The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (19 page)

I caught you once staring hard at my bare ring finger.

‘Nobody wants me,’ I smiled.

You gave a guffaw, but you didn’t say, ‘I do.’

I wondered if it was a romance that was occupying David because he barely showed his face in the Easter holidays. I remember feeling that must have been another hardship for Maureen. I thought too of my own parents and wished I had been kinder to them when I was David’s age. But it was a relief that he was no longer coming between you and me.

My forty-first birthday arrived. I brought you cream puffs from the bakery. We stopped and ate them by the roadside. ‘Any special reason?’ you asked. ‘Not at all,’ I told you. This time you didn’t say, ‘You’ll get me fat,’ which was an irony because you were a little plumper at the waist and jowls. Those trousers of yours didn’t droop any more.

To my surprise, Bill was waiting for me at the gates of the brewery with flowers and a
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
balloon. He just wanted to see where I worked, he said. I practically frogmarched him down the street in my
efforts to hide him – though it is difficult to hide a man with a foil
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
balloon. He insisted on taking me for dinner in Kingsbridge, and I’m ashamed to say it was a dreadful evening. Over tiramisu, Bill began to get impatient. ‘You’re bored, aren’t you? You have someone else, don’t you?’

‘Of course not,’ I heard myself say.

‘You’re always looking out of the window.’ He produced a small box from his pocket. He tried to put it into my hand. ‘Marry me.’

Outside the sky was still light. I remember because I watched the window for a long time, trying to work out what to do. If I married Bill, I could look after him. Look after his daughters. I could make a home. I kept my eye fixed on the pavement outside in order to concentrate, but then it occurred to me I wasn’t concentrating, I was only looking for you.

Bill shifted in his chair. ‘I knew there was someone else,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him. ‘I’m really sorry.’

He sat very still for a moment. Then he finished his tiramisu. He scraped the glass bowl clean. It’s strange how, even when the big things in life happen, we attempt to make them small. ‘It’s OK, though, if you love someone else,’ he said. ‘I can make do with that.’

‘No. You can’t.’ I reached for my coat. ‘It’s over.’ It was over with the Royal too. As it happens, it was also the end of courtship for me. I didn’t date a man again. And don’t feel sorry for me, Harold. It was my choice.

I kept up with Bill’s daughters, though. When the younger woman married, I sent her a set of wine glasses. The girls wrote to me, once in a while. Even when I lived in Embleton Bay, I sent them cards. I only
stopped when my illness came. I stopped all my friendships when my illness came.

That summer you took your annual holiday but you didn’t go anywhere. David had told you he’d be InterRailing, and apparently Maureen had decided she’d prefer to stay at home. And when I asked afterwards what you had done – it had been so lonely for me at the brewery without you – you said, ‘I mowed the grass.’

We laughed a lot about that.

Further news

W
E HAVE
a new postcard. ‘Historic Warwick’. You can’t imagine the stir it caused in the dayroom when Sister Catherine arrived with her postbag.

‘What does Harold Fry say?’ yelled Finty. ‘What does he say?’ She had a letter asking if she had suffered any accidents recently; she might be entitled to thousands of pounds in compensation. Then she cried out, ‘No, no, don’t read the postcard yet! Let’s get the brown milkshakes first. Let’s make it all special, like Christmas on the TV adverts. Come on, Babs. Stick your eye back in.’

‘Oh, I love Christmas,’ said Barbara.

Sister Lucy put down the copy of
Watership Down
and fetched the trolley of nutritional drinks. She also brought whipped cream, straws and foil cocktail umbrellas. The Pearly King began to open a parcel. Mr Henderson folded away his newspaper.

‘Would you allow me to help, sister?’ said the Pearly King, all gracious. He placed his parcel on the trolley and took it to the back of the room, steering with his good arm. When Sister Catherine offered help, he replied that he was managing fine, and here he gave a delicious wink that caused Finty to erupt with laughter. ‘What a one,’ she kept
ha
-
ha
ing. ‘Yeah, you’re a right one, you are. I bet you’ve fixed some drinks in your time.’

The Pearly King grinned and said that yes, he had. ‘Once I found myself tied to a tree,’ he said.

‘I’ve heard worse,’ said Mr Henderson.

‘But the tree was in Rotterdam. And the last I knew, I’d been in a pub in the East End of London.’

