The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (29 page)

She smiled. ‘Yes, of course.’ Apparently he had rung his mother every day until the night he died. Once a year he hired a minibus and
drove his mother and her friends for tea in Plymouth. He couldn’t have been more charming, my visitor said.

So you see, people are rarely the straightforward thing we think they are. Even the villains in a story can turn round and surprise us.

I liked the woman who stopped by my garden and told me about Kingsbridge. I gave her a burnet rose cutting to take home. And sometimes, yes, I imagined you passing that small white rose, and getting the sweet scent of it.

A dinner engagement

A
FURTHER SURPRISE
, Harold, last night at the hospice. It began like this:

‘
Bon appétit
, Miss Hennessy,’ said Mr Henderson. The dining room was full and the windows open. Several patients were eating with their families. The nuns wore plastic aprons to protect their robes and the volunteers had gone in search of more chairs. I had been watching a soft June rain pattering on the pink roses outside so that they shivered a little and emitted a sweet, clean scent like linen napkins.

At his table next to mine, Mr Henderson lifted his glass of water as a toast but the glass wobbled in his hand, and Sister Catherine had to rescue it. ‘Stupid fool,’ he grumbled.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Henderson.’

‘No, no. I am the fool. Thank you, sister.’

Slowly he turned his face towards mine and gave a series of nods, as though he were agreeing to a number of criticisms being levelled against him. I shook my head to say no. No, you are not foolish, Mr Henderson. We all make mistakes.

‘I didn’t think I’d live to see the roses,’ he said. ‘Maybe your friend Harold Fry has saved me after all.’

Sister Catherine lit tea lights for the tables, though for health and safety reasons she had to leave out the patient with the oxygen tank. She gave each of us a small vase of sweet williams from the Well-being Garden. She helped me to open my napkin and spread it over my lap. When the starters were carried through, I saw that Mr Henderson managed to swallow down two grapefruit segments. I had half of one.

Over chicken broth, Mr Henderson told me about his career as a teacher. He saw, in hindsight, that he had been too hard on his pupils. He believed he had projected on to them his disappointment in himself. His hand shook with the spoon, and some of the soup splashed his chin. ‘Pardon me, pardon me,’ he said. I could manage mine only with the help of Sister Lucy. Even so, I swallowed very little. As Mr Henderson spoke, she murmured words like ‘Ah’ and ‘Well, now.’

He said, ‘Years ago, I’d have chosen a good steak. Fine-cut chips. I imagine you’d have asked for the fish of the day, Miss Hennessy.’

I smiled. I’d have had kippers from the smokehouse at Craster and a slice of brown bread. We’d have sat in my sea garden with plates on our laps and helped ourselves to a crisp Sauvignon. I might have lit candles in turquoise glass lamps and hung them in the branches, so that everywhere in the garden there were deep blue eyes.

‘I don’t like fish,’ said Sister Lucy. ‘It’s the faces that get me. I can’t look. They give me the shivers.’ To prove it, she shuddered and the plastic of her apron gave a rustle.

Mr Henderson told us about his ex-wife, Mary. It had been an unhappy marriage. Their divorce was difficult. Mr Henderson represented himself in court; Mary hired the services of a solicitor in London who was also his best friend. ‘It would have been so much easier if she’d picked someone I disliked. As it was, they took me to the cleaners.’ Here he paused to take his medication. ‘I lost them both. My wife and my best friend. I fear this has made me a bitter man.’

‘That’s too sad, Mr Henderson,’ said Sister Lucy.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘It’s the way life goes.’

‘What are you two up to down there?’ shouted a ghost in a
wide-brimmed straw hat. ‘Making plans for Harold Fry?’ She pointed to an embarrassed-looking young man beside her with a microphone. ‘I’m on local radio tonight!’

‘It’s all getting a little overwhelming, isn’t it?’ said Mr Henderson quietly. And I nodded to show that yes, it was. ‘I assume Harold Fry meant a great deal to you?’

Before I could answer, Sister Catherine interrupted with her trolley to offer a choice of desserts.

‘I will take the green jelly, sister,’ said Mr Henderson. ‘Miss Hennessy, what can I tempt you to?’

I pointed to a small glass bowl.

‘And Miss Hennessy will take the custard.’

‘Squeezy cream?’ asked Sister Catherine.

‘Squeezy cream?’ repeated Mr Henderson.

