The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy: A Novel

  This last sentence began as a statement but had an identity crisis halfway and became a question. I’d said nothing about him not being good enough. Clearly the person who feared he was not good enough was Napier. But it is easier to argue with another person, especially an employee, than it is to argue with the darker recesses of oneself.

  You see how complicated life gets. Even something as simple as a resignation.

  I didn’t want to make things worse with Napier, so I made an excuse. I said, ‘You need to get an accountant into the pubs if he’s going to catch the landlords fiddling the books. And I can’t do that. You were right. You do need a man. One with a driving licence.’

  ‘You want a driver?’ He pulled that face again, and I remembered it was his laugh.

  ‘I realize a driver’s out of the question,’ I said quietly. ‘Which is why I have to leave.’ At this point I believed I had the upper hand. In my head I was already on the bus. Goodbye, Kingsbridge. Goodbye, Harold Fry.

  Then Napier did the thing he did best. He came up with the one solution that would cause the most damage. It wasn’t even intentional. It was an instinct he had, just as some people have an instinct for the weather or the piano. You would be my driver, he said. All sorted. Bingo.

  I think I got as far as ‘But—’ and I ran out of words.

  ‘You’ll have no problem with Harold Fry,’ he said. ‘The man is married. Straight as a gate. Dull as fuck.’ He clenched his right fist and punched it into his left palm. I had no idea what he was trying to suggest. It looked as if he were squashing you.

  You as my driver? You and me in a car several times a week? Me, already in love with you from a safe distance, and you married?

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I get carsick.’ I admit that wasn’t very clever, but I was beginning to feel cornered.

  ‘I’m about to fire him anyway,’ he said.

  It was like being hit. I went hot. My skin burned. And then I was so cold I needed a jumper. ‘You’re going to fire Mr Fry? What for?’

  ‘He’s a joke. He’s old-fashioned.’

  ‘But this is his job,’ I stammered. ‘He has a wife and son, doesn’t he?’

  ‘His son’s a screwball. Have you seen the way he struts round Kingsbridge? Like he owns the place?’ Napier shot out a puff of smoke. It went straight up my nose.

  ‘I don’t know about his son, but Mr Fry is a good man.’

  Napier did the laugh thing. Pointy gold teeth, et cetera. ‘Do you think I care?’

  No, I thought. Of course you don’t. It was time to try a new tactic. I took a deep breath.

  ‘So let me get this straight. If I stay, will Mr Fry keep his job?’

  ‘I’m not saying I like you, but it turns out you’re a good accountant. You stay. He stays too.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’ I held out my hand. ‘Now shake on it.’

  Napier seemed to get very busy with his smoking habit. Stubbing out his cigarette. Groping for a new one.

  ‘Let’s do this like men,’ I said. ‘Come along.’

  He slipped his palm inside mine. It was warm and slight and disconcertingly squishy. Like grabbing hold of a tongue.

  ‘Deal,’ I said.

  ‘Deal,’ he repeated.

  How many times I wanted to tell you all this, Harold. That I had saved your job, that I had stood up to Napier. Months later I sat beside you in your car and my head buzzed with all the things I wanted to share with you. But I had to be so careful not to give myself away and instead I said, ‘Another mint?’

  Don’t be fooled. Napier didn’t wish to keep me any more than he wished to keep you. But he wanted to fire me in his own time because otherwise I had control and it would be too frightening for Napier to find himself dependent on me. As with the bindweed, I had to be clever. I had to play his game. I had to offer Napier pea sticks until I came up with something so terrible he had no choice but to do the thing I wanted and get rid of me. Only here was the complication: I also had to save your job.

  You see, there were some good bits to me.

  Little did I realize that a few years later you would do all this yourself. You would provide the opportunity to get me in real trouble with Napier. And little did I realize how much leaving would hurt, when it finally came.

  We took our first trip, you and I, a few days later. And I’m sorry to break this to you, Harold: I was dreading it.

  A low grey cloud pleats the sky from east to west. The garden is colourless in the twilight. There is a stillness, but it is a Napier stillness. It harbours chaos. Far away, the sea boils.

