The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

waiting for someone. Now bugger off.
    I didn’t say that last bit, but my head did.
    The man nodded and moved away. There was something so afraid and careful about him, picking his way around the luggage, the noise. He didn’t seem to know the place. He looked like a glass animal, too delicate-limbed. Eventually he found a spare seat beside a family and perched himself on the edge. He kept checking his cuffs, his hair, his shoes, the way people do when they’re unsure and they need to remind themselves where they stop and the rest of the world begins. He ordered a pot of Ceylon tea (no milk) and a toasted teacake. Then the child next to him tipped her plastic cup upside down and showered him with juice.
    Everyone jumped to their feet. The lonely gentleman, the waitresses, the other customers. Don’t worry, don’t worry, he kept saying, dabbing his suit with his handkerchief. The girl’s parents were passing him paper napkins, and they were saying, Just send us the dry-cleaning bill, why don’t you have our food instead? And he was blushing and saying, No, no, please. No, no, please. The more attention he got, the more pained he looked. And I sat watching, I am ashamed to say, thinking, Good. Make the lonely man squirm. At least it isn’t me.
    A young man arrived. He didn’t come into the café. He stopped at the doorway. Jeans. T-shirt. New cowboy boots. With his arms folded,he scanned the tables as though he were counting us. The lonely gentleman stood. He mopped his suit again, but his hands were shaking. Excuse me, he said. Excuse me, world. He left money for the bill and followed the young man out of the café.
    I wiped the steam from the window with my sleeve. From where I sat, I watched them make their way down the street. The lonely gentleman walked alongside the young man, hands in pockets, until the young man reached his arm around the lonely gentleman and pulled him close. Other people noticed, skirted them, but the young man kept his arm around the gentleman and steered him forward. I watched them against the fog. Then they were gone.
    You see, even the only other single person in the café was not a single person. It was the final straw. Harold Fry is not coming, I thought. You can wait a whole lifetime and he will not come. For what I had done, there could never be forgiveness. I grasped the handle of my tartan suitcase and yanked it through the crowd, in the way I have seen an exasperated mother tug a screaming child out of the way of strangers. ‘Mind where you’re going,’ people muttered at me. I hated them, but really the person I hated was myself. I fled.
    At the train station, I scanned the departures board, trying to find the farthest destination. I’d have gone to Mars if it had been listed. As it was, I had to settle for Newcastle.
    ‘Single, madam?’
    Ha ha. Very funny. Thank you for pointing that out. ‘Yes, I am all alone.’
    ‘No, I mean, are you planning to come back, madam? Do you want a return ticket?’
    The truth dawned on me. I didn’t want to go. Please, let me not go. This is not what I want. I am in love with Harold Fry. My life will be nothing if I leave. And then I remembered Maureen’s words and I felt again the hollowing punch of them.
    ‘A single, please,’ I said. ‘I’m never coming back.’

In which not much happens
    I HEARD that the Pearly King felt too unwell to visit the dayroom today and so did Mr Henderson. There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed their eyes as Sister Philomena whispered the words and I thought this must be the nearest humans get to whatever God is, when they hold hands and listen.
    A volunteer showed Finty how to make a tissue-paper flower. They made one for Barbara too, but she mistook it for a hat and put it on her head.
    She wore it all morning.
    The buds on the tree outside my