Page 53 of The Trip of a Lifetime

Would I like to go to Harrison’s hotel room after I had just got out of the shower? Erm, yes, yeah, I would. I then realised I hadn’t actually answered him.

‘Okay,’ I said, trying to sound business-like but feeling like a girl being asked out on a date.

‘Great,’ he said with a smile far too big for business.

I opened my door and after Harrison handed me Erin’s rucksack he’d so chivalrously carried for me, I scuttled inside. It really didn’t seem that long ago I’d been determined to stay at the bus station until I saw that Erin was safe and well, and now I had a breakfast date. No matter that a whole team of people were there and ready to let us know when our family arrived, no matter that I could do nothing to help the situation, I still felt strange about going to Harrison’s room.

The shower was welcome and I felt a little more human when I was dressed. I didn’t bother drying my hair and other than some moisturiser, I left my face devoid of make-up. It really wouldn’t do to look like I’d made too much effort for our breakfast. Then I looked in the mirror and had a word with myself. I could have got away with it the last time I’d seen Harrison. But I’d been twenty then and could get away with anything. Now I was seventy and let’s be honest, I could not. So, I used the hotel room dryer to put a bit of shape in my hair and swept a little tinted moisturiser over my cheeks and ran some mascara up my lashes. Then, making sure I had the tracker with me, I left the room.

Harrison had ordered a tray full of cooked food and also there were pancakes, fruit and yogurts, croissants and pastries. A jug of orange juice large enough to hydrate a bus full of people sat to one side with plates, cutlery and glasses. I was surprised there wasn’t a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. I hesitated.

‘I know it’s a lot,’ he said. ‘And I know you won’t be comfortable until they’re back, I feel the same, but it’s free and better than sitting in the bus station.’

I sighed and sat down at the table by the window. He was right, of course.

‘Plus, we can load up our pockets before we go,’ he said and I laughed.

He poured us both a glass of orange juice and sat down to his plate that was loaded up with pancakes and bacon. The sight of it was enough for my own appetite to return and I happily tucked into a pancake where I dropped strawberries, raspberries and blueberries on the top. Then there was coffee and a shared croissant before Harrison walked over to his bed and stretched out on top of the covers patting his stomach. It was not at all suggestive. Then he sat back up and pulled his pillows behind his back. He looked thoughtful for a moment.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he said, his expression soft and open.

‘I think that rather depends on what you want to ask,’ I said.

There was a small armchair in the corner of the room and I had made myself comfortable, cradling my coffee cup. It was as far away from Harrison’s bed as it was possible to be without being outside in the corridor.

‘I wanted to ask about your husband.’

‘What about him,’ I said, surprised.

‘Does he make you happy?’

‘He made me happy once and then we were both unhappy for a while. He left about ten years ago and since then I have had many moments of happiness and some moments of deep despair, but that is nothing to do with him.’

‘But you still wear his ring?’ Harrison said, nodding to my hand.

‘This was my mother’s,’ I said. ‘I wear it as a reminder of how to try and be strong like she always was.’

I’d forgotten how Harrison was able to make me open up, to get me to talk, or maybe it was just because I was young back then and naturally more open.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry your marriage broke down. I never took the plunge myself. Got close a couple of times but it just didn’t work out. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person.’

‘What have you been doing for the last fifty years, Harrison?’ I asked him.

‘I was an archaeologist.’

‘No way!’ I laughed at him then, truly laughed at the image of him digging for artefacts with a whip curled in his belt and a leather fedora on his head. ‘Harrison decided to become Indiana Jones. I guess it was inevitable with your name.’

‘A bit more Roman pottery than the Holy Grail, actually, but I loved it. I lectured at Oxford for a while. We focused on the intersection of archaeology and anthropology.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to be dismissive; it sounds really interesting.’

‘Then I met someone just as I was retiring and followed her down to Cornwall. Even though the relationship floundered and then ended, I stayed there because I felt a real connection to the West Country. I feel a bit differently now. It’s not really my home.’

‘No kids, then?’

‘No, and that’s really the bit I regret.’

‘And how do you think you’d have taken to fatherhood? Sleepless nights, dirty nappies and all that jazz.’