The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (26 page)

But it was the tall figure at the very centre of my garden that I loved the most.

Wedding bells

A
YOUNG
male patient was helped into the dayroom by his boyfriend. The patient was wearing jogging trousers and a T-shirt that drooped from his shoulders. His boyfriend wore a crisp blue suit. ‘Hello, everyone,’ called the boyfriend. ‘Do you mind if we sit with you?’

‘Go ahead,’ said Finty. She moved her cut-out shapes and carefully folded her
WELCOME, HAROLD FRY
banner.

‘Harold Fry?’ said the boyfriend. ‘I think I’ve heard of him.’

‘Yeah, he’s walking for us,’ said Finty, indicating everyone in the room. ‘We expect him any day.’

The boyfriend helped his partner to sit and asked if he needed anything, like water or a blanket. His partner lifted his hand to say no, I am OK. He rested his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. The boyfriend stroked his partner’s cheek and whispered into his ear. They were only small, still words, like There, there. OK. I love you. Here I am.

‘Are you gay, or what?’ interrupted Finty.

The boyfriend said, ‘Do you want us to sit somewhere else?’

‘Fuck no,’ trilled Finty. ‘You’re the first man I’ve seen with his own hair in weeks. You stay right there.’

‘Peter and I are getting married today,’ said the boyfriend. ‘You can all come if you like.’

‘I don’t think we’re going to make it to a church, mate,’ growled the Pearly King. He pointed to the knitted blue bag on his lap containing his syringe driver.

‘Neither will we,’ said the boyfriend. ‘Sister Philomena held a
meeting with the staff. They have agreed we can have a blessing in the dayroom.’

‘What about God?’ asked Mr Henderson.

‘Sister Philomena’s view is that God takes a broader view.’

‘A wedding?’ yelled Finty. ‘Does that mean I get to borrow a new hat?’

As it was, there was no time for borrowing hats. There was no time for confetti. An hour later, we sat in a circle, with the new patient and his boyfriend at the centre. The nurses joined us, and so did a few of the nuns. Those who were uncertain about a gay wedding in a Catholic hospice were given the opportunity to do work elsewhere. The boyfriend slipped a ring over Peter’s bone-slim finger, and then he supported Peter’s hand so that Peter could fix a ring on the finger of the boyfriend. A woman in a fuchsia-coloured trouser suit conducted a brief civil ceremony. She told us how much it meant to Peter that we were there to witness his wedding. ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,’ sobbed Finty. ‘You two look so fucking happy.’

‘Can you hear me, Peter?’ whispered the boyfriend. ‘Can you hear that I’m your husband now?’

Peter smiled and closed his eyes.

Finty emptied an entire family-size box of tissues. She said it was a shame they weren’t going to have a party and Peter’s new husband gave an easy shrug. ‘But we’re going to have a party for Harold Fry when he gets here,’ she said. ‘You can come to that instead. Do you know that other gay bloke? Whatshisname? That singer? Maybe he could come an’ all.’

The husband kissed Peter’s forehead and laughed that no, he didn’t know any singers, gay or straight or indeed both ways.

‘Ah, well,’ said Finty. ‘Never mind. You can join us, if you like. You two buggers can wait for Harold Fry.’

Peter’s husband flexed his right hand and gazed at his wedding ring with a sort of rapture, as if he had never seen anything so beautiful.

Peter was not in his chair this morning.

I watched while, in the Well-being Garden, Sister Philomena held his husband in her arms. Afterwards she showed him the blossom. She lifted a branch of philadelphus and he stooped to get the orange-sweet smell of it.

The undertaker parked his van and stepped out to meet them.

A shock

‘BLOODY HELL! GET HERE QUICK!’

I was in my room with Sister Mary Inconnue, not writing in my notebook, not even remembering anything in particular, only staring at a large pigeon that was trying to maintain its balance in a particularly twiggy part of the tree, when we were interrupted by a caterwauling from the dayroom.

‘Harold Fry is on the telly! Quick, everyone! Quick!’

Sister Mary Inconnue gave a weary shake of her head as Sister Lucy hurried through the door. The young nun lifted me out of bed and bundled me into my wheelchair. As she rushed me down the corridor, other doors flew open and patients emerged, helped by family or volunteers.

