The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy: A Novel

  I assumed it must be the drugs again.

  ‘Whatever is going on out there?’ asked Sister Philomena, glancing up from her reading book. I lifted my hands to my eye in order to shield it from the sun.

  On the pavement outside a man in a hat called into a megaphone for silence. I couldn’t hear much of what he said after that because a wind took up in the garden and all the trees rattled. Mostly what I heard was ‘We’ve done it, folks. We got here.’ I heard that several times.

  Then, of all the strange things, they began chanting my name. ‘Queen-ie. Queen-ie.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Sister Philomena. She removed her reading glasses and rose from her deck chair.

  I watched her walking briskly along the drive to the gates. As the crowd caught sight of her, they turned to her in the way that waiting family members greet a doctor in the anticipation of life-changing news, putting on best smiles as if that will affect the verdict. There was further applause, though she lifted her hand for silence and shook her head in a no-messing way. She buzzed the gates open and stepped through, carefully shutting them behind her. A sudden flash of cameras met her.

  I have no idea what she said to the group, but I could see the tall man take her hand in his and give a sombre nod. He led a slow handclap, and I can’t think how but it seemed to become a round of applause for himself. There were further camera flashes, further voices in the megaphone, further rounds of applause. The group began to disband, some moving down towards the seafront, others heading in the direction of town. I saw them waving to one another as they left, clapping one another on the shoulders, high-fiving, wishing one another a safe homeward journey. Others drifted with their arms clasped above their heads in a gesture of victory.

  When Sister Philomena rejoined us in the garden, she was carrying another gift basket of muffins and a bunch of lilies. Her face was flushed, as if she had just run a long distance.

  ‘What an arrogant shit that man is,’ she said. She glanced at me and winked. ‘I didn’t say that, of course.’

  This evening Sister Lucy wheeled me into the dayroom to watch the television news. We all assembled, the patients and their families and friends, the volunteers and nuns. There was a speech to the camera from the man in the hat, followed by footage of Sister Philomena at the gates.

  ‘It’s you!’ said one of the patients. ‘You’re famous!’

  ‘I do hope not,’ said Sister Philomena quietly.

  Behind her the camera showed a view of the garden and a man watering the grass.

  ‘That’s me!’ shouted a volunteer.

  Someone cheered, and an image of you flashed on to the screen. Now there was only silence. You were walking down a busy road but your shoulders were stooped as if you were bearing an invisible heavy load and you seemed so terribly tired. Cars swerved to avoid you.

  The man with the hat was back and he was telling the interviewer it was a shame. It was a shame Harold Fry had had to give up, ‘due to fatigue and like, complicated emotional reasons. But Queenie is alive, that’s the main thing. It was lucky that me and the guys were there to step in.’ Two boys swung from his hands, and the man stooped to lift them into the air like human trophies.

  ‘Oh, enough of this nonsense.’ Sister Philomena snapped off the television with the remote control.

  No one spoke. We got very busy, studying our hands, the view from the window, that sort of thing. Gradually the patients began to peel away with their loved ones. Even the nuns and volunteers turned their attention to other things. It was only me left in the middle of the room, staring at the black empty screen of the television. I could still see your face, the pained look in your eyes, your cheeks like hollows, your wild sprouting beard.

  One of the volunteers moved with weary resignation to the Harold Fry corner and began to remove the drawing pins. One by one he took down the postcards, and began to roll up Finty’s WELCOME banner.

  Sister Lucy knelt at my side. She wiped the tears from my face.

  ‘Would you like to help me finish my jigsaw?’ she said.

  We fitted the last pieces along the Scottish borders. She said she wondered what jigsaw she would choose next. And after a little while she said, ‘He’s still walking, Queenie. I feel it in my bones.’

  The vigil keepers have gone. Tonight the only sound I hear is the rustling of leaves and the sea.

  It is you and me now. Me waiting. You walking. From the look of things, Harold, we are down to basics.

