by Susan Firman
CHAPTER 5
Friends
The photograph was immediately removed. It was hidden away in one of the side-board drawers. Someone must have told Miss Turner. Jan insisted it wasn’t her. However, from that time on, Miss Turner seemed to be kinder and more understanding towards Hans.
Maybe, she suddenly realised that war had two sorts of victims: the men in the field and the families that were left behind, Hans thought. My family suffered just like your family. But how she had come to have such a picture was beyond his comprehension.
Miss Turner did understand. How he must have suffered seeing his own father in the photograph. Her brother Timothy in the photo had lost his life in that dreadful war, just days before the whole ghastly thing came to an end. She had never believed that the Resmel in the officer’s uniform was one of those monsters they had been led to believe in by their own government. They were all young men in that photo and on that Christmas Day in 1914, the ordinary soldier had shown that they did not really want to maim or kill their fellow man. And as the war had dragged on and more pictures came to light, the suffering grew stronger. You could see it in their faces. You could see it ingrained into their souls. Verdun, Ypres, Mons, the Somme . . . places where those ‘heroes’ had been mown down or blown up at the whim of an order.
Now, here was another a victim. Erwin Hans Resmel. In her house, in her school, in her country. How much like his father the boy was: the same facial features, the same look. She wondered whether he was like his father. He certainly had his grandmother’s firery temper. That she could not deny. No wonder the boy was having trouble settling in with the hate still fresh in the minds of the masters and boys. So many had lost fathers or brothers, uncles or cousins. Many more had said farewell to a man only to be reunited with a battered and fragile shadow of the human form. It had not been that many years since the Great War had ended and people needed time to forget. New bridges needed to be built and new friendships made. It was up to the young ones to show their parents how it could be done. The older generation had to let go of their past and allow the younger ones a chance to build their won lives.
Miss Turner decided it was time to talk to Hans about the photo he had seen before the new school year began. She made herself comfortable on the settee and patted alongside her to indicate she wished him to join her. He perched himself on the furthest edge if making sure he could jump up if needed. But she did not seem to notice and was most satisfied that he had agreed to join her.
“I am sorry you were upset over that photograph,” she began. “I had intended to put it away before you came.”
“It was Papi. Why Papi?”
“It was that first Christmas. Both sides met in No-man’s Land and shared Christmas together. The brother from England; the family friend from Germany. That is why I have it.”
“Friend?” he asked.
“That one.”
Hans was gob-smacked. He hardly knew how to react.
“You knew my father?”
“I knew your grandmother.”
“Then you knew that Papi was killed?”
“Only after the war. We were deeply sorry for your mother and you boys. We lost Timmy in that war. He was killed . . . blown up. Died instantly the family was told but Mother never got over it and refused to believe he had gone. ”
“Sorry. Was he that man in the photograph?” Hans asked. He could see the sadness deep in her eyes.
“No.” The look in her eyes was far away and Hans thought for a moment that he could see a small tear in the corner of her eye.
“Jan’s father?”
“No. Raymond and his wife were killed in 1921 in a train crash. Luckily, they hadn’t taken Janine with them. She became an orphan and has lived with me ever since. She’s still not come to terms with losing her parents. Now, I am all she has in the whole wide world. I know she says some dreadful things at times but she hurts herself as much as others. I think at times she feels she has been deserted. She built a wall around herself after Raymond and Nancy died. She still feels very alone at times, especially when that dreadful anniversary comes round again. Is that how you felt after your mother died?”
“I had my brothers. There were three of us but Renard was always in charge. He’s my older brother.”
“Yes, I am aware of that.”
“And we had my uncle and aunt. They looked after us. Aunt Laura is Papi’s sister.”
“Janine’s only got me. It has always been just her and me in this big house these past three years or so. I am busy with the school so Janine is on her own much of the time. She has not got many friends, well, ones who come here. And, being an only child she has the house to herself. I think she feels threatened by you being here. Suddenly, this big house is not only hers any more. But I think it’s just what she needs.”
Hans was feeling better about his situation. Life did not look so bleak for him again and Miss Turner had shown that she did have a caring side to her.
“So, I stay?”
