Through my Eyes. Again.

He was standing on the far side of the railway line, the untrimmed growth along 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 schoolbag, its 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 slid up his arm, diagrams of the wrist and forearm in his mother’s anatomy text clear in his mind, the arteries 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?

He slid his right jersey sleeve up past the elbow as well.

He might cry out with each plunge and would need the camouflage of a passing train. A strange sense of detachment enveloped him; his mind drifted until the distant clatter of an approaching train rouses him, its low speed and raucous clanking marking it as a goods train – perfect.

The point poised over the first chosen spot and the clamour grew. A bit closer … he pressed down, ready for the first swift plunge.

I jerked upright in surprise, pricking my skin with the compass in my hands. A bead of blood formed on my wrist. 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 at my command.

My tongue dragged across the skin and saliva stung 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, rose a hill crowned with woodland and a climbing footpath, losing itself in the autumnal russets and yellows. From deep in my brain came the memory: the hill behind my junior school back in England.

My last recollection was relaxing, half a world away, with a glass of Australian Shiraz beside me. I must have dozed off. But no previous dream was this detailed: each strand of yellowing grass crushed under my feet 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 expected the images to spiral away, but nothing happened. I heard only the sound of a whispering breeze, chilling my bare arms and legs. Minutes passed. Another train slipped into my world, building to a crescendo before rushing away.

I examined this strange 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 seething tide. My head jerked up and tears ran down my cheeks. The bitter memories of these bleak times suffused me: the school bullies, my father’s beatings, my impotent raging … my loneliness. With closed eyes, I took a stuttering breath. The rawness of these teenage emotions was agonising for a seventy-year-old.

And I knew when I was as well as where: my first contemplation of suicide, aged twelve.

But I had only thought about it. And that contemplation had happened on the other side of these railway tracks. Memory, dream, or nightmare, this was different.

I could have sat there by the railway line and waited to see what happened, but cold seeped into me: time to go. If this were a dream, it could end somewhere else as easily as here.

My hand still clutched the compass. I dropped it into my satchel, pulled my jumper sleeves down to my wrists, donned the mackintosh and cap and set off to the bus stop. I hoped for a number seven bus, which would take me within a couple of hundred yards of my house. What came was a number six, which meant a mile walk and a steep climb home. I sighed and climbed to the top deck.

The conductor followed me. “Tickets please.” Her lilting West Indian accent was still a novelty in the rural Kent of 1962.

I froze. The conductor’s sunny smile morphed towards a glower. My twelve-year-old memories served up the knowledge of my season ticket in its leather case, attached by a cord to a button in my left-hand coat pocket. After a glance, the smile returned as she moved on.

Shoving away the season ticket, I wondered what else I had with me. My pockets turned up fluff and a handkerchief. My school bag held a French text, a Latin text, Caesar’s De Bello Gallico and several exercise books. These revealed my awful handwriting. My stomach clenched.

My father goes wild about this.

Goes wild?

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 know it was finished.

Memory was a confusing mélange.

I dived back into the bag, finding the Horse and his Boy, my favourite from the Narnia series and escaped into a simpler world for the remainder of the journey.

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 against my thigh until I remembered 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 sat on a low wall, kicking his heels into the bricks. He glanced up as I approached and then continued staring at his feet.

I stopped – anything to delay the arrival home. “You are new around here.” I had never seen him before; he wasn’t part of my memories at all.

His eyes narrowed. 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 almost replied in German – but my twelve-year-old self wasn’t supposed to know his language. “Um … who are you?” I suspected he spoke little English.

He gave me an unblinking stare for a second or so and then jumped off the wall and headed back down the road in the opposite direction to me. I almost called after him, but I couldn’t think what to say in English he might understand. He turned the corner without a backward glance. I had never met – or even known of – a German-speaking boy around here. It seemed like the world of my childhood, but it wasn’t.

