The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (26 page)

Wilf’s new trainers continued to trouble him and the lack of sleep slowed Harold. In the course of the following two days they made it only as far as Wakefield, but he felt unable to leave the young man behind. The panic attacks, or nightmares, continued. Wilf insisted he had been bad in the past, and that the Lord would save him.

Harold was less sure. The boy was painfully underweight, and prone to mood swings. One minute he was running ahead, racing the dog to find its stone; the next he could barely speak. Harold distracted Wilf by telling him all that he had taught himself about hedgerow plants, and the sky. He pointed out the difference between the low-combed stratus clouds and the tall cirrus clouds that moved high above like boulders. He showed Wilf how, by observing shadows and textures around him, he could deduce his direction. A plant, for instance, that showed a thicker growth on one side was obviously receiving more sunlight there. They could tell from this that the plant was south-facing, and that they must head in the opposite direction. Wilf appeared to learn greedily, although sometimes he would ask a question that suggested he had not been concentrating at all. They sat beneath the poplar and listened to its leaves rattling in the wind.

‘The trembling tree,’ said Harold. ‘You can spot it easily. It shakes so hard that from a distance it looks as if it’s covered in little lights.’

He told Wilf about the people he had met at the beginning, and others who had more recently crossed his path. There was a woman living in a straw house, and a couple who drove a goat in their car, and a retired dentist who travelled six miles a day to fetch fresh water from a natural spring. ‘He told me about it. He said we all should accept what the earth gives freely. It is an act of grace, he said. Since then I always make a point of stopping to drink from a spring.’

It was only in saying these things that Harold realized how far he had come. He took pleasure in heating water, a little at a time, in a can for Wilf over a candle, and picking the blossom from the lime tree to make tea. He showed him you could eat ox-eye daisies, pineapple weed, toadflax and sweet hop shoots, if you wanted. He felt he was doing everything for David that he hadn’t in fact done. There was so much he wanted Wilf to see.

‘These are vetch pods. They’re sweet, but not good if you have too much. Mind you, nor is vodka.’ Wilf held the tiny pod and took one nibbling mouthful, before spitting it out.

‘I’d rather have vodka, Mr Fry.’

Harold pretended he hadn’t heard. They hunkered down on a bank, waiting for a goose to lay an egg. The boy danced and screamed as it emerged, wet and white and huge against the grass. ‘Oh fuck, that’s so rank. It came right out of her arse. Shall I throw something?’

‘At the goose? No. Throw a stone for the dog.’

‘I’d rather hit the goose.’

Harold ushered Wilf away, and pretended he hadn’t heard that either.

They talked about Queenie Hennessy, and the small kindnesses she had shown. He described how she could sing backwards, and always liked a riddle. ‘I don’t think anyone else knew those things about her,’ he said. ‘We told one another things we probably didn’t tell other people. It’s easier when you’re travelling.’ He showed the presents he carried for her in his rucksack. The boy particularly liked the paperweight from Exeter Cathedral that glittered when he tipped it upside down. Sometimes Harold found Wilf had taken it from his rucksack and was playing with it, and had to remind him to take care. In turn, Wilf produced further souvenirs. A piece of flint, a spotted guinea-fowl feather, a stone hooped with rings. Once he produced a small garden gnome with a fishing rod that he promised he had found in a bin. Another time he appeared with three pints of milk, insisting they were going free. Harold warned him not to rush as he drank, but the boy did and was sick after ten minutes.

There were so many offerings, Harold had to leave them behind when Wilf wasn’t looking, taking care to hide them from the dog, who was inclined to retrieve the pebbles at least and return them to Harold’s feet. Sometimes the boy turned to shout about something new he had found, and Harold’s heart flipped over. It could so easily be David.

22

Harold and the Pilgrims

Dear Queenie, There has been a surprising turn of events. So many people ask after you. Best wishes, Harold
.

PS. A kind woman at the post office has not charged me for the stamp. She also sends her regards
.

