Chapter 7 7. Harold, the hiking man and the woman who loves Jane Austen

Harold noticed that some fellows in the distillery, including Mr. Nabil, had invented a particular way of walking, and laughed hysterically as if it was so funny. "Look quickly." They often boasted in the yard. At this time, one of them would put his elbows on his back, bend his waist, stabilize his lower body, and wobble forward like a hen flapping its wings. "That's it! Fuck, that's it!" the others would squeal and laugh, and sometimes the whole group would spit out their cigarettes and walk together in this pose. Watching them do it through the window for days on end, it occurred to Harold that they were imitating the new woman in Finance.They were copying Queenie Hennessy and her tote bag.Recalling this, Harold woke up, eager to get back on the road.The bright sunlight was shining on the curtains, as if trying to squeeze in and find him.Despite the stiffness and weakness in his legs, he was able to walk and was relieved that the blisters on his heels were less painful.Shirts, socks, and underpants hang out on the radiator, having washed them the night before in washing powder and hot water.Not yet dry, stiff, but wearable.He pasted a neatly cut piece of plaster on each of his feet, and carefully tied the plastic bag in knots.After breakfast, he will continue to walk north.Harold was the only customer in the restaurant, which was lit by an orange lamp and smelled of damp.Some Spanish dolls and dead blowflies could be seen through the glass doors, dried to paper.The waitress said very little, but Harold was glad not to have to explain.He ate heavily and hurriedly, staring out the window at the road as he ate, calculating how long it would take a seldom-walker to cover the six miles to Buckfast, let alone the remaining four hundred and eighty miles. Many miles to go.

Harold took out Queenie's letter and read it silently, although he could recite it without reading it.Dear Harold: This letter may surprise you.I know we haven't seen each other for a long time, but recently I often think of the past unconsciously.I had an operation this year... "I hate South Brunt." A voice came from across the room. Harold looked up in surprise.There was no one else but the waitress and him, and she didn't look like she had just spoken.She sat at an empty table, her legs dangling, her shoes dangling on their toes, precariously.Harold finished his last sip of coffee when he heard another, "But I've never left this place." It was indeed the waiter, though she didn't even look at him.Her face was always facing out of the window, her lips were opened into an empty O shape, as if her mouth was speaking.He wished he could say a few words, but he didn't know where to start.Perhaps it would be enough to say nothing and listen quietly, for she went on: "South Brent is superfluous compared to the rest of Devon. I don't even like it when the sun is out. I'll think, Yes, it's good now, but not for long. Either watching the rain, or waiting for the rain."

Harold folded Queenie's letter and put it back in the bag.There was something wrong with the envelope, but he couldn't say what it was.Besides, it seemed rude not to listen to the woman attentively, since it was obvious she was talking to him. She said: "Once I won a tour to Ibiza, just pack up and go. But I couldn't. They sent me the tickets and I didn't open them. Why is this happening? ? Why couldn't I seize the opportunity to escape from here?" Harold bit his lip, remembering that he hadn't spoken a word to Queenie for so many years. "Maybe it was fear," he said, "I used to have a really good friend, but it took me a long time to see that. It's kind of funny, actually, because we first met in a stationery cabinet. ’ He remembered that scene and laughed, but the woman didn’t.Maybe that scene was too hard to imagine.She grabbed the pendulum-like foot and studied it carefully, as if she had never looked at her own feet carefully before. "One day I will leave," she said.She looked across the empty restaurant, met Harold's, and finally smiled.

Contrary to David's predictions, Queenie Hennessy was neither a socialist nor a feminist nor a homosexual.She was a short, stocky, unremarkable woman, waistless, with a handbag perpetually slung from her forearm.It is well known that Mr. Nabil sees women as nothing more than hormone bombs who are timekeepers, and he will give them jobs as bartenders or secretaries in exchange for their "reward" in the back of his Jaguar.So Queenie was a "new try" at the brewery, and Nabil would have never nodded her head if any other woman had applied for the job. Because she is so quiet and humble.Harold once overheard a co-worker say, "You'd forget she's a woman." Within a few days word had spread that she was bringing in unprecedented cash for the finance department, but that didn't diminish the creeping inroads into Mimics and jeers of all kinds in the hallways of the company.Harold sincerely hoped she hadn't seen or heard.I met her sometimes in the dining room, holding a paper sandwich in her hand, sitting with the young secretaries, listening to them as if they or she didn't exist at all.