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 as I walked towards the back door. A head with a long pigtail appeared in the window and glanced at me. It was my bossy older sister, as a teenager. I saw her dismissive sniff of recognition as I climbed the two steps to the back door.

My father sat at the kitchen table, so young and such a malevolent presence. He loomed towards me.

“Why are you so late?” He snapped the question, his voice coiled with menace.

Our final physical confrontation, one Christmas day when I was fifteen, crashed into my consciousness. I wanted him to touch me and had gleeful thoughts of hammering him. After a few nose-to-nose seconds, he turned away for reasons I still could not fathom.

But now? Now, I was too small to do that.

All the angst driving my afternoon’s decision flared through my brain, swamping any control by my seventy-year-old self. I cried at my impotence, fleeing through the house pursued by my father’s yells up to my bedroom. Slamming the door, I collapsed onto my bed and sobbed.

Night had fallen when the bedroom door opened. Light from the landing crept in, waking me. I lay still. The slight hint of rose scent and swish of a skirt told me my mother had entered. Her hand touched 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.

I shook my head.

“Shall I bring you something here, then?”

My stomach lurched and, again, I shook my head. The room descended into darkness as she closed the door and a terrible fear claimed me. I could not go through this 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.

But … was there a way back from here? If this were a dream – what would happen if I slept – 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 about the differences between what I remembered and what I saw in this world? My brain swirled round questions without answer.

Staying dressed was uncomfortable. I crept over and cracked open the door. Muffled voices rose from below. I took advantage of the relative quiet and got ready for bed, pulled up the covers and 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 strange situation.

My parents headed out for early communion. Time to find space for uninterrupted thought. Dressing in haste, 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.” 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 grubby from its encounter with the fence, but I was starving. I ate it as I walked down the field towards the overgrown garden of the derelict house at its end.

This was my private escape – 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 sticky fingers on 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 grabbed the lowest branch in both hands, swinging my feet up, scrambled round the cold, dark bark and started the ascent.

I was reaching for the last handhold before the fork when a head poked out above me. This was so startling I almost fell, waving my grasping hand to regain my balance; another clasped it, placing mine on the branch.

“Vorsicht.”

The German boy.

Those large, dark eyes stared down at me. Our eyes locked together in surprise before 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 a bland, mouse-brown whilst his was glossy black, matching his dark eyes. His features were delicate and his skin quite pale.

After long seconds of mutual examination, he flicked the long fringe out of his eyes and tapped his chest. “Col.”

He’s so different – but in this world is this my friend, Colin – Col? My Col was English.

In this dream, this world, Col was German?

He was not at all like my Colin, who had been (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 span around this huge anomaly.

“House?”

“Ja. Dein … you … Haus?”

“Oh.” I waved through the cedar branches to where part of our roof was visible. “Um … you?”

He pointed in the opposite direction, across some vacant land to houses along Sea View Road. I knew where my Col lived, and it wasn’t in Sea View Road. Col’s curious gaze held me as all this bounced around inside my head.

“You are new here.” I said, in a somewhat accusatory tone, as if it was his fault he wasn’t my Colin.

“New … here?” he said, pronouncing the words with care, testing them for meaning. “Yes … zwei Wochen …” he held up two fingers and then shrugged, lost for the right word.

I held up seven fingers. “Week?”

He counted my fingers. “Ja, Woche … aber zwei.” He held up seven fingers, twice.

I nodded, “Week is Woche.” mispronouncing it Wocke.

“Ja – aber Woche, Woche.” He emphasised the German ‘ch’ sound, which doesn’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 doesn’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 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 and headed back to the house. Moving in the tree, we watched him climb back over the fence and walk across the field. We sat back down. 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 showed 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, Col reached a decision. He leaned across, grabbing my hand.

“Komm.” he said, pointing toward 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 it open and walked into the kitchen. “Mutti. Mutti.”

I paused on the steps, unsure of myself.

