Driftwood: Maureen Fry And the Angel Of The North By Rachel Joyce

Harold Fry lived in our office at school for a while and introduced himself to all of us in turn as his book was passed from eager hand to eager hand. Queenie quickly followed. I can’t remember any books being more popular but if I was still there, I think Maureen Fry would become familiar in the same way, and with the film having been released and so perfectly cast, Harold and Maureen have suddenly become real. Maureen’s story simply completes the trilogy of journeys: Harold, Queenie and Maureen. You don’t have to have read the other two but it certainly helps.

Writers often talk of feeling bereaved when they finish a novel. The characters have become friends, familiar in all sorts of ways and it is not always easy to move on. ‘Opening sticky cupboard doors’, that is to say dealing with things we have pushed out of our minds even though we cannot actually get rid of them or throw them out completely, is a wonderful analogy made by Rachel Joyce in her author’s note at the end of this novella. She explains how she had to open the ‘sticky door’ which was Maureen Fry, had to deal with her and let her go once and for all, so that she could move on, having dealt with her sense of loss. Much like Maureen grieving for her son for the last thirty years, Joyce finds peace at last in this compassionate and tender tale.

Harold made his epic journey on foot and ten years later, having learned of a memorial to their son, David, at Queenie’s Sea Garden, in Northumberland, Maureen makes her own journey of discovery, ultimately learning not to judge others and to ‘understand the limitations of myself’. Rather than walking, as Harold did, Maureen takes the car and the route is recognisable as Joyce names several familiar landmarks, punctuating the long and challenging drive. Maureen says she is going to see David but if you have previously read The Unlikely Journey of Harold Fry, you will know that David is dead, so take a moment to realise that Maureen is not talking literally – or is she?

Her trip is an education and the reader becomes acquainted with this complicated woman and begins to feel sympathy for her. A glimpse into her childhood – beloved by her parents but ridiculed by her peers – tells us a lot about the woman she has become. Maureen is not always a nice person. She’s angry at times, sometimes quite simply unpleasant, but ultimately, she is a grieving mother, struggling to find a way to go on, still seeking a way to cope with her loss.

Just as Harold met strangers, so too, does Maureen but she is not as comfortable with people she does not know. She hasn’t gone far when she gets lost and meets Lenny who gives her directions. A near crash leaves her more than a little unsettled and when, after a fourteen hour drive, she arrives at Embleton Bay, she meets Kate who conforms to every stereotype of an activist, living in a truck in a woman’s commune. And it is Maureen who appears rude and ungrateful – at least at first - but the kindness of strangers shines through and Maureen comes to appreciate Kate just as Harold did before her.

She reaches her destination when she arrives at Queenie’s Sea Garden, but Maureen cannot fully grasp its meaning, at first. Eventually, however, she recognises its value and understands the symbolic nature of some of the shrines and ‘statues’ – not least her own: a piece of driftwood with a hole in the middle of it.

Maureen is, in many ways, an inadequate woman, still grieving for her son, yet when she ‘meets’ him, in a scene which could be real, the reader feels her pain and begins to understand something of her grief as she reconciles herself to the truth, coming to terms with the past, at last. There is wit and wisdom in this emotional and heartwarming narrative of heartbreaking loss, grief, and personal growth, as we begin to understand how Maureen came to be who she is, to accept her foibles and to respect her attempts to somehow do better.

Another thoughtful and perceptive novella by Rachel Joyce who demonstrates once again, how well she understands the complexity of human nature.