The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy (6 page)

That was when I raised my eyes and found it was you. The man I’d been looking for. I blushed.

To my surprise, you did the same. But you were not embarrassed because you had been secretly spying from a first-floor window. Oh, no. You were openly gawping straight down Sheila’s cleavage. You couldn’t seem to budge your eyes. ‘Gosh,’ you said out loud.

‘Oh, hello there, Mr Fry,’ said Sheila.

You looked devastated, as if your mouth had come out with the one word you had trusted would remain inside it. Then you tried to make up for your appalling indiscretion. What you came up with was ‘Golly.’

‘Harold Fry is one of the reps,’ said Sheila to me, as if this explained everything. Sheila said to you, ‘This is Miss Hennessy. She’s new. She’s in accounts.’

You adjusted the knot of your tie. (It was not out of place. It never was. But I came to know it was a thing you did, just as other people clear their throats, or just as my father used to say, ‘Well, there it was,’ when a conversation reached a natural end.)

‘Pleased to meet you both,’ you said, offering your hand. And once again you seemed to realize what you’d done, and this time you
groaned. By now, the other reps were beginning to put down their meat pies and cigarettes and laugh.

‘Would you care to join us, Mr Fry?’ I asked.

You were in it now. It was clear you wished to flee both the canteen and your mistake, but you put down your sandwiches next to mine on the table. That seemed to be as far as you were willing to go. I had made my sandwiches that morning: ham on brown bread. Yours were in a Tupperware container with the name
David Fry
taped to the lid. I guessed you had a wife who’d made your lunch.

So there were three of us not knowing what to say where before there had been only two. Sheila and I looked up at you and you remained on your feet, hovering in close proximity to your sandwich box.

In the end Sheila said, ‘I’m getting married next week.’

‘Well, how nice,’ you said.

‘Actually, I’m really nervous.’

‘Nervous? Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just am. I can hardly eat. Look.’ She showed us her packed lunch and she was right. She’d barely pecked at it.

You shared a quick, anxious glance with me. It linked us briefly as if it were our duty to join forces and help this young woman. Not knowing her or you, of course, and knowing nothing about marriage either, I merely shrugged. Over to you, tall man. Besides, I was thrown by your eyes. The blue of them was so generous, I couldn’t quite think of anything else.

You caught your hands behind your back. You placed your feet firmly astride, rooting them to the floor. You bowed your head a moment, thinking something through, so that those lines appeared again and
pleated your forehead. Sheila gave me a look as if to say, What’s he doing? And I gave her a return smile that said, I haven’t a clue but wait.

‘Please don’t be nervous,’ you said slowly. ‘I spent most of my wedding night in the bathroom. It was still the best day of my life. You’ll be happy.’ Here you lifted your head and gave a benevolent smile. Your whole face looked full of it, out to your ears. Your eyes shone. I knew then that you would always see the positive side because you liked people, and you wanted the best for them. It was intoxicating.

Before my work at the brewery, I’d done many things, seen many places, met many people. I’d got a first in classics. I’d taken a job in a bar to fund a secretarial course. I’d had the job as a researcher, and when that got too much I’d taken another as a tour guide and afterwards a tutor. I’d hung around for a few years with a troupe of female artists in Soho, I’d got involved with a retired high court judge (the Shit) in Corby. All in all, I’d heard people do a lot of things with words. I’d heard them not say what they meant and I’d seen them not do what they said, but I’d never met a person who could speak so simply and still convey so much. Sheila listened in awe. There you stood, feet firm, shoulders set, believing she would be happy with such conviction that right away she began to believe it too. Then you said, ‘Well, cheerio, ladies,’ and you walked off with my sandwiches.

It turned out yours were turkey and salad cream on white. Your wife had cut off the crusts. I know this because I ate them.

Sheila said to me, ‘He’s a good man, Mr Fry. He’s not like the others. I’ll be OK now.’

‘He’s a dancer, isn’t he?’

Sheila laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. He mostly, you know, he mostly sits.’

Afterwards I asked the other secretaries about you, but no one had much to add. You had already worked at the brewery longer than a lot of people. You’d never missed a day’s work, not even when your son was born. Apparently you took a two-week holiday every summer with your family, but there were no photographs on your desk because I checked when I returned your Tupperware and all I found were paperclips, a plastic pencil sharpener and a complimentary Christmas calendar from the Chinese takeaway. It was out of date.

