Taunton

Taunton is the Somerset town that marks the first great crisis of Harold Fry's pilgrimage. It is the place where the physical ordeal of the walk—the storm, the soaked yachting shoes, the spangling pain in his calf—converges with the psychological weight of the past he has spent twenty years repressing. Reaching its outskirts in late afternoon, Harold is forced to confront the memory of the afternoon, twenty years earlier, when everything came to an end, a memory so unbearable he shouts 'No' at the rain. Taunton thus marks the first major crisis of faith in the journey, the point where the walk ceases to be a simple act of devotion and becomes a reckoning with the self.

The Approach and the Storm

Harold decided to continue with the main roads from Tiverton, reasoning that this route was the more direct. He would follow the Great Western Way and then cut across country lanes until he reached the A38, expecting it to be twenty miles to Taunton. The decision was practical, but the weather turned against him. A storm was coming, clouds drew up like a hood over the earth, and threw an eerie luminous light over the Blackdown Hills. For the first time he missed his mobile phone; he felt unprepared for what lay ahead, and he wished he could speak to Maureen. The tops of the trees shone against the granite swell of the sky, and then shook as the first winds hit them. Leaves and twigs were tossed into the air, birds cried out, and in the distance, sails of rain came into view, hanging between Harold and the hills. He cowered into his jacket as the first drops hit.

There was no hiding. The rain shot at Harold's waterproof jacket and down his neck, and even up the elasticated rims of his sleeves. The drops hit like peppercorns. They swirled in pools and rivulets along the gutters, and with each passing car they sloshed over the rims of his yachting shoes. After an hour his feet were water, and his skin itched from the constant chafing of wet clothes. He didn't know if he was hungry and he couldn't remember if he had eaten. His right calf spangled with pain. The storm stripped away the exhilaration of the open road, leaving only the raw, punishing reality of the walk.

The Outskirts and the Memory

Harold reached the outskirts of Taunton by late afternoon. The houses were packed together, and studded with satellite dishes. At the windows hung grey net drapes; some were boarded with metal shutters. The few gardens that were not concrete had been flattened by rain. The blossom of a cherry tree lay scattered like wet paper across the pavement. The traffic sped past so loud it hurt and the roads looked oiled. The town presented itself as a place of greyness and noise, a stark contrast to the open land he had been walking through.

A memory surged into his mind, one of those that Harold most feared. He was normally so good at repressing them. He tried to think about Queenie, but even that wouldn't work. He shot his elbows out sideways to go faster and drove his feet against the paving stones with such fury he hadn't the breathing to keep up. But nothing would hide him from the memory of an afternoon twenty years ago when it had all come to an end. He could see his hand reaching for the wooden door; feel the warmth of the sun on his shoulders; smell the mouldering, heated-up air; hear the stillness of a silence that was not what it should be. 'No,' he shouted, batting out at the rain. The memory, unnamed but devastating, was the first time the past had broken through his defenses with such force, and Taunton was the stage for this collapse.

The Crisis of Faith

Taunton represents the first test of the faith that had carried Harold from Kingsbridge. The decision to walk had come in a moment of pure clarity, with no deliberation, no reasoning, as he pictured Queenie dozing at one end of England and himself in a phone box at the other. He had laughed at the simplicity of it. But the storm and the memory shattered that simplicity. The physical pain and the psychological weight combined to make him doubt. He drove himself harder, despite the pain in his calf and the cold in his bones, despite the trouble in his mind, but the effort was desperate, not confident. The town became the place where the walk's meaning was questioned, where the promise to Queenie—'I am going to save her, you see. I will keep walking and she must keep living'—seemed fragile against the onslaught of the past.

The Turning Point

Taunton is not the end of the pilgrimage, but it is a crucial turning point. It is the place where Harold confronts the memory he has spent twenty years avoiding, and though he cannot yet face it fully, the confrontation itself is a necessary step. The walk, which had begun as a way to save Queenie, becomes also a way to face himself. The town's grey, rain-flattened outskirts, its boarded shutters and oiled roads, stand as the antithesis of the natural world he has been moving through, and the memory that surges there is the first of many that will surface as he continues north. Taunton is where the pilgrimage becomes a reckoning, and where Harold learns that he cannot outwalk the past, only walk through it.