Seventy-year-old Will Johnstone dozes off one afternoon, half a glass of red wine beside him. He wakes in 1962 crouched beside a railway line, in his twelve-year-old body.
What’s more, his twelve-year-old self is about to escape his abusive father … by committing suicide.
Will recoils from this and resumes his troubled life as a seventy-year-old trapped in a teenage body. But this world is different from the one knows and he has no choice but to accept the uncertainties this brings. He sets out to rescue himself, doing his best to mask his strange nature, but family and school sense something different in him.
Will finds unexpected friendship in Col and Lili. Through these friendships, Will is swept into events at the edge of a dangerously different Cold War as MI6 meddles in their lives and Will is tricked into a trip behind the Iron Curtain.
In East Germany, confronted by the secret police, Will must find a way to keep his friends’ secrets or they will die.
He was standing on the far side of the railway line, the untrimmed growth that grazed the fence hiding him from view. The public footpath slanted on up the hill towards the woods at the crest. Was this the place? he thought. Or should he go to the greater privacy of the woods? But the climb would be in full view …
No, here would have to do.
If he delayed, he feared he would lose his resolve. Shrugging off his coat, he retrieved the drawing compass from his school bag, its newly sharpened point glinting in the thin October sunlight. No knife, so no single smooth slice to a fast fade; it would have to be multiple punctures, the extra pain his reward.
He dropped his satchel, the strap slithering down his arm and sank back into the matted grass edging the scrub. The thick wool of the school jersey moved easily up his arm. The diagrams of the wrist and forearm in his mother’s anatomy text were clear in his mind – the arteries boldly drawn in carmine ink. The needle-like point of the compass teased his skin and he wondered how many punctures he would need. Would he need to pierce both arms? Possibly. He slid his right jersey sleeve up past the elbow as well.
He would probably cry out with each plunge and would need the camouflage of a passing train. A strange sense of detachment enveloped him and his mind drifted until he heard the distant clatter of an approaching train, its low speed and loud clanking marking it as a goods train – perfect.
The point poised over the first chosen spot and the clamour grew. Just a bit closer… he pressed it down slowly, ready for the first swift puncture.
*
I jerked upright in surprise, pricking my skin with the compass in my hands. A bead of blood formed on my wrist and instinctively I leaned forward to lick it but stopped in shock when I realised my wrist … was not mine: there was no sign of the greying hair and age-marred skin.
And yet … it was the wrist of this body: it flexed when I told it to.
I felt my tongue drag across the skin and the sting of saliva in the tiny puncture. The blood left a smear in which a smaller droplet formed. I rotated my hands, revealing fresh, pale skin with none of the blotches and well-known scars that came from seventy years of living.
Above me, I saw the hill crowned with woodland and the footpath that climbed upwards, only to lose itself in the autumnal russets and yellows. From deep in my brain, surging to the surface came the memory: the hill behind my junior school back in England.
I sat there, baffled. My last recollection was relaxing quietly, half a world away with a glass of Australian Shiraz beside me. I must have dozed off. But no previous dream had ever been this sharply drawn; each strand of yellowing grass crushed under my feet was executed in exquisite perfection. What had stirred this distant memory to surface with such preternatural detail? And that thought brought me to a halt: whilst asleep, I was critiquing my dream?
I glanced around, expecting the images to spiral away, but nothing happened. There was only the sound of the whispering breeze, gradually chilling my bare arms and legs. Minutes passed, as another train slipped into my world, building to a crescendo before rushing away.
I surveyed my body – skinny legs sticking out of grey corduroy shorts, grey knee-length socks, black lace-up shoes, glasses on my face. Such a youthful body, that of my youth – and it had been about to spike its arteries. The dark emotions of my younger self flooded me in a boiling tide. My head jerked up and I felt tears run down my cheeks. The bitter memories of these bleak times flooded through me– the school bullies, my father’s beatings, my impotent raging and my loneliness. With my eyes closed, I took a stuttering breath. The rawness of these teenage emotions was agonisingly sharp for a seventy-year-old.