“That is the idea. You will both benefit. Do you both good. Young people need someone their own age as well as older ones around. Do you agree with me, young man?”
There was silence for a while as he weighed up what she had said.
“I suppose so, Miss Turner.”
“We will all have to make a big effort, Resmel, won’t we? We have to be friends and put that dreadful past behind us. I will talk to Janine. I’m sure it has been a terrible misunderstanding.” Miss Turner smiled slightly and for the first time he noticed her mouth lifted higher on one side than the other and behind her plain spectacles, there were eyes that had feelings. How different she was from the school mistress who inhabited the room down the main corridor and never went out unless to scold or chastise some unfortunate student. This new side of Miss Turner was a surprise. She was human after all. “I will see what can be done. Oh, before I do forget, you will be pleased to know a letter arrived for you in this morning’s post. From the Brymers. Mrs Brymer also wrote to me and reported that she and Mr Brymer have settled in to their new job. They both send you their greetings and wish you well in your studies but I expect she has written something like that in your letter. You can pick it up from the hall sideboard. The Brymer’s have given me some ideas that may help. So, it is up to you now.”
“I’ll try. This time I’ll really try, Miss Turner. I promise. Even if other students are beasts, I’ll make you all proud. Grandmother will be pleased.”
“Good. And what’s this I hear about you playing cricket now?”
“Robert Brinkwater invited me to join them.”
“He is a good lad and he will be a good friend to you, Resmel. Our boys are not all bad. They will accept you if you make the effort to meet them half way. Mix with them and join in with their activities. That’s how you will find friends.”
Hans did find more friends on his seventeenth birthday. Robert Brinkwater, together with several other boys from around the neighbourhood, decided to invite Hans out for ‘a good time with the lads’ and to prove to him that old feelings could be laid to rest. It was to be a fun day: cricket, picnic and some male high-jinks during the long, balmy summer evening. Gerald Brookfield-Smith, who lived out of the town, had got permission from his father for the boys to spend the night in one of the old barns that usually stored farm machinery. The only restriction put on them was that there was to be no smoking because of the hay remnants lying around. All Hans needed were a couple of blankets or a sleeping bag.
A chauffeur was sent round to Miss Turner’s house to collect Hans and drive him out to the Brookfield-Smith estate twelve miles north-west of the town. When Hans arrived, Gerald and another slightly younger boy were already there and came on over. A few hens scratched around in the dirt where the boys had been walking.
Gerald was a year and a half older than Hans and had his mind set on doing something really exciting with his life. His hair was a loose tangle of straw-coloured fine hair and his grey eyes darted around as thoug
h he was trying to follow one of the flying midges in the warm air. He made sweeping gestures in Hans direction and beckoned him over.
“Hans, this is Eddie. Eddie, Hans. Got to dash. Others to see.” Gerald’s face grinned in pleasure as he flicked an unruly tuft of his wayward hair away from his face and immediately made a quick disappearing act into the shed nearby, followed immediately by indignant clucking and a missile of ruffled feathers making a dash for the safety of outdoors.
Hans held out his hand to Eddie.
“Pleased to meet you.”
Eddie was about the same height as Hans, only rounder and more muscled. Hans liked Eddie as soon as Gerald introduced him. He had upside-down eyes that made him look as though he was laughing all the time and a crop of tight dark curls . Eddie did not attend the school but worked in his father’s butcher’s shop in town. His father owned and ran the business and because of this, together with the fact that Eddie could hit a ball better than anyone else in the county, Eddie was accepted into Gerald’s ring of cricket-playing boys.
“Hello. Pleased to meet you, too.”
Eddie always wore his white cricket clothes when he was with the boys whether there was a game on or not. He grinned at Hans and pulled down the bottom of his white cricket jumper.
“Glad to have you in our team. Good idea of Robert’s to bring you along. Really great!”
They sat together on an old piece of machinery that had lain around for so many years that the grass had entwined itself around every rusty strut and pulley. Gerald was still inside the shed. They could hear him thumping around and moving things. He had given them strict instructions to remain outside until he was ready.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Eddie asked as he plucked a stalk of grass and began chewing on it.
“No. I’m from Austria.”
“Really?” Eddie was trying to place the accent. “I’ve got a cousin who went out there after the war. He’s got lots of sheep. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands. Loads more than you’ll ever see here.”
