Maybe it was the shock of being once more inside a room, and lying on a bed with clean sheets and soft pillows, but that night Harold started to cry. He couldn’t believe he had been so foolish as to lose Martina’s compass. He tried to tell himself it was only a thing. She would understand. But all he could feel was the loss of its weight from his pocket, so vast its absence amounted to a presence. He feared that in mislaying the compass, he had also lost an essential, steadying part of himself. Even when he briefly slipped into something that was like unconsciousness, his head swarmed with images. He saw the man from Bath in the dress, with his punched eye. He saw the oncologist staring at Queenie’s letter, and the woman who loved Jane Austen talking into mid-air. There was the cycling mother with her scarred arms; he asked himself again why a person would do that. He curled into the pillow and dreamed of the silver-haired gentleman, who travelled by train to see the boy with trainers. He saw Martina waiting for the man who was never going to return. And what about the waitress who would never leave South Brent? And Wilf? And Kate too? All those people, searching for happiness. He woke crying, and continued to cry all day as he walked.

♦

Maureen received a postcard with a picture of the Cheviots, bearing no stamp. The message read, Weather good. H. x. There was another postcard the following day, showing Hadrian’s Wall, but this had no message.

The cards came every day; sometimes there were several. He wrote the briefest messages: Rain. Not good. Walking. I miss you. Once he drew a hill shape. Another time a squiggly w that was possibly a bird. Often the cards were blank. She asked the postman to look out for them at the sorting office; she would pay the extra charges. The messages were more precious than love letters, she said.

Harold did not ring again. She waited in every night, but to no avail. It tortured her that she had let him go, when he needed her help. She had booked the hotel and spoken to Harold through tears. But she and Rex had talked it over and over; if he gave up when he was so close to arriving, he would regret it for the rest of his life.