And I knew when I was as well as where: my first contemplation of suicide, aged twelve years.
But I had only thought about it and that thinking had happened on the other side of these railway tracks. Memory, dream, or nightmare, this was different.
I supposed I could have sat there by the railway line and waited to see what happened, but I was starting to feel cold: time to go. If this were a dream, it could end somewhere else just as well as here.
I was still clutching the compass, so I opened my school satchel and dropped it in, pulled my jumper sleeves down to my wrists, donned the blue school mackintosh and cap and set off, back across the railway line and through the village to the bus stop. I was hoping for a number seven bus, which would take me within a couple of hundred yards of my house, but what came was a number six, which meant a mile walk and a steep climb home. I sighed and went up to the top deck.
The conductor eventually followed me. “Tickets please!” Her lilting West Indian accent was still a novelty in the rural Kent of 1962.
For a moment, I froze and the conductor’s sunny smile morphed towards a glower, but my twelve-year-old memories served up the knowledge of my season ticket in its leather case, firmly attached by a cord to a button in my left-hand coat pocket. I dragged it out and the smile returned as she moved on.
Shoving away the season ticket, I wondered what else I had with me. My pockets turned up only fluff and a handkerchief, so I opened my school bag: a French text, a Latin text, Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, several exercise books. Opening one of these revealed my awful handwriting. I felt my stomach clench – my father goes wild about this.
Goes wild?
My twelve-year-old brain was telling me he would be waiting for me at home, ready to thrash me for even an imagined transgression. But twenty-five years ago, I had insisted on viewing my father in his coffin: I had to see his corpse to know it was finished.
Memory was a confusing melange.
I dived back into the bag finding the Horse and his Boy, my favourite from the Narnia series. I escaped into that simpler world for the rest of the journey, trying to shed some of the turmoil I was feeling.
I kept an eye on the passing countryside and my twelve-year-old brain warned me to pack up and head downstairs for my stop at the foot of Mickleburgh Hill. Trudging up the hill, my satchel banged annoyingly against my thigh until my twelve-year-old brain told me to hook the strap over the opposite shoulder. After the climb, the road flattened out before I turned down my street.
About halfway to our house, a boy was sitting on a low wall, idly kicking his heels into the bricks. He glanced up once as I approached and then went on staring at his feet as they banged on the wall.
I stopped – anything to delay the arrival home. “You are new around here,” I said, realising I had never seen him before; he wasn’t part of my memories at all.
His eyes narrowed quizzically. The feet stopped kicking. He stared up at me with wide, almost black eyes. “Neu…new…Ja!”
He was speaking … German. I had learned the language in senior school.
“D…umm.” I had nearly replied in German – but my twelve-year-old self wasn’t supposed to know his language. “Um…who are you?” I spoke slowly as I suspected he spoke very little English.
He gave me an unblinking stare for a second or so and then jumped off the wall and headed rapidly back down the road in the direction I had come. I almost called after him, but I couldn’t think what to say in English that he might understand. I watched him turning the corner at the end of the road without a backward glance. This was becoming quite strange. I had never met – or even known of – a German-speaking boy around here. It seemed like the world of my childhood but at the same time, it wasn’t. The weird nature of this dream was rising. What would I find at home – my mother, father and sister or some complete strangers who would throw me back on the street? Was this reality or a dream?
The kitchen lights were on and I walked warily towards the back door. A head with a long pigtail appeared in the window and turned, glancing at me. It was my bossy older sister as I remembered her as a teenager. I saw her dismissive sniff of recognition as I climbed the two steps to the back door.
My father was seated at the kitchen table, so young and such a malevolent presence as he loomed towards me.
“Why are you so late?" He snapped the question, voice coiled with menace.
Our final physical confrontation, one Christmas day when I was fifteen, crashed into my consciousness. I had silently urged him to just touch me and had gleefully imagined I would hammer him, but after a few nose-to-nose seconds he had turned away for reasons I still could not fathom.
