock. “People think that, but I guess it’s just that donkeys need to make sure they’re safe before they trust people, and they take their time to think things over. They know who they belong with too. And they’re loyal until the end.”

  Harry stood back and let Frank open the trailer door.

  When the trailer door opened, it was just like that moment when Frank and I had seen the sudden breeze turning the blossom into pink snow on the mountainside. It’s when your heart is the biggest it can be, because you’re sharing it with someone you love. Inside Frank’s new trailer was another donkey. Harry quivered and shivered all the way through his skin and bones and barrel belly when he saw that other dusty grey donkey.

  Ever since I’d known him, Harry had seemed as if he’d still been carrying the bricks from years ago, but the way he trotted into that trailer and nuzzled up against the other donkey, he was as light and fluttery as cherry blossom petals.

  It didn’t feel like my mouth saying it, but the words, “Were there two of them in Mumbai?” came out as all the old reasons for Harry wanting to go back in the trailer, to stay with Frank, suddenly made sense.

  “This is the grey donkey, Hope. He worked with Harry. Took me a while but I found him again, still carrying bricks, but at another building site in Mumbai,” Frank said. “I’d seen them before, struggling, you know, when our paths crossed.” There was no need to say what we already knew about them. “They both fell down that day, too many bricks, a building project that had to be finished quickly. It was Harry I pulled up. The grey donkey got up by himself.”

  At last I saw triumph in the way Frank looked at the two donkeys.

  “You should have seen those two together, the grey donkey nudging at Harry to get up.” I felt that weight again, of poor old Harry and how much he tried, how hard he tried, and didn’t want to fail.

  “The man would only sell me one. Harry was the oldest and the man thought he was the weakest because I’d helped him.”

  I held my hand out to the grey donkey and wanted to fall in love with him straight away.

  “Frank? Did Harry want to go in the trailer all those years because he wanted you to take him back to his…?” Another word I didn’t know.

  Frank nodded as if he knew too that there are some things that you can only feel but can’t say. That maybe nothing ever really belongs to you, even if it feels like the other half of you.

  “I think he’d rather have stayed on the building site than be without his friend,” Frank said.

  I made it worse. At last I understood those words.

  “Even in the freshest, greenest meadow Harry had ever seen in his life,” I said.

  “All along Harry wanted me to take him back but it took me a while to work it out. Maybe something you said about cherries and almonds.”

  “You waited so long, Harry. So long.”

  “I figured he needed someone to take the place of the grey donkey. That was you, Hope.”

  Frank closed the trailer on the two donkeys and I understood why he’d found it hard to be happy about giving Harry his freedom. He’d set him free from one thing but that had also meant separating him from another.

  Sometimes, you just suddenly realise that your life is just like a story, that you’re only ever turning the page to a new chapter.

  In the end I said, “Frank, did you miss us?”

  He put his arm around me and left one of his big soft friendly silences for me to fill in. Of course he did.

  “Thing is, it also took me a while to work out that taking Harry away wasn’t any kind of answer. What about all the other donkeys? What about all the men who have families to feed and rely on their donkey to earn a living?”

  I looked up at him. There was a whole bigger story, a wide, wide circle that affected so many people. And Frank gave me a heap of space while I thought about it some more.

  “Hop in,” Frank said, opening the jeep door.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Not far.”

  I got in the jeep and started to tell him on the way home about what had happened with the meadow, when he leaned across and opened the glove compartment. I saw the pile of letters I had written stacked neatly in there. Frank never was one for writing.

  “I know, I read your letters. That’s not where we’re going. Peter Massimo also wrote to me a couple of times. His father has a patch of land he’s willing to sell and a little old stone building at the foot of Canigou.” He grinned. “Couldn’t risk planting there, just in case that old mountain decided to throw an avalanche at him again.”

  “I love our mountain, Frank. Is that daft when you can’t be sure it loves you back?”

  “How can you be sure it doesn’t?”

  So many things to think about when Frank was around.

  “You remember Bruno?” I said. “We get on quite well now, not best buddies exactly, but I found him a friend and I think they’re going to be cherries and almonds too. I hope so. Well, anyway, Bruno had always been my friend only he wasn’t really good at showing it. That time with the avalanche, I think he was trying to guard Peter and me.”

  “Good old Bruno.”

  We laughed and I thought Frank and I would probably remember Bruno when we were ninety-nine because of this.

  We bumped along in the jeep, and I peered through the narrow glass window into the trailer. Harry and the grey donkey were pressed against each other, nibbling at each other’s necks, rattling behind us with a bunch of carrots that they weren’t the slightest bit interested in.

  “What shall we call him, Frank? What goes with Harry?”

  “Harry and Hope. We’ve got some time to think about it.”


  “You’re still going travelling again, aren’t you Frank?”

  “Few weeks off first, rest a bit, see old Harry and the mountain. Spend some time with my girl.”

  I saw the future, blooming like cherry trees. Frank looked across and we were just like we’d always been.

  “Spill,” he said.

  “Do you think one day maybe you could live out there, Frank? In Mumbai, I mean. Find a casot or an old tumbled down place you could do up? And a field or a meadow and some land? Do you think there’s a place where all the old donkeys and the lonely ones could go and have someone who cares about them? Someone to help put cherries and almonds together?”

  He nodded to himself. We had plenty of time to think.

  “Did you know that cherries and almonds are related?” he said.

  “They are?”

  “Same family of trees.”

  I thought that of all the funny and brilliant things I’d ever heard, this was the best.

  “Do you think, Frank, when I’m, say, eighteen, I could go out to Mumbai too? I mean, I’d like a job like that one day. I’d be like Harry then, having something useful to do.”

  He laughed, put his hat on my head.

  “Five years’ time? That’s a long time for you to want something.”

  “Harry waited nearly five years to be together with the grey donkey again.”

  The jeep bumped us along the track.

  “I’m a bit like Harry, aren’t I, Frank?”

  Dust spat up behind us.

  My name is Cally Louise Fisher and I haven’t spoken for thirty-one days. Talking doesn’t always make things happen, however much you want it to.

  Cally saw her mum, bright and real and alive. But no one believes her, so Cally stopped talking. Now a mysterious grey wolfhound has started following her everywhere. Perhaps he knows that Cally was telling the truth…

  Click on the cover to read more.

  Sometimes when things are broken you can’t fix them on your own – no matter how hard you try.