Winter of the World

This was a good time to leave. His father had achieved his life’s ambition. The Senate had debated the United Nations. It was at a similar point in history that the old League of Nations had foundered, a painful memory for Gus Dewar. But Senator Vandenberg had spoken passionately in favour, speaking of ‘the dearest dream of mankind’, and the UN Charter had been ratified by eighty-nine votes to two. The job was done. Woody would not be letting his father down by quitting now.

He hoped Gus would see it that way too.

Shapiro opened his office door and beckoned. Woody stood up and went in.

Shapiro was younger than Woody had expected, somewhere in his thirties. He was Washington bureau chief for the National Press Agency. He sat behind his desk and said: ‘What can I do for Senator Dewar’s son?’

‘I’d like to show you some photographs, if I may.’

‘All right.’

Woody spread his pictures on Shapiro’s desk.

‘Is this Pearl Harbor?’ Shapiro said.

‘Yes. December seventh, 1941.’

‘My God.’

Woody was looking at them upside-down, but still they brought tears to his eyes. There was Joanne, looking so beautiful; and Chuck, grinning happily to be with his family and Eddie. Then the planes coming over, the bombs and torpedoes dropping from their bellies, the black-smoke explosions on the ships, and the sailors scrambling over the sides, dropping into the sea, swimming for their lives.

‘This is your father,’ Shapiro said. ‘And your mother. I recognize them.’

‘And my fiancée, who died a few minutes later. My brother, who was killed at Bougainville. And my brother’s best friend.’

‘These are fantastic photographs! How much do you want for them?’

‘I don’t want money,’ Woody said.

Shapiro looked up in surprise.

Woody said: ‘I want a job.’

(iii)

Fifteen days after VE Day, Winston Churchill called a General Election.

The Leckwith family were taken by surprise. Like most people, Ethel and Bernie had thought Churchill would wait until the Japanese surrendered. The Labour leader, Clement Attlee, had suggested an election in October. Churchill wrong-footed them all.

Major Lloyd Williams was released from the army to stand as Labour candidate for Hoxton, in the East End of London. He was full of eager enthusiasm for the future envisioned by his party. Fascism had been vanquished, and now British people could create a society that combined freedom with welfare. Labour had a well-thought-out plan for avoiding the catastrophes of the last twenty years: universal comprehensive unemployment insurance to help families through hard times, economic planning to prevent another Depression, and a United Nations Organization to keep the peace.

‘You don’t stand a chance,’ said his stepfather, Bernie, in the kitchen of the house in Aldgate on Monday 4 June. Bernie’s pessimism was the more convincing for being so uncharacteristic. ‘They’ll vote Tory because Churchill won the war,’ he went on gloomily. ‘It was the same with Lloyd George in 1918.’

Lloyd was about to reply, but Daisy got in first. ‘The war wasn’t won by the free market and capitalist enterprise,’ she said indignantly. ‘It was people working together and sharing the burdens, everybody doing his bit. That’s socialism!’

Lloyd loved her most when she was passionate, but he was more deliberate. ‘We already have measures that the old Tories would have condemned as Bolshevism: government control of railways, mines and shipping, for example, all brought in by Churchill. And Ernie Bevin has been in charge of economic planning all through the war.’

Bernie shook his head knowingly, an old-man gesture that irritated Lloyd. ‘People vote with their hearts, not brains,’ he said. ‘They’ll want to show their gratitude.’

‘Well, no point sitting here arguing with you,’ Lloyd said. ‘I’m going to argue with voters instead.’

He and Daisy took a bus a few stops north to the Black Lion pub in Shoreditch, where they met up with a canvassing team from the Hoxton Constituency Labour Party. In fact canvassing was not about arguing with voters, Lloyd knew. Its main purpose was to identify supporters, so that on election day the party machine could make sure they all went to the polling station. Firm Labour supporters were noted; firm supporters of other parties were crossed off. Only people who had not yet made up their minds were worth more than a few seconds: they were offered the chance to speak to the candidate.

Lloyd got some negative reactions. ‘Major, eh?’ one woman said. ‘My Alf is a corporal. He says the officers nearly lost us the war.’

There were also accusations of nepotism. ‘Aren’t you the son of the MP for Aldgate? What is this, a hereditary monarchy?’

He remembered his mother’s advice. ‘You never win a vote by proving the constituent a fool. Be charming, be modest, and don’t lose your temper. If a voter is hostile and rude, thank him for his time and go away. You’ll leave him thinking maybe he misjudged you.’