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Back The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. 1
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  34. 32

He frowned with the effort of trying to picture it. He recalled a dance, but all he could see beyond that was how beautiful she had been, and how delicate. He remembered dancing like an idiot, and he remembered too her dark, long hair falling like velvet either side of her face. But it seemed unlikely he had been bold enough to walk across a crowded room and claim her. It seemed unlikely he had made her laugh and laugh. He wondered if she was mistaking him for someone else.

She said, “Well, I must let you get on. I know how busy you are.”

She was using the voice that she used for the doctor, when she wanted to show she wasn’t going to be an inconvenience. And then she said, “I wish I could think of what you said to me at the dance. It really was so funny.” She hung up.

For the rest of the day, his mind was full of remembering Maureen, and how it was in the beginning. He thought of the trips to the pictures, and Lyons Corner House, and how he had never seen anyone eat so discreetly, shredding her food into the smallest of scraps before lifting it to her mouth. Even in those days he had begun saving for their future. He had taken an early-morning job on the rubbish trucks, followed by a part-time afternoon job as a bus conductor. Twice a week he did an all-night shift at the hospital, and on Saturdays he worked at the library. Sometimes he was so exhausted he crawled under the bookshelves and fell asleep.

Maureen had taken to getting the bus from outside her house and staying for the full trip to the terminus. He would issue tickets and ring the bell for the driver, but all he was seeing was Maureen, in her blue coat, with her skin like porcelain and those vivid green eyes. She took to walking with him to the hospital so that he’d be scrubbing down the floors and all he could think of was where she was; what she was seeing as she hurried away. She took to nipping into the library and thumbing through cookery books, and he watched her from the main desk, his head reeling with desire and the need to sleep.

The wedding had been small, with guests he didn’t know in hats and gloves. An invitation was sent to his father, but to Harold’s relief he had not showed up.