One night, he was picking up his handbag and was going home when he heard a sniffling sound from behind the closet door.He tried to keep going, but the sound came again several times.Finally he turned around.Harold slowly opened the cabinet door. At first, he saw nothing but a few boxes of papers. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard the sound again, which seemed to be sobbing.Then he saw a man squatting with his back to him, pressed against the wall.Her coat was wrapped tightly around her spine. "I'm sorry." He said immediately, and was about to close the cabinet door and leave quickly, but he heard her choked up: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." Now he stepped into the cabinet, kicked Still outside the cabinet, in front of him was a woman crying into a cowhide envelope. "I've done a pretty good job," she said. "Of course." He glanced down the corridor, hoping to see a co-worker and come over to chat with her.He has never been a person who is not good at expressing emotions. "Of course." He said it again, as if repeating the sentence was enough.

"I have a degree, and I'm not stupid." "I know," he replied, though that wasn't entirely true, since he really didn't know much about her. "Then why does Mr. Nabil keep staring at me like he's waiting for something to happen to me? Why do they keep making fun of me?" This boss will always be a mystery to Harold.He didn't know if the rumors about the broken knees were true, but he'd seen the boss make the toughest landlords docile.He fired a secretary just last week because she touched his desk.Harold said to Queenie, "I'm sure he thinks you're a great accountant." He just wanted her to stop crying.

"I really need this job and the rent won't pay itself. But now I have to quit. Sometimes I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. My dad always says I'm too sensitive." Hearing too much at once Now, Harold didn't know how to deal with it. Queenie looked down, and he saw the soft, dark hair on the nape of her neck, which reminded him of David.He felt a sudden pang of regret. "Don't resign," he said softly, bending down slightly. He said from the bottom of his heart, "I also found it difficult when I first started working. I always felt that I was out of place, but it will get better gradually."

She didn't say anything, and he even suspected that she hadn't heard him. "Now do you want to come out of the stationery cabinet?" He held out his hand to her, surprising himself.Equally astonishing was the fact that she took his hand.In comparison, her hands were soft and warm.Out of the stationery cabinet, she recovered quickly and smoothed her skirt, as if Harold was the wrinkle, and she wanted to smooth him out. "Thank you." She said a little coldly, although her nose was still red. She walked away with her back straightened and her head held high, leaving Harold standing there as if he was the one who was behaving badly.He thinks she finally gave up on the idea of ​​resigning, because every day when she looked up at her desk, she was still sitting there, working leisurely by herself.They barely communicate.In fact he noticed that as soon as he walked into the dining room, she would wrap up her sandwich and get up to leave.

The morning light was golden on Dartmoor's tallest hills, and a thin layer of frost lay over the ground still in shadow.The morning light fell on the ground, like a beam of light from a flashlight, pointing to the journey ahead.Another good day.After leaving South Brent, Harold came across a man in pajamas who was feeding hedgehogs with food on a small plate; he was walking across the road, avoiding the dogs in the street, when he saw a young tattooed girl approaching him. Looking at the window on the second floor of a certain house, she yelled loudly: "I know you are here! I know you can hear me!" She paced back and forth, kicking the wall from time to time, her whole body trembling slightly with anger.Every time she looked like she was about to give up, she would turn back and yell again, "Ellen, you bastard! I know you're on it!" He passed a discarded mattress, a shattered refrigerator The rest of the parts, a few mismatched shoes, lots of plastic bags, and an axle cap for a wheel.The sidewalk narrowed again, turning into a narrow path from the road, and he was finally back under the blue sky, among the hedges, and saw the field ridges thick with ferns and raspberries.He breathed a sigh of relief, surprised even himself how he could be so relieved.

He ate the rest of the biscuits, though a few were crumbled and smelled like laundry detergent.Is this going fast enough?Is Queenie still alive?He couldn't stop to eat and sleep.He has to keep going. When walking downhill in the afternoon, Harold felt that the muscles on the back of his right calf tingled from time to time, and his hip joint was not in place, and he even slowed down the movement of raising his feet.He put his hands on his back, not because of soreness, but because he felt that he needed a little support; he stopped to check the gauze on his foot, and put a new plaster on the foot that had broken the blister.

