– There are two points of view. Minimum.
– No. There is only one.
– Your opinion?
– No the right one. Objectively.
– I thought this was a fun day out.
– It is. I think so.
– So that makes it fun?
– What is your problem?
We were standing at the foot of the statue. Above us The Explorer was looking out to a greying sea, middle horizon, in that 18th century kind of way. It was of its time, as, so it appeared were we.
Kae read the plinth inscription: ‘To strive, to seek to find and not to yield.’
– Enough said, she said. Was something concealed in her parka? A hammer, paint, words? Was she going to destroy everything?
– ‘Discovered!’ She continued reading, a tone of voice I hadn’t heard before. – Wasn’t land there before he went, like all these other continents people like him went to and messed up.
Was she going to regurgitate her chips? Neither of us ate fish anymore.
– Leave it, I said. – Who cares now? It was the way it was.
– Meaning?
Silence, the waves below paused, came in again. The sun low set over the locked crazy golf pitch.
Nothing was meant to be serious. It was still the seaside, sand not stone.
– It isn’t going to stand. I can’t stand it. All it represents. I’ll see to it. And all the other imperialist stuff all over the hemisphere.
– Busy you, I said.
She looked at me as if everything was my fault. –Don’t you care about anything? she said.
I walked alone to the bus station below. Only one bus a day now. A police car blared past me on the way up. I didn’t feel I had anything to be guilty about.
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