He had arrived late for the concert and faint strains of music could be heard when he had walked into the foyer and asked for any ticket that was available. He hadn't realised that the only seats left were right at the front until he had to walk past a gaping audience who were wondering where this ragamuffin had come from and what he was doing seating with them. There was a young woman two rows ahead who hadn't been able to stop herself looking at him at intervals. Perhaps he should have gone with his two friends to that club which promised loud live music and alcohol after all. Perfect for people of his age and status; no one would have stared at him there. But it hadn't seemed right because this was almost his home and doing that wasn't what he remembered or wanted to remember. It wasn't meant to be like any other place. They hadn't understood, but then they hadn't really understand why he had insisted that they visited the Tyrol in the first place on their journey around Europe to celebrate finishing their medical exams.

He joined in the hearty round of applause as the music stopped and the orchestra rose to their feet to acknowledge it. It had been a fine concert and the orchestra magnificent, but he was somehow left wanting more. Or expecting something else.

What was he doing here?

He had only been five years old when his family had been forced to flee. Just a few glimpses remained as vague impressions in his memory. Running alongside a beautiful blue lake with his twin cousins at his side. Tumbling in powdery soft snow, muffled in so many layers that he was toasty warm on the inside. The smell of the pine forests in the summer and the feel of the pine needles underfoot as he trampled through them.

So much and so little.

This was the land of his birth, the place where he had spent five happy years, and somehow he had expected to feel at home and to sense something of belonging when he returned. There had always been so many questions his faint memories hadn't been able to answer, some hole that had lingered all through his years at boarding school and university and medical training. But now he was here and people were staring at him all the more now the concert was over. He had never quite fitted in before, anywhere, and this final hope had failed him too.

What was he doing here?

He turned to leave, to walk out of the building, to find his friends, and to abandon his dream that had never had any chance of being fulfilled.

There was a slight tap on his shoulder. He glanced back, assuming it was an accidental nudge, and there was the young woman who had been looking at him so much. Smartly dressed, certainly Continental, and most definitely pretty.

“Excuse me, I know that this will sound crazy to you, but I feel that I know your face from somewhere and I wondered if perhaps I know you.”

His own German was on the rusty side but he could just about follow what she had said. He began replying but she interrupted him at once in fluent English which had only the slightest accent.

“Please, you are English, are you not? I think that perhaps my English is better than your German.”

“I know it is!” He grinned. “I don't see how you can know me. I was born here, well, near here, and left when I was just a kid, years ago.”

“But I also was born here and had to leave when I was a child when the Nazis invaded. We went to England with my mother's school, which is how I speak English. Then my parents returned here to Innsbruck and I came too so as to be near them.”

“Wait!” A strange expression came over his face. “Your school went to England too?”

“Yes. There was an English school on the shores of the Tiernsee near here and my mother was one of the first pupils there. My father worked at the Sanatorium on the mountainside there so the Tiernsee is a dear place.”

“That's my mother's school!” he exclaimed.

“Madame? You are Madame's son? Then you must be – David, yes?”

“Yes, David Russell.”

“And I am Natalie Mensch. My mother was Gisela Marani. You are so very like Madame; that is why I thought I knew you.”

“Your name rings a bell,” he said. “I'm just visiting the place again on a tour of Europe with my pals. I thought it was about time I came back to the Tiernsee.”

Natalie's eyes were alight. “But would you come to the Tiernsee with me? I will be able to show you all the places where you would have been for my parents have seen that I know them well. Truly, it would be a pleasure to show a son of Madame where he grew up.”

“Really? I'd like that. We're here for a few days and of course I wanted to see all the old places by the Tiernsee.”

She delved in her bag for a scrap of paper and scribbled down her address. “Tomorrow is Friday and I am occupied for I am a music teacher but the day after is Saturday and I do not work then so do come to find me, and I will take you to find your past you.”

“Thanks. Thanks awfully. That's really decent of you. I don't know how you'd get to the Tiernsee; I was going to go on my motorbike but I don't know if you would like that especially.”

“I would like that. My brother Toni has one also and I have ridden on it and enjoyed it.”

They had exchanged smiles and he left to return back to his hostel. There was no sign of his friends but he guessed, correctly, that it would be several hours before they made it, somewhat worse for wear.

What was he doing here?

