Harold had done the same job as a sales rep for forty-five years. Keeping himself apart, he worked modestly and efficiently, without seeking either promotion or attention. Other chaps travelled and accepted jobs in senior management, but Harold had not wanted either. He made neither friends nor enemies. At his request, there was no farewell party for his retirement. And even though one of the girls in admin had organized a quick whip-round, few of the sales team knew much about him. Someone said they’d heard once that Harold had a story, but didn’t know what it was. He finished work on a Friday, and returned home with no more to show for his lifetime’s employment than a fully illustrated Motorist’s Guide to Great Britain and a voucher for Threshers. The book had been placed in the best room, along with all the other things that no one looked at. The voucher remained in its envelope. Harold was teetotal.

♦

Gnawing hunger woke him with a start. The mattress had both firmed up and moved overnight, and an unfamiliar rod of light fell across the carpet. What had Maureen done with the bedroom, that its windows were on the wrong side? What had she done with the walls, that they were lightly sprigged with flowers? It was then that he remembered; he was in a hotel just north of Loddiswell. He was walking to Berwick because Queenie Hennessy must not die.

Harold would have been the first to admit that there were elements to his plan that were not finely tuned. He had no walking boots or compass, let alone a map or change of clothes. The least planned part of the journey, however, was the journey itself. He hadn’t known he was going to walk until he started. Never mind the finely tuned elements; there was no plan. He knew the Devon roads well enough, and after that he would simply head north.

Harold plumped his two pillows, and eased himself to a sitting position. His left shoulder was sore but otherwise he felt refreshed. He had enjoyed his best sleep in many years; there had been none of the pictures that regularly came to him in the dark. The quilt covering his body matched the floral fabric of the curtains and there was a stripped antique-pine wardrobe, below which were parked his yachting shoes. In the far corner stood a sink, beneath a mirror. His shirt, tie and trousers were folded small as an apology on a faded blue-velvet chair.

A picture surfaced of his mother’s dresses scattered through his childhood home. He didn’t know where it had come from. He glanced at the window, trying to have a thought that would smudge the memory. He asked himself if Queenie knew he was walking. Maybe she was thinking about that even now.

♦

After the phone call to the hospice, he had followed the rising and turning of the B3196. Clear in his direction, he had passed fields, houses, trees, the bridge over the River Avon, and endless traffic had passed him. None of these made any real impression, except as one thing less between himself and Berwick. He had taken regular breaks to calm his breathing. Several times he had to adjust his yachting shoes and mop his head. On reaching the Loddiswell Inn he had stopped to quench his thirst, and it was there that he spoke with the satellite-dish salesman. The chap had been so bowled over when Harold confided his intentions that he clapped Harold on the back and told everyone in the bar to listen up; and when Harold offered the briefest outline (“I’m going to head up England until I hit Berwick”), the satellite-dish chap roared, “Good on you, mate.” It was with those words in mind that Harold had rushed out to telephone his wife.