When I arrived in the room, people turned and made a space for me at the front. Sister Philomena took the remote control and increased the volume.

There seemed to be a party happening on the television. We watched a group of people walking down a country road, some dressed professionally with sticks and boots and so on, others playing bells and drums. At the head of the procession strode a tall man with weather-tanned skin, little hair and a very serious beard.

It was you.

My insides swerved as if I had missed a step and was about to fall.

‘The man on the TV said that Harold Fry has some new people with him now,’ said Finty. She got up and tapped the television screen with
her red fingernail. Several people complained that she was in the way and that they couldn’t see without falling out of their wheelchairs, but she ignored them and continued to point at the assembled group of walkers. ‘There’s a gorilla, right, and a twat in a hat. Then there’s this boy who seems a right fucker and another woman who looks like she’s sucking a lemon. They’ve just passed Harrogate. They’re all walking to save us.’

My heart took another plunge. It was the boy at your side that undid me. For a moment, I could have sworn you were walking with David.

Hrr-hrm. No one mention (David Fry)

I
DIDN
’
T
know what to do, Harold, when I heard the news. The reps were talking about you in the corridor. ‘Have you heard what’s happened to Fry?’ They seemed in a hurry to tell one another because it was a story, it was a tragedy, but it didn’t really touch them in any way. I listened in frozen stillness. My first impulse was to come straight to your home and find you. I wanted to confess everything. Instead I went to the washroom and almost fainted. It was shock. I felt as if the world had just had a great big hole punched out of it and that, without anyone knowing, I was directly responsible. I could barely walk in a straight line.

‘You look terrible,’ said Sheila. She lifted the back of her hand to my forehead and held it there. ‘My God,’ she whispered. ‘You’re boiling.’ The gesture reminded me of my mother, and thinking of her I was overwhelmed. For the first time in years I missed her desperately, in the same way I had missed her after her death. I wanted her and my father to take me out of this. I wanted his hand around mine. ‘You should go home,’ said Sheila.

I don’t remember my bus journey that afternoon. I don’t know if I paid my fare, or if I spoke to anyone. I remember the heat, I do remember that. More than anything, I longed to be alone. But when I got into the flat, I felt even worse.

It was the silence. I saw the chair where David used to sit and bearing witness to the armchair without him in it was like looking right into the loss of him. Outside there were cars, there were seagulls, there were
people taking a late afternoon stroll along the estuary. Everything was as it should be. Except there was no David Fry. I thought of you, and him, and I cried for many hours.

In bed that night, I lay fully clothed with my arms clamped round my knees and my feet tucked up high. No matter how many layers I added, I could not stop shuddering. When I closed my eyes, all I could picture was David, blue in the dark, swinging from the central beam of your garden shed. If only I hadn’t heard the reps mention that. My head offered further images of him tying the noose, looking for something to stand on, fitting the rope around his neck. Had he wanted to die? Even as he choked? Had he hoped to be saved? How I longed for him to kick at my door, holler my name through the letterbox. When I slept, it was only briefly.

I woke some time in the early hours of the morning, so hot I couldn’t move. I felt I’d been swallowed in concrete. Somehow I got up, and all I could do was not be still. Kitchen, bathroom, sitting room, doorway. I hardly paused. I dressed in a hurry. I couldn’t bear to be alone another moment. I had to get back to the brewery.

I overheard the reps saying that you would be away for at least two weeks. There’d be an autopsy before the funeral. It didn’t bear thinking about, Sheila said. It didn’t seem to bear much talking about either because it wasn’t mentioned again.

I had no idea how I would ever look you in the eye. I knew that when I confessed the truth, you must hate me. And equally I knew that of all the men I passed on the street, on the bus, in the canteen, the one I most needed to find was you.

*

It is a blisteringly hot afternoon. A week has passed since David’s death. If anything I’m feeling worse. No sleep. No appetite. I can’t stop thinking of him. I haven’t seen you since before he died.

