Winter of the World

His mother was in the kitchen. She had her hat on, ready to go out to address a Labour Party meeting – what else? – but she put the kettle on and made him tea. ‘How are they all in Aberowen?’ she asked.

‘Uncle Billy is there this weekend,’ he said. ‘All the neighbours came into Granda’s kitchen. It’s like a medieval court.’

‘Are your grandparents well?’

‘Granda is the same as ever. Grandmam looks older.’ He paused. ‘Lenny Griffiths wants to go to Spain, to fight the Fascists.’

She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘Does he, now?’

‘I’m considering going with him. What do you think?’

He was expecting opposition, but even so her reaction surprised him. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ she said savagely. She did not share her mother’s aversion to swear words. ‘Don’t even speak of it!’ She slammed the teapot down on the kitchen table. ‘I bore you in pain and suffering, and raised you, and put shoes on your feet and sent you to school, and I didn’t go through all that for you to throw your life away in a bloody war!’

He was taken aback. ‘I wasn’t thinking of throwing my life away,’ he said. ‘But I might risk it in a cause you brought me up to believe in.’

To his astonishment she began to sob. She rarely cried – in fact, Lloyd could not remember the last time.

‘Mother, don’t.’ He put his arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

Bernie came into the kitchen, a stocky middle-aged man with a bald dome. ‘What’s all this?’ he said. He looked a bit scared.

Lloyd said: ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve upset her.’ He stepped back and let Bernie put his arms around Ethel.

She wailed: ‘He’s going to Spain! He’ll be killed!’

‘Let’s all calm down and discuss it sensibly,’ Bernie said. He was a sensible man wearing a sensible dark suit and much-repaired shoes with sensible thick soles. No doubt that was why people voted for him: he was a local politician, representing Aldgate on the London County Council. Lloyd had never known his own father, but he could not imagine loving a real father more than he loved Bernie, who had been a gentle stepfather, quick to comfort and advise, slow to command or punish. He treated Lloyd no differently from his daughter, Millie.

Bernie persuaded Ethel to sit at the kitchen table, and Lloyd poured her a cup of tea.

‘I thought my brother was dead, once,’ Ethel said, her tears still flowing. ‘The telegrams came to Wellington Row, and the wretched boy from the post office had to go from one house to the next, giving men and women the bits of paper that said their sons and husbands were dead. Poor lad, what was his name? Geraint, I think. But he didn’t have a telegram for our house and, wicked woman that I am, I thanked God it was others that had died and not our Billy!’

‘You’re not a wicked woman,’ Bernie said, patting her.

Lloyd’s half-sister, Millie, appeared from upstairs. She was sixteen, but looked older, especially dressed as she was this evening, in a stylish black outfit and small gold earrings. For two years she had worked in a women’s wear shop in Aldgate, but she was bright and ambitious, and in the last few days she had got a job in a swanky West End department store. She looked at Ethel and said: ‘Mam, what’s the matter?’ She spoke with a Cockney accent.

‘Your brother wants to go to Spain and get himself killed!’ Ethel cried.

Millie looked accusingly at Lloyd. ‘What have you been saying to her?’ Millie was always quick to find fault with her older brother, whom she felt was undeservedly adored.

Lloyd responded with fond tolerance. ‘Lenny Griffiths from Aberowen is going to fight the Fascists, and I told Mam I was thinking about going with him.’

‘Trust you,’ Millie said disgustedly.

‘I doubt if you can get there,’ said Bernie, ever practical. ‘After all, the country is in the middle of a civil war.’

‘I can get a train to Marseilles. Barcelona’s not far from the French border.’

‘Eighty or ninety miles. And it’s a cold walk over the Pyrenees.’

‘There must be ships going from Marseilles to Barcelona. It’s not so far by sea.’

‘True.’

‘Stop it, Bernie!’ Ethel cried. ‘You sound as if you’re discussing the quickest way to Piccadilly Circus. He’s talking about going to war! I won’t allow it.’

‘He’s twenty-one, you know,’ Bernie said. ‘We can’t stop him.’

‘I know how bloody old he is!’

Bernie looked at his watch. ‘We need to get to the meeting. You’re the main speaker. And Lloyd’s not going to Spain tonight.’

‘How do you know?’ she said. ‘We might get home and find a note saying he’s caught the boat train to Paris!’

‘I tell you what,’ said Bernie. ‘Lloyd, promise your mother you won’t go for a month at least. It’s not a bad idea anyway – you need to check the lie of the land before you rush off. Set her mind at ease, just temporarily. Then we can talk about it again.’