This was, technically speaking, someone else's fault
@lerussesatan on Twitter wanted a scene in the Facebook fic that I've decided to revisit where Hugh Oswald or Harold Postmartin were like "woah Thomas has a Facebook page? You actually dragged him into the 21st century???" which was an excellent prompt, and then I decided to make it depressing.
"I see," said Hugh, leaning back in his chair so that only the top of his head was visible in the Skype window. He was in his library, I realized — had Melissa finally figured out a way to cram a chairlift into the Tower? Or was Hugh getting stronger? Beverley had mentioned something about meeting up with Melissa for yoga classes, but I’d been distracted at the time by the fact that she’d been demonstrating some of that yogic ability on top of me. Maybe Hugh had been taking some exercise classes of his own, though I hoped he wasn’t going to try the same move Beverley had. "So you and Thomas are—"
"Just master and apprentice," I said, even though that word still felt like nails on chalkboard, "And colleagues. And friends," I added, because if Nightingale himself was so hesitant about using the term, maybe he needed to know who his friends were. "Nightingale just wasn’t clear about the terminology that they use on Facebook."
"Ah, that does explain some things," Hugh said, and I wondered what other things were getting explained. But at the same time, I didn’t really want to know.
Instead I said, "In a way, it’s your fault," because I’ve got to find my entertainment where I can get it. Besides, it was.
Hugh looked gratifyingly outraged at this, and leaned forward again to scowl at me. "I beg your pardon?" he demanded.
"Well, sir," I said, cheerful, "You’ve got to admit that while Thomas might be the one running around looking fit and forty all over London these days, he didn’t really keep up with modern technology until I came along. Whereas you’ve been on Facebook longer than I have." Which might be down to his granddaughter’s influence, but somehow I didn’t think so. "You could have kept Thomas abreast of the latest fads like VCRs and trainers and mobile phones. Seems like a dereliction of duty on your part, sir."
This time Hugh laughed, a delighted croaking sound that was a bit alarming, since if he choked suddenly I couldn’t really do much about it from here. "A hit, a palpable hit," he said, clasping his hands together. "Though not for lack of trying, I assure you. Harold and Freddie and Squinty and I have all tried at various times to drag Thomas into the present day, but…" His smile faded, and he looked down at his hands, now clenched together; even through the screen I could see the white knuckles. "He never really left the War, you know. Not really. A lot of them didn’t — while the rest of us moved on, married and had families and put the past behind us, they stayed locked in their own fury and grief. Thomas more than most; but then he had so much more to be furious about. So much more to grieve. And at least for those other poor souls, they had some respite, eventually. Some of them even… went looking for it."
I thought of David Mellenby, the laughing bright-eyed man whose picture I’d found; how he’d come back from Ettersberg unharmed, and shot himself. How Nightingale had come home so badly injured that he’d been in a hospital for almost a year. Or had he been in some sanatorium, instead? Or whatever they used to call the places you went if you were going mad, but your family was too aristocratic to let you get on with it in peace. All Nightingale had ever said was that he’d been ill; but I knew him well enough to know that could’ve covered a host of demons, figurative or not.
Hugh sighed. "But for Thomas… it’s strange — none of us have ever envied him for whatever’s happened to him that lets him grow younger by the day. Well," he said, with a chuckle that didn’t sound sincere, "Perhaps a bit, but… he wasn’t living, Peter. He was just… lingering. Until you, as you say, 'came along.'" He smiled again; there was a brightness on his cheeks and in his eyes. "So I hope you can understand why I… I confess, I hoped. But never mind," this said with a brisk brightness that all good English people learn at birth, the abrupt one-eighty you do when you’ve said too much and would like to pretend none of it had happened, please and thank you.
I asked about the beehives, and for the life of me I can’t remember a word of what he told me.