But now? Now, I was too small to do that. All the angst and anguish that drove my afternoon’s decision flared through my brain, swamping any control my seventy-year-old self tried to impose. Suddenly I was crying impotently, fleeing through the house pursued by my father’s yells up the stairs to my bedroom. Slamming the door behind me I threw myself onto my bed and sobbed.
It was dark when the bedroom door opened and light from the landing crept in, waking me. I lay still. The slight hint of rose scent and swish of a skirt told me it was my mother. I felt her hand lightly touch my shoulder.
I must have flinched, but I remained curled around my satchel.
“Will, do you want to come down for supper?” My mother asked, softly.
I shook my head.
“Shall I bring you something here, then?”
My stomach lurched and, again, I shook my head.
After a few seconds, I felt her hand leaving my shoulder and with the same faint swish, she left. The room descended into darkness as she closed the door and a terrible fear claimed me. I simply could not go through my childhood again. Even with a seventy-year-old perched on my shoulder, I couldn’t do it. I would make sure I had a knife next time.
But…was there a way back from here? If this were a dream – what would happen if I went to sleep – would I wake up from my slumber, reach out and find that glass of Shiraz? If I killed myself here, would I wake there? Had I had a heart attack and died back in my old world – and what did that mean if I killed myself here? What was the importance of the differences between what I remembered and what I saw in this world? My brain swirled with questions that had no answer.
Lying there, I became increasingly uncomfortable, so I crept over and cracked open the door. I heard muffled voices from downstairs. I took advantage of the relative quiet and got ready for bed. I pulled the covers over me and finally drifted off to sleep.
When I woke, I glanced round at my childhood bedroom. No glass of Shiraz for me – I hadn’t gone back. I lay in bed, immobilised by my crushed hope and this truly strange situation.
I heard my parents heading out for early communion. The front door closed, and the sound of wheels crunching across the gravel drive came to my ears. I decided to make my escape, to find time and space to think. Dressing quickly, I scurried downstairs where my sister was preparing breakfast. I grabbed a couple of slices of bread, slapped on some lime marmalade, slipped an apple into my pocket…
My sister walked back into the kitchen. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“I’m going out. I won’t be back until after lunch. Bye!” And I flew out of the door, down the garden, across the back fence and into the field. Would my childhood sanctuary be here in this world?
The marmalade sandwich was a bit grubby from its encounter with the fence, but I was starving, so I ate as I walked down the field towards the overgrown garden of the derelict house at its end.
This was my private escape – specifically the massive cedar tree. I could lie back and hide, high in its enfolding arms, invisible from below. With considerable relief, I saw its top branches rising above the other trees in the garden. I clambered over the rickety fence and pushed through the overgrown shrubs to the tree. The cedar was so big and spread so wide that, under its shading arms, nothing could grow through the thick carpet of old needles.
I wiped my slightly sticky fingers in the long, dewy grass at the edge of its shade and walked in beneath it. There was only one way into the tree, and it required some acrobatics. I reached up and grabbed the lowest branch in both hands, swinging my feet up. I scrambled round the cold, dark bark and started the climb.
I was reaching for the last handhold before the fork when a head poked out just above me. This was so startling that I almost fell, waving my wildly grasping hand to regain my balance; another clasped it, placing my hand safely on the branch.
“Vorsicht.” (Careful.) It was the German boy. Those large, dark eyes stared down at me. For a few seconds, our eyes locked together in surprise and then I hauled myself up. We sat in the fork, each leaning back against a spreading branch, staring at one another.
He was the same height as me but slender, wearing long, grey trousers and a baggy blue jumper over a grey shirt. His hair was longer than my short back and sides. Mine, however, was blandly mouse-brown whilst his was black and glossy, matching his eyes. His features were delicate and his skin quite pale.
After long seconds of mutual examination, he flicked his long fringe out of his eyes and tapped his chest. “Col.”
