The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce

  The young guide gave a slight wriggle of her nose, as if she had smelled something unpleasant, and asked if he had considered visiting the nearby Thermae Bath Spa, where he might enjoy picturesque views of the city, and a state-of-the-art cleansing experience?

  Appalled, Harold rushed straight there. He had been careful to keep washing both his clothes and himself, but his shirt was frayed at the collar and his fingernails were dirt ridges. It was only once he had paid for his entrance ticket and the hire of towels that it occurred to him he had no trunks. For these he had to leave and find a nearby sports shop, making the day his most expensive so far. The assistant fetched a choice of bathing costumes and goggles, although when Harold explained he was more of a walker than a swimmer she was keen to show him waterproof covers for his compass, and a selection of reduced-price, all-weather trousers.

  By the time he left the shop with his swimming shorts in a small bag, a large crowd was packed on the pavement. Harold found himself squashed against a copper statue of a Victorian man in a top hat.

  “We’re waiting for that famous actor,” explained a woman beside him. Her face was red and filmy with the heat. “He’s signing his new book. If he catches my eye, I shall pass out.”

  It was difficult to see the really famous actor, let alone catch his eye, because he seemed to be rather short, and surrounded by a wall of bookshop assistants in black uniforms. The crowd shouted out, and applauded. Photographers held up their cameras and the street was punctured with flashing lights. Harold wondered what it must be like to have made such a success of your life.

  The woman beside him was saying she had named her dog after the actor. The dog was a cocker spaniel, she said. She wished she could tell the actor. She had read all about him in magazines; she knew him like a friend. Harold tried to lean against the statue for a better look, but the statue gave him a sharp dig in the ribs. The bleached sky shone. Sweat broke out on Harold’s neck and slid from his armpits, clamping his shirt to his skin.

  By the time Harold made it back to the spa, a flock of young women on a hen party were playing in the water and he didn’t want to alarm them or get in the way, so he took a quick steam, and left in a hurry. At the Pump Room, he asked if he might take a sample of the health-giving water to a very good friend in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The waiter poured a bottle and charged five pounds because Harold had mislaid his ticket for the Roman Baths. It was already the early afternoon, and he needed to get back on the road.

  In the public lavatories, Harold found himself washing his hands next to the actor from the book signing. He was wearing a leather jacket and trousers, and cowboy boots with a small heel. The man stared at his face in the mirror, pulling at the skin, as if he were checking it for something missing. Close up, his hair was so dark it looked plastic. Harold didn’t want to intrude on the actor. He dried his hands and pretended he was thinking of something else.

  “Don’t tell me you have a dog named after me as well,” said the actor. He was staring straight up at Harold. “Today I am not in the mood.”

  He told the actor he didn’t have a dog. As a child, he added, he had been bitten many times by a Pekingese called Chinky. This was probably not politically correct, but the aunt who owned him had not troubled herself with other people’s feelings. “But I have been walking and I have met some nice dogs recently.”

  The actor returned to his reflection. He continued to talk about the dog-naming issue, as if Harold’s interjections about his aunt had not been made. “Every day, someone comes up to tell me about their dog and how they’ve given it my name. They say it as if I should be happy. They haven’t the first idea.”

  Harold agreed this was unfortunate, although secretly he thought it must be flattering. He couldn’t imagine anyone calling their pet Harold, for instance.

  “I spent years doing serious work. I did a whole season at Pitlochry. Then I make one costume drama, and that’s it. Everyone in the country thinks it’s original to name a dog after me. Did you come to Bath for my book?”

  Harold admitted he hadn’t. He told the actor the barest details about Queenie. He didn’t think he should mention the nurses he had imagined applauding as he arrived at the hospice. The actor appeared to be listening, although at the end of the story he asked again if Harold had a copy of the book, and if he would like the actor to sign it.

  Harold agreed. He felt the book might be a perfect souvenir for Queenie; she had always liked reading. He was about to ask the actor if he wouldn’t mind waiting while he nipped out to buy a copy, but the actor spoke instead.

  “Actually, don’t bother. It’s rubbish. I haven’t written a word of the thing. I haven’t even read it. I’m a serial shagger, with a serious coke habit. I went down on a woman last week and discovered she had a cock. They don’t put that sort of thing in the book.”

  “No.” Harold glanced at the door.

  “I’m on all the chat shows. I’m in all the magazines. Everyone thinks I am this really nice guy. And yet no one knows the first thing about me. It’s like being two people. You’re probably about to tell me you’re a journalist.”

  He laughed, but there was something both reckless and grim about the gesture that reminded Harold of David.

  “I’m not a journalist. I think I would make a very poor one.”

  “Tell me again why you’re walking to Bradford.”

  Harold said something quiet about Berwick, and atoning for the past. He was unnerved by the very famous actor’s confession and was still trying to find a place in himself in which to keep it.

  “So how do you know this woman is waiting? Has she sent a message?”

  “A message?” repeated Harold, although he hadn’t misheard. It was more a stalling for time.

  “Has she told you she’s up for it?”

  Harold opened his mouth, and reworked it several times, but he couldn’t get the words to come.