Watching you from a distance, I discovered several new things: on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays you wore a brown suit and a selection of golf club ties; on Tuesdays and Thursdays you wore beige corduroys and a beige V-necked sweater. When it came to fashion, it seemed you were mainly interested in blending in with the background.

Your eyes were a deep blue, almost shocking they were so vivid. Years later, I tried to find the same colour in my sea garden, and sometimes I thought the irises had it, sometimes my blue poppies. On an early summer morning, when the sky was reflected in the smooth folds of the sea, it was there I found you. You walked with a straight spine. Your hair was a thick sweep of brown that never quite sat flat. You wore your scarf (fawn stripes) in a tight knot and this made me wonder if your mother had once said you’d get a cold unless you kept your neck warm. It lifted my spirits at the brewery to watch you from a distance and ask myself these things. I assumed you had a drinking habit of which you were ashamed, but there. We all have secrets.

I never saw you without a golf club tie.

I never saw you with a golf club.

I never saw you without yachting shoes.

I never saw you in a yacht.

The lonely gentleman

W
ELL
, H
AROLD
, you’ve been walking a full week and now you have passed Exeter. And two postcards in one day! The description of your feet inside your socks was particularly vivid. I hope you managed to buy plasters in Chudleigh. And I like the picture of Exeter. The cathedral and the green. It’s strange to think it is twenty years since I was last there. The day I left Devon for good.

‘Dear Queenie,’
read Sister Lucy.
‘Do not give up. Best wishes, Harold Fry.’

‘So the fool hasn’t gone home yet?’ said Mr Henderson.

‘Of course not!’ shouted Finty. ‘He is walking to see Queenie Hennessy.’

In today’s post, she received a voucher offering a year’s supply of McVitie’s crackers if she fills out an online questionnaire. There was nothing for Mr Henderson.

‘With post like yours, who needs enemies?’ he said.

The Pearly King had two parcels but said he would prefer to open them in his room. Barbara received a knitted glasses case from her nephew. ‘That’s so nice,’ she said. ‘What a shame I’ve got no eyes. But I can keep my syringe driver in the knitted case. That will be nice too.’

Another set of patients will arrive this afternoon.

‘When you come in those doors, it’s a one-way ticket,’ said Mr Henderson. ‘Whose turn next?’

I pretended to read your cards.

‘Did you live in Kingsbridge once, Queenie?’ asked Sister Catherine.
I gave a fast nod. ‘Is that how you made friends with Harold Fry?’ Another nod. ‘What made you leave?’ I felt my nose prickle. Sister Lucy took my hand.

‘So when do we suppose Harold Fry will get here?’ she said gamely. ‘Tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon?’

Sister Lucy is one of the kindest young women I’ve met. When it comes to French manicures and blow-drying, she has no equal. But I don’t believe the poor girl has ever seen a map of England.

No wonder she is challenged by her jigsaw.

Yes, I remember Exeter. It was right at the end. I’d gone to your home in Fossebridge Road to say goodbye and I’d met your wife instead. It was the only time we ever spoke, she and I, and it was one of the most devastating conversations of my life. I remember the busy café opposite Exeter station where I sat early the following morning with my tartan suitcase and wondered what to do next. It was clear I had to leave. Maureen’s words rang in my ears. Whenever I was still, I heard them. I’d walked and walked after our meeting, but it was no good, I couldn’t get away from what she’d told me. I saw her too. In my mind I saw her. Hanging the washing, over and over, as if the sun would never come and the wind would never blow and her task would never finish. Behind her, net curtains now hung at every window. The house had closed its eyes.

I don’t know why some of these memories must remain so crystal clear. I recall one sliver and the whole picture comes rushing back, while other things, for instance, other things I would
like
to remember, are completely unavailable. If only memory were a library with everything
stored where it should be. If only you could walk to the desk and say to the assistant, I’d like to return the painful memories about David Fry or indeed his mother and take out some happier ones, please. About stickleback fishing with my father. Or picnicking on the banks of the Cherwell when I was a student.