As soon as the trail turns, it starts uphill and then downhill.Sometimes the mountains and the fields around him disappeared, and he completely forgot where he was, thinking only of Queenie and what her life had been like for the past twenty years.is she marriedDo you have children?She still kept her natal family's name in the letter. "I can sing 'God Save the Queen' in reverse," Queenie told him once.She really sang, with a mint in her mouth, "And "You Don't Give Me Flowers". The song "Jerusalem" can almost be sung in reverse." Harold smiled.I don't know if he laughed or not.A group of cows chewing grass looked up and stopped their mouths when they saw him; a few approached him, very slowly at first, but gradually began to trot, their huge bodies seemed unable to stop.Harold was glad he was on the road, although his feet were suffering a bit, and the plastic bag hanging from his hand beat rhythmically on his thigh, leaving a whitish circle on his wrist.He tried to hold the bag over one shoulder, but it kept falling off. Perhaps the contents of the bag were too heavy.Harold suddenly thought of his son, tiny, standing in the hallway with his new schoolbag over his shoulder.He was wearing a gray school uniform, which must have been his first day at school.David, like his father, was a few inches taller than other children of the same age, giving the impression that he was a few years older than them, or that he was particularly strong.He looked up at Harold, leaned against the wall and said, "I don't want to go to school." No tears, no clutching at Dad's trousers.David speaks in a concise and self-conscious way, which can reassure the listener's doubts.Harold replied—what?What did he say?He looked down at this son, he wanted to give him everything, but he didn't know what to say. "Yes, life is full of frightening unknowns." Maybe he said so.Or "Yes, everything will be fine".Or even "Yes, but there are times when life is good and there are times when it is frustrating."It would be even better if he held David in his arms even though he couldn't find the words.Yet he did not.He did nothing.He felt the child's fear so clearly, but he didn't know what to do.His son watched his dad ask him for help that morning, and he gave him nothing.He ducked in his car and drove to work. Why remember all this?He arched his shoulders and stepped harder, as if not just to get to Queenie, but to escape himself.Harold finally made it to Buckfast before the gift shop closed.Against the backdrop of mountains, the square limestone silhouette of the church looks particularly gray.He suddenly remembered that they had been here many years ago, as a birthday surprise for Maureen.David refused to get out of the car, and Maureen, of course, insisted on staying with the children. In the end, the family only stayed in the parking lot for a while before heading home.In the gift shop of the monastery, Harold picked out a few postcards and a souvenir pen, and considered whether to buy a jar of monks' honey - it was too far from Berwick, and he didn't know if he could stuff it in. Besides, you may accidentally drop the washing powder into the jar on the road.But in the end he bought it and asked the waiter to wrap a double layer of protective film.There are no monks around, only sightseeing tour groups.The newly refurbished "Tangerine Restaurant" attracts more tourists than the monastery itself.I don't know if the monks here have noticed this, would they mind? Harold ordered a large chicken curry and brought it to the window on the large balcony, looking out at the lavender garden.He was so hungry that he devoured the meal.There are two couples at the next table who seem to be arguing, maybe it has something to do with their travel route.The man was talking about the tor, desperately poking at the map in front of him.The woman flicked her fingers on the table impatiently, saying that the tors are all the same and there is no difference.Both were wearing khaki shorts, short-sleeved tops and hiking boots.Harold, not wanting to disturb others, started writing postcards. "Dear Maureen: I'm in Buckfast. The weather is fine, the shoes hold up, and so do my legs. H." "Dear Queenie: I've walked about seventeen miles. Be sure to wait for me. Harold (Frye)." "Dear Gas Station Girl: (Glad you're helpful) Thank you. From the guy who said he was going to walk." "Come here for a day trip?" A voice came from his head. He looked up and saw a young waitress carrying a tray.She must have been under sixteen, and her nails were painted blue, like the sky that morning.There was a time when Maureen had painted her toenails all red, and he used to laugh as she put her knees up to her ears, with the tip of her little tongue sticking out on her lower lip, absorbed in painting her toenails.He tried his best to focus on the girl with blue nails in front of him, so that he could get rid of the beautiful picture in his mind.Harold didn't want her to think he wasn't listening to her.As she cleared the table, Harold explained that he was hiking, without mentioning the destination. "It's important to stay healthy," she said.Harold didn't know if she was saying that he was still healthy, or that it was time for him to give his body some refreshment.He didn't care