Ten years ago, Harold Fry set off on his epic journey on foot to save a friend. But the story doesn't end there. Now his wife, Maureen, has her own pilgrimage to make.
1
Winter Journey
It was too early for birdsong. Harold lay beside her, his hands neat
on his chest, looking so peaceful she wondered where he travelled
in his sleep. Certainly not the places she went: if she closed her
eyes, she saw roadworks. Dear God, she thought. This is no good.
She got up in the pitch-black, took off her nightdress and put on
her best blue blouse with a pair of comfortable slacks and a cardigan.
‘Harold?’ she called. ‘Are you awake?’ But he didn’t stir. She
picked up her shoes and shut the bedroom door without a sound.
If she didn’t go now, she never would.
Downstairs she switched on the kettle, and while it boiled, she
got out her Marigolds and wiped a few surfaces. ‘Maureen,’ she
said out loud, because she was no fool. She could tell what she was
doing, even if her hands couldn’t. Fussing, that’s what. She made a
flask of instant coffee and a round of sandwiches that she wrapped
in clingfilm, then wrote him a message. She wrote another that said
‘Mugs!’ and another that said ‘Pans!’ and before she knew it, the
kitchen was covered with Post-it notes, like small yellow alarm
signals. ‘Maureen,’ she said again, and took them all down. ‘Go
now. Go.’ She hung Harold’s wooden cane from the chair where he
couldn’t miss it, then slipped the Thermos into her bag along with
the sandwiches, put on her driving shoes and winter coat, picked
up her suitcase and stepped out into the beautiful early morning.
The sky was clear and pointed with stars, and the moon was like
the white part of a fingernail. The only light came from Rex’s house
next door. And still no birdsong.
It was cold, even for January. The crazy paving had frozen
overnight and she had to grab hold of the handrail. There were
splinters of ice in the ruts between stones, and the front garden was
no more than a few glass thorns. She turned on the ignition to
warm the car while she scraped at the windows. The frost was
rough, like sandpaper, and lay as far as she could see, slick beneath
the street lamps of Fossebridge Road, but no one else was out. It
was a Sunday, after all. She waved at Rex’s house in case he was
awake, and that was it. She was going.
Road-gritters had already passed through Fore Street, and salt
lay in pink mats all the way up the hill. She drove north past the
bookstore and the other shops that would be closed until Monday,
but she didn’t look. It was a good while since she’d used the high
street. These days, she and Harold mostly went online, and not just
because of the pandemic. The quiet row of shops became night-lit
rows of houses. In turn they became a dark emptiness with a
closed-down petrol station somewhere in the middle. She passed
the turning for the crematorium that she visited once a month and
kept driving. Now that she was on the road, she felt not excitement,
but more a sense that, even though she didn’t know how to
explain it, she was doing the right thing. Harold had been right.
‘You have to go, Maureen,’ he’d said. She had come up with a list
of reasons why she couldn’t but in the end she’d agreed. She’d offered
to show him how to use the dishwasher and the washing
machine
because he sometimes got confused about which buttons to press
and then she wrote the instructions clearly on a piece of paper.
‘You are sure?’ she’d said again, a few days later. ‘You really
think I should do this?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ He was sitting in the garden while she
raked old leaves. He’d done up his coat lopsided, so that the left
half of him was adrift from the right.
‘But who will take care of you?’
‘I will take care of me.’
‘What about meals? You need to eat.’
‘Rex can help.’
‘That’s no good. Rex is worse than you are.’
‘That is true, of course. Two old fools!’
At this, he’d smiled. Only, something about the completeness
of his smile made her miss him without even going anywhere, so
that he could be as sure as he damn well liked, but she wasn’t. She
had put down her rake. Gone to him and redid his buttons. He sat
patiently, gazing up at her with his delft-blue eyes. No one but
Harold had ever looked at her like that. She stroked his hair and
then he lifted his fingertips to her face, and drew her down to his,
and kissed her.
‘Maureen, you won’t feel right unless you go,’ he’d said.
‘Okay, then. I’m going. I’m going, and nothing will stop me!
Though, if you don’t mind, I won’t walk. I’ll take the more conventional
route, thank you very much. I’ll drive.’
They’d laughed because they both knew she was doing her
best to sound bigger than she felt. After that she went back to raking
the leaves and he went back to watching the sky, but the silence
was filled with all the things she did not know how to say.