  “How does it work exactly?” said the actor.

  Harold touched his tie with his fingertips. “I send postcards. I know she is waiting.”

  Harold smiled and the actor smiled too. He wanted the actor to be persuaded by what he had heard, because he wasn’t sure there was any other way of putting it, and for a moment it appeared that the actor was; but then a scowl crept over his face as if he had just tasted something not right. “If I were you, I’d get myself in a car.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Bollocks to the walk.”

  Harold’s voice trembled. “The walk is the idea. That’s how she will live. John Lennon lay in a bed once. My son had a picture of him on his wall.”

  “John Lennon had Yoko Ono and the world’s press in the bed as well. You’re on your own, slogging to Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s going to take weeks. And supposing she didn’t get your message? They might have forgotten to tell her.” The actor’s mouth arched in a frown, as if he were thinking through the implications of such a mistake. “What does it matter if you walk or get a lift? It makes no difference how you get there. You’ve just got to see her. I’ll lend you my car. My driver. You could be there tonight.”

  The door opened and a gentleman in shorts made his way to the urinal. Harold waited for him to finish. He needed the very famous actor to know that you could be ordinary and attempt something extraordinary, without being able to explain it in a logical way. But all he could picture was a car driving to Berwick. The actor was right. Harold had left a message, and sent postcards, but there was no proof she’d taken him seriously, or even heard about his call. He imagined sitting in the warmth of the car. If he said yes, he could be there in hours. He had to grip his hands to stop them from shaking.

  “I haven’t upset you, have I?” said the actor. His voice was suddenly tender. “I told you I was an arse.” Harold shook his head, but kept it bowed. He hoped the gentleman in shorts wasn’t looking.

  “I have to keep walking,” he said quietly, although he knew he was no longer certain.

  The newcomer placed h
imself between Harold and the actor in order to wash his hands. He began to laugh, as if remembering something private. Then he said, “I’ve got to tell you. We have this dog—”

  Harold made his way to the street.

  The sky had filled with a dense layer of white cloud that pressed down on the city as if intending to squeeze the life out of it. Bars and cafés spilled onto the pavements. Drinkers and shoppers were stripped to vests, and skin that had not felt the sun for months was crimson. Harold carried his jacket over his arm, but he frequently had to mop his face with his shirtsleeve. Seed heads hung in the stiff air like fuzz. When Harold got to the cobbler, it was still closed. The straps of his rucksack were wet from his body, and dug into his shoulder blades. It was too hot to keep walking, and he hadn’t the energy.

  He thought he might take refuge in the abbey. He hoped it might be cool there, and inspire him again, remind him what it was to believe in something, but the abbey was closed to visitors for a music rehearsal. Harold sat in a pocket of shade and briefly watched the copper statue, until a small child burst into tears because it had waved and offered her a boiled sweet. He would wait in a small tea shop where he reckoned he could afford a pot of tea for one.

  The waitress scowled. “We don’t do drinks-only in the afternoon. You have to have the Regency Bath cream tea.” But he was already sitting down. Harold asked for the Regency Bath cream tea.

  The tables were set too close together and the heat was so solid you could almost see it. Customers sat with their legs open and flapped the air with their laminated menus. When his order arrived, a small scoop of clotted cream swam in a pool of fat. The waitress said, “Enjoy.”

  Harold asked if she knew the quickest route toward Stroud, but she shrugged. “Do you mind sharing?” she said, only without making it sound like a question. She called out to a man at the door and pointed at the seat opposite Harold’s. The man sat apologetically and pulled out a book. He had a neatly chiseled face, and closely cut light hair. His white shirt was open at the collar, revealing a perfect V-shape of toffee-colored skin. Asking Harold to pass the menu, he also asked if he liked Bath. He was an American, he said, doing England. His girlfriend was currently enjoying the Jane Austen experience. Harold wasn’t sure what this might be, but hoped for her sake that it didn’t involve the very famous actor. He was relieved that they fell into silence. He didn’t need another encounter like the one in Exeter, or even the one he had just had. Despite his obligation to other people, he wished at that moment he had walls.

  Harold drank his tea, but couldn’t face the scones. He felt dulled with such apathy it was like being at the brewery again in the years following Queenie’s departure; like being an empty space inside a suit, that said words sometimes, and heard them, that got in a car every day and returned home, but was no longer connected up to other people. The manager appointed after Napier suggested Harold should take a backseat until his retirement. Filing, he suggested. The odd piece of consultative advice. Harold was given a special desk with a computer and his name on a badge, but no one had approached. He draped a napkin over his plate and caught the eye of the chiseled man opposite.

  “Too hot for food,” said the man.

  Harold agreed. He instantly regretted it. The chiseled man now seemed to feel obliged to make further conversation.

  “Bath seems like a nice place,” he said. He closed his book. “Are you on vacation?”

  Reluctantly, Harold explained his story, but kept it brief. He left out, for instance, the detail about the garage girl and how she had saved her aunt. Instead he added that after his son left Cambridge, he had gone on a walking trip to the Lake District, although he wasn’t sure how much hiking he had done. David had returned home and not moved for weeks.

