Some time after dawn, she spoke with David. She confessed the truth about his father walking to a woman from the past, and he listened. “You and I didn’t know Queenie Hennessy,” said Maureen. “But she worked at the brewery. She had a job in accounts. I suspect she was the spinster type. Very lonely.” After that, she told David she loved him and wished he would visit. He promised it was the same for him. “So what should I do about Harold, love? What would you do?” she said.

He told her exactly what the problem was with his father, and urged her to visit the doctor. He voiced the things she was too afraid to say.

“But I can’t leave the house,” she argued. “He might come back. He might come back and I wouldn’t be here.”

David laughed. A little harshly, she felt; but he had never been one to mince his words. She had a choice. She could stay at home, waiting. Or she could do something about it. She pictured David smiling and tears sprang to her eyes. And then he said something she didn’t expect; he knew about Queenie Hennessy. She was a good woman.

Maureen gave a small gasp. “But you never met her.”

He reminded her that while this was true, it was untrue that Maureen and Queenie had not met. She had come to Fossebridge Road with a message for Harold. Urgent, she’d said.

That settled it. As soon as the surgery was open, Maureen rang to book a doctor’s appointment.

10

Harold and the Sign

The morning sky was a single blue, combed through with cloud, while a slip of moon still loitered behind trees. Harold was relieved to be back on the road. He had left Exeter early, after purchasing a second-hand dictionary of wild flowers and a visitor’s guide to Great Britain. These he kept in his plastic bag, along with the two presents for Queenie. He also carried replenished supplies of water, biscuits and, on the advice of a chemist, a tube of petroleum jelly for his feet. “I could sell you a specialist cream but it would be a waste of your time and money,” the shopkeeper said. He also warned there was bad weather coming.

In the city, Harold’s thoughts had stopped. Now that he was back on the open land, he was once again between places, and pictures ran freely through his mind. In walking, he unleashed the past that he had spent twenty years seeking to avoid, and now it chattered and played through his head with a wild energy that was its own. He no longer saw distance in terms of miles. He measured it with his remembering.