Going Back - an extract
'Andy, look - there - I saw it!' 'You're imagining it - there's too many trees.' Andy wanted to go back to his book, but Mark had his attention now. 'It's the other side of the town, isn't it?' Mark smiled. 'Well, the road doesn't go any further, so it must cross here somewhere'. Andy stood up again, and craning forward, could just see where the autobahn was fenced off, and then stopped. The bus, and all the other remaining traffic, was siphoned off down the sliproad signed for Wildeck.
'Wild corner,' proclaimed a voice from behind - one of the girls - 'very promising.' Andy grinned. Judging by the conduct of the past two days, he was going to experience a different side to a number of his classmates. Mark prodded him again: 'Look - there! It's a fence, and a tower! I saw a tower! I bet they can see us.' Andy strained to see, but apart from a flash of something white, saw only trees. The border - the Iron Curtain - could wait another day. Right now, there was the terrifying prospect of meeting this strange German family and having to make conversation in a foreign language. Mr. Cartwright was proclaiming from the front of the bus about logistics - waiting on the bus until your name was called; that sort of thing - and lecturing everyone on behaviour and respect. The bus was uncharacteristically quiet for this little speech. The tension was getting to everyone.
Motorway hotels turned out to be the same in Germany as in England - spartan, functional affairs with just enough amenities, and a low background rumble audible wherever you were. Andrew had negotiated the reception quite well, he felt - although the receptionist had switched effortlessly to idiomatic English once she saw his passport, he was pleased at having initiated the conversation and established who he was and what he wanted. He showered quickly, and excavated his travelling bag for something clean to put on. A large part of him didn't want to bother with dressing and going out again - he'd even forgo dinner if necessary, but he had agreed with Matthias that he would meet him in the pub, and he really felt like beer. He strolled out through the reception area, acknowledging the staff with a curt 'Abend', and as he squeezed himself back into the hire car, he remembered the shock of seeing Matthias' name in his inbox three months before.
His email to the school in Obersuhl had been more hopeful than anything else. He had tried to write it in German, and was not too unhappy with the result; he had managed to get a colleague to proofread it for him, and the changes had been stylistic rather than grammatical. Still, it had been a surprise when he had received a reply almost immediately, and seeing Matthias' name on it had been quite startling. The chances of finding the family he had exchanged with had seemed slim indeed, and he had simply been hoping that someone would remember him, so seeing that name, half-remembered, had jolted him into action. He wrote back - in English, as Matthias had done - and suggested that he might be able to come over later in the year. The suggestion had been greeted with enthusiasm, and - slightly against his better judgement - here he was. One of the things which Andrew was most keen to find out was just how Matthias - the boy with dreams of being a pilot - ended up teaching English at the school he had been a pupil at. It was one of the few things he remembered most clearly about his German friend; the determination not to end up like his father. The curiosity, as much as anything, had brought him here. That, and his few vivid memories.
The first day in the foreign environment had been just as much of a culture shock as Andy had expected. The food was different, the television was incomprehensible, the bed was not his own, the village was quiet, even the toilets were different - much to the amusement of 15-year old schoolboys - and the school was sufficiently like their own for the differences to appear stark. Where the school at home had a playing field, this one had an athletics track and a covered stand; where they were used to blackboards and chalk there were whiteboards and marker pens; where the school day ran from 9 to 4, here they were in school by 8, and in return for having free afternoons, were expected to attend on Saturdays. One morning of this strange regime found all the English pupils congregated next to the running track, debating whether they would all be able to withstand the strangeness. Andy was outwardly relaxed - he had mainly been in English classes of a sufficiently high standard that he had been able to participate - but inwardly, he was as disorientated as most of the others. He joined in the jokes about the black bread, and waited for Matthias with a little trepidation.