I take the bus to the funeral parlour. I have to mark his passing in some way because it’s unendurable, this pretending I am one thing and knowing I am another. The sun scorches my eyes. Everything – the sky, the pavement, the passing traffic – is too white, too fierce. I push open the door to the funeral parlour. The place has a chilled, sweet smell that I know is to do with embalming. Nevertheless it’s like walking into a different universe. My shoes echo on the cold floor. I wish I had a coat.

A man in a suit greets me. Asks how he can help. He wears a black tie, cuff links; there is a professional air of mourning about him, not the chaos of us amateurs. I assume he’s the undertaker.

I ask to see David Fry. Hearing David’s name, the man’s face softens towards me and for the first time it seems possible someone understands the grief I am suffering. There is a place for it here.

‘Do you have an appointment?’ he asks.

I explain that I don’t exactly have an appointment but I am a friend of the family. I repeat that I would like to see David. I need to see him, I add.

My reply is not the right one. The undertaker grows uncomfortable. He steps back from me and reaches for some sort of notepad and fountain pen. My mouth dries up. The undertaker will need to telephone his client, he says. I cannot visit the deceased unless I have an appointment.

‘But he’s hardly going anywhere,’ I answer, raising my voice. By the end of the sentence I’m also beginning to cry. There seem to be
no boundaries any more between normal and grief-stricken.

The undertaker’s face hardens. Maybe he suspects I am a journalist. I don’t know. ‘I can’t allow you to stay, madam,’ he says. Already he’s heading for the door, opening it for me, and the rush of heat and light from outside is so intense it is like noise. I want to remain inside. I can’t bear to be thrown out, when it has taken so much strength to face coming, and now I am here I’ve achieved nothing.

Maybe he senses my pain, because the undertaker asks if I have anything for the coffin. He can pass it on to his client; he can do that much for me. I assume he’s asking for money, like they do at church when the silver plate gets passed round, and such is my guilt, my pain, I’d give every penny I’ve saved if I believed it might bring you some sort of comfort. I am opening my handbag when another suited man emerges from a room at the far end of the reception. I see almost nothing of the room; a soft blue wall perhaps, behind the polish of a wooden coffin, the brass handles. I don’t even know that it is David’s coffin. But it is like being punched.

I hurt all over. Even inside my lungs there is hurting.

I ask the funeral director to give David his red mittens. They are in my handbag. They’ve been there since the day I found he’d left them behind. Did they belong to the deceased? Yes, they belonged to the deceased. The undertaker will consult his client. Don’t bother consulting your client, I say. Just take the things, will you? Just let me get them out of my handbag. Because I am in torture here. This is all too much. I place the mittens in his hands and I leave before he can give them back to me.

I am waiting at the bus stop when I see your car draw up outside the
funeral parlour. I see you get out and move to the passenger door, only before you get there the door flies open, almost hitting you, and a small, slight woman, a little taller than me, springs out. Maureen wears a black summer dress and dark sunglasses and she carries a pillow and a teddy bear. Something for the coffin; of course. Her steps are fast, brittle. She is impatient to get inside the funeral parlour. You in contrast move slowly. You walk behind her, carrying nothing in your hands, and you seem unable to lift your head. At the door Maureen pauses and says something to you, because you nod and step aside. Once you are alone, you pull out a cigarette and ask a passer-by for a light. I hear a shriek, a terrible female cry, resound from inside the funeral parlour. I imagine the funeral director has guided her to the room he would not allow me to enter. You rush to the corner and vomit over a litter bin.

From the opposite side of the street, I see it all. But you don’t see me.

A few days later we met. This time there was no avoiding you. I was in the chemist’s, searching the shelves for something to help me sleep, when you opened the door. Quietly you asked the assistant behind the counter about a prescription for your wife. You were trying to be discreet, but the shop had become so stiff and solemn on your arrival that it was as if you were the only living thing inside it. The sight of you made my heart churn over and over.

The chemist was in a hurry to find Maureen’s tablets. When he passed you the bag, he said, ‘Please accept my condolences, Mr Fry.’ Another woman in the shop, the customer who was the closest to you, repeated in an uncomfortable way that she too was very sorry ‘for your loss’. Nobody seemed to have the right words at their disposal and so
it was safer to say nothing or at least stick to the well-worn phrases. You, in turn, gave a listless nod, as if you wished everyone would stop all this and let you go.