either, because at least she wasn't laughing at him.It was a situation that touched him: meeting a stranger, showing him a side that wasn't him, or that he had lost long ago, even being someone he "could have been"—if those If the choice made a year ago is different.He ordered another cup of coffee, and the girl asked if she wanted to add milk froth, and turned away. "I overheard it," asked the man who was arguing with his wife next to him, "Are you going to take the Dartmoor route?" Harold replied that he wasn't here to play, at least not quite.He is walking to visit a friend. "Do you travel a lot?" the hiker asked.Harold replied that he rarely left the house except for the needs of his sales representative job.But he and his wife used to take their son to Eastbourne once a year, where there was entertainment every night and local residents held some competitions. What about the Twisting Dance Award." The hiking man nodded, as if he was impatient to listen. "The equipment on your feet is of course the most important thing. What shoes are you wearing?" "Sailing shoes." Harold grinned, but the hiker didn't smile. "You should be wearing Scarpa. Scarpa is professional equipment, we love wearing it." His wife looked up and corrected: "You wear it the most." Her hair was short, like Maureen, her eyes were round and round, as if she was wearing uncomfortable contact lenses.Harold fell into a trance and fell into a memory. David liked a game in particular: time with a watch to see how long he could go without blinking.Tears began to flow from the little eyes, but they still refused to close.Unlike those Eastbourne games, this one hurts to watch. The hiker continued, "Some people like other brands, but we never try and get disappointed. They just don't hold up enough." He also nodded in agreement. "And what socks are you wearing?" Harold glanced at his feet and was about to say "regular socks" when he realized that the hiker didn't need his answer. "You're going to wear wool socks," he said, "and don't even think about it. Is the coat from Gotos?" Harold opened his mouth and closed it again.He didn't know what coat it was, it didn't sound very nice, although maybe it wasn't. "Where's the compass? Where's the hat and gloves? Where's the whistle and headlamp?" "And the batteries," added the wife. "Traveling unprepared has a higher casualty rate than anything else. Of course, such a journey can often make or break a marriage." His wife stopped her hands suddenly and sat still. "So, which route did you choose?" the hiker asked. Harold explained that he was actually going wherever he went, but generally he was heading north, passing through Exeter, Bath, and maybe Stroud. "Just follow the road, because I only drove this part of the way, and I don't know the other routes." He was relieved to see the young waitress returning with coffee.She said she gave him double milk froth. The hiker spoke up again. "They say so well about the Cotswolds line. I'd rather take the Offa Dyke or Black Hills line." "But I'd like to go to the Cotswolds," said his wife. "I like the teahouses there. The stones are the same color as honey, and they're beautiful. The people are nice, too," she said, studying the table. Fold a napkin into tiny triangles with both hands, "Very polite." "She's a Jane Austen fan," said the hiker. "She's seen all the Austen movies. But I'm a big man, you see." Harold nodded, not knowing what the man was talking about.He was never what Maureen called a "big man" type, and he didn't like hanging out with Nabil or the distillery guys.Sometimes even he wondered how he, who had had enough of alcohol, would work in a winery for so many years.Maybe people are like this, the more they are afraid of something, the easier it is to be attracted to something. "Where's your tent?" the hiker asked. "I live in a small hotel on the road." "How wonderful." The woman next to him said enviously. Harold smiled, and returned to the desktop to write on the half-written postcard.He thought for a while about the holidays in Eastbourne, where Maureen would pack some sandwiches for the journey, and they would arrive early every time the doors opened.Harold has always liked this kind of summer, but Maureen told him that David described "life will be like the suffocating summer in Eastbourne when life reaches its lowest point".They hadn't been to Eastbourne for a long time, of course, but Harold believed Maureen must be mistaken, for David had made some good friends at the holiday camp.And the day he won the dance competition, he must have been happy that day. "It's suffocating." When Maureen said these words, her tone was very heavy, as if she was very dissatisfied with these words. The couple next to him quarreled again, interrupting Harold's thoughts. "He can't get there," said the hiker. "Not necessarily." The wife replied. "How do I get there in sailing shoes? How do I go along the main road?" He poked his fingers at the map on the table, as if he didn't need to say anything more. His wife swallowed. "You're always like that, every time someone does something you haven't done, you rush to say it's impossible." Her fingers began to tremble. Harold wanted to leave, but couldn't find the right moment.The woman who liked Jane Austen went