I am beginning to realise that I don’t write the things I intend to write. I was definitely not to going to write another novel about Harold Fry (if anyone asked for a sequel, I said no), and then suddenly there I was. Writing one. So what changed my mind? A sudden thought – and it was no more than that – that I had not finished with the story. I had not given space to Queenie Hennessy. It would have been wrong to include her version in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry because part of the tension for the reader comes from not knowing how she is and whether he can get to her in time. But nevertheless, I felt the gap I had made in not telling her story.

The realisation came fully dressed, as if it had been around a long time. No sooner had I had it, than I also got the book’s title, its form, and sentences, hundreds of them, cramming my head. There was nothing for it but to abandon the piece I was working on and start on Queenie’s story, right from her very beginning.

There were obvious difficulties. Since I had not planned to write her story when I wrote Harold’s, I hadn’t made things easy for myself. How do you write a life-affirming book about a woman dying in a hospice? And how do you write dialogue when you’ve already made it clear she has no use of her voice? I decided to write the book as a direct parallel to Harold’s. Her journey – one of waiting – would mirror his, one of walking. When Harold had a bad day, Queenie would have one too. When his was good, Queenie’s belief in him would feel equally sure. I would even match Harold’s motley collection of followers with some for Queenie. (For the record, I prefer her lot.)

Part of writing for me is finding the link between what I know and what I don’t. Even though my father died of a cancer very similar to Queenie’s, he had never been in a hospice. My only experience of them had been visiting my grandmother in a convalescent home when I was a teenager and my memory of it was entirely yellow. (Yellow walls, yellow skin, yellow eyes, yellow toast. Even smells seemed yellow. I couldn’t wait to get away.) So one of the first things I did was to write to hospices and people involved in working in them. Visits were arranged and yes, I will be frank with you, I felt nervous all over again. Supposing I should see something I didn’t want to? (Dying.) Supposing I should make an idiot of myself and cry?

My fears were entirely wrong. The hospices I met were full of light and laughter and life. The people I met were kind, down-to-earth, and quick to tell a joke. Some of the stories were so hilarious and outrageous, I couldn’t include them in the book. But I had my key, my way into the story. I would write a book set in a hospice and I would fill it with laughter, with life. It felt right. I could suddenly see the book’s purpose. I also had an idea that Queenie would have made herself a sea garden.

Again, I had no real idea what that might be. It was no more than a few words in my head. So I set off with my family for Newcastle and from there we hired a car and spent a weekend, walking along the coastal paths, taking photographs, identifying flowers, searching for treasure along the sand – shells, bleached driftwood, cork floats, twine, the dried bones of a bird’s wing – and in my head, I carried them all to Queenie’s sea garden.

Since I am being honest, I will also add that I had promised both my editor and my agent that this would be a short book. A novella, I called it, rather grandly. (“What is a novella?” someone asked me later. “I haven’t a clue,” I said. “I didn’t write one.”) Queenie’s story became longer and longer and more complicated. I grew more and more interested in the people around her, not just those in the hospice, but those in her memory, Harold and his son David, Maureen, the reps at the brewery. I wrote at night, I wrote on scraps of paper whilst I waited for my children, I wrote as I walked.

One morning I woke feverish, with a great lump stuck like a rock in my throat; I felt ill and taken over. But I couldn’t, couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t say the book wrote itself. (I am not that romantic.) But I couldn’t let go of it until it was told – or it wouldn’t let go of me until it was told. It took barely six months to finish a first draft. Then the lump in my throat vanished. I started to sleep again. Queenie was free and so was I. And by the way, I would still maintain that I didn’t write a sequel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Really, they should be read side by side.

Extract

St Bernadine’s Hospice
Berwick-upon-Tweed
13 April

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.

More about Rachel Joyce

Review: “The Love Song is far darker than The Unlikely Pilgrimage, yet perhaps it adds necessary ballast to the sparkling balloon of Harold’s journey – and it will certainly find a grateful readership.” - Helen Falconer
Read the full review here

Q&A: “People often ask questions about Harold Fry as if he were a real person …”
Read the full interview here

Exclusive short story: The Boxing Day Ball
Read the story here

Buy the book

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is published in the UK by Black Swan at £7.99 and is available from the Guardian Bookshop at £6.39.