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?” Her voice sounded anxious. I half turned away, ready to make my escape back across the fence. I needed no 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, with little accent, but pronouncing my name the German way.

I stepped through the doorway.

“Please shut the door. It is cold today.”

I did as she asked, standing with my back to the door, my hand still on the doorknob: I felt some undercurrent in the room.

Col turned to his mother and started a rapid-fire conversation my rusty German could only follow in part, but I picked up “friend”, “father” and “fear”. Col’s mother glanced at me several times, then held up a hand, stopping Col. He tried to carry on. She held up her hand again. “Genug.”

“Willi, I am Frau Schmidt, Col’s mother. Perhaps you would like to join us for some milk and a biscuit?” Col relaxed at Frau Schmidt’s welcoming, if incomprehensible, words.

I nodded. My twelve-year-old body had eaten precious little since lunch at school the day before. Frau Schmidt indicated a chair at the table and Col sat opposite me. A plate with half a dozen plain biscuits appeared, along with two glasses of milk.

I pulled the apple from my pocket. “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.”

Col nodded and I saw the smile for me in his eyes. A frisson ran through me. Col’s eyes widened 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 smiled 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 smiled. “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. I had to face it, but I was fast approaching panic at the thought of reliving this life. The black tide roared in and I leaped up. My chair crashed to the floor and I ran for the door into the garden. It would not open and I stood there pushing at the door, tears streaming down my face.

Arms 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 to the sitting room, where Frau Schmidt placed me on her lap and cuddled me. After a while, I calmed down, 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 played 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. Frau Schmidt gave me a gentle squeeze and asked if I was hungry. I nodded and clambered off her lap as she stood up. Col and I followed her into the kitchen, 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 hungry. The thick chicken soup settled my stomach. Col dunked his roll in the soup and I did too, 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.”

When we 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 fought down my young brain’s panic.

“Komm, Col, wir werden ihn nach Hause bringen.”

Col stretched across the table, putting his hand on mine. “Du wirst es nicht verstehen. Willi, aber du kannst zurückkommen wann immer du willst.”

Oh, Col, I do understand – and thank you.

I wanted to come back to this gentle, welcoming house. I struggled to keep my face emotionless, not showing my intense gratitude for the kindness raining down on me.

Frau Schmidt smiled. “Col invited you to visit us whenever you can.”

I gave Col a heartfelt glance, full of gratitude.

“Col, benötigst du einen Mantel?”

Col shook his head and Frau Schmidt rose and pulled on her coat and hat. Leading us out of the house, she 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 door short of our destination, I stopped and pointed. Frau Schmidt smiled at me, but kept a firm grasp on my hand, leading us to the front door.

“Col, läute an der Türklingel.”

Col reached up and pressed the doorbell. My father opened the door, startled to see me in the company of a strange woman.

“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 stared at us.

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. “Will, perhaps you can show your friend your room,” my mother suggested.

Frau Schmidt turned to Col. “Bitte, geh mit Willi.”

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. Suspended 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. And my bookshelves held 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 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 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 through 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 as he assessed me. 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 re-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 wondered 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 (yet still current) global rivalry. I let my face form a smile. “Leipzig,” 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.

He pointed at my head. “Kopf.” I understood what he was doing.

“Head.” I replied and we started learning to speak each other’s language. I tried hard not to ‘learn’ too fast, but my enthusiasm ran away with me a bit.

After about half an hour, my mother and Frau Schmidt appeared in the doorway. 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, helping each other as we stumbled.

“Ach, Willi, you speak German well.”

As a novice, had my practiced accent given me away?

“Will is learning French and Latin at school and he has an ear for music … so perhaps that helps,” said my mother. “Anyhow Will, Frau Schmidt and her son are leaving now.”

My buried panic welled up at my father’s probable reaction to today’s absence. Col held my hand tighter, searching my face with concern. 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 as Col lived close by, her permission or lack of it would not matter much 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 the ferocity her recalcitrant patients feared. “You are not to disappear.”