I shook my head.

‘Her cup overfloweth,’ said Mr Henderson.

‘Her cup does what?’ said Sister Lucy. She checked hurriedly beneath the table.

Mr Henderson passed me a fresh napkin. ‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘I would have suggested a fine pudding wine, Miss Hennessy, followed by coffee and mints. Afterwards we might have had a walk along the estuary to watch the sunset. Did you do such things with Harold Fry?’ Such was the disquiet in my mind, I could not lift my eyes though I felt him study me, long and hard, as if he were seeing right inside my heart. ‘Oh I see,’ he murmured at last. ‘I see. That must have been very hard for you.’

‘Desserts!’ announced Sister Catherine, passing our bowls. ‘Ding-a-ling! ’

Mr Henderson managed even less of the final course than I did. He could take his jelly only in small spoonfuls, and he swallowed little. In the end he mashed it with his spoon and draped the bowl with his napkin. Briefly he dozed while I finished what I could of my custard.

‘I wish you and I had met years ago,’ he said. ‘We might have enjoyed ourselves. But such is life. And maybe, years ago, you and I would not have noticed each other. We must be content with this.’ He indicated to Sister Catherine that he was ready to leave. He lifted a sweet william out of his vase and placed it on my table.

I wrote in my notebook so that Sister Lucy could show him the message.
Thank you for having dinner with me, Mr Henderson
.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Call me Neville.’ Sister Catherine wheeled him back to his room.

This morning Neville did not sit in his automatic recliner chair in the dayroom. He was not there this afternoon.

The undertaker’s van—

Well. You know the rest.

I pressed Neville’s flower between the pages of my notebook because I could not look after it, you see, in my garden.

An important message and a basket of washing

I
WAS HOLDING
a bunch of flowers in my hand. White chrysanthemums in a plastic wrapping.

‘Excuse me,’ I called out. I remained at the gate to your garden. On the other side, your wife was hanging out the washing. At first she didn’t notice me. She snatched items, one by one, from her basket and pegged them up on the line. She was wearing a housecoat, I remember that, and standing in weak sunlight. Behind her was a wreckage of splintered wooden planks, and smashed glass scattered every which way over the overgrown grass. I understood then that you had torn down your garden shed. I cast a glance at the windows of the house, wondering if you had heard me and were staring out, but they were hung with new net curtains. There was no sign of you.

Had you ripped down your shed before or after you smashed Napier’s glass clowns? One act of violence had clearly not been enough. It looked as if you wanted that wreckage in your garden, you and Maureen. Or maybe I should say, it looked as if you needed it. You needed to see the devastation inside you. To look out of your back window and see not a lawn and a fence, but chaos.

I’d known that facing Napier would be hard but I had also known, even at the outset, that the conversation with him could only end in one place, and that would be my resignation. But this was entirely different. Seeing your wife with her washing, the devastation around her, the nets blanking the windows, I had no idea any more what would
come next. I turned to go and then I thought again of what I’d done. I had to find you and tell the truth.

‘Excuse me,’ I repeated. This time Maureen lifted her head. She furrowed her brow against the light and compressed her mouth, as if trying to understand whether or not she was supposed to know me. ‘My name is Queenie Hennessy. I work at the brewery.’ She made no reply. She pulled a pillowcase from her basket and, as before, she slung it over the line and trapped it beneath two pegs.

Maureen’s hair had been cut short, like a boy’s, though it looked a hatchet job to me. I wondered if she’d done it herself and I thought of David’s hair, the last time I’d seen him. Her face was thin, very pale.

I held out my chrysanthemums. I had no idea whether I intended to leave them for you or give them to her or perhaps they were really in some strange way for David. I still don’t know the truth about why I’d bought those flowers on my way to your house.

‘Is Harold home?’ I called. There was a path of crazy paving between us. I wondered if she would invite me beyond the gate. She didn’t.

‘Harold?’ She repeated your name as though there were something strange about the way I’d said it.

I told her I had something to say to her husband. It was very important, I told her.

‘But he isn’t here.’

This was not the answer I was expecting. It hadn’t occurred to me I would not find you. ‘Where is he?’

‘I’ve no idea. Out. At work. I haven’t a clue.’

Maureen returned to her washing. She pulled a towel from the basket, and maybe it got stuck in with the other items because her face
twisted in annoyance as she gave it a hard yank. She threw it over the line and slipped two pegs from her pocket, snapping them over the towel.

‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘No.’ She replied without looking at me. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

Overhead a flock of gulls soared past, making a racket. One of them had something large in its beak – a heel of bread, I think – and it made a wild noise that sounded like
Go away, go away
. The others spun and twisted around the gull with the bread, shouting,
Haw haw haw
. We both glanced up, Maureen and I. ‘Bloody birds,’ said Maureen. ‘They’re vermin, really.’ She looked very pointedly at me. The eyes that held mine were wide and fierce, not wearied by grief, as I had expected, but spiked and charged with it. It was late summer, but my spine gave a shiver. I found I couldn’t return her gaze. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

In a rush, I asked if she could give you a message. I told her that you’d been involved in some trouble at the brewery. It was all dealt with now, I said. No need for her concern. I hadn’t intended to tell the whole story, but as she was not speaking, as she was only watching me with that detached expression of anger, I blurted out everything. I was hoping to touch her in some way, I was hoping for her sympathy, and the more she didn’t say, the more I told her. I explained that you’d shattered Napier’s prize possessions and that I had taken the blame and would have to leave Kingsbridge. Grief did terrible things to people, I said. And even as I spoke, I felt ridiculous. Who was I, to offer platitudes about the appalling loss she was suffering?

She kept staring at me, hard-eyed. I noticed her hands were tightly curled in fists.

I held out the flowers. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘They’re for you.’

‘For me?’

‘I’m so sorry.’ And saying those words, I began to cry. It was the last thing she needed, I was sure. I tried to blow my nose and make light of my tears but I could feel her watching me and I would say that something in her softened. Maybe she needed a person to cry in order to have any sort of real conversation.

Maureen came forward. She stopped on one side of the gate while I remained on the other. Now that we were close, I could see the red rims of her eyes. Obviously she hadn’t slept. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why are you sorry? It wasn’t your fault.’

I was about ready to scream. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Take them.’

Maureen took the flowers. Briefly she touched the shaggy white petals. ‘Dead man’s flowers,’ she murmured. She gave a bitter laugh as though the joke were meant only for herself. ‘You’re Queenie Hennessy, aren’t you?’

I wondered if she’d taken in anything of what I’d told her. I said, ‘Will you tell your husband I said goodbye?’

She made no reply at first, she only caught me with her moss-green eyes. ‘I suppose you’re in love with him.’ Her voice was quiet, restrained. I felt the opposite: my face was on fire.

Maureen did not flinch or look away from me. ‘Does he even know?’

‘No. Not at all. I would never—’ I didn’t get any further. I couldn’t say it.

‘Oh,’ she murmured, as if despite myself I had told her the whole story. ‘Well, take him. If you want him. Go inside the house. Pack his bag. Go on.’ She threw a look over her shoulder, back at those white-bleached windows. And then she returned
to me with her wild, angry eyes. ‘Go on,’ she spat. ‘Just go.’

I was completely thrown. I had a picture of you and me, side by side, you with your driving gloves and me in the passenger seat, and I couldn’t help myself, I started to shake. Even though the leaves were beginning to turn, we were standing in sunlight, Maureen and I. Nevertheless I felt nothing but the cold. It was in my hands, my skin, my hair. It shot through and through me. ‘Or maybe
I’ll
go,’ she said with a bitter laugh. ‘How about that? Would that suit you better?’

She turned and marched back to her washing. She threw my flowers on top of the basket, then something caught her eye and she stooped and gently eased out a T-shirt. I knew it at once. It was one of David’s. For the second time her face softened while she hung it on the line, while she straightened the T-shirt and smoothed it down, as if he were inside it and she was checking him for creases.

I realized, then, that her grief was as boundless as the sky. It was a form of insanity, and yet it wasn’t because it was all there was. No matter where Maureen went, what she did, what she said, what she looked at, her loss was everywhere. There could be no getting away from it.

‘I don’t have any decent photographs of him,’ she said. For a stupid moment I thought we were still talking about you, then I understood, of course, that we weren’t. David was all that there was in her mind. ‘And now I’m beginning to forget what he looked like. It’s only a few weeks since I lost him but when I try to see him in my head, little parts of him already sort of blur and I can’t get him right. How can my head do that to me?’ She spoke with unconcealed bewilderment.