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Back The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
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  2. Table of Contents
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It wasn’t the question she was expecting. She had to swallow her tea very quickly, and it washed a rogue crumb of ginger nut with it, causing her to cough. “I only met her once. But that was a long time ago.” She patted her chest, easing the passage of the biscuit. “Queenie disappeared very suddenly. That’s all I remember. Harold went to work one day and when he came back he said there was someone new in accounts. A man, I think.”

“Why did Queenie disappear?”

“I don’t know. There were rumours. But it was a difficult time for me and Harold. He never said, and I never asked. It’s who we are, Rex. Everybody these days is spilling the beans about their darkest secrets. I look at those celebrity magazines at the doctor’s and my head reels. But that’s not how it was for us. We said a lot of things once. Things we shouldn’t have said. When it came to Queenie disappearing, I didn’t want to know.”

She hesitated, afraid she had confessed too much and unsure how best to continue. “I heard she had done something she shouldn’t have done at the brewery. Their boss was a deeply unpleasant man. He wasn’t one to forgive and forget. It was probably best all round that she disappeared.” Maureen saw Queenie Hennessy as she had done all those years ago, on the doorstep of Fossebridge Road, her eyes swollen, and holding out a bunch of flowers. Rex’s sitting room seemed suddenly very cold, and she hugged her arms around her waist.

“I don’t know about you,” he said at last, “but I could do with a small sherry.”

♦

Rex drove Maureen to the Start Bay Inn at Slapton Sands. She could feel the passage of the alcohol, cold at first and then almost burning, as it slipped down her throat and loosened her muscles. She told Rex it was strange to set foot in a pub again; since Harold had become teetotal, she rarely drank. They agreed that neither of them was in the mood for cooking, and ordered an early bar meal with a glass of wine. They made a toast to Harold’s journey and she felt a lightness in her stomach that reminded her of being a young woman, and in love for the first time.