Hans was the puzzled one now.
“We don’t have sheep in Austria,” he said.
“No? Well, my cousin does. Absolutely thousands of ‘em.”
After that, the two boys sat in silence for a while listening to the dull thumps and bangs from within. Then Eddie thought of something else to say.
“Seen any kangaroos?”
“No, why should I?”
“They’re from Australia. My cousin wrote me. Says he can jump almost as high as ‘em.”
“Really?”
The conversation came to a halt again but this time they didn’t have long to wait before Robert arrived, together with one of the tallest boys Hans had ever seen.
“Hello, Hans. Hello Eddie. Bertie Williams couldn’t make it this time.”
Robert was a little out of breath. He brushed back a strand of hair which had fallen forwards over his forehead and beckoned his companion to move closer. “This is Alistair Montgrove, known as Loppy. His father’s a lawyer with Leavers and Company Solicitors, so be careful what you say or do.”
Loppy awkwardly leaned forward from his slender waist and thrust out his long, gangly arm and presented the boys with a large plate of a hand for them to shake. He was at least two years older than Robert and Hans. His laugh was gangly and spread out in all directions around him.
“Don’t take any notice of that. My old man’s not likely to bite your head off and besides I keep mum about what we do. Heard all about you from Robert.” He shook Hans by the hand so vigorously, Hans wondered whether his fingers, let alone his hand, would survive the ordeal. Robert stood shaking his own hand after receiving Loppy’s strong grip. “Funny,” Loppy continued, “I hadn’t noticed you around the school. But then, I was usually out on the pitch or in the library, if I wasn’t studying.”
“Hans sometimes joins us on the cricket field, don’t you Hans?” Robert’s hand had given up feeling squeezed and now rested comfortably by his side.
“Great!” Loppy replied. “It’s a good game when you get to understand it, don’t you think?”
“Not bad,” answered Hans. “What are you going to do after the holidays?”
“Hope to make it to one of the universities. Just done my finals. Can relax a bit now until results come through.” He looked around above their heads, making Hans think of giraffes. “Seen Gerald?”
“Inside.” Eddie pointed to the open door. “Says we’re to stay out here. For the moment. I saw his cousin go in there with him. It’s all hush, hush.”
“If I know Gerald,” whispered Loppy, “He’s definitely up to something. Just you wait. Meantime, I think we can get in a short game. Come on. Let’s round up the others now we are all here. I see Eddie’s come prepared.”
Hans and the others had to wait until the end of the afternoon to find out why Gerald had been so secretive. Phil, a younger cousin of Gerald’s who had arrived to stay for the week, had been permitted to join in the fun but on the condition he helped with Gerald’s barn preparations and never breathed a word about this to any living soul. This was the boys’ night when boys became men.
“Careful with the lamp.” Gerald pointed to a lantern hanging from a hook well above their heads. “I’ll snuff it out when it’s time to sleep.”
After they had all eaten, the boys flopped down on piles of straw and the odd lost feather from one of the roosting hens. They had raked the straw together in five separate piles for five separate beds. This far corner of the barn was theirs, away from the dusty farm machinery and row of old, dull leather bridles, collars and haines. The air was dusty with the smell of dried manure and animal sweat. The boys lay on their beds in the semi-darkness chatting about cricket, auto-mobiles, then girls. It didn’t really matter which girls they were as long as they were girls. Girls from the school, girls from the town, special girls who came to watch the cricket games. Soon became clear to everyone that the best girl of all was Anne Sutherland, not only within the school, but within the town as well.
“Gerald said he’d be willing to fight a duel to get Anne all by himself!” Robert laughed loudly at the idea of he and Gerald locked in mortal combat while Anne stood seemingly disinterested, on the sideline.
“I think I should have first choice,” shouted Hans over the chatter and laughter.
“Why?” the others shouted back loudly in unison.
“Because I met her first. Before any of you. Before the assembly.”
Boos and hisses shot around the barn. Then, a voice called out above the noise.
“What about before? How do you come to that?”
“I was introduced with her,” Hans shouted. “At the same time! That should be enough.”
