The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
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Rachel Joyce
United Kingdom
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
2012, EN
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking to save someone else’s life.
Table of contents (32)
1: Harold and the Letter
2: Harold and the Garage Girl and a Question of Faith
3: Maureen and the Telephone Call
4: Harold and the Hotel Guests
5: Harold and the Barman and the Woman with Food
6: Maureen and the Lie
7: Harold and the Hiking Man and the Woman Who Loved Jane Austen
8: Harold and the Silver-Haired Gentleman
9: Maureen and David
10: Harold and the Sign
11: Maureen and the Locum
12: Harold and the Cycling Mothers
13: Harold and the Doctor
14: Maureen and Rex
15: Harold and the New Beginning
16: Harold and the Physician and the Very Famous Actor
17: Maureen and the Garden
18: Harold and the Decision
19: Harold and the Walk
20: Maureen and the Publicist
21: Harold and the Follower
22: Harold and the Pilgrims
23: Maureen and Harold
24: Harold and Rich
25: Harold and the Dog
26: Harold and the Café
27: Harold and Another Letter
28: Maureen and the Visitor
29: Harold and Queenie
30: Maureen and Harold
31: Queenie and the Present
32: Harold and Maureen and Queenie
1
Harold and the Letter
The letter that would change everything arrived on a Tuesday. It was an ordinary morning in mid-April that smelt of clean washing and grass cuttings. Harold Fry sat at the breakfast table, freshly shaved, in a clean shirt and tie, with a slice of toast that he wasn’t eating. He gazed beyond the kitchen window at the clipped lawn, which was spiked in the middle by Maureen’s telescopic washing line, and trapped on all three sides by the neighbours’ closeboard fencing.
“Harold!” called Maureen above the vacuum cleaner. “Post!”
He thought he might like to go out, but the only thing to do was mow the lawn and he had done that yesterday. The vacuum tumbled into silence, and his wife appeared, looking cross, with a letter. She sat opposite Harold.
Maureen was a slight woman with a cap of silver hair and a brisk walk. When they first met, nothing had pleased him more than to make her laugh. To watch her neat frame collapse into unruly happiness. “It’s for you,” she said. He didn’t know what she meant until she slid an envelope across the table, and stopped it just short of Harold’s elbow. They both looked at the letter as if they had never seen one before. It was pink. “The postmark says Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
He didn’t know anyone in Berwick. He didn’t know many people anywhere. “Maybe it’s a mistake.”