on the windscreen would give her away.
“I’m not going straight home,” she said.
“Of course. You don’t know me. I shouldn’t ask.” He tucked a strand of wet hair behind his ear. The gesture was cute, innocent. She reminded herself he was just a boy. And he worked at the school like Gary. He was one of them. There’d be no harm in giving him a lift.
She climbed in the driver’s seat and leaned over to open the door for him. She immediately regretted her decision. Burnt tobacco invaded the air. Drawn cheekbones, Adam’s apple, zip-up jumper bobbled with age, her passenger looked spare and eager. He didn’t belong in Gary’s car.
She kept her eyes dead ahead as she set off, feeling like a learner driver on the German highway. She hadn’t driven with a passenger apart from Gary since she arrived. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. The pool was beyond the village and there were wheat fields on both sides. She imagined Sascha studying every ear of corn as she crawled past. When the silence grew too awkward she asked him how long he’d worked at the school.
For a moment he didn’t answer, then he said: “How are you finding it? Living there?”
Her foot slipped on the pedal. The needle on the speedometer nudged up. She found a sort of answer. “Fine. I’ve cleared the front garden, but there’s competition in our road. One woman’s managed to trail a whopping great wisteria round her door.”
“Wisteria,” he mouthed.
“It’s a purple climbing flower that sort of hangs …”
“I know what it is.” His shoulders stiffened. Then, aware of her looking, he relaxed into his seat.
She drove the rest of the way in nervous silence.
They reached the turning for the school and she drove past the community noticeboard. For once not defaced by graffiti, there was a poster for half-term activities. Gary would have a week off school so they could go away. He was always talking about the lakes in Southern Germany. Time for themselves. Away from Dickensweg. She glanced at her passenger. Away from everything.
She drew up to the traffic lights and signalled right for the school campus.
“Wait,” Sascha said. “I want to see the garden you told me about, with the wisteria.”
Offering this man a lift to work was one thing, but driving a complete stranger past her house was something else. As the lights changed, she flicked her indicator to the left and decided she would drop him outside Louisa’s garden. She would remember another errand and ask him to walk to his office. Drive off without him ever finding out which house was hers.
“So you live at number 5,” he said as they went past the mown lawn and cleared flower bed that betrayed which garden had enjoyed her attention. But he seemed to lose interest in her answer. His eyes fixed on the house at the end. He got out of the car, walked up the path to Number Ten and cupped one of the wisteria blooms in his hand.
Helen went after him. “I’m not sure the owners would like that.”
“She will get angry.”
“She? Do you know her?”
He let go of the wisteria petals and moved back to join her on the path. He took out a cigarette.
Louisa’s front door flew open. “What the hell are you doing? Get away from here. Now.”
Helen gasped. She’d been on the receiving end of Louisa’s bossiness before but this was fury. Then she realized that the woman’s rage was aimed at Sascha.
“This is my country,” Sascha said. His voice sounded calm but his hands trembled as he brought his lighter up to his cigarette.
“You’ve got three seconds to get out of here then I’m calling the police. They’ll arrest you for unlawful access,” Louisa said.
“How is it unlawful?” He aimed a ring of smoke in Louisa’s direction. “Helen brought me here.”
“You. I welcomed you into our street and this is how you repay me.”
Helen’s limbs twitched as Louisa’s anger turned on her.
Sascha blew another smoke ring towards Louisa. The veins in his neck started to bulge.
“Get out of here,” she shouted.
He clenched his fists, and for a moment Helen feared he’d attack Louisa, but he threw the cigarette into one of the shrubs and disappeared up the cut-through.
“What was that about?” Helen asked, but Louisa, murderous below her make-up, stared her down. She felt hollow and shaky and was relieved when the woman stormed back inside and shut her door, causing the wisteria trellis to quiver.
Gisela squatted with the dustpan and brush, and overbalanced. She put her hand down and felt a pricking sensation somewhere at the end of her arm. She ignored it and focused on sweeping up the broken glass. Her heart raced when the door opened and, like a child, she braced herself for the reprimand.
It came quickly. “Verdammt! Schon wieder! And you’ve cut yourself. Come and sit here.” Sascha reached into the First Aid cupboard.
He grimaced as he tied a bandage around her hand. His mouth was clamped shut and his eyes were angry. Her head thumped with alcohol and shame. It should be her role to tend the family wounds. What a scheiß job she’d made of that. Their seeping scars could never heal.
She slurred. “How was your swim? Did you see your girl?”
He tore the end of the bandage. “Leave it alone,” he growled.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Gary said when Helen broached the subject that evening. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?”
His coldness shocked her. She thought after a meal and a glass of wine he’d listen. But he sounded as mad as Louisa.
“He said he worked at the school, in IT.”
“Come on, Helen. If he’d said he was the deputy head would you have believed him?”
“I would expect Louisa to say something like that, not you.”
“I’m just scared for you, Helen.”
“Scared?”
He shrank away. “I mean concerned.”
She folded her arms. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. And he was harmless.”
“Don’t be stupid, Helen. You can’t just trust people. He could have