He was closer to the answer.

* * *

He spent the morning looking around the sights of Innsbruck, admiring the golden roofed house and the Schloss Ambras. He slipped inside the Hofkirche and stood before the tombs of Maximilian I and Andreas Hofer. His aunt had seen that he knew about Hofer and his struggle for Austrian freedom, telling him many tales about the great patriot. Hofer had been one of his childhood heroes until he found that no one at his school had known or cared about him. Two excited small boys and their father came up and he took an unobtrusive step back, listening as the man explained to the pair about Hofer and all he had done for Austria. In their rapt faces he saw his own face of years ago as they gazed reverently at the sculptured figure.

It was part of his answer.

“I like these Austrian girls. Great idea coming here!”

His head was still full of a boy with dark curly hair who perhaps had toddled up to the tomb too and looked at it as the two boys had today to realise that his friends were stirring at the hostel. “What?”

“Great fun! You should've come with us rather than that dry concert.”

“I enjoyed it, and I bet you've both got splitting headaches.”

“Rather, but it's worth it. The bands were awesome!”

“And those blonde girls. Oh, those girls...”

He laughed. “Stop dribbling, Ed!”

“How long are we staying here for?” Ed demanded. “Glad you insisted on it.”

“At least until the start of next week. That OK?”

“Suits me fine. I want to meet more of these Austrian girls.”

“Sure.”

“Any good lookers at that concert of yours?”

“Don't be stupid, Ed. Bet they were all practically dead at a gig like that.”

But they hadn't seen Natalie's gleaming dark hair and eyes, promising so much. And they weren't going to. The very idea stung.

“No, no one really this side of fifty.”

“Come with us this evening then.”

“Sure.”

“Knew you'd see the light in the end. Didn't I say so, Neil?”

“He did.”

But though his two friends flirted outrageously with every girl they met that night, buying them drinks and repeating their few phrases of German with atrocious accents, he couldn't shake off that memory of the dark-haired girl.

“Lighten up, Dave! You've turned serious since we showed up here!”

“Must be tired.”

“Tired? You sound about eighty! This party's just getting started!”

He glanced at his watch. Just gone twelve, and Neil and Ed had plenty of energy in them yet. He saw the bluest lake in the world in his mind and the small boy was scampering along the shore, feeling the sun on his back and then running through the flowers and long grass up to his waist, chasing a fragile butterfly and breathing in the scent of life itself.

“I'm all in. I was up this morning, unlike you two, remember! See you back at the hostel.”

Neil and Ed exchanged glances, shrugged, and turned back to Monika and Eva.

* * *

He was up and away while his friends were still sleeping deeply. The receptionist at the hostel gave him directions to Natalie's address and even his motorbike felt joyful as it powered through Innsbruck's backstreets until it reached a small flat in what seemed to be a very pleasant area. She must have been watching for him for he had barely switched off the engine before she had opened the door and was smiling a greeting, looking lovely in jeans and a floaty white top.

“I have a picnic hamper here if you would like to take it.”

“Sure. Good idea. Hand it here and I'll stow it away. I brought a helmet and jacket for you. I'm afraid the jacket at least is miles too big.”

She laughed as she slipped her slim frame inside the bulky garment. “It will do!”

“OK. That's everything packed away. Oh, here's a pair of gloves for you. I don't want to be responsible for your hands freezing off.”

“That would be a tragedy,” she agreed, and but he was the one who shivered slightly as he felt her arms around his waist, holding him tightly.

It was a beautiful ride up to the Tiernsee and he felt so alive as the bike slowly climbed into the mountains. Everywhere was lush and green with the spring's new growth, the sun was shining, and he was happy. All too soon, they reached the Tiernsee and Natalie directed him to Briesau. He brought the bike to a stop at the side of the road just outside the village and jumped down from the machine, hauling the helmet off his head and staring around him.

“It's wonderful. It's every bit as blue as I remember.”

She was very close beside him, her dark hair waving in the light breeze. “It could hardly be bluer. And look, see, there is the mountain train at Seespitz. The girls came to school from Spärtz on it then took the steamer there, see, to the landing jetty over here.”

He knew, and he didn't. It was familiar, and it wasn't. Myths and memories were a confused mixture in his head, but now he had a perfect backdrop for them all.

