Golden Boy. Paula Astridge
do it on a slightly less frequent basis. Yet, as accustomed as Albert was to sporting a black eye and split lip, he never overcame the fear of facing up to an adversary who was fit to kill with fists at the ready. He always wondered what exactly it was about him that goaded them to do it.
The bullies would have happily explained if they actually understood it themselves — if they were able to put their finger on that intangible trigger that fired them up. Perhaps it was Albert’s ingrained air of superiority that got under their skin. One that despite Albert’s every effort of camouflage, stood out like a beacon and forever issued the challenge: ‘I’m better than you. Keep your distance.’
Like a red rag to a bull, it spurred his classmates into a headlong charge: ‘Yeah? Well come over here and prove it!’
Whereas Albert never lacked the courage to raise his own fists in defence, he knew it was inevitable that it would be he who would go down for the count. He was not made of the stuff to win fights. His strength was his brain, not his brawn, and although he was aware that this power of mind over matter was a fine thing, he only wished it packed the same punch.
Time and time again he would writhe on the ground in excruciating pain with the set of five or six boys who had set upon him taking it in turns to kick him in the groin. He would fall with a lead-like thud to the ground, burying in the dirt a face that was red with raw pain and embarrassment.
‘Get up, you coward, and fight,’ they would demand.
He would have if he were able to move. As it was, his only course of action was to lie mute, cede defeat and then rally the dignity to get to his feet and dust himself off. He did it as casually as possible, as if he didn’t care. But as the proud, private person he was, he did care, very much indeed.
Particularly about his brother Hermann, who seemed unperturbed by these continual assaults on his younger sibling. As the undisputed champion of the schoolyard, Hermann could have easily put a stop to them, but chose not to muscle his way into the argument. Instead, he actively backed away from playing the role of ‘big brother’, which was a dereliction of duty, odd in the extreme, when little was required of him to put the pit bulls back on their chain.
That help never came, which puzzled Albert until the mystery finally unravelled and he realised that Hermann had not only left him in danger, but, from behind the scenes, had been responsible for putting him in it; his conspicuous absence from the battlefield being all the more reprehensible for having left his gentler brother to stand and fight alone.
However, when Albert reached High School everything changed, raising not only his scholastic aspirations, but those in regard to his height. At the age of 12, he had a growth spurt which shot him up close to his projected adult height of six foot two. Suddenly he towered over his sparring partners, all of whom obligingly backed off to give him space to grow peacefully into his potential.
This God-given reprieve kept him free from bullies and brawls until his fine aquiline features and tall, gangly body had time to fill out and live up to their promise. Sculpting what had been his plain, angular face into the strikingly handsome one it was to be in adulthood, an outstanding face to match an outstanding mind. Both of which were to catch the attention and undying love of the one person who mattered.
CHAPTER THREE
‘He likes you more than me.’
Margret Weber did not need this verbal confirmation from her friend, Rachel, but it did her good to hear it anyway. It could hardly have escaped her notice that 17 year old Albert Speer was keen on her. After all, he had been going out of his way to wait for her each day at the corner to carry her books to school.
Yes, her friend Rachel was there to spice up the guessing game as to which of them he preferred, but there was absolutely no doubt in Margret’s mind that it was her. How could she have missed the look in his eye or the tell-tale signs of shyness in his manner whenever he spoke to her? In fact, she was so smugly triumphant in this knowledge that she decided to enhance the thrill of her kill by humouring her friend with the false hope that it might be otherwise. Cruelly letting pretty, dark-haired Rachel toy with the notion that it might be she and not beautiful, blonde-haired Margret he was after.
Yet beyond her bulletproof conceit, Margret thought it odd that he should settle on her when for a boy of his background Rachel was the much more obvious choice. With her thoughtful brown eyes and ladylike disposition, she not only came from a well-to-do family, but was in possession of an intelligence that came close to matching his.
It seemed to Margret, however, that for all Rachel’s intelligence she wasn’t very bright. With her strong grasp of science and physics, she should have known that opposites attract, and that Margret could not have been more opposite to Albert if she tried.
Margret put down her tennis racquet, flicked her hair back from her face and gathered up its fair strands in her capable hands, deftly stretching, twisting and snapping shut the rubber band around her ponytail. She did not bother to check her appearance in the mirror. She didn’t need to when it would only reflect what she already knew.
She looked good. She always did with that natural beauty of hers — straight, white-blonde hair, with eyebrows to match. Those two soft, white wings that almost melted into nothing against her tanned complexion, leaving just a suggestion of a defining line above her lovely light blue eyes. It was a wholesome, make-up-free look that was most attractive in a run-of-the-mill, sporty way that was in total contrast to Rachel’s. That ‘trying-so-very-hard-not-to-be-jealous’ friend of hers, who happened to be mad about Albert and had just lowered her guard and pride to confide as much to her friend.
Rachel had to gulp down hard when Margret set her straight.
‘For your own sake, of course,’ Margret explained, with a reassuring pat. ‘It would be wrong of me to string you along when you’re bound to get hurt and much too serious.’
The irony was that Margret wasn’t serious about Albert at all. While she enjoyed the flattery of his attention, she welcomed it more out of a sense of curiosity than romance. Whereas she wholly understood her own power of attraction and revelled in the ego boost of having her 15 year old friends whisper and throw wistful glances in her direction, she couldn’t quite fathom why this well-to-do boy from ‘up on the hill’ had targeted her when his options were so wide open.
In truth, it was not so much Margret, but her family with whom Albert had fallen in love. That salt-of-the-earth, comfortable clan of hers who had welcomed him with open arms from the very first time he had poked his head through their door. They came from strong, straight-laced stock that, through the centuries, had stuck to the land and the faith. They knew their place in the world with seemingly no desire to venture beyond it.
Theirs seemed to be a true, untainted outlook on life that provided great security for the likes of the Speers whose very prosperity relied on pure people of the like and their determination to maintain their obliging subservience.
Perversely, Albert was not so keen to uphold his own family status and had eagerly strayed from his ruling class fold, never happier for having had the experience. He revelled in the warm simplicity of sitting at the Weber’s kitchen table, with cup of tea in hand, watching the family go about their business: Father, out the door and off to work, giving his plump, rosy-cheeked wife a hug and a kiss before setting off, with sprightly dedication, to his dreary blue-collar job; Margret, in her pink, dirndl dress with white apron tied in a crisp bow at her waist, placing a tray of freshly baked biscuits on the table to cool; and at that same kitchen table, her mother capably kneading more dough. At their feet, Margret’s twin brothers lying flat on the stomachs on the floor playing marbles, while her baby sister sat propped up in a high-chair with a bib about her neck and a circle of cold porridge around her mouth. The perfect picture of domestic bliss. No pretence, no sibling rivalry, no hidden agendas. In short, all was well in the Weber’s world and Albert was perfectly content to abandon his own to be a part of it.
Frau Weber, with that obliging spirit of hers, was more than happy to accommodate him. Putting aside her rolling pin she looked up, sighed with wholesome exhaustion and smiled, taking time out from her baking to