The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel

by Rachel Joyce

  Maureen glanced at Harold and his face was so white he looked bled. “I’m glad,” she said. “We’re glad it was peaceful.”

  The nun stepped away and then turned back, as if she had remembered more. “Sister Philomena asked if you would like to join us for evening prayer?”

  Maureen gave a polite smile. It was too late to become believers now. “Thank you, but Harold is very tired. I think what he most needs is rest.”

  Unperturbed, the young woman nodded. “Of course. We only wanted you to know that you are welcome.” She reached for the handle and opened the door.

  Maureen recognized the smell of the air as soon as she stepped inside. It held an iced-over stillness, imbued with incense. Beneath a small wooden cross, the body that had once been Queenie Hennessy lay with her white hair brushed over the pillow. Her arms were stretched over the sheet alongside her body, and her hands were open, palms uplifted, as if she had willingly let something go. Her face had been tilted discreetly toward the pillow, so that the tumor was mostly hidden. Maureen and Harold stood beside her in silence, coming to terms once more with how utterly the life vanishes.

  She thought of David in his coffin, all those years ago, and how she had lifted his vacant head, and kissed him over and over, not believing that her wanting him alive wasn’t enough to bring him back. Harold stood beside her, with his fists clenched into balls.

  “She was a good woman,” said Maureen at last. “She was a true friend.”

  She felt something warm against the tip of her fingers, and then she felt the pressure of his hand gripping her own.

  “There was nothing more you could have done,” she said. And she was thinking now not only of Queenie, but of David too. Though it had cleft them apart and plunged them into separate darknesses, their son had after all done what he wanted. “I was wrong. I was very wrong to blame you.” Her fingers squeezed on his.

  She grew aware of light, spilling under and above the door, and the sounds of the hospice, filling the emptiness like water. The room in which they stood had grown so dark that the details lost definition; even the shape of Queenie was dimming. She thought of those waves again, and how a life was not complete without meeting its closure. She would stand at Harold’s side as long as he wanted. When he moved, she followed.

  Mass was already under way as they closed the door on Queenie. They paused, uncertain whether to give their thanks or slip away. It was Harold who asked to stop a moment. The nuns’ voices rose, woven in song, and for one splendid, fleeting moment the beauty of it crammed her with something that felt like joy. If we can’t be open, Maureen thought, if we can’t accept what we don’t know, there really is no hope.

  “I’m ready to go now,” said Harold.

  They walked along the seafront in the dark. The families had packed up their picnics and their chairs; only a few dog walkers were left, and some joggers in fluorescent jackets. They talked about small things: the last of the peonies, the day David started school, the weather forecast. Small things. The moon shone high, and cast a trembling copy of itself over the deep water. Far out, a ship traveled the horizon, its lights twinkling, and yet so slow its passage was not visible. It was full of life and activity that was nothing to do with Harold and Maureen.

  “So many stories. So many people we don’t know,” she said.

  Harold watched too, but his mind was full of other things. He couldn’t say how he knew it, or whether the knowledge made him happy or sad, but he was sure that Queenie would remain with him, and David too. There would be Napier, and Joan, and Harold’s father with those aunts; but there would be no more fighting them, and no more anguish for the past. They were part of the air he walked through, just as all the travelers he had met were part of it. He saw that people would make the decisions they wished to make, and some of them would hurt both themselves and those who loved them, and some would pass unnoticed, while others would bring joy. He did not know what would follow from Berwick-upon-Tweed, and he was ready for that.

  A memory came of the night all those years ago, when Harold had danced and spotted Maureen watching him across the crowd. He remembered how it felt to fling his arms and legs, as if shaking off all that had come before, while witnessed by such a beautiful young woman. Emboldened, he had danced more, even more crazily, feet kicking the air, hands like slippery eels. He had stopped and checked again. She was still watching. This time she had caught his eye and laughed. She was so full of it, her shoulders shaking, her hair slipping over her face, that for the first occasion in his life he had not been able to resist the temptation to stride through a crowd and touch a stranger. Beneath her velvet hair, the cushion of skin was pale and soft. She had not flinched.