“Would you like to see where the school was? Now it is owned by Herr und Frau von Rothenfels. Frau von Rothenfels was at the school here and is great friends with Mother. She will be delighted to see you if you would like to see the building and if they are at home naturally.”

“Yes, of course. I'd really like that.”

She led the way and he followed, gazing around him all the time, soaking in every image, every crevice of the mountains, every flicker of sunlight on the lake. The air was so fresh.

Frau von Rothenfels was at home with her children and exclaimed at the sight of him. He was slightly embarrassed at her memories of him as a small boy but she lapped up the Russell family news with an eagerness that surprised him. The school had meant so much to her. She showed him all over the chalet, explaining what each room had been in those half-forgotten days until his vague memories had a new firmness about them.

Perhaps this sunshiny room was the one he remembered from some long ago school holiday. The dark-haired boy was walking up the rows of desks and lifting up every lid to peer inside, straining on tiptoes each time, not knowing what he was looking for. In those days he was merely curious. Now he was searching.

Frau von Rothenfels gave them coffee and they talked of the past that only one of them could remember with any clarity. Tales of skating on the lake, the crisp air turning their cheeks crimson, of rambles in the mountains until they knew every path and trail, of the storms which swept up the valley with such rapidness and might. It seemed impossible on this perfect day.

The little boy cowered under his bedcovers in the nursery. Shaking with frightened sobs. The noises were so loud that he thought each next one would swallow him up. Even tightly holding his pillow over his head couldn't keep out the awful sounds. Then the pillow was snatched away from him and he screamed until he realised he was in his mother's arms.

Natalie took him around Briesau but she said that her parents had told her it had changed quite a bit. It was certainly busier than he had ever thought it would be from his relatives' reminiscing. He wanted to go on the steamer, having memories of being taken to an engine room to gaze in awe at the machinery, so Natalie suggested they go to Buchau.

“It's where St Scholastika's was before it was merged into the Chalet School. Was it not also your summer home?”

“Die Blumen, yes. It's the Maynards' holiday home nowadays and Mother and Father have been there once or twice. I expect it's all shut up at the moment, or it should be.”

“But you have never been back?”

“No. I've been studying and training since I left school. This is the first proper break I've had in years. Besides, I don't live at home any longer; it would feel strange tagging onto my parents' holidays.”

“Yet you felt you had to come back?”

He looked at her and nodded. “Yes. I've wanted to for years and I'm very glad I did.”

The water sped under the boat's prow and he stared down into its deep blue depths and remembered Auntie Jo's tale of how there was a sinful city in the depths of the lake. The boy leant over the railings and listened for the sound of the ancient church bells ringing as the water moved them back and forth, again and again. He never did hear them though Auntie Jo always claimed she could.

Die Blumen was a familiar sight from family scrapbooks and albums. Buildings could always be conveyed satisfactorily; it was the things that really mattered that got left behind when they had had to leave. They peered through the windows on the ground floor and both laughed when Natalie suggested clambering up a convenient, if frail, tree to look in at the upstairs rooms too.

“I don't suppose I was ever here often enough to remember anything much about it.”

Long summer days, outside from getting up until bedtime. Lying under a shady tree in the garden plucking petals from a flower and watching them disappear through his fingers. They seemed dead as soon as he pulled them off; their life was gone. Once he had tried to put the flower back together again, pretending he hadn't broken it, but it couldn't be done. He remembered almost crying over the sadness of it all until he saw another flower that still had its breath.

They took the steamer back to Briesau, calling at all the other stops on the way. A long relaxing voyage. Natalie watched his expressive face with its wistful eyes.

“Do you remember leaving?”

Did he? What did he remember of anything?

“Not really. Just a faint sense that my parents were desperately worried and everything had to happen so quickly. There were so many of us there – myself and Sybil and the Bettanys and the Venables – that I think we knew that we should keep quiet and out of the way.”

The curly-haired boy crept into his parents' room, his childish forehead furrowed with worries. His mother was there, staring out of the window, looking at nothing. He asked where Auntie Jo and Robin were and she snapped at him, so unlike her usual self that he was scared. She saw his trembling mouth and realised her mistake and held him more tightly than he had ever been held before.

It was years before he understood what had happened.

“How about you?”

