Winter of the World

One Wednesday in September, when she went to spend the evening in Aldgate, she was greeted by a jubilant Eth Leckwith. ‘Great news!’ Ethel said when Daisy walked into the kitchen. ‘Lloyd has been selected as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hoxton!’

Lloyd’s sister Millie was there with her two children, Lennie and Pammie. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she said. ‘He’ll be Prime Minister, I bet.’

‘Yes,’ said Daisy, and she sat down heavily.

‘Well, I can see you’re not happy about that,’ said Ethel. ‘As my friend Mildred would say, it went down like a cup of cold sick. What’s the matter?’

‘It’s just that having me as a wife isn’t going to help him get elected.’ It was because she loved him so much that she felt so bad. How could she blight his prospects? But how could she give him up? When she thought like this her heart felt heavy and life seemed desolate.

‘Because you’re an heiress?’ said Ethel.

‘Not just that. Before Boy died he told me Lloyd would never get elected with an ex-Fascist as his wife.’ She looked at Ethel, who always told the truth, even when it hurt. ‘He was right, wasn’t he?’

‘Not entirely,’ Ethel said. She put the kettle on for tea, then sat opposite Daisy at the kitchen table. ‘I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter. But I don’t think you should despair.’

You’re just like me, Daisy thought. You say what you think. No wonder he loves me: I’m a younger version of his mother!

Millie said: ‘Love conquers all, doesn’t it?’ She noticed that four-year-old Lennie was hitting two-year-old Pammie with a wooden soldier. ‘Don’t bash your sister!’ she said. Turning back to Daisy, she went on: ‘And my brother loves you to bits. I don’t think he’s ever loved anyone else, to tell you the truth.’

‘I know,’ said Daisy. She wanted to cry. ‘But he’s determined to change the world, and I can’t bear the thought that I’m standing in his way.’

Ethel took the crying two-year-old on to her knee, and the toddler calmed down immediately. ‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ she said to Daisy. ‘Be prepared for questions, and expect hostility, but don’t dodge the issue and don’t hide your past.’

‘What should I say?’

‘You might say you were fooled by Fascism, as millions of others were; but you drove an ambulance in the Blitz, and you hope you’ve paid your dues. Work out the exact words with Lloyd. Be confident, be your irresistibly charming self, and don’t let it get you down.’

‘Will it work?’

Ethel hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a pause. ‘I really don’t. But you have to try.’

‘It would be awful if he had to give up what he loves most for my sake. Something like that could destroy a marriage.’

Daisy was half hoping Ethel would deny this, but she did not. ‘I don’t know,’ she said again.

19

1945 (I)

Woody Dewar got used to the crutches quickly.

He was wounded at the end of 1944, in Belgium, in the Battle of the Bulge. The Allies pushing towards the German border had been surprised by a powerful counter-attack. Woody and others of the 101st Airborne Division had held out at a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. When the Germans sent a formal letter demanding surrender, General McAuliffe sent back a one-word message that became famous: ‘Nuts!’

Woody’s right leg was smashed up by machine-gun bullets on Christmas Day. It hurt like hell. Even worse, it was a month before he got out of the besieged town and into a real hospital.

His bones would mend, and he might even lose the limp, but his leg would never again be strong enough for parachuting.

The Battle of the Bulge was the last offensive of Hitler’s army in the West. After that they would never counter-attack again.

Woody returned to civilian life, which meant he could live at his parents’ apartment in Washington and enjoy being fussed over by his mother. When the plaster cast came off he went back to work at his father’s office.

On Thursday 12 April 1945, he was in the Capitol building, the home of the Senate and the House of Representatives, hobbling slowly through the basement, talking to his father about refugees. ‘We think about twenty-one million people in Europe have been driven from their homes,’ said Gus. ‘The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is ready to help them.’

‘I guess that will start any day now,’ said Woody. ‘The Red Army is almost in Berlin.’

‘And the US Army is only fifty miles away.’

‘How much longer can Hitler hold out?’

‘A sane man would have surrendered by now.’

Woody lowered his voice. ‘Somebody told me the Russians found what seems to have been an extermination camp. The Nazis killed hundreds of people a day there. A place called Auschwitz, in Poland.’

Gus nodded grimly. ‘It’s true. The public don’t know yet, but they’ll find out sooner or later.’

‘Someone should be put on trial for that.’

‘The UN War Crimes Commission has been at work for a couple of years now, making lists of war criminals and collecting evidence. Someone will be put on trial, provided we can keep the United Nations going after the war.’