Faith and Belief

The developing meaning of faith through the novel, from the garage girl's simple claim to the hospice nurse's benediction.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

You Have To Believe

You Have To Believe The Girl's Simple Truth The garage girl tells Harold that faith is not about religion but about trusting what you do not know and going for it. Her aunt said hope was enough when everything else had gone. The Pool Of Light Harold watches the girl stand in a pool of light, luminous and certain. He has never heard such simple certainty, and the word faith rings in his head with insistence. The Seed Of The Walk The girl's belief gives Harold the idea that one person's conviction can change the course of another's life. It is the frailest possible seed, and it grows into a six-hundred-mile pilgrimage.

The Knees In The Cathedral

The Knees In The Cathedral The Chilled Light Harold visits the cathedral at Wells and sits in its chilled, pouring light. He reminds himself that centuries ago men built churches, bridges and ships, all leaps of madness and faith. A Prayer For The People When no one is looking, Harold slips to his knees and asks for the safety of the people he has left behind and those who are ahead. He asks for the will to keep going. Apologizing For Not Believing He also apologizes for not believing. The prayer is not an answer; it is a reaching, and for Harold that is a new kind of faith.

A Little Less Sense

A Little Less Sense The Nurse's Revelation The hospice nurse tells Harold that people with no one to stay for tend to pass quickly, but Queenie has been waiting. She says the change in her is very marked. The Unusual Healing The nurse admits his plan is a rather unusual kind of healing. Maybe, she says, what the world needs is a little less sense and a little more faith. The Permission To Believe Harold leaves the phone box laughing and punching the air. The improbable promise has been endorsed by an ordinary voice of institutional kindness.

The Oncologist's Scalpel

The Oncologist's Scalpel The Diagnosis In The Letter The oncologist sees Queenie's letter and gently explains that she is dying. The handwriting shows the deterioration of her disease. He tells Harold there is no cure to walk toward. The Betrayal Of Medicine Harold trusts the oncologist's knowledge, but he will not accept its conclusion. The conflict between evidence and faith becomes acute. The Walk As Belief He does not get into the actor's car. He cannot explain why, but the walk is the idea, and the idea is the faith. It survives the oncologist's truth by becoming something else: presence rather than cure.

The Small Miracle Of Presence

The Small Miracle Of Presence What The Walk Did Queenie is dead. Harold did not save her, and the oncologist was right. Yet Maureen tells him that getting up and doing something when you do not know you can get there is a small miracle. Faith Displaced The walk did not cure a tumour, but it made a dying woman wait, made her smile, and made a man stop being a ghost in his own marriage. Faith becomes love. The Meaning Of The Better Thing Harold no longer needs to believe that walking has magical power. He needs to believe that being with another person is enough. That is the faith he finally holds.

The first afternoon, at the garage

Day eighteen, in Wells

Day twenty-six, the Nailsworth telephone call

Day twenty-one, in Bath

The bench at Berwick, after Queenie's death