So here she was, with Harold in her head, while she travelled
further and further away from him. Only last night he had cleaned
her driving shoes and set them, side by side, next to the chair with
her clothes. ‘I won’t wake you in the morning,’ she’d promised, as
they got into bed and said goodnight. He had held his hand tight
round hers until he fell asleep, and then she had curled up close
and listened to the steady repeat of his heart, trying to take in some
of his peacefulness.
“She turned on her mobile but that was no use either, and anyway Harold would still be asleep. For a moment she just sat there. Already confounded. Harold would say, ‘Ask someone,’ but that was Harold.”
Maureen drove slowly but there was hardly any traffic. If a car
came towards her with its headlights shining, she saw it in plenty
of time and pulled over in the right place – she even waved a polite
thank-you – then the lanes were dark again, just the swing of hedge
and tree as she passed. From there, she joined a dual carriageway
and that was even better because the road was straight and wide
and still pretty empty, with lorries parked in lay-bys. But as she got
closer to Exeter, there were lots of roadworks, exactly as she’d
dreamt during the night, and she got confused by the detours. She
was no longer on the A38, but instead a chain of by-passes and
residential roads, with many mini-roundabouts in between. Maureen
drove for another twenty minutes before it occurred to her
that the yellow diversion signs had stopped a while back and she
had come to the edge of a housing estate. All she could see were
blocks of flats and bony trees growing in spaces between paving
slabs. It was still dark.
‘Oh, well, that’s great,’ she said. ‘That’s marvellous.’ It wasn’t
just herself she spoke to. She also had a habit of talking to the
silence as if it was deliberately making things difficult for her.
Increasingly she could not tell the difference between what she
thought and what she said.
Maureen passed more flats and more tiny trees and cars parked
everywhere, as well as delivery vans on the early shift, but still no
sign of the A38. She turned down a long service road because there
was a row of bright street lamps in the distance, only to find herself
at the bottom of a dead end, with a large depot to her left that was
surrounded by a set of open gates and spiked fencing.
She pulled over and got out her road map but she had no idea
where to start looking. She turned on her mobile but that was no
use either, and anyway Harold would still be asleep. For a moment
she just sat there. Already confounded. Harold would say, ‘Ask
someone,’ but that was Harold. The whole point of driving was
that she wouldn’t have to deal with people she didn’t know. ‘Okay,’
she said firmly. ‘You can do this.’ She would take her map and be
like Harold. She would ask for help at the depot.
Maureen got out of the car, and at once she felt the cold against
her face and ears and inside her nose. As she crossed the car park,
security lamps snapped on to her left and right, almost blinding
her. She could make out light from a prefab cabin to the left of the
main building but she had to go cautiously, with her arms shot
out to keep her balance. Maureen’s driving shoes were those flat
suede ones with a bar across the top and special gripper soles; they
were good on wet pavements but nothing was good on black ice.
There were notices with pictures of dogs, warning that the premises
were regularly patrolled, and she was afraid they might come
running out. When she was a child, the local farmer had let his
dogs roam freely. She still had a little scar beneath her chin.
Maureen rapped at the window of the hut. The young man on
night duty wasn’t even awake. He was hunched in a fold-out camping
chair, the turban on his head crushed against the wall, his
mouth agape and his legs sprawled all over the place. She knocked
again, a bit louder, and called, ‘Excuse me!’
He rubbed his eyes, startled. He pulled himself out of his chair
and seemed to grow and grow. He was so tall he had to duck as he
stumbled to the window, putting on his mask only as an afterthought.
He had a thick brown beard, with hefty shoulders like a
boxer’s, and his hands were so large he had a problem undoing the
catch on the window. He slid it open and crooked his neck sideways
as he blinked and stared down at her.
‘I’m not going to pretend. I’m lost. I’m trying to get to the M5
but all those roadworks on the A38 sent me off in the wrong direction.’
Her voice was louder than she’d intended because of the
window, which she had to reach up towards, but also because she
was anxious and he might not understand. Besides, she hated
admitting she’d made a mistake. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the
route.
He gazed at her another moment, trying his best to wake up.
Then he said, ‘You’re lost?’
‘It was the roadworks. Normally I’m fine. Normally I have no
problem. I just need to get to the M5.’ She was doing it again. She
was shouting.
He moved away from the window and opened the door at the
side. She waited, not knowing what he expected her to do, just
worrying about those dogs, until he called, ‘Excuse me?’ So she put
on her mask and went round.
Now that she was in the cabin, the young man seemed even
larger. The top of her head would barely reach his chest. He stood
with his neck at an angle and his body hunched to make it smaller.
Even his shoes – a pair of solid black lace-ups, the kind they used
to put on children to correct their feet – couldn’t get enough space.