“All right!” Gerald held up his hand. “I’ll surrender. Just this once. But only because it’s your birthday, Hans.”
“How did you know?” Hans did not know whether to be delighted or embarrassed.
“Never mind how I found out.” He dived his hand into his pile of straw and held up two bottles of red wine high in the air. “Tonight, we celebrate! Make a man of you, Hans!”
“Am I included?” asked Phil who was several years younger that the others. He was hoping not to be left out.
“Yes, Phil. You’re included,” someone said as uproarious laughter lifted high into the loft. “We’re all in this together!”
“Loppy can drink a whole bottle and not get drunk!” Eddie said at the top of his excited voice. “Let’s see who can drink Loppy into the straw!”
“Where did you get that grog from?” asked Robert as another bottle appeared.
“From the cellar.”
“Won’t they be missed? I mean, won’t your butler cop it when they’re discovered missing?”
“No. I’ve been stashing up for weeks. Snodders will blame it all on some of the stable lads.”
Gerald groped into the straw pile again and extracted another three bottles. He popped the cork on the first and b
egan pouring out the beautiful intoxicating liquid into the clean, cut-glass bowls of the wine glasses. Tonight they felt like the ancient gods.
“Drink up, lads! The night is still young!”
The boys continued drinking until the early hours of the morning until one by one they leaned so far over to one side and were not able to right themselves again. Some time next morning, and Hans was not sure what time it was, he awakened back into consciousness. His head throbbed and his eyes felt burning and bulging at the very point when he thought they would explode out of their sockets. He rolled over onto his side and tried to prop himself up on his elbow but it would not lock and he flopped back onto his straw mattress with the control of a jellyfish.
“You awake?”
The whispering was only a few feet away but the thickness within his brain prevented Hans from recognising it. With no windows in the barn, and the lantern extinguished, the interior was as pitch black.
“Is . . . you . . . Robert?”
“Um, er am I?” came the voice in the dark. “Is that you . . . Dicky?”
A voice that sounded like his tried to answer but the noises wouldn’t come out of his mouth. He tried to concentrate. Finally, his wobbly lips which had as much feeling as if he’d just had a tooth extraction managed to form some words.
“No. It’s . . .” There was a long pause while Hans tried to think of his own name. He finally gave up because it hurt every cell in his brain to think at all. “Me,” he replied.
“I’m me too,” said the other voice.
This was becoming difficult. ‘Me’ could not be ‘Me’. There were too many of them. Hans was now totally confused by the haze in his mind.
“Robert?”
“D . . . don’t think so. Don’t f . . . feel like Robert. Do you?”
“No! Scheisse, my head hurts. Must have been hit by . . . ”
“You too?” asked another voice from the dark. “I’ve spent most of the night pissin’ my way through.”
The strange conversation continued another few minutes. Someone got up and opened one of the doors. A shape appeared standing near to where Hans thought his feet were. He squinted but his eyes refused to focus properly and the shape remained ghostlike, yet solid. Then it spoke.
“Come on, Hans. Rouse yourself. It’s the effects of all that wine.”
“Am I?” He couldn’t think of the word he wanted.
Drunk? Yes. We all are in varying degrees.” A long thin arm held something out towards him. “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel a lot better.”
Hans took the mug and tried to direct it towards his mouth. Funny, he thought, I’ve forgotten exactly where my mouth is. His wobbly, misdirected movements slowly produced the result he needed and the rim of the mug finally came into contact with his lips.
“One gulp,” another advised, another voice coming closer through the fog. “Swill it down. Don’t wait. One. Two. Three. Go!”
Hans gulped. The stuff tasted awful but it rushed down his gullet as quickly as a flood down a drainpipe. He sat pulling faces, almost gagging from the taste. An unmoving shape at the end of his feet and a much taller, leaner one by his shoulder. Slowly Hans’ eyeballs settled back into his head and his bewilderment began to evaporate. He could now focus.
“Ah, Loppy. It’s you.”
“Glad to have you back with us, old boy. You and Phil had it bad. Your first?” Hans nodded and his head wobbled as it nearly fell off. Loppy laughed at his misery. “Your first is always the worst.”
“Ooh!” Hans held his head which was still refusing to stay square on to his neck and shoulders. “How long do I feel like this?”
