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Back The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. 1
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  34. 32

Maureen held him tight until the grief passed. He was tall, and stiff, and her own. “You dear man.” She groped for his face with her mouth and kissed his salty wet cheeks. “You got up, and you did something. And if trying to find a way when you don’t even know you can get there isn’t a small miracle, then I don’t know what is.”

Her mouth trembled. She cupped his face in her palms; they were so close now that his features lost distinction and all she could see was the feeling she had for him.

“I love you, Harold Fry,” she whispered. “That is what you did.”

31

Queenie and the Present

Queenie stared at the blurred world and found something she had not seen before. She narrowed her eye, willing it into focus. A pink shining light that somehow hung in the air, twisting, and every now and then sent a myriad of colour across the wall. It was beautiful for a while and then to keep hunting for it was too tiring and she let it go.

She was almost nothing. Blink a moment, and she’d be gone.

Someone had come, and now they had gone. Someone she liked. It wasn’t the nuns, although they were all kind. It wasn’t her father, but it was another good man. He had said something about walking, and that was right, she remembered; he had walked. But she couldn’t remember how far he had come. Maybe it was from the car park. She had a pain in her head, and she wanted to call for water, and she would do that, in a moment, but just for now she would stay here, lying very still and easy at last. She would sleep.

Harold Fry. She remembered now. He had come to say goodbye.

Once she had been a woman called Queenie Hennessy. She did sums, and wrote with an impeccable hand. She had loved a few times, and she had lost, and that was all as it should be. She had touched life, played with it a little, but it is a slippery bugger, and finally we must close the door, and leave it behind. A frightening thought for all these years. But now? Not frightening. Not anything. She was so tired. She dropped her face against her pillow, and felt something opening like a flower in her head, as it grew heavy.