on: "I don't know why I put up with you. We don't even like each other anymore." Her husband stared at the map as if he didn't hear her; Keep complaining like he's not ignoring her. "I'm going to go a little farther," she raised her voice. "My teeth are sore from the sound of you folding maps and zipping zippers. I just want to scream out loud." The napkin in her hand was torn and turned into a into pieces. Harold hoped that the woman hadn't said that she couldn't bear her husband anymore, and that the man would have smiled and taken her hand.He thought of Maureen and himself, and the silence of 13 Forthbridge Road all these years.Would Maureen tell him in the café that his voice made her want to scream?When he left, the hiker was still pointing at the map, and the wife was still talking into the air, the rest of the napkin she held in a ball.Neither of them noticed Harold's departure. Harold asked for a standard room, which smelt of central heating, boiled chicken drain, and air freshener.His body was tired and sore, but he still unpacked his "luggage" first, checked the condition of his feet, and then sat on the edge of the bed thinking about what to do next.My heart is so disturbed that I can't sleep.From downstairs came the sound of the evening news broadcast.Maureen must have turned on the TV at this time, watching the news while ironing.Harold didn't move for a while, just listening to the host's voice, feeling a little comforted by the "synchronization" between them.He thought of the couple in the restaurant again, and he missed Maureen even more.Would things change if he tried harder?What if he opened Maureen's door, even booked a vacation, took her abroad?But she certainly wouldn't agree.She was too afraid of not hearing Davy's voice, of not being home when David came back, though he never came. The memory came again.In the early years of their marriage, before David was born, she grew vegetables in her yard on Forth Bridge Road and waited every day on the corner in front of the brewery for Harold to leave work.They walked home together, sometimes stopping by the sea to look at the boats at the pier.She made curtains out of the fabric from the broken mattress, and there was enough material left over to cut herself a dress.She would go to the library to find new recipes and make casseroles, curries, and pasta.At meals she'd ask him how the guys at the brewery were doing, and how their wives were, though they never went to the work Christmas party. He remembered that day he suddenly saw her in a red dress with a small holly leaf pinned to her collar.He closed his eyes, as if he could still smell the sweet fragrance from her body.They drank ginger beer in the yard and looked at the stars overhead. "Who's going to what party?" Can't remember who said that. He saw her hold the tightly wrapped baby and hand it to Harold. "He won't break," she said with a smile, "why don't you hug him?" He replied that babies still like to be held by their mothers the most, maybe he put his hands in his trouser pockets at that time.Why did she smile when she heard this and lean her head on his shoulder, but when she thought about it many years later, it would become the source of resentment and complaints against him? "You never even hugged him!" She used to yell at him when the relationship between the two was at its worst. "You barely touched him the whole time he was a kid!" She defended herself a few words, but her words actually hit the nail on the head.He was afraid to hold his own son.But why did she understand it before, but why did she start to blame him after so many years? I don't know if David will visit his mother now, now that his father is gone.It is too heavy to stay in the room like this, reminiscing and regretting the past.Harold took off his coat.A bright moon hangs in the night sky among the clouds. Outside, a woman with dyed bright pink hair, who is washing things, sees him and stares at him, as if he is someone with a strange appearance.He called Maureen from a public phone booth, and she didn't have any new news to share, so the two talked a few words and didn't know what to say.She mentioned his "journey" only once, asking if he'd thought about getting a map.Harold told her he planned to buy some professional walking gear when he got to Exeter.There are always more choices in big cities, and he also mentioned the brand of Gotos. "Oh," she replied, in a calm tone that suggested he had said something that displeased her but had anticipated.In the silence that followed, Harold could almost hear her tongue flicking across her jaw and swallowing.Then she said, "You should have an idea of ​​how much it will cost." "I think some pension could be used. I'll have a budget." "Oh," she said again. "We don't have any other plans anyway." "Yeah." "So it's okay?" "Okay," she repeated, as if she had never heard the word before. For a moment of confusion, Harold almost wanted to say why don't you come with me, but he knew the answer must be her trademark "I don't think so", so the opening changed again: "You think so Is it okay? I do this? I go this way?" "No, it's only possible." Maureen hung up the phone after finishing speaking.Harold left the phone booth again, wondering if Maureen would understand.But