KIM

Kim and I didn’t get into trouble for what we’d done. I think people were too concerned for Kim’s wellbeing, and felt too sorry for me and Mam. Everybody knew about the telegram.

In the village, a few days after Erik was taken away from us, I saw the lieutenant – the one who promised me Erik wouldn’t be shot – and I asked him what had happened to my friend. All he said was that he was in safe hands. They’d taken him to a camp where he would stay until the end of the war. I wanted to believe him, I really did, but he refused to tell me where the camp was and I couldn’t help thinking they’d done something to him. All the talk I’d heard had been about what they were going to do when they caught the German soldier, so it was no wonder I thought the worst.

After that day, Kim had to stay in bed for almost a week and I wasn’t allowed to visit her even once. I went to her aunt’s house every day until she called the police and they sent a bobby round to Hawthorn Lodge to warn me off. Mam gave him a cup of tea and a biscuit and listened to what he had to say, then she went round to Kim’s aunt and told her she was a silly woman and that if she had any care for her niece she would let me see her. But even that didn’t work.

When Kim was better, though, she used to sneak out and come to see me. Mam would always make a fuss of her, telling her what a good friend she was, and I think she even grew to love Kim as much as I did. She made Mam smile and, in her own way, she helped us both to deal with the news brought by the telegram.

Kim and I spent many afternoons in the woods that summer, repairing the damage Ridley and his friends had done to the pens. They were never used again as far as I know, but I’m glad we fixed them all up just as if they were new. It would have made Dad proud and I wished he’d had the chance to meet Kim. I’m sure he would have loved her too.

Kim remained my best friend for the next few years. When her aunt found out about our continuing friendship, she threatened to send her back to Newcastle, but she didn’t ever carry out that threat. Eventually she settled to the idea of us being friends, and by the last years of the war, she even allowed me to set foot in her home once or twice.

We were both sixteen years old when Kim moved back to Newcastle, and I remember it as clearly as I remember the day she fell into the burn and almost died. She had changed a lot by then. She was still tough, and she was still an adventuress, but she was no longer afraid to put on a dress from time to time – something that pleased her aunt no end.

She was wearing a dress the day she left. It was blue, and light because it was late summer and the day was warm. Her hair was longer then, almost to her shoulders, but it was still so black it was almost blue, and the sun shone on it so that when I hugged her, she felt warm and I pressed my cheek against hers and wished I never had to let go.

When she waved from the window of the bus, I stood at the roadside and wondered what I was going to do without her.

Kim had once told me that she was going to be a nurse, like her mother, and knowing she was in Newcastle was always a small comfort to me, but when I heard the news that Kim had gone to Oxford to become a doctor, I knew she was lost to me for ever as life went on in our little village.

Mr Bennett offered to marry Mam, and she turned him down a number of times, before finally agreeing. They were married after the war and Mr Bennett made for a thoughtful husband who was always good to Mam. He never replaced Dad, and I don’t think he ever tried to, but I think Dad would have been pleased to know that Mam had someone to look after her.

I kept on at school, finding a love for stories and writing, which is what I do now. I write. Perhaps it was all those adventures.

I sold my first story to a magazine when I was eighteen and after my first book was published, there were others; stories that went on to be popular enough that people in our village still say, ‘He used to live here, you know – up at Hawthorn Lodge.’

It was those stories that brought Kim back to me.

I never enjoy parties very much, there are always too many people and too much noise, but I had promised some friends I would go along. They knew someone who had read my books and wanted to meet me. So it was that I found myself surrounded by people I didn’t know, with a glass of champagne in my hand, wishing I were somewhere else.

But when she cleared her throat and spoke my name, it was as if there was no one else in the room. Everything in the world had stopped except for us.

‘Peter,’ she said.

‘Kim.’

When I turned around to meet her, she looked exactly as I’d imagined she would. And when she smiled, I knew I’d never lose her again.