Chapter Plot Character Key Quotations

1 Stephen struggles to place a scent that prompts a strange feeling. His daughter tells him
The third week of June and there it is again
that it's just the smell of privet using its German name: Liguster. Stephen reveals that an Stephen Wheatley
event happened years prior which is the reason for his feelings towards the smell. Stephen The narrator. Majority of the novel There were things that no one ever explained. Things that
decides to revisit his old house in London: "...take a walk down memory lane... is him looking back on his no one even said. There were secrets
2 Stephen returns to the Close he grew up. He recollects his past. We are introduced to some childhood. He seems to have been
of the characters he remembers from his past: Keith and his parents, Aunty Dee and Those six simple words . . . 'My mother is a German spy'
a shy boy, something of an
Stephen's own family. As Stephen remembers things he begins to realise he might not be outsider. He grows up across the He was the leader and I was the led
able to quite trust his memory and it's accuracy text.
3 Stephen and Keith begin to spy on Keith's mother as part of one of their games. They read Our house was made even more shameful by the partner
her diary and discover marks which they believe to contain secret meanings. She then its yoked to
Keith Hayward
discovers the two and send them outside Stephen and Keith retire to their hideout in the
He seems to leads Stephen astray.
bushes. Keith makes Stephen swear that won't reveal the details they were uncovering. Shes a stranger in our midst, watching us with alien eyes
He is of a higher class than
Keith then makes a sign for their hideout saying 'Privet' which they think says 'Private'
Stephen or Barbara. He has a vivid Even the untidiness itself glowed with a kind of sacred light
4 During school time, Stephen and Keith are unable to spy on Mrs Hayward successfully. On
imagination and a vicious streak. because they reflected the glory of Uncle Peter.
Saturday, they follow Mrs Hayward to Aunty Dee's but she leaves and disappears. For days,
Thinks his mum is a spy.
the boys follow Mrs Hayward but nothing sees out of the ordinary until she varnishes again.
Stephen Wheatley has become this old man who seems to
5 Stephen and Keith realise that Mrs Hayward has not been disappearing but going through a Barbara Berrill be me
tunnel in the embankment. There they find a box with a packet of cigarettes in it. Stephen is Stephen has a crush on her. She
visited by Barbara Berrill who shocks Stephen by telling him that she has seen Aunty Dee spies on the boys. She encourages Like Keiths mother hes putting on a performance; hes
kissing her boyfriend by the tunnel Stephen to break free from Keith trying to conceal his true nature
Mrs Hayward finds Stephen in the hideout and asks him to stop spying on people and and be more independent.
leading Keith astray. Keiths eyelids have come down. His face is set and pitiless.
6 At night, Stephen goes to the railway embankment in the light of the full moon and Mrs Hayward He looks like his father
discovers clothes inside the box that he and Keith had originally discovered cigarettes. He is Keiths mother. Mystery of novel
discovered by someone and, terrified, grabs a sock and runs away. When he returns with surrounds her: is she a German The dark of the moons coming, and its going to be more
Keith the metal box has gone. They follow Mrs Hayward to the wasteland but lose her. The spy? frightening than we thought
boys amuse themselves by throwing stones and realise that someone is hiding in a disused Theres something sad about our life, and I cant quite put
cellar. Mr Hayward
A sinister man spends much of my finger on what it is
7 Stephen goes to Keith's house only for Keith to ignore him. Mr Hayward demands his
thermos flask which he believes Keith has taken: he canes his hands. Stephen tells Keiths his time locked away in his shed. The games not over. Its simply become a more terrible
mum. He is capable of unpleasant kind of game
8 Stephen is on his own for days: apart from Barbara. Mrs Hayward comes to the hideout to violence.
give Stephen a letter. Stephen follows a policeman from Auntie Dee's to the Haywards. Now shes trying to supplant Keith as the one who makes
Mr Wheatley
Barbara visits the hideout yet again and this time she and Stephen smoke a cigarette. the plans and projects!
Stephens attitude to his father
Stephen decides that Mrs Hayward has fallen in love with a German Airman that has been
changes over the text he is not, Lamorna. A distant land across the sea, blue on the blue
shot down
perhaps, the timid man first seen. horizon.
9 Mrs Hayward convinces Stephen to take a basket of provisions and a letter to the man in
hiding. Barbara comes to the hideout before Stephen has had time to leave. They smoke, Uncle Peter He smiles his fathers thin smile
she kisses him and insists on seeing the contents of the basket. They begin to fight when Auntie Dees husband fighting
she opens the letter. Mr Hayward calls Stephen and makes him surrender the basket. abroad and seems to be a war The games finally over
Plagued by all that has happened, Stephen begins having nightmares He takes supplies from hero.
his own house but as he approaches, a voice calls his name. Everything in the Close is as it was; and everything has
10 Stephen listens to the man under the corrugated iron. He takes a silk scarf, to Mrs Hayward: changed
Auntie Dee
he finds that the scarf is a map of the German countryside. He is discovered by Keith who
Mrs Haywards sister she visits
wounds Stephen with a butter knife because he believes he has broken their oath. Stephen
her regularly and seems to
goes the railway embankment to hide the scarf but he finds the place full of men. (If you scan in this QR code, you will see an
Back in the present, Stephen looks at the Close and wonders what has become of the silk disappear there.
11 interview with Michael Frayn discussing the
scarf. He fills in brief details of the rest of his childhood and what became of some of the
writing of this text.)
characters. He reflects on when he realised who the man in hiding was. He feels homesick
as he turns to leave the Close
Stylistic/ Language Features Themes Context
Multiple narrators Stephen as a child. Stephen as a man. He is a self-confessed unreliable Leadership and Power Autobiography? the world around Stephen is from Frayns
narrator. Likewise, the third person narrative voice here is slipperly. Awakening personal experience. He was likewise twelve at end of the
Bildungsroman this is a novel of Stephens growth into adulthood and greater understanding Childhood vs Adulthood war. He lived in Ewell and had a friend like Keith
Mystery novel as well as the characters, the reader is likewise trying to solve the mystery Loyalty and Betrayal
Use of humour sarcasm, military time, naivety of kids dramatic irony as reader knows more Class and social background WW2 RAF crucial to Britains safety in war: hence, Uncle
Sensory details Stephens memories are filled with sensory details smell is especially important -Description of different houses Peter is viewed as a hero. 55000 Bomber Command airman
Symbolism privet hedge, tunnel, cigarette, bayonet, different coloured belts, scarves, photograph, Narrative Uncertainty killed. Bombing raids were controversial though.
Lamorna, Summertime vs Autumn Truth and Lies
Foreshadowing the reader is constantly alert that something terrible happens. Kept guessing until War and Conflict Men and Women husbands seem to have complete control
the end. Disquieting mood of doom lies over the text Role of the imagination over wives on the surface, but both Mrs Hayward and
Barbara seem to fight against this worldview.