  Rain is coming.

  I hope you have an umbrella, my friend.

  Or, at the very least, a waterproof hat.

  Where is Sister Mary Inconnue?

  RAIN. ALL NIGHT. I hear it thrash the leaves of the Well-being Garden. I hear it smash against the battlements and cobblestones. It hits the windows like gravel and tumbles from the gutters in gushloads. When lightning cuts the sky, everything in my room snaps to life – the bed, the wheelchair, the sink, the bird picture, the cupboard, the television – and is caught in an ice-blue photograph. Once the rain stops, I still hear it. The drip, the tap, the creak, of a world soaked in rain.

  I wonder if you hear it too.

  My head whirs. Words, words, words. Even when I sleep they wake me. Everything is words. In my dream my pencil races across the page. I’ll never get the words out fast enough. My right hand burns.

  Sister Mary Inconnue is not here again, and I have torn out so many pages that my notebook will soon be empty.

  ‘You have a temperature,’ says the night nurse. ‘You must put down that pen now.’ She changes the dressings on my face and neck. She examines my eye and then she fetches medication.

  As I sip slowly, slowly, her face snaps on and off, on and off, like the lighthouse at Inner Farne Island, blinking through the dark.

  The moment she’s gone, I am writing again.

  The long road home

  I AM STANDING on one side of your Morris 1100. You are hovering on the other. It’s the very end of March.

  I say, ‘I’ve heard you’re driving me,’ because I don’t want you to see I’m nervous, but it’s a stupid thing to say because why else would I be waiting by your car with my coat and handbag? I hold my bag out in front of me, gripped tight, like a float.

  ‘Hey, Mr Fry!’ yells one of the reps from a window. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!’

  I am so flustered I feel plunged in heat.

  You go, ‘Hr-hrm.’ You seem to have no idea what else to do.

  You unlock and open the passenger door for me and then glance away while I get in, as if establishing oneself in a car is an act of intense privacy and you are concerned I might embarrass myself and get it wrong. Once you are in your seat, you put on your driving gloves and start the engine. You ask if I need anything. A blanket, or a cushion? It is the first time we have been alone since the stationery cupboard. You can’t look at me, and I can’t look at you.

  There are three cassette tapes on the dashboard. German for Beginners. Beethoven’s Ninth. Never Mind the Bollocks. They belong to your son, you tell me hastily, placing them inside the glovebox and snapping it shut. The car smells of you. My son prefers music to having to talk to the father, you say with a laugh.

  And I think it is a funny way to talk about yourself. As ‘the father’, instead of as Harold Fry.

  You ask what I would like to listen to and I say, Oh, I don’t mind, and you say, No, no, you choose. And I say, Well, how about music, then? Everything that happens is caught in aspic in my mind. But not the Sex Pistols, I add. You put on Radio 2. You seem relieved. Sometimes you hum, and I wonder if you are trying to send a message in code.

  Once we have arrived, you get out to open the car door for me. I poke out my shoe, and as I emerge I discover that you are staring at my lower leg, just as you did with Sheila’s cleavage. I wish my ankle were a better shape, because inside this brown wool suit my shoulde
rs, you know, are not so bad and I have had men admire my breasts before now. Inwardly I curse my mother for her bovine genes and vow that I will do ankle exercises every morning.

  You introduce me to the landlord: ‘This is Miss Hennessy. Funny thing. We met in the stationery cupboard.’

  ‘We met in the canteen,’ I say.

  But you don’t hear. You are too busy exchanging glances over my head with the landlord. I am pretty sure the man is laughing because a woman has shown up, and you, in turn, appear anxious on my behalf. It’s the way my father used to look when I told him I wanted to do something with my life, something that didn’t involve stopping at home. I realize that, like my father, you want to protect me.