Swallowing, I nodded.

“Right.” Her intense 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 Will and Col can spend time together here and at their house. It will help both boys’ language skills.” My mother had 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 across me and my father before coming to rest on my mother’s face.

“Bitte sehr.”

I whirled round in surprise.

My mother spoke German?

She laughed, as if 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.

Back inside, I hurried past my father and up to my room. Nothing was settled with my father, but I had an ally in Frau Schmidt and a friend, if not the one I remembered. A different friend in what was a different world.

I negotiated the day without my father exploding at me. That night in bed, I curled myself around this new friendship, revelling in its gentle warmth. But the discovery of Col had shown me this world was not the same world I had lived in before.

What did these 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.

My eyes flicked open and sighed. I was still in my childhood bedroom.

How had I survived the continuous tension of my life here?

My father would have left early to catch a train to work in London and I wouldn’t have to face him on weekday mornings. My young brain’s habits readied me for school. After breakfast, I walked up the road to catch a number seven bus. Passing a pair of new houses, I saw the wall Col had been sitting on was the garden wall of my Colin’s home. I stopped across from what had been his house. A young man came out of the front door, accompanied by a woman with a toddler on her hip. The man gave the woman a kiss, patted the toddler on the head, got in the car and drove off. It was not my Col’s family.

A deep sense of loss descended on me: my Col, my only childhood friend, didn’t exist in this world. I saw the woman across the road watching me with curious eyes and turned and walked on. I would have to make do with the new Col, and though he was not my closest friend from back home, he was kind, and that had to mean something.

At school, the bullies were there as expected, but I reacted differently. I ignored their taunts as we waited for school to start and got out my book and read. The leader, a tousled blond boy, started shoving me. I pushed back, but the bell sounded in time. The glare we shared foreshadowed unfinished business.

Schoolwork was easy, given the level of education I carried in my old brain. I tore through everything in front of me. By the end of the first lesson, Mr. Maple, my Maths teacher, had questions in his eyes. He had chided me about showing all the proper working as I skipped calculation steps but gave each of my solutions a tick as he walked round checking them.

Next period in French, as I completed an oral translation with few missteps, Mr. Partington nodded. “Très bien, Will.” He sounded puzzled at my sudden improvement.

Later in music, Mr. Armitage placed an LP on the turntable and told us to listen and think of the pictures the music created in our heads.

“Tchaikovsky sixth.” I muttered to myself as the music started.

Mr. Armitage’s eyes watched me and I dropped my head to stare at the floor. As class ended, he looked across at me, but I slipped out in the press of students.

I would have to be very careful about showing my knowledge and intellectual skills – assuming I was marooned in this world, which seemed likely.

On the number seven (hooray) bus trip home, I worried at my situation. If I were stuck here, I needed to find out how different this world was, but there was no Internet, Google or Wikipedia in 1962. My parents still had a newspaper delivered each day, so I would have to read that. This was a problem. I had never done so in my previous childhood.

I was still hoping this was some complicated dream. Then an awful thought occurred to me.

Doesn’t your life pass in front of you when you die? Was I doing that?

For a minute, my mind worried at this possibility – until the differences in this world brought that train of thought to a halt.

I would not be reliving such a different world whilst I died, would I?

As I seemed stuck here, I must act as if this were a permanent arrangement or there could be big problems. Fortunately, I had all the experience of my ‘old’ brain to make it work. Pondering this almost caused me to miss my stop and I had to rush to the exit as the doors closed.

“Pay attention, young ’un.” The driver’s voice was surly as he recycled the doors.

I walked down the road, giving what had been Col’s house in my old life an intense scan, but nothing struck me as different – except it held the wrong family. I carried on past my house and turned into Sea View Road, before knocking on Col’s door.

“Willi, welcome. Come in.” Frau Schmidt smiled.

Col helped me hang up my coat.