ON HAROLD’S FORTY-SEVENTH
day of walking, he was joined by a middle-aged woman and a father of two. Kate explained she had recently suffered great pain but wished to leave it behind. She was a small woman, dressed in black, who marched with her chin thrust out and slightly upwards, as if she were struggling to see beyond the brim of a floppy hat. Sweat beaded her hairline, and wet half-moons hung beneath her armpits.

‘She’s fat,’ said Wilf.

‘I don’t think you should say that.’

‘She’s still fat.’

The man called himself Rich, short for Richard; surname Lion. He had been in finance but had got out of the business in his mid thirties. Since then, he had been ‘winging it’. Reading about Harold’s journey had filled him with a hope he had not experienced since he was a child. He had packed only a few necessaries and set off. He was a tall man, like Harold, with an assertive voice that had an adenoidal ring. He wore professional boots, camouflage trousers, and a kangaroo-leather bush hat that he had bought online. He carried with him a tent, a sleeping bag and a Swiss Army knife for emergencies.

‘To be honest with you,’ he confided, ‘I made a big mess of my life. I got made redundant, and after that I had a bit of a breakdown. My wife left me, and took the kids.’ He struck the ground with the sharp blade of his knife. ‘It’s the boys, Harold. I miss them so much. I want them to see I can do something. You know? I want them to be proud of me. Have you thought about going cross-country?’

As the newly formed party made their way to Leeds, there were discussions about the route. Rich suggested they should avoid cities and make for the moors. Kate felt they should continue along the A61. What did Harold think, they asked? Uncomfortable with conflict, Harold suggested they were both good ideas, as long as they got to Berwick. He had been alone for so long he found it tiring to be constantly in the company of others. Their questions and their enthusiasm both moved and slowed him. But since they had chosen to walk with him and support Queenie’s cause, he also felt responsible for them, as if he had asked them to join, and, as a con sequence, must listen to their different needs and secure their safe passage. Wilf sulked at Harold’s side, hands dug in his pockets, complaining his trainers were too small. Harold had the feeling he used to have with David, wishing he could be more companionable, and fearing that his insecurity might look like arrogance. It took over an hour to find somewhere everyone agreed they’d be comfortable enough to sleep.

Within two days, Rich had a problem with Kate. It wasn’t anything she had said exactly, he told Harold; it was more her manner. She behaved as if she thought she was better simply because she had arrived thirty minutes earlier. ‘And you know what?’ said Rich. He was beginning to shout. Harold didn’t know. He just felt got at. ‘She drove here.’ On reaching Harrogate, Kate suggested they should visit the Royal Baths to freshen up. Rich sneered but conceded he could do with spare blades for his knife. Not wanting either, Harold sat in the municipal gardens where he was approached by several well-wishers, asking for news of Queenie. Wilf seemed to disappear.

By the time the group reconvened, a young widower whose wife had died of cancer was sitting beside Harold. The man explained he wished to accompany them and that in order to gather further public support for Queenie, he would like to do it in a gorilla suit. Before Harold could dissuade him, Wilf reappeared; although he seemed to have difficulty negotiating his passage along the pavement.

‘Jesus wept,’ said Rich.

They made their way slowly. Twice Wilf fell. It also transpired that the gorilla man could only be fed through a straw, and was prone to waves of grief accelerated by heat exhaustion. After half a mile, Harold suggested they should stop for the night.

He lit the camp fire and reminded himself it had taken at least a few days to find his own rhythm. It would be unkind to abandon them, when they had sought him out and made such a commitment to Queenie. He even wondered if her chances of survival would be greater, the more people there were who believed in her and kept walking.

From this point, others joined. They came for a day, maybe two. If it was sunny, there could be a crowd. Campaigners, ramblers, families, dropouts, tourists, musicians. There were banners, camp fires, debates, physical warm-ups and music. People talked movingly about the loved ones they had lost to cancer; and also the things they regretted from their past. The greater the numbers, the slower they became. Not only must they accommodate the less experienced walkers, but they must also feed them. There were roast potatoes, garlic on sticks, beetroot in foil. Rich had a book about natural foraging and insisted on making hogweed fritters. The daily mileage dropped further. Sometimes it was no more than three.