And it was obvious why he’d been asleep. An old electric fire blazed
out orange heat from beneath the window. It was like being spit-roasted
from the ankles upwards. Anyone would have fallen asleep
next to that. Maureen swallowed a yawn.
“Maureen was of the generation who had grown up with the phone on the hall table, and a map in the glove compartment. Even online shopping was a stretch. Twenty lemons instead of two, and all that kind of thing.”
He said, ‘You don’t want to go shouting at random strangers
that you’re lost. It’s not safe. They might take advantage of you.’
His English was perfect. If anything he had a Devon accent. So
there you were. That was another thing she’d been completely
wrong about. ‘I don’t think anyone would want to take advantage
of me.’
‘You never know. There are all sorts of people in the world.’
‘You are right, of course. But can you help me or not?’
‘Yeah. Okay. I think so.’ He tip-tapped a few things into his
phone and held it out for her. It was no use: it was a map but tiny.
He showed her where she was and all the roads she needed to take
to get to the M5. ‘See?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I don’t see. That makes no sense to me.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t.’
‘Do you have a satnav?’
‘We do have a satnav but I don’t use it.’
He seemed confused but she wasn’t going to enlighten him.
The fact was she’d had the satnav disconnected. She couldn’t bear
that nice voice urging directions at her and telling her last minute
that she’d missed the turn. Maureen was of the generation who had
grown up with the phone on the hall table, and a map in the glove
compartment. Even online shopping was a stretch. Twenty lemons
instead of two, and all that kind of thing.
He said, ‘Will you remember if I tell you?’
‘I don’t think I will.’
‘I don’t know what to do, then. What do you want me to do?’
‘I would like you to read out the directions from your phone
and I will write them down on a piece of paper. I’ll take my route
from that.’
‘Oh, okay,’ he said. He touched his beard and realigned his
feet, as if this was going to take a whole different kind of posture
in order to make it work. ‘I see. Okay.’
Patiently, he told her to go to the end of the road, turn left,
take a right, the second exit at the roundabout, and she wrote
it all down on a page he had torn from a notebook. He paused at
the end of each new instruction, to make sure she’d written it
down. By the end she had twelve in all, and every one of them
numbered.
‘Do you know where you’re heading after that?’
‘Yes.’ She pointed at the place on her road map.
‘That’s a very long way.’
‘I know.’
‘At least you’ll get a change of scene.’
‘I’m not looking for a change of scene. All I want is to get
there.’
‘Do you know your way after the M5?’
‘Yes.’
‘The junction numbers?’
‘I think so.’
He looked at her for a moment, without saying anything. She
got the feeling he didn’t believe her. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you
write those down too? You don’t want to get lost on a motorway.’
He pulled his phone close to his face as he squinted a little and
slowly read out the motorway exits she needed, plus the directions
from there. There was no irritation in his voice. If anything, he
seemed worried that he might get one of them wrong and mislead
her. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she was going to
drive all that distance by herself, and in one day. ‘It’s so far,’ he
kept saying.
‘Thank you,’ she told him, once he finished. ‘And I’m sorry if I
woke you.’
‘That’s okay. I shouldn’t be asleep.’
She thought he might be smiling behind his mask, so she
smiled too. ‘You’ve been kind.’
‘Huh.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to
gaze out of the window. She was still on one side of the cabin and
he was on the other, but their reflections were caught against the
dark outside, like two see-through people, he so big, and she so
short and trim, with her cap of white hair. ‘That’s not what most
people call me.’
It came out of the blue. An honesty she didn’t expect. She
would have liked to be able to say something to make him feel
better – she would have liked to be that kind of person, if only so
that she could get back into her car and drive on with his instructions,
without feeling she had failed. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t
find it. That fleeting moment of goodness. People imagined they
might reach each other, but it wasn’t true. No one understood
another’s grief or another’s joy. People were not see-through
at all.
Maureen pursed her mouth. The young man gazed sadly at
something or nothing in the dark. The silence seemed to go on and
on. She looked at the floor and took in his black lace-upsagain.
They were such earnest shoes, like someone trying really hard.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess you should be okay now.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Mrs Fry.’
‘I’m Lenny.’
‘Goodbye, Lenny.’
‘It was nice to meet you, Mrs Fry. Just don’t go shouting at
people that you’re lost. And drive carefully. It’s cold out there.’
‘I’m going to see our son,’ she said. Then she left and got into
the car and made a U-turn to get back to the road.
Extracted from Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce, out now.
