Chapter 1

Saturday, 13^th October 1962

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.

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70 year old Will wakes in 1962 crouched beside a railway track about to suicide...

Through my Eyes. Again.

Robert Hart

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Robert Hart

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