“Do you have schoolwork to finish, Willi?”

“Yes, Frau Schmidt.”

“Sit down at the table and you can do it there. I will help Col, but he will do the same work and you will learn the German and Col, the English.”

I worked on my Maths problems. Frau Schmidt gave Col a pencil and paper and insisted he did the same work. I found to my delight I could help Col once I understood the different way he wrote some numbers. Also, I was learning the German for the work as Frau Schmidt explained to Col what he had to do.

Once we had finished, Frau Schmidt provided us both with a slice of cake and a glass of milk – and the double-sided language lesson continued.

That set the course of my days as autumn slid into winter. I avoided my father as much as possible and so kept out of trouble. I knew a major confrontation and beating was inevitable and this reality slunk along beside me, a dark shadow. My mother was an intelligent woman and sensed something different about me, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was. I hoped she would pass it off as part of puberty and growing up.

Each day, I smuggled the previous day’s newspaper up to my room. This was easy to do as they piled old newspapers onto a stack beside the kitchen door. I could slip the top one into my school bag as I passed, returning it later. The writing style differed from that of 2020 and the reporting was far more restrained. Each day I would spend half an hour going through the paper, searching my memory for things that jarred. Part of my problem was I hadn’t been into world events and politics until later in my teens and so what was being reported was new to my old brain. I didn’t even remember the Mariner 2 flyby of Venus, which surprised me when it happened in December. My addiction to space must have developed later than I thought.

But I worried about what I would do if I found something different. My primary fear was this world would descend into nuclear madness and there seemed to be precious little I could do about it as a teenager. Life struggled on, even if my inner life was strange by any normal standards.

An explanation of what had happened – was happening – eluded me. I knew this was a different world, but it occurred to me Col and Frau Schmidt in this world could be significant, as they had defected to the west. None of this had happened in my world where Col was English.

Most afternoons, I walked to Col’s house after school. Col and I would sit at the table and I would do my homework with him. Frau Schmidt would listen to music and act as translator and guide as our knowledge of each other’s language deepened. I tried very hard not to ‘learn’ too fast. But as Christmas approached, Frau Schmidt commented to my mother about my ‘remarkable language ability’ when they met on the High Street. Col’s English improved as well, although he still spoke with a noticeable German accent.

We were sitting at the table, homework finished one day, chatting.

“Willi, how about we meet in town after school tomorrow? There’s something I want to show you.”

“Okay.”

Col smiled, delighted at my agreement. “Where shall we meet?”

“How about in the library? That way, whoever gets there first can stay warm and dry while they wait.”

The next day, I caught a number six bus into the town and then walked to the library. I found Col and greeted him in German. The young librarian at the desk heard me and sniffed.

“I wonder what her problem is?” I asked Col, still speaking German. As my ‘relearned’ German was better than Col’s English, we spoke more German than English.

Col sighed. “Willi, you must understand many people suffered in the war and blame the Germans for that. Some of them cannot move past that. Mutti and I have talked about it and I can see it happening when people realise I am German.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, but I am German, Willi.” His shoulders slumped in resignation.

I changed the subject. “Come on, what is it you want to show me?”

Col’s face brightened into a smile. “Oh, wait until you see this. It’s the most…” He stopped, realising he was about to give away his surprise. Instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the street. At Col’s urging, we almost ran a few hundred yards out of the main shopping area until we came to a car showroom. Col stopped and pointed at the car in the main display area. There, under bright lights, crouched the sleekest sports car: a Jaguar E-type coupé resplendent in British racing green and glistening chrome.

“Wow.” I breathed.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Col sighed. “Do you think we could go in?”

I doubted the salesmen would want a pair of schoolboys putting their fingers all over their gleaming centrepiece, but they could only say no. I grabbed Col’s hand and we walked over to the car. Everyone must have been busy, as at first no-one noticed. We walked around this vision of automobile pulchritude, staring at our faces reflected and distorted in the chrome and polished paintwork. We peered round the driver’s window at the leather upholstery and polished walnut dashboard.

