Winter of the World

Reluctantly, Daisy saw Eva’s point. War would transform Boy from a despicable adulterer who deserved rejection into a hero defending his wife, his mother and his country from the terror of invasion and conquest. It was not just that everyone in London and Buffalo would see Daisy as a coward for leaving him; she would feel that way herself. If there was a war, she wanted to be brave, even though she was not sure what that might involve.

‘You’re right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I can’t leave him if there’s a war.’

There was a clap of thunder. Daisy looked at the clock: it was midnight. The rain altered in sound as a torrential downpour began.

Daisy and Eva returned to the drawing room. Bea was asleep on a couch. Andy had his arm around May, who was still snivelling. Boy was smoking a cigar and drinking brandy. Daisy decided that she would definitely be driving home.

Fitz came in at half past midnight, his evening suit soaking wet. ‘The dithering is over,’ he said. ‘Neville will send the Germans an ultimatum in the morning. If they do not begin to withdraw their troops from Poland by midday – eleven o’clock our time – we will be at war.’

They all got up and prepared to leave. In the hall, Daisy said: ‘I’ll drive,’ and Boy did not argue with her. They got into the cream Bentley and Daisy started the engine. Grout closed the door of Fitz’s house. Daisy turned on the windscreen wipers but did not pull away.

‘Boy,’ she said, ‘let’s try again.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t really want to leave you.’

‘I certainly don’t want you to go.’

‘Give up those women in Aldgate. Sleep with me every night. Let’s really try for a baby. It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then will you do as I ask?’

There was a long pause. Then he said: ‘All right.’

‘Thank you.’

She looked at him, hoping for a kiss, but he sat still, looking straight ahead through the windscreen, as the rhythmic wipers swept away the relentless rain.

(vi)

On Sunday the rain stopped and the sun came out. Lloyd Williams felt as if London had been washed clean.

During the course of the morning, the Williams family gathered in the kitchen of Ethel’s house in Aldgate. There was no prior arrangement: they turned up spontaneously. They wanted to be together, Lloyd guessed, if war was declared.

Lloyd longed for action against the Fascists, and at the same time dreaded the prospect of war. In Spain he had seen enough bloodshed and suffering for a lifetime. He wished never to take part in another battle. He had even given up boxing. Yet he hoped with all his heart that Chamberlain would not back down. He had seen for himself what Fascism meant in Germany, and the rumours coming out of Spain were equally nightmarish: the Franco regime was murdering former supporters of the elected government in their hundreds and thousands, and the priests were in control of the schools again.

This summer, after he had graduated, he had immediately joined the Welsh Rifles, and as a former member of the Officer Training Corps he had been given the rank of lieutenant. The army was energetically preparing for combat: it was only with the greatest difficulty that he had got a twenty-four hour pass to visit his mother this weekend. If the Prime Minister declared war today, Lloyd would be among the first to go.

Billy Williams came to the house in Nutley Street after breakfast on Sunday morning. Lloyd and Bernie were sitting by the radio, newspapers open on the kitchen table, while Ethel prepared a leg of pork for dinner. Uncle Billy almost wept when he saw Lloyd in uniform. ‘It makes me think of our Dave, that’s all,’ he said. ‘He’d be a conscript, now, if he’d come back from Spain.’

Lloyd had never told Billy the truth about how Dave had died. He pretended he did not know the details, just that Dave had been killed in action at Belchite and was presumably buried there. Billy had been in the Great War and knew how haphazardly bodies were dealt with on the battlefield, and that probably made his grief worse. His great hope was to visit Belchite one day, when Spain was freed at last, and to pay his respects to the son who died fighting in that great cause.

Lenny Griffiths was another who had never returned from Spain. No one had any idea where he might be buried. It was even possible he was still alive, in one of Franco’s prison camps.

Now the radio reported Prime Minister Chamberlain’s statement to the House of Commons last night, but nothing further.

‘You’d never know what a stink there was afterwards,’ said Billy.

‘The BBC doesn’t report stinks,’ said Lloyd. ‘They like to sound reassuring.’