Oh, my god, he’s completely different – but in this world is this my friend, Colin – Col? My Col was English, well half English, half Canadian. In this dream, this world, Col was German? He was not at all like my Colin, who had been (or perhaps is?) blond-haired and blue-eyed.
Bewildered, I tapped my chest. “William…Will.”
“Ach so! Willi!” He smiled. “Wo wohnst du?” He shook his head when I didn’t respond. “Wo ist dein Haus?” He wanted to know where I lived. I was trying hard to appear uncomprehending, as my brain was spinning around this huge anomaly.
“House?”
“Ja. Dein…you…Haus?”
“Oh.” I waved vaguely through the cedar branches to where part of our roof was visible. “Um ... you?” I was still not thinking very clearly.
He pointed in the opposite direction, across some vacant land to houses along Sea View Road. I remembered where my Col lived, and it wasn’t in Sea View Road. Col was eyeing me speculatively as all this bounced around inside my head.
“You are new here!” I eventually said, in a somewhat accusatory tone as if it was his fault that he wasn’t my Colin.
“New…here?" he said, pronouncing the words ponderously, testing them for their meaning. “Yes…zwei Wochen…two…” he held up two fingers and then shrugged, lost for the right word.
I paused, as my brain started working again. I held up seven fingers. “Week?”
He counted my fingers. “Ja, Woche…aber zwei…two.” He held up seven fingers, twice.
I nodded, “Week is Woche!” carefully mispronouncing it Wocke.
“Ja – aber Woche, Woche!” He slowly emphasised the German ‘ch’ sound which didn’t exist in English.
“Woche, Woche,” I copied and then said “Week.”
“Veek.” I smiled and corrected him, making much of the shape of the lips for the ‘w’ sound, which didn’t exist in German.
“Veek!” Again, I smiled at him, shaking my head.
We leaned back against the tree branches, appraising one another – and I heard my father’s voice in the distance. He knew I used the overgrown garden as a sanctuary.
“William! William! Where are you?”
I leaned across and clamped my hand over Col’s mouth. “Shh!” I whispered.
Col’s eyes stared into mine over my hand. After a moment, he nodded and then, gently but firmly, pulled my hand from his face. He must have felt the tremor in it and our eyes locked as he recognised my fear.
We sat in silence as my father searched the garden below, calling out for me. After a few minutes, he swore loudly and headed back to the house. Moving carefully in the tree, we watched him climb back over the fence and walk quickly across the field.
We sat back down, and Col searched my face.
“That’s my father,” I admitted, dropping my head in embarrassment.
“You…Vater?”
“Father, yes.”
Col again searched my face for several seconds. “Du hast auch Angst vor deinem Vater,” he murmured.
I frowned, pretending not to understand – but his words made it clear that he also feared his father. Another difference: my Colin’s father had died before I met Colin. We sat for a while, each tasting our private fears. After a minute or so, Col reached a decision. He leaned across, grabbing my hand.
“Komm.” he said, pointing in the direction of his house and then clambered down the tree.
“Komm, Willi!” he said, glancing back up, seeing I had not started down.
My father would be back, searching for me after Matins. It would be safer if I were somewhere else, so I followed Col down.
He led me through the garden, now settling down for winter after its late summer riot of juicy, untamed blackberries and sun-warmed apples. We slipped through a decaying fence into a vacant block which backed on to a row of houses. He showed me how to climb over one of the back fences and led me to the back door.
Col pushed open the door and walked into the kitchen. “Mutti! Mutti!”
I paused on the steps, unsure of what to do.
A woman younger than my mother, with the same dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin as Col appeared. Her eyes travelled past Col and saw me in the doorway.
“Col, Was machst du?" (Col, what are you doing?) Her voice sounded anxious. I half turned away, ready to make my escape back across the fence. I did not need any more trouble in my life.
“Mutti, ich habe einen Freund gefunden. Er heißt Willi.”
Col’s mother shifted her attention to me. “Welcome, Willi, come in please.” Her English was good, only slightly accented, pronouncing my name the German way.
