Chapter 9 9. Maureen and David

Maureen couldn't tell which was more unbearable: the surprise at first learning that Harold was going to walk to Queenie, or the anger that replaced it later.The postcards she received from him, one from Buckfast and the other from the Dartmouth train station ("Hope you are well. H."), neither brought her any real comfort. or explain.She often received calls from Harold in the evening, but he was often too tired to speak clearly.It looks like it's only a few weeks before the pension fund for retirement will be squandered.How could he leave her like this, after she had endured him for forty-seven years?How could he insult her so much that she couldn't even tell her son?A thin stack of bills on the porch table, "To Mr. H. Frye," was a daily reminder that he was gone.

She got out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up every trace of Harold—a hair, a button.She sprayed his nightstand, wardrobe and bed with fungicide. It wasn't just anger that was causing Maureen a headache, but how to explain it to their neighbors.She had begun to regret the lie that "Harold had a sprained ankle and was on bed rest." Rex came by almost every day, asking Harold if he wanted to chat with him, and bringing a small greeting: a box of milk candy , a deck of cards, and an introduction to lawn care cut out of a local newspaper, so that Maureen is afraid to look up at the gate now, fearing that she will see the fat figure through the frosted glass on the door again.She also thought about telling him that Harold was in the emergency room, but Rex would definitely be more anxious than she could handle.Besides, he might offer to drive her to the hospital.The house looked more like a prison now than it did before Harold left.

A week after Harold left home, he called Maureen from the phone booth and said he would stay in Exeter for an extra night and leave for Timberton early the next morning.He said: "Sometimes I feel like I'm doing this for David too. Can you hear that, Maureen?" She heard it.But she couldn't say a word. He continued: "I often think of him and remember a lot of things, things about him when he was a child, I think it might help me too." Maureen took a breath, it was cold and her teeth were sour.She finally said, "You mean to tell me that David wants you to walk to Queenie Hennessy?"

The other end of the phone was quiet for a long time, and then came a sigh: "No." The voice was dull, dark, and sank. She continued, "Did you tell him?" "No." "See him?" Another sentence, "No." "That's right." Harold fell silent.Maureen paced back and forth on the carpet, seeing how far she could go with a wired phone: "If you really want to find this woman, if you want to cross the whole of England without a map and a mobile phone, you can't even say Say it to me; then I beg you at least to take responsibility for what you have done. It is your choice, Harold. Not mine. Much less Davy's."

After speaking of this righteous accusation, she had no choice but to hang up the phone.Immediately regretting it, Maureen tried calling back, but the number didn't work.That's what she does sometimes, and it has become a habit to say something that doesn't match her heart.She tried to find something to distract her, but the only thing that hadn't been washed was the curtain, and she couldn't muster the energy to pull it off.The next day, night came and went, and nothing happened. Maureen didn't sleep well.She dreamed that she was at a social occasion, where everyone was wearing evening clothes and black ties, and there were no faces she knew.She sat down and wanted to eat, but when she lowered her head, she found her own liver in her lap. "It's a pleasure to meet you." She hurriedly said to the man beside her, covering the liver before he noticed.But no matter how she grabbed it, the liver would slip from her fingers, and finally the liver was finally crushed, and part of it was squeezed under the nails.Just when she really didn't know how to stabilize, the waiter came and brought dishes covered with silver lids.

Oddly enough, her body didn't hurt, or at least not that much.She felt more panic, the pain of loss.The panic hit like a rash, a tingle on the skin under his hair.How to put the liver back in the body when no one is looking? There is no wound on the body, where do you want to insert it?No matter how hard Maureen shook her hands under the table, her hands were still full of liver fragments.She tried to wipe off the sticky stuff with her other hand, but soon both hands were dirty.She wanted to jump up, to scream, but knew she couldn't.She had to be very calm, very quiet, and not let anyone know that she was holding her own liver.

At quarter past four, Maureen woke up drenched in sweat and reached for the bedside lamp.Her mind was full of Harold in Exeter at this moment, the pension that was about to be spent, and Rex and the presents from him.She thought about the silence that could not be dispelled in the house, and she couldn't bear it any longer. Shortly after daybreak, she confessed everything to David: her father had left and was on the road to find a woman from his past.he listens. "Neither you nor I have seen this Queenie Hennessy," Maureen said, "but she used to work in a brewery as an accountant. I guess she was an old girl and very, very lonely." Then she told David she Love him and wish he had time to come and sit.He replied that he did too. "What am I going to do with Harold, boy? What are you going to do?" she asked.

He pointed out to her clearly what was wrong with her father and told her to go to the doctor immediately.He said things she was afraid to say. "But I can't leave the house," she said hastily. "He might come back and I'm not." David smiled.It sounded harsh to her, but the kid was never pretentious.Now she faces a choice: she can stay at home and wait, or she can do something about it.Tears welled up in her eyes as she pictured David smiling.Then he said something that surprised her. He said that he knew Queenie Hennessy and that she was a good person. Maureen took a light breath: "But you've never seen her before."

David said that even so, Maureen and she had met.She had come down the Forthbridge Road with a message for Harold, an urgent one. "That's it." Maureen called the doctor to make an appointment as soon as she arrived at the hospital.