‘… and did you know that Hadrian’s Wall is not just a wall?’
‘What? No. No, Trevor. I did not know that,’ Flo snapped, hoping her tone would spur him to ride on and fill some other poor sod in on the inner machinations of empire building. He did not. Rather, he kept expectantly looking at her until finally, she broke and asked, ‘What is it if it is not a wall?’
‘More like an obstacle course!’
‘An insurmountable one, presumably?’
‘Well, no. I think history proved that wasn’t the case, particularly as only ten per cent of the wall is visible now, unlike the viaducts the Romans built that still stand today, but as you will no doubt see for yourself, there are the ditches – or vallums—’ Trevor droned on and on as if he’d committed the entire shelf of Hadrian’s Wall history books to memory.
‘Trevor!’ Flo finally erupted. ‘What exactly is it you’re trying to achieve by passing on all of these endless, boring, tedious facts about the past! I did not come up here to learn about history!’
Trevor, much to her horror, looked genuinely wounded by her outburst which, to be fair, had not come out in a remotely friendly fashion. ‘Why did you come?’
It was a very good question. So good, she actually forgot about her aching knees and burning thighs and sore buttocks as she contemplated an answer. ‘I suppose I wanted to prove I still had a bit of life in me.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I just … everyone around me is getting old. Getting old and grey and achy and dying or fussing about the fact that I should be behaving more like one of them.’
‘One of whom?’
‘The old, grey, dying people.’
‘It sounds nice.’
‘What?’
‘Having people to fuss about you.’
She hadn’t really thought about it like that before.
‘It means they care, doesn’t it?’ Trevor asked. ‘It means you have people who love you.’
Yes. Yes, she supposed it did. And somewhere along the line she’d led herself to believe that that type of love was suffocating, when in actual fact, Trevor here saw it as a comfort.
‘Do you have family?’ She asked.
He shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. My parents both passed a while back and I never managed to tempt anyone to be my lawfully wedded … so …’
A wash of shame flushed through her. Poor Trevor. He was a kind, lonely man trying his best in a world that didn’t take to people who didn’t conform. She’d been incredibly rude and unforgivably thoughtless. It was quite uncomfortable to confront the reality that, despite having always considered herself a kind, friendly, selfless woman, what she actually was, was … ha! Jennifer would love this. She was actually a selfish, myopic, insensitive know-it-all who briskly put people in their place all to serve her quest to prove to the world little Florence Pringle (yes, she’d dumped the maiden name sharpish) … that little Florence Pringle was interesting. Interesting despite the fact her parents had lived a small, insular, incurious life on the outskirts of Birmingham. They’d always said they were perfectly happy as they were but she’d found it impossible to believe them. How could they be happy without having tried a croissant from a proper boulangerie in Paris? How could they be happy having never stood with twenty-thousand people singing along with one of the world’s greatest ever superstars. How could they have been happy in that square mile of city they never once expressed an interest in leaving?
They just had been. They’d had their friends, their families, and, of course, they’d had each other. Now that she really thought about it, her mother and father had genuinely adored one another’s company. Fussing about this or that, reading bits out from the neighbourhood rag to one another then discussing it. Clipping it out, putting it in an envelope because they thought a brother, sister, aunt or uncle might find it interesting, too.
How could she have mistaken contentedness for colourlessness? Maybe facts made Trevor happy. Perhaps that was his reality. Facts = fun! It didn’t have to be her reality. Perhaps the question she should’ve been asking herself all these years wasn’t about what people were interested in, but why.
‘Tell me, Trevor,’ Flo asked, ‘How is it that you know all of these interesting things about Hadrian’s Wall?’
His wounded look stayed put as he warily answered, ‘I attend lectures through University of the Third Age.’
‘Oh?’ She bet the two meerkats went there, too. She made a note to make sure their paths crossed during the next biscuit and tea break. ‘Sounds interesting.’
‘Yes, there really are some interesting talks.’ Trevor’s voice brightened, ‘In fact I attended one the other day detailing the history of the ukulele which, I was shocked to learn, didn’t originate in Hawaii as popularly believed. In actual fact—’ He stopped himself and threw Flo an apologetic look. ‘Sorry, I do rabbit on endlessly. I doubt you’re interested.’
‘No, no,’ Flo protested, her insides beginning to crumble in despair and not about the idea of being given a second-hand lecture on the origins of the ukulele. No, her despair was tapping into something much deeper. Trevor’s self-imposed editing was her fault. A thought that horrified her, considering if someone did the same to her she would rail against it with all
