It was 1962, and the memory of the war that had killed so many people and caused so much misery worldwide was beginning to fade.

It had been more than twenty years since I had last spoken to Jack McGonagal. The shop in Eastbourne Gardens had changed hands and Mrs. McGonagal had—according to Mam—moved to the country. And then I saw Jack on the beach.

It was a day in early summer, and back then, before foreign holidays were affordable, the beach at Whitley would get packed with day-trippers, and holidaymakers from the shipyards in Scotland.

Mam loved a crowded beach. It was a thirty-minute walk along the wooded path and then down the main road until we got to the coast road, with the lighthouse at one end and barely enough space on the sand for our blanket. Mam had made herself a short-sleeved blouse, and only that morning had finished a pair of shorts for me, in rust-colored corduroy with deep pockets.

We sat on the beach in our sunglasses and blended in perfectly: “Hidden in plain sight,” was what Mam said.

I read my latest library book, and we ate sandwiches, and we went for a paddle in the sea, and Mam laughed when I splashed her. Then a man approached me as I was coming out of the shallow water.

“Hiya, son—we’re short of a goalie. You want to go in goal?” He looked a friendly sort. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, and he indicated a patch of the beach farther up, where there were fewer people, and a gang of boys and a couple of dads were marking out a small soccer pitch in the sand.

Mam started to answer, “Oh, I do not think…”

“Yes!” I said, and, before Mam could argue, I was following the man toward the group. I told him my name and he told the others: “This is Alfie.”

They all nodded and said, “How’s it goin’, Alfie?”

The game was fast and rough. Our team (“shirts”) kept our shirts on, the others (“skins”) played bare-chested. Boys were tumbling into the soft sand everywhere, mainly because of the speed and power of the biggest boy playing for the skins: a wiry, muscled lad of about twelve who hacked and stamped his way toward me as I tried to defend the goal. Shot after shot went past me.

One of the dads was making a feeble effort to referee, but the most I heard him say was, “Oh, come on now, John! That’s not very sportsmanlike, is it?” after John had elbowed the smallest member of the shirts in the throat. He awarded a free kick, but John just ignored him and carried on playing.

Then he was coming at me again, the ball at his feet, and I became determined not to let in another goal.

What is the worst that could happen? I thought in the seconds before I dived at his feet. I might get kicked a little but I could be a hero.

And so it was that as John slowed slightly in preparation for shooting at the goal, I leaped forward, head down, and grabbed the ball from beneath his feet. I did not see him tumble over me, but I heard the thump as he hit the sand and the howl of pain that followed seconds later.

“Foul!” boys were shouting.

Others were saying, “Not a foul! He got the ball!” but as I got to my feet and turned round, John’s face was next to mine, red and furious.

“You broke my bloody wrist,” he screamed, waving his hand in such a way that it showed it was definitely not broken. Then he cleared his throat with a long rasp and spat a large glob of throaty spittle right in my face.

The dad referee was running up to us. “Hey, hey—that’s quite enough of that, John McGonagal. Where’s your dad?”

And there he was, standing on the sandy touchline: Jack McGonagal, staring first at me, then at his son, and then back at me. He had hardly changed in the intervening twenty years. He was still lean, his shock of black hair unmarked by gray.

Our eyes locked for a second, and he stepped onto the sandy pitch, but I was already edging away.

John’s voice followed me. “You’re dead, whoever you are. I’m gonna find you and pulverize you.”

Then I heard Jack call, “Alfie?”

But I had already turned and run. Back into the crowds of sunbathers, back to the safety of Mam. The day had been spoiled. Soon after, the clouds gathered, which gave me an excuse to suggest to Mam that we head back home, without telling her of my encounter with Jack and John McGonagal. She would only worry.

With good reason, as it turned out. John was already at the bend of our lane as we walked back.