  As soon as I examine the account books, it’s clear they’re fraudulent. Anyone who’s used to expenses sheets could work this out. But I start to show off. I put the landlord through his paces. I imply he is trying to steal from Napier. He knows the rumours about our boss. Bubbles of sweat burst from his forehead, and he crimsons like someone being squeezed by the neck. He rushes out of the office. I hear him complain to you, but I don’t hear your answer. I worry I’ve pushed it too far. I do that sometimes. I misjudge things.

  When I return to your car you are watching me. And I like it. I like the way you study me with a quizzical look, as if I have just appeared in new clothing. I try to walk like a film star (with slim ankles). You open the passenger door for me and close it, and already there is a new bond between us. It is small, I know. It is only to do with our work. Nevertheless I want to keep feeling it. I’m not ready for this to end.

  ‘Can I buy you a beer?’ I ask.

  You put up your hands as if stopping traffic. ‘No, no. I don’t.’

  But I have seen you with those empties. I know your secret, just as I know that you like to dance. ‘One for the road?’

  ‘I’m teetotal, Miss Hennessy.’ The gravity with which you make this confession instantly persuades me that you are speaking the truth. I am ashamed of my remark. It was underhand. Maybe you sense my discomfort, because you smile. ‘Shall we take the long or the short road home?’ you ask.

  ‘Don’t you need to get back?’

  ‘My wife cooks for six. It’s only five now. We’ll take the scenic route.’

  In the passenger seat I close my eyes but I am not asleep, I am thinking only of you. I wonder to whom they belong, those empty cans you are so careful to hide. Your wife? A neighbour? I wonder what your wife cooks for tea.

  You stop the car and turn off the engine and I am surprised to discover we are not at the brewery. You have driven us to the edge of Bolberry Down. You don’t say anything. You just look ahead.

  The early spring day is on the verge of settling into a cold night. The hills are lilac blue, the horizon tinged with purple, the sea and rocks already indigo. A flock of birds flies in a close band back and forth above the beach. They swoop to the left, and then they appear to twist their bodies and swing to the right. They keep doing it. In one direction, their bodies are purpled by the sun’s rays. In the other, the birds merge, blue-grey, into the blue-grey of the sky, so that I have to concentrate very hard in order to find them. It is such a simple thing to watch those birds, playing with their wings and the setting light, but as you turn the key in the ignition again and drive us back towards Kingsbridge, I think of how you dance in secret, and how I dance in secret too. I think of you alone in the snow. I picture the ball dress hanging in my wardrobe along with my dance shoes. And for a moment, yes, I put those two pictures together and I think: a sashay to the left, a swing to the right. You and me, side by side. It is like the first time I found your scent on your handkerchief. I feel safer than I’ve done in years.

  You park outside the brewery, and even before I open the car door I get that thick, heavy smell of hops, but I don’t hate it any more. I breathe it in. By now the building is a dull mass, like a ship with rows of windows that glint silver against the dusk. They are familiar, they are part of you and me, and for the first time I am pleased to see them. The street is empty, so is the yard. Already a frost is pricking the land. The tarmac glitters.

  It is ten to six. Your wife will be waiting at home. Apron, maybe. Casserole in the oven.

  ‘I need to sort a few things in my office,’ I mumble. And before I can stop myself, I add, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure.’

  ‘I mean, thank you for a few weeks ago. The time in the stationery cupboard.’

  You turn pale. ‘Don’t mention it.’ And I get the impression you mean exactly that.

  But I can’t be silent. Now that I’ve started, I need you to know the truth about me, even if it is only a fraction, so I tell you that I was upset and that you were kind and that I should have thanked you before. I wish I could also confess that you changed my life in the stationery cupboard, but this is too much for both of us. In your embarrassment you are popping and unpopping the fastening on your driving gloves. I leap out of the car before you can see my face. As my parting shot, I tell you that you are a gentleman. And I mean exactly that. You’re a gentle man.

  I pick my way across the yard, but I am shaking so much it is hard to keep walking forwards. Tears stream from my eyes. I am happy, I am happy, but I want to howl. It is your decency that moves me. Apart from my father, I have never met such a plain-good man.