I stepped hesitantly through the doorway.
“Please shut the door, it is a bit cold today.”
I did as she asked, standing with my back to the door, my hand still on the doorknob: I could feel some undercurrent in the room.
Col turned to his mother and started a rapid-fire conversation that my rusty German could only follow in part, but I did pick up “friend”, “father” and “fear”. During the brief conversation, Col’s mother glanced at me several times. Finally, she held up a hand, stopping Col. He tried to carry on. She held up her hand again, “Genug.” (Enough).
“Willi, I am Frau Schmidt, Col’s mother. Perhaps you would like to join us for some milk and a biscuit?” Col visibly relaxed at Frau Schmidt’s welcoming sounding, if incomprehensible, words.
I nodded, slowly realising that my twelve-year-old body had eaten precious little since lunch at school the day before. Frau Schmidt indicated a chair at the kitchen table and Col sat opposite me. Shortly, a plate with half a dozen plain biscuits appeared along with two glasses of milk.
I felt the apple in my pocket and retrieved it. “Would you like half my apple, Col?”
Frau Schmidt’s lips curled into a hint of a smile as she repeated my question to Col, “Er möchte seinen Apfel mit dir teilen, Col.” (He is offering to share his apple with you, Col.)
Col nodded and I saw the smile for me in his eyes. A frisson ran through me and I watched Col’s eyes momentarily widen at my reaction. My Col had been my closest, my only friend. Would that friendship happen again with this very different Col? What if my Col were here as well?
“Eat.” Frau Schmidt was smiling as she placed two quarter apples on each of our plates.
I picked up one of my quarters and took a bite.
“Where do you live, Willi?” Frau Schmidt’s voice was gentle, encouraging me to answer her.
I finished my mouthful. “About half a mile over that way.” I waved my arm towards the back fence.
“And do you have any brothers and sisters?”
I nodded. “A bossy older sister.”
“Older siblings can be difficult.” Frau Schmidt gave me a wry smile. “And your parents? What do they do?”
“My mother’s a doctor.”
Frau Schmidt nodded, impressed. “That’s unusual for a woman. And your father? Is he a doctor too?” Frau Schmidt asked. Col leaned in. There was something about fathers.
My father…I sat, emotions welling up inside me. I knew I was in trouble and that I had to face it, but I was fast approaching panic at the thought of reliving this life. I struggled to control myself but felt the black tide roaring in. I jumped up, sending my chair crashing to the floor and ran for the door into the garden. In my confusion, I tried to push the door rather than pull it and I stood there pushing futilely at the door, tears streaming down my face.
Arms gently but firmly folded around me and for a moment I struggled against them.
“Shh, shh.” was murmured into my ear. “Shh, shh.”
Sobbing, I was half carried, half led through into the sitting room, where Frau Schmidt placed me on her lap and cuddled me, rocking me gently. After a while, I managed to calm down a bit. I felt safe, encircled by warm and caring arms. I opened my eyes to see Col sitting half turned towards me, his head leaning on his mother’s shoulder, eyes filled with understanding.
Frau Schmidt felt me stir and saw our eyes sharing fear and sympathy.
“We have trouble with Col’s father, and he must not know we are here.” I heard the tension in her voice, felt it in her cradling arms. The radio was playing a piece for piano and orchestra, so gentle and comforting – the slow movement from the Emperor Concerto, whispered my old brain.
“Perhaps you can tell me about your father another time.”
She felt me tensing because she murmured, “Shh…shh…bleib ruhig…stay calm, Willi.”
We stayed there on the couch for a while, the human contact providing comfort while the music spread its peaceful influence. Finally, Frau Schmidt gave me a gentle squeeze and asked if I was hungry. I nodded and clambered off her lap as she stood up and went into the kitchen. Col and I followed, sitting at the table, picking at the biscuits and milk as she put some soup on to warm and buttered some crusty rolls. At first, I didn’t feel very hungry, but the thick chicken soup settled my stomach and I dug into the rolls, following Col’s lead in dunking them in the soup, enjoying the delicious combination of soft and crunchy textures. As I finished my bowl, Frau Schmidt smiled and ladled in another serving.
