The Kitchen Porter and Lucy

Past lives and parallel dimensions are often a complicated affair of imaginings and twists of fate with no rose tinted spectacles or psychic phenomenon but just two hearts meeting after many years and then some directed to change history and stay with fate. I guess I met K.P in my dreams, he introduced himself as the Kitchen Porter who would help me to do all the jobs but mainly K.P taught me to survive, he was army trained tough and a street urchin, who was dragged up. He lurked in hotel kitchens had the most naughty sense of humour and knew me intimately, he was sort of the elf in my head for years. He started to taunt me in the street verbally in 2001 , but really our story starts in 1937 in Berlin, K.P was a civil servant working for the British government, for Neville Chamberlin trying to find out Hitler's next move, a dashing dark haired sexy man with eyes like onyx stones moody and shifting with his surroundings. He would come to our bakery for fresh bread every few days. And would return to send telegrams across Europe . He owned the smartest car in my block. He came to me in the most unexpected way, like a beautiful knight, but also a life saver . I descended from a long line of Jewish bakers and my parents and grandparents were literally the best cake makers in Germany, we were notorious in our community for creating mountainous wedding cakes and red velvet icing to swoon over. As Nazism swept through my street and destroyed my father's business, K.P, who prevented my beating by an SS officer was there to save me from execution and death. I have present memory flashbacks of this and my dreams are lucid, a week later we drove to the British embassy in a taxi and after my parents were sent to Switzerland, where my grandparents used to be the owners of the bakery they were getting too old to run it so my parents took over. My grandparents moved to Switzerland. I was adopted quite unceremoniously by K.P after my parents asked him to adopt me aged 5.

The K.P was walking to his apartment that is where he saw "Judas" written on the windows my father went out to clean the windows and this lad thumped my Dad. The K.P grabbed hold of this lad and hit him . He helped my father up back on his feet and told him to go inside. Next thing this truck turned up full of wannabe soldiers and attacked the K.P. He told them that he was friends with Herr Hitler and that his papers were in his pocket . They let him go with a warning. I came out crying and scared. The black shirt stopped me and asked you if I was a Jew. The K.P told them that I was his daughter.

In 1938 it was getting really hard for the Jews in Germany. My father and mother asked the K.P if he could take Lucy to England. The K.P agreed.

After a lot of tears my mother packed my little suitcase , the K.P came for me and took me to the British Embassy, so I could could get a passport and the proper paper work to leave Germany,

The K.P left the embassy and returned to my fathers shop, my mum was in tears and told the K.P they took her husband. I asked her if she wanted to go to Britain she said no and if I could go and get Lucy out of Germany as soon as possible. He promised he would.

We got on the train sat down opposite two SS officers and I looked at them and then looked out of the window. The K.P asked me if I wanted anything to drink and eat I shook my head. We then started talking in English this Oberst asked Lucy if she was Judas , the K.P said no she's Church of England and Lucy was my daughter and they dismissed it go.

The train stopped on the border of Germany and France where we got off and then went to the other station to France and we were in a queue with our passports we finally got to the front of the queue and they asked the K.P why he was leaving Germany, he said that the storm clouds were gathering and there is no place to bring up my daughter. He shrugged his shoulders and let us through.

. We were transported to a bustling Paris where K.P and me gorged ourselves as we hadn't eaten for a couple of days., and we stayed in the Pigalle district, I learnt French and how to dance to jazz district watching the beautiful dancers in the Moulin Rouge and two days later we boarded a ship with a hustling crowd of people returning pre war to England .

K.P hired a beautiful long car and transported me to a small village near Plymouth to a large red bricked farmhouse. My mums sister came out K.P talked to her for a little while and my aunt swooped me up and smothered my face full of kisses K.P left me alone there. I soon befriended by cats and dogs, where my aunt the identical twin of my mother Rosina with her farmer husband Maurice, and I settled there, aged 5 and 3 months, learnt English and survived a country life the war . He was set to spy across Europe and returned to his garret flat with his cat Marmaduke in Pimlico and post war he began looking for me Lucy the young girl he wanted to help survive.

I left the farm when I was 15 and had become a wild rebellious child and teenager with auburn curly locks, several airmen promised me money and a job in a hotel in London, I seized the chance after school and met Nico in the Dorchester. He paid me to type his letters and then offered me a night job as he put in a snarky way. I was a scrawny little kid then and Nico took me in he fed and clothed me until I was 16. He told me I had to work as a stripper for my first Christmas to pay him back.

By 1956 worked in a jazz /strip club as a waitress a kind of hostess, it was a notorious den of vice and liquor and at aged 18 I had abandoned Plymouth for the night life of Soho and danced on a small circular stage every night. I saw K.P in the crowd his left leg injured and limping he approached me and asked to see me in my dressing room, my boss Nico the sleaziest caddish entrepreneurial spiv presumed K.P wanted me for my body, and left us alone in my small pink velvet dusty dressing room with grafitti of every performer written on the walls. The lights were turned low and I recognised his gravelly voice shaking with grouchy emotion.