The Pearly King handed out the drinks, one by one. And even though he was shaking a little with the effort of walking, most of the liquid stayed inside the glasses and only a little hit our laps and the carpet. He kept apologizing and offering to fetch a cloth and Sister Catherine only laughed and said, ‘God bless you.’

‘Can you manage, Miss Hennessy?’ said Mr Henderson, offering me a tissue.

I nodded to show I could.

We were about to lift our glasses when Barbara spoke. ‘You know what? I’m going to cry. It’s not because I’m sad. It’s because you’re such nice people. It’s sort of all welling up in my feet.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Finty. ‘I’ve met a load of shits in my life. You’re all right, you lot. Even you, Henny.’ She lifted her glass towards Mr Henderson. He looked as if he might smile, then he seemed to realize what he was doing and reorganized his face into a frown.

‘To Harold Fry,’ growled the Pearly King.

‘God bless him,’ said Sister Catherine.

Barbara lifted her glass. ‘In the end, it makes no difference who you are. It’s friends that count.’

We repeated your name and we drank. At first the liquid was thick and warm and sat in my mouth like paste. I had to work very hard to knock it back towards my throat. I never knew until recently that the simple act of swallowing could be so complicated. Then something inside the liquid, something that didn’t taste of cardboard but was
sweet and fiery instead, prickled my gums and sent my tastebuds zipping. It was like being a whole person again.

I remembered Christmas in my sea garden. I used to thread string around broken shells and hang them on the bare branches of the trees. Every year people came to look. Once I spent the day with a bag lady sipping sloe gin from plastic beakers and watching as the wind came in from the sea and sent the shell ornaments flashing and dancing above our heads. Her face was lit up. ‘I have never seen a place like this,’ she whispered. I thought she might go and say another thing and spoil it, but she didn’t. I fetched blankets and she sat beside me and we kept watching.

‘Wowzers.’ Finty slammed down her glass on the dayroom table. She swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I haven’t had a drink like that since the day I got arrested.’

Mr Henderson choked into his straw.

‘Arrested for what?’ That was one of the volunteers.

‘Let’s just say it involved a man from Gloucester and a fire extinguisher.’

‘Good grief,’ groaned Mr Henderson, catching my eye.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Sister Lucy, looking both delighted and baffled. ‘Are you saying that the nutritional drinks are nice today?’

‘They are somewhat better than usual,’ said the Pearly King, only he had to whisper because two new patients had dropped their glasses and were fast asleep. Consequently the Pearly King sounded less like a tractor and more like an electric toothbrush.

We all turned our attention to your postcard. It rested where Sister Catherine had left it, propped against a bottle of hygienic mouthwash
and some gauze swabs. ‘I almost can’t bear to hear Harold Fry’s news,’ said Finty, screwing up her eyes and hiding briefly behind her hands. ‘Go on, read it out, someone. Quick. Where is the fella now? Is he still walking?’

Sister Lucy picked up the postcard. She scanned it briefly. There was more tense silence.

‘Listen to all the places he has passed!’ she said at last.

‘Hurry, hurry,’ said Finty, ‘or I’ll piss myself, I’m so nervous.’

‘He has passed Cheltenham,’ said Sister Lucy.

‘Cheltenham?’ said the Pearly King. ‘I was there once. I went to the races. I went in my Rolls-Royce and came back on a bus.’ He laughed for a long time. ‘Yes, that was a good day.’

Sister Lucy continued to read. ‘He has passed Broadway.’

‘Broadway?’ said Barbara. ‘I was there once. I went with my neighbour. We had a cream tea. She bought coasters for her conservatory.’

Sister Lucy said, ‘He has passed Stratford-on-Avon.’

It was Mr Henderson’s turn. ‘Stratford? I was there once. I saw
King Lear
with Mary. We fed the swans in the interval.’

‘And, wait for it,’ said Sister Lucy. ‘Now he has reached Baginton.’

Sister Lucy paused for an interruption, but there wasn’t one.

She read on. ‘He says he met a nice young man called Mick who took his photograph and bought him a lemonade. Also, salt and vinegar crisps. He says—’ Here she broke off again and peered. ‘He has decided to travel without money. From now on he is going to sleep outside and rely on the kindness of strangers.’