  Without turning, I know you are still there, in your car. I know you will wait until I am safely at the door of the brewery. There are women who might hate a man who will never love her. But how can I? And I can’t move on without you losing your job. I am someone who has always run from difficulty, and it dawns on me that I don’t have to go on that way. We write ourselves certain parts and then keep playing them as if we have no choice. But a tardy person can become a punctual one, if she chooses. You don’t have to keep being the thing you have become. It is never too late.

  So I make a promise. For once in my life, I will stay in the same place and see something through. You will keep your job, and I will try to bring you happiness. I will not ask for anything more.

  Oh, Harold. How did I get that so wrong?

  We’re all going one way

  THE PATIENT in monster slippers was not in the dayroom when we assembled for morning activities.

  Shortly afterwards his family began to arrive. As they rushed past the door of the dayroom, where we sat with Sister Catherine, they looked in briefly and then flew their eyes away, as if seeing us were a mistake, a bad omen. They were dressed in smart, dark clothes, even the little girls. Maybe the family had changed when they got the news. Maybe they felt the need to inhabit their grief. After my father’s death, my mother gave up eating meat. But why? I asked. She’d always loved meat. Because her life was torn in half, she said. I took her favourite cuts, slices of pink ham, tender roast beef, when I went to visit her in hospital. ‘Schön, schön,’ she would murmur, but they stayed wrapped in paper. She never touched meat again. ‘I am like you now, Liebling.’ It was almost the last thing she told me.

  From my chair in the dayroom I overheard a woman in the corridor. My hearing is not what it was, but emotion had made her less careful. ‘Why didn’t he wait for me?’ she cried. ‘I was only making breakfast for the girls.’ It must have been the patient’s wife. Then someone asked if she needed anything, and the woman began to howl, big wrenching sobs.

  ‘Why couldn’t it be one of those old people?’ she wept. ‘They just sit there.’

  A little while later we watched a small group of mourners gathering in the Well-being Garden. They stood beneath the pagoda, sheltering from the weather. The wind and rain tossed the branches of the cherry tree so that the grass was dashed with pink petals. The older woman, the man’s mother, made a batting gesture with her hands as if she had something attached to her and couldn’t get it off. Then Sister Philomena cradled the woman in her arms, and the woman hung there, very still at last. Sister Philomena kept hold of the woman and spoke to her, and as she did, the woman wiped
her eyes. The group reached for one another’s hands, and whatever it was that Sister Philomena was saying, the others began to listen. They nodded and joined in until one man said something that made them smile. I wondered if they were talking about the patient. Sharing how much they loved him. Then the man must have asked Sister Philomena if they could smoke, because I saw her nod before he took out cigarettes.

  ‘I think I might pop outside,’ said the Pearly King, rising from his chair and heading straight for the garden.

  Finty and I watched the two little girls, Alice and her sister, kneeling on the lawn to pick flowers.

  ‘They will be OK,’ Finty said. ‘The grass keeps growing.’

  The undertaker’s van turned into the drive.

  Sister Mary Inconnue reads through my page. She begins to type. When she sees me – not writing, just gazing out of the window, nursing my fingers – she smiles.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she says.

  No, I think. You wouldn’t want them.

  ‘Is your right hand all right?’

  I hide it so she won’t see.

  I must keep writing.

  I think that dress looks nice on you

  A LONG time ago, I met a doctor of philosophy beside my sea garden. I was rehanging some kelp banners where the wind had pulled them free. ‘That’s a nice job you’ve done here,’ my visitor said, leaning over the wall. ‘Have you made this garden yourself?’ Yes, I told him. It had taken many, many years, but the work was all mine. We got talking, he and I. While I tended my garden, he passed me his business card and told me a little about himself.

  I had grown used to strangers stopping. As word got round about the garden by the sea, visitors began to park their cars at the golf course and walk the coastal path. They brought cameras. Often they returned with pieces of ironwork for my wind chimes or cuttings from their gardens. Despite my original intention to live apart, there was a time when I was something of a local attraction, along with the footpath to Dunstanburgh Castle, and the golf course and ice cream van. ‘You must have been here a long time,’ said the doctor of philosophy.