The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
Read The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy Online
Authors: Rachel Joyce
Also by Rachel Joyce
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry Perfect
For more information on Rachel Joyce and her books, see her website at
www.rachel-joyce.co.uk
Copyright © 2014 Rachel Joyce
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.
Bond Street Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Joyce, Rachel, author
The love song of Miss Queenie Hennessy / Rachel Joyce.
ISBN 978-0-385-68282-4 (bound) ISBN 978-0-385-68283-1 (epub)
I. Title.
PR6110.O98L69 2014 823′.92 C2014-903141-6
C2014-903142-4
Jacket images: (Woman) Laurence Winram/Trevillion Images;
(Sky) Javaman/Shutterstock; (Beach, Sea, Birds) Chyrko Olena/Shutterstock
Published in Canada by Bond Street Books, A division of Random House of Canada Limited, A Penguin Random House Company
v3.1
For my sisters, Amy and Emily, and in memory of a garden in Roquecor
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.
Martin Buber,
The Legend of the Baal-Shem
Contents
St Bernadine’s Hospice: Berwick-upon-Tweed
St Bernadine’s Hospice: Berwick-upon-Tweed
All you have to do is wait!
An unlikely plan
Sssh now
The last stop
Let’s get this bit over and done with, shall we?
The tall man and the snow
A harsh reminder
The doing of small things
Tin-pot tyrant
Sunday song
Monday blues
A nice pair of sandwiches
The lonely gentleman
In which not much happens
Hang on, would you like my handkerchief?
An ultimatum
A different perspective
Making a friend of bindweed
Where is Sister Mary Inconnue?
The long road home
We’re all going one way
I think that dress looks nice on you
Yes, yes, yes
The nun and the peach
Three cheers for Martina
A taste of well-being
Rebel child
Homage to Harold Fry
A one-way ticket to Newcastle
The puzzle’s progress
A dance lesson for David
The maker of chairs
What shall we sing of when we die?
Patience on a monument
The boy who was allergic to blue
A letter to David
Midnight phone call
Further spiritual advice
Glad tidings from Stroud
A happy day
Further news
The poet
Fire alarm
Ways of loving
Concerning the future
The Spanish Inquisition
Poor Barbara
Morphine madness
Six white handkerchiefs
The way forward
The pilgrims
What is going on?
Concerning a beach house
Further madness
In which I make a home and a garden
Wedding bells
A shock
Hrr-hrm. No one mention (David Fry)
Thank you, thank you, thank you
The loss of a garden
Mr Henderson surprises me
The naming of shoes
Heat
Murano clowns
The mystery man
It was my fault
A dinner engagement
An important message and a basket of washing
The last one to go
A postcard
The dog like a leaf
A lot of fuss and bother
A last-ditch attempt to stop
I wonder who I am now
A poetic interlude
A fly
The laughing tree
A bad night
The visitor
The last confession of Miss Q Hennessy
The last confession of Miss Q Hennessy (2nd attempt)
Final absolution
Exit pursued by a nun
The happy ending
St Bernadine’s Hospice Berwick-upon-Tweed
THE FIRST LETTER
St Bernadine’s Hospice
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Monday, 11 April
Dear Harold,
This may come to you as some surprise. I know it is a long time since we last met, but recently I have been thinking a lot about the past. Last year I had an operation on a tumour, but the cancer has spread and there is nothing left to be done. I am at peace and comfortable but I would like to thank you for the friendship you showed me all those years ago. Please send my regards to your wife. I still think of David with fondness.
With my best wishes,
Q h
THE SECOND LETTER
St Bernadine’s Hospice
Berwick-upon-Tweed
13 April
So here it is
Long ago, Harold, you said to me: ‘There are so many things we don’t see.’ What do you mean? I asked. My heart gave a flip. ‘Things that are right in front of us,’ you said.
We were in your car. You were driving, as you always did, and I was in the passenger seat. Night was falling, I remember that, so we must have been on our way back to the brewery. In the distance, streetlamps sprinkled the blue velvet skirts of Dartmoor, and the moon was a faint chalk smudge.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell the truth. I couldn’t bear it any longer. Pull over, I almost shouted. Listen to me, Harold Fry—
You pointed ahead with your driving glove. ‘You see? How many times have we come this way? And I’ve never noticed that.’ I looked where you were indicating, and you laughed. ‘Funny, Queenie, how we miss so much.’
While I was on the edge of a full confession, you were admiring a roof extension. I unclipped my bag. I took out a handkerchief.
‘Do you have a cold?’ said you.
‘Do you want a mint?’ said I.
Once again, the moment had passed. Once again, I had not told you. We drove on.
This is my second letter to you, Harold, and this time it will be different. No lies. I will confess everything, because you were right that day. There were so many things you didn’t see. There are so many things you still don’t know. My secrets have been inside me for twenty years, and I must let them go before it is too late. I will tell you everything, and the rest will be silence.
Outside I see the battlements of Berwick-upon-Tweed. A blue thread of the North Sea crosses the horizon. The tree at my window is pointed with pale new buds that glow in the dusk.
Let us go then, you and I.
We don’t have long.
All you have to do is wait!
Y
OUR LETTER
arrived this morning. We were in the dayroom for morning activities. Everyone was asleep.
Sister Lucy, who is the youngest nun volunteering in the hospice, asked if anyone would like to help with her new jigsaw. Nobody answered. ‘Scrabble?’ she said.
Nobody stirred.
‘How about Mousetrap?’ said Sister Lucy. ‘That’s a lovely game.’
I was in a chair by the window. Outside, the winter evergreens flapped and shivered. One lone seagull balanced in the sky.
‘Hangman?’ said Sister Lucy. ‘Anyone?’
A patient nodded, and Sister Lucy fetched paper. By the time she’d got sorted, pens and a glass of water and so on, he was dozing again.
Life is different for me at the hospice. The colours, the smells, the way a day passes. But I close my eyes and I pretend that the heat of the radiator is the sun on my hands and the smell of lunch is salt in the air. I hear the patients cough, and it is only the wind in my garden by the sea. I can imagine all sorts of things, Harold, if I put my mind to it.
Sister Catherine strode in with the morning delivery. ‘Post!’ she sang. Full volume. ‘Look what I have here!’
‘Oh, oh, oh,’ went everyone, sitting up.
Sister Catherine passed several brown envelopes, forwarded, to a Scotsman known as Mr Henderson. There was a card for the new young woman. (She arrived yesterday. I don’t know her name.) There is a big man they call the Pearly King, and he had another parcel though I have
been here a week and I haven’t yet seen him open one. The blind lady, Barbara, received a note from her neighbour – Sister Catherine read it out – spring is coming, it said. The loud woman called Finty opened a letter informing her that if she scratched off the foil window, she would discover that she’d won an exciting prize.
‘And, Queenie, something for you.’ Sister Catherine crossed the room, holding out an envelope. ‘Don’t look so frightened.’
I knew your writing. One glance and my pulse was flapping. Great, I thought. I don’t hear from the man in twenty years, and then he sends a letter and gives me a heart attack.