With the hotel behind him, and few cars on the road, it occurred to Harold how vulnerable he was, a single figure, without his mobile phone. If he fell, or if someone sprang out of the bushes, who would hear his cries? A cracking of branches sent him scurrying forward; only to look back, with his heart wildly beating, and discover a pigeon regaining its balance in a tree. As time passed and he found his rhythm, he began to feel more certain. England opened beneath his feet, and the feeling of freedom, of pushing into the unknown, was so exhilarating he had to smile. He was in the world by himself and nothing could get in the way or ask him to mow the lawn.

Beyond the hedgerows, the land fell away to his left and right. A small copse of trees had been shaped by the wind into a quiff. He thought of his own thick hair when he was a teenager, slicked to a peak every day with gel.

He would head north towards South Brent, where he would find modest accommodation for the night. From there, he would follow the A38 to Exeter. He couldn’t recall the exact mileage, but in the old days he would allow a comfortable hour and twenty minutes for the drive. Harold walked the single-track lanes, and the walls of hedgerow were so dense and high, it was like journeying through a trench. It surprised Harold how fast and angry cars seemed when you were not in one. He took off his waterproof jacket and folded it over his arm.

He and Queenie must have driven this way countless times, and yet he had no memory of the scenery. He must have been so caught up in the day’s agenda, and arriving punctually at their destination, that the land beyond the car had been no more than a wash of one green, and a backdrop of one hill. Life was very different when you walked through it. Between gaps in the banks, the land rolled up and down, carved into chequered fields, and lined with ridges of hedging and trees. He had to stop to look. There were so many shades of green Harold was humbled. Some were almost a deep velvety black, others so light they verged on yellow. Far away the sun caught a passing car, maybe a window, and the light trembled across the hills like a fallen star. How was it he had never noticed all this before? Pale flowers, the name of which he didn’t know, pooled the foot of the hedgerows, along with primroses and violets. He wondered if, all those years ago, Queenie had looked out from her passenger window and seen these things.

“This car smells of sugar,” Maureen had said once, pulling at the air with her nostrils. “Violet sweets.” He had taken care after that to drive home at night with the windows open.

When he arrived in Berwick, he would buy a bouquet. He pictured himself striding into the hospice, and Queenie sitting in a pleasant chair by a sunny window, waiting for his arrival. The nursing staff would stop whatever they were doing and watch him pass, and the patients would be cheering, maybe even clapping, because he had come such a long way, of course; and Queenie would be laughing in that quiet way of hers, as she took the flowers in her arms.