  A last-ditch attempt to stop

  ‘YOU THINK you are the only person in this world who is waiting?’ said Sister Mary Inconnue. She was pacing. I wished she would stop, because the light was bright at the window and it is hard sometimes to keep up with a pacing nun. I found I kept losing her. She said, ‘The world is full of people like you, waiting for change. Waiting for a job. A lover. Waiting for a bite to eat. A drink of water. Waiting for the winning lottery ticket. So don’t think about the end. Picture those people instead. Picture their waiting.’

  I have to admit I sighed. I shook my head. How does this help? I said with my eye.

  She sat. At least there was that. Then she said, ‘Because if you picture other people like you, you will no longer be alone. And when you share, you see that your own sorrow is not so big or special. You are only another person feeling sad, and soon it will pass and you will be another person, feeling happy. It takes the sting out of life, I find, when you realize you are not alone.’

  Sister Mary Inconnue pulled a bag of red sweets out of her pocket and sucked on one for a long time. It must have been pleasant, because she kept swinging her feet. Eventually she said, ‘It will be a few more days before Harold arrives. It will be a few more days before you finish your letter. But you know what you have to do in order to get there? In order to keep waiting?’

  I groaned. I didn’t know, but I could already sense I wasn’t going to like it.

  She leaned a little closer, and her breath smelt of aniseed. ‘It is no good looking ahead to the end. It is no good thinking about how life will get better once you have a new television or a new job. You must stop hoping for change. You must simply be it.’

  Be the change? It was all too much.

  Sister Mary Inconnue picked up her pages and made a few small changes with her correction pen.

  ‘Here I am. Here you are. There is a pigeon in the tree. And yes, today is a hard one.’

  The night is still. It listens. A bird cries, maybe an owl. One of the duty nurses says it has been a long night. Anyone want a cuppa? ‘I can’t wait to put my feet up,’ says another.

  I picture the nurse who wants to put her feet up. In my mind I fetch her a chair and I go to my beach house to boil the kettle for her cup of tea, just as I would have done once if she had stopped at my sea garden and we had got talking, she and I.

  In my mind we sit next to each other, the nurse who is waiting to put her feet up and me, the woman who is waiting for Harold Fry. And then, in my mind, other people join us. A man waiting for good news. A student waiting for exam results. A woman waiting for a child. Take a seat. Take a seat. Look at my sea garden, while we’re at it.

  We wait. We wait. It is not so hard any more. Sister Mary Inconnue was right.

  I wonder who I am now

  ‘WEREN’T YOU Queenie Hennessy?’ said a woman in the dayroom. ‘The one that Harold Fry was walking to save?’

  The woman was visiting a patient. She had brought a blue teddy bear.

  A poetic interlude

  There once was a good man called Fry

  Who wanted his friend not to die.

  He told her to wait,

  Walked straight out the gate,

  With no bloody map, just a tie.

  There was a sweet boy that I knew

  Whose friends were incredibly few.

  Strange thoughts filled his head

  So he went to the shed

  And hung till his red lips turned blue.

  There once was a
nun with a wimple

  Who told me that waiting was simple

  Just write in your book—

  ‘This is what happens when you take the big drugs,’ said Sister Mary Inconnue. ‘You make no sense whatsoever.’

  She packs away her typewriter and eats an orange instead.

  A fly

  I HEARD a fly buzz.

  It travels in short, straight lines, as if it is contained within an invisible box above my head. It buzzes on a line to the north, stops abruptly, and turns to the east, then turns again and travels to the south, at which point it turns again and buzzes along a west-facing line until it reaches its original point of departure. It has been doing this all day. It doesn’t seem to tire. It just buzzes in the stillness.

  The laughing tree

  IT WAS a warm morning and Sister Lucy suggested I might like to sit outside. It would do me good, she said, to feel a little sun on my face. She lifted me gently into my wheelchair and took me to the garden. She fetched a chair and sat with me under the shade of a tree. She held my hand.

