But here, directly across the road, stood a post box, and a little way beyond it a telephone booth. Harold’s journey was over.

He dragged his feet. He had seen so many he’d lost count, as well as two Royal Mail vans and a courier on a motorbike. Harold thought of all the things in life he’d let go. The small smiles. The offers of a beer. The people he had passed over and over again, in the brewery car park, or on the street, without lifting his head. The neighbours whose forwarding addresses he had never kept. Worse; the son who didn’t speak to him and the wife he had betrayed. He remembered his father in the nursing home, and his mother’s suitcase by the door. And now here was a woman who twenty years ago had proved herself a friend. Was this how it went? That just at the moment when he wanted to do something, it was too late? That all the pieces of a life must eventually be surrendered, as if in truth they amounted to nothing? The knowledge of his helplessness pressed down on him so heavily he felt weak. It wasn’t enough to send a letter. There must be a way to make a difference. Reaching for his mobile, Harold realized it was at home. He staggered into the road, his face thick with grief.

A van shrieked to a halt and then skirted past. “You stupid fucker!” yelled the driver.

He barely heard. He barely saw the post box either. Queenie’s letter was in his hands before the door of the telephone kiosk had closed behind him.

He found the address and telephone number, but his fingers shook so hard he could barely tap the buttons to enter his pin code. He waited for the ringing tone, and the air hung still and heavy. A trickle of sweat slid between his shoulder blades.

After ten rings there was at last a clunk, and a heavily accented voice: “St Bernadine’s Hospice. Good afternoon.”

“I’d like to speak to a patient, please. Her name is Queenie Hennessy.”

There was a pause.

He added, “It’s very urgent. I need to know that she’s all right.”

The woman made a sound as if she was breathing out a long sigh. Harold’s spine chilled. Queenie was dead; he was too late. He clamped his knuckle to his mouth.

The voice said, “I’m afraid Miss Hennessy is asleep. Can I take a message?”

Small clouds sent shadows scurrying across the land. The light was smoky over the distant hills, not with the dusk but with the map of space that lay ahead. He pictured Queenie dozing at one end of England and himself in a phone box at the other, with things in between that he didn’t know and could only imagine: roads, fields, rivers, woods, moors, peaks and valleys, and so many people. He would meet and pass them all. There was no deliberation, no reasoning. The decision came in the same moment as the idea. He was laughing at the simplicity of it.