He tried to massage his temples but they still throbbed. Slowly his body was recovering and he could see further around himself. Those boys who were mobile were tidying up. There was Gerald over the far side picking up the binge night evidence and pushing empty glass bottles into a black bag. When he noticed Hans was with them again, he went over.
“Should be sobering up by the time we head back.” he tapped Hans lightly on his shin. “Don’t worry. My Dad’s never noticed anything strange yet.”
“What? You’ve done this before?”
“Hundreds of times, haven’t we Loppy?”
Loppy picked up his bag and stuffed his things inside until the bag was so swollen it couldn’t hold any more. He was not prepared to incriminate himself.
“Well, lads, I’m off !”
Loppy gave a wave high in the air and slipped away between the barn doors that had been cracked open just wide enough to allow his slender body to slip through. Hans could now see that it was daylight, probably well into the morning hours.
Time for all of us to go, he thought as he got up on legs as wobbly as a new born foal.
He staggered around the side of Miss Turner’s house. Even now his legs felt uncoordinated and the ground was too far below his shoes. He hoped to reach the safety of his his room before anyone else noticed how ungainly he was walking. He rounded the back corner and focused on the large glass panels of the back porch. It would be a short trip from there through the kitchen and a longer trip down the hallway to the stairs but there were several doorways he could duck into if anyone else appeared. So far, so good.
He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, knowing that to run up them would most certainly cause him to lose his footing. He listened. Nothing. The house was silent.
Good, he thought. Here goes.
Hans had almost reached the first small landing where the stairs now turned to the left, when he heard a door below him open and footsteps sound in the hallway. He lowered his bag to the ground between his feet, stopped breathing, and listened. The steps began to come closer towards the bottom of the stairs but in the next second, turned and receded. A door opened, then closed. The muffled voice of one of the servants was snuffed out by the door shutting. Hans bent over and picked up the bag, one hand steadying himself against the wall. Only eight more steps to climb.
Each step up seemed to be growing higher; each step narrower. He cursed his senses for playing tricks on him, distorting reality and teasing his legs so that he had trouble placing each foot down firmly and precisely on each step ahead. He counted:
“ . . . three, f, fr . . . five . . . ”
“Watch what you’re doing!” A pause. Then the voice changed to one of suppressed laughter. “You’re drunk!”
Immediately in front of him, only two steps higher, stood Jan Turner. She had expected him to have moved over and let him pass but his manner of moving and the way in which he hugged the wall told her that things were not normal. Hans had been unaware of her approach for all his concentration had been centred on getting his legs to behave and not falling backwards back down the stairs.
“What drunk? Not!” His words still sounded slurred, enough to alert Jan that Hans Resmel was behaving like men she had seen stagger out of ‘The Cook’s Arms’ on a Saturday evening as she and her friends had come out of the cinema when they were allowed to go to this new entertainment.
“You are! Wait ‘till I tell my aunt! What do you say to that, Mr Drunky? Drunky Resmel.” She held out her arms wide so that he had no way of avoiding her.
“Many boys drink. Not only . . . me!”
“Who else? Not Gerald Brookfield-Smith!” She shook her head at him and made clicking noises, just like he had heard her aunt do. “You know that that much is not good for you?”
Hans raised his head and tried to focus on her but he began to feel a bit dizzy and thought that if he did not get past her soon, he would fall over backwards and go crashing back down the stairwell.
“Let me pass, damn you!”
“I might. Then, I might not.” she was in command. “Only if you promise me something.”
She stood firm. It was a battle of wits and his wits were not intact. She eyed him carefully from toe to head, waiting for him to react to her request. She took off her glasses and with utmost slowness wiped the lenses several t
imes extremely carefully before setting them back on her face. She flicked her head back and then just stood there, blocking his way up the stairs.
“All right! Anything! Just . . . let . . . let me pass!” The words squeezed out between his clenched teeth as if they had been through a press.
“Promise. Promise. You’ve got to promise, first!”
“Ich schwöre!”
“Cross your heart and hope to die!”
“Anything. Tell me quickly before I do die here on the stairs. Then you’d have a body to deal with.”
Jan cleared her throat and gripped the top of the bannister but still there was no room for him.