“You like this car, do you?” A deep, rumbling voice almost had us leap over the car in fright. We both swivelled round to find a huge bear of a man standing there watching us with a crooked smile; a scar ran from his right eye to pull at the corner of his mouth.

I swallowed twice. “We haven’t touched it, sir.”

“That’s all right, boys.” He looked us over and we must have passed inspection, for he leant past us and opened the driver’s door. “Would you like to sit in her?”

I pushed Col forward, speaking English. “Go on, Col, it’s your car.”

Col’s gaze was devouring it.

“Go on, get in, but don’t touch anything.”

His voice was so deep, it rumbled inside me. Col’s eyes widened with uncertainty.

“Mach weiter, Dummie.” The German slid from me without thinking. Col frowned, but climbed into the car. I caught a sour glance from the salesman.

Col put his hands on the steering wheel and then grabbed them back into his lap, recalling the salesman’s admonition.

“It’s alright, son, you can hold the wheel.”

Col’s face was all question. I nodded, smiling. He put his hands back on the wheel, almost reverently, his gaze roving over the interior.

“Do you want to sit in her?” the deep voice rumbled with a hint of a foreign accent.

“I’m not interested in cars. Planes are my thing.” A strange yearning passed across his face, then he turned back to Col, pointing out some feature or other.

“Brian. Brian. Phone call for you.” A voice called out across the showroom.

Our salesman raised an arm to wave his understanding. “All right, out you get and hop it out of here before the boss sees and I get into trouble.”

Col climbed out, a huge grin on his face and we scuttled back outside. Col was walking on air. He turned, his lingering gaze storing away this view of his dream machine. I gave him space to savour the experience and walked in silence beside him through the town.

“I got to sit in an E-Type.” Col almost sighed, still in awe of his experience. He was grinning from ear to ear. I smiled back, knowing I didn’t need to say anything. By the time we had walked back to Col’s house, he was coming down from his high – but, of course, the whole experience had to be recounted to Frau Schmidt.

At Col’s house, our conversations were a cocktail mix of English and German, with frequent side trips into grammar and vocabulary with a rich admixture of Latin and French. Col was picking these up as we studied together. He kept pace with me except in Maths, despite his learning coming very second hand through me. To ensure some linguistic discipline, Frau Schmidt decreed we would alternate English one day and German the next. This worked well but did not prevent excursions into French and Latin (and to be fair, German on English days and vice versa).

At school, I was still having some trouble with the bullies, but my seventy-year-old attitude sapped their energy, and they now left me alone. Even Abbott had not pressed our earlier, unresolved, shoving match. In contrast, my schoolwork improved, perhaps a bit too fast, despite my best efforts to hold back. I saw my teachers scratching their heads at my sharpened interest and abilities. At the end of term, I was topping the class and constantly reaching for something harder.

At Frau Schmidt’s kitchen table one afternoon in early December, we worked on translating a section of De Bello Gallico into English and German: homework from my school. I had no idea of Col’s school. I had never seen his school uniform or any schoolbooks. “Where do you go to school, Col?”

“I don’t go to school, not since leaving Germany.”

I sat there, surprised. “Why not?”

Col shifted in his chair and didn’t reply.

Frau Schmidt, who had been sitting on the sofa, reading, and joining our conversation when we were stuck for the right word, came to sit at the table with us.

“Willi, I know you and Col are friends and want to share everything. But there are some things we cannot share. I am sorry. Please believe me when I say they are not bad things, but … things we cannot share.”

I was perplexed. “Why not?”

Frau Schmidt sighed. “Willi, you know since the war, Germany is divided?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there is bad blood between the two parts of Germany. The DDR, East Germany, is aligned with the Soviets, whilst the BRD, West Germany, is aligned with England and the USA. We are caught up in that bad blood … and I cannot say more.”

