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Back The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
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  2. Table of Contents
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The kindness of the woman with food came back to him, and that of Martina. They had offered him comfort and shelter, even when he was afraid of taking them, and in accepting he had learned something new. It was as much of a gift to receive as it was to give, requiring as it did both courage and humility. He thought of the peace he had found, lying in the sleeping bag in a barn. Harold let these things play in his mind while below him the land melted as far as the sky. Suddenly he knew. He knew what he must do in order to get to Berwick.

♦

In Cheltenham, Harold donated his washing powder to a student going into a laundrette. Passing a woman from Prestbury who couldn’t find her key in her bag, he offered his wind-up torch. The following day, he gave his plasters and antiseptic cream to the mother of a distressed child with a bleeding knee, and also his comb by way of distraction. The guide to Britain he handed to a bewildered German couple who were lost near Cleeve Hill and, since he knew the plant dictionary by heart, he suggested they might like that too. He rewrapped the gifts for Queenie: the pot of honey, the rose quartz, the glittering paperweight, the Roman key ring and the wool hat. He parcelled up the recent souvenirs for Maureen and took them to a post office. The compass and the rucksack he kept, because they were not his to give away.

He would make his way to Broadway, via Winchcombe; from there to Mickleton, Clifford Chambers, and then Stratford-on-Avon.

♦

Two days later, Maureen was coiling her bean plants against stakes when she was called to the gate to receive a parcel. Inside she found a new selection of gifts, as well as Harold’s wallet, watch, and a postcard showing a woolly Cotswold sheep.

He had written:

Dear Maureen. Please find enclosed my debit card, etc. I am going to walk without so many things. If I keep it simple, I know I can get there. I think of you often. H.

She climbed the slope to the front door without noticing that she had feet.

Maureen stowed the wallet in his bedside drawer, beneath the photographs of herself and David. The postcard she pinned to Rex’s map.

“Oh Harold,” she said softly. And she wondered if, despite the increasing distance between them, he somehow heard.

19

Harold and the Walk