“I’ve been invited over to a friend’s place but I need to get there, somehow. Aunt would never let me go there alone. So, you can either go with me on the bus or . . . ” She lowered her voice so that only he could hear what she next had to say. “I could borrow a bicycle but don’t you dare tell aunt. You can piggy me over. I’ve seen others hitch a ride on the bar. You pedal, I ride. See?”
“I’m not that good on a bike. Don’t have one.”
“You’ll have to practice!” She lowered her arms and leaned against the bannister this time to give him room. “I’ll get the bike and we can try it tomorrow round the back of the school. No one will see us. Everyone’s on holiday.” As Hans stumbled by, she hissed her warning. “If you don’t, I’ll tell my aunt you’re drunk.” Then, with a light, triumphant smile and with glee in her voice, she trilled, “See you tomorrow, Hans. Don’t forget!”
With those words, she danced brightly past him and down the stairs.
The school year began again in September. The days were becoming shorter and early fogs crept across the fields, rolling in from the sea and lingering until the students were already sitting at their lessons. Miss Turner kept her word and Jan had become much more pleasant, even sharing the odd joke with him during the weekends.
November 4th and the Prime Minister together with his Labour-led government resigned. It was emblazoned in thick black headlines all over the front page of Tuesday morning’s newspaper. Ellen had taken it into Miss Turner and the shocked look that had been on Ellen’s face told Hans that something awful had happened. He was about to enter the front room but decided to backtrack and keep well out of Miss Turner’s way. It was not until dinner time just after one that afternoon that Hans learnt the truth.
“What happens now, Aunt?” asked Jan as they sat waiting for Mary to bring the meat pie to the table.
“We’ll have to wait for Parliament to decide. My guess is that Mr Baldwin will most likely be our next Prime Minister.”
Jan pulled her I don’t know or care face and glared at Hans on the opposite side of the table. He pretended to ignore her and cast his gaze over the serving dishes arranged around the table.
Two weeks later, Miss Turner decided that the school house in which she lived needed some repairs done as well as a few small alterations before the really wet and cold weather set in. She had made the decision to engage the very handy man who was employed to do jobs like that around the college buildings. That morning, Freddy Knox arrived, together with hammer and metal toolbox and immediately began chipping out the soft rotten wood that had turned up in the corners of several windows and cutting out parts of the window ledges that also needed repairing. He had set up his work-horse and was just bringing in a heavy piece of timber ready for sawing when a young girl in a long grey overcoat and carrying a suitcase that was almost too large and heavy for her, struggled up the back steps and tentatively knocked on the open door.
“ ‘ello, lass!” Freddy came up behind with the timber tucked under one arm. “Can I be ‘elpin’ yer?”
“I come. Miss Turner to help,” she said with a very strong non-English accent.
“Right-e-o, miss.” Freddy put his timber down and stepped past the young visitor into the kitchen. “Nobody around?” he asked her.
“Nobody?”
“That’s fine. I’ll find ‘er for yer. ‘ang on. I’ll just give a call through that ‘all door.” Freddy began walking over towards the hall door but just before he pushed down on the latch, he turned and again spoke to the girl on the outside step. “ ‘oo did yer say yer was?” The girl did not understand but he was flattered by her smile. “Yer name, luv?”
“Ah?”
“Name? Yer name?”
“Friedl. Fräulein Friedl.
The young girl looked rustic and strong, just the kind of lass he would like for a wife, if he did not have one already. He was amused by the way she had tilted her round fawn-coloured hat on the side of her head so that its long feather flicked and bobbed each time she moved. When she removed her hat, she shook her head which seemed relieved at the freedom, for she had pulled her hat down very firmly until it had almost covered every strand of her light-brown hair. It was not short after all but had been wound in two pinwheels either side of her head. Freddy thought that altogether, the girl looked friendly and homely.
Freddy whistled into the hallway. He had done that several times before so he knew Miss Turner would know that he needed something. He quietly closed the door and made his way over towards the girl.
