He had taken me there with him one day to try and sell the landlord some cuts of meat. He must have been really low on funds to do something like that because he mostly avoided the village at all costs. I was happy though, because it felt like a nice trip out and the pub was all warm and cosy and full of lovely cooking smells. Anyway, while he was at the bar talking to the landlord I sat down at one of the tables. It was a Sunday and there was a load of people in there eating dinner. I could feel them staring at me. Staring at my army gear, my unbrushed hair, my muddy boots. Then one of the women said something I’ve never forgotten. She was an old woman with rolls of fat on her neck and arms, and bulging eyes, and she had a big plate full of Yorkshire pudding and gravy in front of her. She looked over at me then nudged the man beside her and said in a loud whisper: ‘Poor kid. Do you think she knows she’s a dirty raghead?’

I had no idea what raghead meant so, when we got out of the pub, I stopped and asked him. And then I wished I hadn’t cos he just went crazy and ran back inside waving the cash the landlord had given him for the meat. He stood in the middle of the pub, ripped the notes into pieces and threw them on the floor, yelling, ‘That’s what you can do with your money, you ignorant bastards!’

Afterwards, once we were safely back at the house, he told me that it didn’t matter, that I wasn’t to worry about the opinions of small-minded people and that we would be fine as long as we trusted each other and stuck together. But despite his reassurances I couldn’t stop thinking about that woman’s words and what they meant.

For the first time in my life I realized that I was different from everyone else. From the people in the village, from the characters in the books I read, from the rosy-cheeked ramblers with their red socks and rucksacks, who liked to hike up on the crag. No one was like me. I didn’t belong. And I carried that feeling with me down the years and did as he asked. We stuck together like the two outcasts we were and shut out the world. And I thought that was the only life that existed, the only one I needed. Until the day he locked me in that room.

When Isobel saw me on the doorstep her eyes lit up and she said it was lovely to see me. No one has ever said those words to me before. But she meant them. I know she did.

When I stepped inside the house I felt like I’d been transported into one of my library books. It was the most perfect house I’d ever seen, a proper Green Gables. The walls were covered in pretty floral wallpaper and there were framed pictures of ladies in crinoline dresses and houses with white fences. The living room was very grand, with leather sofas and a big wooden desk. I reckoned that must be where Isobel’s dad, the vicar, sat to write his sermons.