in the past so many years, they have been indifferent to verbal communication. Just looking at him will bring her back to the painful past, and it is safest to communicate in a few words.They both consciously stay in the most superficial communication with each other, because beneath the words is an unfathomable and never-to-be-bridged gap.Harold went back to his standard room and did the laundry.He thought about the two beds at 13 Forth Bridge Road, trying to remember when she stopped opening her mouth when she kissed him, before she moved out of their room, or after? Harold awoke as dawn broke.He was very glad that he was still able to go to the ground, but he was really starting to feel tired.The heating is too strong, the night is too long, and the room is too cramped.Harold couldn't help thinking that Maureen was right about the pension, even though she didn't say it.He shouldn't have spent all his money on his own decisions without consulting her.Although, God knows, he hasn't satisfied her for a long time. Leaving Buckfast, Harold took the B3352 national road, passed Ashburton, and spent the night in Heathfield.I met a few fellow travelers on the road, had a few simple conversations, talked about how beautiful the scenery was, and that summer was coming again, and then I wished each other good wishes, and parted ways and continued on the road.Turning around the mountain, wading through the water, Harold kept walking along the road.The crows scattered on the bush flapped their wings and flew in all directions, and a young deer suddenly rushed out of the bush.The whistling sound of the car engine suddenly sounded from nowhere, and disappeared without a trace after a while.Now and then a dog could be seen behind the door of a house by the road, or a furry badger by the gutter.The cherry tree beside the road stood in a thick skirt of flowers, and when a gust of wind blew, it scattered colorful candy paper all over the place.Harold would not worry about any unexpected encounters.This feeling of freedom is too precious. "I am Dad." He once said to his mother when he was six or seven years old.Mother looked up with interest.He was taken aback by his courage and didn't know what to do next.There was nothing but father's bowler hat and nightgown, and he looked dissatisfied at the empty wine bottle.His mother's face froze, and he figured he'd at least get a slap too.But to his surprise and overjoyed, his mother suddenly raised her limp neck, and crisp laughter resounded in the room.He could even see his mother's straight teeth, the pink gums.She never smiled like that. "What a clown," she said. At that moment, he felt as tall as this house, as if he had grown up.He laughed too, just grinning at first, and then gradually he was rocking back and forth.From then on, he began to try to find ways to make his mother laugh: telling jokes and making funny faces.Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.Sometimes he accidentally hit something next to him, and she laughed without knowing where the point was. Harold walked through the streets and alleys.The road narrowed, widened again, went uphill, and turned again.Sometimes it almost sticks to the bushes by the roadside, and sometimes it can walk with arms swinging. "Don't go into those cracks," he heard himself yell after his mother, "there's a ghost there." But this time she looked at him as if she didn't know him at all, and stepped into each crack.He had no choice but to run after her, stretching out his hands and swinging wildly.But it's so hard to keep up with a woman like Joan. Harold had new blisters on both heels.In the afternoon, I also got blisters on my toes.It turns out that walking can be such a painful thing.All he could think about was blisters. He followed the B3344 from Heathfield to Knighton and then to Chadleis.I have tried my best to walk this far with my body so tired.He found a house for the night, and to his chagrin only barely managed to walk the five miles.As soon as the sun came up next day he forced himself to start, and he walked nine miles that day until sunset.The early morning sun shines through the branches and leaves and makes halos on the ground, and towards noon the sky is covered with small stubborn clouds that look more and more like gray bowler hats.Mosquitoes are flying in the air. Five days since leaving Kingsbridge, and about forty-three miles from Forth Bridge Road.The belt of Harold's trousers was loose and hung at his waist; the sunburned skin on his forehead was gone, as were his nose and ears.Just as he was about to look down at his watch, he realized that he already knew what time it was.He checks his toes, heels, and arches twice a day, morning and night, and puts a piece of tape and ointment on the damaged or swollen areas.He likes to drink a glass of lemonade and go outside to hide from the rain with the smokers under the eaves.The earliest forget-me-nots of the season glistened in moonlit puddles. Harold promised himself that when he arrived in Exeter, he would buy some professional walking equipment and bring Queenie a present.The sun sank behind the walls and the air cooled.He thought of that letter again, and still felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't think of what it was.