I glanced at him in astonishment. All these months I’d been coming here and that had never occurred to me. ‘I might do that,’ I said truthfully. I turned to face him. ‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘Besides some sort of good idea fairy?’
He let out his loud laugh again, and I found I was pleased to have amused him. ‘Good idea fairy,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I like that.’ He stuck his hand out for me to shake. ‘I’m Finn Russell. I’m a historian.’
I stared at him, unable to believe my luck. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes,’ he said, a little uncertainly. ‘You sound like my mother.’
‘Do you know what “Presents from the Past” means?’
Finn frowned. ‘Precious artefacts, like archaeological treasures?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Or lessons we’ve learned from history, perhaps?’ He looked at me curiously. ‘Why?’
‘It’s the theme for the mural I’m considering.’
‘Ooh,’ said Finn. ‘Interesting.’
‘Is it, though?’
He laughed again. ‘It could be. There’s so much to learn from the stories of the past.’
I liked his enthusiasm and I wondered if he was a teacher. Perhaps I’d be more interested in history if I’d had teachers like him instead of Mr Goodfellow who dictated passages fromtextbooks and made us write them into our books while we all quietly died of boredom.
‘Is being a historian an actual job? Do you teach?’
‘Now you really do sound like my mother. Yes, it’s an actual job. I’m a lecturer at the university and I do my own research, too.’
‘Into what?’
‘The Second World War.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘But not the battles or military strategy. I’m a social historian. It’s the people I want to know about.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ I lied, because it didn’t really. Then I frowned. ‘So what’s that got to do with Tall Trees? Why are you here?’
‘Tall Trees was a hospital during the war. Did you know that?’
I almost laughed at the serendipity of it. ‘I did actually. One of the residents was talking about it the other day.’
‘It was what they called a casualty clearing station during the Blitz.’
‘The Blitz?’ I said, genuinely interested this time. ‘We’re quite tucked away here in suburbia, aren’t we? Was this area badly bombed?’
‘Yes and no,’ Finn said. His eyes gleamed with enthusiasm in a way I found quite appealing. ‘There were bombs dropped here. Sometimes the planes just dropped them on the way to Central London, or the way back. But often they were following the railway lines.’
As if on cue, a train rattled across the railway bridge just along from where we were sitting. We both laughed.
‘This hospital was dealing with injuries locally, but it was also being sent casualties from the East End. The organisation was impressive.’
I looked over at the quiet building, trying to imagine it busy with doctors and nurses, and people with terrible injuries. It seemed a world away from how it was now.
‘Were there trees?’ I asked suddenly.
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s called Tall Trees but there aren’t any trees,’ I said. ‘Were there trees back then?’
‘Actually, back then it was called South London District Hospital,’ Finn told me. He looked at a spot somewhere over my head, obviously thinking hard. ‘But I seem to remember there were trees, actually.’ He swung his front leg over the wall and jumped down on to the ground. ‘I’ve got some photographs. If you want to see them, I’ll be around most of the day. They’ve given me a desk in the back office.’ He gave me that broad smile again. ‘Well, it’s more of a cupboard really.’
