“You’re a gentleman,” she said, spreading the word into two halves so that for the first time he saw it for what it meant: a gentle man. With that, she opened her door before he could do it for her, and stepped out of his car. He watched her pick her way across the yard, steady and neat, in her brown suit, and it broke his heart. The honest plainness of her. He had got into bed that night and silently promised that whatever Mr Napier had meant by his obscure remark, Harold would be true to it. He would look out for Queenie.

Maureen’s voice had sailed through the dark. “I hope you’re not going to snore.”

♦

On the twelfth day, an endless bed of grey moved over the sky and land, bringing sheets of rain that smudged the colour and contours out of everything. Harold stared ahead, straining to find a sense of direction, or the break in the cloud that had so delighted him, but it was like looking at the world through net curtains again. Everything was the same. He stopped referring to his guidebooks because the gap between their sense of knowing and his own of not knowing was too unbearable. He felt he was fighting his body, and failing.

His clothes no longer dried. The leather of his shoes was so bloated with water, they lost their shape. Whitnage. Westleigh. Whiteball. So many places beginning with W. Trees. Hedgerows. Telegraph poles. Houses. Recycling bins. He left his razor and shaving foam in the shared bathroom of a guesthouse, and lacked the energy to replace them. Inspecting his feet, he was alarmed to discover that the burning in his calf had taken physical shape, and was a violent stain of crimson beneath the surface of the skin. For the first time, he was very frightened.

In Sampford Arundel, Harold phoned Maureen. He needed to hear her voice, and he wanted her to remind him why he was walking, even if she did it in anger. He didn’t want her to suspect the doubt he was suffering, or the difficulty with his leg, so he asked how she was, and also the house; and she told him they were both well. She in turn asked if he was still walking, and he said that he had passed Exeter and Tiverton and was on his way to Bath, via Taunton. Was there anything he wanted sending on? His mobile, his toothbrush, his pyjamas or spare clothes? There was a kindness in her voice, but he was surely imagining it.

“I’m all right,” he said.

“So you must almost be in Somerset?”

“I’m not sure. I suppose I must.”

“How many miles today?”

“I don’t know. Maybe seven.”

“Well, well,” she said.