“Col said you come from Leipzig. That’s in the DDR, East Germany.”

Frau Schmidt’s eyes pinned Col to his seat. After a moment, he shrugged, looking embarrassed. Frau Schmidt leaned across and grasped my hand on the table, her voice low and urgent. “It is important you do not tell anyone else that. It must remain a secret.”

I stared at Frau Schmidt for several seconds as a terrible thought crossed my mind. I saw Frau Schmidt peering into my face, trying to work out what I was thinking.

Finally, I blurted out. “Are you a spy?” The pressure from her hand spiked.

“Oh Willi, no, no. I am not a spy,” she said, with a touch of laughter. “But it is complicated and for Col and me to be safe, you must tell no one what you know.”

“But I don’t know anything – only that you are from Leipzig, in the DDR.”

“And if other people know even that, we could be in danger.” She paused, deep in thought. “It is possible people are trying to find us – or will try to find us – and take us back – or worse.” She stopped again. “But perhaps you can help us: if anyone asks you about us, please tell me.”

I could sense how serious this was to her. I nodded my head in agreement.

After a moment, she patted my hand and stood up. “Once Col’s English is good enough, perhaps he can go to the local government school. We cannot afford a private school like yours. Now, how about a piece of cake?”

Frau Schmidt walked into the kitchen and she gasped.

“Col, Willi – come here.”

A thick fog, glowing from the streetlights, obscured the usual view of Sea View Road. We could not see the front fence along the road.

“Wow. Let’s go outside, Willi.”

“Children. Coats, gloves, scarves – and stay in the garden. It will be dangerous on the road.”

We surged into our coats and opened the front door. The world sounded different, blanketed by the fog. The air carried a taint of smoke and tasted bitter from the coal fires burning against the winter cold. We walked down to the gate and stood there, peering out along the road. A car’s lights crawled into view. The driver had his window open, his head half out, following the central white line. Several more cars and a bus crept past.

The front door open and Frau Schmidt came out, carrying my school satchel. “We had better walk you home, Willi. I don’t want you walking home alone, and I am sure your parents will be happier once you are there.”

It only took ten minutes, but we walked through a different world, with the landmarks looming out of a blurred wall of grey as we closed with them.

At my gate, I turned to Frau Schmidt and Col. “Goodnight, Frau Schmidt. See you tomorrow, Col.”

“Until tomorrow, Willi.” Their breath plumed in the cold air as they turned for home.

The lights in the kitchen revealed my mother tidying up.

“Hello, Will. I’m glad you’re home.”

“Frau Schmidt and Col walked with me. I think she was worried I might get lost.”

“That was kind of her. The awful weather has upset the trains, so your father is staying in London and your sister is staying with Lucy, as the buses are all over the place, too.” She finished gathering the breakfast dishes out of the drying rack and put them away. “I’m glad my evening surgery was cancelled or there would have been no one home when you arrived. This is like the pea soup fogs we used to get.” She paused, remembering the choking smogs of post-war London. “It’s us tonight. How about sausages and baked beans on toast?” She smiled, knowing this was one of my favourites.

“Lovely.”

“Does Frau Schmidt have a telephone?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve not seen one.”

“It would be so much easier on days like today if she did. What would have happened if there had been no one here when you got home?”

“I’d have gone home with her and Col. You know that I’d be there anyway, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Hmm … I suppose so. Sit down at the table and finish your homework whilst I cook, please.”

“I have nothing more to do. We finished everything for next week at Col’s house.”

“We?”

“Col and I do the homework together.”

“You mean he helps you with yours? What about his?”

I was on dangerous ground here, certain Frau Schmidt didn’t want Col’s absence from school known elsewhere.

“We do our homework together – in several languages. Col is even learning French and Latin a bit from what I have. We do our Maths in English and German and today we translated my Latin homework into English and German.”

