Erwin Mortier - Shutterspeed

‘I don’t know when I can bring it back,’ I replied.

He had already taken the hefty volume from the shelf. ‘You’ll come over from time to time, won’t you? Besides, if you promise it’ll be in good hands,’ he said, handing me the book, ‘I might turn forgetful.’

I could not see his face clearly in the dimness, but I knew he was grinning.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Shame I didn’t bring my camera to the procession the other Sunday,’ he said, crossing to the projector. ‘I did have it with me later on, for the bicycle race, but by then I’d missed the high point of the day …’

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, and hoped he didn’t notice.

‘Otherwise I could have spliced you in after your father. That would have been capital. One acrobat after another.’

He noted my baffled expression.

‘Get a chair,’ he said, smiling.

I pulled up a chair between the stove and the projector and sat down. Mr Snellaert took some round, flat tins from the table beside him and studied the labels.

‘I store my films the way women store jam,’ he said. ‘Summer 68 … Summer 52 … Summer …Yes, that should be the one.’

He opened the tin and took out something resembling a wheel, which he clicked on to the projector.

‘Must take care not to break it, the stuff gets brittle with age.’ The wheel was wound round with the same sort of strip that was hanging from the noticeboard.

‘What I need is a proper cutting table, really, but the expense …’ He appeared to be talking to himself, so I held my tongue.

‘Right, all set.’

The stripes of sunlight narrowed as the blinds were lowered again. Mr Snellaert pressed a button. The projector threw a beam of light on to the blackboard, over which he had draped a sheet kept in place by three board wipers along the top.

‘Now for the show,’ said the master, rubbing his hands.

First I saw the stream in black and white, winding among back gardens, some with hedges that were no longer there, and I saw a cow charging across a field to the water’s edge, where she dropped to her knees in the grass with a curiously determined air. Abruptly, the screen went dark.

‘It still needs a title,’ said Mr Snellaert. ‘Something like “Wartime Memories”, perhaps.’

The screen lit up again and a troupe of boys wearing gumboots stood in the water by the railway embankment, near where the stream discharged from a brick-lined tunnel. They waved. Laughed. The camera zoomed in. Faces were pulled in close-up, and among the jostle of heads and caps I could make out the long handle of a rake or hoe.

‘They had a whale of a time,’ said the master. ‘And so did I, to be honest. I had them find out the names of the German soldiers. They’d gone into hiding when the war ended. The Canadians found all four of them. Hadn’t eaten for days. Thin as rakes. Some Master Race! They scratched their names in the cement with their penknives — you can still see them, probably. But nowadays, what with my rheumatism…’ he patted his hip, ‘things aren’t as easy as they used to be.’

The antics on screen continued, with much waving of arms and splashing in the stream amid bare knees and rubber boots. There was something unreal about the scene, compounded by the whirr of the projector and intermittent clicks of the reel.

Around someone’s shins there appeared, as if by magic, an everted cuff of lacy foam and flying droplets, whereupon the legs shot up from the bed of the stream in a wide arc over the bulrushes and irises until their owner landed on his two feet on the bank.

Mr Snellaert scratched his scalp. He was about to speak when the picture changed.

I saw a pair of muddy hands displaying a couple of dented, rusty shells with trails of duckweed.

‘Yes, that’s right, we found them in the stream. One of the lads had a rake with him. I had them cleaned. They’re over there, on the bookshelf.’

Meanwhile the camera zoomed out, somewhat jerkily. The hands grew wrists, forearms, and then suddenly a chin appeared, and a mouth with a crooked smile I thought looked familiar.

‘Now who could that be?’ said the master in mock surprise.

It was Uncle Werner. His blond hair stuck out on all sides, just like in the old photos. I recognised his speckled pullover and the collar of his checked shirt. He puffed up his cheeks and rolled his eyes in a squint.

‘Always up to mischief,’ Mr Snellaert grinned. ‘I even locked him in the coal cellar once because he wouldn’t stop acting the clown, and things got out of hand.’

I was only half listening. The film was very strange. The figures suddenly moved close together, as if someone had ordered them to stand in a row. Equally suddenly the group of five or six youths switched from peering into the lens to lurching backwards and flapping their arms.

‘Drat,’ said the master. ‘Must’ve rewound it back to front. I thought it looked a bit odd …’

One by one they leaned forward. As though taking their leave from an oriental emperor on whom no back was permitted to be turned, they retreated through the water to the brick mouth of the tunnel. I saw the handle of the rake sink between their heads and blend into the alder coppice.

‘Oh bother,’ grumbled Mr Snellaert. He made to switch off the projector. ‘Silly me.’

‘Wait!’ I cried.

In the middle of the stream stood my father. Legs wide, hands on hips, water up to his ankles, eyes screwed up against the sun. He brought his hand to his ear, seemingly to hear what the master was saying, then I saw him nod. He bent over and with his hands on his thighs began to move backwards to the dark hole in the railway embankment. He waved again, then crouched, looked around him for the last time, as if he would never see the world again, and was engulfed in darkness.

The image juddered, the film flapped loose from the reel.

‘He was the first to come out at the other end,’ the master said. ‘I remember it well. Never let a chance go by to crawl over or under things …’

The master switched off the projector.

‘Died far too young, did your pa,’ he said.

He walked to the window and pulled up the blinds.

‘You make sure you live longer than him.’

I took the book home. Mysteries of Civilisation . ‘Ziggurat’ was the most exciting word in it.

The car arrived at about half-past ten the next morning. They really couldn’t stay, they said, too busy. My mother’s brother wore his sunglasses and slouched against the car, smoking a cigarette while she went inside to take charge of my suitcase. She said it was very kind but they had stopped on the way for a quick bite on the dike at Blankenberge.

I merely shook hands with Uncle and Aunt — much too formally, I thought.

‘See you in a couple of weeks, then,’ said Aunt.

They didn’t come to the door to wave goodbye, and I didn’t look back as we circled the churchyard before turning into the high street and then taking the motorway.

NOW, WHENEVER I THINK BACK TO THOSE EARLY DAYS IN my first nest, and to the years that followed, during which, until the age of sixteen or so, I spent at least two weekends a month there, I see myself walking alone along the fields, and nearly always it is summer. Encapsulating all my memories like a glass dome is the languid stillness of a day in July. A July of parched mud in the verge, a cat streaking out from under the hedge, and high in the azure sky a sports plane chugging faintly over a world devoid of human life.

The road is deserted. In the upstairs windows above the shop, the net curtains sway gently in the draught. The screen door clicks open and shut, the table is laid, the kettle is still warm on the hob, and up in the gutter pigeons dance the fandango.