The One I Was Read Online Free Page A

room as though worried he’d be told off for interrupting, as though this school room wasn’t part of his own house and he wasn’t their host.
    ‘You wouldn’t think he was an important man, would you?’ Rainer muttered to Benny.
    Lord Dorner said little but stood with his arms behind his back, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet, as Dr Dawes listed the subjects they were studying.
    ‘I’m glad you are working hard. I will buy some bicycles for you so you can see the countryside when the weather brightens up,’ he said, in slow but accurate German.
    Dr Dawes nodded at Ernst.
    ‘Sir, we like to zank you for zer games you have bought for us.’ It had probably taken Ernst all morning to master the phrase. Benny knew he could have done much, much better. English was going to be his language. Nobody would ever guess where he’d come from originally.
    The door opened again. A woman came inside just as the halting winter sun came out from behind a cloud to shine directly on her. She was all shades of gold. Pale blond hair. Apricot-tanned skin. A very soft jacket made from some kind of leather or suede, the colour of honey, lined with sheepskin. Riding breeches over long, shapely legs. Boots the colour of horse chestnuts.
    ‘His wife, Lady Dorner?’ whispered Rainer. ‘Must be.’
    ‘Harriet.’ Lord Dorner laid a hand on her arm. ‘How was the flying?’ he asked in German.
    ‘Bitingly cold but quite, quite exhilarating.’ She replied in the same language, smiling at her husband and the boys. The smile warmed something deep inside Benny and made him sit up straighter. He knew little about women, but surely Lady Dorner was far younger than her husband?
    ‘Let me know if there’s anything the boys need, Dr Dawes,’ she continued in German, very clear and well pronounced. ‘Books. Comics. Sweets.’ The last word was said with a twinkle.
    ‘You’ve already been most kind, Lady Dorner. We have all we need.’ Dr Dawes flushed as he replied in his careful German. ‘But I am afraid we must only ever talk in English in front of the boys.’
    She laughed. ‘We’re undoing all your hard work, aren’t we?’
    ‘Not at all.’ His blush was now deep purple.
    Rainer nudged Benny. ‘He fancies her.’
    With a nod to the boys Lady Dorner left. Her husband spoke quietly to the tutor for a moment. Dr Dawes removed his spectacles and wiped them on a handkerchief, looking anxious. Lord Dorner gave another shy smile, closing the door quietly behind him.
    The boys went back to their adjectives: words describing nouns. Hot, warm, cool, cold. Benny wrote them out, but not in a list, using proper sentences. Dr Dawes stood beside his desk, looking at what he’d written.
    ‘Benny?’ He shook his head. ‘How can the sun be both hot and cool? Try again.’
    ‘
Dummkopf
,’ whispered Ernst, who was hardly in a position to comment.
    But Benny knew he was right. Hadn’t she been like the sun? She made you warm to look at, but there was a cool poise to Lady Dorner, too: as though she’d been carved out of marble.
    ‘Put down your pens.’ Dr Dawes moved in front of the blackboard, rubbing an ear. ‘Now then, boys.’ The smile he attempted didn’t quite have the effect of relaxing them. ‘I have to tell you that war seems even more likely than ever. I know you’ll be worried about your families at home. Lord Dorner tells me he’ll do all he can to bring out close family members, for those of you who have them. But it’s going to be hard.’
    War. An image of the people at home threatened Benny’s composure. But only for a moment.
    He lowered his head back to his English exercise book, concentrating hard on the sentences. The words which others found so hard to master felt warm and pliant under his pen’s nib.

6
    Rosamond
    Seventy years later
    ‘And Benny himself is such an interesting man. This job seems just perfect for you.’ Jo, the nursing agency manager, was upbeat as she told me about the new client at