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An Indian summer had well and truly set in for the south of England, and north-central London’s wide streets had blissfully returned to their dry and windswept state, yellowed leaves rustling underfoot in the drum roll of feet. In these conditions, an enforced gaiety was possible, even genuine for many of those who had not opportunistically become collaborators in their way, the definitions of which varied greatly. Some maintained that simply operating a business that directly profited from German custom was enough to be labelled a traitor, let alone fraternisation, an ugly, whispered taboo, a curse word. But for all, the weather allowed for a fragile collective cheeriness, even happiness, to the delight of children too young to understand the black shadow that had crept across the lives and heart of their elders in recent months who were able to smile in the joy of the Sun’s warmth, and to see those smiles reflected back at them. On a sunlit street with happy children, no occupation e
“This is your flat now, Charlie. Anyone asks, you rented this place from old John Wilson. That was my father. Or, as you won’t have papers, I imagine, if you can sort it out, make sure that the given surname on there is Wilson; you can be my son, and my Maureen’s boy. Born 1919, the year before she died, so you’d be about the right age.”
“Bill…”
“You’ll find some money in a tin in my wardrobe, and my suits. Do what my brother, and my mates couldn’t do, and a whole generation or two of lost young men couldn’t do. What this generation, from the looks of things, can’t do either, with warmongers at the top leadin’ ’em. I don’t know what the future will look like. But there will be one. And you have the chance to make it a good one, wherever you are, wherever you go. Make something of yourself. Don’t be another wasted life in war. Don’t serve rulers. Be independent. Be proud of who you are, and be strong. Take care of yourself boy.”
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