  Sister Lucy began to tell me about her childhood. I tried very hard to listen but sometimes, I admit, I closed my eyes and listened from inside my head. If she hadn’t been called to God, she’d have been a beautician. I opened my eyes and smiled and she smiled too.

  She said, ‘You can love God and have nice hair too.’

  Then she told me it will be her birthday on Tuesday, and I thought, I won’t be here. I won’t be here on Tuesday. I am almost gone already. Tuesday seemed months away. Almost a different season.

  When I woke the sun had moved and Sister Mary Inconnue had taken Sister Lucy’s place.

  We stayed for a while like that. Not saying anything. Just looking at the garden and sitting beneath the shade of the giant tree.

  Suddenly Sister Mary Inconnue let out a hiccup. She slapped her hand to her mouth but another one followed and another. I realized that what she was doing was laughing.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. Something like that.

  A further laugh erupted from her with a gigantic splutter. She had to grip her stomach and lift her feet. Rocking this way and that, she pointed upwards. Hoo hoo hoo, she went, while still pointing up at the tree. That was all she could manage in the way of communication.

  Why was it so funny? The tree? But even as I thought that and glanced upwards, I was beginning to see the funny side.

  ‘Look at the branches. Look at the leaves. When you really look, you see how fantastic it is. It’s so perfect you have to laugh!’ She guffawed.

  Now that she’d said it, I couldn’t see how I hadn’t noticed before. The tree above us was a canopy of bright lime leaves, each one shaped like an eye and with perfect crinkle-cut edges. Where the sun caught them they shone luminous, while those in shade hung a deeper green. I took in the solid torso of the trunk, the curls and wrinkles in the grey bark, the milky covering of moss where the sun could not reach. I gazed at the exuberant bow of the five central branches, like sturdy shoulders, and then I moved my eye to the entanglement of twigs and leaves. I watched the insects busy in the white clusters of blossom, the birds balancing in the upper branches. Sister Mary Inconnue was right. It was the most marvellous thing, that tree, now that we sat and took notice. It was hilarious.

  We sat, weeping with laughter. And then a wind took up and the great branches trembled and the leaves went a-rattling. Ha ha, went the tree, look at those funny ladies. One with a cornette. One in a wheelchair. Look at the beauty of them.

  Sister Mary Inconnue wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Dear oh dear. We really should sit and laugh at trees more often.’

  A bad night

  I CAN’T sleep. I lie still and stillness is too much and I have to get up. But when I am up, that is not right either. Nothing is the thing I am hunting for.

  Last night was confused. I must have risen in the middle of the night, because the duty nurse found me in the corridor. She helped me into bed, and for a moment I thought: Sleep. It will come now.

  But I was wrong. Lying still was out of the question. It was like hanging upside down when you should be on your feet, and I was soon up again. I said I had to find Sister Mary Inconnue.

  By this time I was already pulling open my cupboard. It surprised me, the strength I had. Maybe I am getting better, I thought, maybe this is an improvement. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where we keep Sister Mary Inconnue.

  The duty nurse took my arm. She said, ‘You need sleep, Queenie. Remember, Harold Fry is almost here. We expect him tomorrow.’

  I have to admit I had no idea what she was talking about. I was thinking only about finishing the letter, you see.

  The duty nurse guided me back to bed. She redressed my wound with fresh bandages. She bathed my closed eye. She cleaned my mouth and fetched a pain patch.

  A little later Sister Mary Inconnue came to help. She lay at my side on the mattress, and when I tried to get up she spread her body over mine and lay on top of me, her face beside my face, her arms and legs outstretched.

  I thought, Help, help, help. I am being smothered by a six-foot nun with a pointy cornette.

  And then I felt the closeness of her, I smelt her breathing, and I slept.

