The landlord folded his arms, resting them over the soft shelf of his belly, and widened his feet, as if he had something to tell and it might take a while. Harold hoped it wasn’t concerning the distance between Devon and Berwick-upon-Tweed. “There was this young lady I knew once. Lovely girl. Lived in Tunbridge Wells. She was the first girl I ever kissed, and she let me do a few things besides, if you get my drift. This young lady would have done anything for me. I just couldn’t see it. Too busy trying to get on in the world. It was only years later, when I was invited to the wedding, that I saw what a lucky bastard the chap marrying her was.”

Harold felt he should say that he had never been in love with Queenie, not in that way, but it seemed rude to interrupt.

“I fell apart. Started drinking. Got myself in a right mess, if you know what I mean.”

Harold nodded.

“Spent six years in prison in the end. My wife laughs but these days I do craftwork. Table decorations. I get the baubles and the baskets off the internet. The truth is,” and here he wiggled his ear with his finger, “we’ve all got a past. We’ve all got things we wish we’d done, or hadn’t. Good luck to you. I hope you find the lady.” The landlord removed his finger from his ear and studied it with a frown. “If you’re lucky, you should get there this afternoon.”

There was no point in correcting him. You couldn’t expect people to understand the nature of his walk, or even the exact whereabouts of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Harold thanked him and continued on his way. He remembered how Queenie kept a notebook in her handbag to tot up their mileage. It wasn’t in her to tell a lie; at least not one that was intentional. A flicker of guilt propelled him forward.

♦

During the afternoon, his blister became more painful. He found a way of shoving his toes towards the front end of the shoe, to avoid the leather biting into his ankle. He wasn’t thinking of Queenie and he wasn’t thinking of Maureen. He wasn’t even seeing the hedgerows or the horizon or the passing cars. He was the words, You will not die, and they were also his feet. Only sometimes the words marched themselves in different orders, and he realized with a start that his head was chanting, Die you will not, or Not will you die, or even plain Not not not. The sky above him was the same sky that hung over Queenie Hennessy and he knew with increasing certainty that she had learned what he was doing and was waiting. He knew he was going to reach Berwick, and that all he had to do was to place one foot in front of the other. The simplicity of it was joyful. If he kept going forward, he would of course arrive.