“Thank you.”
“Wachsende Kinder… Growing children.” She said, with a touch of laughter.
When we finally finished, Frau Schmidt sat opposite me. “Do your parents know where you are, Willi?”
My head turned away.
“Willi?”
I turned back and saw only sympathy and kindness in her eyes. I shook my head.
“Well, I think we had better get you home, don’t you? Your mother will be worried about you.”
I closed my eyes and fought down my young brain’s panic.
“Komm, Col, wir werden ihn nach Hause bringen.” (Col, we’ll take him home).
Col stretched across the table, putting his hand on mine. “Du wirst es nicht verstehen. Willi, aber du kannst zurückkommen wann immer du willst.” (You won’t understand, Willi, but you can come back whenever you want to.”)
Oh, Col, I do understand – and thank you, I genuinely wanted to come back to this gentle, welcoming house. I struggled to keep my face emotionless when I felt intense gratitude for the kindness raining softly down on me.
Frau Schmidt smiled. “Col invited you to visit us whenever you can.”
I gave Col a heartfelt glance, full of gratitude, noticing that Frau Schmidt had changed ‘want’ to ‘can’.
“Col, benötigst du einen Mantel?” (Col, do you need a coat?)
Col shook his head and Frau Schmidt rose and pulled on her coat and hat. Leading us out of the house, she carefully took a hand from each of us, stopping when we reached the gate.
“Which way, Willi?” I led them along Sea View Road, around the corner to my house. One house short of our destination, I stopped and pointed. Frau Schmidt smiled encouragingly down at me, but kept a firm grasp on my hand, leading us to the front door.
“Col, läute an der Türklingel.” (Col, ring the bell.)
Col reached up and pressed the doorbell. After a few seconds, my father opened the door. He was startled to see me in the company of a strange woman but soon resumed his usual glower at me.
“Willi has been with my son and me. He was very upset about something and I thought it best he calmed down before I brought him home.”
My father just stared, rudely.
My mother appeared behind him, paused as she surveyed the grouping of her son with strangers, and then pushed past. “I'm sorry, please come in.”
My father was not pleased but stood aside and we followed my mother into the sitting room. My mother and Frau Schmidt touched eyes briefly. “Will, perhaps you can show your friend your room,” my mother suggested.
Frau Schmidt turned to Col. “Bitte, geh mit Willi.” (Go with Willi, please).
I held my hand out to Col.
Frau Schmidt turned to my mother. “Col, my son, does not yet speak English. We have been here only a few weeks.”
I led us out, closing the door behind me. Upstairs, Col’s gaze travelled round my room. Hanging from the ceiling were my prize Airfix models of a Spitfire on the tail of an Me 109. I glanced at Col and blushed at flaunting Germany’s defeat at a German boy. Then I realised that on my bookshelves were lined up a dozen or more Biggles books, all featuring images of German defeat at the hands of the RAF and RFC across two wars.
Col did not seem upset. Perhaps he did not understand. He continued his inspection, noting the bed as the only furniture to sit on, and then sat cross-legged on the carpet. Rather than sit on the bed, I sat down opposite him. As far as he knew, we shared no language, but I was aching to find out more about him and his mother. He searched my face and then leaned across and gently took my hands in his.
“Willi und Col…Freunde?”
“Friends?”
“Yes…Freunde…friends.”
He shook his head in frustration. “Ich soll schnell Englisch lernen.” (I must learn English quickly.)
I squeezed his hand. “You must learn English and I must learn German…Deutsch?”
His face showed a mix of surprise and hope. “You spick Deutsch?”
“I will learn – and you will learn English!”
He laughed and an idea came to me. I jumped up and grabbed my school atlas off the shelf. Flicking the pages, I came to the map of Europe. I pointed to the two of us and where we were in England and then pointed to Germany.
“Where are you from?”