“Come in, missy. ‘ere, let me take yer ‘at and coat.” She handed them over. He carefully draped her heavy coat over a chairback and laid her hat on the table edge. That was when he saw that the dark-brown dress she wore did not become her, for it hung rag-like, several sizes too big and that the girl had attempted to gather it in at the waistline by the use of a large black leather belt which crumpled the material up into several large folds. With her outer clothes removed, Freddy decided she did not appear to be as well nourished as he had first thought and he came to the decision that she must have been through hard times lately. Should he leave her in the kitchen or take her through into the living room? Such a girl like her might well be light fingered and if something were to go missing, he would have to take the blame. On the otherhand, she had arrived with a large suitcase so she must be the new servant Miss Turner had told him was coming.
Freddy sat on the edge of a kitchen chair and began unlacing his heavy work boots. The tip of a toe poked out through the hole in his sock. He tried to hide it behind his other foot but as he lost his balance, the young visitor smothered her laugh.
“Ah, there be a piggy poking out! Sorry about that!” Freddy grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “ Would yer like t’come with me, Miss. You can leave yer bag there. It’ll be safe enough. I’ll find someone to ‘elp.”
He led the way to the front room and knocked very gently in the centre of the door. No one from the other side responded so Fred carefully pulled down on the handle and cracked open the door.
“I think you’ll be all right in ‘ere. I’ll ring for someone.” He was not used to acting like a butler. He bowed and reversed out of the room leaving the girl standing by herself. The only sound came from the clock ticking in the corner.
Hans entered. He remembered seeing a large dictionary on a shelf and wanted to look up a word. He did not notice the visitor at first. She had quietly stepped aside, out of his way. She had learnt to make herself invisible as part of her training. Hans found the book, looked up the word and made ready to leave. That’s when he noticed her.
“Good afternoon. Are you waiting for someone?” He was puzzled over her appearance; surely he should know this girl. There was something familiar, her face, perhaps or the way in which she moved, yet . . .
“Good afternoon. I wait. Miss Turner?”
“I think she’s somewhere in the garden. Shall I fetch her?”
She shrugged her shoulders, with a broad smile, and then looked blank.
“Tut mir leid, I speak only little English.”
“You spoke German!” he exclaimed in the language of his homeland. He wanted to know what part of Germany she came from although by her accent he thought she could come from a Bavarian village.
“Austria,” she answered. “And you? You visit Au
stria?”
“No, I am from there. Salzburg.”
“Me, too!” Her eyebrows betrayed her surprise. She laughed with delight.
Hans held out his hand.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Fräulein . . . ?”
“Friedl. Fräulein Friedl.”
This time it was Hans who was taken aback. She had taken him back to his childhood, to the mountains and valleys where his grandmother still lived, Oma who had sent him to this town in the Sussex countryside. “Friedl?” he asked. “The Friedl’s I knew had a farm close to Esch.”
“Why, yes, yes. You know of them?”
She could not think why this young man should know anything about her family. Any correspondence that had been between this house and the agency had only involved the agency manager and Miss Turner. Miss Friedl had brought a letter of introduction to Miss Turner. It was still in her small handbag.
“Let me introduce myself.” Hans put his right hand behind his back, brought his heels together with a light click, and bowed. “Erwin Hans Resmel.”
“Hänschen?”
There was only one person who ever called him that.
“Heidi? You must be Heidi!”
She laughed again. It was that laugh that Hans now remembered. She had changed. The last time he saw Heidi, she was only a very little girl but, together with her brothers, the Friedls had been his playmates since the day he was old enough to realise how good having friends was.
His grandparents had been very friendly with Herr and Frau Friedl. Hans and his brothers had spent many holidays in Austria with their grandparents and he could remember romping around with the Friedl children over the sloping mountainside fields on their farm. Now those happy days had resurfaced and Heidi’s smile was just as he remembered. A happy country girl with an infectious laugh that bubbled up whenever she became excited.
Words began to tumble out of him. Words he thought he had forgotten. Childish words they had shared in the dialect of his childhood, bonding and uniting them once again. He took both her hands in his and stood shaking his head in disbelief. He was thinking that if he were to let go, she would vanish into thin air and he would be left alone again.
“Heidi Friedl, Heidi Friedl, I’m so pleased to see you. I never thought it would be here in England that we’d meet again. You know so much has happened since I saw you last. And you are quite grown up.”