  “Is your son joining you?” said the man.

  Harold said he wasn’t. He asked the American what he did for a living.

  “I’m a physician.”

  “I met a Slovakian lady who is a doctor. She can only get cleaning work. What sort of physician are you?”

  “An oncologist.”

  Harold felt his blood quicken, as if he had unintentionally broken into a run. “Gosh,” he said. It was clear neither man knew what to say next. “Goodness.”

  The oncologist raised his shoulders and gave a regretful smile, as if he wished he could be something else. Harold glanced round for the waitress, but she was fetching water for another customer. His head was dizzy with the heat and he dabbed at his forehead.

  The oncologist said, “Do you know what sort of cancer your friend has?”

  “I’m not sure. In her letter, she says there’s nothing else they can do. She doesn’t say any more than that.” He felt so exposed, the oncologist might as well have been probing at Harold’s skin with his scalpel. He loosened his tie, and then his collar. He wished the waitress would hurry.

  “Lung cancer?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “May I see her letter?”

  He didn’t want to show it, but the oncologist was holding out his empty hand. Harold reached into his pocket and found the envelope. He adjusted the sticking plaster on his reading glasses, but his face was so slick with moisture he had to hold them in place. He wiped the table with his other sleeve, and then again with his napkin, before unfolding the pink sheet of paper, and smoothing it flat. Time seemed to stop. Even as the oncologist reached for the letter and gently eased it closer, Harold’s right fingers hovered over the page.

  He read Queenie’s words as the oncologist read them. He felt he had to protect the letter and that, by not letting it out of his sight, he could do that. His eye fell on the postscript: No need to reply. After that came an untidy squiggle, as if someone had made a mistake with their left hand.

  The oncologist threw himself back in his chair, and blew out a sigh. “What a moving letter.”

  Harold nodded. He replaced his reading glasses in his shirt pocket. “And beautifully typed,” he said. “Queenie was always neat. You should have seen her desk.” At last he smiled. It was going to be all right.

  The oncologist said, “But I assume a care worker did it for her?”

  “I’m sorry?” Harold’s pulse stopped.

  “She won’t be well enough to sit in an office, typing letters. Someone at the hospice will have done it for her. It’s nice she managed the address, though. You can see she really tried.” The oncologist gave a smile that was plainly intended to be reassuring, but it remained fixed on his face, looking like something forgotten or even misplaced.

  Harold took up the envelope. The truth dropped like a terrible weight straight through him and everything seemed to fall away. He didn’t know any more if he was unbearably hot or freezing cold. Fumbling again with his reading glasses, he saw now what he had not been able to make sense of; the thing that had been wrong all along. How had he not realized it before? It was the childlike handwriting, with its downward slant and almost comical irregularity. It was the same as the messy squiggle at the bottom of the letter, which, now that he looked again, he found was a botched attempt at her name.

  This was Queenie’s handwriting. This was what she had become.

  Harold replaced the letter in its envelope, although his fingers were trembling so hard he couldn’t get the corner to fit. He had to take it out and fold it again, and give it another push.

  After a long moment the oncologist said, “How much do you know about cancer, Harold?”

  Harold gave a yawn to stifle the emotion building up inside his face, while gently and slowly the oncologist told how a tumor is formed. He didn’t rush. He didn’t flinch. He explained how a cell may reproduce uncontrollably to form an abnormal mass of tissue. There were more than two hundred types of cancer, he said, each with different causes and symptoms. He described the difference between primary and secondary cancers, and how ascertaining the origin of the tumor dictated the type of treatment. He explained how, when a new tumor forms on a distant organ, it will behave like th
e original tumor. A breast cancer growing in the liver, for instance, would not be liver cancer; it would be primary breast cancer, with secondary breast cancer in the liver. But once other organs were involved, the symptoms could get worse. And once a cancer had begun to spread beyond its original site, it became more difficult to treat. If it had got into her lymphatic system, for instance, the end would be quick; although with the immunity so low, another infection might kill her first. “Even a cold,” he said.

  Harold listened without moving.

  “I’m not saying cancer can’t be cured. And when surgery fails, there are alternative treatments. But as a physician, I would never tell a patient there was nothing to be done, unless I was absolutely certain. Harold, you have a wife and son. If I may say so, you look tired. Is it really necessary to walk?”

  Out of words, Harold stood. He reached for his jacket and slipped his arms into the sleeves but he kept missing one of them, and the oncologist had to stand to help. “Good luck,” he said, holding out his hand. “And please let me take the bill. It’s the least I can do.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Harold continued to tread the streets but without knowing where he was going. He needed someone to share his faith in his walk so that he could believe in it too, but he barely had the energy to talk. He finally got his shoes resoled. He bought a new box of plasters to keep him going as far as Stroud. He stopped for a takeaway coffee and briefly mentioned Berwick, but nothing about how he was getting there, or why. No one said what he longed to hear. No one said, You are going to get there, and Queenie will live. No one said, There will be crowds applauding because this, Harold, is the best idea we have ever heard. You must definitely finish.