The K.P walked in he had a trilby on so you could not see his face. The K.P found a table, I could not see his face he sat down in a dark corner the waiter asked the waiter if I could buy him a drink he finished the dance and came over and I said I accept the drink thank you . K.P said " What the hell are you doing?" "Do you remember me?" he cried out swigging a brandy in his left hand and a long cuban cigar.

Shocked, by the battle wounds and mangled legs I held him warmly to my chest and sobbed. He was damaged by war and the brandy had made him very emotional.

K.P sobbed too his eyes penetrating in to mine.

"You're leaving here now!" "Get out of here Lucy" I could sense Nico's perfumed coiffed body lingering like a sweaty Puma ready to pounce.

I answered K.P's question.

"Working. I've got to pay Nico back" He finished his drink we both stood up and walked to the dressing room. I entered the room first it was dark and K.P asked me to pack and to leave. As we were leaving the premises Nico put his arm on me "Where do you think your going you've got clients to entertain" "I'm not doing that anymore" He raised his hand to slap me. And the K.P had him on the floor. The K.P gave him ten pounds. He took me back to his place in Mayfair, and I spent the night softly sleeping on a king sized bed while to K.P spent the night on a sofa, in the morning the K.P took me for a tasty fry up breakfast and that's where I recognised him. I put my head on his shoulder and started crying. I was so remorseful and I could not saying sorry and the K.P took me shopping for a new wardrobe we stayed in London for about a week and he said to me that it's about time I faced the music and drove me down to Plymouth, we stopped off at Dartmoor for a large lunch in pub and I said I couldn't go back. K.P comforted me that I would be fine and we drove down to Plymouth to the village. The K.P went in first and he talked to my aunt for about an hour she came to the front door. I opened the car door and ran in to her arms and we both started crying. After 20 minutes I asked where Uncle Maurice was . Rosina told me he's in the apple orchard and Rosina told him to go and see him and I ran all the way to end of the Apple orchard and gave Maurice the biggest hug he'd ever had and cried saying sorry sorry. I was sitting on the back of the tractor on top of the apples. Rosina Maurice and Lucy all went in to the farm house full of tears of joy. Rosina came to the front door as the the K.P got in to the car she mouthed thank you and blew him a kiss and he drove away.

Sometimes in past lives live parallel dimensions this was one of them.

On my 21st birthday the K.P travelled to Switzerland and brought back all my family that went to Switzerland and America and all my cousins that escaped the gas chambers.

It's 2021 I'm 45 and after a twenty year friendship and relationship with Ted my close best friend . I see K.P, he's travelled through time from another dimension to be here and he's sitting on a wall facing the sea at Weymouth . It's busy and he's wearing black jeans with no shirt his raffish grin and tousled greying hair swishing in the wind. Tourists gather and a little boy chucks cold water all over his little sister and cars screech and K.P puffs on a cigar, it's the height of summer and I felt Ted stop.

K.P's eyes glare directly in to my soul.

"Go on Lucy, ignore me just pretend I don't exist" K.P grunts sarcastically and lights a cigar. His moods are often readable but now he seems hurt bruised, I feel the emotional pain beating in his chest. I feel my heart race like a snare.

I stop . Time stops.

"Well are you going to go out with me or not I've waited so long for you. " A tear trickles down my face ,he growls his voice box a mix of Scottish and West Country accents "I'll drive you home" he offers.

"I've been in love with you for 17 years, just give me a chance, you won't regret it" His eyes turn an icy grey.

He has been mourning his wife and has had tragedy after tragedy and sits contemplating life on the beach and what he has to live for. Meeting me gave him a reason to go on.

After what seems hours of him caressing my arm and chatting we kiss sparks of electricity flow from my brain to his. He senses my thoughts and feelings and touches my back and kisses my neck. "Lucy I've longed for this" His voice echoes in my brain. We embrace closely.

A week later I sleep with him. 6 months later he gets down on one knee and proposes to me in a opticians. His beautiful eyes, onyx green are filled with tears and emotion. 6 months after that we marry in a intimate ceremony in his back garden surrounded by our friends and family. The sun shines brightly that day he smiles a radiant warm smile, love has radiated out of him.

Sometimes K.P will remember the 1940s as if they were yesterday, sometimes I feel he lives there in that decade. We were transported through a door in 1956 to 2021 our destinies never complete. The door Nico took us through when I passed out led all three of us to the 21st century. Nico a latter day father of three girls and salesman and film producer, seduces me in 2019,and treats me abysmally, while K.P and I travel on our tour around Europe together, in early 2022 we set off on a tour of France, Germany and Belgium his former spying days are fulfilled in a white ford focus car. In 2022 I become pregnant. I tell K.P we are returning to the the 1950s to meet our former selves to live through the 20th century again with a history book and you tube documentaries.

K.P threatens to change the course of history, and I'm just along for the ride.

I'm now in Beatlemania time, help and I'm urging you all take care of this planet. 2020 will be a bad year and trust your gut instinct. And remember a past life is not always a foreign country, but try not to get lost there.