  “Hello, you,” he had said. His childhood was shorn away and there was nothing but himself and her. He knew that whatever happened next, their paths were linked. He would do anything for her. Remembering, Harold was filled with lightness, as if he were warm again, somewhere deep inside.

  Maureen pulled her collar up to her ears against the night. The town lights shone in the background. “Shall we turn back?” she said. “Are you ready?”

  In answer, Harold sneezed. She turned, wanting to offer a handkerchief, but was met with a short gasp that was almost without sound. He smacked his hand to his face. The noise came again. It wasn’t a sneeze or a gasp. It was a snort. A snicker.

  “Are you all right?” said Maureen. He seemed to be trying very hard to hold something inside his mouth. She tugged at his sleeve. “Harold?”

  He shook his head. The hand was still plastered against his mouth. Out shot another snort.

  “Harold?” she said again.

  He held his hands either side of his mouth, as if attempting to straighten it. He said, “I shouldn’t be laughing. I don’t want to. It’s just—” He let out a full-blown guffaw.

  She didn’t understand, but a smile was tugging on the corners of her mouth too. “Maybe we need to laugh,” she said. “What is it that’s funny?”

  Harold took a deep breath to steady himself. He turned to her with those beautiful eyes of his and they seemed to shine through the dark. “I’ve no idea why I’m remembering this. But that night at the dance?”

  “When we first met?” Her smile was beginning to make a noise.

  “And we laughed like kids?”

  “Oh, what was it you said, Harold?”

  A roar of laughter bowled out of him with such force he had to grip his stomach. She watched, her smile all bubbly now, ready to erupt; so nearly with him but not quite there yet. He had to bend over with it. He actually looked in pain.

  In between splutters, he said, “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t what I said. It was you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. I said hello and then you looked up at me. And you said—”

  She got it. She remembered. The laughter kicked up from her stomach and filled her like helium. She slapped her hand to her mouth. “Of course.”

  “You said—”

  “That’s right. I—”

  They couldn’t say it. They couldn’t get it out. They tried, but each time they opened their mouths it was so hilarious they were hit by a fresh wave of helpless laughter. They had to grip hands to steady themselves.

  “Oh God,” she spluttered, “oh God. It wasn’t even very witty.” She was laughing and trying not to, so that it came in sobs and squeals. Then another laugh whooshed up behind her like a huge wave, catching her unawares, and erupting into a violent hiccup. That made it even worse. They hung on to each other’s arms, and bent over, shaking with how funny it was. Their eyes were streaming; their faces ached. “People will think we’re having a joint heart attack,” she roared.

  “You’re right. It wasn’t even funny,” said Harold, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. For a moment, he looked sensible again. “That was the thing, love. It was ordinary. It must have been funny because we were happy.”

  They caught hands again, and walked toward the water’s edge, tw
o small figures against the black waves. Only halfway there, one of them must have remembered again and it passed like a fresh current of joy between them. They stood at the water’s edge, not letting go, and rocked with laughter.

  For Paul, who walks with me, and for my father,

  Martin Joyce (1936 – 2005)

  Acknowledgments

  There are a number of people who have been part of Harold’s journey. Anton Rogers, Anna Massey, Niamh Cusack, Tracey Neale, Jeremy Mortimer, and Jeremy Howe began with him as an afternoon play for BBC Radio 4. Niamh has also read many pages of the book and encouraged me, as have Paul Venables, Myra Joyce, Anna Parker, Christabelle Dilks, Heather Mulkey, and Sarah Edghill. Clare Conville, Jake Smith-Bosanquet, and all at Conville & Walsh, Susanna Wadeson and the team at Transworld, Kendra Harpster, Abi Pritchard, Frances Arnold, Richard Skinner, the Faber group of 2010, and Matthew the Stroud Forager have all played an integral part.

  And finally Hope, Kezia, Jo, and Nell, who have taken to spotting Harold at the roadside.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  RACHEL JOYCE is an award-winning writer of more than twenty plays for BBC Radio 4. She started writing after a twenty-year acting career, in which she performed leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and won multiple awards. Rachel lives in Gloucestershire on a farm with her family and is at work on her second novel.