My mother seemed placated. “It’s a significant advantage to you, having a foreign friend. I know all Germans were not Nazis, but I was concerned when I first learned Frau Schmidt was German. But she is very nice, and Col is a lovely boy. Do you know where they come from?”

For a moment, Frau Schmidt’s request ran through my mind, but I knew my mother was asking out of simple curiosity.

“I don’t know, Germany somewhere, I suppose.” The half-truth slipped off my tongue.

After supper, we listened to “Round the Horn” on the radio and I fell about laughing at Kenneth Williams’ “Hand up your Sticks” sketch. I snuggled in my blankets against the frosty night, rediscovering H Rider Haggard’s Africa in King Solomon’s Mines. After a while, my mother came in and kissed me goodnight.

“Lights out.”

I lay in the darkness, thinking about my friend. In the world I grew up in, the Cold War had been savage to many people in the Eastern Block, but it had remained a cold war.

Would it do so here? How could I tell?

My need to know if this world differed from the one I remembered was churning inside me. My friend Col, being German, told me it was a different world, but how different?

I knew in both worlds, John Glenn had flown in space earlier in the year – a year after the Soviets put a man in orbit. In my world, Valentina Tereshkova would be the first woman in space in the middle of next year, followed by the assassination of JFK in November. But I couldn’t think of anything in the immediate future that might show me if this world was deviating from my world. I would have to keep reading the papers and watching.

I drifted off to sleep.

December rolled on towards Christmas. Frau Schmidt found a job in a dress shop in the High Street. Final term marks were posted on the classroom noticeboard for every subject and I had made top of the class in all but one – French. But then, I was competing with a native French speaker called Leurmet, whose father was a French diplomat of some kind. The following day I had confirmation of what I had already guessed: I was top of my class overall, but I supposed I should have been given what – or rather, who – was in my head.

I didn’t enjoy Christmas shopping, but this year trying to find something for Frau Schmidt and Col had provided the spice I needed. My small weekly pocket money didn’t leave me with much to work with. After school one day, I wandered along the High Street.

In a toy shop, I saw the perfect gift for Col – a Matchbox car model of a British racing green E-type Jaguar coupé. Any idea for Frau Schmidt eluded me, so I meandered along, sampling the various shop windows.

I spied a scarf in swirls of black and crimson that blended into one another around a mannequin’s neck. When I asked, I was told it wasn’t for sale, but a prop used to enhance an outfit. I explained I wanted to buy it as a Christmas present for my friend’s mother as it would go with her dark hair and eyes. The owner of the shop must have been a bit surprised at a schoolboy showing such taste. She let me buy it for five shillings, a huge sum of money to my young self. On my way back up the High Street, I acquired some blue tissue paper for wrapping and then walked to Col’s house. I had to be careful about pulling my homework books out of my satchel when I got there but kept the presents secret. That night in my bedroom I wrapped the scarf and model car, ready to put under their Christmas tree a few days before Christmas.

A couple of days later, Col showed me their new phone sitting on the hall table. I wondered how they had managed it. Usually, it took weeks, if not months, for the GPO to install a new phone line. Whatever, I noted down the number to give to my mother.

The winter term ended a week before Christmas and I knew my school report would arrive by post any day. Because of the bullying at school and beatings at home, schoolwork in my old life had been my lowest priority. I had always been close to the bottom of my class. My terrible school term reports were a cause of some of my father’s most explosive rages – accompanied by thrashings. Nothing I did made any difference and I struggled through school to escape from home into mindless clerical work before discovering I had a brain. At school, I would try to concentrate and might manage for perhaps a week. Then something would cause my father to explode at me and school passed in a blur. The only thing that helped was escaping into a book. Books that took me into another world were my favourites – I dreamed of opening a door and finding my way to Narnia or through Alice’s looking glass. I knew these worlds were not real, but I needed an escape. They were never enough, and I found myself beside the railway track, baring my forearms as a train approached.

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