She laughed.
“Well you’re not the little boy who came to play.”
“When Papi took us to Berlin, I missed you all dreadfully for a long time,” he suddenly said before the embarrassment of his words took hold.
“Really?”
Her eyes flickered and grew wider. She laughed and her laughter rang out just as it did round the hills.
“Yes. It’s true!” Both hands grabbed his hair for her presence was still beyond belief. He stepped back and scanned her up and down several times before speaking again “Is it really you? I can’t believe it! But here you are !”
“I am and I do not feel strange any more. It’s like I feel when summer comes. I also enjoyed our summer holidays together when your Mutti brought you round.”
Her eyes sparkled like the lake reflecting a clear blue summer day. It made Hans remember those earlier days and he was happy at being alive.
“I can just see your father now,” he laughed. “He was sitting on the front of the cart and us on the back with our legs dangling over the back. Remember that? Going up the hill at the back of the farm?”
“I do! I do! You didn’t like the smell. That’s because Papa had been carrying the winter manure out of the barn!”
Hans was happy when he remembered those childhood days, when they had all played together on the hills near Salzburg, looking down at the silver thread of the Salzach River winding its way between the the older and newer part of the town. The image faded as Heidi’s excited babble and giggles of laughter broke into his thoughts.
“And do you remember Uwe and Elsa who lived near Kaputzinerberg?”
“Sorry, I can’t say I do.”
They were children and sometimes children do forget things or cannot put all the pieces together. Heidi shrugged off his comment.
“Maybe you’d left when they moved to Salzburg. I remember your older brother, though.”
“Renard? What made you remember him?”
“I don’t know. Probably because he was older than us and had crazy ideas which he tormented us with. And he was very bossy.”
“That was Renard. Always ordering us around as though we were his to do with as he pleased. I’d call him a trickster, for one never knew if he was being serious or stupid.”
“Is he like that now he is older?” she asked.
“Ah, he’s older but he still acts the same, orders everyone around just as if he were the Kaiser.” Hans gave a grunty laugh, more like the snuffle a pig makes than that of a human being. “I don’t think Renard will ever change.”
“No, I guess not,” she agreed.
Hans did not want to continue talking about his brothers, especially Renard. He gave another snort and looked at her with his head held to one side. He was suddenly aware that they were still both standing in the middle of the room.
“Sorry, I should have asked you to sit down. Would you like to sit.? He held out his hand, flat to indicate she should take a chair. As soon as she sat, he sat opposite her with his back to the window. “It’s unbelievable, Heidi that here we are together . . . in England. It’s incredi . . . ”
He did not complete the sentence for the front room door opened and Miss Turner entered the room.
“Resmel!” Her voice rose with surprise as he got out of the chair. “What are you doing here?” She stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of Heidi who also stood up. “Oh, you have already met Miss Friedl.”
Hans grinned in a sheepish way and after clearing his throat, he told Miss Turner that they had previously known each other.
“She’s from Salzburg, too,” he finished.
“Miss Friedl will be here for a few months working as a maid and helping Mary with some of the more mundane duties.” Miss Turner turned towards Heidi and held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Friedl. Welcome to my household.”
Heidi blushed. She bobbed a small curtsey. She shook her employer’s hand.
“Good afternoon, Miss Turner.”
Hans indicated that he was prepared to leave the room but Miss Turner shook her head.
“I need you to translate for me, Mr Resmel. Please tell Miss Friedl that I am sorry I was not able to meet her as soon as she arrived. I hope she had a pleasant voyage.” Miss Turner explained some of the duties Heidi would be expected to carry out and waited patiently as Hans translated.
This is the Miss Turner of the college again, thought Hans. “Efficient and cool.”
As Hans got to the end of Miss Turner’s instructions to Heidi, he added that he would meet her in the kitchen after Mary had finished showing Heidi to her bedroom.
“Mary can show Miss Friedl where things are kept after she has unpacked her bag. Mary may need you to translate for Miss Friedl if she doesn’t understand all the house rules. That will be agreeable with you, Mr Resmel?”
Hans nodded and was secretly pleased to be able to be with Heidi, even if for a short time. Miss Turner rang the bell for Mary and then she left the pair alone again.