  The visitor

  ON WAKING this morning I felt a claw stuck on my arm and then I realized it was my hand. Sister Mary Inconnue rubbed my fingers and blew on the joints, and still it was no good. I tried to write her a message, but it was arduous and I kept losing grip of the pencil. How could I possibly continue with my letter?

  I don’t want HF to see me like this. After all, I had done what I was supposed to do. I had waited.

  ‘But he has to see you. That is the end of his journey. It won’t be complete until he has seen you.’

  Can’t you tell him I died?

  She read my message and laughed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You funny girl, I can’t. Besides, you haven’t finished your letter. You have not finished your journey either, Queenie Hennessy.’

  I was beginning to cry and I didn’t want her to see. All the time I have been writing, a part of me has been calm, because so long as there was something else to tell you, I did not have to write the end. But now there is nothing else left but the last part of my confession, and I thought I wouldn’t be frightened any more but I am, Harold. I am sorry.

  Sister Mary Inconnue placed the pencil back in my hand, but it rolled straight from my fingers. She tried again. Same thing. I felt a flush of relief. I thought, I am not up to it. I am too weak for the end. She will see that now.

  We were interrupted by quick footsteps along the corridor. My door flew open.

  ‘Harold Fry is coming! He’s here!’ Sister Lucy burst into the room. ‘I’ve just seen him!’

  ‘Well, excuse us,’ said Sister Mary Inconnue, a little put out, but the young nun was so excited she ran straight past. She rushed to my window and pulled back the curtains. The rings gave a tiny shriek on the pole. Standing on tiptoes, she peered down towards the drive, her fingers spread wide on the windowsill. ‘Yes, Queenie! It’s him! He’s here at last!’

  My skin prickled, as if I were caught in a North Sea wind. No, no, I am not ready, I thought. This is too soon. My letter. My letter is not finished—

  From her watchpost at the window, Sister Lucy began to report on your progress: ‘He is going slowly. But— He has a beard. And his hair is quite long. His shoes are—’ She bundled her eyes into a squint. ‘Oh, my goodness. His shoes are— His shoes, they— They are taped to his feet. They are taped on with this blue stuff. Poor man. I wonder why.’ With each of these observations her voice grew more quiet. It was like hearing a person run out of batteries. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she half whispered. ‘He looks terrible.’ For a little while, she said no more. We remained in silence, all three of us, waiting for the buzzer at the door, waiting for your arrival.

  Sister Mary Inconnue cocked her head. I heard the creaking of old water pipes, the intermittent peep peep of a bird i
n the Well-being Garden. There was even a child’s laughter. But no buzz.

  Sister Lucy shot her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, no. What’s he doing? He’s leaving.’

  Leaving? I looked to Sister Mary Inconnue, but she merely nodded, as if this came as no surprise and was in fact the right thing to do, or at least to be expected. ‘Why?’ asked Sister Lucy. ‘Why didn’t he come inside?’

  Sister Lucy shook the folds of her robes, though there was nothing stuck to them. ‘Well, he’ll be back soon,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he will. I’ll go and investigate. You wait here, Queenie.’

  As if I am in danger of going anywhere. Sister Mary Inconnue and I shared a look of understanding.

  Because I knew now. I knew why you could not come inside. It is the same for both of us, isn’t it? We were each as frightened as the other. And, you know, if I could turn round and walk back the way I’ve come, I probably would. I have waited so long and you have walked so far that neither of us is in any hurry to arrive. Endings, it seems, are not all they’re cracked up to be.

  ‘You are going to have to make the first move, Queenie,’ said Sister Mary Inconnue. I frowned as though I didn’t understand, but she was having none of it. ‘It is time to tell your last story about David.’

  When Sister Lucy came to draw my curtains for the evening, she did not mention your visit. She did not mention that you had walked away again. I pointed to my hand. I pointed to the fresh bandages and dressings on the bedside table. I pointed to the pencil.