“So little. I was too young. I do not remember anything of the Tiernsee itself from then. I wish I did. All the time we were in England, people would ask me where I was from and, when I told them, they asked me what it was like. I didn't know. I started making up memories, from photographs and what my parents told me until I could tell everyone what they wanted to hear. But inside I was sad. I did not feel as though I was a proper Austrian because I could not remember my homeland.”

“To only have a blank about something so defining,” said David quietly.

“Yes. It is the same for you too?”

“It was.”

“I am glad my parents moved to Innsbruck. If it was not for that, I doubt that I would have returned and then that gap would still be there inside me. I love England and I very much enjoyed my time there but now I know that this is home. There is no longer any confusion.”

“I wish it was that simple for me.”

“But is England not your home? Your parents are both English, are they not, and that is where you have lived for most of your life.”

“Yes. I suppose so. But it isn't the whole story. I used to think for years – and now I know – that there is a part of me which is Austrian too.”

“The Tyrol is like that. I have seen it in others as well as myself, especially my parents and also for your aunt.”

He wondered why he felt like crying. She smiled softly at him and gently touched his hand to show her thoughts were with him. He hadn't expected the visit to be like this.

They decided to take their lunch up to the Sonnalpe where both of them had lived so many years before, near neighbours. The air was even more invigorating and he found himself taking deep breaths to inhale as much as possible. It was obvious to him why his father had chosen such a spot for his first sanatorium.

They were outside a chalet with a faded fresco of a hunting scene on the wall. But the shutters were closed and the garden running to weeds.

“Chalet das Pferd. Where we lived,” said Natalie, succinctly and sadly.

“It would have been beautiful then,” he said.

“My parents have many photographs. They do not like to come here now. For them, it was a special place, their first home together, and it should not be like this. And then Father had to flee with the others from the school. I have so few early memories and that time is my earliest. I knew that something was wrong and asked Mother where Father was, and she cried. I had not thought that adults ever cried until then.”

He too remembered many tears from that time and this time it was Natalie who looked as though she would like to cry. Their hands slipped together without a word being spoken.

“Mother and Father do not speak of that time. For it was then that my Grandfather was killed in a camp for he was a loyal Austrian.”

“I've heard my parents and Auntie Jo talk about him.”

“He is never forgotten but that time is. Come, let us walk to Die Rosen and think of happier times. There we shall have our picnic.”

Neither of them remarked that they were still hand in hand.

He recognised the building, his home, at once. It was occupied, according to Natalie, by a large family and he could hear the faint sound of childish laughter from the garden.

“An echo of the past?” she suggested.

“Perhaps. We were so happy here.”

“I know. Come, let us sit down and eat. There is a splendid view of the Tiernsee from here. See Briesau looks so small. So insignificant. The cars are just like little silver fishes and the people are like toys. It is hard to think from here that they are real.”

“That's how we looked to those who made us leave.”

“I do not understand.”

“Everyone was so happy here, both the people at the Sonnalpe and at the school by the lake. Then came the Anschluss and the powers changed everything. But we were too small for them; they didn't care how we felt. They didn't care that you couldn't know your country until after you'd finished school or that our families had to go, fleeing and leaving so much behind, and that we both still feel it even now. The war sorted out the big things and Austria is free again, but it couldn't make everything right again.”

“Yes.” Her eyes met with his. “We have both felt the call to finish the unfinished. To put right what has gone wrong in the past.”

* * *

The dark-haired boy ran down the garden path, calling to his dark-haired twin sister. After so many promises, the painter had finally come. A curly-haired toddler tried to keep up with them and fell, grazing his knees. His wails added to the excited shrieks in a polygot mixture of English and German of his siblings, and brought out both his parents. His mother scooped him up in her arms, whispering endearments to him and taking him inside to wash the little cuts while assuring him that he would be able to watch the painter too.

The father remained outside, holding back the twins as the painter set out his equipment to completely repaint the hunting fresco which had fallen into such ruin. His children questioned him mercilessly, full of inquisitiveness, and he remembered the little boy who looked in every desk just in case there was something worth seeing in one of them, the boy who listened for the church bells in the lake, the boy who ran through the summery meadow chasing the butterfly that wouldn't be caught. His wife reappeared and put their youngest wriggling child on the ground before standing next to her husband, watching as the unfinished Chalet das Pferd was finished.