And the assistant would say, Certainly, madam. We have all those. Under F for Fishing. As well as P for Picnicking. You’ll find them on your left.

So there my father would be. Tall and smiling in his work overalls, a roll-up in one hand and my fishing net in the other. I’d skip to keep up with him as he strode the broken lane down to the stream. ‘Where is that girl? Where are you?’ The hedgerow flowers would boil with insects and my father would lift me to his shoulders and then— What?

I haven’t a clue. I don’t remember the rest.

But I was writing about the café in Exeter. The place was already packed. Suitcases, bags, rucksacks. One could barely move. It was the very end of the school holidays, and there was an early morning fog outside. All around me I saw joined-together people, talking and laughing and looking forward to their joined-together futures. It was an insult, all of it. So much happiness, it had steamed up the windows. I chose a table by the door. Every time it opened, I hoped it would be you. Harold will have heard what I have done for him, I thought. Even if Maureen has failed to give him my message, he will have bumped into someone from the brewery who will have told him. Harold will come to find me and I will tell the truth. All I wanted was to see you one last time.

‘Excuse me? Is this seat free?’

My heart gave a swing. I looked up, and it was, of course, another man. Not you. He had thick brown hair, but it didn’t give the smallest kink of a curl at the nape of the neck like yours, and neither did it poke out a little above the ears. He pointed at the empty place opposite mine. No, that seat’s reserved, I told him. I’m waiting for someone. Now bugger off.

I didn’t say that last bit, but my head did.

The man nodded and moved away. There was something so afraid and careful about him, picking his way around the luggage, the noise. He didn’t seem to know the place. He looked like a glass animal, too delicate-limbed. Eventually he found a spare seat beside a family and perched himself on the edge. He kept checking his cuffs, his hair, his shoes, the way people do when they’re unsure and they need to remind themselves where they stop and the rest of the world begins. He ordered a pot of Ceylon tea (no milk) and a toasted teacake. Then the child next to him tipped her plastic cup upside down and showered him with juice.

Everyone jumped to their feet. The lonely gentleman, the waitresses, the other customers. Don’t worry, don’t worry, he kept saying, dabbing his suit with his handkerchief. The girl’s parents were passing him paper napkins, and they were saying, Just send us the dry-cleaning bill, why don’t you have our food instead? And he was blushing and saying, No, no, please. No, no, please. The more attention he got, the more pained he looked. And I sat watching, I am ashamed to say, thinking, Good. Make the lonely man squirm. At least it isn’t me.

A young man arrived. He didn’t come into the café. He stopped at the doorway. Jeans. T-shirt. New cowboy boots. With his arms folded,
he scanned the tables as though he were counting us. The lonely gentleman stood. He mopped his suit again, but his hands were shaking. Excuse me, he said. Excuse me, world. He left money for the bill and followed the young man out of the café.

I wiped the steam from the window with my sleeve. From where I sat, I watched them make their way down the street. The lonely gentleman walked alongside the young man, hands in pockets, until the young man reached his arm around the lonely gentleman and pulled him close. Other people noticed, skirted them, but the young man kept his arm around the gentleman and steered him forward. I watched them against the fog. Then they were gone.

You see, even the only other single person in the café was not a single person. It was the final straw. Harold Fry is not coming, I thought. You can wait a whole lifetime and he will not come. For what I had done, there could never be forgiveness. I grasped the handle of my tartan suitcase and yanked it through the crowd, in the way I have seen an exasperated mother tug a screaming child out of the way of strangers. ‘Mind where you’re going,’ people muttered at me. I hated them, but really the person I hated was myself. I fled.

At the train station, I scanned the departures board, trying to find the farthest destination. I’d have gone to Mars if it had been listed. As it was, I had to settle for Newcastle.

‘Single, madam?’

Ha ha. Very funny. Thank you for pointing that out. ‘Yes, I am all alone.’

‘No, I mean, are you planning to come back, madam? Do you want a return ticket?’

The truth dawned on me. I didn’t want to go. Please, let me not go. This is not what I want. I am in love with Harold Fry. My life will be nothing if I leave. And then I remembered Maureen’s words and I felt again the hollowing punch of them.