There was no time to reply. A noise came. A long and high-pitched sob, like the whistle on a kettle. We all turned as Sister Philomena
gathered Barbara in her arms. Gripped as she was to the healthy body of the nun, Barbara was no more than a bundle of little sticks inside a dressing gown. ‘What is upsetting you?’ said Sister Philomena. ‘Is it Harold Fry? But he will be OK. He is making his journey.’

When the words came they were very small.

‘I wish I could have another Christmas,’ said Barbara. She shook with tears in the nun’s embrace.

We heard, but none of us spoke. We only watched her in the way a child watches another child in trouble, or a motorist slows to observe a motor accident, trying to understand without wanting to exchange places.

‘You will, Babs,’ called Finty. ‘You will.’

Behind Barbara, the mid-May sunshine poured through the dayroom windows like a twisting river of light.

The poet

D
AVID BEGAN
his second year at Cambridge. And then, out of the blue, there came a letter. It arrived at my flat on a Saturday. As letters go, it was brief. David still liked the course, he said, though the reading was sometimes boring. He said he’d had a crazy time in Europe!!!!! (I’ve never trusted an exclamation mark, especially a whole batch of them.) He added that he missed the Royal and gave me a return address. There was a PS. Could I spare any cash? There was a further PS. He was sorry.

I wrote back that same afternoon. I thought he had a nerve asking for money again but I forgave him, partly because I was touched that he still remembered me and partly because of the remark about the Royal. I sent him a card and a five-pound note, both in the same envelope.

The letters continued. Not regular but every few weeks, and every time he requested money. Sometimes I ignored them. The more insistent messages I replied to. I will admit, Harold, that I felt used. I knew that if I told you, you’d be mortified. In early December, David wrote to ask if he could visit for a weekend. He needed to see me, he said; things were getting heavy!!!!!!! He referred to me as his friend.

Without wanting to cause alarm, I asked if you or Maureen had heard anything, and you may or may not remember, but you gave me your usual reply about David being too busy to get in touch. In his letter, David had given me the coach times and asked if I’d pay for his fare, so I sent the money by return post. (Twenty pounds this time.) I cleaned my flat. I prepared him a bed on the sofa. Once he was in Kingsbridge, it was my intention to suggest that he should pay you and
Maureen a visit. On Friday afternoon I left work early. I was careful you didn’t see me go.

David didn’t show up. I waited three hours at the bus station with my book, and he never came. He didn’t write again either.
Stupid woman
, I thought. Of course he was never going to visit. He just wanted the money. He’d probably drunk his grant already. But at least I was spared lying to you.

Mid-December, you were back with the empties. I wondered if David would have the nerve to turn up at my flat, but he didn’t. The first time I spotted him in Kingsbridge, I couldn’t believe it was him.

The annual St Nicholas Fayre was in full swing down on the quay. I’d asked if you would be going, but you’d said the Christmas market wasn’t Maureen’s thing. It was a cold night without rain, and the lights from the stalls threw moving patterns on the black of the estuary. There was the spicy smell of mulled wine, I remember, as well as frying onions for hot dogs and burgers. For the younger children there were a few fairground attractions, and people were shouting and whooping over the noise of the engines. At the far end a large crowd had assembled to watch a local band on a temporary stage. I watched them awhile with my plastic cup of mulled wine warming my fingers – the band members were young, maybe David’s age – and people in the audience were beginning to dance. I spotted Napier’s secretary, Sheila, with her husband and a few of the reps. The warm wine kicked my throat and lifted me. In a way it was like being at the Royal again – a part of things, and not. It was a shame, I remember thinking, it was a shame you’d stopped at home. I moved on because another crowd was forming and I could hear laughter. I wanted to laugh too.

At the back of the crowd it was difficult for me to see, and the band music was so loud it was hard to hear. I edged forward a little, and that was when I had to stop and check that I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.

David stood in a central pool of bright light with a hand-held microphone. He had lost some weight. His features seemed more pointed, or rather separated; it occurred to me that he had probably used make-up. He’d grown his hair and tied it into a ponytail. He wore a dark baggy suit with wide lapels, teamed up with his old boots and also my mittens. When I picture the scene now, the gloves provide the only real colour. It’s like seeing a surprise burst of red in a black-and-white photograph. It’s almost shocking.