Col paused. I had the feeling he was assessing me in some way. Then, murmuring, “Freunde”, almost as if reassuring himself, he finally pointed at Leipzig. His eyes flicked back to mine, seeking my reaction. For my seventy-year-old self, the Wall had come down and Germany had been unified for thirty years. The old DDR (East Germany) along with the entire Soviet Bloc was now history. But here in 1962, the Cold War was very real…and I started to wonder about Frau Schmidt and her son. Col had expected me to react, perhaps in an unfriendly fashion. Who were they and what were they doing in England?
Friendship with this different Colin was far more important to me than some long-dead (if strangely still current) global rivalry. I let my face form a smile. “Leipzig,” carefully pronouncing it the English way. “Freunde.” I repeated back to him.
He smiled and I saw his body relax a tension I had not realised was there.
Suddenly, squeezing my hand he pointed at my head. “Kopf!” I realised what he was doing.
“Head!” I replied and we started on the process of learning to speak each other’s language. I tried hard not to ‘learn’ too quickly, but I was sure my enthusiasm ran away with me a bit.
After about half an hour, my mother and Frau Schmidt appeared in the doorway. Smiling at me, Col pointed at objects around the room saying the English word and I chimed in with the German. Together, we ran through about thirty words, occasionally helping each other as we stumbled.
“Ach, Willi, you speak German well!”
As a novice, had my unusually good accent given me away?
“Will is learning French and Latin at school and he has a good ear for music…so perhaps that helps,” said my mother. “Anyhow Will, Col and Frau Schmidt are leaving now.”
I felt my buried panic well up at my father’s probable reaction to today’s absence. Both Col and Frau Schmidt seemed to sense this because Col held my hand tighter, searching my face with concern, while Frau Schmidt knelt beside us, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“Willi, you are welcome at our house. Please come and help Col learn English – and we will help you learn German.” She turned towards my mother. “I am certain that will be okay?” Her voice was half question, half statement.
My mother knew that as Col lived close by, her permission or lack of it would not matter to my twelve-year-old-self. But I knew it would matter to Frau Schmidt – and my father.
“You must let us know where you are.” My mother’s voice held a touch of that ferocity her recalcitrant patients feared. “You are not to just disappear!”
Swallowing, I nodded.
“Right.” Her intent gaze rested on my face for a long heartbeat. “Time to see your friend out.”
We descended to the hall, where my father was standing, waiting.
“Frau Schmidt and I have agreed that Will and Col can spend time together here and at their house. It will be good for both boys’ language skills.” I realised my mother had neatly outflanked my father. His face hardened but he was unwilling to make a scene in front of strangers. He managed to shake Frau Schmidt’s hand as my mother ushered her and Col to the door.
“Thank you, Frau Doktor Johnstone.” Frau Schmidt raised an eyebrow at her son.
“Vielen Dank, Frau Doktor Johnstone.” Col’s voice was polite but guarded, his eyes flicking anxiously across me and my father before coming to rest on my mother’s face.
“Bitte sehr.”
I turned in surprise. My mother spoke German?
She laughed, as if slightly embarrassed. “I learnt a little German in school before the war…that’s all I can remember.”
Frau Schmidt smiled and, turning, walked with Col down the drive. As they reached the gate, I rushed after them. “Please, can I come round when I get back from school tomorrow?”
Frau Schmidt’s head lifted in question towards my mother, who nodded.
Returning inside, I hurried past my father and up to my room. Nothing was settled with my father, but I felt I had an ally in Frau Schmidt. I also had a friend, but not the one I remembered. A different friend in what was a different world, at least in some small details.
I managed to negotiate the rest of the day without my father exploding at me and that night, safely in bed, I curled myself around this strange, new friendship, revelling in its gentle warmth. At the same time, the discovery of Col had shown me that this world was definitely not the same world I had lived in before.
What did these slowly accruing differences mean?
If this were a dream, I could understand the differences, but this was like no other dream I had ever had.
Sleep came, eventually.