Despite its slowness, the group seemed sure of itself in a way that was new to Harold. They told themselves they were no longer an assortment of torsos and feet and heads and hearts but one single energy, bound by Queenie Hennessy. The walk had been an idea inside himself for so long that when other people pledged their belief in it he was touched. More. He knew it could work. If he had known before, he knew it now in a deeper way. They put up tents, unrolled sleeping bags and slept beneath the sky. They promised Queenie would live. To their left curved the dark peaks of Keighley Moor.

Within only a few days, however, tensions began to develop. Kate had no time for Rich. He was an egomaniac, she said. In return he called her a bitter cow. Then, during the course of one evening, both the gorilla man and a visiting student slept with the same primary-school teacher, and Rich’s attempts to resolve the animosity threatened to end in a punch-up. Wilf could not stop trying to convert fellow walkers to God, or asking for prayers to be said for Queenie, and this led to further aggravation. When an amateur walking group pitched up for the night there were more disagreements: some argued that tents were not in the true spirit of Harold’s journey, some wanted to avoid roads altogether and head towards the more challenging Pennine Way. And what about roadkill? asked Rich, sparking off another round. Harold listened with growing unease. He didn’t mind where people slept, or how they walked. He didn’t mind what they ate. He simply wanted to get to Berwick.

He was in it now with these other people. After all, they had suffered too in different ways. Wilf still got the shakes at night, and Kate often sat by the fire with tears shining on her cheeks. Even Rich, when he spoke of his boys, had to flap open a handkerchief and pretend he had hay fever. No matter how much he regretted their decisions to join him, it was not in Harold’s nature to let his companions down. Sometimes he broke free, and washed himself with water, or took lungfuls of air. He reminded himself there were no rules to his walk. He had been guilty once or twice of believing he understood, only to discover he did not. Maybe it was the same with the pilgrims? Maybe they were the next part of the journey? There were times, he saw, when not knowing was the biggest truth, and you had to stay with that.

News about the pilgrimage continued to gather momentum as if it had acquired an energy of its own. Word had only to get round that they were approaching and everyone with an Aga began to bake. Kate narrowly missed injury from a woman in a Land Rover hell bent on delivering a tray of goat’s cheese slices. Rich suggested over the camp fire that Harold should begin each meal with a few words about what it meant to be a pilgrim. When Harold declined, Rich offered to speak instead. He wondered if anyone would care to take notes? The gorilla man obliged, although it was difficult to write with a hairy glove and he had to keep asking Rich to stop.

The press also continued to run testimonies to Harold’s goodness. He did not have time to read the papers, but it seemed that Rich was more up to date. A spiritualist in Clitheroe claimed the pilgrim had a golden aura. A young man who’d been on the verge of jumping from the Clifton Suspension Bridge gave a moving account of how Harold had talked him down.

‘But I didn’t go to Bristol,’ Harold said. ‘I went to Bath, and from there to Stroud. I remember it clearly because it was the point when I almost gave up. I never met anyone on a bridge. And I am certain I didn’t talk them down.’

Rich claimed this was a minor detail. Petty, in fact. ‘Maybe he didn’t say he was about to commit suicide. But meeting you gave him hope. I expect you’ve forgotten.’ Again he reminded Harold that he had to look at the bigger picture; no publicity was bad publicity. It occurred to Harold that even though Rich was forty, and therefore about the right age to be his son, he talked as if it was Harold who was the child. He said that Harold was cornering a rich market. You had to strike while the iron was hot. He also mentioned cherry-picking ideas, and singing from the same hymn sheet, but Harold was getting a headache. He had such a congestion of incoherent images in his mind – cherry trees and hymn sheets and steam irons – that he had to keep stopping in order to work out what exactly it was that Rich was talking about. He wished the man would honour the true meaning of words, instead of using them as ammunition.